“And how would Ringo know what tree Mr. Owl calls home?” Dooley argued. “Maybe he was just taking a little break from his usual tree and decided to try out this tree for size. And when this woman was murdered, he decided the tree was no good and he flew off again to sit in his own tree. Owls do fly, don’t they?”
“They do,” I said, still gazing up. I was getting a crick in the neck but I wasn’t giving up. “Yoo-hoo,” I tried again. “We’re friends of Ringo. The Chihuahua who was here this afternoon? He says you saw the murder that took place under your tree. He also says you probably saw the killer’s face. The thing is, we’re not just your regular garden-variety cats. We’re cat detectives. We detect. And right now we’re detecting the murder of that poor young woman. So if you could help us out here, we’d be very much obliged.”
“Oh, will you just shut up, already,” suddenly an irritable voice sounded from up above. It wasn’t the voice of God, at least I didn’t think so. So it was probably Mr. Owl.
“Mr. Owl,” I said, much relieved. “Is that you up there?”
“Please stop calling me Mr. Owl. I’m a lady not a gentleman. And if you dare call me Mrs. Owl I’m going to swoop down and bite you.”
“So what do we call you?”
“Rita,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.
“Great!” I said. “So, how about it, Rita? Can you help us out here?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re cats.”
No argument there. We were cats.“That’s right.”
“So this is probably just a trick to get me to come out of this tree. And then you’ll pounce on me and eat me. So no can do, cat. Please go away, and don’t come back.”
“We would never pounce on you and eat you,” said Dooley. “Isn’t that right, Max?”
“Of course not. We’re not those kind of cats.”
“What are you talking about? You’re cats. Cats eat birds. I’m a bird. This is not rocket science. So take a hike, will you? You ain’t sweet-talking me out of this tree.”
“Like I said, we’re not like that,” I said. “We, um—”
“We’re vegetarians,” said Dooley.
Both Brutus and I stared at Dooley, who smiled winningly.
“Vegetarians. Really,” said Rita. She obviously wasn’t buying it.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, deciding to go with the flow. “Meat is murder, right?”
“So what do you eat?” she challenged.
“Um…” I cast about for a good alternative to meat. “Brown rice?”
“Yummy,” said Dooley, while Brutus winced.
“What else?” asked Rita. “What’s your favorite food?”
“Um… lentils?” I offered, though I could already feel my stomach churning.
“I like tofu,” said Dooley. “I can eat tofu for breakfast, lunch and dinner.”
“And what doyou like, black cat?” asked Rita, still not convinced.
“I like, um, broccoli,” said Brutus, then gulped. “And quinoa.”
Silence reigned for a few moments while Rita considered this. There was a soft rustle, and she flew into view, taking perch on a lower branch. She was a big bird. Big and fluffy. She looked pretty yummy to me. I’d sworn to Odelia I’d never eat birds, though, and I intended to keep my promise. Brutus, though, who’d never made such a promise, stared at Rita, and already I could hear his stomach growl and see his eyes glaze over. We were all hungry, not having eaten in hours, and a juicy bird like Ritawould have hit the spot just fine.
Instead, I said,“So. Can you tell us what happened here this afternoon?”
“Not much to tell,” said Rita. “A man stabbed a woman and left her to die. Happens all the time.” She shook her head. “Humans. They’re probably the most murderous species ever to roam this earth. Though Tyrannosaurus Rexes were no picnic either.”
I decided to ignore the philosophical musings and get right down to brass tacks.“Did you get a good look at the killer’s face?”
“Sure. He had a human face. That’s because he was a human,” she said, very logically, I thought.
“So, what did he look like?”
We all waited with bated breath for her response. This was the moment of the big reveal. The moment we’d all been waiting for. The moment we were going to learn the identity of the killer.
“How should I know?” said Rita. “Humans all look the same to me.”
Ugh. So she was one of those owls, huh?
“Yeah, they do look alike, but there are differences,” I pointed out. “Some humans have big noses, others have small noses. Some have freckles, some don’t. Some have blond hair, others have brown hair, some even have blue hair…”
She frowned, or at least I thought she did. Like with cats and fur, it’s tough to read between the feathers. “Well, he had a regular nose, I guess. Nothing to write home about. Regular face, regular build, regular mouth, regular arms, regular—”
“What color was his hair?”
“He wore one of those caps, with the bill covering the upper portion of his face.”
“Did he have a beard, mustache…”
“No beard, no mustache.”
“Color of his eyes?”
“Sunglasses,” she said with a shrug.
Dang it.“So what can you tell us about him? Any distinguishing features?”
She thought hard, then spread her wings.“I don’t know, all right? What is this? A third-degree? Why is this so important, anyway? Plenty of humans get killed all the time.”
“It’s important because Dany Cooper was a friend of our human.”
“Yeah, you may think humans all enjoy killing each other but that’s simply not true,” said Dooley. “Our human is a very nice human and she would never kill anyone. She just wouldn’t. In fact she dedicates her life to finding those nasty humans who do kill others.”
“It’s also against the law,” said Brutus. “The human law, that is.”
“Well…” The owl hesitated. “He did have one distinguishing feature that I thought was a little weird.”
“What was it?” I asked, suddenly excited again.
“He had an owl-shaped mole on the back of his hand, which I personally found insulting.”
“An owl-shaped mole?”
“Yup. On his right hand—the hand he stabbed the woman with. Very inappropriate. I mean, I admit to enjoying a nice, juicy mouse from time to time, but I’d never kill a fellow owl. That’s just so… human.”
“You’re right,” I said. “Only humans kill other humans.”
“That’s not entirely true, though,” said Dooley, surprising us. “There are plenty of species that kill their own. In fact the most murderous mammal species are meerkats. Meerkats kill twenty percent of their own kind.”
“Interesting,” I said, wondering why, oh why I had ever extolled the virtues of the Discovery Channel. He wasn’t finished, though. Like a real professor, he just droned on.
“It is true, however, that most mammal murders involve infanticide—the killing of babies. In meerkat society it’s the dominant female who routinely murders the pups of the subordinate females in their own group. Humans are part of a small group of mammals—among them lions, wolves and spotted hyenas—that routinely murder the adults of their own species. And of course humans are very creative to find ways to kill each other. Lions or wolves or spotted hyenas will never use poison or guns or knives or whatever to kill other lions or wolves or spotted hyenas.”
“That’s fine, Dooley,” I muttered.
“You’re very smart, for a cat,” said Rita appreciatively.
“One of Gran’s soaps is on hiatus so I’ve been watching the Discovery Channel.”
“I can tell,” I said.
At any rate, we’d gotten what we’d come here to find. Now all we needed to do was find out if Wolf Langdon had a mole on his hand in the shape of an owl. If he had, Ringo had been lying to us when he said Wolf was standing right next to him when Dany was killed.
We thanked Rita profusely and I like to think that we left her with the impression that not all cats are vicious bird-eaters.