“You can see right here in plain writing that he believes these tactics work whether or not he likes them. And, look, he keeps referring to the new puppy as his family. The lack of a family has been the public’s number-one criticism of him ever since he first decided to run for public office. He started with the local school board, I believe. It’s the easiest in since there are so many spots.”
I hated this. If Nan was right… That poor dog had never been anything more than an extra ballot.
“So you don’t think he loves Marco? You think it is some kind of maneuver?”
“If you consider the timing of it all, things certainly look suspicious.”
“Suspicious. Right,” I said with a sigh. “Everything about this is suspicious. Maybe Octo-Cat is right. Murders are easier than kidnappings.”
“For someone who didn’t want him to come with us, you’re sure talking about that cat a lot.” Nan smiled to herself. “Now tell me what you were able to find in the papers.”
I swallowed down a lump in my throat. “Nothing. We’ve only been here a few minutes.”
“And yet that was enough time for me to find this golden nugget. Get it? Golden? As in retriever?”
I shook my head, refusing to laugh at such an obvious pun. “Does that mean we’re done here?” I asked instead.
“Not quite.” Nan closed all the Internet windows and brought up the library’s internal search engine. “While we’re here I think I’m going to check out a couple of books that have knitting patterns.”
Nan never failed to surprise me, and this latest revelation was no exception. “Knitting? I thought you gave that up. You said it was for old ladies, remember?”
“I did, but it’s been cold. And I thought EB could use a sweater to help keep her warm.”
Ah, EB. Nan’s new kind of, sort of boyfriend’s pet rabbit. EB was short for Easter Bunny, and that nervous little rabbit had helped us solve our last case—two homicides and a kidnapping, all solved in record time.
Somehow, I didn’t think EB would like being restricted by a knit straightjacket, but at least it would keep Nan happy and busy.
“Okay. While you do that, I’ll keep searching the newspapers. Surely, there must be something helpful there.”
Nan powered down her computer and shuffled into the back of the library.
I closed my eyes, willing something to appear on my screen, something that could help. While I appreciated Nan’s theory, I couldn’t believe someone would commit to a pet for such a superficial reason as a few extra votes.
I thought back to our conversations with the mayor earlier that day.
Whatever his motivations before, Mark Dennison clearly loved Marco now and wanted nothing more than his safe return… Right?
I flipped through the digital archives for another hour or so. The most interesting thing I found was an old editorial discussing bachelors in politics and how they really weren’t suited to the job at hand.
Poor Mark. It seemed the whole world was against him. Part of me felt bad for questioning him about anything. Keeping the truth at least partially concealed came with the job; it was the politician’s way. Obviously, the public would use whatever it could take to rake him through the coals, burning or not.
When I’d finished my uneventful research, I found Nan sitting in the Young Adult section chatting with a red-headed girl in braided pigtails. All she needed was a sock monkey and she’d be the perfect likeness of Pippi Longstocking.
While Nan was arguably too old for the literature at hand, Pippi here wasn’t quite mature enough. She appeared to be nine years old at the absolute most. Her freckles covered her skin so completely it almost changed the color of her complexion.
“Are you ready to go home?” I asked, feeling like I was my grandmother’s mother in this situation.
“Not just yet,” Nan said with a higher pitched voice than usual. “Betsy and I here were just discussing the circumstances surrounding Lord Voldemort’s second rise to power. Now Betsy, you were saying that Nagini was more than just a snake. Care to extrapolate on that?”
I groaned and turned away. As much as I loved Harry Potter myself, I suspected having a deep discussion with Nan about the lore would take some of the fun out of it for me.
Then again, I did love to read, and I was at a library. Maybe I could have a quick nose around, pick something fun to read for once this case was put to bed.
Although I normally favored novels, I found myself wandering toward the section on unusual pets. I’d been lucky so far with the animals who had inadvertently joined our P.I. Practice, but what would I do if I found an armadillo or a chinchilla or even a ball python wanting to join in and help solve mysteries?
Yes, it was definitely best to be prepared for anything.
Nan came and found me a short while later. “There you are. I’ve been searching for at least a half an hour.”
Funny, because I had left her no more than ten minutes ago. I put the book I’d been thumbing through back on the shelf with its companions and zipped up my coat. “Let’s get home then.”
There wasn’t much to say on the drive back. Nan kept trying to bring things around to her scholarly discussion of Lord Voldemort from the Harry Potter series and even attempted to parallel his rule with that of Mayor Mark Dennison.
Strange, considering how she’d been quick to defend him from the protestors at his inauguration.
Back at home, we found Octo-Cat lying in his usual sunbeam with Paisley nestled up at his side licking the fur on his neck.
Octo-Cat purred loudly and slowly blinked his eyes in contentment. When he noticed us standing there watching them, he jumped up in horror with the same level of absolute shock and disgust he displayed whenever he accidentally found a cucumber laying near him.
What? Sometimes I just couldn’t resist.
“So, you and Paisley, huh?” I asked, making a kissy face and widening my eyes dramatically.
“It’s not what it looks like, Angela, and you know it. The little dog just needed… Oh why do I bother to explain things to you feeble humans? Get out of here, dog!”
Paisley whimpered and scampered away.
“Do you want to hear about our trip to the library?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.
He stretched his front paws and then stretched his back legs one at a time. Finally Octo-Cat turned to me. “If you must.”
I quickly caught him up on what little we’d discovered. I hadn’t expected his response to be laughter.
“Oh, you humans, so needy. We cats don’t need anybody telling us what to do. We can figure that out for ourselves, thank you very much. In fact, my fourth cousin twenty-three times removed, Stubbs, actually ruled over humans. They elected him to be mayor of their town for twenty years! He served his first term as a kitten, even. And he did a wonderful job. More cats should be mayors, if you ask me. I mean, you see how much better your life is since I’ve come around to teach you how to live it properly.”
“I’m going upstairs,” I announced, marching away before Octo-Cat could bore me with any more of his strange family connections or Nan with her far-reaching conspiracy theories.
“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” Nan called up after me. “I don’t know why, but for some reason I really find myself craving a nice Scotch egg. To the kitchen!”
We both disappeared in opposite directions. It wasn’t until I reached my tower bedroom that I realized Paisley had trailed me there.
“Mommy,” she said sweetly, wagging her tail and blinking up at me with eyes that always seemed to have tears in them even when she was happy. “I missed you today, Mommy.”
“I missed you, too, sweetie. But it was very nice coming home to see you and Octo-Cat getting along so nicely.”
“Yeah, but then he hurt my feelings,” she whined. "Why does he do that?”
“Oh, sweetie.” If only I knew the answer to that question, I could set up a second business as a cat behaviorist and make millions.