Cats on the Prowl (A Cat Detective cozy mystery series Book 1) (2 page)

Willow glanced at the bundle of woolen
blankets crumpled behind the water cooler. Nat never twitched a whisker. No one
would guess he was awake and taking in every detail.

Naya and Carl Ridout entered the police
station amid the busy hum of voices, phones ringing, and computers pinging at
every desk. No one paid any attention to the cats.

Naya wore a tight-fitting brown leather
jacket with a wooly collar over her tailored white button-down shirt. Her tight
blue jeans ran down into knee-high brown leather boots. Carl wore a rumpled
blue suit that barely fit around his massive shoulders. Scuff marks and dried
mud soiled his shoes, and a rim of sweat darkened his collar and the cuffs of
his sleeves.

Naya pulled out her chair, but she
didn’t sit down. “I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense. Why would Jason
Dempsey say he wasn’t there when we all know he was? Why would he lie about
it?”

“Why do you have to read so much into
everything?” Carl shot back. “You know how people get when they have to answer
questions from the police. They’ll say anything that pops into their heads.
Maybe he thought he had to come up with some reason why he wasn’t there. Maybe
he thought we would suspect him if we thought he was there. Who knows?”

“Come on, Carl,” Naya chided. “We
already knew he was there. Him lying about it would make us suspect him.”

“But he doesn’t know that, does he?”
Carl pointed out. “People don’t think the same way about these things as
homicide detectives. All they can think is run and hide. I’ve seen it a
thousand times. He got scared, and he lied. No big deal.”

Naya shook her head. “You can’t
convince me of that. He was scheduled to work this morning, and his girlfriend
saw him leave the house. The clerk at the drive-through saw him park in the
employee parking lot behind the Morningside Bakery, and we found the charred
remains of the time clock in the fire. The imprint of his time card is the last
imprint on the tape before the place went up in smoke.”

“But don’t you see?” Carl asked. “That
just proves he didn’t set that fire. He wouldn’t have clocked himself in right
before the place went up in flames. If he planned to tell everyone he wasn’t
anywhere near the bakery when it burned down, he wouldn’t have clocked in at
all. He would have set the fire from somewhere outside the building and beat a
hasty retreat. Clocking in isn’t the behavior of a would-be arsonist and
murderer. He didn’t have time to light the fire before the whole place went up.
He was lucky to get out of the bakery with his life.”

“You’re not thinking clearly, Carl.”
Naya rummaged through the papers on her desk. “Where is it? Oh, here it is.
Now, let’s see. Yes. Right here. This is the insurance policy on the bakery. It
clearly states the building was stucco on the outside. Jason couldn’t light the
fire from outside. He had to go inside to light the fire, and the best way he
could do that was to wait until he was scheduled to work. He clocked in, and
once inside, he set the fire and ran away.”

“Then how do you explain him lying
about his whereabouts?” Carl asked. “He couldn’t be so stupid as to expect us
to believe he really wasn’t there.”

Naya grinned at her big partner. “Maybe
he thought he could count on a loveable cop like you giving him a break. Maybe
he had some other reason to hide his actions. Or maybe, like you say, he just
got scared and said the wrong thing.”

Carl sat down at his desk and picked up
a stack of papers. “The good news is that we have a chance to question him more
thoroughly later today. We’re also questioning the bakery owner’s widow. She
might have a motive to kill her husband.”

“Josephine Avino might have a motive to
kill her husband, Roy,” Naya pointed out. “But she had no opportunity. She
didn’t work at the bakery. There’s no evidence she was there this morning.”

Carl held up his index finger. “That’s
what she wants us to believe. Just because she wasn’t clocked in doesn’t mean
she wasn’t there. Her husband was there, and Jason was there. She could have
walked through the open kitchen door anytime she wanted to.”

“Don’t you think Jason would have told
us if there was another person in the bakery?” Naya asked. “He could have
deflected the blame for the fire onto Josephine. Betrayed wife kills
philandering husband. It’s the perfect set-up.”

Carl held up his hands. “Well, you’ve
blown my tidy little theory to smithereens. Thank you very much. Now I don’t
know who to believe.”

Naya sat down across from him and bent
over her paperwork. “Let’s not over-think things. We just started working on
this case, and we’ve got a lot of work to do before we’re done.”

Willow listened to their conversation
with every whisker alert. After the detectives fell silent, she sauntered
across the station room as calmly as she dared. She tiptoed up to Nat’s blanket
bed and stepped over him. She missed her footing and accidentally stepped on
his leg. Her paw rolled off and she toppled over onto him.

He growled under his breath, but he
gave no indication of even noticing her. Willow curled up next to him. “Can we
go out into the field now? We could go see the burned-down building and have a
look around.”

“Not just yet,” Nat mumbled. “We don’t
want to miss them questioning the employee and the owner’s widow. We’ll stick
around for that. We might pick up some details we need when we go out to view
the scene of the crime.”

Willow peeped with excitement. “The
scene of the crime! I’m getting to be a real police cat!”

“Calm down,” Nat hissed. “You don’t
want to blow our cover. The first job of the police cat is to keep quiet and
listen. Bide your time and use your head. We don’t want to run off all over the
place when the case just got started. Like Naya said, we have a long way to go
yet.”

Three hours later, Carl wiped the sweat
off his forehead and took a brown paper bag out of his desk drawer. “Lunch
time. Then we’ll get to questioning the suspects.”

He put his meaty paw into his bag and
pulled out a limp sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap. He stuffed the sandwich
into his mouth and swallowed it almost in one bite. He crumpled up the bag and
tossed it into his waste paper basket. Then he turned back to his work.

Naya took a stacking lunch box of
shining stainless steel from the shoulder bag under her desk and set it out in
front of her. She unclipped it and set the stacking pieces in a tasteful
arrangement on top of her desk calendar. She opened one section after another
and took out a tiny bamboo fork.

She started eating noodles out of one
section while she gazed out the window in deep thought. Carl muttered over his
papers at the desk across from her. After she finished her noodles, she moved
on to another section of her lunch box and started eating a salad. She took out
a handful of carrot sticks.

Carl ignored the crunching as long as
he could. Then he dropped his papers with an exasperated gasp. “I don’t know
how you can live on that rabbit food. You’ll fade away to nothing eating that
stuff.”

Naya smiled across the desk at her
partner. “We have the same conversation every lunchtime, Carl. I’m eating a lot
more over here than you are. Don’t you get hungry later in the day on just a
sandwich?”

Carl shrugged. “Sure, but I’m trying to
lose weight. You look like you could use a few pounds.”

Naya chuckled. “No one ever lost weight
by cutting macronutrients. You lose weight by boosting your metabolism, and you
can only do that by increasing your muscle mass. If you want to lose weight,
you actually have to eat more, not less.”

Carl shook his finger at her. “Don’t
try to confuse me with all that technical talk. I’ve eaten the same sandwich
for twenty years, and....”

Naya put her lunchbox back together and
wiped her mouth on a cotton handkerchief from her pocket. “You don’t have to
tell me. You’ve eaten the same sandwich for twenty years and you’re not about
to change now.”

“Why should I change?” Carl shot back.
“It works for me.”

“It doesn’t really work for you if
you’re trying to lose weight, does it?” Naya pointed out. “Besides, if you ate
more, you wouldn’t be such an intolerable ogre about three o’clock in the
afternoon.”

Carl stiffened. “Who said I’m an
intolerable ogre at three o’clock in the afternoon?”

“I did,” Naya replied. “I’m your
partner, and I’ve seen you crash at the same time every day after eating the
same sandwich for lunch. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t work for you, for me
or for anyone else. I don’t know how your wife Sandra puts up with you.”

Carl looked away. “It works fine for
her because I hit the drive-through on the way home.”

Naya nodded. “That explains why you’re
not losing weight.”

Carl jerked his head toward the door.
“Josephine Avino is here.”

Naya put her lunchbox away and the two
detectives stood up. “I’ll take her down to the interrogation room. You bring
Jason when he gets here.”

Willow nudged Nat with her nose. “Now
what are we going to do? I thought we were going to listen in on the questioning.”

“Stay calm,” Nat told her, “and follow
my lead.”

He stood up and stretched his legs. He
yawned and turned a complete circle in their nest before he stepped out into
the station room. He looked around and set to work to clean his whiskers.

Willow watched with a pattering heart.
Naya shook hands with a lady in a faux fur coat and a bejeweled handbag hanging
from her elbow. Stiletto heels glittered on her feet, and sheer panty hose
covered her legs under her crisp polyester skirt. Naya ushered her toward the
stairs and disappeared.

Willow would have run after them if Nat
hadn’t stood up at that moment and trotted out of the room. He turned the
corner after Naya and Mrs Avino. Willow waited another moment just to make sure
no one was watching. Then she scampered through the door, too.

Naya opened a blank brown door in a
nondescript hallway and waved Josephine Avino  inside. Nat slipped into the room between her
legs. Neither woman noticed him at all. Naya flipped on the light and turned to
close the door. At that moment, Willow skidded to a stop and bumped her nose on
the door as it closed in her face. She mewed up at Naya.

Naya yanked the door open and looked
down at the fluffy Persian cat. “Do you want to come in, sweetie?” She held the
door open, and Willow pranced past.

Jo Avino made a face. “What do you keep
those cats around for?”

Naya sat down across from her. “They
make people much more comfortable when it comes to talking to the police about
a situation like this. See? She’s jumping up into your lap. She understands
you’ve suffered a terrible lose with your husband dying in that fire this
morning. She wants to comfort you.”

Josephine pushed Willow off her lap. “I
don’t want her comfort. Look. She’s gotten hair all over my clothes. Get her
out of here.”

Naya waved her hand. “You don’t have to
have her on your lap if you don’t want to. But these cats are just part of the
scenery. They’ve been here longer than I have—at least Nat has. He’s the tabby.
Did you see him upstairs in the station room?”

Josephine sniffed. “I can’t say I did.”

Naya arranged her papers on the table
in front of her. “Nat has been here longer than anybody, even my partner Carl,
who has been on this force the longest—of the humans, I mean.” She laughed at
her own joke.

Josephine scowled. “Can we get this
over with? I have more important things to do.”

“What could be more important that
helping the police find your husband’s killer?” Naya asked. “You should be the
most interested in finding out who killed him.”

Josephine shrugged. “You cops are all
the same. You like to see crime and evil-doing around every corner. You’re
going to find out that fire was an accident.”

“I don’t think so,” Naya countered. “We
found the remains of cloth soaked in kerosene near the back oven. Someone set
that fire deliberately to kill your husband.”

Josephine cocked her head to one side.
“Near the back oven, you say? You might as well know my husband Roy was the
most irresponsible businessman you ever met when it comes to workplace safety.
He was cited more than once by the health commission for unsafe gas lines
leading to his ovens, and he stored chemicals inside the bakery that never
should have been there. One spark could have ignited leaking gas and set off a
chain reaction with the chemicals.”

Naya looked up from her papers. “Now
that is really helpful information, Josephine. I really appreciate you telling
me that. We need that kind of information in this investigation.”

“Now do you see what I mean?” Josephine
replied. “No one killed him. He killed himself with his own negligence.”

Naya went back to sorting her papers.
“I understand. But we would still have to investigate. The arson investigator
has to investigate any fire without a known cause. If we determine that Roy’s
death was not a homicide and the arson investigator determines that the fire
wasn’t arson, then we’ll look at declaring his death accidental.”