Cats on the Prowl (A Cat Detective cozy mystery series Book 1) (5 page)

“She’s three years old,” Nat told her.
“She suffered terrible malnutrition in her first year, so she never grew any
bigger than your average kitten. She’s still like a kitten in a lot of other
ways, but she’s as sharp as a tack. She knows as much about everything in this
town as Chester does, and that’s saying something, considering he’s almost four
times her age. They can help us with the case.”

Chester faced Nat. “So it’s another
case, is it? I suppose you’re out to help Naya Wesley again, along with that
dump of a partner of hers. Well, tell me the details and we’ll see what we can
come up with.”

“It’s about the Morningside Bakery
fire,” Nat replied.

“That just happened this morning,” Bella
observed.

“That’s right,” Nat replied, “Carl and
Naya already have four suspects lined up.”

“What are Carl and Naya doing
investigating that fire?” Bella asked. “They’re homicide detectives. Ross Bowen
should be investigating. He’s the arson investigator on the squad.”

“The bakery owner was inside the
building when it burned down,” Willow replied. “Whoever set that fire killed
him.”

Chester crumpled his face up even more.
“It was only a matter of time. Roy Avino deserved to die a nasty death. I knew
someone would come after him eventually.”

“What makes you say that?” Willow
asked.

“He was a philandering clod,” Chester
growled. “He chased every woman in this town, and he didn’t care who knew it. I
suspect some jealous husband bumped him off.”

Willow glanced at Nat. “Carl and Naya
don’t have any jealous husbands among their suspects.”

Chester cocked his head. “They don’t?
Well, that just goes to show. I never was much of a police cat.”

“You’re better than a police cat,” Nat
remarked. “Why do you think we came to see you?”

“Why
did
you come to see us?”
Chester asked.

“What do you know about Marlena
Rappaport?” Nat asked.

“Everything,” Chester replied.

Nat closed his eyes halfway. “Don’t
tell me you’ve seen all her films.”

“I haven’t seen any of them,” Chester
shot back. “But I’ve lived in the same town with her for over ten years. A cat
can’t help but hear things about her on the street.”

“Tell me what you know about her,” Nat
urged.

“She’s famous,” Chester replied. “She’s
filthy rich, and she can get any man she snaps her fingers at.”

“Like Roy Avino?” Willow asked.

“Just like Roy Avino,” Chester replied.
“If Marlena Rappaport blinks her fake eyelashes at a man, he’s on his knees
begging to serve her for life. Roy Avino was no different.”

“I bet that left a lot of jealous wives
around,” Nat pointed out.

“Not as many as you might think,”
Chester replied. “Most of the wives of Marlena's men would be glad to have them
after someone else for a change. Take Nick Porter, the owner of the Columba
Street auto body shop. He did his dash with Marlena for over two years, but it
wasn’t until Marlena dumped him that his wife Trish divorced him and took half
his assets in the bargain.”

“Why did she do that?” Willow asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chester asked. “She
didn’t want him back. She didn’t mind him running around with Marlena, making a
fool out of himself in front of the whole town. At least Marlena kept him out
of her hair. When he came crawling back to Trish with nothing but the shirt on
his back, she kicked him in the teeth and sent him to live in the Figure 8
Motel. He wasn’t coming back to her for all the tea in China.”

“That couldn’t be happening between
Josephine and Roy Avino,” Willow reasoned. “Josephine got mad enough at Roy for
taking up with Marlena that she hooked up with a penniless baker from the
Morningside. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t want payback.”

“Payback? Ha!” Chester grumbled under
his breath. “Where have you been living, young lady—under a rock? Maybe she was
waiting for years to go out on Roy. Maybe she had her eye on the baker from the
beginning, and she only used Marlena as an excuse to get what she always
wanted. We have no way of knowing if she was really angry and hurt. Maybe she
was delighted.”

Willow narrowed her eyes at him. “I may
be nothing but a glorified house cat, but you can’t tell me a married woman
would be glad to have her husband go after somebody else. People don’t function
that way.”

Chester stared at her. Then he made an
even more disgusting face and turned away. “You’ve got a lot to learn about
human nature, little lady.”

“What can you tell us about the fire?”
Nat asked.

Chester licked the front of his chest.
“I can’t tell you anything. I didn’t even know it happened until you showed up
here talking about it.”

Bella jumped off the rim of the
dumpster onto the lowest wrung of a fire escape hanging over her head. She
scrambled up it onto a window ledge in the side of the building. She perched
there and peered down at the cats on the ground below her.

Willow stared up at her in awe. If that
tiny cat could jump and climb and balance that way, surely Willow herself could
do the same. She must have underestimated her own abilities. She would push
herself harder from now on. She wouldn’t rest until she became the best police
cat ever.

“Don’t listen to him, Nat,” Bella
piped. “That fire has been the talk of the town all day. Every cat in a
seven-block radius came over to tell us about it, and they gave us all the
details.”

“Did they say anything about how the
fire got started?” Nat asked.

“How could they know how the fire got
started?” Chester asked. “I’m sure it got started in the usual way. The
Morningside Bakery was located in an old building. The wiring must have given
out and set the place on fire. It happens all the time.”

“I’m afraid not,” Nat returned. “Carl
and Naya found traces of cloth soaked in some kind of accelerant behind one of
the ovens. They think it was used to set off the gas in the gas line. Josephine
Avino says Roy was negligent and stored chemicals inside the bakery that
shouldn’t have been there. She thinks Roy’s negligence started the fire.”

Chester shrugged. “I don’t know, but
there’s a very simple way to find out. A cat’s nose is a lot stronger than
anything the crime lab can come up with.”

Bella took a flying leap off her window
ledge and landed on all fours next to Willow. Willow jumped back in surprise.
“Great!” Bella peeped. “We’re going on a bear hunt!”

Willow gasped. “Bears!”

“That’s just an expression,” Bella told
her. “It’s my way of saying we’re going to do some hunting around.”

“You mean, like going out into the
field?” Willow asked.

Bella cocked her head to one side.
“What field?”

Nat walked away down the alley. “We’re
already in the field, Willow. This is the field. Everything outside the police
station is the field. What Bella means is that we’re going to investigate the
fire ourselves. We might find something Carl and Naya missed.” Nat led the way,
and Chester followed him. Willow scampered behind them.

Bella sprang up into the air again.
This time, she didn’t even touch the fire escape. She sailed straight to the
window ledge. From there, she soared out over the alley and pounced onto the
side of a brick. She didn’t land on top of it. She landed on the side of the
wall. Willow couldn’t see a foothold anywhere on it, but Bella found some. She
stuck to the side of the wall just long enough to make her next jump onto the
back bumper of a car sitting up on blocks.

Every time Bella made one of her
acrobatic leaps, Willow stopped to stare at her. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” Bella chirped.

“That,” Willow replied. “How do you
jump like that from one place to the other? I never saw a cat do that.”

“You can do it, too,” Bella told her.
“Any cat can do it.”

“Really?” Willow asked. “Can Chester do
it, too?”

Bella paused. “Well, I’ve never seen
him do it. But it’s not difficult. You just have to try.”

“Have you seen any other cats do it?” Willow
asked.

“Well, no, now that you mention it,” Bella
replied. “But I’m sure there are lots of cats who can do it. I’m nothing
special.”

“You’re not like any cat I’ve ever seen
before,” Willow told her. “Look at Nat and Chester up there. They walk along
the ground. They don’t fly through the air from one perilous brick to the
next.”

“You’re the one who has an unusual
life,” Bella returned. “You live at the police station. That must be so
exciting. I wish my life was half as interesting as yours.”

“There’s nothing interesting about the
police station,” Willow told her. “There’s nothing to do but sit around and eat
and sleep. Occasionally, you get to sit on someone’s lap and they pet you. It’s
really boring.”

“It can’t be boring,” Bella argued.
“Look at you. You’re out here investigating the Morningside fire. No other cat
gets to do that.”

“You’re doing it right now,” Willow pointed
out, “and you’re not a police station cat. I never would have thought twice
about getting involved in police work if Nat hadn’t told me I could and how to
do it. He’s the one you should admire, not me.”

Bella gazed ahead at the two male cats
walking side by side. “He really is an amazing cat. He’s the smartest cat in
town—except for Chester, of course.”

“Is Chester your mate?” Willow asked.

Bella’s tinkling laugh rang through the
alley. “Chester? No, he’s not my mate. I don’t think Chester’s had a mate in
years.” She laughed again.

“How did you end up living with him
here in this...?” Willow trailed off.

“In this alley?” Bella asked. “It’s
okay. You can say it. There’s nothing shameful about living in an alley.”

Willow shook herself. “I’m sorry. It’s
just that my mother told me the most spine-chilling stories about alley cats.
She said they were....Well, I won’t tell you what she said.”

“That’s okay,” Bella replied. “I know
all about it. Chester told me certain housecats have a prejudice against alley
cats. You think we’re dirty and unscrupulous. I understand. But here you are,
talking to one. It's not what you expected, is it?”

Willow cast a hesitant glance toward
Chester. “I don’t know. Chester certainly is the most unwashed cat I’ve ever
laid eyes on.”

Bella laughed again. “He hates washing.
He’s the only cat I’ve ever met that does. That’s probably why he hasn’t had a
mate. I for one wouldn’t go near him.”

“How did you end up living in this
alley?” Willow asked.

“I was born here,” Bella replied. “I was
born in that dumpster where I first met you. This is the first time I’ve ever
left the alley.”

Willow gasped. “Really? Why haven’t you
gone anywhere?”

“I was born in that dumpster,” Bella
explained, “and after the first week, my mother disappeared. I don’t know what
happened to her, but she never returned. I’m the only one of her five kittens
who survived, and I had to learn quickly how to find food for myself.”

“It must have been awful,” Willow
exclaimed.

Bella shrugged. “I learned that when
you find a source of food, you hold onto it tooth and nail. If you have a
steady supply of food, you stay near it and don’t go wandering off where you
might starve again. That’s why I never left the alley.”

“Does the alley have a good supply of
food?” Willow asked.

Bella nodded. “That dumpster belongs to
the Nickel Alley Cafe. They throw out all the scraps from the customers’
plates. Chester and I have all the food we could want.”

Willow cocked her head to one side.
“The Nickel Alley Cafe?”

“That’s what I said,” Bella replied.

Willow stopped walking and turned
toward Bella, but the tiny cat wouldn’t stop bouncing from one place to
another. Willow turned a complete circle trying to face her.

In the end, Bella landed on the lid of
a metal trash can. The can teetered under her weight, and Bella crouched on it
to gain her balance. Then she looked up at Willow. “What’s the matter?”

“Where we you and Chester this morning,
Bella?” Willow asked. “Where were you.....I’d say between the hours of seven
and nine?”

Bella put her head to one side. “What?”

Willow took a step toward the trash
can. “If you were in the alley this morning, you can give us some very
important information about the fire?”

“How can I give you information about
the fire?” Bella asked. “The bakery’s three blocks away.”

Willow dropped her voice, but her heart
wouldn't stop pounding. “The baker, Jason Dempsey, says he wasn’t in the bakery
this morning when the fire started. He says he was here, behind the Nickel
Alley Cafe, with Josephine Avino, the murder victim’s wife.”

Bella stared at her. Then she burst out
laughing again. “You see what I mean? You sound like a police cat already.” She
started moving down the alley again.