A Whisker In The Dark

“Yes, they meow like that sometimes.”

Doris’s eyes narrowed. “The last time they did that we found a skeleton in the wall.”

I forced a laughed. “What are the chances of that happening again?”

Doris craned to look out the window as another panicked meow drifted in. “I don’t know, but something urgent must be going on out there. Look.” She pointed and I tilted my head so I could see what she was pointing at.

It was Mike Sullivan and he was running toward the house.

My heart jerked. Was one of the cats in trouble? Maybe one was hurt badly and he was running to call for help.

As I ran into the hallway, I heard the kitchen door whip open and Mike’s footsteps as he rushed toward the dining room.

“What is it? Are the cats okay?” The tightness in my chest made me realize how fond I’d grown of the cats. I hated the thought of one of them being hurt. Not to mention Millie would kill me if anything happened to them.

“Where’s the fire?” Doris had come out into the hall and was standing behind me. Wait, was she making a reference to my loaf cakes that kept burning?

“There’s no fire,” Mike panted. “My phone battery is dead and we need to call Seth Chamberlain. There’s a body down by the pond and it doesn’t look good.”

“Well at least Mike will get the ball rolling. If we waited for Josie to understand what our different cries mean this one might turn into a skeleton too.” Nero eyed the body floating face down at the edge of the pond. Unfortunately, this body wasn’t almost three hundred years old. And even more unfortunately, it was the body of one of the guests.

“It doesn’t bode well that another one of the guests has died here.” Marlowe’s voice held a tinge of guilt.

Nero understood why the other cat felt guilty. He felt that way himself. They’d been asleep (literally) on the job a few weeks ago and a guest had been killed inside the B&B. The Oyster Cove Guesthouse was their responsibility now and being unaware that someone was being murdered, and thus not taking steps to prevent it, had weighed heavily on him. Luckily it didn’t seem like it had hurt business, but the results could have been disastrous.

And now there’d been another murder and they hadn’t prevented that one either. Hopefully this wouldn’t stain the guesthouse’s reputation.

“What’s going on? I could hear you guys all the way over at the Smugglers Bay Inn where I was under the deck looking for handouts.” Poe pushed his way through the shrubs.

“Yeah and you interrupted my nap in the morning sun.” Juliette ducked under a pine bough, her eyes growing wide when she saw the body.

“Oh… You’ve got a floater.” Stubbs appeared from a small path that led up to the cliffs.

“Yeah, guess we messed up again,” Marlowe said.

“Is it one of the guests?” Boots trotted to the edge of the pond and proceeded to inspect the body.

Nero sighed. “I’m afraid so.”

“Hey, don’t feel bad.” Harry picked a burr from his fur. “It’s not like you can watch over every piece of the property.”

“Yeah and this place was crawling with people last night,” Juliette said.

“Tell me about it.” Nero watched as Boots trotted gingerly around the body, taking care not to disturb anything. He’d already done his own inspection, but valued the others’ opinions, even if Boots could act a bit uppity at times. “Were you guys here last night? Did you see any odd behavior from the humans?”

“Sorry, I was at the rectory all night,” Juliette said.

“I wasn’t here either, but people were acting weird all over town,” Harry said. “Treasure fever.”

“You think it was a townie who did it?” Poe asked.

Boots had finished with the body and come back to the others now standing at the edge of the clearing. They knew the humans would be there soon and wanted to blend into the background. It wouldn’t do to have the humans suspect they were actually investigating.

“That’s doubtful,” Boots said. “Who would have motive? Makes more sense that one of the other guests did it since they know each other.”

“Of course.” Nero regretted the huffy tone in his voice, but it did get tedious when Boots stated the obvious as if he was the only one who would think of it. The other cat raised a brow at him, preening his long whiskers.

“I’ve had a gut feeling that something was going on with the guests,” Nero said.

“This is good news,” Harry said.

“Not so much for the body,” Poe replied.

“Oh sorry, yeah. What I meant was this is a fresh case. One we can really sink our claws into.”

“First we start with the family members,” Juliette said.

Marlowe nodded. “They smell sneaky.”

“And a bit like Swiss cheese,” Nero said. “They’ve been arguing a lot too. Especially with the victim.”

“We should check out their things. One of them might have evidence,” Harry said.

“Do you think they have any of those cheese sculptures in their rooms?” Stubbs’s pink tongue darted out and licked his lips.

“No, I checked,” Marlowe said. “Most I found was a few crumbs of Camembert.”