A Whisker In The Dark

“Yeah, they looked pretty chummy over by that gazebo.” Mom glanced at me. “That should put your mind at ease, Josie.”

I frowned. “Why is that?”

Mom rolled her eyes. “A blind monkey could see that you have a thing for Mike. I know you’re still smarting about how he dumped you for Stella in high school, but it’s time to get over that now. You’re a grown woman with a daughter of your own and if Stella’s chummy with Myron that means Mike is free pickings.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. I wished my mom wouldn’t try to fix me up. It was embarrassing at my age.

“I don’t have a thing for Mike.” Okay, maybe a little thing. I had to admit, even though his constant use of my childhood nickname bugged the crap out of me, he was kind of cute and the way he seemed concerned about me did make my heart flip-flop sometimes, but the last thing on my mind was striking up a relationship, Stella Dumont or not. “I think we need to focus on finding out who killed Bob, don’t you?”

“Yeah. That’s more fun than your love life,” Millie said.

“I agree.” Mom dug a cookie out of the box. “Now, who do you think did it?”

“It’s got to be one of the family members. Did you see how Doris was the only one who seemed upset when we found him?” Millie asked.

“They don’t get along very well,” I said.

“And it’s no wonder, what with them working with cheese all those years. That would make anyone not get along,” Millie said.

“Bind you right up, too.” Mom patted her stomach and made a face.

“You ask me, I think it was that drunk one, Paula.” Millie leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I heard Bob threatening her the other day.”

“You did? About what?” I asked.

“Something about her being a detriment to the company. Turns out her cheese sculptures are getting messed up because of her drinking. I overheard them arguing when we were outside digging last night. He said she should be fired from the company.”

“And she’s the one who put the finger on Flora. She might be trying to frame Flora to throw the police off track,” Mom said.

“That would make sense, but I heard Bob arguing with someone, too,” I said. “Carla.”

“About what?” Millie asked.

“I’m not exactly sure. Bob said he wasn’t going to stand for ‘it’ and she needed to make it right… or else.”

“That sounds threatening,” Millie said.

“Even worse, Henry overheard them and when he questioned Carla about it, she said for him not to worry about Bob because she was going to do something about him.”

Mom munched on another cookie. “I wonder if doing something entailed killing him.”

“Yeah, what if it did?” I said. “Thing is, it seems like the cheese company isn’t doing very well and they’re all blaming each other. It could’ve been any of them.”

“Yeah, but now we have two suspects who we heard arguing with the victim. And we can do something that Seth can’t do.” Millie snapped off a bite of the cookie. “We can interview them one-on-one and try to trip them up so they confess.”

Mom smiled and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like fun. I say we start right away.”

Nero sat under the kitchen table and aimed his gaze at Josie, willing her to understand his attempts at communication. Unfortunately, she was more interested in the conversation she was having with her mother and Millie about the suspect list.

“Doesn’t matter how hard you stare at her, she’s never going to be able to read your mind. Humans are just not that advanced,” Marlowe said.

Nero sighed and trotted over to his favorite spot near the pantry where Millie had put two plush cat beds. He hopped into the blue one and curled up. “I know, but I wish we could tell them that we overheard Earl and Bob arguing.”

“Then they could add Earl to their suspect list.” Marlowe hopped up onto the counter. The humans weren’t paying any attention, so she trotted over to the sink and tilted her head under the faucet to catch a drip of water. Fresh water out of the tap always tasted so delicious it was worth the risk of getting swatted at. “We’ll just have to figure out a way to clue them in so that they get the idea into their heads on their own.”

“But how? We can’t show them an argument. We’ll have to find something that points to Earl.” Nero licked his front paw. “And we need to enlist the aid of the others to skulk around town keeping their eyes open for anything suspicious and listening in on conversations. The killer could be anyone who was here last night.”

“Plenty of suspects on that roster.” Marlowe jumped down from the counter and hopped into the tan cat bed beside Nero. “Do you think this has anything to do with the confession Juliette heard? She said something about a woman who was going to betray her family. Perhaps Millie’s theory about Paula being the killer is correct.”

“Well, it could be. I know one thing though, it’s not Flora. She’s like family and we’ll protect her like we would protect Millie,” Nero said.

“Sure, but her shoes did smell kind of funny just now.”

“But they didn’t smell like murder. More smoke.”