A Whisker In The Dark

“Maybe she stepped in some cheese? A little slice of smoked Gouda. I think I saw Carla bring some into her room.”

“Flora could have come into contact with it while cleaning, but we’ll inspect their rooms thoroughly later today when they are out. Perhaps there will be some cheese morsels we can appropriate for ourselves. Purely for investigative purposes, of course. We would never steal from the guests,” Nero said.

“Of course.”

“Naturally, we must protect the reputation of the guesthouse and make sure the blame for this does not fall onto Josie or Flora. I wouldn’t put it past that Seth Chamberlain to try to accuse one of them,” Nero said.

“Ah, come on. We know Seth isn’t that bad. He feeds us doughnut holes when no one else is looking.”

“Exactly. That’s what he does when no one is looking but right now everyone will be looking to see that he solves this case and there is an eyewitness pointing the finger at Flora. If he takes the easy way out, he could throw Flora in jail.”

Marlowe nodded. “We need to help Millie, Rose and Josie figure out how to point him in another direction.”

“Preferably not Josie’s though.” Nero winced as Millie scraped her chair back. It made an ungodly noise, at least to his sensitive cat ears. It didn’t seem to bother the humans any though.

Millie went to the recipe box on the counter and started to leaf through the recipes. That meant baking. Well fine. The humans could leisurely sit around baking all day but Nero didn’t have that luxury. A killer was loose and he had to help catch them. He stood and stretched.

“Come on. Let’s go down to the bait wharf and get this investigation rolling.”

Thirteen

“Just how do you propose we interrogate the family?” my mother asked Millie, who was pawing through the recipes looking for the perfect one for the town celebration. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had the presence of mind to hide the remains of my burned peanut-butter-banana loaf, and Millie had seen it in the trash.

Millie had her lips pressed together and was squinting at the cards as she flipped through them. She stopped and then pulled one out. “Yes, this is the one, the apple-pecan bread.” She looked at me and nodded, her eyes sparkling. “That’s the one, Josie. It’s a showstopper. Now let me see if we have the ingredients.”

She bustled over to the cabinets, pulling out the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, a bag of pecans and a bottle of vanilla vodka. She had pulled some apples and a pitcher of orange juice out of the fridge, then turned to me. “Do you have any champagne?”

“Champagne and vodka?” my mother asked. “Do you put those in the apple-pecan bread?”

“No. Those are for Paula. I think she’s making up that story about seeing Flora, and what better way to trip her up than to get her drunk?” Millie said. “And we all know she likes her drinks. I was thinking maybe we could cut her from the herd, serve her a complimentary vanilla mimosa and get her to confess.”

It sounded like a good plan to me, and, luckily, I did have some champagne on hand in the butler’s pantry. I knew one little drink wasn’t going to loosen Paula’s tongue much, so I proceeded to make a pitcher of mimosas. I might’ve taken a little sip or two for myself. I needed to steady my nerves. After all, it was a bit disconcerting that another body had shown up on the property.

Seth Chamberlain was taking people’s statements in the reading room. He had the pocket doors shut, and, try as we might, we couldn’t hear much through them.

“They sure don’t make things like they used to. These doors are solid,” Mom said as we pressed our ears to the door.

“Yeah, too bad,” Millie added. “Oh well, let’s find Paula, that will be much more enlightening than eavesdropping on Seth’s investigation.”

We found Paula sitting alone in the back parlor. The back parlor was a cozy room with overstuffed chairs and pillows in blue-and-yellow accents. Mike had painted the walls pale yellow and I’d had the pine floors refinished so they glowed like warm honey. The room wasn’t used much because it didn’t exactly have a nice view right now as it overlooked the gardens, which were an overgrown mess of tangles. Eventually, I would spruce them up, but now it was mostly weeds and dead flowers. Paula didn’t seem to mind, though. She was sitting in the chair, her blank gaze fixed at something outside the window.

Perhaps her somber mood was due to guilt over killing her brother and she’d break down and confess right away. That would be convenient for me, avoiding a long, drawn-out investigation with the police traipsing through my guesthouse.

“That dreadful sheriff has already taken my statement. It was so stressful.” Paula lifted a shaky cup of tea to her lips.

“I know, dear,” Millie clucked and sat down beside her. I set the silver tray with the pitcher and a champagne flute on the table beside Millie, and she poured a mimosa and held it out to Paula. “We’ve prepared a little something for you to settle your nerves.”