A Whisker In The Dark

The cats looked up at me, the moonlight reflected in their eyes, making them glow bright. I inspected the ficus. Yep, looked like someone had rummaged in the dirt. I was pretty sure the cats liked to dig, I’d seen them digging outside.

“It’s not nice to dig in the house. That’s for outside.”

They gave off some confused meows. Nero batted at the dirt.

“Don’t spread it around or you won’t get any treats.” I tapped the plate with the cheese.

Mew!

Marlowe had something in the corner. I hoped it wasn’t a mouse. She crouched down and swatted. It rolled out toward me. Thankfully too small to be a mouse. I bent down to pick it up. A shiny nail? Had Ed been working in here? He’d said he hadn’t started here yet.

I stood and looked around. I didn’t see any tools or any evidence that work had been done. The nail could have come from anywhere though, the cats were known for batting things around and then leaving them in other rooms. They particularly liked the plastic water bottle caps. They must have batted the nail in here all the way from the ballroom.

They were looking up at me as if expecting praise. I held the nail out to them. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be batting nails all over the house. A guest could step on one and become injured.”

The cats looked at each other, shook their heads and trotted off. I looked back at the dirt as I left. Too bad I couldn’t train them to pick it up. I’d have to have Flora do it. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have plants in the house with the cats? And they must not be as smart as I’d been giving them credit for if they led me to their mess.

I followed them to the owner’s quarters, a cozy suite with a window overlooking the ocean. It was in a rounded turret and had a cute sitting area in the round part. The neutral shades of mocha and heather were soothing. I loved retreating here at the end of the day.

Millie had left quite a few of the antiques that decorated the room, but it also had some modern touches like a comfy micro-suede sectional. I settled onto the couch and the cats jumped up beside me, looking expectantly from me to the cheese.

“I did promise you some, didn’t I?” I took the two small pieces and broke them up some more, then held one out to Nero, who sniffed it for what seemed like an hour before gently taking it.

“And you?” I held one out to Marlowe. She glanced at Nero who was still busy daintily eating, then sniffed twice and grabbed it.

I nibbled my piece and thought about the day. I was a bit disturbed by the conversation I’d overheard in the hallway. I certainly hoped people weren’t going to start spreading rumors about a murderous ghost. All the more reason to find the killer pronto.

But the murder investigation wasn’t the only thing I had on my plate. I had to juggle that along with my responsibilities for the town celebration. I had the ingredients for the loaf cake I planned to make all ready to go and I’d do another test run tomorrow morning. The pamphlets were already on the table. I just needed that book about the Oyster Cove Guesthouse history. Millie said that should be up here, so I put my snack down and went over to the antique oak bookcase in the turret part of the room.

Meow!

Nero hopped on top of the bookshelf and peered down at me.

“Where’s the book, buddy?” I waited for him to indicate the general location but all he did was stare at me.

“Okay…” I ran my fingers along the leather-bound spines of the books. Poetry. Uncle Tom’s Cabin. An Audubon Anthology. My fingers stopped at a large book. “Oyster Cove Town History. This must be it.”

Merooo… Marlowe stared at me from the back of the couch.

“Right, I thought so.” I took the book and flopped down on the couch. Nero trotted over. Both he and Marlowe seemed overly interested in the book, sniffing at it and putting their paws on it.

“You want to see what’s inside? I do too.” I opened the book, inhaling the vanilla scent of age-old paper. Inside were pictures of the guesthouse back in Jed’s day. It had been a large house but not nearly as large as it was now. Jed stood in front alongside a woman in a black dress with a voluminous skirt.

I pointed the woman out. “I guess this is Mrs. Jed.”

Nero smacked his paw on the page right above the description. Yep, Helena Biddeford. It was his wife.

“Maybe she’s the one who put him in the wall. What do you guys think?”

Meroo.

Marlowe pushed the edge of the book and it flipped to the next page.

“Going too slow for you?”

I flipped through, marveling at the old photos of the guesthouse and the town. Things had changed a lot over the centuries. There was a picture of a realistic drawing of Jedediah Biddeford with his family and household staff. He had his hand on a cane, the ring found on the skeleton clearly evident on his finger.

“I wonder which one of these children is Doris’s ancestor?” Doris hadn’t mentioned the name of the ancestor at the top of the Biddeford tree, but I looked at the inscription under the image anyway.