Crafts, Cat Burglars, and Murder Read online

  “It must have been terrible, stumbling onto that,” Tom said, shaking his head as he walked over to a cage to refresh the water for a little tortoiseshell cat that had just arrived that morning. “I wouldn’t blame you if you needed a little more time away from this place. A little time to stay home and clear your mind.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’d like to keep busy, you know. Take my mind off the shock I’ve experienced.”

  He nodded in concern. “What about the cats?” Tom said. “Where are they now? They were never returned to us here.”

  “I’m not sure what happened to them,” I said quickly. “The house was empty when I got there, unfortunately. Maybe Andrew found new homes for them all before he died.”

  Tom thought about it for a second and then shrugged a little before picking up a giant bag of kitty litter and slinging it over his shoulder. “As long as they are all safe and happy. It’s always better for us, to have the extra space, anyway. And you are telling me everything you know, right, George?”

  I nodded. “Of course. Now, what can I do to help?”

  Tom shot me an apologetic look. “It’s not the most pleasant job in the world, I know, but the cat trays do need cleaning and the litter replacing if we are going to keep this place nice and hygienic.” He handed me some plastic gloves and waved me in the direction of the hose, while he went back to his paperwork at the front.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being punished, but I didn’t mind taking my penance on the chin, scrubbing out the cat trays with the quiet servitude of a nun, while Tom quietly went through his books, making notes. After all, if I was being punished, I did kind of deserve it.

  We worked like that for a while, me ignoring every call I received from Adam asking what my plans were that day, sending them all to voicemail. I know he wanted us to catch up and talk, maybe get a meal and go to a movie. I wondered how long I could stay at the shelter that afternoon. Closing time was four but maybe I could put in extra hours.

  With the trays cleaned, it was time to do some ever more heaving-duty hosing down. The empty cages needed to be washed out. “So did you know anything about this Andrew guy at all?” I asked Tom while I turned a hose on and began to clean out one of the empty pens.

  Tom frowned and shook his head. “Not really. I met him a couple of times. He tried to adopt a cat about a year ago, I remember that. We had to do a house inspection to make sure it was a suitable environment. Because he was in a rental and sharing with too many other people—and animals—unfortunately we had to reject his application.” Tom crossed his arms. “A few months later, cats started disappearing from the shelter.”

  “Oh, right,” I said, some things coming together in my mind. “I suppose because he wasn’t given what he wanted, he decided to just take it.”

  Tom sighed. “Looks like it.” He shook his head. “Terrible, really. Those poor cats he stole. I just hope they all have happy homes now. That’s all we can really hope for.”

  It seemed like I was going to have to find out more about this Andrew Combs fella from someone who actually knew him.

  I just had to figure out who those people were. All I really knew was that he had lived on Hazelwood Street and played guitar. My best guess was that he probably hung out with other musicians. Maybe he was even in a band or something.

  While I was trying to figure that out, holed up in my bedroom like a teenager while I ignored the rest of the household, I received an irate call from Brenda on my cell phone. She never texts. She always phones.

  “We are out of cat food and these cats are threatening to eat me if I don’t feed them,” Brenda spat down the line. “You’ll have to do something about it, Georgina.”

  I hung up the phone. A dozen cats went through a lot more food than I had expected—no wonder the shelter relied on volunteers for dry food.

  I could hear scratching at my door and Jasper’s familiar bark, so I quietly tiptoed to the door and opened it, peeking out into the hallway to see if the coast was clear. When I saw that it was, I crept downstairs and grabbed Jasper’s lead, forgetting all about Brenda’s phone call in the rush to leave the house incognito.

  I’d been walking for about an hour when I got a very angry follow-up call.

  “Shoot,” I said, banging my hand against my forehead. “I’m sorry, Brenda. I’ll get the food now.”

  Jasper and I weren’t far from the supermarket, so I wandered down, hoping my arms would be strong enough to carry a bulk bag of cat food back to the shop. And hoping that Jasper would behave if I tied him up in front of the shop for five minutes. He really hated being tied up and I hated doing it, but I needed to get this cat food.

  From a few feet ahead of me, at the corner of the supermarket parking lot, I could hear the strains of acoustic guitar music. I looked up to see a young woman with dirty-blonde hair in bunches on the top of her head strumming a guitar with her eyes closed.

  I was shocked to find that someone had taken Andrew’s place on the street corner so quickly. I suppose Con really wanted his cut of the profits.

  I drew a little nearer, holding tightly onto Jasper’s leash. She was definitely pretty— youthful skin and a small stud through her nose that made her look a little alternative in contrast to her otherwise glamorous looks. I just listened for a while, enjoying the music while I considered the best way to approach her. Jasper sat down and watched and listened with rapt attention. I never knew that acoustic music could soothe him so much.

  Definitely something to keep in mind for the future.

  She finished her song, but there was no audience aside from Jasper and I to applaud, so instead I gave her a smile and a few little polite claps.

  “Hello,” I said, stepping forward to toss a coin into the empty guitar case.

  I was hoping to say more but she quickly lurched into the next song and I was forced to take a step back and just stand there a little awkwardly for another three minutes.

  “Nice song,” I said to her when she had finished again. “My dog Jasper enjoyed it as well.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She was guarded, not quite looking up at me as she counted her morning’s takings.

  “Was it a good morning?” I asked cheerfully, trying to count the money myself. I’m always curious about how much buskers actually make. There seemed to be about thirty dollars all together.

  She shrugged. “Not too bad.”

  I could see that conversation was going to be difficult with this one.

  I decided to take a different tactic. “I was a big fan of the young man who used to play here…” I said.

  She looked up at me in surprise. “Andrew?” she asked, a flash of concern and sadness in her eyes.

  I nodded. “Do you know what happened to him?” I asked nonchalantly.

  She stood up and slung the guitar case over her shoulder. “Andrew is dead,” she said. “He was my boyfriend.”

  “We’ll have a black tea and a peppermint tea,” I said to the waiter in the cafe, while I waited for my guest to return from the bathroom.

  This was all under the guise of being concerned, of course. And a new friend. A new, concerned friend was allowed to take another new friend for coffee, right?

  I had managed to collect the cat food from the supermarket and dropped it off at the craft store to Brenda, who was so ready to burst that her face was red as a beet. She’d snatched the box of kibble off me and stormed off to feed the kittens while I quietly led Jasper down to the back of the shop and told him to sit down in his bed and not make a sound while I backed out of the store, promising to hurry back from the cafe as soon as I could.

  My guest returned.

  “This must be a hard time for you,” I commented sympathetically while the young woman musician, who had finally given me her name—Sian— dunked her tea bag in her cup and then drained all the extra tea from it by wrapping it around the spoon and wringing it out. I supposed she wanted to get her money’s worth, seeing as I was paying.


  “Of course it is.”

  I took a sip of my own peppermint tea, though I really could have gone for something stronger right then. “How long were you and Andrew dating?”

  She took a long time to answer. “Well, to tell you the truth, Andrew and I had sort of split up.”

  Okay then. Interesting. I tried not resemble a shark that has smelled blood in the water, too much. “I’m sorry to hear that. I suppose, in some ways, that might make his passing even tougher?”

  Mixed feelings, perhaps?

  Sian nodded. “We broke up last month. We had been going out for about a year before that. And it wasn’t, well…it wasn’t just a romantic relationship,” she said a little hesitantly.

  I wasn’t quite sure what she meant by that. What other kind of relationship could they have possibly had? “Oh?” I asked, still trying to sound casual, not too overly interested. That would only make her suspicious and she was a fragile bird. I was lucky I’d even gotten her to speak as much as I had.

  “It was also a creative relationship,” she said, placing her tea cup down and staring out the window.

  Right. I thought I was starting to see, but I needed more info and she was already closing down. Physically as well. She started to do the buttons up on her large grey coat that she’d never taken off. She was protecting herself.

  “So you…played guitar together?” I asked, hoping to prod her into revealing more. “I can imagine the two of you together would have sounded quite magical.”

  Sian suddenly stared at me strangely. “Hang on, if you were such a big fan of Andrew’s, why didn’t you ever see the two of us playing together?”

  I swallowed down my peppermint tea, hoping that it might somehow magically turn into wine on the way down. It didn’t.

  “Well, I’ve only been in town such a short time,” I said, quickly trying to cover. “And you mentioned that you two had not been seeing each other in the last month.” Even though I’d been in town longer than that, I figured it was a good enough bluff. Sian would never know any different.

  “Oh, right,” Sian said, sounding far less defensive as she settled back against the booth. She looked down into her cup. “Yes, we hadn’t played together for a month.” Now she was starting to sound even more bitter than her over-flavored tea.

  “Andrew and I did more than just play together. We were a duet. A band. And we were great together, or so I thought. We had even gotten some attention from a small record label who wanted us to record a demo for them.”

  Now she was sounding more than bitter, she was sounding downright angry.

  “But Andrew decided that he was better off going solo. That he was better off without me.”

  A waitress who had just started her shift came over and interrupted us at that critical moment.

  She was a slightly large, jolly, blonde-haired lady in her mid-thirties named Joan. I recognized her well enough, given that this was my regular haunt and I’d been coming in every day for coffee since Adam had moved in.

  “Hiya, George,” Joan said with a friendly grin. “Good to see you making a habit of it.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve been in here pretty much every day for the last month!” I said with a grin.

  “It’s been a few months now, hasn’t it?” Joan said with a laugh. “Since you’ve been in town.”

  Oh, geez.

  “Oh, I’m not sure it’s been that long…”

  But I saw the look flash across Sian’s face. She knew I had fibbed to her.

  Joan noticed the mood sour too and backed away. “Enjoy your teas, lady. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “So what happened after that? With you and Andrew?” I asked Sian, but she was already standing up and tossing coins onto the table, even though I’d told her that I would pay for our drinks.

  “I really need to get going,” she said, hurrying out the door before I could get another word out of her.

  Chapter 5

  The sun may have started to set, but I was not ready to call it a day. I had to navigate my way amongst a dozen cats to reach the end of the aisle. I was carrying a box full of stuff, including notepads and a barcode scanner which I was about to put to very good use.

  “Where are you off to?” I called out to Brenda, who already had her scarf tied around her neck and one foot out the door.

  “It’s past five p.m.,” she said, like I had just asked her why she had to eat and breathe every day.

  “Well, we’re working overtime today!” I exclaimed, trying to make it sound fun and exciting as I bustled through the aisle with my arms full to bursting.

  Brenda placed her purse back down on the counter with a thud as the clasps hit the glass top. “For what reason, exactly, Georgina?”

  “Stock-take,” I said, waving at all the items, all the sewing machines and crafting tools and paper and scrap books and cats. “We going to do the whole store this evening! Take down every item from the shelf and catalogue.” Okay, it didn’t matter how hard I tried to make this task sound fun. It clearly wasn’t.

  Brenda was still furious with me for leaving Jasper with her the day before and not even asking permission. She’d claimed that a veritable war had broken out between Jasper and the cats and that she’d barely survived having to be the peacekeeper. I was sure she was exaggerating, but I’d left Jasper at home on this day just in case.

  “But it’s not even the end of the financial year!” Brenda said in shock.

  “Yes, but it can’t hurt to do a stock-take every few months,” I said chirpily as I started pulling items from the shelves and counting them. “We’ll make it a quarterly thing. Maybe even more regular than that.”

  Brenda placed her hands on her hips. “It is not like you to be responsible and business-like.”

  Geez, thanks. Why not shower me in some more compliments while you’re at it.

  “Well, perhaps I’ve turned over a new leaf. This is the new me, Brenda.”

  “The only reason you are doing this is because you are avoiding going home. That ex-husband of yours isn’t going to just disappear into thin air if you ignore him long enough.”

  “Yes, but he might disappear into a motel if I stop giving him food and water,” I muttered.

  Brenda shook her head. “The only reason you’re working overtime, and adopted all these cats—and the only reason you’re looking into the murder of Andrew Combs—is because you want to avoid dealing with your own life!”

  I stopped. How did she know that I was looking into Andrew’s death?

  “No, I’m not,” I said. “I’ve simply been a little busy lately. I can’t help it if all these things seem to happen at once. And I refuse to ignore any of my priorities.”

  Brenda was still shaking her head. “My husband will be expecting me at home at six on the dot to cook dinner for us both, like every other night,” she said stubbornly.

  “He won’t keel over if he has to eat takeout for one night,” I stated.

  But Brenda was still refusing to leave the doorway.

  There was only one thing left to do. Bribe her. “Come on,” I said. “I’ll pay overtime.”

  I couldn’t believe I was volunteering to pay extra to spend time with Brenda out of work hours, but that was what my life had come to.

  The offer of extra pay worked though, and Brenda took off her scarf and rolled up her sleeves. “Well then, there’s no time to waste. Let’s get this over with.”

  I would have been happy to work all night and hoped that Brenda would find the task hard and slow-going. To her credit though, Brenda was a brisk and fast worker and pretty soon she had devised a system that was far more efficient than my slapdash manner of just pulling items off the shelf and writing a line in the book and then forgetting which items I’d already pulled off and what exactly the lines in the book referred to.

  “There,” Brenda announced after a few hours. “That’s the whole shop done. Every last item accounted for. I even included the cats in the stock-take
. Seeing as they are basically our stock now, aren’t they?”

  They were in a way, yes, at least for another twenty-four hours or so. The next day would hopefully change that, and we could go back to having the shelves full of craft supplies and not just sleeping cats.

  I sighed. I could only avoid home for so long. If only Brenda hadn’t been so darn efficient. I had no where else to be that night.

  “Be back tomorrow bright and early for adoption day!” I called out to Brenda as she finally escaped out the door at 9:00 pm.

  I took my time getting home, thinking that, with any luck, Adam might be asleep by ten. But even dragging my feet all the way home and taking the scenic route via the lake, I still wasn’t home late enough to avoid him.

  The lights were still on when I finally slunk back in like a stray cat. There was a salad laid out on the dining room table, and plates of pasta going cold and soggy in front of two empty seats.

  And standing besides it was a very unimpressed looking Adam, still wearing an apron. His curly brown hair was even more wild than usual. He looked like he’d spent the evening being tossed in the ocean and flung onto some sharp rocks, not preparing a simple salad.

  “You could have started without me, you know. There’s no reason to starve to death on my account,” I said, trying to make light of the situation.

  “You didn’t call or text me to say that you were going to be late.”

  “I was busy. We had to do stock-take at the shop…and I was so immersed in the task that I didn’t even check my phone.”

  Adam laughed, but not because he found it funny. “Stock-take? Yeah, right. This is a pretty random time of the year to do stock-take. George, do you know how long all of this took?” he asked, waving at the food.

  A salad and some pesto pasta? I would have guessed…twenty minutes, at most? But Adam was making it look like he had just prepared a medieval feast.

  “I never asked you to do any of this,” I said, starting to get a little annoyed. Casper was jumping up on me, her little nails scratching holes in my stockings. I picked her up and gave her a little cuddle. At least someone didn’t mind that I had come home a little late.