Hairless Harassment

Chapter Six

Even though I needed to take some items upstairs, I decided to stick to the main level of the house while the movers hauled all my heaviest belongings in through the front door. I’d need just a little bit more time to come to grips with what Octo-Cat had just revealed about feline-on-human homicide and the preferred method for it.

Here I hadn’t even known such a horror existed. Silly me.

Truth be told, I hadn’t brought much from my old place, and so my preliminary unpacking was quick. Since I still felt queasy every time I passed by the staircase, I decided to head outside and take a walk around the property.

Gorgeous, intricately kept flowerbeds surrounded the house on three sides, and the back opened up to a lovely two-tiered deck, complete with a fire pit and twin porch swings. Farther out, a thick forest rimmed the property, giving it all the privacy you could want and more.

Okay, so half my week would probably now be spent on yard maintenance going forward, but even I had to admit it would be time well spent.

A soft rumble in the distance along with a flash of red between the trees caught my eye, and I tromped through the grass to check it out. Apparently, if I angled my head just right, I could see straight through to the late senator’s yard. A bright red sports car had just pulled up the drive, and it was one I recognized instantly. After all, there were only two fancy red sports cars in all of Glendale; Nan drove one while Thompson owned the other.

I watched in horror as my boss, the senior partner at our law firm, Mr. Richard Thompson, clambered out of his car and up the steps toward the house. Uncharacteristically, he came without the briefcase that was usually attached to him like a boxy extension of his left limb. He also appeared nervous as he loosened his tie and glanced around the estate to see if anyone else was nearby. The police had mostly cleared out by then—or at least taken their get-together elsewhere. And, thank goodness, he didn’t know to search for me on the other side of the forest.

I remained rooted to the spot as Officer Bouchard stepped out of the house and strode forward to greet Mr. Thompson. His badge reflected the sunshine like a polished nickel. “Richard, can I help you with something?”

I craned my neck to try to make out Mr. Thompson’s expression, but a low-hanging branch blocked my view.

“I heard the news,” Thompson said. His deep voice projected through the forest. “Thought I’d stop by to pay my respects.”

Officer Bouchard jogged down the steps and motioned for the other man to follow. “I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that this isn’t the appropriate time or place.”

“I know,” my boss agreed. He seemed unsure of what to do with his hands. “It was just so… so unexpected.”

The policeman sighed and raised one of his arms high to run a hand through his hair. “Yeah, we’re all pretty beat up about this one. It doesn’t change the rules, though.”

They exchanged a few quiet words that got lost before they reached my ears, and then Mr. Thompson climbed back into his car and left.

“What was that about?” Octo-Cat asked, choosing that exact moment to rub up against my leg and giving me the fright of my life.

“I have no idea,” I told him honestly, still very much suspicious as to how both me and my firm at large now became tangled up in every single murder around town. Granted, there weren’t any murders until Ethel Fulton earlier this year—or at least none that I knew about.

“I hope somebody without any pets moves in next,” he informed me with a bored yawn as we both stared vacantly through the trees.

This surprised me enough to risk a glance toward him. It’s not like anything was happening at Harlow Manor anymore. Even Officer Bouchard had disappeared from view now.

“Don’t you like other cats?” I asked him.

“In my territory?” He made a sarcastic psshaw noise. “I’d much rather not share, if given the choice. This is my land. These are my trees to climb, and in their branches? Those are my birds to devour… or at least deliver to the foot of your bed when you’ve been a good human.”

I shuddered at the memory of his most recent gift. “I guess I’ll make sure not to be a good human then.”

He nipped at the blades of grass in front of his paws, swallowed a few bites, and then snickered. “Just for that, now my puke will be green.”

“Um, okay,” I said with a shrug. Honestly, his punishments often weren’t much worse than his rewards, and this one seemed especially tame.

“It will throw off your whole day,” he explained with a smirk. His laughter became sinister, and I knew he’d gone full-on into evil genius mode. The only problem with that is our definitions of the word genius varied substantially.

When he stopped laughing, he took a deep breath and glanced up at me. “You don’t get it, do you?” he said with a frustrated groan that was also part growl.

I shook my head, just as Officer Bouchard popped into view outside of the Harlow place. Why was he there? What was he doing?

“You’ll have to clean up green puke,” my cat explained between laughs that seemed to be losing their steam. “Normally, you start your day by cleaning up brown puke. You see? It will make everything different right from the start of your day. You won’t be able to stand it!”

“You got me,” I said with a resigned sigh. It would be better for us both if he thought he’d found a new means of punishing me. He derived such great pleasure from trying out new training techniques, that I didn’t have the heart to correct his misunderstandings when it came to what did and didn’t work for disciplining humans.

“Got it out of your system now?” I asked, turning back to study him with a skeptical smile.

“For now,” he answered. “But just you wait until tomorrow morning!”

“Okay, great.” I glanced back toward Officer Bouchard’s immovable form and my curiosity continued to grow. Who would kill a four-term senator when she was so liked by her constituents? Why did the police find it necessary to guard the crime scene? And what, if anything, did her weird, hairless cats have to do with it all?

“Hey, are you busy right now?” I asked my cat when I realized he might be able to sneak through the woods for a closer look.

He just turned his nose up and said, “Yes,” then turned around with his tail also held high in the air, flashing me an unnecessary view of his kitty butt.

“Well, thanks for that,” I shouted after him.

With one more glance though the trees, I decided to give it a rest. At least for now. Maybe the cops had already identified the culprit and that’s why they were guarding the scene. Even if I had an official title now as part of Mom’s impromptu branding session this morning, I was still inexperienced and new at this.

The police were the experts, and I had to trust them to do their jobs right. Even as I thought those words, however, I knew it would only be a matter of time before I found myself creeping through those trees to investigate the scene of the murder firsthand.