A Paw-sible Theory

“We have a theory that cats are planning to take over the world, just try to look them straight in the eye...yup, they’re hiding something!”

––Dog Fancy Magazine

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Dead-End Leads

As promised, Hunter’s friend Tim delivered the information two days later, and Pooky’s friend was there to observe and report back to Pooky. Tim told Hunter that Moresby didn’t want to talk at first. He told Tim that Hunter knew everything he knew and he had nothing else to say. Then, when Tim told Moresby that somebody had seen his car in front of Alyx’s home, he became more talkative. He admitted to going to see her. He said that since he hadn’t yet heard back from Maggie, he couldn’t be sure that she had mentioned the deal to Alyx, so he decided to go speak to Alyx himself, but changed his mind when he got to Alyx’s house and drove off without stopping. Hunter didn’t think that was much to go on, but Tim thought it could motivate Moresby to make another move if he was involved.

Apparently, Tim had also spoken to the store manager regarding Alyx’s purse snatching and the manager said that a long-time employee had dropped off the purse at the Customer Service counter. He spoke to the woman and she said she had found the purse on the floor, in the produce aisle on her way to the break-room. She said she didn’t give an explanation to the Customer Service clerk because the girl was busy and she didn’t want to use her break time waiting for her. She meant to tell her later but just forgot. The woman who had found the purse was seventy-years-old and had worked at that store for ten years in food demonstration.

According to Pooky’s informant, Tim requested and received a copy of the video from the store’s security office. The first time Tim and Hunter viewed the video, the surveillance camera panned the parking lot and store entrances and focused on the grocery store entrance. They saw Alyx enter the store with her purse, and leave empty-handed a short time later, but didn’t see anyone suspicious or known to them. The two men viewed the video a second time and saw a man with a walrus mustache––Moresby’s trademark––enter the coffee shop minutes after Alyx entered the grocery store. Since the coffee shop is part of the grocery store and the two places open to each other, Hunter said he would discuss it Moresby.

Tim said he had spoken to several sources and did some record-checking on George Lucas. It turned out that he had been sort of involved in a scandal a few years back. That is, Lucas wasn’t personally involved, but the antique dealer he did business with was indicted for fraud and sentenced to prison. The police report said they were on an anonymous call, so George could have been the whistle blower on the case.

I commended Pooky’s friend Jemma for a job well done. Pooky reported that Jemma said she liked being a snitch and had offered to stay on the case for as long as it took. I didn’t particularly like the role I had been thrust into (that of inducing young felines into a life of espionage), but I was honor bound to do whatever needed to be done to keep my human safe.