A Paw-sible Theory

“It always gives me a shiver when I see a cat seeing what I can’t see.”

––Eleanor Farjeon

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: The Cats Help Prevent a Murder

The next day, Alyx moved a couple of pieces of light furniture away from the entrance and unlocked the door before Charvette arrived. Maggie had taken a couple of well-deserved days off to spend with George and Bernice had called in sick, so it was just the two of them and the three of us in the store. I instructed the girls to be on the lookout for a walrus mustache, and black button eyes, although I wasn’t sure of what or even if anything was going to happen. That meant no napping. They didn’t like that and I had to remind them that our job was to help our humans.

“The weather report I heard before I left the house said nothing about rain today…it sure looks like rain to me,” said Charvette, sounding a little angry about it.

“Personally,” said Alyx, “I think the weather people try to put a positive spin on the weather so as not to scare the tourists from going out and spending money.”

“I think it’s silly when they say there’s a twenty percent chance of rain and its pouring outside,” laughed Charvette unusually loud.

The day was slow, giving Alyx the time she needed to work on the projects that had fallen behind. A few regular customers had come in during the day to check for new merchandise and bring goodies for the cats, and we rewarded with loud purrs.

The threatening storm clouds swirling overhead all afternoon had gathered into a serious thunderstorm by early evening, releasing torrential rain with no sign of letting up. Charvette was with a customer when Rupert Moresby walked in and stood by the counter. Pooky let out a yowl and ran off somewhere, the reason unknown to anyone. Misty chased after her, and I took an Egyptian cat pose on the checkout counter. Charvette acknowledged Moresby’s presence with a clandestine nod and he left. Then, she left for her dinner break as soon as she finished with her customer.

On Friday evenings, employees had two hours for dinner. They could go whenever they chose as long as they were back by eight o’clock. Both Alyx and Maggie felt very strongly about two people always being in the store for closing, not because there had been any trouble but only because they wanted to play it safe.

While she waited for Charvette to get back, Alyx kept busy looking for the perfect place to hang the latest item George had dropped off that morning––a child’s chair turned into a shelf. The last customer had left half an hour earlier. Tired and bored, Alyx broke the store’s rule of always having two people in the store at closing, locked the front door, and started to close out the cash register.

She had just put the cash in a zippered bag and was stepping out from behind the counter when the back door opened and shut with a thud. She called out a greeting to Charvette, proceeding towards the office to secure the money in the safe until she could get it ready for deposit.

Suddenly, there was a sharp crack of thunder from above followed by another sound, a loud pop. My natural instincts forced me to run for cover. A bullet whizzed by me and lodged in the back of the wing chair to Alyx’s right. Confused as to the direction of the shot, she dropped behind the couch in front of her.

I heard another shot fired, this time striking the wall behind her. Rain was still coming down hard but the thunder was moving away.

“If its money you want, you can have it.” She tossed the bag in the direction the last shot had come from. “You don’t have to kill me. I don’t know who you are or even what you look like. You have nothing to fear. Just take it and go.”

Alyx crawled on her hands and knees to the end of the couch and peered around the corner. Charvette, dripping wet hair, mascara running down her cheeks, was holding the handgun kept in the desk drawer in the office. She spoke in a strange, hollow voice from a place beyond my understanding:

“Money, that’s all everybody thinks about; you, Rupert, Novie. Well, guess what Alyx,” she hissed waving the gun around, “I don’t want your money.”

Alyx froze in place. “Then, what do you want?”

“It’s all your fault, you know. You ruined it all. He was going to divorce her and marry me,” she said with a sob.

I took a position on top of a tall bookshelf, just to the right of Charvette.

Alyx kept her voice level as she looked around for something she could use to defend herself.

“I don’t understand. What do I have to do with that?”

“Oh, you have plenty to do with it. It’s your fault she changed her mind,” Charvette kept babbling. “He was just waiting till she sold the building so he could get his business back up and running. You talked her out of it. She was going to sell until she heard you weren’t. She told him you discussed your reasons for not selling and she was inspired to hold on to her dream. What about my dreams, Alyx? What about my dreams?” she whimpered.

“Charvette, you’re wrong, I didn’t talk her out of anything.”

“Oh, yes, you did. I saw you and your stupid cat talking to her yesterday.”

Charvette was becoming more agitated now, waving the gun around.

Alyx quickly crawled to the end of the couch, grabbed the paperweight she had spied earlier and threw it, missing her by a couple of feet.

In that instant, I lunged at Charvette from the top of the bookshelf, knocking the gun out of her hand and batting it out of the way when it hit the floor. She didn’t see Pooky behind her heels, stepped back, lost her balance, and fell on her ample behind. Misty came out of the shadows and pounced on her, biting her everywhere, shredding her with her back feet while Charvette screamed, “Get them off of me!”

Alyx scrambled for the fallen weapon, picked it up, and leveled it at her until the police arrived.

Much later, Charvette told the police the whole story. She knew Rupert’s business was failing and that he had approached Dunne Development with the luxury condominium idea, investing heavily without Novie’s knowledge.

He promised Charvette he would divorce his wife and marry her when he received his share of the profit. James Dunne originally told Rupert the only way he could go forward with the project was to have at least one of the buildings next to one of his or it wouldn’t be worth it. When it looked like Alyx and Maggie weren’t going to sell, Rupert pressured his wife to sell. When he told Charvette that his wife had made her final decision after talking with Alyx, Charvette snapped. Some said that since she couldn’t get mad at him, she turned her anger against Alyx.

The Beachside Journal ran a full story on the incident, including what the writer called our heroic actions. Some people were skeptical about the role we played, arguing that we only reacted on instinct, while others joked that we knew exactly what we were doing and had planned the whole thing. Alyx could only speculate. All I can say is that if I’d acted on instinct alone, I’d still be cowering under a piece of furniture, and that goes for Misty and Pooky as well.

On the same page of the newspaper, Alyx read an article about a purse-snatching ring. The article said the Beachside police had solved a tri-city string of robberies that involved purse snatching, the purses being returned within the hour with nothing missing. The thieves, mostly teen juvenile delinquents, stole the purse, had a duplicate made of the owner’s house key and then looked for the purse owner’s home address, usually found in the wallet.

They had cracked the case when they found two men who looked like they had encountered attack cats at the last home they tried to burglarize. The officer who found them said they had had plenty of time to get away before he arrived, but apparently they had been too traumatized to make a move. Beachside Police arrested the accused ringleader––Dan Ramsey, owner of Ramsey’s Collectibles on Ocean Street––when they searched the store and found a notebook with a list of addresses that matched those of the homes burglarized.