A Purrfect Alibi: A pawsitively gripping cozy mystery (The Oyster Cove Guesthouse Book 3)

Fourteen

Nero usually didn’t spend much time in the attic unless he was hunting for mice. The small dormer windows didn’t let in enough sun for his liking and the smorgasbord of smells from the generations of people who had cast away their belongings was distracting.

The space was packed with broken old furniture, old clothing and various household items. Had no one who lived in this house ever thrown anything away? And the dust! It lay thick like a carpet on the floor, especially in the back area where the oldest items were. Nero had to tread carefully so as not to stir up too much of it. He didn’t want to get dirt on his pristine, white tuxedo chest.

“Seems like you’re getting kind of famous around town,” Marlowe said as she detoured over to sniff a pile of books. On their way back to the guesthouse, the cats had heard the townspeople gossiping about Jed’s ghost and the recent murder. Some were even talking about the treasure again, but no one seemed eager to look for it, thinking that Jed’s ghost was out to kill anyone who did.

“Someone is even talking about making a movie,” Nero added. Jed’s swirling form jerked in dismay. “I don’t think I want to be famous. I’m getting a bit tired of this old place now. I think I want to move on to whatever one moves on to.”

“Well then, why are you still here?” Marlowe asked.

“Good question. I feel like I’m stuck here for some reason,” Jed said.

“Unresolved issue,” Nero said. “There was only one reason for ghosts to hang around and that was an unresolved issue. In Jed’s case it made perfect sense because he’d been murdered. “Probably you want your killer named. You have no idea who it is?”

Jed shook his head. “None at all. I vaguely remember returning from Europe. I had that treasure, you know. But I didn’t trust too many people, so I buried it before anyone knew I was back in town. I had to keep it all a secret because I knew people were watching me.”

Marlowe’s eyes grew large. “They were? Who?”

Jed glanced around uneasily as if those people were still around watching him. “People in my own household.”

“You don’t say,” Nero said. They’d come to the very end of the attic where the light from the east filtered in through a perfectly formed spider web in the round window at the peak of the eaves. Here, the cast-offs were older and much more worn. Newspapers as brittle as dried leaves were piled in one corner. Wooden chairs hung from hooks on the wall, the wicker caning in the seats and backs broken and hanging down. An old steamer trunk sat in the corner practically disintegrating.

“Oh, it’s true.” Jed stood up straighter. “Course, I knew Helena—that’s my wife—might’ve been up to something while I was gone. She was none too happy about my trip to Europe.”

“Do you think she killed you?” Marlowe’s tail swished, sending particles from a patch of dust on the floor into the air.

Jed pondered that for a few seconds and Nero wondered what kind of woman his wife had been. Had she been mad enough to kill? And what happened to her after Jed’s death? Judging by the way the trunk had been shoved in the corner she might have packed up his things and forgotten about him. But that had nothing to do with the current happenings at the guesthouse… or did it?

“Don’t rightly know.” Jed glanced at the trunk. “I was shut up in that wall until now so I don’t know what became of her. I don’t think she had the skills to plaster a body inside a wall though.”

“She might have had an accomplice,” Marlowe suggested.

“If that’s true, they probably took the treasure,” Nero said. He was certain there was no buried treasure on the property as he would have sniffed it out by now. Treasure had a certain hopeful smell to it.

Jed swirled over to the trunk and sat on top of it. “Course that doesn’t explain why someone took my best pair of shoes.”

Nero thought about the buckle. “You mean the fancy ones with the buckle on them?”

“Yep.”

“And they were in this trunk?” Nero inspected the latches. They were broken so someone could get in easily, the only problem was he didn’t see or smell any recent sign of humans. If someone took Jed’s shoes to plant the buckle on Madame Zenda, then wouldn’t there be some sign? And how would they even know the shoes were in there?

Jed looked down at the trunk. “You can see all my good clothes are in there, but no shoes.”

“Actually, we can’t see.” Marlowe gestured toward the trunk. “It’s closed.”

Jed stood and the three of them pushed on the top of the trunk. It was heavy and Nero was careful to keep his claws in lest he break a nail on the old wood. Beside him Jed grunted and struggled, beads of ectoplasmic sweat dripping from his brow. How had Jed gotten the trunk open all by himself before?

Finally, the hinges creaked and the trunk opened. Jed pointed to the deteriorating contents. “See? No shoes.”

Nero and Marlowe hopped inside, carefully pawing through the musty old fabric. The clothing had been chewed by moths and was frayed at the edges, but Nero could see it had once been good quality. A suit, a silk robe and something that looked like a white linen slip. He slid his paw over it and glanced at Jed with his brow raised.

“What?” Jed’s eyes flicked from Nero to the white linen. “That’s my night shirt.”

Nero wasted no time getting out of the trunk. It had been stifling inside there. After a fit of sneezing he looked up at Jed. “You’re right. No shoes. I guess we should close it.”

“Yep. Leave it the way it was,” Jed agreed, but didn’t make any effort to close the lid.

“Can you do it?” Nero asked, not because he was too lazy to help but because he wondered how Jed could have gotten it open and closed when he could barely push salt-and-pepper shakers off the table.

Jed pushed on the top of the trunk, but it only budged a few inches then fell back open. “Guess I need help.”

Nero and Marlowe trotted over to the other side and between the three of them they pushed it closed with a loud thud that Nero was sure Josie could hear downstairs. “It took all three of us to close it,” Nero said.

“Yeah. So?” Jed sat back down on the top of the trunk.

“If it took all three of us to open and all three of us to close it, then how did you know the shoes were missing?” Nero gave Jed one of his unblinking stares. “You wouldn’t have been able to open the trunk.”

Jed didn’t even hesitate before answering. “Easy, I can just pass through to get inside.”

“You can?” Marlowe batted at Jed’s ankle, her paw passing right through the apparition. “Guess you aren’t solid so that makes sense.” Marlowe shrugged at Nero and then hopped up on top of a stack of old newspapers and proceeded to preen her tail.

“How do you think I get into rooms with closed doors? I can go pretty much anywhere it seems. Lucky thing too or I’d be stuck in that old ballroom and it’s mighty boring in there,” Jed said. He had a point. Jed had been going in and out of the west wing and the door to that wing was always closed. Plus he’d gotten into the locked attic with ease. Apparently he was telling the truth.

“Then how come you were stuck inside the wall all this time?” Nero asked. “If you can go through things, why not just come out?”

“I didn’t know any better,” Jed said. “I wish I had, but all I knew was I was in a dark place. Spent most of my time in limbo. It’s kind of fun over there.”

Nero supposed that could be true. Jed sure did look like he was telling the truth, but he cautioned himself. Ghosts were known to be sneaky.

“So, what did this buckle look like? Similar to the one found on Madame Zenda?” If no one had been here recently, had the shoes been taken long ago by Jed’s wife? Was her ghost around trying to eke out some kind of revenge on Jed? Perhaps by killing Madame Zenda and trying to frame him by using the buckle. No. It was ludicrous. How could a ghost save a buckle for three hundred years?

Jed squinted, apparently thinking back to the buckle they’d found on the body. “Yep, near as I remember it was almost exact.”

Marlowe stopped mid-preen. She’d had her leg lifted to get at the underside of her striped tail and was now staring down at the newspapers upon which she was perched. “Hey, are these the shoes here?”

Jed bent down, his face inches from the paper, to look at the paper. On the front page was an etching. It was the one Nero had seen in the town history book depicting the Oyster Cove Guesthouse back in Jed’s day when it was a smaller family estate. Jed sat outside with his wife, children and some servants. It looked like he was wearing the outfit they’d seen in the trunk, though it was in much better shape.

“Yep, those are my good dress shoes. Only had one pair.” Jed smiled. “I remember when that was drawn. The artist was quite good, captured everything perfectly. We had to sit still for a long time. Was hard on the children.”

Nero summoned his cat-like powers of vision. The picture was grainy, but his super senses allowed him to see much clearer. “Yep, that’s identical to the buckle we found on Madame Zenda.”

“And Louie Two Paws said that buckle was three hundred years old,” Marlowe said. “That means it could be Jed’s actual buckle. I guess that’s good. We know where the buckle came from.”

Nero glanced back at the trunk. “But that doesn’t bring us any closer to the most important questions. How did the killer get Jed’s buckle and why did they put it on Madame Zenda’s body?”

“True dat.” Marlowe jumped down and padded off toward the stairs. “Only one way to find out. We need to get Josie up here so she can figure out the buckle came from Jed’s trunk herself.”