A Twist in the Tail: An absolutely purrfect cozy mystery (The Oyster Cove Guesthouse Book 1)

Five

Nero breathed deep, savoring the delectable aroma of rotting fish. The bait wharf was one of his favorite places in Oyster Cove. It wasn’t just because the fishermen would sometimes throw them succulent scraps, either. The wharf had a certain ambiance that couldn’t be found anywhere else. From the sounds of the waves lapping on the dock, to the briny scent of sea and the warmth of the sun warming his back.

It was heaven on earth… well, except for the seagulls. They were partial to the bait dock too and, as far as Nero was concerned, created an incessant nuisance with their constant swooping and cawing. A cat had to be careful lest he get knocked into the water. No cat liked that, except for Harry, who loved the occasional saltwater bath.

A shadow darkened Nero’s path from above, and the loud gull cry made him cringe. He crouched, ready to dart under something, but the gull flew past. Looking up into the sky, Nero felt a tinge of sadness. There were fewer gulls than last week and even though he wished they would go swoop somewhere else, he still didn’t like the way their numbers were mysteriously dwindling. He didn’t want them to die off, just to tend to their business elsewhere. Still, he was glad there were no dead gulls at the wharf, last week they’d seen a gull body floating in the water and it was a most unpleasant sight.

Milling about in their usual spot, behind a stack of lobster pots, were five cats. The largest one, a solid gray cat named Poe, was sitting atop an old lobster pot, watching a fishing boat make its way out of the harbor and into the Atlantic.

On the ground next to the pot, Stubbs, an orange striped cat named such because his tail was a short stub, sniffed around the lobster pot for any old scraps of bait. The rumor about him was his tail had been chopped off with a cleaver when he’d been caught stealing an oxtail right from the butcher’s shop, but Stubbs would neither confirm nor deny this.

Boots, a black cat with white paws and somewhat of a snobby attitude sat in the sun grooming his whiskers, as he often did. His whiskers were elegantly long and thick, and they were his pride and joy. Nero had to admit they were lovely, but they were just whiskers after all. The way Boots carried on about them you’d think they were made of gold.

Harry, the large fluffy Maine Coon, was flopped down in the sun snoozing while Juliette, a fluffy gray cat with a white diamond on her forehead, groomed her tail in a quite unladylike manner.

The cats stopped their activities as Nero and Marlowe approached.

‘Heard someone got iced up at the guesthouse,’ Stubbs said. He was prone to using hard-boiled detective slang and Nero often thought that Stubbs’ owner must read too many Dashiell Hammett novels aloud. Then again, perhaps that was why the cat was such a good detective.

‘Unfortunately, it’s true.’ Marlowe trotted over to the lobster pot and peeked inside.

‘Was it murder?’ Boots gave his long whisker an extra tug to emphasize the last word.

Nero’s gut clenched. He was embarrassed that a murder had happened under his very nose. ‘Yes, it was.’

‘Did you see it happen?’ Harry stretched, humping his back up with his front legs out in front of him before trotting over to sit in the circle the cats had formed.

Nero and Marlowe exchanged a guilty glance. ‘Neither of us was present at the time.’

‘So you don’t know who the culprit is?’ Poe asked.

Nero shook his head.

‘How was it done? Poison? Gunshot? Stabbed?’ Harry asked.

‘Bludgeoned with a newel post,’ Nero answered.

‘Nasty,’ Juliette shuddered.

‘Who was the vic?’ Stubbs asked.

‘One of the guests at the inn. Charles Prescott,’ Marlowe said.

‘And you didn’t notice anyone unusual? Who’s been hanging around there?’ Poe asked.

‘Well, there is Mike, Millie’s nephew,’ Marlowe said.

‘Oh, not Mike,’ Juliette said. ‘He’s much too handsome. And besides, we all know Millie is one of the good ones and therefore Mike must be too.’

Poe frowned. ‘Yes, but what about the new one, Josie? Of course, we all love Rose and Millie, but Josie is an unknown. She’s from away.’

‘She’s not from away.’ Nero felt obligated to defend the new guesthouse keeper even if he wasn’t exactly sure that he liked her himself. ‘She was raised here and moved away to raise her own litter. Now she’s back where she belongs.’

Boots raised a brow. ‘So you two like and trust this new human?’

‘Sort of,’ Marlowe ignored the warning look from Nero. ‘She did mention she owned us… she’s not quite pet-broken yet.’

Harry laughed. ‘Owned you? She’s new to serving cats then?’

Nero nodded. ‘She sort of came with the house when Millie entrusted it to us. We still have much training to do.’

‘Have you tried the severed mouse head routine?’ Harry asked.

‘Not yet. We’re still breaking her in.’

‘What about the pet and scratch routine?’ Sonny referred to the typical routine of acting like you wanted the person to pet you and then scratching them when they did.

‘I’ve done that a few times,’ Marlowe said. ‘It seemed to put her in her place, but then she didn’t want to pet me anymore.’

‘How about refusing to eat? So that she has to bribe you with tasty morsels?’ Stubbs asked. ‘That one always sets the tone as to who is master.’

‘We might try that next.’ Truth was, Nero enjoyed eating too much to try that one. ‘Let’s keep on task here though. We must focus on finding the killer. If we don’t, we may not be training Josie at all, or even have a guesthouse to live in.’

The cats nodded somberly.

‘So you want us to do the usual? Keep our eyes open and scour the town for clues?’ Harry asked.

This wasn’t the first crime the cats had solved. Of course, the humans didn’t realize the cats’ involvement. Nero often thought it would be so much easier if humans would just be more aware. The human’s lack of cat-communication skills made the cats job that much harder because they had to practically hit the humans over the head with clues to make them think it was their idea.

‘Yes, but first I need to know if any of you saw anything out of the ordinary last night,’ Nero said.

The cats watched a sailboat glide past, cutting through the water silently as it made its way under the footbridge at the head of the cove and out past the jetty.

Finally, Juliette spoke. ‘It wasn’t last night, but I saw a man up on the cliffs the night before that. It’s quite unusual to see anyone up there, as the path to the cliffs is steep and treacherous.’ Juliette lived with their feline friend Julie at the rectory of St. Michael’s church, which was below the cliffs. She often cat-napped in the belfry, which afforded a birds-eye view of the cliffs. That was when the two cats weren’t wreaking havoc in the rectory by spooling toilet paper off the rolls.

‘Are you sure it was a man? It might have been Barbara Littlefield. You know how she mothers that Lousewort.’

The cats all made a face at the mention of the noxious herb. Lousewort smelled like wet dogs and tasted even worse.

Juliette narrowed her luminescent blue eyes. ‘Of course I’m sure. I have excellent vision. It was a man and he was short, fat and bald.’

‘That sounds like Charles,’ Marlowe said.

‘And that would explain why he smelled like wet dogs and seagulls,’ Nero added. All the cats knew the seagulls nested near the cliffs and liked to eat the flockenberries that grew on the cliffside.

Nero nodded sagely. ‘Indeed, but what was he doing up there and why would that have anything to do with his death?’

‘We’ll have to sniff around town and see what we can dig up,’ Boots said.

‘I’ll listen in on Father Timothy’s confessions. Perhaps the culprit will confess,’ Juliette offered.

‘If only it would be that easy.’ Boots preened his mustache. ‘What we need to do is set our superior brains to thinking of the solution. Are there any other clues?’

‘Only a missing cookbook,’ Nero said. ‘Oh, and it appears that someone was trying to cover the crime up and make it look like an accident. Someone had sabotaged the stairs at the guesthouse to make it look like the victim fell.’

‘And it almost worked except Nero here discovered the truth and we showed the clue to the Sheriff,’ Marlowe said proudly.

‘The Sheriff does need a certain amount of… help,’ Stubbs said.

‘That’s why we need to get cracking on this.’ Nero swished his tail with urgency. ‘We need to find out if there was anything going on with the victim and someone in town. He must have been up to something to get himself killed. Can I count on you guys to scour the town, eavesdrop on all conversations and report back if you hear anything?’

‘Yes!’

‘Certainly.’

‘Of course.’

‘Consider it done.’

‘Good.’ Nero surveyed his gang of feline friends with pride. If there was something to be discovered about Charles’ behavior, they’d ferret it out. He also knew the most important clues would be closer to home. ‘Meanwhile, Marlowe and I will go sniff around the guesthouse and see what we can dig up.’

I didn’t see any sense in doing something that would cause Seth Chamberlain to suspect me any more than he already did, so I was reattaching the crime scene tape to the door when Ava Grantham came down the hall and caught us.

‘Doing a little amateur detective work?’ At first I was worried she might be the type who would tell the police that we were in the room, but her tone was laced with curiosity and her eyes sparkled with mischief, so I doubted she disapproved.

‘No, the tape fell off and I was just reattaching it,’ I said, just in case my assessment of her attitude was wrong.

She surveyed us with narrowed eyes. ‘Uh huh…’

Millie didn’t miss a chance to question another suspect. ‘Didn’t you mention that Charles was working on a cookbook?’

Ava shrugged. ‘That was the rumor in newspaper circles. Why?’

‘Well do you see it in there?’ Millie pointed to the bookcase.

Ava leaned over the tape for a closer look. ‘No, those are all already published. His wasn’t published yet. He usually makes notes in one of those binders, you know the refillable kind that you used to use in school?’

‘A three-ring binder?’

‘Yeah, that’s the one.’

I glanced back at the bookcase. No three-ring binder. Maybe the police had taken it.

‘We didn’t find any binder in there,’ Mom said.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he just started that rumor to make himself look important and wasn’t even working on anything. He was washed up old has-been.’ Ava leaned toward us and lowered her voice. ‘It’s a mystery to me how the women still found him so attractive.’

‘They did?’ I couldn’t imagine anyone finding Charles Prescott attractive, and judging by the sour looks on Mom and Millie’s faces neither could they.

‘Yes, can you believe it? Of course he used to be a looker back in the day, but now… well you saw him. Nothing to write home about. But I heard he still had a string of women.’ Ava glanced down the hallway, then turned back to them and lowered her voice again, this time to a whisper. ‘He even had one here.’

‘Here?’ Millie looked aghast.

‘Yep, I saw Tina coming out of his room late the other night.’

‘The other night? You mean the night he was killed? Are you sure?’ Mom asked.

‘I’m as sure as a monkey’s uncle. But it wasn’t last night. It was the night before. See, I’d fallen asleep in front of the TV in the sitting room and I was coming up the back stairs over there.’ Ava pointed to the stairway at the end of the hall. ‘When I saw Charles’ door open, I must confess, I ducked into the bathroom and hid behind the door because I didn’t want to talk to him. But it wasn’t Charles who came out. It was Tina.’

‘Did she say anything about why she was in there?’ I still couldn’t picture pretty Tina cavorting with Charles, but stranger things have happened.

‘I didn’t talk to her. I ducked back behind the door and I guess she just slunk off to her own room because I heard a door close, and when I peeked out the hall was empty. She never saw me.’

Millie turned to me. ‘Did you get any indication that they were that chummy?’

‘Not at all. It seemed like they didn’t even know each other.’ I thought back to the interactions I’d seen between Tina and Charles. Charles had arrived four days ago, Tina had arrived the next day. Had they acted a little strangely around each other? It did seem like they’d made a point to avoid each other. Was I reading things into it because of what I now knew?

‘Well that is his modus operandi,’ Ava said. ‘He has a wife back home, so when he has these affairs, he just pretends like he doesn’t know the girls. Oh, there were plenty of young girls at the papers we worked at years ago who were quite smitten with him. Though even then, I couldn’t figure out what they saw in him.’

‘Tina did seem overly upset at his death, didn’t she?’ Mom asked.

Millie chewed her bottom lip and glanced back at the door to Tina’s room. ‘Yes, she did. Was that because her lover had been killed or perhaps because she had killed him and was afraid of getting caught?’

‘I wouldn’t be so quick to pin the murder on her. She seems like a nice person and if you ask me, there are plenty of people who would’ve wanted Charles Prescott dead,’ Ava said.

Mom’s eyes widened. ‘Really? You mean like old lovers?’

‘Or his wife?’ Millie asked.

‘Not just them. Charles was a jerk. He wasn’t above stepping on someone to get ahead, throwing a co-worker under the bus or even blackmailing someone if he had something on them. I say good riddance to him.’ Ava shot a sour look into Charles’ room, then turned and strode down the hall.

We watched her go into her room before Millie turned toward the stairs. ‘Come on, we’ve got our work cut out for us. If what Ava says is true, we need to prove that there was a connection between Tina and Charles.’