Hairless Harassment

Chapter Five

All of Octo-Cat’s previous sorrow evaporated the moment we pulled into the long, winding driveway of Fulton Manor.

“Home!” he yowled, even being so brave as to detach his claws from my thigh so he could prop himself up and look out the window. “Oh, it feels so good to be home!”

I parked and opened my driver’s side door, and he immediately jumped over me to get to the ground outside. “Home!” he continued to cry as he rolled back and forth in the grass like a crazy kitty.

I was just about to ask him to rein it in when he raced up the porch steps and through his specialty cat door, which slid open in response to a special signal his collar emitted. All this time I’d never replaced his collar and he’d never asked me to. He probably always knew we’d end up here someday. After all, he’d engineered the entire thing.

Octo-Cat had clearly found a way to keep himself occupied. Meanwhile, the movers were still packing things up at my old rental, which gave me a little bit of time alone with my new mansion now.

A mansion! And it belonged to me!

Ridiculous.

But, okay, also super cool.

My eyes moved up the three stories all the way to the turret rising up beyond the far side of the roof. I’d already decided to make my bedroom there in the tippity top tower just like some kind of weirdo modern-day princess. Nan had claimed the master bedroom, which had belonged to Ethel before she died. It was also where she had died, and I just felt icky about being in the same house, let alone the very same bedroom.

Nan simply laughed and said, “Oh, sweetie pie. Death is a part of life.” I figured at her advanced age, it must not bother her as much as it did me. Personally, I hoped I never reached the point in life where I was comfortable sleeping in the same spot a dead body had lain only months before.

It was eerie enough moving into a house that had served as the scene of a murder. In fact, I was still working on coming to terms with it. By now, I felt pretty sure my first electric bill would be many hundreds of dollars, seeing as I planned to sleep with every single light on until I no longer felt afraid of my own house.

Had it been my choice, I’d never have picked a dwelling so grand. But Octo-Cat had insisted upon it. Even Mr. Fulton—my former boss—seemed happy to be unloading the house quickly, even at a substantial loss to himself and the other heirs.

As I watched Octo-Cat run back and forth through the cat door, moaning with delight each and every time, I really did have to admit the place suited him. So what if he was a common housecat? Looks could be deceiving, and his heart was definitely bourgeois to the max.

I left him to his merriment and grabbed one of the lighter boxes from my trunk. Inside, a thin veil of dust clung to almost every possible surface. I probably should have cleaned it out before moving in, but I didn’t exactly have the cash to hire someone. Besides, the move had happened so suddenly, I barely had time to pack, let alone do much of anything else.

We’d get to it. Eventually.

Just add it to the bottom of my never-ending to-do list. Or maybe somewhere in the middle.

My goal was to have the place at least livable before Nan joined us at the end of the month. She needed more time to pack up the entire life she’d lived in Blueberry Bay as well as all her mementos from her time on Broadway.

I understood that, so I didn’t tell her how the thought of sleeping in this giant place alone frightened me to the very core. I had Octo-Cat, who may or may not protect me in the event of danger. A fifty-fifty shot was still better than having zero help, if the need for it were to suddenly occur.

Another unsettling thing?

Fulton Manor and Harlow Manor next door had almost the exact same blueprint. Although they were both built well before the rise of the McMansion, I guess somebody had liked the first so much, they’d decided to build a second almost exactly like it.

Somehow, I found myself drifting toward the grand staircase time and again. It looked so much like the one next door that it made me shudder each time I passed. I was like a deranged moth drawn right into the middle of the flame. Burn, baby, burn.

“What’s wrong with you?” my cat asked, eyeing me wearily after his ten-millionth time through the cat door.

I shrugged. “Just a bit weirded out by the murder next door.”

He stopped dead in his tracks, not even putting his front left paw all the way down as he stared at me. “Wait, what? Somebody killed that nice old lady? When?”

Oh, that was right. We hadn’t gotten the chance to talk yet, given the entire teacup episode. “This morning,” I told him, watching him carefully to see how he’d react once he had more information. “Or, probably last night, actually.”

He gasped and stomped his paw down onto the hardwood floor. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“There was that whole thing with the teacup, and I… I’m sorry.” I apologized, knowing that it was the most surefire way to avoid an altercation. Octo-Cat loved fighting and hated losing, which meant I was constantly on the bum end of that deal.

He shook his head in dismay and stared at me for an uncomfortably long time before trotting up a few stairs and positioning himself just so. “Go on. Tell me now,” he demanded. “I need to know exactly what happened.”

I felt nervous under the spotlight of his scrutinous gaze but did as I was told. For as much as he was supposed to be my pet, it really felt as if I were the one who’d been trained. “The senator was killed. Someone pushed her down the staircase,” I explained.

“The staircase!” Octo-Cat exclaimed, lifting one paw and then the other while he stared at the stoop beneath him.

I nodded dumbly, unable to form words just then.

“Jacques and Jillianne,” he somehow managed to hiss between clenched teeth. “I’ll skin them alive, those good for nothings.” He jogged down the steps and was just about to dart out the cat door again before I stopped him.

“Wait!” I cried. “You know Jacques and Jillianne?” I felt so stupid every time I said their Frenchified names. Why did cats need such fancy names? Octo-Cat was bad enough with his eight names, but at least all of them were in English. Wait. They were, right? It was honestly kind of hard to remember, thus his new and improved—and much, much shorter—moniker.

He sighed but kept his back to me. His tiny kitty shoulders heaved with the weight of his obvious disappointment in me. “Of course I know them. We used to live next door and—will you look at that?—now we do again.”

“Are you friends?” I asked eagerly, running a half circle around him so that we were once again face to face.

He looked like he was about to sneeze. He didn’t. Instead, he said, “With those weirdos? No way.”

“I mean, they look a little different, but that’s not a reason to—”

“It’s not their looks, Angela. It’s the way they talk.” He growled at me, much like the big hairless cat had that morning.

I wasn’t sure what game we were playing here, but I hated to be left out. I shook my head and scowled at him. “You’re not sounding any less racist here. Or is it breedist? Whatever the case, not a shining moment from you.”

He simply chuckled. “Oh, you’ll see what I mean. Give it some time. Shouldn’t take too long.”

He trotted up a few steps and then turned back to me, something I couldn’t quite interpret shining in his eyes. “By the way,” he said as if a sudden thought had just occurred to him.

“Death by staircase? Yeah, classic cat move.”

“What do you—?” I started.

He cut me off with a villainous laugh he liked to trot out whenever he wanted to be particularly theatrical. Apparently, this was one of those blessed times.

“I mean,” he said, between manic gasps for air. “Jacques and Jillianne killed your senator. The cats are guilty. Case closed.” He sulked slowly away, still laughing to himself.

I took two giant steps back, feeling like I’d just looked into the void and saw my death play out before my very eyes. Whatever happened next, I’d make sure to watch my step when it came to the grand staircase I’d once considered the crowning feature of my new home.

Octo-Cat’s laughter echoed through the halls. Why was this so funny to him? Why was he still laughing, and about this?

Apparently, he and my mom shared the same morbid fascination with the senator’s death. Too bad they both talked to me instead of each other.

It’s just his way, I reminded myself. He likes being the center of attention. He’d never actually hurt you.

But then I thought of all those little old cat ladies who died in the city only to be devoured by their most beloved pets and shuddered again…

Well, at least I knew Octo-Cat would only eat Fancy Feast.