The Whole Cat and Caboodle: Second Chance Cat Mystery

Chapter 1

Elvis was sitting in the middle of my desk when I opened the door to my office. The cat, not the King of Rock and Roll, although the cat had an air of entitlement about him sometimes, as though he thought he was royalty. He had one jet-black paw on top of a small cardboard box—my new business cards, I was hoping.

“How did you get in here?” I asked.

His ears twitched but he didn’t look at me. His green eyes were fixed on the vintage Wonder Woman lunch box in my hand. I was having an early lunch, and Elvis seemed to want one as well.

“No,” I said firmly. I dropped onto the retro red womb chair I’d brought up from the shop downstairs, kicked off my sneakers, and propped my feet on the matching footstool. The chair was so comfortable. To me, the round shape was like being cupped in a soft, warm, giant hand. I knew the chair had to go back down to the shop, but I was still trying to figure out a way to keep it for myself.

Before I could get my sandwich out of the yellow vinyl lunch box, the big, black cat landed on my lap. He wiggled his back end, curled his tail around his feet and looked from the bag to me.

“No,” I said again. Like that was going to stop him.

He tipped his head to one side and gave me a pitiful look made all the sadder because he had a fairly awesome scar cutting across the bridge of his nose.

I took my sandwich out of the lunch can. It was roast beef on a hard roll with mustard, tomatoes and dill pickles. The cat’s whiskers quivered. “One bite,” I said sternly. “Cats eat cat food. People eat people food. Do you want to end up looking like the real Elvis in his chunky days?”

He shook his head, as if to say, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

I pulled a tiny bit of meat out of the roll and held it out. Elvis ate it from my hand, licked two of my fingers and then made a rumbly noise in his throat that sounded a lot like a sigh of satisfaction. He jumped over to the footstool, settled himself next to my feet and began to wash his face. After a couple of passes over his fur with one paw he paused and looked at me, eyes narrowed—his way of saying, “Are you going to eat that or what?”

I ate.

By the time I’d finished my sandwich Elvis had finished his meticulous grooming of his face, paws and chest. I patted my legs. “C’mon over,” I said.

He swiped a paw at my jeans. There was no way he was going to hop onto my lap if he thought he might get a crumb on his inky black fur. I made an elaborate show of brushing off both legs. “Better?” I asked.

Elvis meowed his approval and walked his way up my legs, poking my thighs with his front paws—no claws, thankfully—and wiggling his back end until he was comfortable.

I reached for the box on my desk, keeping one hand on the cat. I’d guessed correctly. My new business cards were inside. I pulled one out and Elvis leaned sideways for a look. The cards were thick, brown, recycled card stock, with SECOND CHANCE, THE REPURPOSE SHOP, angled across the top in heavy red letters, and SARAH GRAYSON and my contact information, all in black, in the bottom right corner.

Second Chance was a cross between an antique store and a thrift shop. We sold furniture and housewares—many things repurposed from their original use, like the tub chair that in its previous life had actually been a tub. As for the name, the business was sort of a second chance—for the cat and for me. We’d been open only a few months and I was amazed at how busy we already were.

The shop was in a redbrick building from the late 1800s on Mill Street, in downtown North Harbor, Maine, just where the street curved and began to climb uphill. We were about a twenty-minute walk from the harbor front and easily accessed from the highway—the best of both worlds. My grandmother held the mortgage on the property and I wanted to pay her back as quickly as I could.

“What do you think?” I said, scratching behind Elvis’s right ear. He made a murping sound, cat-speak for “good,” and lifted his chin. I switched to stroking the fur on his chest.

He started to purr, eyes closed. It sounded a lot like there was a gas-powered generator running in the room.

“Mac and I went to look at the Harrington house,” I said to him. “I have to put together an offer, but there are some pieces I want to buy, and you’re definitely going with me next time.” Eighty-year-old Mabel Harrington was on a cruise with her new beau, a ninety- one-year-old retired doctor with a bad toupee and lots of money. They were moving to Florida when the cruise was over.

One green eye winked open and fixed on my face. Elvis’s unofficial job at Second Chance was rodent wrangler.

“Given all the squeaks and scrambling sounds I heard when I poked my head through the trapdoor to the attic, I’m pretty sure the place is the hotel for some kind of mouse convention.”

Elvis straightened up, opened his other eye, and licked his lips. Chasing mice, birds, bats and the occasional bug was his idea of a very good time.

I’d had Elvis for about four months. As far as I could find out, the cat had spent several weeks on his own, scrounging around downtown North Harbor.

The town sits on the midcoast of Maine. “Where the hills touch the sea” is the way it’s been described for the past 250 years. North Harbor stretches from the Swift Hills in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. It was settled by Alexander Swift in the late 1760s. It’s full of beautiful, historic buildings, award-winning restaurants and quirky little shops. Where else could you buy a blueberry muffin, a rare book and fishing gear all on the same street?

The town’s population is about thirteen thousand, but that more than triples in the summer with tourists and summer residents. It grew by one black cat one evening in late May. Elvis just appeared at The Black Bear. Sam, who owns the pub, and his pickup band, The Hairy Bananas—long story on the name—were doing their Elvis Presley medley when Sam noticed a black cat sitting just inside the front door. He swore the cat stayed put through the entire set and left only when they launched into their version of the Stones’ “Satisfaction.”

The cat was back the next morning, in the narrow alley beside the shop, watching Sam as he took a pile of cardboard boxes to the recycling bin. “Hey, Elvis. Want some breakfast?” Sam had asked after tossing the last flattened box in the bin. To his surprise, the cat walked up to him and meowed a loud yes.

He showed up at the pub about every third day for the next couple of weeks. The cat clearly wasn’t wild—he didn’t run from people—but no one seemed to know who Elvis (the name had stuck) belonged to. The scar on his nose wasn’t new; neither were a couple of others on his back, hidden by his fur. Then someone remembered a guy in a van who had stayed two nights at the campgrounds up on Mount Batten. He’d had a cat with him. It was black. Or black and white. Or possibly gray. But it definitely had a scar on its nose. Or it was missing an ear. Or maybe part of a tail.

Elvis was still perched on my lap, staring off into space, thinking about stalking rodents out at the old Harrington house, I was guessing.

I glanced over at the carton sitting on the walnut sideboard that I used for storage in the office. The fact that it was still there meant that Arthur Fenety hadn’t come in while Mac and I had been gone. I was glad. I was hoping I’d be at the shop when Fenety came back for the silver tea service that was packed in the box.

A couple of days prior he had brought the tea set into my shop. Fenety had a charming story about the ornate pieces that he said had belonged to his mother. A bit too charming for my taste, like the man himself. Arthur Fenety was somewhere in his seventies, tall with a full head of white hair, a matching mustache and an engaging smile to go with his polished demeanor. He could have gotten a lot more for the tea set at an antique store or an auction. Something about the whole transaction felt off.

Elvis had been sitting on the counter by the cash register and Fenety had reached over to stroke his fur. The cat didn’t so much as twitch a whisker, but his ears had flattened and he’d looked at the older man with his green eyes half-lidded, pupils narrowed. He was the picture of skepticism.

The day after he’d brought the pieces in, Fenety had called to ask if he could buy them back. The more I thought about it, the more suspicious the whole thing felt. The tea set hadn’t been on the list of stolen items from the most recent police update, but I still had a niggling feeling about it and Arthur Fenety.

“Time to do some work,” I said to Elvis. “Let’s go downstairs and see what’s happening in the store.”

The cat jumped down to the floor and shook himself, and then he had to pause and pass a paw over his face. Elvis knew store meant “people,” especially tourists, and tourists meant “new people who would generally take one look at the scar on his face and be overcome with the urge to stroke his fur and tell him what a sweet kitty he was.”

I put on some lipstick and gave my head a shake. I’d gotten my thick, dark brown hair from my father and my dark eyes from my mom. I’d just cut my hair in long layers to my shoulders a couple of weeks previous. If we were moving furniture or I was going for a run I could still pull it back in a ponytail. Otherwise I could pretty much shake my head and my hair looked okay.

One of my part-time staff members, Avery, was by the cash register downstairs, nestling three mismatched soup bowls that had gotten a second life as herb planters into a box half-filled with shredded paper. Her hair was the color of cranberry sauce, and she’d shown up that morning with elaborate henna tattoos covering the backs of both hands. They were beautiful. (She claimed the look was all part of her “rebellious teenager” phase.) Avery worked afternoons in the store—her progressive private school had only morning classes—and full days when there was no school, like today.

I’d had a few rebellious moments myself as a teenager, so Avery’s style didn’t bother me. She was smart and hardworking, and even though one of the main reasons I’d hired her was because she was the granddaughter of one of my gram’s closest friends, I kept her because she did a good job. And my customers seemed to like her.

Mac, the store’s resident jack-of-all-trades, was showing a customer a tall metal postman’s desk that we’d reclaimed from the basement of a house near the harbor. We’d had to cut the desk apart to get it up the narrow, cramped steps and through the door to the kitchen. Mac had banged out all the dents, put everything back together and then painted the piece a deep sky blue, even though I’d voted for basic black. I watched him hand the customer a tape measure, then give me a knowing smile across the room.

I could see the muscles in his arms move under his long-sleeved gray T-shirt. He was tall and fit with close-cropped black hair and light brown skin. Avery had given Mac the nickname Wall Street. He’d been a financial planner but had ditched his high-powered life to come to Maine and sail. In his free time he crewed for pretty much anyone who asked. There were eight windjammer schooners based in North Harbor, along with dozens of other sailing vessels. Mac was looking for space where he could build his own boat. He worked for me because he said he liked fixing things.

Second Chance had been open for a little less than four months. The main floor was one big open area, with some storage behind the staircase to the second floor. My office was under the eaves on the second floor. There was also a minuscule staff room and one other large space that was being used for storage.

Some things we offered in the shop were vintage kitsch, like my yellow vinyl Wonder Woman lunch box—with matching thermos. Some things were like Elvis—working on a new incarnation, like the electric blue shelving unit that used to be a floor-model TV console. Everything in the store was on its second or sometimes third life.

Our stock came from lots of different places: flea markets, yard sales, people looking to downsize. Mac had even trash-picked a metal bed frame that we’d sold for a very nice profit. A couple of Dumpster divers had been stopping by fairly regularly and in the last month I’d bought items from the estates of three different people. So far, rummaging around in boxes and closets I’d found half a dozen wills, a diamond ring, a set of false teeth, a stuffed armadillo and a box of ashes that thankfully were the remains of someone’s long-ago love letters and not, well, the remains of someone.

We sold some items in the store on consignment. Others, like the post office desk, we’d buy outright and refurbish. Mac could repair just about anything, and I was pretty good at coming up with new ways to use old things. And if I ran out of ideas, I could just call my mom, who was a master at giving new life to other people’s discards.

Elvis had headed for a couple that was browsing near the guitars on the back wall. The young woman crouched down, stroking his fur and making sympathetic noises about his nose. The young man moved a couple of steps sideways to take a closer look at a Washburn mandolin from the ’70s, with a spruce top and ebony fingerboard.

Avery had finished with the customer at the counter. She walked over and lifted the mandolin down from its place on the wall and handed it to the young man. “Why don’t you give it a try?” she said. I knew as soon as he had it in his hands he’d be sold.

Avery glanced down at Elvis. He tipped his furry head to one side, leaning into the hand of the young woman who was scratching the top of his head, commanding all her attention, and it almost looked as though he winked at Avery.

A musical instrument was the reason I’d ended up with Elvis—that and his slightly devious nature. I’d taken a guitar down to Sam for a second opinion on what it was worth. Sam Newman and my dad had grown up together. I could play, and I knew a little about some of the older models, but Sam knew more about guitars than anyone I’d ever met. I’d found him sitting in one of the back booths with a cup of coffee and a pile of sheet music. The cat was on the opposite banquette, eating what looked suspiciously to me like scrambled eggs and salami.

Sam had moved his mug and the music out of the way, and I’d set the guitar case on the table. Elvis studied me for a moment and then went back to his breakfast.

“Who’s your friend?” I asked, tipping my head toward the cat.

“That’s Elvis,” Sam said, flipping open the latches on the battered Tolex case with his long fingers. He was tall and lean, his shaggy hair a mix of blond and white.

“Really?” I said. “The King of Rock and Roll was reincarnated as a cat?”

Sam looked at me over the top of his dollar-store reading glasses. “Ha, ha. You’re so funny.”

I made a face at him. Elvis was watching me again. “Move over.” I gestured with one hand. To my surprise the cat obligingly scooted around to the other side of the plate. “Thank you,” I said, sliding onto the burgundy vinyl. He dipped his head, almost as though he were saying, “You’re welcome,” and went back to his scrambled eggs. They were definitely Sam’s specialty. I could smell the salami.

“Is this the cat I’ve been hearing about?” I asked.

Sam was engrossed in examining the vintage Fender. “What? Oh yeah, it is.”

Elvis’s ears twitched, as though he knew we were talking about him.

“Why Elvis?”

Sam shrugged. “He doesn’t seem to like the Stones, so naming him Mick was kinda out of the question.” He waved a hand in the direction of the bar. “There’s coffee.”

That was Sam’s way of telling me to stop talking so he could focus his full attention on the candy apple red Stratocaster. I got up and went behind the bar for the coffee, careful to keep the mug well out of the way of the old guitar when I brought it back to the table. Elvis had finished eating and was washing his face.

“What do you think?” I asked after a couple of minutes of silence. Sam’s head was bent over the neck of the guitar, examining the fret board.

“Gimme a second,” he said.

I waited, and after another minute or so he straightened up, pulling a hand over the back of his neck. “So, tell me what you think,” he said, setting his glasses on the table.

I put my coffee cup on the floor beside my feet before I answered. “Based on what the homeowner told me it’s a 1966. It belonged to her husband. It’s not mint, but it’s in good shape. There’s some buckle wear on the back, but overall it’s been taken care of. I think it’s the real thing and I think it could bring twelve to fifteen thousand.”

Beside me Elvis gave a loud meow.

“The cat agrees,” I said.

“That makes three of us, then,” Sam said.

I grinned at him across the table. “Thanks.”

When I got up to leave, Elvis jumped down and followed me. “I think you made a friend,” Sam said. He walked me out to my truck, set the guitar carefully on the passenger’s side, and then wrapped me in a bear hug. He smelled like coffee and Old Spice. “Come by Saturday night, if you’re free,” he said. “I think you’ll like the band.”

“Old stuff?” I asked, pulling my keys out of the pocket of my jeans.

“Hey, it’s gotta be rock-and-roll music if you wanna dance with me,” he said, raising his eyebrows and giving me a sly smile. He looked down at Elvis, who had been sitting by the truck, watching us. “C’mon, you. You’re gonna get turned into roadkill if you stay here.” He reached for the cat, who jumped up onto the front seat.

“Hey, get down from there,” I said.

Elvis ignored me, made his way along the black vinyl seat and settled himself on the passenger’s side, next to the guitar case.

“No, no, no, you can’t come with me.” I leaned into the truck to grab him, but he slipped off the seat, onto the floor mat. With the guitar there I couldn’t reach him.

Behind me, I could hear Sam laughing.

I blew my hair out of my face, backed out of the truck and glared at Sam. “Your cat’s in my truck. Do something!”

He folded his arms over his chest. “He’s not my cat. I’m pretty sure he’s your cat now.”

“I don’t want a cat.”

“Tell him that,” Sam said with a shrug.

I stuck my head back through the open driver’s door. “I don’t want a cat,” I said.

Ensconced out of my reach in the little lean-to made by the guitar case, Elvis looked up from washing his face—again—and meowed once and went back to it.

“I have a dog,” I warned. “A big, mean one with big, mean teeth.” The cat’s whiskers didn’t so much as quiver.

Sam leaned over my shoulder. “No, she doesn’t,” he said.

I elbowed him. “You’re not helping.”

He laughed. “Look, the cat likes you.” He rolled his eyes. “Lord knows why. Take him. Do you want him to just keep living on the street?”

“No,” I mumbled. I glanced in the truck again. Elvis, with some kind of uncanny timing, chose that moment to tip his head to one side and look up at me with his big green eyes. With his scarred nose he looked . . . lonely.

“What am I going to do with a cat?” I said, bouncing the keys in my right hand.

Sam shrugged. “Feed him. Talk to him. Scratch under his chin. He likes that.”

I glanced at the cat again. He still had that lonely, slightly pathetic look going.

“You two will make a great team,” Sam said. “Like Lennon and McCartney or Jagger and Richards.”

“SpongeBob and Patrick,” I muttered.

“Exactly,” Sam said.

I was pretty sure I was being conned, but, like it or not, I had a cat.

I looked over now toward the end wall of the store. My cat had apparently helped sell a mandolin. The young man was headed to the cash register with it. Elvis made his way over to me.

I leaned over to stroke the top of his head. “Nice work,” I whispered. I wasn’t imagining the cat smile he gave me.

The woman who had been looking at the post office desk was headed for the door, but there was a certain smugness to Mac’s expression that told me he’d made the sale. I walked over to him. “Go ahead, say ‘I told you so,’” I said.

He folded his arms over his chest. “I can’t. I’m fairly certain she’s going to buy it. She just wishes it were black.”

I laughed. “I guess black really is the new black,” I said. “I’m about ready to leave. I have to pick up Charlotte, and Avery is going to get her grandmother. Do you need anything before I go?”

I was doing a workshop on color-washing furniture for a group of seniors over at Legacy Place. North Harbor was full of beautiful old buildings. It was part of the town’s charm. The top floors of the old chocolate factory had been converted into seniors’ apartments. There were a couple of community rooms on the main level, where the residents had various classes like French and yoga and got together to socialize. We were using one of them for the workshop since many of the class participants lived in the building. Eventually I wanted to renovate part of the old garage next to the Second Chance building for workshops; for now, when I did classes for the general public, I had to settle for renting space at the high school. Luckily the hourly rate was pretty good. This workshop was a freebie my gram had nudged me into doing.

Mac shook his head. “I’ve got everything covered.” He narrowed his brown eyes at me. “Are you sure it’s a good idea to make Avery go with you?”

“Actually she volunteered.”

“Avery volunteered to help you teach a workshop for a bunch of senior citizens?” One eyebrow shot up. “Seriously?”

“Seriously. She’s good with older people. They’ll be feeding her cookies and exclaiming over her hair color, and before you know it she’ll have wangled an invitation to go prowl around someone’s attic.” Avery had a thing for vintage jewelry, and thanks to her grandmother Liz’s friends, was building a nice collection.

I pressed my hands into the small of my back and stretched. I was still kinked from crawling around that old house all morning. “You know, I used to hang around with some of those same women when I was Avery’s age.” I’d spent my summers in North Harbor with my grandmother as far back as I could remember. The rest of the time I’d lived first in upstate New York and then in New Hampshire. “Liz taught me how to wax my legs and put on false eyelashes.”

“I could have gone the rest of my life not knowing that,” Mac said dryly.

“And I know the secret to Charlotte’s potpie,” I teased.

“You’re not going to say it’s love, are you?”

I shook my head and grinned. “Nope. Actually it’s bacon fat.”

My father had been an only child and so was my mother, so I didn’t have a gaggle of cousins to hang out with in the summer. My grandmother’s friends, Charlotte, Liz and Rose had become a kind of surrogate extended family, a trio of indulgent aunts. When I’d decided to open Second Chance, they’d been almost as pleased as my grandmother, and Charlotte and Rose had come to work for me part-time. Now with Gram out of town on her honeymoon, the three women fed me, gently nagged me about working too much and pointed out every single man between twenty-five and, well, death. When Gram had asked me to offer one of my workshops to her friends, how could I say no?

I glanced at my watch. “I don’t expect to be more than a couple of hours,” I said. “And I have my cell.”

“Elvis and I can hold down the fort,” Mac said. “Are you going to take another look at that SUV?”

I’d been thinking about replacing the aging truck we used to move furniture with an SUV, if I could get it for the right price. “I might,” I said.

“Well, take your time,” Mac said. “It’s Monday afternoon. Nothing ever happens in this town on a Monday.”

Of course he was wrong.