Library Cat Magical Mysteries Box Set (Books 1-3), page 29
“No, he wasn’t,” she said. There were tears coming down her cheeks. “But he was talented and driven and focused. An old jerk like him? I honestly thought he’d live to bury us all.”
“Not you,” Lizzie said. “You’re all of, what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-four,” she said. “But you know what I mean.”
“I do,” I said. “And I hope they catch his killer soon.”
“A poisoned donut,” she said. “What kind of crazy place is this?”
Before we could answer, she walked out the door.
“Did you see that?” Lizzie asked excitedly.
“See what?”
“I thought you said the assistant was old?”
“I thought she was,” I said. “She was knitting and watching Murder, She Wrote when I called her. And she said she read all his books when she was younger.”
“Then she must have read his books when she was a fetus. She’s young and blond. And she had a ring on her finger. That’s what the report said. Young, blonde and married. Maybe she was Walter’s mistress. That’s motive and opportunity. That’s what they say about busy men, they have affairs with someone close by.”
“But he was so old,” I said. “And not in a Sean Connery sort of way.”
“He had money,” Lizzie said. “A man’s attractiveness is, sadly, influenced by the size of his bank account.”
“Maybe for you,” I said.
Lizzie let out a laugh. “Then you haven’t seen my husband’s bank statement. I didn’t mean me. But some women. Anyway, it’s worth looking into.”
“She fits the description,” I said. “Okay, we’ll check her out and then tell Rend.”
Just then, my phone chimed with a notification. It was a text from my neighbor, Vittoria.
Francie. Please keep your cat out of my prized azaleas. They do not need any extra ‘fertilizer.’
“Kong!” I yelled.
“No yelling in the library,” Lizzie reminded me.
“Bring me the leader of the Kat Squad,” I said. “I’m about to stage a mutiny. Who’s with me?”
- - -
Sophie tagged along with me to Saguaro Estates for the afternoon memoir workshop. I set her up with a desk and instructions to do her homework. She asked if she could write her memoirs instead and I told her to go for it.
Sophie had gotten wrapped up in a terrible crime a few months ago. A maniac had committed a murder, then held her hostage while trying to escape town. She’d bounced back remarkably well, owing to both the resilience of youth and her extreme maturity. Still, I was afraid that writing about that experience would rip open her wounds.
Romulo was already there, setting up his laptop and the screen. He was really getting the hang of this teaching thing. He seemed so easygoing, approachable and encouraging to the residents. Could he have really poisoned Walter Crabtree?
“You brought the pipsqueak along,” Hortensia said. “Now we can’t give Romulo the third degree.”
“We were going to give him the third degree?” I asked.
“Why else did I bring my strike-anywhere matches and nail scissors?”
“To have a smoke and trim a troublesome hangnail?”
“Good idea,” she said.
That crazy old lady was going to be the death of me.
“Hello, everyone,” Romulo said, calling the class to attention. “Did you all complete your writing assignments?”
“The printer was out of paper,” Mabel said.
“I forgot if the Bruce Springsteen concert was in 1972 or if that was Bob Seger. They both have the same initials,” Irenia said.
“That was Bob Seger,” Mabel said. “Are you getting senile? How could you forget? We were in the front row at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum.”
“Bob Seger wasn’t at the Coliseum,” Irenia said. “Def Leppard was at the Coliseum. Bob Seger was at the Forum, remember we rode our brooms all the way to Los Angeles?”
“Nonsense,” Mabel said. “You’ve got your wires crossed.”
“I remember it perfectly. He signed my ticket stub after the show. I still have it and I’ll prove it to you.”
“Ladies,” Romulo said. “I love your enthusiasm. As with most memoirists, sometimes the details are lost to time, and it is with our imaginations that we can bring color to the dull black and white memories.”
“Well said, pretty boy,” Hortensia said. “Now, if you’ll get on with the lesson. I’ve got a full and rich life I need to recount.”
“Great,” Romulo said. “Let’s think about our setting and how it can enhance a story…”
“Excuse me,” Irenia raised her hand. “I want to share something. It’s called, A Soldier’s Ode.”
Hortensia didn’t bother trying to conceal a groan.
“Of course,” Romulo said. “We’ll go around the room and you can each read a passage, if you want.”
“Twas a dark and stormy night when Sergeant Lewandowski led the charge…” Irenia started.
“I’m gonna catch a smoke while they’re reading,” Hortensia said. “Maybe two. This could take a while.”
I was annoyed by her brusque attitude. They’d poured their hearts into their writing assignments; it was disrespectful to get up in the middle of their reading.
Then I jerked awake when my head rolled down. I’d nodded off during Sherman’s three-page account of the time that he found a Kennedy half-dollar at the beach. “But it wasn’t even a silver one! They stopped using silver in 1965.”
Romulo gently guided them back on track to their next assignment. While they were working, I got up and went to the nurses’ station. “Excuse me,” I asked the girl on duty. She barely looked a day out of nursing school, but I remembered her from the morning Walter visited.
“Can I help you?” she said. Her nametag said Suzie.
“Suzie, you were working the morning that Walter Crabtree was here, right?”
“Yes,” she said. “That jerk. Usually people say, ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,’ but in this case, I do.”
“What happened, if I might ask?”
“He asked me to give him a sponge bath,” she said. That jogged my memory. I remembered him tugging on her sleeve and asking the lecherous question. “And when I ignored him, he threatened to have me fired. He said he’d tell the head nurse that I’d tried to sell him pills that I stole from the residents. Can you believe it?”
“Was he joking?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “He grabbed my wrist pretty hard. The only way I could get away without making a scene was because of him.” She tipped her head towards the writing seminar.
“Romulo?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I knew him from the Academy. I took the healers course, and he took general studies, being a man and all.”
The mutation that allowed witches to manipulate the vim energy and cast spells was only available to women. Men in our coven had a bit of the skill, but they couldn’t fully harness vim. They could perform magic in a limited capacity with the help of a special crystal known as a lacrima. They had to have a woman refill the lacrima with more magical energy when it was depleted, not unlike a vim allowance.
“Are you friends?” I asked. “You and Romulo. Or dating?”
“Friends,” she said. But her cheeks reddened. There was more to their relationship than she wanted to admit. Or did her blushing cheeks have nothing to do with romance and everything to do with murder?
Chapter 13
The rest of the writing workshop passed with excruciating slowness. My stomach growled, but I was only distantly aware of my physical needs. The list of suspects kept growing. “Come now, Francescza,” Kong said.
“When did the fuzzball get here?” Hortensia asked.
“An hour ago,” he said. “When Gordon was reading the passage about the time he disarmed a burglar. I have to admit, I never would have guessed the old man had it in him. The way he pets is so gentle, not a violent bone in his body.”
“That old coot?” Hortensia said. “He probably disarmed a burglar alarm by entering the secret code. I’m with you. Not even thirty years ago would he have had it in him.”
“You never know,” I said.
“I know everything,” Hortensia said. “I’ve got my finger on the pulse of this town.”
“Do you know where we can get some Modern Feline Unscented Scoopable Lightweight Cat Litter with Advanced Odor Control Technology?” Kong asked.
“What do I look like? Your personal shopper?”
“Finger on the pulse indeed,” he said. “Come along, Francescza, we must get to the Jibbleson Sisters’ workshop. They’ve got something for me.”
“No self-cleaning litterbox,” I said. “Not while it’s still in beta testing.”
“They’ve claimed to have created a clone recipe of Modern Feline Unscented Scoopable Lightweight Cat Litter with Advanced Odor Control Technology,” he said. “I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but they are talented girls.”
“There’s a killer in town,” Hortensia said. “And if people keep reading the cursed book, the whole town is going to be filled with raving lunatics. Yet you’re playing chauffeur to a cat?”
“Excuse me,” Kong said. “But I play an integral role in the administration of this town.”
“You do?” I asked. “This is news to me.”
“I need to be in tiptop shape in order to perform my executive functions,” he said. “And with my digestive system in turmoil, I’m not firing on all cylinders.”
“If the cat’s not happy,” I said, “no one’s happy.”
“The sooner you come to accept that, the easier your life will be,” Kong said.
“What about the silica litter?” I asked. “Wren said that she ordered some for you.”
“It was unacceptable,” Kong said. “The artificial stench was intolerable. Very low absorbency and it crumbled like a child’s sand castle. The pellets got stuck between my toes. I’m not sure how it even got to market. There are so many flaws.”
“Hortensia?” I asked. “Did you have a familiar? And if so, was it this big of a pain in the neck?”
“I had one, yes,” she said. She’s a voidwitch, a bit of a curmudgeon and a straight shooter. She’s a lot of things, but she’s never been morose.
But when I asked about the familiar?
A shadow passed across her eyes. They shined with regret. There was a story here, but I didn’t think she had the strength to tell it.
Kong took the hem of my Academy robe in his teeth and pulled me towards the exit. “Sorry, Hortensia,” I said. “I gotta go.”
“Look for that book,” she said. “That’s your job, you know. Your real job.”
“I know, I know,” I said. She was right. What could be more important than destroying evil?
“Jeyne said that they used bentonite clay with high gypsum content,” Kong said.
Oh yeah. Cat litter.
- - -
At their workshop, the Jibbleson sisters opened the big garage door wearing Santa Claus hats. Jeyne was wearing a pink hat and Jula was wearing a blue one. Both the girls’ hair was enchanted to appear snow-white and curly, but they’d stopped shy of sprouting beards to complete the ensemble.
“Christmas has come early!” Jeyne said.
“Ho Ho Ho!” Jula said.
“Come Dasher, Prancer, Donner, Vixen!” Jeyne said.
“Dancer, Francie, Kongressman Kittles!” Jula finished.
“Aren’t the two of you in luck?” Jeyne said. Despite their hats and curly white Santa hair, they were wearing their usual blue workman’s coveralls, smeared all over with grease.
“Thanks,” I said. “But really, it’s unnecessary, I—”
“First on the lineup, we have one sack of extra deluxe,” Jula said.
“Exceedingly fine,” Jeyne continued
“Supremely magnificent.”
“Ultra absorbency.”
“Maximum scoopability.”
“Pleasantly scented.”
“Custom-made.”
“Artisanally sourced.”
“Hand-crafted.”
“One of a kind.”
“Secret family recipe.”
“Mega Perfect-o Feline Excretion Mineral Media 9000,” Jeyne finished.
Kong actually sat up and clapped his front paws together. They made the cutest little thump thump sound. It drives him mad, how adorable and fuzzy he is.
“I cannot wait, my dears, I’m sure you’ve outdone yourselves this time. Your unparalleled brilliance will once again enrich the lives of all you come across. I don’t go around using the word ‘hero’ lightly, but you two are heroes,” Kong said. It might have been the dusty workshop and all the sawdust in the air, but I think he even wiped away a tear.
Jula dragged a burlap sack from behind the workbench and set it at my feet.
“Thanks,” I said. “You don’t know how insufferable he’s been since his brand of cat litter was discontinued.”
“You’d be cranky too if suddenly your toilet disappeared and you had to do your business elsewhere,” he snapped.
“Speaking of,” Jeyne said. “Did you try the toilet?”
“Sophie told us she’d potty trained you,” Jula said.
Kong must have been glad of his thick coat of fur, because I knew he was blushing right now. We’re spiritually connected and I could feel his humiliation swirling in my stomach.
“Please, girls, I beg of you, tell not a soul,” Kong said softly. “Sophie is so sweet, so earnest. It was impossible for me to dampen such innocent enthusiasm.”
At least now I had some blackmail material on the cat, should the need arise.
“Thanks,” I told the twins. I got my wand and was about to cast a lightening spell so I could carry it back home when Jeyne put her hand on my wrist.
“Not so fast,” she said. “You get a gift too.”
“It’s national librarian appreciation day,” Jula said.
“No it’s not,” Kong said. “There’s no such thing.”
“There should be,” I said. “And now’s as good a time as any to start.”
“Indeederoni,” Jula said. “Which is why you are now the sole owner of the one and only.”
“Single solitary,”
“Peerless,”
“Unrivaled,”
“Unparalleled,”
“Once in a lifetime,”
“Rare and singular,”
“Presto-Chango-Disguise-o-Tron 14.”
“Fourteen?” I asked. “It’s not the 3000 or 5000?”
“Well,” Jeyne said. “We’ve been trying to tone it down a little bit.”
“I can see,” I said.
Jeyne handed me a small tube that looked like a lipstick. At least, I thought it was lipstick. I’ve seen lipstick in movies and on TV, but that’s about the closest acquaintance I’ve ever made with the waxy pigment stick.
“You said this is a Disguise-o-Tron?” I asked. “I can change my appearance?”
“Within reason,” Jula explained. She popped the cap off and instead of a pointy red tube of lipstick, there were several fine strands that appeared to be wires. They were about an inch long and stuck out in all directions. “Point it and press the button.”
“Do I get any say in my disguise?” I asked.
“Nope,” Jula said.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Jeyne said.
“Does it change everything?” I ask. “My physical features or just my accessories and clothes?”
“It’s preloaded with ninety-nine character appearances,” Jula explained. “It will create an enchantment so that everyone around you will see the character projected.”
“What are some characters?” I asked.
“Old man with a cane, suspenders and a beard to his knees,” Jeyne said.
“Seven-year-old girl with pigtails and pink frilly tutu,” Jula said.
“Blond bombshell with stiletto heels and a red cocktail dress.”
“Morbidly obese man with a t-shirt two sizes too small.”
“Construction worker missing three fingers on his left hand.”
“Awkward teenage girl with thick glasses and cystic jawline acne.”
“Hey,” I said. “No fair. I don’t need to relive that one!”
“It’s random,” Jeyne said. “But the enchantment will work on you too, so if you look in the mirror, you’ll see the disguise.”
“And,” Jula said, beaming with pride, “we even got the magic to work on your voice. So it will fit the character perfectly.”
“This is actually a great gift,” I say. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” they said in unison.
“Why don’t you girls try to sell your inventions?” I asked.
“We’re still taking investors for the Self-Cleaning-Litterbox-o-Matic,” Jeyne said. Whoops, I forgot about that one.
“Can I keep the Disguise-o-Tron for a while?” I asked.
“As long as you want,” Jula said. “We figure you could use it, seeing as how you’re trying to track down that author’s killer.”
“Why do you think I’m trying to track down his killer?” I said.
They both shrugged. “Aren’t you?” Jula said.
“Well, maybe,” I admitted.
I thanked them again, cast the lightening spell on the sack of cat litter and headed home.
Kong had a spring in his step as we wound down the streets. Maybe I’d been too hard on the old rascal. It probably was upsetting not to have the cat litter he was used to. Perhaps humans couldn’t sense the differences between litter brands like cats could.
“Wait a moment,” Kong said. “That smell.”
Please don’t be a complaint about the cat litter.
“What is it?” I asked. He turned and sniffed the air.
“There,” he said and lifted a paw at someone walking on the other side of the street. It was Walter Crabtree’s private assistant.
And she was heading into the bank.
“She had an odd smell,” Kong said. “She smelled like… well, like you do when you sneak into the kitchen when you think Sophie’s asleep and eat three or four chocolate truffles standing up at the counter.”
