Misty Hollow Cat Detective (Darcy Sweet Mystery) (A Smudge the Cat Mystery Book 1) Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, July 2014.

  Copyright K.J. Emrick (2014)

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious. Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

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  A Smudge the Cat Mystery

  The Letter

  Everyone thinks that cats sleep a lot. Well, I'm here to tell you that we don't. We just sleep on a different schedule than people do.

  We've got our own lives to lead. We might need to be up all night and sleep during the day. Especially in a town like Misty Hollow.

  So, when I finally got back into the house this morning I padded upstairs to Darcy's room and curled into the blankets at her feet, hoping for a few good hours of rest.

  No such luck.

  That thing she calls an alarm clock, the loud squawking black box on her nightstand, started screeching at me just as I laid my head down. It was louder and angrier than the ghost dog had been last night.

  Long story.

  I don't know how humans stand it. I really don't. Every time Darcy uses that alarm box thing I end up jumping off the bed and hiding underneath for my own safety. I'm no coward, but that thing could make an elephant stampede and let me tell you, I do not want to be underfoot if an elephant stampedes. Ever see how big an elephant's feet are?

  "What are you doing under there?"

  Darcy had shut the alarm off, and now she was hanging upside down over the edge of the bed, smiling at me.

  I can't help but love the woman, but come on. What's a cat got to do to get some sleep around here?

  Darcy is Darcy Sweet, my owner. My human. My friend. She's taken care of me for a long time now, making sure I always have food in my dish and a place to lay my paws in between my busy schedule. I keep her company and try to be as much of a friend to her as she's been to me. Sometimes it's harder than it sounds. Her life is complicated.

  Right now, her long dark hair was hanging down loose around her heart shaped face and it just looked so much like string that I had to pounce on it and try to bite it.

  "Oh, you want to play, do you? Come here, you."

  She lifted me back up onto the bed and ruffled my fur and let me attack her hand. I'm gentle with her, of course. Never bite the hand that feeds you. Not hard, anyway. Humans have long memories and they never forget it if you hurt them for real.

  "Grr, tough cat. You have big plans for the day? I do." She sat up and stretched wide, yawning. Why humans get themselves up and out of bed when they're still tired is beyond me. "I have to interview for a new assistant at the bookstore this morning. Well. Interview my one and only applicant, anyway. Her name is Sue Fisher. She's a college student. Seems like a nice girl."

  A nice girl, hmm? I'll check this Sue out. Later. Right now I need my sleep. I've got my own things I need to attend to, and I'll need to be rested up.

  A cat's work is never done.

  Darcy lets me curl up on the bed this time with just a good scratching behind my ears. Love that. Especially when I'm sleepy like this…

  ***

  When I woke up again, I could see the sunlight through the window. It's that special golden color that the world gets just before it goes dark. I like this time of day. It's when cats like me can slink around with no one noticing us or trying to pick us up because we're so cute or chasing us off with bad words and harsh emotions.

  It's also when the spirits start to roam the world.

  Misty Hollow is unique, near as I can tell. Lots of crazy things happen here. Darcy is one of the few people in tune with it all. That's one of the reasons I like her. She knows what us cats know already. The world around us isn't as simple as it seems.

  Jumping down off the bed I made my way downstairs to munch on the dry food Darcy has left out for me. Sometimes she has moist food for me, and I love it, but the dry food is good too. Not as good as catching one of those wily, conniving mice, but Darcy knows all my favorite flavors.

  Okay. I'm full, and I'm rested, and I'm ready. Time to go meet Twistypaws.

  Darcy can never figure out how I keep getting in and out of the house when she's not around. A cat has his ways. Sometimes it's a window that she's forgotten to close, sometimes it's that loose board under the foundation where the cellar walls meet the support beams. I caught some mice trying to get in that way once. After word got around about what had happened to them, Darcy's house has been remarkably mouse free.

  Out in the night air I raced down the road that leads from Darcy's house to town. We live a little outside of the main area of houses and shops. I like the quiet out here, and the open spaces, and the trees to climb up into, but let's face it. All the action happens in town.

  I scoot through alleyways and around the corners of buildings. I'm trying to be sneaky.

  "Hey, Smudge!"

  Sighing through my nose, I looked up at a trash can outside the Café to see Tony sitting on the lid. Tony's usually here in this alley at this time of night. He's a cat with orange stripes and I guess his owners were trying to be funny when they named him Tony. Tony the Tiger.

  Ha, ha. Sometimes I wish I could actually communicate with people. I'd ask them why they treat us like stuffed animals. Not Darcy, though. She's one of the good ones.

  "Tony, keep it down!" I jumped up on the trashcan lid with him, light like a feather and making no noise. "You're going to give me a heart attack and waste one of my nine lives. What are you doing here?"

  "Waiting for the food to come out. What else?" Tony smiled at me in that goofy snaggletooth way he has. Tony's a good guy. Just not overly bright. "They had a turkey sandwich for the lunch special. Bet you there's lots of scraps to throw out. Hey, you want to join me?"

  I sniff the air, and sure enough, the smell of turkey is calling to me. Too bad. "Not tonight, Tony. I need to go see someone."

  "Oh yeah?" he asks me, rubbing a paw over his ears a few times, acting all innocent. "Wouldn't be
Twistypaws, would it?"

  "You never mind," I told him, my tone of voice just a little too obvious to pretend he's not right. "Someone needs my help, and I—"

  I heard a very familiar voice then, as two people walk out of the Deli. "I don't know," Darcy said to the person standing with her, a young blonde-haired girl with an honest face. That face looks pretty worried right now. "I'm sure no one would steal it from you, Sue. Not here in Misty Hollow."

  "Do they have turkey?" Tony asked as his ears perk up.

  "Shh," I hissed at him.

  "Okay, you don't need to get cranky."

  "Quiet!"

  Darcy was talking again. "Look, my sister is a police officer here in town. A detective. I'll tell her about this and she can make a report. I'm sure it will turn up, though."

  "I hope so, Darcy," the woman named Sue said. I realize this is the person Darcy was going to hire to work at her book store. "My whole life is in that book. My passwords for my internet sites, my bank account information. Not to mention all my private thoughts."

  "I understand," Darcy said, putting a hand on Sue's shoulder. "I can't imagine losing my diary. You're sure you had it here in town?"

  "Yes. I was writing in it when I ate my lunch in the town center. In that little park."

  "Okay." Darcy nodded. "I'll help you look, okay? What did it look like?"

  "Red. With a little leather strap that had a gold buckle and lock," Sue said with a tremble in her voice. "What rotten luck. Well. At least I have a new job."

  I twitched an ear. I don't know how I feel about a new person working in Darcy's book store. For a long time it's just been her and me. Well. Her and me and Great Aunt Millie's ghost. Interesting woman, Millie. She and I have a lot of good conversations. Most of them are about Darcy, and how Millie wants her great niece to have an easier time in life than she had…

  "Aren't you supposed to be meeting, you know, someone?" Tony said with a blink of his eyes. "Twistypaws doesn't like to be kept waiting."

  "Like you'd know," I teased him good-naturedly. He's right though, so with a graceful jump down I speed off into the growing gloom.

  That thing with Sue's diary bothers me as I trot up the sidewalk from tree to bench to mailbox to public trash can. I know what a diary is, of course. Darcy keeps one herself. I've read some of it. If cats could blush…

  Who would want to steal a diary?

  Well, that's a human concern, and none of mine. My concern tonight is a certain girl cat with sleek gray fur and white-tipped ears and eyes the color of clear blue water.

  ***

  On the far side of the town center, where the three oak trees stand close together on the edge of the park, Twistypaws waited for me, flicking her long tail impatiently. She paced back and forth with that graceful walk of hers, all four paws counting out a perfect rhythm of steps. Until she saw me.

  "Where have you been?" she asked. She was trying to act annoyed, but I could see the smile she tried to hide. "You know it's not nice to keep a girl waiting, don't you?"

  "I said I'd meet you before dark. It's before dark." I stepped up close to her, and the sight and the scent of her filled my mind. There's a lot of cats in Misty Hollow. None of them are like Twist.

  I only wish I could get up the nerve to tell her so.

  "Look, Smudge," she said to me. "I'm only doing this because my friend Persephone said you helped her out."

  "Right," I said, trying to make it seem like a bigger deal than it had been. "I fixed her problem with those squirrels. Mangy little monsters. You can't trust them."

  She stared at me with those eyes. "Uh huh. Anyway. The job pays in tuna if you're interested."

  "Always interested in tuna." Which was true. Outside of a good saucer of milk, tuna might just be my favorite thing in the whole world.

  She snorted, a sound not unlike a little sneeze. "Men. So easy to please."

  I didn't know what to say to that, but I figured she wasn't far wrong. "So tell me what's going on."

  "I think my owner is in trouble," she said, her tail flicking side to side. I could tell how worried she was.

  "What makes you think that?"

  She started pacing again. I got dizzy watching but I could not keep my eyes off her. The way her fur shimmered and her feet almost crossed each other with each step. She was the prettiest cat in town, and she knew it.

  "I'm not sure if it all makes sense," she tried to explain. "You know my owner? Benson LaCroix, the town historian?"

  "Sure," I said, sitting back on my haunches. I could tell this was going to be a long story. Benson was a nice enough man, although he kept mostly to himself. He was an older human with gray hair and black skin that had always reminded me of fresh mud. In the good way. Nothing cooled you down on a hot day like laying in fresh mud.

  It's a cat thing.

  "Well, Benson has been different lately," Twist went on. "Not himself. He sits in his chair in front of the window a lot, and keeps mumbling to himself. 'What am I going to do?' he keeps asking. That can't be good, right?"

  "Well, no, but it's pretty common for humans to worry about stuff." Even Darcy had too much to worry about.

  "I know, I know, but there's more. There's this letter he got. I can't read human, but when he got it a few days ago his hands started trembling. He went up and locked himself in his bedroom. He was in there for a long time, Smudge. I started scratching at the door and when he finally let me in I saw all of the money he saves at home out on the bed. He was counting it. You know how people are always using money for things, like to buy us food and stuff? Well, Benson kept shaking his head and saying it wasn't enough, it wasn't enough. Is it possible to have not enough money?"

  I've seen Darcy stressed out over her bills before. A lot of cats don't realize the things people have to do in order to afford food for us and give us warm beds to sleep in. I'm more in tune with the human world than most cats are, and I know things. That lets me help other cats in the neighborhood with people related problems.

  There wasn't any question in my mind about whether I was going to help Twist. Of course I was. She and I had known each other for a long time. Not as well as I might want, maybe, but she was still a friend.

  Besides. I'm this town's protector. Somebody's got to do it.

  "Does Benson still have that letter?" I asked her.

  "Yes. He never takes it off the table. He just keeps looking at it and sighing."

  "Okay, good." I was running through a few things in my mind. Darcy wouldn't expect me home at any particular time. Neither of us had a curfew. We had that kind of trusting relationship. So, I could spend whatever time I needed on helping Twist.

  "Come on," I said. "Let's go over to your place."

  She stopped her pacing, and tilted her head to one side. "Why, Smudge. How forward of you. At least buy a girl some catnip first."

  I must have looked like a kitten just opening its eyes, because she laughed and stepped past me, flicking her tail up under my nose. "Come on, big shot. Help my owner out first. We can discuss catnip some other time."

  I shook my head vigorously, annoyed at myself. If I kept passing up opportunities like that I'd never get around to asking Twist on a date.

  For now, though, she needed my help.

  ***

  Following her through the park we both nearly jumped out of our skins when a big crow swooped down in front of us to pick up a shiny bit of tinsel and hop a few steps away with it.

  "Caw!" the crow challenged us. "Mine, mine!"

  "For Pete's sake, Corvin!" I cried out, quoting something I always hear Darcy saying. "Watch where you're flying!"

  "Sorry, sorry," the big black crow shrieked back in its harsh voice. "But this is mine, mine, mine! Not for cats. Not for cats!"

  "Why would we want your stupid string?" Twist says in disgust, wrinkling up her nose.

  See, there's a family of crows that lives in the park. They don't bother people much, so no one bothers with them. They eat seed and popcorn a
nd other food garbage that gets tossed on the ground, so I guess they're helpful. Sort of. They have a tendency to be pretty selfish, though, and they're always in the way.

  "Come on, Smudge," Twist says to me, "let's go."

  She doesn't give the crow a second look. Corvin watches after her, then turns to me.

  "I have to go, too. See you around." Hey, it never hurts to be nice. Even to noisy, annoying blackbirds.

  "See ya," Corvin mimics. "Pretty string. Mine, mine!"

  Crows. Less annoying than dogs, more annoying than….well, everything else.

  ***

  Twistypaws lives in a nice house a few streets over from the Town Hall. Nice neighborhood. A little crowded for my liking but then cats don't really get to choose the places they live. You just sit back and hope your human makes a good choice. Twist's human had made a good choice.

  It was a three story house with huge windows and a big apple tree in the front yard that I bet would be amazing to climb. All those branches twisting around and waving in the breeze. Fun.

  The house was painted a gray color that kind of matched the color of the sky at the moment. Looked like rain. I twitched my tail. Hate rain. Gets your fur all wet. Thankfully Twist doesn't waste any time getting us up on the long porch at the front of the house and then inside through a hinged cat door. Nice. I might have to see if I can get Darcy to put one of those on our front door.

  Inside was nice enough. There was plush furniture in the living room off the front hall that looked like it would be comfy to curl up on. Thick brown carpeting. The walls were this weird green color that kind of reminded me of catnip.

  She stopped for a minute, listening to the house. "I think Benson's in bed," she said after a moment. "Come on. I'll show you that letter. You can read?"

  "I can," I promised her.

  She looked at me then with something in her eyes. Something I liked. Then she turned and bounded off into the kitchen, up onto one of the wooden chairs around the table, and then up on the table itself.