Undercover Kitty Read online

  She took a moment before she spoke. “At the most recent show a cat ended up with a pinched paw because the door of a cage had been tampered with.”

  Elvis nudged my chin with his head. I felt as though he was trying to tell me we had to do something. I let out a breath as he shifted in my arms. He did his head-tilt thing and I realized that Rose was doing the same thing. “For the record, the two of you can’t always use your collective cuteness to get your way,” I said, my finger flicking between the two of them.

  “We’re not trying to get our own way,” Rose protested as Elvis meowed loudly in agreement. “We need your help. We need to be part of the shows, part of that culture, to find out exactly who’s trying to sabotage things. Showing Elvis is our best way in.” Her gray eyes and his green ones stayed fixed on my face.

  I was the first one to look away. “I don’t know anything about how to show a cat,” I said. I knew I was beaten. Elvis was purring. A smile was starting to spread across Rose’s face. They knew I was beaten, too. We were just negotiating the terms of my surrender. “And Elvis isn’t a purebred anything.”

  I didn’t know anything about the cat’s history. The first time I’d seen Elvis he was eating eggs and salami in a booth at The Black Bear pub. The cat had been wandering around the harbor front for at least a couple of weeks before that. No one seemed to know where he belonged.

  When I’d left that day Elvis had followed Sam, who owned the pub, and me out to the curb, jumped onto the front seat of my truck and settled himself on the floor on the passenger side, where I had wedged a guitar case.

  I had a cat, whether I wanted one or not. And while he might not have had a pedigree that went back generations Elvis was smart. He loved the TV show Jeopardy! and he had an uncanny ability to spot a lie. I didn’t have an adequate explanation for either of those quirks.

  “Elvis doesn’t need to be a purebred, and you don’t have to do anything,” Rose said, waving a hand like she was shooing away a fly. “There’s a household pet category in each of the shows. Elvis will ace it.”

  I stifled a grin at one of Avery’s expression’s coming out of Rose’s mouth.

  “I see you trying to swallow that smile, missy,” Rose said. She was trying to look annoyed, but it wasn’t working. “I’ve seen the competition and he is head and shoulders above them—no offense to the other cats, but Elvis has the it factor.”

  I held up a hand. “I’m just going to take your word for that.”

  “And you should.” She softened her words with a smile. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. I have everything worked out.”

  That was exactly why I was worried.

  “You and Alfred can register Elvis as co-owners and Alfred will deal with showing him and everything else.”

  Elvis gave a murp of agreement as though this was something they had worked out in advance—which, for all I knew, they had. I wondered if Rose had cleared all of this with Mr. P., but I knew it didn’t matter because he would do anything for her. Just like all the rest of us.

  “Fine,” I said. “But if Elvis misbehaves or doesn’t cooperate, that will be Mr. P.’s issue to deal with.”

  “Nonsense,” Rose said. “Elvis is a very well-behaved cat.” She reached over to stroke his dark fur. “Aren’t you?” He nuzzled her hand and purred even louder.

  Elvis was a well-behaved cat—for the most part. He was also as single-minded as Rose was. “You’ve been warned,” I said. “This is my due diligence.”

  Rose patted my cheek. “Honestly, dear, you worry too much. What could go wrong?” With one last smile for Elvis she bustled away to get the place mats from under the stairs.

  What could go wrong?

  Pretty much everything.

  Chapter 2

  I grabbed my coat and headed out to our main workshop in the former garage, leaving Rose and Elvis working, and likely conspiring, in the store. We had no snow, but it was cold, typical weather for early November in Maine. Once we had some snow it would be busier in North Harbor. We were close to a couple of popular ski resorts. Tourists came to town during the spring and summer for the beautiful Maine seacoast. In the fall and winter months it was the nearby hills with the spectacular autumn colors and skiing that brought them in.

  Mac had built a workbench for the old garage space and he was seated at it, in front of a window on the end wall, taking apart a chandelier so Avery could clean the tear-shaped pedagogues which, I had learned, was the correct name for the dangling crystals. I had bought the chandelier on impulse and instinct at an auction in Camden the previous weekend. It was circular, made of brass with descending tiers of the crystals. The brass showed only the lightest of wear and my cursory examination, paired with past experience, had told me that the pedagogues weren’t scratched, just coated with years of grime.

  There was something about the simple, classic, midcentury design that suggested to me that the fixture was worth more than the opening bid of fifty dollars. In the end I’d spent over three hundred dollars for the light and as I loaded it into my SUV I crossed my fingers that I hadn’t—as Rose would put it—bought a pig in a poke.

  And I hadn’t.

  After a more detailed look at the chandelier, and a little online research, Mac had discovered that it had been designed by Christoph Palme in the early 1960s and would probably bring between six thousand and sixty-five hundred dollars. Roughly twenty times my investment.

  Mac smiled at me. “Hi,” he said. He was tall and fit, all lean, strong muscle. He had light brown skin, brown eyes and close-cropped black hair. And he smiled like Ivory soap and peppermints.

  I smiled back at him. “Hi,” I said.

  He set down the pair of small, needle-nose pliers he’d been holding. “So what did Rose want to talk to you about?”

  I leaned against the end of the workbench. “She wants to put Elvis in a cat show in Searsport.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “New hobby?”

  “New case.” I explained about the Angels being hired to find out who had tried to sabotage the earlier shows.

  “So she pretty much played on your sympathy.”

  “Pretty much,” I said sheepishly. I did hate the thought that a cat could have been seriously injured because of the vandalism.

  “You do know the show starts tomorrow, right?” Mac said. “A couple of customers were talking about it yesterday.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was exactly the kind of detail Rose tended to leave out. I let out a frustrated breath and pushed my hair behind one ear. “Rose forgot to mention that. I thought I had some time to get Elvis ready.”

  I could see a smile dancing around Mac’s eyes. “Get him ready how? Is there a talent component to the show? A swimsuit competition?” The smile had made it all the way to his lips.

  “No,” I said. “I just thought I could . . . I don’t know, brush his fur, give him a supplement to make his coat shinier.” I picked up the tiny set of pliers Mac had been using and opened and closed them a couple of times. I wished I could use them to snip out the parts of this case that were already giving me grief. I looked over at Mac. “Is this a mistake?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think so. If you can describe a cat as charming, then that’s what Elvis is. He likes people and he likes attention. He’ll be fine.”

  “So, so many things could go wrong,” I said.

  Mac reached over and took the pliers out of my hand. “Or they could go right.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m trying to worry here and you’re making it difficult.”

  He laughed. “Hey, for all you know Elvis just might win and all that worrying will have been wasted.” He caught my hand and gave it a squeeze. “It’s a cat show, Sarah. Not brain surgery. Seriously, what could go wrong?”

  Rose had said almost the same thing. I was pretty sure their words had alrea
dy jinxed us.

  * * *

  * * *

  The plan for Saturday was that Mac would open Second Chance and I would drive Elvis, Rose and Mr. P. to Searsport for the show. I’d drop them off and return late afternoon to pick them up. But as Elvis and I ate breakfast—cat food for him, Brussels sprouts, bacon and egg bake for me—I realized I wanted to go to the competition, or at least stay for a little while and check the place out.

  I picked up my phone and called Mac.

  “Yes, I can take care of the shop for a while,” he answered instead of saying hello.

  “How did you know what I was going to ask you?” I said.

  “I know you.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “I knew you wouldn’t let Rose and Alfred get involved in this case without checking things out yourself.”

  I propped an elbow on the counter and leaned my head against my closed hand. “Every time they have a new case I say I’m not getting involved and then I do.”

  “It’s your process.”

  “My what?” I asked, picking up a bite of bacon and holding it out to Elvis.

  “Your process,” Mac repeated. “You know, the way hockey players stop shaving and grow a beard during the playoffs. A lot of them have their own little rituals throughout the whole season—taking the same number of practice shots in warm-up, putting on their gear in the same order every game.”

  “So me saying I’m not getting caught up in one of the Angels’ cases and then doing it anyway is the equivalent of a playoff beard?”

  “Exactly.”

  Elvis put a paw on my knee and then looked pointedly at my plate. I snagged a tiny bit of egg and fed it to him. He licked his whiskers and started to wash his face. “I think I need a new process,” I said.

  Mac laughed. “No, no, no. You can’t change the process. That would be bad luck. That would be like shaving your playoff beard or washing your jersey before the last game in a seven-game series.”

  I grinned even though he couldn’t see me. “Well, the last thing I need is bad luck.”

  “So take your time,” he said. “Avery and Charlotte and I can handle the shop.”

  “Cleveland will probably be by sometime this morning,” I said. “If you see anything that interests you, there’s an extra sixty dollars in petty cash.”

  “Is it okay with you if I let Avery take a look? She has a pretty good sense for what will and won’t sell.”

  Avery had an eye for color and a way of looking at things that had translated into some very unique and popular designs for the front window of the shop. People still commented about her Valentine’s window featuring four mannequins dressed up as members of the band KISS. She lived with her grandmother, went to a progressive half-day school and worked at Second Chance in the afternoons and some part of most Saturdays.

  “Go ahead,” I said. “She’s going to do another window display and she has a list of things she’s looking for. She went with Rose and Mr. P. to a flea market last weekend. Rose bought a teapot, Alfred got more reels for his View-Master and Avery came back with a crystal ball.”

  “What does she have planned for the window?” Mac asked.

  I gave Elvis another bit of egg. “I don’t know. All I know is it has something to do with Thanksgiving.” The holiday was just three weeks away. It was also the first major holiday since Mac and I had become a kinda-sorta couple and I wasn’t sure what to expect—or what was expected of me.

  I went over the short list of things I wanted Charlotte and Avery to take care of and Mac urged me to take my time at the cat show. I told him I’d call if I was going to be longer than the morning and we said good-bye.

  * * *

  * * *

  Searsport is a small town at the head of Penobscot Bay, about forty minutes from North Harbor. We often had tourists who were staying in Searsport come into the shop. History buffs loved the town. Some of the grand sea captains’ homes had been turned into bed-and-breakfasts and many of the businesses in the downtown looked the same as they had a hundred and fifty years ago.

  “This is such a pretty place,” I said as we drove through the town on the way to the resort where the cat show was being held.

  “Searsport flourished during the Age of Sail,” Mr. P. said from the backseat of my SUV.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror at him. He was wearing a dove gray beanie that Rose had knit for him and a few tufts of his hair—almost the same color as the hat—poked out from underneath it.

  “Where were the ships going?” I asked. “China, I’m guessing.”

  “And India,” Rose said. She had been a teacher and knew a lot about the history of New England in general and Maine in particular. “There were shops and factories to make all the goods those ships carried.”

  “Close to three hundred sea captains sailed out of Searsport in its heyday,” Mr. P. added. “Imagine how many cats there would have been.”

  I frowned. “Cats?”

  He smiled. “Oh yes. Cats were often carried on trading ships to control rodents. Many sailors believe cats bring good luck. Especially black cats.”

  I looked at Mr. P. in the rearview mirror again. Elvis was on the seat beside him, preening as though he’d understood the old man’s words.

  “But black cats are supposed to mean bad luck,” I said, making a left turn at the sign for the Captain’s Rest, which was where we were headed.

  “Not among sailors,” Mr. P. said. “It was believed that cats could protect ships from bad weather.”

  “Cats react to changes in barometric pressure,” Rose added. “Their inner ears are very sensitive to even small changes.”

  I thought about how restless Elvis got when a storm was headed our way.

  “And the pressure often drops before a storm,” I said. “So they could warn a ship’s crew about bad weather ahead.”

  “Exactly,” Rose said, smiling like I was a student who had just aced a quiz.

  I saw another direction sign for the resort up ahead. Its logo was a ship’s wheel.

  “Tell me about the Captain’s Rest,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of place to host a cat show.”

  “The Captain’s Rest was originally a sea captain’s home,” Mr. P. explained. “It’s been converted to an inn with all the amenities and the former carriage house on the property is now used as meeting space. It’s the right size for this type of event.”

  “And since they’ve just opened, having the show here is a perfect opportunity to generate some interest in what they offer,” Rose said.

  I could feel her gray eyes on me. I shot her a quick look. “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing, really. I was just thinking how lovely all the rooms are. The inn would be a lovely place for, say, a romantic getaway.”

  Rose was about as subtle as a backhoe parked on the front lawn.

  “I’ll keep that in mind if anyone happens to ask for a recommendation,” I said.

  She reached over and patted my leg. “You do that, dear,” she said.

  I knew she wasn’t done trying to orchestrate a romantic evening for Mac and me. Not by a long shot.

  * * *

  * * *

  The Captain’s Rest inn overlooked Penobscot Bay and even surrounded by leafless trees the former sea captain’s home was picture-postcard perfect. It was painted a creamy, buttery yellow and all the ornate trim was white including the widow’s walk surrounding the rooftop cupola.

  “Wow,” I said as Mr. P. directed me to the carriage house, which was located to the left of the inn itself.

  “Built in 1874 by Captain Joshua Graydon for his wife, Caroline,” he said.

  The carriage house was equally impressive, painted in the same yellow and white color scheme.

  “I’m guessing this building was constructed at the same time as the house,” I said
as I pulled into the parking area to one side of the carriage house. It was two stories high and then some, with its own cupola sporting a copper roof and weather vane. A Juliet balcony was centered above a row of tall, multipaned windows. A build-out on the ground floor had more windows, two large square banks of them on either side of the entrance, which I guessed by its size and shape had originally been windows as well. A large signboard to the right of the doors welcomed visitors to the Searsport Cat Show.

  Rose had given me very few details about the show so I didn’t really know what to expect. A few minutes on my laptop had gotten rid of the idea that “showing” Elvis meant Mr. P. would be leading him around on a leash. Other than that I wasn’t really sure what the cat show was going to look like. I had asked if they needed to practice anything, but Mr. P. had assured me that both he and Elvis were ready.

  We signed in at the registration desk and received our participant ID badges from a woman wearing a cat ears headband studded with faux pearls. “This is Elvis?” she asked, indicating the cat carrier I was holding.

  I nodded. “It is.”

  She leaned over the table and smiled. “Hello, Elvis,” she said.

  The cat meowed a “hello” and tipped his head to one side as he looked at her through the mesh panel on the top of the bag. He was already turning on the charm. Maybe Rose was right. Maybe Elvis would turn out to be a natural at this kind of thing.

  The woman handed Mr. P. some paperwork and directed us toward another set of doors. We showed our badges and then made our way into the cat show proper. The setup was devoted to everything cat. Numerous large vertical banners hanging from the high ceiling featured cats of all colors, shapes and sizes.

  There were booths selling everything from cat toys and scratching posts—the latter that Mr. P. had custom made for Elvis was as nice as anything I could see for sale—to bubblers and food delivery systems. There was a stall offering custom-made cat carriers and another with two artists who would paint your cat dressed and posed as King Henry VIII or some other historical figure like Paul Revere or Queen Elizabeth I.