Catch as Cat Can (2 page)

Sunny realized she
was staring when Shadow came up and butted his forehead against her knee. Almost automatically, she bent and picked up the cat to cuddle him in her arms. “You don't think the guy you saw was going to use that on Shadow?”

Zach Judson frowned, holding out the noose. “It's really short if he intended to use it for a leash.”

Shadow twisted in Sunny's arms, snarling and trying to lay a claw on the twine. Usually his response to a bit of string was a lot more playful, a mock pounce rather than a serious attempt at attack.

“I guess you are smelling something there,” Sunny said, then shook her head.

It's not as though Shadow is going to give us a brief rundown and description of the creep.

She saw the same thought must have struck Zach. “I didn't get a good look at the guy. All I saw was a raincoat—maybe he had a beard.” He dug out a cell phone from the pocket of his heavy coat. “Anyway, I'm calling the cops.”

Sunny carried Shadow to her office door. “I've got a plastic bag to hold that noose.” She gulped a little on the last word.

Zach came in, and Sunny bagged the evidence. “If anyone comes, you know where to find me.”

Sunny nodded. From early morning until closing time, Zach was at his market down on the far corner. She said good-bye to Zach and returned to her seat in front of the computer screen. Shadow immediately squirmed his way free and dropped to the floor, stalking around Sunny's desk and hissing the occasional cat curse to vent his offended feelings.

“I know how you feel,” Sunny told him as she began rolling back the MAX site software. It was pretty evident that she wouldn't get the peace and quiet to do anything else.

I wonder who'll end up getting this call—if they send anybody,
Sunny thought as she worked at the keyboard. Kittery Harbor was a pretty quiet town. But she wasn't sure the local police would leap into action over someone messing with a cat.

Maybe Ben Semple will turn up if the traffic is quiet in outlet-land.
Ben usually patrolled the miles of outlet malls to the north of town. And since he was a friend of Sunny's, he might stop by.

But Sunny got a very different visitor. Her eyebrows rose in surprise when Will Price came through the office door.
“Is this pleasure, or business?” she asked, looking up into his face. Sunny and Will were comrades in arms, dealing with all sorts of mysterious business since she'd returned to Kittery Harbor. And more recently, they'd finally wound up in each others' arms. She knew what Will looked like when he was being romantic and when he was busy being a cop.

“I'm going to go with business, then,” she said. “Don't you think it's a bit of overkill, having the sheriff's chief investigator coming out over a case of possible animal abuse?”

“Chief and only investigator,” Will said, stepping around Sunny's question. His laugh came a beat too late. “I had some spare time. How's the little guy doing?”

A gray-furred face appeared from under Sunny's desk, staring warily up at Will. Shadow usually got off to a rocky start with the men in Sunny's life. But he'd come to accept Will being around. Now, though, the cat advanced with hesitant steps and dubious looks. But Shadow's basic nosiness soon won out over caution. He went over to Will's boots to give them a good sniff. Will chuckled. “For a second, I thought he didn't recognize me.”

“Well, he's more used to seeing you in uniform,” Sunny said, smiling. Will's promotion to plainclothes hadn't just given him a new look. It put a strain on his wardrobe. When he took off his parka, Sunny saw he was wearing what she called his big date sports coat—a tweed hacking jacket he usually wore when he was taking her someplace nice. Besides that, he had two courtroom jackets for when he was called to testify and a pair of wedding and funeral/interview suits. Even though the area was crammed with outlet malls, Will hadn't blown his new raise on additional
work clothes. Sunny approved of that. Whenever she made hurried purchases, she usually regretted them.

Besides, a lot of the stuff available in the outlet stores featured so much shiny polyester, Sunny was amazed the items didn't slide right off their hangers. Will only bought some heavy trousers and additional dress shirts there. She'd contributed a new tie that she'd given him as a Christmas present. She smiled as she noticed he was wearing it now—although the smile slipped a little when she found he had already gotten a mark on it.

Will sank into the visitor's chair across the desk from Sunny, smiling when Shadow stretched up to put both paws on his knee. “So you know who I am now, huh, little buddy? What have you been up to that someone wants to string you up?”

He dropped his grin when he saw the look on Sunny's face. “Guess that wasn't as funny as I thought it was.”

“I think hearing it out loud finally made the idea sink in,” she admitted, reaching into her desk drawer and bringing out the bagged noose. “Here's the evidence.”

Inquisitive as ever, Shadow watched as Sunny passed the bag to Will. But he didn't have any dramatic reaction to it. “He just about pitched a fit when we found it outside,” she said. “Maybe Shadow smelled his attacker on the string.”

Will examined the loop. “No chance of getting fingerprints from this,” he said. “And I don't think we can take Shadow around to give the sniff test to everyone in town. What can you tell me about the perpetrator?”

Well, now he sounds as if he's taking this seriously,
Sunny thought.
Too bad there's nothing much I can tell him.

“I was working on the MAX website. Ollie the Barnacle doesn't pay me to stare out the window. Zach Judson was coming out of his store and noticed that Shadow was in trouble.”

“They were in front of Judson's Market?”

“No,” Sunny replied. “The problem was next door, at the fish market.”

That brought another off reaction from Will. He hadn't been delighted to find an attractive older guy setting up shop next door to Sunny's office. Not that Neil had done anything for Will to complain about. He'd been polite and pleasant, not flirtatious at all. But Sunny hadn't mentioned that to Will. She figured possible competition would keep him on his toes. Instead, it seemed to make Will frown and think.

“You don't suppose that Zach and Neil are still mixing it up, do you?” she asked. “I mean, Zach did complain to Ollie when Neil opened his store, saying it was competition.”

“The only fish Zach sells comes in cans,” Will said. “I thought they'd buried the hatchet—except for the parking space thing.”

Sunny laughed. Like a lot of New England towns, Kittery Harbor had a sort of unwritten law when it came to snowstorms. He who clears snow for a parking space has exclusive use of said space for twenty-four hours. If the shoveler moves his car, he can stake a claim to the space with a marker.

The beginning of winter had been pretty mild, but when the first big storm came, Zach had cleared a space in front of his store for himself. Neil, who didn't come from this
part of the woods, pulled into Zach's spot after removing the milk crate Zach had left as a marker.

Zach got his revenge though, thanks to a buddy working in municipal street clearing. Several front-loaders full of snow had created a small mountain where Neil's car had usurped the space. When things had been explained to him, Neil turned out to be a pretty good sport, hiring a bunch of local kids to clear the whole block.

“I don't think Neil will go the extra mile if we have another big storm,” Sunny said.

“What do you mean?” Will sat up straight in his chair.

“I think the store is in trouble,” Sunny told him. “You know that spot has been a revolving door. I've noticed that Neil doesn't offer the variety of fish he used to have. And I notice because I shop there occasionally to pick up something for Dad's supper. Unlike some people, we can't live on burgers all the time.”

“Can't help it that I'm not wild about fish,” Will said. “And I didn't have a burger last night. I had a steak.” He smiled at his joke, but Sunny wasn't buying it. Again, she'd caught something off in his response, something that made her reporter's antenna tingle. Okay, maybe she was an ex-reporter, but she still got the tingle.

“Well, this isn't helping us get a better picture of whoever came after our furry friend here,” Will said, changing the subject again. “I'll check with Zach and see if I can find out anything else and ask the other store owners if they saw something out of the usual.” He shrugged. “But if you want to keep the little guy safe, you should probably keep him at home.”

“Yeah—like I can tell him that.” Sunny rolled her eyes. “You know he does what he wants. And these days he wants a taste of fresh flounder more than crunchy tuna treats.” She watched as Shadow sat on his haunches, his head swiveling back and forth between them. “Maybe this was enough of a scare that he'll avoid trouble for a while.”

As she spoke, Shadow uncurled his tail from around his paws and strolled over to Will, extending his neck in a silent demand for a head scratch.

“I wouldn't bet on it,” Will said.

From the glance Shadow shot from over his shoulder, he was thinking the same thing.

*

Shadow leaned against
the two-leg's fingers scratching his head. Sunny's He wasn't as good at it as Sunny, but Shadow was willing to try different things. Besides, how was the He to learn if he didn't practice? Shadow kept his head in place until he'd had enough. Then he drew back, stretched, and sat again, watching the humans talk.

From the tone, he figured they were winding down, and he was right. Sunny's He rose to his feet and rested a hand on the big piece of furniture Sunny sat behind, bringing his face to her cheek.

Shadow had seen many humans do that during his travels, but he still wasn't sure what was going on. Was the He sniffing her or licking her? Anyway, it was quickly done, and the human male walked to the door and outside. The blast of chilly air reminded Shadow of what had happened out there.

Too bad Sunny's He wasn't around when that Smoky One tried to get me,
he thought. Shadow had seen the He hit a bad two-legs who'd tried to hurt Sunny, and even knock him down. That would have been good, even better than the Big One shouting and scaring the Smoky One away.

Shadow couldn't help unsheathing his claws at the thought. He wanted the Smoky One to suffer for grabbing him and scaring him like that. A snorting hiss escaped from his throat at the thought of being held helpless. He'd keep a wary eye—and nose—out for that one with the stink of smoke all around him. Shadow jerked as he detected movement above and behind him, but it was only Sunny reaching down to pet him. He'd have to remember, though, that was how the Smoky One had gotten him, being sneaky.

That definitely was not a good thing.

*

Shadow sat in
front of Sunny's desk, staring out the door after Will, his tail twitching. That should have been the tip-off. When Sunny went to pet him, Shadow spooked, flying up and off as if he were on springs—high tension springs.

Guess I should be glad he didn't scratch me,
Sunny thought ruefully.
This little episode must have shaken him up more than he wants to let on.

A second later, Shadow was back, rubbing against her shins with a contrite purr. Sunny dropped to one knee, opening her arms. Shadow leaped aboard, his purr getting louder as he snuggled close.

“I know, I know,” she told him. “At least it can't get any worse.”

The phone rang.

“Sunny?” Whenever Sunny heard that tone in her father's voice, she braced for bad news. It was the same voice she'd heard when he'd told her about his heart attack—although it had been a lot weaker then.

She repressed a sigh. “What's up, Dad?”

“Do you think you can get off work a little early today?” Mike Coolidge asked. “Helena has a bit of a situation, and I'm hoping you can help.”

Helena Martinson was the lady in Mike's life, and in Sunny's opinion the best thing that had happened to him after recovering from that cardiac scare.

“Got to finish up a little job here.” Sunny shot a guilty glance at her computer screen, with the web software only halfway rolled back. “But after that I can make my escape. By the way, Shadow turned up. I'll drop him off at home.”

“Good, good.” Mike sounded distracted.

“Aren't you going to tell me what Mrs. M. needs?”

“Oh, right.” Mike paused for a second. “Helena got a call from Florida.”

Sunny grinned. “Is she going down to escape this weather?”

“No, it was a call from Abby. She managed to find a flight today and just took off. She expects to land in Portsmouth in about two and a half hours.”

“Oh, Abby! Right!” Sunny had altogether forgotten about Helena's daughter's upcoming visit, maybe because the journey from California to Portsmouth had begun to resemble Homer's Odyssey. Since Abby had taken off two days ago, the polar vortex had sent a sucker punch into America's midsection, cutting the nation in two between the east and west coasts with violent storms. Abby had been
stranded in Texas. As the storms blew eastward, they cut travel between north and south, further complicating Abby's attempts to get to New England.

Now she was apparently on the final leg. Sunny looked out the window at the dying sunset, making the connection. “Helena wants to meet her, but she doesn't like to drive in the dark anymore.”

“Would you mind?” Mike asked.

“Of course not. Just let me finish a little brain surgery on this computer, and I'll be heading out.”

Actually, restoring the system to its previous state wasn't quite as finicky as brain surgery, but it took Sunny a little while. Shadow took up residence on her lap and occasionally tried to “help” with a paw on the keyboard. At last, she finished and set the cat back on the floor. Shadow made a protesting sound at being left, staring up at Sunny as she collected her parka. Then she scooped him up again, killed the lights, and left, locking the door. Sunny carefully deposited Shadow inside her Wrangler, parked at the curb half a block from the office.