The Counterfeiter-Catching Cat: A Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mystery (Beatrice Young Cozy Cat Mysteries Book 1) (6 page)

Jordan hadn’t visited any of their stores but they said Amy was a regular customer. She seemed to do all their shopping. Beatrice and Matthew digested this information silently and then decided to hurry on to their final destination as it was getting late in the day.

They pulled into Moore’s Bar as the sun was setting. It was a real local kind of place—in an old clapboard house on a lonely road outside of town. What’s more, it was hidden down a short driveway and almost completely surrounded by huge maple trees.

Christmas lights decorated the first floor and rough picnic tables were scattered out front to serve as a makeshift patio in the warmer months. Beatrice would have never gone there alone as it was the kind of place where rough local guys went to shoot pool and drink themselves silly.

Thankfully, it was Monday night so it wasn’t busy. Beatrice followed in Matthew’s shadow and the cats in hers. A tall, muscular guy in a red plaid shirt, shaven clean with a flattop haircut, was behind the bar. He watched his two unexpected customers as they came in, a frown on his sour face.

“Can I help you?” he asked roughly. His eyes bulged as Hamish and Lucky came into sight. “Hey, there’s no animals in here.”

Beatrice sighed. “Hamish! Lucky! Out!” she commanded.

The cats paid her absolutely no mind and began to run around the bar, smelling and crawling into everything. Beatrice shrugged half-apologetically. She didn’t get why some people were so picky about animals in public spaces. Her cats were a lot cleaner than some people she knew. She understood if someone had allergies, but otherwise she didn’t see the problem.

Matthew sat at the bar, still in his ranger uniform, and ordered two beers to try to distract Cameron from his rage about the cats. Beatrice gulped her beer down eagerly. She wasn’t much of a drinker but every so often a cold beer relieved her thirst like nothing else could.

“Can I ask you about Jordan Clark?” Matthew said suddenly. “Beatrice and I are helping out the sheriff with his investigation. We think he was up to something just before he disappeared.”

Cameron stiffened immediately. “Why would I know anything about that? Jordan’s no friend of mine.” He wiped the bar down with jerky, aggressive motions. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Madison said you knew the truth about what was going on in Amy’s life,” Beatrice piped in, unable to help herself. “If there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all that would help us figure out why Jordan died…”

She clapped her hand over her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was spill the sheriff’s news but it had just slipped out. Secret-keeping was not Beatrice’s strength.

That said, Cameron’s reaction was fascinating. His face froze and then hardened into a dangerous level of anger. He grabbed Beatrice’s empty beer bottle and threw it into a bin where it made a loud clatter.

“Neither of you are police. I don’t have to say a single thing to you.” He pointed at Beatrice. “This is none of your business, lady. I know you like to ask questions about these types of things but you should really watch where you stick your nose. Especially when it’s not wanted.”

Matthew’s expression hardened. “Easy, man. There’s no need to insult her.”

The tension was broken by a rustling noise and then the scampering of cat feet. Hamish bounded into view, a manila envelope clenched in his teeth, with Lucky close behind him. Cameron’s face flushed a deep red. He sprang over the bar and went in hot pursuit of the cat.

What he didn’t know was that Hamish was as quick as a thoroughbred horse. Under his mountains of fluff was a powerful frame built for physical activity. The Maine Coon easily dodged his pursuer and darted towards Beatrice. The envelope fell open and bills scattered all over the floor around her feet.

Beatrice quickly grabbed some of them. They were exactly the same odd length as her counterfeit bill, with the same rough paper and badly printed image. Matthew picked one up too. They exchanged startled glances and then looked over at Cameron.

He lunged forward and scooped the bills off the floor, then grabbed the ones that Matthew and Beatrice held. “Stupid cat messed up all my cash. Look at it, it’s all crumpled.”

“Cameron, those bills are fake,” Matthew said in a quiet voice. “Where did you get them?”

The man froze for a moment and then jumped back over the bar and drew out a shotgun.

“I could shoot you now for those kinds of insults. These bills are real and I earned them honestly. Now get out!”

Matthew put his arm around Beatrice’s waist. “Let’s go,” he murmured.

They hustled out of the bar, the cats running ahead of them, and Matthew drove off as fast as he could. As soon as Beatrice got a frantic Lucky back in his carrier, she called the sheriff on her cell phone and reported the counterfeit bills she had seen in Cameron’s possession. The sheriff promised to swing by the bar as soon as he could.

Beatrice hung up and realized that night had fallen. She unrolled her window and sank back in the seat, letting the night air wash over her and cool her heated skin. Peepers chirped in the ditches and the sky was awash with stars.

Her heart slowed the further they drove from the bar. She was only beginning to realize what a terrifying experience they’d had. Even Hamish, usually so calm, was crouched in his cat bed looking freaked out, his ears flying flat against his head

“Did you pick up that Chilean red?” she asked, looking over at Matthew.

He snorted. “Sure did.”

“Let’s go to my house,” she said in a tired voice. “I think we’ve earned a glass or three, don’t you?”

9

Beatrice flicked on the lights in her house and immediately the striking living room came into relief. Her father had been an architect and converted an old barn into a wonderfully cozy, albeit unusual, living space.

The cheery red exterior looked especially dramatic in winter. Inside, everything from the floor to the ceiling was made of honey-colored wood. Massive wooden beams helped support the roof and a weighty chandelier was suspended from the high, arched ceiling, its bulbs cozily aglow. Weathered reddish-brown leather couches snuggled up to the huge stone fireplace. Closer to the kitchen was a farmer’s table surrounded by locally made wooden chairs. Plush Turkish carpets in deep rust colors covered the floors.

The cats scampered inside and disappeared into the kitchen. Not a second later an insistent meowing began.

Beatrice rolled her eyes. “I’d better feed those two bottomless pits first,” she said to Matthew. “Or we’ll get no peace when we eat our supper.”

The kitchen, just off the living room, was part of the open space. The cabinets were paneled in the same honey-colored wood and the large windows revealed the dense forest beyond.

Beatrice unlocked the cat food cabinet. Hamish was an expert at opening doors but he still hadn’t figured out how to pick a lock, thank goodness. The cats’ natural, high-quality food was pricey and only available online, so she took every precaution against break-ins. Both cats would have eaten the entire stock in one go, if given half the chance.

She poured out the kibble into their engraved bowls and smiled as Lucky and Hamish began happily munching away. Matthew wandered in, clad in the sheepskin slippers he always kept at her house, flipped on the radio, and fished two wine glasses out of the cabinet.

Meanwhile, Beatrice heated the stew up in a pot and the delicious scent of beef wafted through the kitchen. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten much that day. Beatrice tasted the stew with a spoon and sighed. It was her mother’s recipe and chock full of stewing beef, mushrooms, potatoes, carrots, peas, and herbs in a rich gravy.

“I’ll make a salad, hm?” Matthew said, handing her a glass of red.

“Be my guest. Plenty of greens in the fridge.”

Matthew wasn’t a cook by nature or inclination but he had allowed Beatrice to teach him the basics. After his wife had died, cooking skills became a necessity. Matthew eventually admitted to her that he needed help; a man could not live on toast and eggs alone. Beatrice happily gave him lessons.

After retrieving the necessary ingredients from the fridge, he threw spinach and arugula into a big bamboo bowl and then halved cherry tomatoes, crumbled ricotta, and sliced up an orange bell pepper.

“We never used to eat this healthy in Durham,” Matthew commented as he sprinkled the pepper into the bowl.

They had lived in Durham when Matthew was doing his forestry degree at the University of New Hampshire and they were still married.

Beatrice snorted. “Well, you didn’t want to eat anything except for meatloaf and boiled potatoes. I had a heck of a time convincing you to eat green beans.”

“What a crummy little place we lived in,” Matthew shook his head as he remembered. “That tiny apartment above the hardware store. Kitchen couldn’t even fit two people.”

Beatrice buried herself with stirring the pot and didn’t reply. Thinking about that old apartment was painful for her. She had only been a teenager when they had moved in; transitioning to being a housewife had been tough. Her mother had taught her to cook and keep house but Beatrice found the constant ironing, mopping, and laundry tedious.

To make things worse, she didn’t have friends in Durham and she was often lonely. What saved her, other than Matthew’s love and support, was the local library. She had secretly wished to get a degree like her husband. The library was free and she often sought refuge there.

“Are you okay? You look like you’ve eaten a lemon,” Matthew said, snapping her back to reality. “You’re thinking about being my wife, aren’t you? It’s making you want to shove me out of here and lock the door.”

Beatrice laughed and snapped off the heat on the stove. “Don’t be silly. You were never the problem, Matthew. We were just too young. I wanted to be the perfect housewife, heaven knows why, and drove myself crazy in the process. It was never for me.”

“I think we just didn’t know how to be married.” He fetched two bowls from the cupboard and gave her a wry look. “It was like we were playing house. We were too afraid to be ourselves, maybe because we thought we had to be real adults, whatever that means.”

Beatrice ladled the steaming stew into the bowls. “You’re right.” She sighed. “And I wasn’t always the best company.”

Matthew put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Ah Bee,” he said, smiling. “You wanted your freedom. And it all worked out, didn’t it? Here we are, still having dinner together. Divorced, yes, but still together.”

She laughed and carried the bowls into the dining room table. Even after all those years, she still felt a bit strange talking about her one and only—and failed—marriage. Better to focus on the present.

Matthew fetched the salad and their glasses and got out the cutlery. He poured out more wine and they sat down at one end of the long table.

“Just a second,” he said, raising his glass. “A toast to Jordan. I didn’t know him personally but I appreciate that he was a young man with dreams and a future ahead of him. He didn’t deserve for it all to end so soon.”

Beatrice nodded. “To Jordan,” she echoed.

They were silent for a moment as they scooped salad onto plates and sipped their wine, thinking of Jordan and what might have happened to him. The cats stopped crunching in the kitchen and came out to sit at a distance, eyes bright as they contemplated the possibility of getting scraps.

Matthew and Beatrice ignored them, their grey heads bent together as they tucked into their homey meal.

“Do you think Cameron was involved in Jordan’s death?” Beatrice finally blurted out.

Matthew leveled a serious look at her. “He did seem defensive. To the extreme.”

“And I got the impression that he was trying to protect Amy. And then there’s the fact that Sally Ann said Jordan and Amy had been fighting and that she didn’t seem happy. Do you think she and Cameron were involved romantically?”

Matthew tapped a finger on the side of his wine glass. His brow wrinkled as he frowned. “Possibly. But at this point we really need to talk to Amy to get her side of things.”

“I’ve been trying to get hold of the sheriff. See if he’s questioned her yet. He’s not responding.”

“I’m sure he’s got his hands full.”

Beatrice sighed and speared another forkful of salad. “I imagine. A murder in Ashbrook? When do you reckon the last time
that
happened?”

As they finished their dinner, they recalled murders in their small town. There weren’t many in recent memory but all of them had caused a great sensation in Ashbrook. Then, feeling that their conversation was getting too gloomy, they switched to talking about Matthew’s recent conservation outreach at the local schools.

When dinner was finished there was dessert. As always. Beatrice had an incurable sweet tooth, which she indulged far too often. They made tea, put on jackets, and took plates loaded with ginger crumble apple pie outside to the deck. Beatrice was a big pie lover and she always kept her freezer stocked.

The cats followed and stood like little sentinels at the edge of the deck as they stared into the inky blackness. Beatrice wasn’t fooled—she knew they were hoping for pie crumbs. There was no hope of that though, as she was a strict cat mom. Hamish and Lucky ate their prescribed diet and got their prescribed exercise, and she hoped they would be the better for it.

Matthew and Beatrice settled into Adirondack chairs, cups of tea steaming beside them and plates of pie safely cradled in their laps. She finally felt relaxed as she looked out at the peaceful scene before her. The barn house was surrounded by a thicket of red maples, American beeches, and hemlock spruces laden with pinecones. A dirt driveway disappeared between the trees towards the main road.

Beatrice looked up at the brilliant night sky. Because she was outside of town with no close neighbors, she could enjoy a velvet black sky with a dazzling splash of stars that spanned from horizon to horizon.

“I never get tired of looking at this sky,” Matthew commented. He rested his head on the back of the chair and exhaled. “No matter what goes wrong I’m glad we can always return to this.”