Un-Fur-tunate Events (Vanessa Abbot Cat Cozy Mystery Series Book 4) (6 page)

“Is he one of your cats?” Steve
inquired as he watched Vanessa approach.

“Yes, one of the naughty ones,” Vanessa
joked. “Do you have any cats at home?”

“No,” Steve replied. “Usually, I am
pretty particular about my BMW, but this cat is really enjoying himself.”

Teddy rolled over. Steve smiled and
rubbed the cat’s exposed belly.

“His name is Teddy,” Vanessa added.

Steve gently picked up Teddy and walked
with Vanessa as she carried her bags of groceries over to her car.

“Jerry was not liked by everyone at the
foundation. He didn’t get along with most people,” Steve acknowledged. “Jerry
wouldn’t let us forget that without him the foundation wouldn’t function.”

“Why would he be so irreplaceable?”
Vanessa asked.

Steve set the cat down onto the
pavement. “Why are you so interested in Jerry?”

“This is the first time someone was
murdered at my home. I am curious to find out more about him,” Vanessa
explained.

“He was integral to our work. Jerry
maintained our patient list because of his experience working with hospitals. I
took him for granted sometimes. We really didn’t get along.”

“Jerry did seem furious with you at the
picnic,” Vanessa remarked. “Was he asking for more money?”

“That is none of your business!” Steve
shouted as he marched back to his BMW.

Flossy appeared from the bushes and
jumped through the backseat window. Vanessa stepped into the station wagon. She
looked down at Teddy who was settled in the front seat. “Teddy, that was clever
of you to keep Steve busy while I finished up at the checkout line. I wouldn’t
have gotten any more information out of him without you.”

Teddy yawned and curled up for the ride
home.

A big yellow school bus hissed to a
stop in front of the Harvest Home Cat Sanctuary. Dozens of children poured
through the door and set off for the woods at a dead run. Their teacher called
to them to come back and get into a line to be counted off, but they paid her
no attention. They ran for every cat in sight with screams of delight, and the
cats headed for the basement.

Only Aurora raced around the yard as
fast as the children. She never stood still long enough to engage with any of
them, but their presence electrified her beyond any experience she had before.
Vanessa smiled at the scene from the porch.

The teacher bustled up to Vanessa and
blushed. “I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s wonderful. Let them run,” Vanessa
insisted.

“Are you sure it’s okay?” the teacher implored.
“I wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt, and I wouldn’t want them to scare your
cats away.”

“Don’t worry about the cats,” Vanessa
told her. “They can take care of themselves. If they don’t like it, they’ll
make themselves scarce.”

“You are very understanding. I don’t
need to explain that these field trips are stressful,” the teacher emphasized.

Vanessa laughed. “That’s what we're
here for. The children need this, and so do the cats.”

The teacher surveyed the surroundings.
“You have such a wonderful place. We couldn’t wait to come out and see what you
have going on here.”

“We have the first tour of the
facilities at ten o’clock,” Vanessa suggested. “Would you like to go on that?”

The teacher glanced around. “I’d love
to, but I don’t want to make any promises when it comes to getting the children
rounded up.”

Vanessa smiled. “If they come, they
come. If they would rather run around and explore, that’s fine too.”

“Thank you,” the teacher exclaimed.

Three boys ran past waving sticks at
each other and bellowing at the tops of their lungs. The teacher blushed.

 “I’ll get ready for the tour anyway,” Vanessa proposed.
“I’m sure some of them will be interested.”

Vanessa swung open the door to the
house and discovered Henry tucked under a chair on the porch.

“That looks like a good hiding spot,”
Vanessa whispered to Henry as he tucked his front paws under his body.

 Vanessa
went back to her work, but she couldn’t help but smile every time she saw the children
running around with Aurora. This is why Vanessa moved to the country. The other
cats just need time to acclimate to all of this attention from visitors.

The sun went down over the western
trees and lit up the sky with shades of pink and purple. Detective Wheeler pulled
into the driveway of the cat sanctuary. Vanessa waved to him from a chair on
the porch as Teddy purred at her side.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“I had my first tour today,” she replied.
“The kids were more than I could handle.”

Pete laughed. Flossy followed Pete up
the porch steps and jumped into Vanessa’s lap as Pete sat down next to her.

“I’m sure it will get easier.”

“I have no doubt,” Vanessa confirmed. “How
is the case developing? I have met all the suspects but I am still unsure of who
might have murdered Jerry.”

Pete reassured Vanessa by placing his
hand on her arm. “Welcome to the world of criminal investigation. We all have
to follow leads, even if they seem to direct us away from the culprit. None of
us would solve the simplest case without help. You have the very unique talent
of being able to communicate with cats, so they’re the ones who give you the
help you need. I’m grateful for the help you get from them.”

“It’s very kind of you to say that,”
Vanessa replied.

“It’s true,” he told her. “You
shouldn’t sell yourself short.”

A loud, shrill whistle blared from
within the house. Vanessa stood up. “Pete, would you like something to drink? I
was just boiling water for some tea.”

Pete smiled. “Do you happen to have any
coffee? I take it black. It has been a long day at the station.”

“I will make you a fresh pot. Be right
back,” Vanessa replied and walked into the kitchen.

Flossy stretched her paws and hopped
onto Pete’s armrest. She steadied herself as she made her way along the edge
and continued up across the top of the chair. Pete looked to the left as Flossy
jumped down to the other armrest and then leapt into his lap. This startled Pete,
but he reluctantly stroked Flossy’s back as she curled up.

“Flossy seems pretty comfortable.”

Pete jumped as Vanessa returned with
his cup of coffee.

“I wouldn’t call myself a cat person
yet,” Pete declared as he rubbed the top of Flossy’s head. “But I won’t say I’m
not developing a soft place in my heart for your cats. You have the most
exceptional cats in the world, if you ask me. I only wish half the people on
the planet were as smart and helpful.”

“And law-abiding?” Vanessa chuckled and
sipped her tea.

Pete took a long sip of his coffee.
“Oh, yes. You can’t imagine how encouraging it is to know the Cat Protection
League is helping me keep the world safe from crime and evil.”

 “They also fight your stresses of the day,”
Vanessa offered. Flossy closed her eyes as Pete’s hand rested on her back.

“Yes, they do. After the day I had, I
needed it. I just spent the day at the station listening to the Federal
investigators fill me in on the criminal case against the Frank Morton
Foundation.”

“What?” she gasped.

“The Feds built a case around Jerry
testifying against the foundation. Jerry was reluctant and held off the Feds
for a while, but I guess Jerry delayed one day too many.” Pete pointed out.

“What else did they tell you?” Vanessa
asked.

“The foundation had been accepting
anonymous donations from wealthy patients in order to move up the donor list. There
were patients that had been waiting on that list for months. Steve made Jerry
manipulate the order of the list so that the wealthy patients were the first
recipients of a transplant. No hospital every doubted Jerry’s integrity and
would perform the operations without question.”

“I just ran into Steve at the market.
He walked away from me when I started talking about Jerry,” Vanessa offered.

“I guess Steve didn’t tell you about
this arrangement he had,” Pete jested. 

“No.” Vanessa blurted. “This is the
first I am hearing of it. What about the others in the foundation? Did they
know about the criminal activity?”

“The Feds didn’t have any emails or
phone calls that would indicate that they knew anything, but certainly all of
them must have known,” Pete explained. “The foundation barely broke even at the
beginning but now they are flush with cash. They all receive high salaries as
part of the operating cost of the foundation.”

“Frank probably knew the Feds would be
snooping around their office. A picnic in the middle of a cat sanctuary? No one
would expect them here and they could talk without worrying about someone
overhearing.” Vanessa implied.

“Frank had a lot to lose if they
stopped the criminal operations. They needed to sneak around to keep moving the
people up the list and to bring in those large donations,” Pete asserted.

“Perhaps the secrecy is what finally upset
Jerry. Andrea told me he valued the service he was providing to patients,”
Vanessa remarked. “He must have vowed to do the right thing at the picnic and
probably was headed back to the investigators. What he didn’t know was that someone
already wanted him dead.”

“You could only hope that was his
intention walking back to their minivan,” Pete commented.

Flossy jumped out of Pete’s lap and
leapt from the porch into the thick grass lawn. Only her tail could be seen
sticking above the tall grass as she made her way to the driveway. Flossy
jumped onto the hood of the Volvo station wagon.

“I guess Flossy had enough of hearing
about the case,” Pete joked.

“Are they ready to make arrests?”
Vanessa inquired.

“It seems without Jerry and his
testimony, they are not able to charge anyone yet,” Pete explained. “Because
the donations were anonymous, Steve could cover up the connection between the
money coming in and the names of the wealthy patients.”

“Frank was so angry the night he was
looking for Andrea. He must have suspected that there were probably more people
in the foundation willing to talk to the investigators. He must have worried that
Andrea was one of them,” Vanessa recalled.

 “Frank
is my main suspect right now,” Pete informed Vanessa. “He had access to
Andrea’s
Prohiborol,
but he wasn’t
able to poison the sandwiches. He must have conspired with Sabrina or Steve
when they were taking them out of the picnic hamper.”

“I am not a fan of Frank, but at the
picnic he was trying to calm Jerry down. Why would Frank be so relaxed if he
had poisoned Jerry’s sandwich? He would have known the drug interaction would
happen at any moment,” Vanessa insisted.

Pete’s phone vibrated and rung in his
pocket. Pete took out his phone and gave it a cold look.

“It’s the Federal Investigators. I
should take this,” Pete stressed. “This is Detective Wheeler. Yes, I can be
back at the station in thirty minutes.”

“Duty calls,” Vanessa joked.

“Thanks for the coffee. The Feds are
going to grill me on this case all night,” Pete sighed. “Anyway, you should get
some rest with the day you just had.”

“You should too. Don’t let them keep
you too late,” Vanessa grinned.

Vanessa chuckled to herself when she
spotted Aurora sound asleep on a chair in the kitchen. “The children certainly
got excited about the sanctuary, didn’t they? And you got excited, too. I know
they wore you out, but it’s the best thing for you.”

Aurora didn’t stir, and Vanessa left
the tiny kitten to sleep. She continued making dinner and tossed some freshly
cut vegetables into her soup that was simmering in the stew pot.

She reached for the cans of cat food from
the open cabinet under the kitchen sink. Amber slipped through the cat door and
looked around.

“I know it’s early,” Vanessa told her.
“But we’ve all had a big day and we won’t have Pete or anyone else over
tonight. Why don’t we have an early dinner and go to bed? We can all catch up
on some much-needed sleep.”

Amber sat in the middle of the kitchen
floor with her eyes fixed on the cans of cat food. At the sound of the can
opener whirling, Foxle and Teddy bolted through the doorway. Henry followed
behind at his own pace. Vanessa knelt down with the bowls of food and placed
them one by one around the table.

“People cheating the healthcare system.
Patients buying their way to the top,” Vanessa remarked. “Those poor people who
couldn’t afford to jump ahead. I really hope those left to wait were able to
receive a transplant in time. Maybe I should convince Andrea how wrong it is
that the foundation is cheating people?”

Teddy licked his lips after his meal
and jumped up onto the same chair with Aurora. He sniffed her, but she didn’t
wake up. He coiled himself around her, but he kept his clear eyes fixed on
Vanessa’s face. She stirred the vegetables in the soup with a wooden spoon.