Purrfect Cut Read online

  Good thing, at least, that he usually ate his dinners at his sister Marge’s place, who made sure her brother got some wholesome nourishment in him.

  “So if this fashion designer was killed with a knife,” said Odelia, “and his boyfriend was found standing over him with that same knife clutched in his hand, blood all over him, has he confessed to the crime already?”

  “Funny you should ask that,” said Uncle Alec. “No, he hasn’t.”

  Odelia cut a glance to her boyfriend, who’d risen from the table and was now engaged in his favorite morning ritual of preparing a protein shake to take into the office. “So… he’s claiming to be innocent or what?” asked Chase.

  “Not exactly,” said Alec, digging a knife into the pot of Nutella and applying an ample spread to his next waffle and ignoring Odelia’s look of concern. “He has no recollection of the crime.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Odelia.

  “He has no idea how he got there, how the knife got into his hand, and how his dead boyfriend got dead in the first place. Complete blackout.”

  “Who is this Gabriel Crier anyway?” asked Chase.

  Alec took his little notebook from his front shirt pocket and flipped it open. He cleared his throat noisily. “Gabriel Jake Crier. Fifty-four. Worked as a hairstylist to the stars for a while, before meeting Leonidas Flake at an art show in Paris and becoming his personal hairdresser and then something more.”

  “How old was Leonidas?” asked Odelia, gratefully accepting the protein shake Chase had just mixed up.

  “Um, seventy-eight, and still going strong by all accounts,” said Alec, kindly refusing a similar offer.

  “It’s good for you,” Odelia pointed out. “Drink it. You’ll like it. It’s a vitamin bomb and you’ll feel much better.”

  “It tastes like horse piss.”

  Instead of being insulted, Chase laughed loudly. “And how would you know what horse piss tastes like?”

  “I don’t have to taste it to know what it tastes like,” said Alec, with the kind of strange logic the unhealthy use to remain unhealthy. He took a pack of cigarettes from his other front shirt pocket and shook one out.

  Odelia watched on in horror. “Don’t tell me you started smoking again!”

  “No, I haven’t,” he said. “But I can’t seem to shake the habit of taking one out of the pack from time to time.” And as he said it, he put the cigarette to his lips. He smiled a beatific smile. “Feels so good,” he muttered, then grudgingly put it away again and returned the pack to his shirt pocket. “Where were we?”

  “So Gabriel Crier worked for Leonidas Flake as his personal hairstylist and something more?” Chase prompted as he licked the green sludge from his lips.

  “Right. He was also rumored to be the designer’s right-hand man.”

  “As a fashion designer?” asked Odelia.

  “Was he any good?”

  “Who knows,” said the chief with a sigh. “I know about as much about fashion as the next chief of police.” He tucked away his little notebook.

  “Maybe he felt things weren’t moving along fast enough?” Odelia said. “And so he figured if he killed his boyfriend he’d become the new top guy?”

  “Yeah, but that’s just it. I talked to the guy’s attorney early this morning. As far as he knows the most recent will and testament doesn’t exactly hand the keys to the kingdom to the boyfriend. On the contrary. Everything goes to—”

  “The kids?” Chase offered.

  “Siblings?” Odelia guessed.

  “—his cat,” said Uncle Alec with a quick look towards the living room couch, where four cats sat listening to the kitchen counter conversation—Brutus had joined his friends, who had all made themselves comfortable.

  “What?” asked Chase with a laugh. “A cat is inheriting the Leonidas Flake empire?”

  “Looks like,” said Alec. “Unless Mr. Flake made a last-minute change his attorney isn’t aware of—and this seems very unlikely—the cat gets everything. The millions, the brand, the stores, the global fashion empire.”

  Odelia frowned. “I don’t get it. How can a cat inherit a company?”

  “Yeah, a cat can’t run a business, can it?” said Chase, directing his question at Odelia, just to be on the safe side. She was, after all, the feline expert.

  “I guess a cat could run a company,” she said slowly, “if that cat knew a thing or two about business. But they would still have to relay all of the decisions through a human, who would then have to organize the actual day-to-day running of the business along those instructions. It would require a person who could intuit the cat’s decision-making process, of course.”

  “A person like you, you mean,” said Chase, who’d recently been made aware of the fact that his fiancée was one of those rare people who could actually communicate with cats.

  She nodded.

  Chase turned to Alec. “And did Flake have such a person on the payroll?”

  “That was Gabriel’s task,” he said. “He was in charge of Pussy’s routine. Pussy being the name of Flake’s cat. Mr. Crier took Pussy to her weekly visits to the pet salon, kept a close eye on her diet, organized her parties—”

  “Sorry, her parties?” asked Chase.

  “Yes, apparently this Pussy has a very busy social life, and as a rule Mr. Crier planned a lot of activities for her—she had a full schedule.”

  “Who told you all this stuff?” asked Odelia.

  Alec dragged a meaty paw through the devastated area that was his scalp. “You’d be surprised how chatty staff members of the recently departed can be.”

  “You should have called,” said Chase. “I would have helped set up the interviews.”

  “I did call you,” said Uncle Alec. “And Odelia.”

  Both Odelia and Chase grabbed for their phones. “Shoot,” Chase muttered. “Must have forgotten to plug the darn thing in last night.”

  “Same here,” said Odelia, taking Chase’s phone and proceeding to plug in both phones so they could recharge before they left the house.

  “Anyway, it’s a slam-dunk case,” said Alec, eagerly checking out the uneaten waffle on his niece’s plate and gratefully accepting it when she handed it to him. “Crier was caught red-handed, so I’m guessing we’ll be done with this before lunch. Still, always good to cross our T’s and dot our I’s.”

  “Weird that the only person who stands to gain from the designer’s death is the man’s cat,” said Chase. “What do you make of that, Chief?”

  He lowered his bristly brows into a frown. “Not sure, buddy. But you have to allow for the fact that these are celebrities, and as we all know celebrities are eccentric. Leonidas only changed his will last week. The one before that had the boyfriend as the main beneficiary, so there’s always a chance he didn’t know Flake cut him out of his will.”

  “I think the cat did it,” Chase quipped.

  “Funny guy,” the Chief grumbled.

  Odelia glanced over to her cats, who were listening attentively. “Did you hear that, you guys? Looks like we have a feline suspect for this one.”

  “Impossible,” said Max. “A cat would never kill a human.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Brutus. “If that human treated him or her badly, anything is possible.”

  “But he was stabbed with a knife,” Max pointed out. “Cats don’t stab people with knives, Brutus.”

  “Cats don’t need knives,” said Harriet. “We use our inbuilt tools.” And she unsheathed a razor-sharp claw to turn her words into a show-and-tell.

  “Was he stabbed with the knife Crier was holding?” asked Odelia now.

  “Um… not sure,” said Alec. “Abe is delayed.” He checked his watch. “He should be there shortly, though, so I better start heading back over there.”

  Odelia jumped down from the kitchen stool. “You mean to say the body is still there? The coroner hasn’t even examined the victim?”

  “Nope,” said Alec with faux cheer. “Which is
why I figured I might as well pick up you two, so you can give me a hand wrapping this thing up.”

  “We better get going,” said Odelia. “I can’t believe we’ve been sitting here chatting while that poor man is lying there.”

  “He’s not going anywhere,” said Alec, buttering a piece of toast.

  “And I haven’t taken a shower yet,” said Odelia, patting her hair.

  “You look fine,” said Chase.

  “Oh, God,” she muttered. She hated leaving the house without taking a shower or putting on a fresh set of threads. “Give me five minutes.”

  “You can take ten,” said Uncle Alec, unconcerned.

  She hurried up the stairs, and took the quickest shower in the history of mankind, put on a pair of jeans, pulled a T-shirt and sweater over her head, and decided to forgo drying her hair for once, then hurried down again.

  Alec and Chase were still chatting away, not a care in the world.

  “Cats don’t frame humans,” Uncle Alec was saying. “That’s a fact. I mean, no offense to you guys,” he added, gesturing to Max and the others, “but I don’t think you have it in you to try and frame someone for a crime you committed. Am I right or am I right?”

  “Cats may be a lot of things but we’re not that cunning,” Brutus agreed.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Harriet. “Cats can be very, very cunning.”

  “What is he saying, honey?” asked Alec.

  “He’s saying cats are not that cunning,” said Odelia, shoving her notebook into her purse and checking the kitchen to see if all the appliances were turned off.

  “And then there’s the logistics of the thing,” said Chase. “How would a cat kill a person, then plant the knife into the hand of another person, without that person’s knowledge? It can’t be done. No, I think you’re right, Alec. The case is open-and-shut. All we need to do is get a confession and we’re done.”

  “That’s the plan,” said Alec. He got down from the kitchen stool and hoisted up his pants. “Well, let’s get going, kids. Chateau Leonidas awaits us.”

  “Chateau Leonidas?” asked Chase. “Why am I not surprised that the man lived in an actual castle?”

  “Because if you’re one of the most successful designers in the world, of course you live in a castle,” said Alec. “Besides, he’s French, so there’s that.”

  “Do all French people live in castles?” asked Dooley.

  “No, I don’t think they do, Dooley,” said Odelia with a smile. “Only the very wealthy.”

  “Oh,” said Dooley, looking slightly disappointed.

  “I, for one, can’t wait to meet this Pussy,” said Brutus with relish, then, when he caught Harriet’s sideways glance, quickly added, “I mean, so we can talk to her, and find out what she knows.”

  Harriet, who’d narrowed her eyes, didn’t seem all that excited at the prospect of meeting what could very well be the richest cat in the world. And as she extended and retracted her claws a few times, Odelia thought she could actually see Brutus’s Adam’s apple nervously shift up and down.

  She hadn’t even known cats actually had an Adam’s apple.

  Chapter 3

  I glanced over to my feline comrades. It’s one thing to act as a sleuthcat, but another to have to investigate a fellow cat for a crime they may or may not have committed. At least for me this marked the first occasion that a cat had been singled out as a possible suspect in a heinous crime like murder. Usually cats, when accused of a crime, are only guilty of misdemeanors like destroying a beloved set of curtains, a nice carpet here or there or stealing a fish from the fishmonger’s slab. I’ve even known a cat who chased little chicks around the backyard of some minor amateur chicken farmer. When interviewed after the fact, he claimed to have been looking for a feathered little friend to play with.

  “Cats can be killers, though,” said Harriet seriously. “Cats have been known to kill birds and mice and on occasion even a rat or two.”

  “Cats kill fish,” said Dooley, adding his two cents to the discussion.

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” said Brutus brusquely. “Cats don’t kill fish.”

  “They do!” said Dooley. “I once saw Shadow racing down Main Street with a complete fish between his teeth.”

  “I’m sure Shadow didn’t catch that fish,” said Harriet.

  “No, he did,” Dooley insisted. “He got it from Wilbur Vickery’s store.”

  We all laughed, except for Dooley, who didn’t seem to get the joke.

  “That fish was already dead, Dooley,” I said finally, when he merely stared at me, clearly expecting me to provide him with an explanation for the sudden chucklefest.

  “Dead? I don’t think so.”

  “Fish live in the sea,” I said, “or in rivers or lakes or even the occasional pond. They don’t hang around Wilbur Vickery’s General Store.”

  “The fish Vickery sells is caught by fishermen,” Harriet said. “Men who fish. In the sea,” she added, as if addressing a not-so-clever kitten.

  “Oh,” said Dooley, clearly disappointed that his war story turned out to be a benign little tale instead. “Well, he did catch it, even if it was dead already.”

  “Just like I catch my kibble every day,” Brutus said with a grin.

  Harriet clapped her paws. “Order, people. Let’s come to order,” she said. “Let’s focus on the task at hand. We won’t be able to help Odelia by telling tall tales of Shadow stealing fish from the General Store. We need to decide once and for all if cats are capable of homicide—in other words, the killing of a hominid.”

  “A what?” asked Brutus.

  “A hominid. A member of the family of the Hominidae or great apes.”

  “A human,” I explained.

  “Oh, right,” said Brutus.

  “I once saw a story about a cat that likes to lie on top of its human’s face,” said Dooley. When we all stared at him, he added, “It was on the Discovery Channel so it must be true!”

  “So did the human die?” asked Harriet.

  “Yeah, that’s the real issue here,” Brutus added. “Did that human die?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Dooley, frowning as he searched his memory. “No, I think he survived. At least he was alive when they interviewed him.”

  More eye rolls greeted Dooley’s second contribution to our discussion, with some exasperated groans coming from Harriet, but once again it was up to me to explain to my dear friend what the problem was with his story.

  “Dooley, if they interviewed the man after the fact, and he was able to recount the experience, he didn’t die, see?”

  He thought about this for a moment, then conceded, “No, I guess he didn’t.”

  “Why did he lie on top of his human’s face?” I asked, for the story did possess an element of intrigue.

  “Yeah, did he try to kill him?” asked Brutus, who has a penchant for all things violent.

  “No, I think he just wanted to show his affection,” said Dooley. “Or maybe he was afraid his human’s face would get cold during the night.”

  “Well, he shouldn’t have,” Harriet snapped. “Lying on top of a hominid’s face might block certain aspects of the breathing apparatus and kill it dead.”

  “What’s all this talk about hominids?” I asked.

  “Marge loaned me an eBook she got from the library the other day,” said Harriet. “Very interesting stuff. About the different species that make up this great big beautiful planet of ours. She felt I’d been spending too much time watching the Kardashians with Gran, and I should read something that would feed my mind instead. I like it. I might read a few more of them.”

  I was greatly surprised, but also greatly impressed. Harriet is not exactly known as the intellectual of our gang of four, and this was all to the good.

  “Look, all this talk about killer cats is all well and good,” said Brutus, “but frankly I don’t buy it. Not for one second.”

  “What don’t you buy?” asked Doole
y, interested.

  “That cats are capable of killing humans! It’s simply not possible. I mean, they can claw their humans, when provoked, or even bite them, but kill them? I don’t think any member of the feline species, in the long history we share with the human race, has ever been responsible for the death of a human.”

  “A cat could kill if it accidentally kicked over a candle and set the house on fire,” Harriet pointed out.

  “Yeah, but that’s not exactly murder, is it? That’s more like an accident.”

  “Brutus is right,” I said. “What we need to ask ourselves is this: are cats capable of possessing the intent to kill? Willfully murder a human being?”

  We all chewed on that one for a moment, then Dooley finally said, “Do you think Pussy is one of those cats that likes to wear booties?”

  “Dooley, let’s try to focus on the issue at hand for a moment, shall we?” I said. “In a show of paws, who thinks cats are capable of manslaughter?”

  No paws were raised. “Well, that settles it,” said Harriet. “Pussy is innocent, and whoever claims she did what they say she did is lying through their teeth.”

  “We’ll know more after we’ve talked to her,” I said.

  Odelia, who’d been surfing the internet, preparatory to launching her investigation, now called out, “Did you know that Leonidas was couturier to kings and queens and presidents?”

  “No, I did not know that,” I said, but when Chase joined her at the computer it dawned on me that her question hadn’t actually been directed at me.

  Instead, Chase said, “Well what do you know?”

  I stared at my human for a moment, then back at my posse. They quickly looked away. It had been an embarrassing moment for me, and none of them wanted to rub my face in it. Which was nice of them, I guess. Then again, it highlighted a growing concern we all shared: ever since Chase had moved in, our face time with Odelia had gradually diminished to the point it had almost been reduced to zero. Used to be she spent all of her free time with us, or her family, who live right next door. These days she spends most of her time with Chase, and what little time is left, she devotes to taking care of our basic needs. It’s been an adjustment, let me tell you, and one we’re struggling with.