Six Cats A Slayin'

I laughed at that idea. This was one rabbit hole I didn’t need to fall into, trying to solve a mystery where there probably wasn’t one. None of my business who Geraldine Albritton was, if she wasn’t who she claimed to be. Besides, Tammy didn’t need to come into the store and find Melba and Milton in a corner somewhere, talking ninety to nothing. She’d try to scratch Melba’s eyes out.

For another hour I managed to keep focused on work. When I checked the clock next I discovered that the time was eleven forty-six. Might as well stop now and go home for lunch, I decided. My neck and shoulders needed a break. I tended to hunch over the desk while working.

On the way down the stairs I heard my cell phone ringing, and I dug it out as I reached the bottom of the flight. I glanced at the caller ID. Azalea. Probably wanted me to run by the grocery store.

“Hello, Azalea, what can I pick up on the way home?” I said.

“Mr. Charlie, are you about ready to come home for lunch?” Azalea sounded annoyed, and I figured the kittens had gotten loose and she needed help finding them.

“Yes, I’m on my way out of the building this minute,” I said.

“Good. Somebody’s been peeking in the windows,” Azalea said.

FOUR

I cut Azalea off in my haste to get going. “Call the police. I’m on the way.”

I stuck my phone back in my pocket and hurried out of the building to my car. Traffic thankfully stayed sparse. I made it home in under seven minutes. When I pulled in to the garage and stopped the car, I saw no sign of the police. I thought they might have arrived by now. Athena wasn’t such a large town that the police were ever very far away.

Heart pounding, I stumbled once climbing out of the car but managed to get to the kitchen door without falling. I opened the door and stepped inside to find Azalea and Diesel waiting. Considering the situation, I found their calmness unnerving. Azalea was frowning at me.

“Did you call the police?” I asked.

Azalea shook her head. “No need to call them. I would’ve told you, Mr. Charlie, but you hung up on me. Didn’t try to call you back because I figured you’d be rushing to get here.”

Diesel came to me and rubbed against my legs. He could tell I was worried and wanted to reassure me. I scratched his head to let him know I was okay. My heart rate began to drop back toward normal.

“What about the prowler?” I asked. “Weren’t you afraid he might try to break in?”

Again my housekeeper shook her head. “No, I wasn’t afraid of any such thing. Whoever was peeking in the windows wasn’t a grown man or woman.”

“Do you mean a child or a teenager was the peeping tom?”

Azalea nodded. “Child. Couldn’t be more ’n about ten, I’d say.”

“Did you get a good look at him or her?” I asked. “I wonder if it was the child who left the kittens on the doorstep.”

“Reckon it likely was,” Azalea said. “All I saw was dark hair on top of a head a couple times. Caught a glimpse out the corner of my eye when I turned around. Head ducking down out of sight of the window.” She indicated the window over the sink. “By the time I got to where I could see better outside, whoever it was had run off. I didn’t see no point in going chasing after them.”

“No, no point by then,” I said. “I’ll bet it was the kittens’ owner coming to check on them.” A thought occurred to me. Why wasn’t the child in school? The local schools weren’t out for the holidays already, were they? I thought they had a couple of more days to go, at least.

Even if the schools weren’t out, a child could have sneaked away from the elementary school that was about five blocks from this house, I reasoned. The more I considered the idea, the more I was convinced it was probably the answer. Identifying that child, however, would be problematic. I could hardly go to the school and ask if anyone noticed a dark-haired child sneaking off or back on to the school grounds around lunchtime.

Chances were that the child would return at some point for another attempt to catch sight of the kittens. I suggested this to Azalea, and she agreed.

“I’ll be on the lookout from now on,” she said. “Now, how about lunch?”

“Sounds good,” I said. “I’ll just go wash my hands and have a look at our newest little boarders.”

Diesel followed me to the first-floor washroom under the stairs and waited patiently outside while I completed my ablutions. Since I left the door open, he didn’t try to crowd inside with me as he would have done if I had started to shut the door.

“Let’s see about the kitties,” I told him as I finished drying my hands. He chirped several times and trotted ahead of me as I walked to the living room. When I arrived he was sitting atop one of the bookshelves, surveying the scene.