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  A CAT ON THE CASE

  A Witch Cats of Cambridge Mystery

  Clea Simon

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in an entirely fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by Clea Simon

  Cover and jacket design by Mimi Bark

  ISBN 978-1-951709-26-6

  eISBN: 978-1-951709-42-6

  Library of Congress Control Number: tk

  First hardcover edition January 2021

  by Polis Books, LLC

  44 Brookview Lane

  Aberdeen, NJ

  www.PolisBooks.com

  Chapter 1.

  “Oh, no, kitties! What did you do this time?”

  Becca Colwin stood in the doorway, staring at the chaos within. Granted, her apartment had never been particularly neat. But even the most casual visitor would be taken aback by the potted plant that now lay prone on the floor, the sofa’s pillows – all except one – scattered in its soil. The potpourri looked to be mixed in with that dirt, the small ceramic bowl that usually held it now face down and miraculously unbroken on the rug, next to a silver picture frame that had previously held pride of place on the bookshelf. Even the placemats had been pushed off the table, two of them draping the overturned chair.

  Only the three cats who sat facing her seemed upright, clean, and in their customary positions as the welcoming committee at the door.

  “Don’t say anything.” Laurel, the sleekest of the three, murmured to her sisters, too softly for human ears to hear. She lashed her café au lait tail for emphasis before coiling it once more around her dark chocolate booties. “Let her take it all in.”

  “But she’s upset!” Clara, the youngest, longed to go to their human and twine around her calves, butting her parti-colored head – or at least her wet nose – against her in affection.

  “She should be.” Harriet, a marmalade longhair and the oldest and largest of the three littermates, growled in response. “She should be paying more attention.”

  That growl caused Clara’s black ear to twitch. A calico, whose orange and black markings parted on top of her head, she had found that her black ear was slightly more sensitive to her big sisters’ threats, while her orange one was better at picking up Becca’s quietest musings. The harlequin-like markings might have been behind her sisters’ usual taunt – “Clara the clown,” they called her – but right now she felt like she’d risk any abuse to wipe that horrible, shocked look off Becca’s face.

  “Maybe it’s my fault.” Becca dropped her bag and reached to pull off one heavy winter boot, hopping on one foot as she did so and veering dangerously to the left as the cats took cover. “No, it definitely is.” Switching feet she hopped to the right as she worked the other boot off, sending her pets scurrying again until, red-faced from the cold, she righted herself and walked into the living room to look around. Spying the frame, she picked that up first, dusting it off with a sigh. “I guess you’re not used to being left alone.”

  Laurel shot a glance at Clara, a feline smirk lighting up her blue eyes, as the youngest cat watched their person return the picture – a copy of a print – to the shelf and head into the kitchen. Clara didn’t dare respond to Laurel’s teasing glance. She might have her suspicions, but Laurel was her elder, if only by a few minutes, and, like Harriet, demanded respect.

  “Don’t worry, kitties. I’ll feed you before I clean the rest of this up.” Aware of the feline hierarchy, Becca first filled Harriet’s special dish, covering its bright orange sunburst with the wet food she liked best. Laurel was next, getting her own small can of tuna and cheese. The slender sister might pretend she was a more finicky eater, but her sleek build was more a product of her Siamese heritage than of portion control. She buried her brown snout in the dish the moment it was on the mat.

  “Are you feeling okay, Clara?” Clara’s portion, in her own orange-and-black dish, was placed beside her sister’s. Chicken bites, the kind with the good gravy, but the calico cat remained seated, looking up at her person with concern. “You should eat, you know, before Harriet finishes her dinner.”

  “Unless you don’t want it.” Harriet’s interjection, muffled as she lapped up her food, caused Clara’s black ear to twitch again. Harriet much preferred her salmon to Clara’s chicken, but she wasn’t one to make fine distinctions. “You are smaller, after all.”

  With a barely perceptible feline sigh, Clara turned to her own dinner. She was hungry, after the day’s activities. More to the point, she didn’t want Becca to worry.

  Sure enough, once Becca saw the three eating, she fetched a dustpan and returned to the living room, not noticing when Clara left off and followed.

  “You didn’t have to knock the picture over.” Clara knew she shouldn’t talk back to her sisters, but the thought eked out as she watched Becca sweep up the potting soil.

  Laurel, who had come up alongside her, huffed with displeasure, a low barking sound that bordered on a growl. Too late, Clara remembered: the idea of a picture would mean nothing to Laurel. Both her sisters had difficulty understanding a static two-dimensional image as a person. Even Clara had taken quite a while to learn to “see” such pictures as representative of three-dimensional objects, and of the three, she was the cat who spent the most time with their human, staring over her shoulder at such images for hours.

  “It’s another person,” she tried to explain. “It’s important to her.”

  “She hasn’t picked it up in ages.” Laurel dismissed Clara’s concern and began to groom. “And for the record, I know more about what that image of the old lady means than you.”

  Clara glanced over at her sister, intrigued, but in the name of peace decided to let her have the last word. Besides, what she said had some truth to it. Even now, once the framed print was back on its shelf, Becca had moved on without looking back. Instead, she focused on gathering the cushions that had been scattered throughout the room. Or appeared to focus. If she noticed that Harriet’s special cushion – gold, with tassels – was the only throw pillow that remained on the sofa, she didn’t comment. To Clara, the young woman with the sweet face seemed distracted, her thoughts as scattered as her brown curls. Clara didn’t know if one of her sisters – Laurel most likely – had managed to block any more productive thoughts – say, about that pillow or what her cats had gotten up to – from her head. It might simply be that their human was tired from being at her new job all day.

  Becca had only recently started work at Charm and Cherish, a New Age magic shop right outside Cambridge’s Central Square. She had been a regular even before she landed the position, and, with her own interest and experience in all things Wiccan, took her role as a sales clerk seriously. Her one concern about the job, Clara knew, had been about the long hours it kept her from her three cats, who had all come to expect 24-hour service, during Becca’s months of unemployment.

  This didn’t bother Clara, who knew how much it meant to Becca. That didn’t mean she didn’t have her own concerns about the job. Becca had landed it following her involvement with the owner, the irritable Margaret Cross, following a complicated crime that had nearly taken her own life. For Harriet and Laurel, though, the time their person spent away amounted to a personal affront. That, Harriet had decreed, was reason enough to lay waste to the apartment – all of it except Harriet’s special pillow, of course. But to Clara, who understood something of the conflict raging in Becca, such petty retribution was only adding to the problems facing the young woman who cared for them all.

  “There we go.” Becca, still sounding tired b
ut at least somewhat relieved, returned the broom and dustpan to the closet. “Now what can I do to keep you three entertained tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?” Laurel’s voice rose in its distinctive Siamese howl. “She’s going out again tomorrow?”

  It was all Clara could do to keep her claws sheathed. She knew better than to escalate, though. Especially because she, like her sisters, could pick up the vibrations already coming down the hall. Harriet, always quite sure of her appeal, was already trotting, plumed tail high, toward the front door.

  “Tomorrow?” Laurel, however, kept on wailing. Her sister was really overdoing it, Clara thought, but Becca – her pale face looking increasingly pinched – appeared to accept the scolding as her due and was in the process of scooping up the yowling beast when a sharp rap sounded on the door.

  “Already?” Becca glanced up at the clock and then went to answer, still holding the cat. Laurel, her blue eyes crossed appeared to be enjoying the treat, even as her legs stuck out from beneath Becca’s arm in the most undignified manner.

  “You look like a chicken.” Harriet appraised her sister with cool yellow eyes. “That is not effective.” Poised for compliments, if not treats, the big marmalade made a few quick adjustments to her thick ruff. Clara, suspecting an ongoing squabble, chose not to get involved. Better to focus on Becca, especially since she sensed that her person was in for a surprise. Sure enough, Becca’s face fell and her grip on the cat in her arms tightened as she opened the door. Clara couldn’t tell for sure whom she had expected, and Laurel wasn’t sharing. But it certainly wasn’t the tall, dark-haired woman standing in the doorway.

  Becca recoiled as if startled. Peeking up from her feet, Clara saw why. With her full lips and wide-set eyes, the woman – a stranger to the calico – should have been pretty, her rosy sweater playing up the unseasonably warm glow of those prominent cheekbones. Despite the softness of that sweater, however, to the cat she appeared hard, as if the glossy fall of her chestnut hair had been lacquered into place. Or maybe, the cat decided, it was the sour look on her face.

  “Hello” Becca, still clutching Laurel, put on her most welcoming smile. “May I help you?”

  The woman must not have heard. “So that’s the creature.” Her dark eyes flicked from Becca down to the cat in her arms, her cool appraisal striking them both momentarily dumb.

  “Excuse me?” Becca rallied first, although Laurel soon followed, wiggling to be let down, where she immediately began to groom.

  “The animal that makes that ungodly racket.” Fine wrinkles appeared as the newcomer drew in her dark red lips. “Your cat – oh my!”

  That was to Harriet, who had seized the opportunity to rub against the visitor’s legs, so sure of being admired and petted that she glanced up in surprise as the tall woman danced back, flicking a long white hair from her black wool trousers.

  “Harriet.” Becca, exasperated, looked like she was about to grab the stout feline, but Harriet had already sat back on her wide haunches, affronted eyes wide. “Yes, these are two of my cats. I’m Becca Colwin, and you are?”

  “Two cats?” The visitor, a good head taller than Becca, peered over her shoulder into the apartment, perfect brows arching. “How many do you have here?”

  “Three. They’re littermates.” Becca caught herself. Her tone grew frosty, but, as always, she remained scrupulously polite. “I’m sorry, may I help you with something?”

  “You’ve already done enough.” The brunette drew back, her carmine lips spreading in a closed-mouth smile as if she’d scored a triumph. “I knew there was something going on here, from the ruckus and, frankly, the smell.” She drew a pert nose up in disgust, seemingly unaware of how this accentuated the fine wrinkles around her eyes. “Now I know that there’s an animal control issue here, I can go directly to the authorities.”

  “What are you talking about?” Very few things could aggravate Becca like an insult to her pets. “My cats are healthy and well cared for. I’ve never had any complaints.”

  The brunette showed her teeth. “That was clearly before the building began to transition, I’m sure.” Those teeth, Clara thought, looked ready to bite. “But now that I own the unit beneath yours, I can assure you, I will not put up with this crazy cat lady nonsense.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and stepped back out into the hall, leaving Becca gasping for a response. Clara looked around for her sisters. Surely, such an assault merited a counterattack. Becca seemed to think so too, following her out the door. But whatever rebuttal Becca had been considering seemed to evaporate just as quickly. A tall, lean man was leaning out of the apartment next door. Clad in a Hempfest T-shirt and jeans, despite the January cold, his shaggy blond mop fell free to expose eyes wide behind wire-rimmed glasses, a wispy goatee framing a surprised “oh” of a mouth.

  Seeing her startled neighbor, Becca swallowed whatever retort she had been planning, smiling at him instead in a wordless apology. Clara could almost feel her embarrassment. Although the little cat had her doubts about how much noise her sisters could make, this particular exchange had happened with the door wide open. Plus, the man who now stared, wide-eyed, at Becca hadn’t had a chance yet to learn what a wonderful person she truly was.

  They’d all heard the movers, only a few weeks before, thumping and cursing as they carried that sleek leather sofa and all those boxes up the stairs. Being busy with her new job, Becca hadn’t had a chance to pop over and properly introduce herself to her new neighbor, the young tech investor who’d bought grumpy Tony’s place. It was Tony who’d told her that the buyer was a venture capitalist – or as he called it, an “adventure capitalist.” Becca’s longtime neighbor had been grumbling about “some kid with a so-called career,” although as a tenant he’d had the option of buying the apartment where he’d lived for longer than Becca knew, a two-bedroom with a view of the street and a bigger-than-average fire escape.

  If Tony hadn’t said anything, Becca might have thought the newcomer a displaced surfer boy, with that shaggy hair and his torn jeans. As it was, she seemed pleasantly surprised, her flush of embarrassment fading as her smile relaxed into something real. But as she opened her mouth to comment – a greeting, perhaps, or a quip about surfing on the Charles – the woman from downstairs turned, as if to deliver one last parting shot, and the shaggy blond man ducked back in, like a frightened turtle, closing the door behind him and leaving Becca alone as the with the sound of heels click-clicking down the stairs.

  Chapter 2.

  When the doorbell rang not ten minutes later, Becca flinched. Laurel had already taken to her usual safe place – on top of the bookshelf – and Harriet had not emerged from the bedroom, where she had retreated in the wake of the previous visitor’s insult. But Clara, who had remained staunchly by her person’s side, could have told Becca that she needn’t have worried. Although her cats might not have liked the idea, these new visitors would please Becca. Her so-called coven was assembling, and the first of the would-be witches was at the door.

  “Hey, Marcia.” Becca’s shoulders sagged with relief when she saw her friend. “Come in out of the cold. I mean, blessed be.”

  “Blessed be.” The shorter woman pulled Becca into a hug, not noticing that her friend she snuck a peek over her and down the hall. Harriet, meanwhile, had emerged.

  “Have they served the cookies yet?” The bigger cat nudged her little sister aside.

  “Look, your cats are talking to each other.” Marcia pointed as she unzipped her coat. Bundled into a puffy purple parka with a knit mohair cap of the same shade pulled low over her dark bob, she looked a bit like an upholstered grape. “Hey, who’s selling?”

  “Excuse me?” Becca closed the door, turning in toward her friend. “Selling what?”

  “The sign out front.” Marcia pulled the hat off next and bent to stroke Harriet’s broad back, oblivious to how the cat’s golden eyes narrowed as they focused on her dangling cap. “Someone in the building
is selling their unit.”

  “Not ‘someone.’ Something.” Becca scooped up the big marmalade, before the claws in her mitt-like paw could snag the soft purple wool. “The management company is selling. I’ve got to find a new apartment.”

  “No!” Marcia pulled herself up to her full five-four. “They can’t kick you out, can they?”

  Becca shrugged and held the fluffy feline closer. “Not exactly. But they’re breaking up the building, selling it off as condos. If someone buys my unit as an investment, the new owner could keep renting to me – if he or she wants to. And if the condo association agrees. Some of these condo buildings don’t allow renters at all.”

  “You don’t get any say?” Marcia sounded suitably horrified.

  “I get first dibs on buying it. But I can’t afford a place like this.” Becca looked around, as if already saying goodbye. Harriet, aware that this conversation wasn’t leading to food, squirmed to be put down.

  “I’m sorry, Becca.” Marcia’s natural ebullience was muted for once as she hung her coat on the coat tree. “Is the slick guy next door one of the new owners?”

  Becca gave her friend a quizzical look, even as a light tap announced another visitor. “You saw him?”

  “He was coming in as I came upstairs. Gave me a look.” She frowned, miming a glower that rumpled her cold-reddened face.

  “Wow, I hope he wasn’t conferring with the harridan downstairs. But I wouldn’t have called him ‘slick.’” Becca’s doubt melted into a smile as she opened the door to a willowy woman whose layers made her appear almost bulky. “Hey, Ande. Blessed be!”

  “Blessed be.” With the grace of a model, rather than the accountant she was, the new arrival glided into the apartment, shedding her long wool coat, scarf, and gloves in one fluid motion. Pulling a felt cap off her short, tight curls, she bent to kiss Becca’s cheek.