The Cat, the Vagabond and the Victim: A Cats in Trouble Mystery Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE NATIONAL BESTSELLING CATS IN TROUBLE MYSTERY SERIES

  The Cat, the Mill and the Murder

  “A charming novel that highlights the love of felines with a mystery that tugs at the heartstrings. For a mystery that features a custom cat quilter as the heroine, the novel nevertheless tackles very serious themes and contains a strong plot that engages the reader until its very satisfying conclusion.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Ms. Sweeney is a talented writer who has peopled this series with some extremely likable characters. . . . She is adept at weaving the history of the textile industry into The Cat, the Mill and the Murder, giving the reader just enough to keep their interest without boring them. This series just gets better and better.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Leann Sweeney has written another well-plotted page-turner. I loved this book. I enjoy a good mystery that features my furry favorites as well as quirky characters. Jillian is such a loving character that you can’t help getting drawn into her life and wish that you could help her solve the problems she encounters. So if you enjoy mysteries that feature adorable cats, then The Cat, the Mill and the Murder is a book you should read.”

  —MyShelf.com

  “I cannot recommend this series enough to animal lovers and fans of a darn good mystery. The mystery was multilayered and kept me guessing right to the end, and, as always, I’m anxious for the next Cats in Trouble book!”

  —Cozy Mystery Book Review

  The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon

  “A light and easy cozy mystery that strikes a nice balance between the murder mystery and the intricacy of human relationships. . . . I give this book four paws up!”

  —MyShelf.com

  “[An] amusing and enthralling regional amateur sleuth tale starring an eccentric cast led by a likable, peacemaking heroine.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  The Cat, the Lady and the Liar

  “A lighthearted, fun cozy starring an engaging cast of characters. . . . Feline frolic fans will enjoy.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Tightly plotted, with likable characters, and filled with cat trivia, this entertaining mystery will become a favorite for cozy and cat lovers alike.”

  —The Conscious Cat

  The Cat, the Professor and the Poison

  “A fun, entertaining story. . . . The mystery will keep the reader guessing.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “The characters and friends Jillian makes along the way, and the care she gives to the cats she encounters, will make her a fast favorite.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  The Cat, the Quilt and the Corpse

  “The cats are entertaining four-legged assistants . . . [and] kitty lovers will enjoy the feline trivia.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “[Leann Sweeney’s] brand-new series about adorable cats that just can’t stay out of trouble is bound to be a hit!”

  —Fantastic Fiction

  Other Novels by Leann Sweeney

  The Cats in Trouble Mysteries

  The Cat, the Mill and the Murder

  The Cat, the Wife and the Weapon

  The Cat, the Lady and the Liar

  The Cat, the Professor and the Poison

  The Cat, the Quilt and the Corpse

  The Yellow Rose Mysteries

  Pushing Up Bluebonnets

  Shoot from the Lip

  Dead Giveaway

  A Wedding to Die For

  Pick Your Poison

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014

  USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  Copyright © Leann Sweeney, 2014

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-698-15768-2

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Title page

  Copyright page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Excerpt from The Cat, the Sneak and the Secret

  This book is for Meika. I love you.

  Acknowledgments

  Every book is special; every book I write teaches me something new about myself; every book is a challenge. No book is written alone. Without my husband’s support, I would be lost. I must thank my former writer’s group—Charlie, Susie, Kay, Dean, Laura, Amy, Bob and Millie. It was your voices I heard as I wrote, guiding me along, even though we no longer meet face-to-face. I miss you! Dear cozy readers and those who encourage me to keep writing, I thank you. This book couldn’t have been created without you. Jenn and Lorraine, I love you both. Cozy Chicks, you are always there to encourage and help. Carol Mann and your assistants—thanks for working so hard for me this year. Claire, you are my hero. Thank you.

  It is in the nature of cats to do a certain amount of unescorted roaming.

  —ADLAI STEVENSON

  One

  Visitors don’t often knock on my front door at eleven o’clock at night. But my friend Allison Cuddahee from the local no-kill shelter had called me in a panic to ask a favor. She arrived thirty minutes later bearing a gift.

  The opportunity to foster a cat is always a gift as far as I’m concerned. This particular feline’s name was Clyde, and I already knew he was a celebrity. The press was onto him and his amazing story. See, various out-of-town reporters had been hanging around the Mercy Animal Sanctuary, hoping for photo opportunities. That was why A
llison resorted to this late-night, stealthy delivery. I guess you could now call my home his “undisclosed location.”

  I’m Jillian Hart, I live in Mercy, South Carolina, and I have a history of helping cats. After all, my three beauties—Syrah, Merlot and Chablis—are all Hurricane Katrina rescues. I found each of them in different shelters in the Houston area where I once lived. They’d been removed from flood-ravaged New Orleans and remained unclaimed months after the storm. But my now-late husband, John, and I gladly gave them a new forever home. I wondered how they’d get along with Clyde, who was being surprisingly quiet in the crate Allison set at her feet in my foyer.

  “Thanks for stepping up again, Jillian,” Allison said. “We sneaked Clyde out the back door of the shelter and into my car because two particularly pesky reporters have been following Shawn around ever since this big boy was transported to our place. We were afraid they’d follow Shawn’s truck if he drove Clyde over here. Now let’s hope they weren’t paying attention to me.”

  Shawn was Allison’s husband, and together they ran the local pet rescue shelter.

  I glanced down at the crate. “I caught Mercy Animal Sanctuary in the background when the Today Show aired Clyde’s story. I suppose they found out about him because of the piece that ran in our town paper?”

  “Who knows? It seems to me anytime a cat travels more than fifty miles, he or she makes the national news.”

  “You two come on into the living room,” I said. “Can I get you some sweet tea? Water? A soda?” I took the bag of food and treats she’d placed on top of the crate and led the way through the foyer.

  The sweet perfume of early summer’s pine and Carolina jasmine wafted through the air as Allison carried Clyde in his crate with some effort. Although of a slight build—three inches shorter than my five foot four—Allison had well-toned biceps and strong legs from her work at the sanctuary. If she was struggling with that crate, my guess was that I was about to meet a big boy—maybe bigger than my nearly twenty-pound Maine coon, Merlot.

  “Nothing to drink,” she said. “I am exhausted and want to sneak back home before one of those weird reporters accosts me with questions. And I’m not talking about your Kara. She’s been nothing but wonderful.”

  Kara was my stepdaughter, my late husband’s daughter, and the editor and owner of the local newspaper, the Mercy Messenger.

  Allison set the carrier down near my chenille sofa, and my three kitties immediately surrounded Clyde. Syrah is a sorrel Abyssinian, Merlot a red tabby Maine coon, and Chablis a seal point Himalayan. I heard no growling coming from inside the crate—unusual, but a relief. Maybe Clyde would fit in here quickly.

  I turned to Allison. “So you’re not upset that Kara broke the story about Mr. Jeffrey and Clyde in the Messenger?”

  “Of course not. It’s these out-of-towners who bother me. It all started as a simple human interest piece as far as Kara was concerned.” Allison knelt by the carrier. “Shawn was happy to talk to her about Clyde—even though he’d rather be speaking with dogs, cats or birds. Who knew the major networks would run with this? Maybe that’s because it doesn’t quite have a happy ending yet.”

  “It is sad about Mr. Jeffrey’s death and how poor Clyde never made it home in time to be with his friend,” I said. “But Candace won’t tell me much about what they found at the man’s house except to say that if not for Clyde, his body would still be lying there undiscovered.”

  Deputy Candace Carson, a local police officer and my best friend, was investigating the man’s passing. Kara reported that his death was assumed to be from natural causes, but the coroner had not released an official report. Only three days had passed, though. Maybe tomorrow we’d know more.

  Allison rested a loving hand on top of the crate. “Norm, poor Clyde’s best buddy, is gone, and I know this guy feels the loss.”

  “I’m not sure I understand why Mr. Jeffrey—Norm—placed Clyde away from his home,” I said. “He sent him to stay with his sister or his nephew, right? At least, those are the two people on the news I saw giving interviews.”

  She nodded. “Clyde was supposedly with the sister, a woman named Millicent Boatman. That other person on TV was her son, Dirk. Anyway, Mr. Jeffrey took the cat down to Hilton Head where the Boatman woman lived two months ago, but Clyde ran off. Then he showed up on Norm’s doorstep several days ago and raised a ruckus. Woke the neighbors, who wondered why in the heck Norm didn’t hear his old friend meowing at the door.”

  I peered into the crate and said, “But there was no waking your friend, huh, buddy?”

  Clyde, a gigantic orange tabby with the kind of upturned mouth that looks like a perpetual smile, blinked at me. This boy had traveled more than two hundred miles to get home. A combination of sorrow and admiration created a lump in my throat.

  Allison said, “Shawn is not inclined to hand this cat back over to the sister without first talking to her away from the cameras. He wants to know how Clyde escaped from her house. And would you believe she hasn’t even shown up in Mercy yet? Too busy giving interviews to CNN, I guess.”

  “And I gather they’re still thinking Mr. Jeffrey died of natural causes?” I said.

  “Far as I know. The man did have cancer.” She whispered the last word. “Don’t know what kind—not sure I want to know.” Allison’s eyes filled as she fixed a short, burnished wave of hair behind her ear.

  I said, “I guess Mr. Jeffrey must have been too frail to care for this big fella. Anyway, I promise to heap tons of love on him if he’ll let me.” I was feeling the need to comfort both Allison and Clyde now. “This guy knew his owner was ill and he needed to get home.” I watched Syrah, my bravest kitty, nose in close to the carrier door.

  “Kara kept anything she knew about Mr. Jeffrey’s private medical issues out of the paper,” Allison said. “But those reporters must have got someone to talk. Like this Millicent person, maybe?”

  Chablis rubbed against Allison’s knee, her curiosity about Clyde satisfied for now. Besides, she knew Allison needed a little comfort.

  Allison sat cross-legged on the floor so Chablis could climb into her lap.

  “Did you know that Norm adopted Clyde from us?” She stroked Chablis, who closed her eyes and raised her chin to offer her throat. Allison complied and stroked it.

  “I had no idea.” I pushed two fingers through the carrier grate to let Clyde sniff my fingers. “When was that?”

  “Clyde walked right up to our sanctuary door a couple years ago,” she said. “’Course he was a kitten and a third the size he is now. You can imagine our surprise when Candace brought him back to us the other day. We recognized him right away by his smile.”

  I shook my head, troubled. “All they want to talk about on the news is Clyde’s voyage home. I heard next to nothing about poor Mr. Jeffrey and how much he probably missed his cat during his illness.”

  Allison said, “Thing is, it’s not all that amazing for a cat to travel long distances to return home. Those TV folks don’t understand the true feline nature if they think it’s odd.” The passion for animals that both Allison and Shawn felt came through in her voice. “Animals love with all their hearts. There’re a few humans I know who could take a lesson from them.”

  “That’s for sure. But I don’t understand why these reporters are still hanging around. I mean, the story’s over, right?”

  “Oh no. Not over yet. One of those reporters was shouting at my husband this morning, yelling that he knew Shawn wasn’t in any hurry to turn over the cat to Millicent Boatman.” She shook her head in annoyance.

  “How could they possibly know?” I said. “No. That was a silly question. The folks in Mercy do love to talk.”

  “True,” she replied. “As far as Shawn is concerned, this cat will not be turned over to a woman who couldn’t hang on to him, so I am sure there will be a bit of a disagreement over who gets possession of Clyde. Like anyone can really possess a cat.” She grinned, and it warmed my heart to see her lovely smile
.

  “You got that right,” I said.

  “Anyway, the story continues. Candace says—and you know how thorough Candace is when it comes to an investigation—anyways, she agrees that until she knows for sure who Clyde should go home with, he stays with us. Well, now with you.”

  “Still, Mr. Jeffrey did give Clyde to his sister, so if she persists about wanting him back, then—”

  “Nope. Not yet, anyway. Shawn worries that Clyde will leave Hilton Head again and might not make it back to Mercy the next time.” Allison continued to pet Chablis, who purred loud enough to wake the birds sleeping outside.

  Clyde finally broke into the conversation, and the sound made me start. His meow was louder than a small dog’s bark. No wonder Mr. Jeffrey’s neighbors had heard him.

  Merlot backed off a couple feet from the crate, and this time, his tail puffed and he growled. Syrah’s coat stood on end, too. But Chablis? She was content in Allison’s lap, completely unaffected by Clyde.

  “Wow. That’s quite a voice he’s got,” I said.

  “He can be very vocal. He had to be to get the neighbor’s attention. Hope he doesn’t keep you awake tonight.” Allison gently moved Chablis off her lap and stood. “And now, I need to go home.”

  I rose, too. “Is Clyde on scheduled meals? I mean, he seems awfully big and—”

  “Big, yes. Overweight, no—probably because of the long trip he just made. We’ve been filling his bowl as soon as it’s empty because he’s hungry all the time,” she said.

  “What about his feet after his trek? Are they okay?” I asked.

  Syrah had jumped on the sofa behind me so he could look down at the crate—and be higher than our new friend, Clyde.

  “His feet are fine,” she said. “All he suffered was a little dehydration. He didn’t even need worming. My guess is this guy made friends along the way—and he made good time, too. Took him a couple months. Probably walked five to ten miles a day.”

  “Wow. I’d be exhausted—and probably lost—if I were him. But since cats have their own little GPS in their brains, they aren’t quite as directionally challenged as someone like me.” I picked up the bag of kibble. “I’ll be starting Clyde out in the basement guest bedroom. As soon as you called, I ran down there and put out a clean cat quilt, a litter box and fresh water.”