Misty Hollow Cat Detective (Darcy Sweet Mystery) (A Smudge the Cat Mystery Book 1)

COPYRIGHT

First published in Australia by South Coast Publishing, July 2014.
Copyright K.J. Emrick (2014)

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and locations portrayed in this book and the names herein are fictitious.  Any similarity to or identification with the locations, names, characters or history of any person, product or entity is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

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A Smudge the Cat Mystery

Everyone thinks that cats sleep a lot.  Well, I'm here to tell you that we don't.  We just sleep on a different schedule than people do.

We've got our own lives to lead.  We might need to be up all night and sleep during the day.  Especially in a town like Misty Hollow.

So,
when I finally got back into the house this morning I padded upstairs to Darcy's room and curled into the blankets at her feet, hoping for a few good hours of rest.

No such luck.

That thing she calls an alarm clock, the loud squawking black box on her nightstand, started screeching at me just as I laid my head down.  It was louder and angrier than the ghost dog had been last night.

Long story.

I don't know how humans stand it.  I really don't.  Every time Darcy uses that alarm box thing I end up jumping off the bed and hiding underneath for my own safety.  I'm no coward, but that thing could make an elephant stampede and let me tell you, I do not want to be underfoot if an elephant stampedes.  Ever see how big an elephant's feet are?

"What are you doing under there?"

Darcy had shut the alarm off, and now she was hanging upside down over the edge of the bed, smiling at me.

I can't help but love the woman, but come on.  What's a cat got to do to get some sleep around here?

Darcy is Darcy Sweet, my owner.  My human.  My friend.  She's taken care of me for a long time now, making sure I always have food in my dish and a place to lay my paws in between my busy schedule.  I keep her company and try to be as much of a friend to her as she's been to me.  Sometimes it's harder than it sounds.  Her life is complicated.

Right now, her long dark hair wa
s hanging down loose around her heart shaped face and it just looked so much like string that I had to pounce on it and try to bite it.

"Oh, you want to play, do you?  Come here, you."

She lifted me back up onto the bed and ruffled my fur and let me attack her hand.  I'm gentle with her, of course.  Never bite the hand that feeds you.  Not hard, anyway.  Humans have long memories and they never forget it if you hurt them for real.

"
Grr, tough cat.  You have big plans for the day?  I do."  She sat up and stretched wide, yawning.  Why humans get themselves up and out of bed when they're still tired is beyond me.  "I have to interview for a new assistant at the bookstore this morning.  Well.  Interview my one and only applicant, anyway.  Her name is Sue Fisher.  She's a college student.  Seems like a nice girl."

A nice girl, hmm?
  I'll check this Sue out.  Later.  Right now I need my sleep.  I've got my own things I need to attend to, and I'll need to be rested up.

A cat's work is never done.

Darcy lets me curl up on the bed this time with just a good scratching behind my ears.  Love that.  Especially when I'm sleepy like this…

***

When I woke up again, I could see the sunlight through the window.  It's that special golden color that the world gets just before it goes dark.  I like this time of day.  It's when cats like me can slink around with no one noticing us or trying to pick us up because we're so cute or chasing us off with bad words and harsh emotions.

It's also when the spirits start to roam the world.

Misty Hollow is unique, near as I can tell.  Lots of crazy things happen here.  Darcy is one of the few people in tune with it all.  That's one of the reasons I like her.  She knows what us cats know already.  The world around us isn't as simple as it seems.

Jumping down off the bed I mad
e my way downstairs to munch on the dry food Darcy has left out for me.  Sometimes she has moist food for me, and I love it, but the dry food is good too.  Not as good as catching one of those wily, conniving mice, but Darcy knows all my favorite flavors.

Okay.  I'm full, and I'm rested, and I'm ready. 
Time to go meet Twistypaws.

Darcy can never figure out how I keep getting in and out of the house when she's not around.  A cat has his ways.  Sometimes it's a window that she's forgotten to
close, sometimes it's that loose board under the foundation where the cellar walls meet the support beams.  I caught some mice trying to get in that way once.  After word got around about what had happened to them, Darcy's house has been remarkably mouse free.

Out in the night air
I raced down the road that leads from Darcy's house to town.  We live a little outside of the main area of houses and shops.  I like the quiet out here, and the open spaces, and the trees to climb up into, but let's face it.  All the action happens in town.

I scoot through alleyways and around the corners of buildings.  I'm trying to be sneaky.

"Hey, Smudge!"

Sighing through my nose, I look
ed up at a trash can outside the Café to see Tony sitting on the lid.  Tony's usually here in this alley at this time of night.  He's a cat with orange stripes and I guess his owners were trying to be funny when they named him Tony.  Tony the Tiger.

Ha, h
a.  Sometimes I wish I could actually communicate with people.  I'd ask them why they treat us like stuffed animals.  Not Darcy, though.  She's one of the good ones.

"Tony, keep it down!"  I jump
ed up on the trashcan lid with him, light like a feather and making no noise.  "You're going to give me a heart attack and waste one of my nine lives.  What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for the food to come out.
  What else?"  Tony smiled at me in that goofy snaggletooth way he has.  Tony's a good guy.  Just not overly bright.  "They had a turkey sandwich for the lunch special.  Bet you there's lots of scraps to throw out.  Hey, you want to join me?"

I sniff the air, and sure enough, the smell of turkey is calling to me. 
Too bad.  "Not tonight, Tony.  I need to go see someone."

"Oh yeah?" he asks me, rubbing a paw over his ears a few times, acting all innocent.  "Wouldn't be Twistypaws, would it?"

"You never mind," I told him, my tone of voice just a little too obvious to pretend he's not right.  "Someone needs my help, and I—"

I hear
d a very familiar voice then, as two people walk out of the Deli.  "I don't know," Darcy said to the person standing with her, a young blonde-haired girl with an honest face.  That face looks pretty worried right now.  "I'm sure no one would steal it from you, Sue.  Not here in Misty Hollow."

"
Do they have turkey?" Tony asked as his ears perk up.

"
Shh," I hissed at him.

"Okay, you don't need to get cranky."

"Quiet!"

Darcy was talking again.  "Look, my sister is a police officer here in town. 
A detective.  I'll tell her about this and she can make a report.  I'm sure it will turn up, though."

"I hope so, Darcy," the woman named Sue said.  I realize this is the person Darcy was
going to hire to work at her book store.  "My whole life is in that book.  My passwords for my internet sites, my bank account information.  Not to mention all my private thoughts."

"I understand," Darcy said, putting a hand on Sue's shoulder.  "I can't imagine losing my diary.  You're sure you had it here in town?"

"Yes.  I was writing in it when I ate my lunch in the town center.  In that little park."

"Okay."  Darcy nodded.  "I'll help you look, okay?  What did it look like?"

"Red.  With a little leather strap that had a gold buckle and lock," Sue said with a tremble in her voice.  "What rotten luck.  Well.  At least I have a new job."

I twitched an ear.  I don't know how I feel about
a new person working in Darcy's book store.  For a long time it's just been her and me.  Well.  Her and me and Great Aunt Millie's ghost.  Interesting woman, Millie.  She and I have a lot of good conversations.  Most of them are about Darcy, and how Millie wants her great niece to have an easier time in life than she had…

"Aren't you supposed to be meeting, you know, someone?" Tony said with a blink of his eyes.  "Twistypaws doesn't like to be kept waiting."

"Like you'd know," I teased him good-naturedly.  He's right though, so with a graceful jump down I speed off into the growing gloom.

That thing with Sue's diary bothers me as I trot up the sidewalk from tree to bench to mailbox to public trash can.  I know what a diary is, of course.  Darcy keeps one herself.
  I've read some of it.  If cats could blush…

Who would want to steal a diary?

Well, that's a human concern, and none of mine.  My concern tonight is a certain girl cat with sleek gray fur and white-tipped ears and eyes the color of clear blue water.

***

On the far side of the town center, where the three oak trees stand close together on the edge of the park, Twistypaws waited for me, flicking her long tail impatiently.  She paced back and forth with that graceful walk of hers, all four paws counting out a perfect rhythm of steps.  Until she saw me.

"Where have you been?" she asked.  She was trying to act annoyed, but I
could see the smile she tried to hide.  "You know it's not nice to keep a girl waiting, don't you?"

"I said I'd meet you before dark.  It's before dark."  I step
ped up close to her, and the sight and the scent of her filled my mind.  There's a lot of cats in Misty Hollow.  None of them are like Twist.

I only wish I could get up the nerve to tell her so.

"Look, Smudge," she said to me.  "I'm only doing this because my friend Persephone said you helped her out."

"Right," I said, trying to make it seem like a bigger deal than it had been.  "I fixed her problem with those squirrels. 
Mangy little monsters.  You can't trust them."

She stared at me with those eyes. 
"Uh huh.  Anyway.  The job pays in tuna if you're interested."

"Alw
ays interested in tuna."  Which was true.  Outside of a good saucer of milk, tuna might just be my favorite thing in the whole world.

She snorted, a sound not unlike a little sneeze. 
"Men.  So easy to please."

I didn't know what to say to that
, but I figured she wasn't far wrong.  "So tell me what's going on."

"I think my owner is in trouble," she said, her tail flicking side to side.  I could tell how worried she was.

"What makes you think that?"

She started pacing a
gain.  I got dizzy watching but I could not keep my eyes off her.  The way her fur shimmered and her feet almost crossed each other with each step.  She was the prettiest cat in town, and she knew it.

"I'm not sure if it all makes sense," she tried to explain.  "You know my owner?  Benson LaCroix, the town historian?"