“Hey get off, you mangy fur ball!”
Meow!
Millie and Mom had sprinted ahead. They skidded to a stop and I just barely missed bowling them over. My eyes immediately scanned for Marlowe. She was caterwauling loudly and her fur was standing on end, but she seemed fine. It was kind of hard to tell for sure though because she was latched onto a pant leg and the owner of said leg was trying vigorously to kick her off.
The cats I had seen at the murder scene were all there, too. Their backs were humped and tails fluffed out like bottle brushes. Some were hissing as they stood between the person and the bloody shovel sticking partway out of the ground.
The murder weapon!
“Marlowe!” Millie was aghast. “Leave him alone. I’m so sorry, the cats don’t usually act this way.”
Apparently Millie hadn’t put two and two together yet. The cats weren’t attacking for no reason. They’d captured the killer—Earl Biddeford.
I felt momentary satisfaction that my suspicions had been correct. I was about to name Earl as the killer when Nero had interrupted with his caterwauling. I hadn’t been a hundred-percent positive then. I was now.
“I don’t know why she’s acting this way…” Millie wrung her hands, probably picturing a lawsuit.
“She’s acting that way because he is the killer.” I stepped between Earl and the shovel, standing next to the cats, my arms crossed over my chest to signify that there was no way Earl was going to get to that shovel.
“He is?” Mom turned to me.
“Yes, he is. Isn’t that right, Earl?”
Earl forgot about Marlowe, who was still digging in to his leg, and turned malicious eyes on me.“You three busybodies should have left well enough alone! You should have let everyone think it was Jedediah’s ghost.”
“Why would we do that? Bob deserved to have his killer caught.” I inched to the left, hoping Mom and Millie got the hint to surround him. It looked like the cats did too because they started to fan out. The black cat with the white paws seemed a bit reluctant but the orange-striped one with themissing tail looked like he was itching to dig his claws into Earl’s other leg.
“He didn’t deserve anything! He was a slacker. Always weaseling out of work. His sculptures were sub-par. He couldn’t even carve a decent swan.” Earl tried to step toward me but was weighed down by the cat on his leg.
“But that’s not why you killed him, is it?” I inched my way further to the left.
“No. His lack of skills wasn’t the reason. Bob was always a tattletale. I’m surprised someone else didn’t do him in before me.” Earl twisted to try to get rid of Marlowe. My blood froze. Tucked in the back of Earl’s pants was a gun. I had to tread very carefully. Hopefully, I could keephim distracted with talking.
“I never did like a tattletale,” Mom said.
“No one does,” Earl said. “I did everyone a favor.”
“But you mostly did yourself a favor, didn’t you? Because Bob had something on you that would pit your entire family against you and probably send you to jail.”
“You mean the secret book with the treasure map?” Mom asked.
“No. There was a secret book, but it wasn’t about treasure. Earl was embezzling from the company.” I looked at Earl. “Weren’t you?”
Millie snapped her fingers.“Of course! I should have known. I thought it was odd that Earl and Arlene always dressed to the nines given that the company was having trouble.”
I pointed toward Earl’s feet. He was wearing fancy Italian loafers. “It really was your shoes that Paula saw running away from the pond, wasn’t it?”
“Stupid Paula. Leave it to her to be passed out right in my getaway path,” Earl said. “I chose that pond area because I knew no one was over there. No witnesses.”
I shifted to the left, still trying to surround him. Millie was over on the right but unfortunately my mother appeared oblivious to the plan. She was shuffling from foot to foot and looking a bit uncomfortable.
“That wasn’t the only flaw in your plan,” I said. “Oh, you almost had us fooled. I mean, who would suspect you had a reason to kill Bob, especially after you burned the real accounting ledger in your fireplace.”
I smiled at the look of surprise on Earl’s face. “Yeah, the maid found the evidence and we have it safe and sound at the guesthouse for the police.”
Earl looked skeptical.“What? There must only be a few small scraps left. Nothing that would prove anything except that I burned some paper with numbers. By the way, you should look into getting a new maid. That one’s work leaves a bit to be desired.”
I ignored his comment about Flora. It’s not like it was anything I didn’t already know. “You made another key mistake, too.”
“What? Picking a guesthouse with you three nosey people at it?”
“Well that too, but when you brought the Nikes down to prove that it wasn’t your shoes that Paula saw, you made a big error. I worked out that you put that dirt on them not from outside, but from the plants in the conservatory. But you messed up.”
“How?”
“You only put dirt on the tops! If you’d really been wearing them, the dirt would have been clumped into the treads and have fallen out on the table, but dirt only came off the sides. The actual spot where the soles had been was clean.” And that explained why the doily had not been dirty. Turned out Flora’s reluctance to clean most things provided a key clue to catching the killer.
“And now we have the murder weapon,” Millie said, pointing at the shovel. “I would say your cheese-sculpting days are over. You might as well just give up. Play nice and you might get a reduced sentence. I’ll just call the sheriff and tell him—”
“Not so fast!” Earl pulled the gun out of his pocket and waved it around. “I’m not going to jail.”
“Now, Earl, be careful with that thing. You don’t want to go to jail for multiple murders.” Millie glanced over at me as if to ask what our plan was now. I didn’t have one other than not getting shot.
“Why not? If I’m going for one anyway, how much time can it add?” Earl laughed. “But I’m not going for even one. Too bad you’re all so nosey. I had the perfect setup here, especially once that skeleton was discovered. I mean, who gets a chance to frame a ghost? And if that didn’t work, I could always let your maid take the rap.”
“Well, that’s not going to work. Not once they get this shovel to the CSI lab and find your fingerprints and Bob’s blood on it,” Millie said.
“Not gonna happen. If only these stupid cats didn’t dig it up. Actually, maybe it’s a good thing they did. I’ll need something to dig the hole to bury your bodies in.”
Mom raised her hand.“Can I go to the little girls’ room?”
“No. You won’t need to worry about that soon.”
My heart stopped as he stepped toward my mother, pointing the gun at her head.
Meroooo!
A blur of black-and-white shot toward Earl’s gun arm. Nero!
“Ouch!” Earl shook his arm, but he didn’t drop the gun.
My mind whirled with indecision. Should I lunge toward the gun? Go for his knees and knock him down? He was still holding the darn gun!
There was a rustle in the bushes behind him. A thick branch appeared, crashing down on Earl’s head. He crumpled to the ground.
Behind him stood Flora. She looked down at Earl’s still body.
“Guess I lied about another thing,” she said.
“What?” Millie asked.
Flora nudged Earl’s arm with her toe. “Looks like this old bird really does have the strength to clonk someone over the head.”
Millie hugged her.“You saved the day.”
“Ahh, it was nothing,” Flora said.
“Thanks, Flora. I gotta make a pit stop.” Mom ducked behind a shrub.
Nero and Marlowe trotted over to me and rubbed against my ankles.“Thanks, guys.” I picked them up one by one and buried my face in their fur. When I put them back down, they trotted over to Millie. It didn’t escape me that they’d come to me first.