“What do you think?” I said, scratching behind Elvis’s right ear. He made a murping sound, cat-speak for “good,” and lifted his chin. I switched to stroking the fur on his chest.
He started to purr, eyes closed. It sounded a lot like there was a gas-powered generator running in the room.
“Mac and I went to look at the Harrington house,” I said to him. “I have to put together an offer, but there are some pieces I want to buy, and you’re definitely going with me next time.” Eighty-year-old Mabel Harrington was on a cruise with her new beau, a ninety-one-year-old retired doctor with a bad toupee and lots of money. They were moving to Florida when the cruise was over.
One green eye winked open and fixed on my face. Elvis’s unofficial job at Second Chance was rodent wrangler.
“Given all the squeaks and scrambling sounds I heard when I poked my head through the trapdoor to the attic, I’m pretty sure the place is the hotel for some kind of mouse convention.”
Elvis straightened up, opened his other eye, and licked his lips. Chasing mice, birds, bats and the occasional bug was his idea of a very good time.
I’d had Elvis for about four months. As far as I could find out, the cat had spent several weeks on his own, scrounging around downtown North Harbor.
The town sits on the midcoast of Maine. “Where the hills touch the sea” is the way it’s been described for the past 250 years. North Harbor stretches from the Swift Hills in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the south. It was settled by Alexander Swift in the late 1760s. It’s full of beautiful historic buildings, award-winning restaurants and quirky little shops. Where else could you buy a blueberry muffin, a rare book and fishing gear all on the same street?
The town’s population is about thirteen thousand, but that more than triples in the summer with tourists and summer residents. It grew by one black cat one evening in late May. Elvis just appeared at The Black Bear. Sam, who owns the pub, and his pickup band, The Hairy Bananas—long story on the name—were doing their Elvis Presley medley when Sam noticed a black cat sitting just inside the front door. He swore the cat stayed put through the entire set and left only when they launched into their version of the Stones’ “Satisfaction.”
The cat was back the next morning, in the narrow alley beside the shop, watching Sam as he took a pile of cardboard boxes to the recycling bin. “Hey, Elvis. Want some breakfast?” Sam had asked after tossing the last flattened box in the bin. To his surprise, the cat walked up to him and meowed a loud yes.
He showed up at the pub about every third day for the next couple of weeks. The cat clearly wasn’t wild—he didn’t run from people—but no one seemed to know whom Elvis (the name had stuck) belonged to. The scar on his nose wasn’t new; neither were a couple of others on his back, hidden by his fur. Then someone remembered a guy in a van who had stayed two nights at the campgrounds up on Mount Batten. He’d had a cat with him. It was black. Or black and white. Or possibly gray. But it definitely had had a scar on its nose. Or it had been missing an ear. Or maybe part of a tail.
Elvis was still perched on my lap, staring off into space, thinking about stalking rodents out at the old Harrington house, I was guessing.
I glanced over at the carton sitting on the walnut sideboard that I used for storage in the office. The fact that it was still there meant that Arthur Fenety hadn’t come in while Mac and I had been gone. I was glad. I was hoping I’d be at the shop when Fenety came back for the silver tea service that was packed in the box.
A couple of days prior he had brought the tea set into my shop. Fenety had a charming story about the ornate pieces that he said had belonged to his mother. A bit too charming for my taste, like the man himself. Arthur Fenety was somewhere in his seventies, tall with a full head of white hair, a matching mustache and an engaging smile to go with his polished demeanor. He could have gotten a lot more for the tea set at an antiques store or an auction. Something about the whole transaction felt off.
Elvis had been sitting on the counter by the cash register and Fenety had reached over to stroke his fur. The cat didn’t so much as twitch a whisker, but his ears had flattened and he’d looked at the older man with his green eyes half-lidded, pupils narrowed. He was the picture of skepticism.
The day after he’d brought the pieces in, Fenety had called to ask if he could buy them back. The more I thought about it, the more suspicious the whole thing felt. The tea set hadn’t been on the list of stolen items from the most recent police update, but I still had a niggling feeling about it and Arthur Fenety.
“Time to do some work,” I said to Elvis. “Let’s go downstairs and see what’s happening in the store.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sofie Kelly is a New York Times bestselling author and mixed-media artist who lives on the East Coast with her husband and daughter. She writes the New York Times bestselling Magical Cats Mysteries (Faux Paw, A Midwinter’s Tail) and, as Sofie Ryan, writes the New York Times bestselling Second Chance Cat Mysteries (A Whisker of Trouble, Buy a Whisker). Visit her online at sofiekelly.com.
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