Murder of the Cat's Meow: A Scumble River Mystery Read online

  The words BUNNY LANES appeared on the little screen. That was odd. Granted, Frannie worked there as a waitress in the grill, but the town bowling alley didn’t open until the children’s and teen leagues started at eleven.

  Crap! Could her persistent caller be Bunny Reid—former Las Vegas dancer, current bowling alley manager, and mother of Skye’s previous boyfriend? There was only one way to find out.

  Snatching up the handset, Skye pushed the ON button and said, “Hello?”

  “Ms. D, thank God you’re home.” Frannie’s desperate voice was shrill in Skye’s ear. “There’s an emergency at the alley. Can you come right away?”

  “Emergency? Are you okay? What happened?” Skye gritted her teeth in aggravation when Frannie hung up without answering her questions.

  No one responded to Skye’s repeated attempts to call back, and after a couple of frustrating minutes, she gave up. As she slipped on tennis shoes and grabbed her jacket, purse, and keys from the coat stand, she told herself that at least she was dressed in nice jeans and a sweater, had French-braided her hair and put on a little makeup. Usually, in a crisis she was caught with a naked face, wearing a baggy sweatshirt, and with her chestnut curls in a bushy ponytail.

  Happy that for once she looked presentable, Skye ran out of the house and jumped into her 1957 Bel Air convertible, a tank of a car that her father and godfather had rehabbed for her several years ago.

  She stamped on the accelerator, and the Chevy flew down the blacktop, its windshield wipers at full speed to keep up with the pouring rain. Six minutes later, Skye squealed into the bowling alley’s parking lot and skidded to a halt on the wet asphalt.

  What in the world? Why was the lot filled with cars and trucks, and…Skye squinted through the deluge, trying to understand what she was seeing. Was that a row of RVs lined up like cows at the watering trough? Had Bunny opened a campsite? More to the point, did her son, Simon, know about it?

  Three years ago, Bunny had reappeared in Simon’s life after a twenty-year absence. And although he had already been the owner of Reid’s Funeral Home and the coroner, he had bought the town bowling alley in order to provide his mother with the job and permanent address she needed to avoid going to jail for misusing prescription drugs. Simon had never admitted that he’d purchased the business solely to help Bunny, but Skye knew that had been his true motivation.

  Although Simon and Skye were no longer a couple, she and Bunny were still friends. And Skye hated to see the flamboyant redhead damage the relationship she had finally forged with her son by getting involved in something he wouldn’t approve of.

  With that in mind, Skye flung herself out of the Bel Air, sprinted to the bowling alley’s entrance, and shoved open the glass doors. As she stepped over the threshold, a wave of noise swept over her like a tsunami, nearly pushing her back out.

  Skye paused in the entryway. Because of the way the place was designed, she couldn’t see beyond the coatracks and the rows of cube-shaped lockers where the bowlers kept their equipment. Tilting her head, she tried to figure out what was going on.

  The din she heard wasn’t music; it was a cacophony of mostly indistinguishable voices, but every once in a while numbers were announced over a loudspeaker. What was happening in the rest of the alley? Could Bunny be holding an auction? But what could she be selling?

  Deciding the best course of action would be to find Frannie, Skye took a left, heading toward the grill, which was the young woman’s most likely location. Skye had planned to cut through the bar, but the door was locked. Peeking through the round, portholelike window, she saw that the bartender was absent and the room was empty of customers. The cocktail tables were lined up in rows, rather than placed in their usual scattered arrangement, and a digital countdown board had been set up on the stage next to a gigantic gong.

  Skye gnawed on her lower lip. Was Bunny planning on some sort of game night?

  Even though Skye wasn’t very good at judging the direction that sounds were coming from, she thought the racket must be in the lounge area back by the alleys. While she was trying to decide whether to continue on to the grill or go toward the noise, she heard an angry male voice bellow Bunny’s name. A few beats went by, and that same voice thundered an indistinguishable sentence. A nanosecond later, a woman screamed.

  Okay. That definitely had not come from the alleys. Skye dashed down the narrow hallway into the grill, but it was empty. Where was the yelling coming from? Wait. The shouting had sounded echoey. The argument had to be taking place in the basement.

  Several large rooms used for parties and banquets ran under the length of the bowling alley. Despite her bad memories of having been locked down there with Simon when their mothers had tried to reunite them, Skye raced through the open door and down the stairs.

  At the bottom she stopped and stared. An extraordinarily large man wearing a gray suit jacket over a faded Metallica T-shirt and dark sweatpants with a white stripe down the leg was cuddling a fluffy white angora cat in one enormous arm while dangling a stunningly beautiful woman by her throat with the other hand.

  It appeared that Skye had found Frannie’s emergency.

  CHAPTER 2

  Quick As a Cat

  Bunny was jumping around the man and woman like a rabbit trying to infiltrate a chicken-wire-enclosed garden. In between hops she screeched, “Elijah Jacobsen, you put Alexis down right this minute!”

  The big guy ignored her, staring into his victim’s sapphire blue eyes.

  “She didn’t mean it when she said Princess was seriously flawed,” Bunny added, her red curls bouncing in time with her shouts. “Tell him you’re sorry, Alexis.”

  Bunny’s efforts to intervene went unheeded by the suspended woman, whose voice wheezed alarmingly as she unwisely said, “But I’m not sorry.” Although Elijah tightened his hold, she gasped, “I meant every word.”

  The big man bellowed like an alpenhorn in a cough drop commercial and shook Alexis until her long, straight black hair swung from side to side, as if keeping time with some unheard melody.

  Skye hesitated just long enough for Bunny to dart forward and grab an object that resembled a foot-long mini rake from a nearby table. As Bunny drew back like a little kid about to smash open a piñata, Skye saw that the weapon would hit Alexis, not Elijah. Intent on deflecting Bunny’s attack, Skye flung herself forward.

  Unfortunately, Skye’s trajectory was as bad as Bunny’s aim, and instead of knocking the redhead aside, Skye caught the brunt of Bunny’s swing across the face. She sank to the floor, as flattened as a papier-mâché pony.

  For a moment there was complete silence. The people bunched in the doorways and clustered in the basement hallway who had been excitedly commenting on the fight stood with their mouths open, seeming to wait for the next scene in a play.

  Finally, Elijah dropped Alexis, shook his head, and, as if coming out of a deep sleep, blinked his pale gray eyes. He looked down at Skye and asked, “What happened to you?”

  While Skye tried to figure out the answer—the blow seemed to have knocked the short-term memory out of her—the crowd started to chatter and Bunny wailed, “I’m so sorry. Are you all right? Skye, say you’re all right. If you’re not all right, Sonny Boy’s going to kill me.”

  “Get a wet rag, some bandages, and a cold compress,” Elijah ordered Bunny, pushing her out of his way.

  The redhead leaped backward as if she were spring-loaded, then scurried off.

  Elijah knelt by Skye’s side and asked, “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No.” Skye felt blood dripping from her cheek, and the room was spinning. She was afraid she would vomit if she tried to say more.

  “Let me get a good look.” Elijah put a hand on her shoulder and pressed her back down when she tried to sit up. “Before my troubles, I used to be a doctor.”

  Skye fought to hold back tears of pain as he ran the fingers of one hand over her cheeks and nose. Was this the same guy who had nearly choked the brunette? H
e was still holding the cat, but otherwise seemed like an entirely different person—a calm and competent individual versus the raving maniac who had dangled Alexis like a ripe plum.

  “I don’t think anything is broken,” Elijah reassured Skye. “Your nose seems intact and the scratches on your cheek are superficial.”

  A subdued Bunny returned with the first-aid items Elijah had asked for. Wordlessly, he took the wet cloth and gently wiped Skye’s cheek. He murmured soothingly to her as he cleaned the blood from her face and applied several butterfly bandages to her wounds.

  Bunny hovered near his shoulder, wringing her hands and begging him to say that Skye was okay.

  At last Elijah handed Skye a cold compress and instructed: “Hold this across your nose and cheeks. It should lessen the bruising and swelling, but your pretty green eye is going to have quite a shiner.”

  Terrific! Skye’s first thought was that she wouldn’t be scheduling her engagement picture anytime soon. Her second was that she would have to avoid her mother until she healed. May Denison was not a huge fan of Bunny to begin with, and if she saw Skye’s injuries, she’d probably skin the redhead alive and use her hide to wash windows.

  “Ms. D, I’m so sorry.” Frannie paced up and down in front of Skye’s chair. “I should have met you at the door, but I had to pee so bad.”

  Frannie was tall and solidly built. Skye had spent several years trying to raise the young woman’s self-esteem and help her to navigate high school, a world dominated by size 4 girls. Much of that work had been undone during Frannie’s first semester at Loyola University. After a couple of months of feeling like an outcast and missing home, Frannie had returned to Scumble River. She was now completing her sophomore year at a local community college, and she’d applied to the University of Illinois journalism program.

  “It’s not your fault,” Skye told Frannie for the third or fourth time. “No one forced me to get between Bunny and the object of her wrath. But why didn’t you answer when I called you back?”

  “I was helping to find Princess.”

  “Elijah’s cat?”

  “Yes,” Frannie confirmed. “She escaped while Ms. Hightower had her out of her cage to judge her.”

  “And Ms. Hightower is?”

  “The woman Mr. Jacobsen was trying to kill,” Frannie clarified.

  “The missing cat was the emergency, not the assault I walked in on?” Having seen Elijah Jacobsen manhandling Alexis, Skye understood how Frannie could have been panicked at his earlier agitation, but she wanted to make sure she understood the situation.

  “Right.” Frannie twisted a lock of glossy brown hair around her finger. When she went away to college, she had cut her nearly waist-long waves and flat-ironed the curl out of what was left. Now, almost two years later, she still didn’t seem accustomed to the shorter length.

  “Well,” Skye said, “it looks as if everything is okay now, at least for the moment. Alexis refused to let us call the police and Elijah appears to have regained his composure.”

  Skye was sitting in Bunny’s office. Through the open door, she had a clear view of the lounge and bowling alleys. Rows and rows of cages containing every kind of feline imaginable lined the lanes, and throngs of people wearing all styles of clothing from jeans to cocktail dresses milled around, many carrying cats in their arms.

  “What is all this?” She gestured to the scene before her.

  “A cat show,” Frannie explained.

  “And why is the bowling alley hosting a cat show?”

  “It all started last September.” Frannie’s brown eyes sparkled. As a journalism student, she liked nothing more than to tell a good story. “Miss Bunny wanted to earn some extra money.”

  “For what?” Skye shuddered inwardly. An entrepreneurial Bunny was never a good thing. “Not more Botox treatments?” Bunny had gotten in trouble nine months ago when she’d accepted a kickback in her quest to pay for reclaiming her youthful appearance.

  “That, too.” Frannie finally stopped pacing. “Miss Bunny said that old age is like cheap underwear—it creeps up on you—so she makes sure she always wears Victoria’s Secret V-strings.” Frannie leaned against the edge of the desk facing Skye. “But mostly she wanted to take a singles cruise so she could hook a rich boyfriend.”

  “How did you get involved?” Skye refused to think about Bunny dressed in a string bikini on the high seas hunting millionaires.

  “Well…” Frannie studied her white tennis shoes. “Miss Bunny, Justin, and I were all sitting around one night after the bowling alley closed and Miss Bunny was going on and on about how hard it was to meet men because she lived in a small town and was a little bit older and all.”

  “And?”

  “I might have mentioned Internet dating.” Frannie refused to meet Skye’s gaze.

  “Oh, my Lord,” Skye moaned. Bunny loose in the virtual world was a recipe for catastrophe. “But how did you get from Bunny’s lack of dates to this?” Skye pointed to the cages and people.

  “Justin possibly brought up the idea that we could start an online matchmaking site of our own, and Miss Bunny could have her pick of the guys who signed up, and we could make money, too.”

  “Crap!” Skye still didn’t see how an online dating service had morphed into a cat show, but she knew the answer wouldn’t make her happy. “So Justin, as the resident computer genius, helped Bunny create a matchmaking service,” Skye guessed.

  “Right.” Frannie grinned. “We decided it should specialize in people who lived in small Illinois towns and were over forty.”

  “Okay…” Skye frowned. Their idea actually sounded like a good one—sort of.

  “Bunny decided to name the site CupidsCatsMeow.com because The Cat’s Meow was her most successful Las Vegas show.” Frannie paused, as if Skye should be able to figure out the rest, but when she remained silent, the young woman continued. “Most of the people who signed up thought it was a service for single cat lovers looking to meet other single cat lovers. So we thought—what the heck.”

  “What the heck?” Skye cringed. That’s why putting Bunny together with the young people was so dangerous; instead of careful consideration, all three of them leaped into the situation without considering the consequences. Not that Skye could criticize the trio, considering her own flying tackle half an hour ago.

  “Uh-huh.” Frannie nodded, beaming. “Why not have a combination cat show and speed-dating weekend right here in Scumble River? We had the bowling alley to hold the events—”

  “And I researched cat shows,” Justin Boward said, strolling into the office and taking over the story. “From what I read, cat shows can be held anywhere from high school gyms to five-star hotels.”

  At nineteen, Justin seemed to have had reached his full height of six-two. His weight was finally catching up with his height, though he would probably always have a slender build. He kept his nutmeg brown hair cut military short, but his new glasses no longer hid his long-lashed brown eyes. He hadn’t been an attractive teenager, but he was turning into a nice-looking young man.

  “And we could charge sixty bucks per cat for the show and seventy-five dollars for the speed dating,” Frannie added. “We’d also make money from the cage rental, vendor table fee, and food and drinks.”

  “Does Simon know about this?” Skye was pretty darn sure he didn’t.

  “No.” Frannie’s expression was angelic. “Miss Bunny didn’t want to bother him. He’s spending the weekend with a friend in St. Louis.”

  The hairs on the back of Skye’s neck stood at full attention. Was her reaction caused by the thought of what Simon would do to Bunny when he found out, or by the idea of a bunch of strangers invading Scumble River? From hard-learned experience, Skye knew for a fact that bringing in a crowd of out-of-towners nearly always resulted in murder.

  CHAPTER 3

  Who’ll Bell the Cat?

  Because the event had proven to need more manpower than they had expected, Bunny, Justin, and Frannie h
ad begged Skye to stick around and help out. Although all the trio could offer was minimum wage and free meals in return, Skye had agreed to stay. She loved cats and didn’t have any plans for the weekend. Besides, Trixie had given her a necklace engraved with the words LIFE BEGINS AT THE END OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE, and Skye was trying to take that advice to heart.

  Her first assignment fell under Justin’s purview. He was in charge of judging. On his computer, he kept track of all the scores and tabulated them for the final round. Skye’s task was to find the contestants who didn’t show up in the correct judging areas and to help catch any feline escape artists.

  Justin had explained that because this was a small, unofficial show, all cats were being judged as pets. They would be evaluated on their beauty, character, demeanor, and grooming, rather than according to breed standards. There would be three rounds with three judges, so cats could collect up to four ribbons each—one for each round and one for the Best of the Best. And no one judge’s opinion could influence that top prize.

  Skye had asked if there was a danger of hard feelings developing among competitors that might hamper the contestants from making a love connection during the later speed-dating activity, but Bunny hadn’t seemed worried.

  As Skye approached the rows of cages lining the bowling lanes—which Frannie had informed her was known as the benching area—she hoped that Bunny had protected the wooden floors. She sighed in relief when she saw that plywood boards had been laid over the tarp-covered floors. At least Simon wouldn’t have costly damages to add to his list of grievances against his mother’s latest harebrained scheme.

  Her mind at rest, Skye made her way down the aisles, admiring the imaginatively decorated pens and their cute kitty occupants. Stopping in front of a cage swathed in lilac satin, she peered through the bars. Inside, on a black velvet pedestal, lounged a pair of long, slender cats with short, sleek fur. As she studied the felines’ trilateral heads and extra-large ears, their tails whipped back and forth and they narrowed their striking blue eyes.