How to Catch a Cat (8 page)

THE ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT

ACROSS THE STREET
from Monty’s art studio, the occupants of the redbrick building that housed the Green Vase antique shop bustled about their regular morning activities.

Oscar’s niece trudged sleepily down the stairs from the second-floor kitchen carrying a plastic mug filled with fresh-brewed coffee. Halfway down, she waved the cup beneath her nose, sniffing the caffeinated steam wafting out the vents in the lid.

Isabella looked up from the bottom of the stairwell and issued a series of sharp chirps. Her tail poked authoritatively into the air like the baton of a traffic guard leading a child through a crosswalk.

The cat took seriously her role in getting her person out of bed each morning and to their day job at City Hall.

The niece had reluctantly agreed to serve as the interim mayor’s administrative assistant for the first few months of his term.

She had no real interest in the field of secretarial services. Truth be told, she had no idea what running the mayor’s office entailed—but then again, neither did Monty.

The niece had only taken the position as a means of conducting surveillance on the workspace that had previously been occupied by the woman now known as the Knitting Needle Ninja.

—

SO FAR, THE
police had had little luck in tracking down City Hall’s serial killer.

Mabel was last seen leaving the Capitol Building in Sacramento, where she had been working for her old boss in his new lieutenant governor’s office. Luckily, news of her San Francisco crimes broke before any Sacramento interns could fall victim to her deadly slaying needles.

However, despite widespread media coverage and the Bay Area’s entire population being on the lookout for the gray-haired administrative assistant, there had been no reported sightings.

The Ninja had vanished.

Or had she?

Uncle Oscar felt certain that Mabel would return to her regular hunting grounds. He’d organized a team to watch for her at City Hall.

The niece couldn’t imagine Mabel would risk showing her face anywhere in San Francisco, much less City Hall, but she had grudgingly signed on for a short stint in the mayor’s office.

She had to admit that, at first, it was a little creepy sitting for hours at the desk where Mabel had plotted so many murders.

That discomfort was minimal, she soon discovered, compared to the hassle of working with Mayor Monty on a daily basis.

—

THE NIECE PEERED
out the antique shop’s front glass windows across the street to where Monty stood waiting for his city-issued town car.

There was no escaping the man, she thought with a sigh.

She winced as Monty cupped a hand over his brow and tried to see through the showroom’s front glass. He must have spied her shadow at the back of the room, because he suddenly lifted his hand and waved it in the air over his head.

Grimacing, the niece wiggled a few fingers in return.

If they ever did track down the elusive Knitting Needle Ninja, she would have to ask the woman how she’d pulled off such an effective disappearing act.

—

THE NIECE SET
her coffee on a display table, turned away from the window, and bent to slip on her tennis shoes.

She wore a practical skirt and blouse, the uniform she had grudgingly chosen for her duties at City Hall. She’d acceded to the necessity of wearing business attire, but she’d drawn the line at panty hose. A pair of running tights would keep her otherwise bare legs warm until she reached the office.

One of the many benefits of living in casual California
, she thought as she stood and adjusted the leggings. And then there was the bonus, she added wryly, of not caring if you were fired.

That would solve a lot of my problems, she mused as she picked up the coffee cup and took a tentative sip of the hot liquid.

The lid wasn’t securely fastened, and a few drops spilled onto the floor, narrowly missing Isabella’s head.

At the cat’s scolding chatter, the niece noticed a spot of coffee on her blouse.

“That’s not too bad, is it?” she asked, wiping the smudge with her hand.

Isabella gave her person a disapproving stare.

“I mean, really. No one will see it.”

The cat’s orange ears turned sideways in disagreement.

“Oh, all right, I’ll go change.”

Warbling her concurrence, Isabella followed her person back upstairs to the third-floor bedroom.

The tip end of her tail snapped the air with importance. The niece would need feline guidance to pick out a suitable replacement shirt.

—

A FEW MINUTES
later, Isabella and her person—clad in a clean blouse—returned to the showroom.

Isabella padded circles around the niece as she opened a closet and removed a large green stroller. After wrangling with the various levers and latches, the niece unfolded the contraption to its operational configuration.

Sturdy nylon fabric had been wrapped around a lightweight metal frame to create a stroller that was specifically adapted for pet transport. The passenger compartment had a mesh cover that could be zipped over the stroller’s furry occupants, safely securing them inside.

While initially skeptical of the device, Isabella now enjoyed her stroller outings. She lifted herself up on her haunches and inspected the interior before issuing her formal approval.

“Mrao.”

“Where’s Rupert?” the niece asked, looking around the shop.

She was unable to interpret Isabella’s muttered response from inside the stroller.

“Hmm . . .”

The niece conducted a quick search of the showroom.

Antiques from San Francisco’s Gold Rush era took up much of the space. During his time running the Green Vase, her uncle had amassed a wide array of historic relics.

There were mining tools, gambling paraphernalia, and a number of gold-related fashion items. Most notable was Oscar’s collection of gold teeth, which Barbary Coast dentists had been commissioned to insert into the Forty-Niners’ mouths. In the fashion of the day, nothing conveyed success more effectively than a gold-toothed smile.

Next to a collection of rudimentary tooth extraction devices stood a leather dental recliner that had been used during the gruesome procedures.

The niece often sat in the recliner to relax, read a book, or ponder her uncle’s latest schemes. It was a surprisingly comfortable place to think—despite the immeasurable pain that had been endured by the chair’s previous occupants.

—

THE SOUND OF
scrambling claws and pounding cat feet echoed down from the third-floor bathroom, growing louder as the noisemaker charged down the steps to the building’s midlevel and romped across the kitchen.

Hands on her hips, the niece glanced up at the ceiling, anticipating the cause of the commotion.

Moments later, Rupert rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and bounced into the showroom.

He’d just completed his morning routine in the red igloo litter box, including the ever-important spastic litter box dance.

Stopping in front of the niece, he threw his body into a head-to-toe vibration, shaking loose the last pieces of litter still clinging to his fuzzy coat.

“
Wrao-wao
,” he called out when he was finished, announcing his arrival.

Isabella peeked out of the stroller to give her brother a disparaging look. Rupert happily allowed himself to be scooped up by the niece and set inside the passenger compartment. Undeterred by Isabella’s frosty demeanor, he leaned over and gave his sister an adoring lick across the face.

Smiling at Rupert’s antics, the niece zipped up the carriage netting and spun the stroller toward the door.

Pausing by the entrance, she stuffed her raincoat into the stroller’s side pocket, a precaution against San Francisco’s unpredictable spring weather.

As the niece nudged the stroller through the iron-framed doorway, the town car assigned to drive Monty to City Hall stopped in front of his art studio.

He had offered several times to give the niece and her cats a ride to the office, but she had steadfastly refused. She shuddered to think of the gossip that would ensue if she arrived at City Hall in the same vehicle as her boss. She received enough attention for bringing the cats into work with her, but that had been one of the many conditions she’d negotiated for her short-term employment.

As she set off down the street, Isabella’s guiding chirp floated up from the stroller. They had walked the route numerous times, but the cat never failed to issue her navigational commands. It was her duty to make sure the stroller didn’t veer off course.

Rupert, meanwhile, snuggled into the carriage blankets, ready for his morning stroller snooze.

The town car pulled up beside the niece at the first corner. The rear passenger window rolled down, and Monty stuck out his head.

“Sure you don’t want a lift?” he asked brightly.

Before the niece could answer, Isabella called out a negative reply.

Even the cat was concerned about the damage that might be done to her reputation if she was seen riding in a car with Mayor Monty.

“Mrao.”

FRIED CHICKEN DONUTS

AFTER A TWO-MILE
walk, Isabella announced their arrival at City Hall.

“Wrao.”

“Yes, I know,” the niece replied as she lifted the stroller up the building’s front steps. “We’re here.”

Isabella pushed her head against the netting that covered the passenger compartment, trying to see out over the front of the carriage. A constant string of feline chatter warbled up from the stroller. So far, the niece had yet to tip over the contraption while the cats were inside it, but Isabella wasn’t taking any chances.

A security guard pulled open the door and held it for the niece while she steered the carriage through. The green nylon cat stroller—and its feline occupants—were by now well known to the security staff.

“Good morning, Rupert and Isabella,” the guard said as he swallowed a bite from his morning donut. He wiped powdered sugar from his lips and nodded to his colleague standing behind the security scanner inside.

“Hardest-working cats I know.”

The niece smiled her greeting and guided the stroller up to the security counter. The second guard waved the stroller through with only a quick glance at the interior.

As the niece reached the opposite side of the scanner’s walk-through portal, the first guard bent toward the zipped netting and held out a small chunk of donut.

“Hey, there, Rupert. You want to give this a try?”

Hearing the cat’s lips smack with anticipation, the niece quickly intervened.

“Sorry,” she said, rolling the stroller sideways to block the transfer. “That’s not on his diet.”

The guard peered through the mesh cover and gave Rupert a conspiring wink.

“That’s right, I forgot. I’ll have to get a
fried chicken
donut for you, won’t I, little buddy?”

“How did you know about . . .” the niece began, but then stopped.

With a sigh, she moved the stroller toward the main foyer.

“Monty.”

—

MUTTERING ABOUT HER
gossipy neighbor and the donut-pushing guard, the niece braked in front of the building’s first-floor elevator bank and pushed the call button for an upward-traveling cart.

With a
ding
, the closest set of heavy metal doors slid open. The niece rolled the cats over the threshold and turned to wait for the unit to close.

Before the panels could shut, a second woman strode briskly inside.

“Morning, Wanda,” the niece said, suppressing a groan.

Every morning, it seemed, she shared the elevator with the administrative assistant for the president of the board of supervisors.

Wanda Williams greeted her with a cold accusing stare, and the niece wondered, not for the first time, why she’d ever agreed to this stint at City Hall. The place was a thicket of unexploded land mines, and the niece felt as if she stepped on one each time she entered the building.

Wanda’s bruised ego was an easy fault wire to trip.

She had applied for the position of Monty’s admin after he was appointed to the interim mayor’s slot, and she was still bitter that the niece had been awarded the job.

Wanda had thick black hair, which she wore in a short bouffant style that lifted several inches off her forehead. Silver streaks streamed out from each temple, the gray highlighted by the pearl drop earrings hanging from her earlobes.

The woman clearly disapproved of everything the niece did, starting, of course, with the fact that she brought her cats into work each day. But there was little Wanda could do about that since Mayor Carmichael had officially sanctioned the felines’ presence.

She glared down at the stroller and sniffed derisively at the occupants.

Curled up in the blankets dreaming about the mythical concoction of fried chicken donuts, Rupert was unaware of the snub. Isabella, however, sat stiffly in her seat, the hair on the back of her neck spiked with distrust.

Their eyes met, Isabella’s and those of the woman with the wounded pride.

Wanda was the first to look away.

The elevator
ding
ed again, signifying they’d reached the second floor.

The niece smiled to herself. She would happily yield her position as soon as she was relieved of Knitting Needle Ninja duty.

Until then, Wanda was destined to lose her daily staring contests with Isabella.