Murder and a Song (A Pattie Lansbury Cat Cozy Mystery Series Book 2) (3 page)

            “…No.”

            “There’s
something that cat-owners can tell you. 
Whenever a cat has done something it knows it shouldn’t have, it will
always give you a certain look.  Whether
it’s been jumping onto the kitchen counter, eaten something it shouldn’t have,
or had an accident behind the sofa, one can always tell from that look on its
face.  Young children do the same thing.  Some adults never grow out of it.  I can tell, Ms Carter, that there’s more to
this story than you’re letting on.  Now
if you’re really innocent, you have nothing to fear.  Just help me to prove your innocence by
telling me the truth.”

            Blossom
was clearly thinking about it.  Pattie
gave her a firm look as a reminder of the situation that she was in.  Then Blossom sighed and put her hands on the
table. “Alright.  We were arguing because
Daryl accused me of flirting with a guy we met in another tent.  We’d all been hanging out and Daryl didn’t
like it.”

            “Did
he have good reason to be suspicious?” asked Pattie.

            “Is
that relevant?”

            “It
may be.”

            Blossom
rubbed her face with her hands. “Okay. 
This guy, Harry.  We were
attracted to each other.  Daryl noticed.  That was it. 
There wasn’t time for anything to happen.”

            Constable
Palmer put down her coffee and took out her notepad. “This guy, Harry.  What’s his full name, and what’s the plot
number of his tent?”

“This isn’t how I pictured my Friday
afternoon,” said Constable Palmer, as she hiked through thick mud that clung to
her boots and uniform. “How are you so sure that Blossom is innocent?  All the evidence is against her.  The farmer has a solid alibi.  Why haven’t we put this to rest yet?”

            “Because
I don’t close a case based on convenience, Constable,” Pattie replied
sternly.  She was also having a hard time
getting her Wellington boots high enough out of the mud to walk across the
field at any decent pace.

            “But
what was it Sherlock Holmes said, about the simplest explanation usually being
the right one?”

            “I
believe you’re thinking of Occam’s Razor. 
The hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is most likely to prove
correct.  Sherlock Holmes said the other
thing.”

            “Well,
the simplest solution is that the woman who was in the tent with the body, and
who owned the knife that killed him, is the murderer.  Right?”

            Pattie
stopped trudging and faced the officer. 
A warm breeze blew over them from the side, bringing with it the sounds
of the festival.  Juliette Palmer was
young and attractive, intelligent enough to pass all the police examinations
with flying colours, and usually had a very good instinct.  Her opinion on this case was enough to make
Pattie doubt her own judgement.

            “Constable,
I’m sure that Ms Carter is innocent based on the same instinct that told me she
was hiding something about that argument,” said Pattie. “As long as there is a
lead to check up on, we shouldn’t make any assumptions about any of our
suspects.”

            The
Constable nodded.  She knew that Pattie
was right, of course.  They continued
across the field, catching snatches of songs on the wind and hearing the
occasional roar of crowds.

            After
a short trek they arrived at the edge of the camping grounds and took out a map
that the organisers of the event had given them.  The map showed the numbered plots that
campers were allowed to set up their tents in. 
Number 342 had been the Carter/Hardy plot.  Number 369 was registered to Harry Widmore
and three others.

            They
came across the crime scene where Daryl Hardy’s body had been found.  A cordon had been set up around the plot,
which included Hardy’s 4x4 and their two-person tent.  Two security guards from the private firm had
been assigned to make sure nobody crossed the tape.  They sat in deck chairs reading newspapers
and saluted as Pattie and the Constable walked past.

            Plot
369 was a large-sized plot.  The tent was
huge.  A white van with the back doors
open was parked beside it.  A young man
sat on the step drinking a beer.  Behind
him were piles of supplies, mainly coolers and crates of beer.  The tent itself was a four person setup, tall
enough to walk right into, with a central space and four adjoining rooms with
zip-up doors.

            Three
men in their thirties sat on patio furniture in the central space, surrounded
by heaps of junk that included coolers, a paraffin grill, a mini fridge, a
guitar, a small table and portable TV, laptops and other assorted gadgets.  It was not, as far as Pattie was concerned,
real camping, but then she hadn’t owned a tent for decades.  She tried to make a habit of not judging.

            One
of the men was asleep.  Someone had drawn
a cartoon moustache on his face with black marker pen.  He was wearing Mickey Mouse ears.  A ginger cat fussed around their legs.

            “My
name is Patricia Lansbury,” said Pattie, “and this is Constable Palmer.  We’d like to talk to Harry Widmore.”

            “That’s
me,” said one of the men.  He was wearing
shorts and a T-shirt and had a beer in his hand. “What’s this about?”

            “We’re
investigating the murder of a man in a nearby plot, just down there – Daryl
Hardy.”

            Harry
shrugged.

            “He
was the partner of a lady named Blossom Carter, who I believe you’ve met.”

            “Blossom?”
said Harry, putting his beer on the floor. “Yeah, I know her.  Oh yeah, Daryl.  I know who you mean now.  We were hanging out here yesterday.”

            Constable
Palmer raised her eyebrows. “You were hanging out all day but you didn’t know
his name?”

            Harry
shrugged. “We had the barbeque going, they looked in, we offered them a beer.  We just talked a bit and had a few
beers.  Nothing more to it, right guys?”

            The
sleeping fellow had woken up.  He and his
friend nodded.  One of them took a
Polaroid photo of his friend with the moustache and laughed.  They introduced themselves as James Farrell
and Toby Draper.

            “Sorry
about the Hardy guy, though?” said one, with all due sincerity.

            The
cat jumped up onto his lap and curled up to sleep.  The man, Toby, petted it absently.

            “Whose
is the cat?” asked Pattie.

            “Dunno,
she just wandered in here the other day. 
We let her eat some bacon bits and she hasn’t left yet.”

            “Actually,
it’s a tom – a male,” said Pattie. “Almost all ginger cats are.  The ginger colour is carried on the male’s X
chromosome, so unless both parents are ginger, the offspring won’t be.”

            “Huh.”

            “Mister
Widmore, could we please have a word outside?”

            “Sure.”

            As
he gathered himself, Pattie and Constable Palmer stood outside the tent and
talked discreetly.

            “They
act like they’re half their ages,” said the Constable, rolling her eyes. “Are
all people who go to festivals like this?”

            “I
doubt it, but then, I don’t have much evidence to go on…” Pattie replied
tentatively.

            Harry
joined them outside, wiping his hands on his shorts.  He was very rumpled and distracted. “So,
what’s the situation?  Why are you
talking to us about this thing?”

            Constable
Palmer took over the questioning. “Mister Widmore, what was your association with
Blossom Carter?  How did you know her?”

            “We
just met,” Harry replied, rubbing his eyes.

            “So
you didn’t have any kind of relationship with her?”

            “How
could I?” he said bluntly. “I’ve not left the tent the last three days.”

            “He’s
right.”  The speaker was the fourth young
man, who had been sitting in the van.  He
was a little younger than the others, barely thirty, but he looked just as
scruffy as the others. “We’ve been here together the whole time since we got
here.  Unless they’ve been getting each
other’s life stories when he takes a pee around the back of the tent.”

            “And
you are?”

            “Tim
Jeffreys.” He crossed his arms and waited by the tent entrance. “Do you want a
statement, or…?”

            Pattie
looked to Constable Palmer, who shook her head. 
Pattie looked into the tent and said, “How about a Polaroid of that
cat?”

            “Sure,”
said one of them, took the snapshot, and passed it to Pattie.  He smelled of cigarettes and beer.  The photograph developed in front of her eyes
and then she slipped it into her pocket. 

            It
was beginning to get dark.  Pattie took
Constable Palmer to one side and said, “Perhaps you were right, my dear.  I’m at a loss.  But something about these lads doesn’t sit
right with me…”

            “Do
you think they’re covering for each other?”

            “I’m
not sure,” Pattie replied, frowning through her spectacles. “I’m going to say
something that I haven’t needed to say for years: I think that I’m going to
have to sleep on it.”

Back at the Pat’s Whiskers Feline
Retirement Home, also known as Pattie’s house, she fed her baker’s dozen cats
and sat for a while as they ate.  There
was always a comfortable silence after dinner time, when they all sat around
and licked their chops, then padded off for somewhere warm and quiet to curl up
and sleep.

            Pattie
decided to do the same.  After a meagre
dinner of toast and jam – she hadn’t been into cooking since her husband passed
away years ago – she put on her nightgown and climbed into bed.  Two of the cats jumped up with her: she must
have forgotten to close the door to the main room.  She didn’t usually allow the cats into the
bedrooms.

            “Once
in a while doesn’t hurt,” she said softly in the darkness, and petted the
nearest.  She couldn’t see, but she had a
sense that this one was Mia, her long-haired Birman.  Mia had a soft spot for Pattie, and the feeling
was mutual.  Mia would quite happily give
up her own bed if it meant snuggling up with Pattie.  The cat kneaded the bed sheets for a little
while, as Pattie considered the details of the case.

            If
those young men in the tent had murdered Daryl Hardy, then how had they managed
to commit the crime with Blossom sleeping right there beside him?  Surely she would have woken up to the sound
of a man being stabbed in the back.  Not
to mention that they might have had to root around for that knife beforehand…

            A
reasonable explanation would be that Blossom wasn’t actually in the tent at the
time of the murder.  The men snuck in
after they saw her leave and then did the deed. 
But that didn’t explain how she could have returned to sleep beside her
lover and not notice that he had a four inch kitchen knife protruding from
between his shoulders.  Nor did it
explain the motive of the murderers. 
Could Harry Widmore have been jealous of Blossom’s lover?  There was an age difference between Harry and
Blossom, and frankly Blossom was getting the better deal out of the
arrangement. Was it enough for a laid back young man like Harry to commit
murder?

            This
was all assuming that Blossom wasn’t actually involved in the crime
herself.  But Pattie was so sure of her
judgement that it was hard to admit that Blossom might not be innocent after
all.  Was she just being stubborn?  Or was there more to it…?

            And
what was it about the cat in their tent that troubled her so much…?

            Mia
and the other cat settled down to sleep. 
Pattie listened to their gentle purring for a while, until she drifted
off herself into an uneasy slumber.

“Yes? 
What is it?”

            Pattie
was back at the farmhouse of Seth MacGowan. 
His wife Elaine had answered Pattie’s knock, and she looked positively
exhausted.  She was still in her morning
gown and her hair was tousled and greasy. 
Seth had heard his name mentioned and was calling from another room.

            “My
dear!” said Pattie, alarmed at Elaine’s appearance. “Whatever is the matter?”

            “Pattie,
it’s been a terrible week!  First we got
burglarized, and the police say they haven’t got the manpower to investigate
because of this damned festival.  We have
our own CCTV and caught a couple of teenaged hoodlums on tape, but there’s
no-one to follow it up!”

            “Did
they get away with anything valuable?”

            “I
haven’t noticed anything missing other than the TV and my purse.  We don’t have much.  But they must have scared O’Malley senseless:
he’s nowhere to be found and he never strays past the farm.  And to make it worse, we don’t get a minute’s
peace from all that noise across the road, it seems like it goes on all day and
night!  I haven’t had more than a few
hours’ sleep each night.”