Castles, Catnip & Murder: A Cozy English Animal Mystery (A Dickens & Christie Mystery Book 5) by Kathy Manos Penn

Author:Kathy Manos Penn [Penn, Kathy Manos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734322620
Publisher: Manos Penn & Ink
Published: 2021-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

Stunned into silence, Wendy and I remained at the table, as Jake and Gemma went next door to check out the scene of the latest crime. I could tell Wendy wanted an explanation as to why I’d hushed her up, but I cut her off at the pass. “Wendy, I need a little time to process what we just witnessed between Jake and Gemma, and I need food before I can do much more.”

“Me too. Why don’t I run to the dining room to grab fruit and yogurt so we can have an uninterrupted powwow? That way, maybe we can make sense of what we heard, and you can tell me why you gave in. They were awfully agreeable—well, at least DI Nancarrow was, and I’m not sure I’m buying it.”

I agreed that was a good plan, and off she went. Dickens had followed the official detectives out the door, and I was left with Christie.

Looking up from her dab of wet food, she meowed. “Yup, definitely something going on between that Jake bloke and Gemma. I think they like each other. They had their heads together laughing and whispering while you and Wendy were outside.”

“Laughing? Gemma was laughing?”

She pointed a dainty paw at her dish. “I’ll be happy to tell you about it, but isn’t there something you need to do?” So demanding, I thought as I fluffed her food and centered it on the saucer.

After two licks, she sat back and looked at me. “I can’t remember every word, but I think they were talking about a game. Gemma asked Jake how she was doing. Doing what, I wondered? But when he said her acting skills were impressive, I got a hint, I think. Isn’t acting what they do on TV?”

My sassy cat was an observant little thing, and she spent long hours in my lap as I watched movies on Amazon Prime and BritBox. Who knew she absorbed my running monologue on the plots and acting?

“Yes. What else did they say about acting?”

“I didn’t hear that word again, but Gemma used the word bamboozle like they had you and Wendy bamboozled. What does that mean?”

Maybe Wendy was on to something. “It means to fool someone. Keep going. What else did you hear?”

Christie made me wait while she finished her dab of food. “Something about a hook, a line, and a sinker. That’s why I kept thinking they were playing some kind of game.”

Oh for goodness’ sake! They played us. But to what end?

By the time Wendy returned with food, I had moved from shock to fuming to disbelief. “Okay, Agatha, I’ve got a new set of stages for you—shock, fuming, disbelief, and action.”

My friend looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “What on earth are you going on about?”

“You walked out the door saying you didn’t buy how agreeable our two detectives were, and I sat here and thought about that. I replayed the two scenes in my head, and that’s exactly what they were—scenes in a one-act play.

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