Cat Crimes for the Holidays by Martin H. Greenberg & Ed Gorman & Larry Segriff

Author:Martin H. Greenberg & Ed Gorman & Larry Segriff [Greenberg, Martin H. & Gorman, Ed & Segriff, Larry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0804118302
Publisher: Ivy Books
Published: 1999-09-08T21:00:00+00:00

Party Animal

Morris Hershman

Seth’s mother phoned just after he got done with an overdue crime scene report. She was cheerful as always, ready to be obliging if necessary, a grade-one mother in nearly every way.

“We’re all okay,” she said after the exchange of greetings, sparing him a rundown on any late-breaking family news. “I just want to be sure you know we’ll be having a Hanukkah dinner on the eighteenth, so you can’t say you’re not getting enough notice.”

Seth hadn’t known the date of the holiday start, not having been properly observant since just after his bar mitzvah. “I’ll be there if the work doesn’t interfere.”

“Let somebody else solve one homicide.” Mom always said home-icide, as if her son earned a living at some kind of social work. “I’ll call Andrea and make the invitation twice as official.”

It crossed his mind, not for the first time, that he had been luckier than most in drawing civilized parents. They hadn’t wanted him going into the force, for instance, but didn’t criticize his choice. They had been polite, at least, five months ago, back when Seth took his second wife, a girl of Italian ancestry. Unhappiness was kept to themselves in the time-honored Gordon family tradition: show nothing because your feelings aren’t anyone else’s business.

He broke the connection after a few added polite interchanges, then looked up at the opening door of his closet of an office. His partner had come striding in.

“We’ve got some business,” Harry Drawhill boomed, offering a memo in one outsized hand. “Let’s jump for it.”

“Fine. It’s sure to take my mind off. . .something else for a while.”

He left the twelfth precinct stationhouse in an unmarked car, Harry next to him and set to ride shotgun if necessary. They found a coven of spectators in front of the right address, a store on Perry Street in lower Greenwich Village. A flushed policeman stood before the scene, saying mechanically, “There’s nothing to be seen, move along now.”

Drawhill had passed a card to the uniformed man by the time Seth was parked and out on the chill December sidewalk, but minutes rolled by before they could get through the nervous bystanders.

A bright-looking younger uniform who gave his last name as Napier had been expecting help. Holding his stick adventurously by three fingers and thumb, a sure sign of not much experience on the job, Napier told them happily how efficient he and his partner had been. “We were in the car when the Korean kid whose father owned this place came running out to call us. My partner stayed in the street to keep civilians off. I went in, saw what’d happened, and phoned right away.”

Drawhill asked crudely, “Where’s the merchandise?”

The middle-aged victim lay on the narrow strip behind the counter, bloody spots flecking his gray wool shirt and well-worn gray pants. Near his chest lay a knife with a rough-textured handle, its blade reddened almost to the haft. A black cat, a male shorthair, had been standing at the

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