Embedded Files
“So you’ll take the case?” Harry asked with a sigh.
The evening breeze riffled Harry’s short fur. He and Detective Clovis sat outside on the windowsill of the police department, listening to the roar of automobiles, neighs of tired horses, and chatter of noisy humans as they walked past them. The sun had set, and the sky blazed with brilliant pinks and oranges. The unusually warm night seemed to draw everyone outside, including the cats.
Clovis tapped his tail on the windowsill. When he pursed his lips, the black stripe under his nose looked more like a human mustache than a stripe of fur. His green eyes regarded Harry with curiosity. “I suppose I need to, don’t I?”
Harry bristled. It seemed Clovis viewed the matter as an inconvenience.
Clovis narrowed his eyes. “There’s only one question I have.”
“Yes?”
“Why are you asking me? Why isn’t Norb here? Shouldn’t the manager of the Opera Cats be asking me for assistance in this matter?”
Harry lowered his head. “He… well, I’m the errand cat. It’s my job to send messages and such.”
“And this seems like a matter the Opera Cats’ manager should be handling. Why didn’t he come talk with me? I would have thought he’d be worried about the rest of his employees, don’t you agree?”
“Oh, he is,” Harry insisted.
“Then I should think he’d want to be here, at the very least accompanying you.”
Harry groaned. Should he tell Clovis that Norb believed there to be a spirit behind the murder, or should he keep his mouth shut? Norb insisted the evil deed was due to the Ghost Cat and believed there’d be no living cat captured for Stripe’s death. Harry had suspected for a long time that Norb believed in the spectral feline, and now his suspicions were confirmed. Why Norb berated the other cats about the Ghost Cat when he believed in such nonsense as well, Harry had no idea. Because of Norb's superstitions, Harry had to practically beg him for permission to talk with Clovis. After a very lengthy and heated argument, Norb finally allowed Harry to do so. Harry suspected Norb only wanted to pacify him and make an outward appearance of tying up loose ends. The intrepid director of the Opera Cats came through once again.
“Norb has so much on his plate. Producing an opera, managing a business… really, it’s a huge help to him that I speak with you,” Harry finally said.
Clovis lifted his head to stare down his nose at Harry. “Of course.”
“When will you begin your investigation?”
“Tomorrow morning,” Clovis said with a nod. “I’ll be there when the sun rises if you can meet me at the entrance. That building is like its own world; I don’t want to get lost in it. I’ll need a guide.”
“Certainly.” Harry flicked his tail. “I’ll take you down the passage Spot and Stripe took. Spot is the victim’s brother.”
A woman with short red hair rushed by. Harry stared at her. A familiar scent wafted toward him, and he caught the amber eyes of Roxanne staring back at him. Her head bobbed up and down with her human’s steps, and soon the woman and cat disappeared around a corner.
“Who was that?” Clovis asked, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
Harry shook his fur. “A singer for the Opera Cats. She has the most beautiful voice I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re worried about her.”
“Beg pardon?”
“The way you watched her. You looked worried about her. Tell me, do you suspect she’s in immediate danger?”
Harry blinked. “We’re all in danger if a murderer is present at the opera, don’t you think?”
Clovis shrugged. “Some of you may be in more danger than others if a murderer truly is present.” Clovis stared down the sidewalk that Lady had taken. “Of course, there are other scenarios. The victim could have come into contact with a rat or simply fallen on a shard of glass or some other sharp instrument. There might not be a murderer, you see.”
“But there may be,” Harry persisted.
Clovis stood, stretched, and then pounced to the sidewalk, sending a flurry of pigeons to the sky. Their meeting, it seemed, had reached its end. Clovis, his attention on the pigeons, said, “I’ll meet you bright and early tomorrow morning. If there’s anything else you think is important to mention—some cat acting suspicious, a strange new cat on the premises, maybe even a human behaving in an odd manner—tell me.”
“Of course, sir,” Harry said with a dip of his head.
With a wink, Clovis trotted through the open door of the police department, which had been left ajar to let the spring air enter the building. Harry slid off the windowsill to the sidewalk, looked to his left, glanced to his right, and then trotted in the opposite direction of the opera house.
A few paces down, he stopped. Why was he heading this way, toward the water? He shook his head, then turned around. He stopped again. The way he’d been going was the direction Roxanne’s human had went. Harry had gone that way before, running errands for the Opera Cats, but he realized he’d never delivered a message to Roxanne. He didn’t know where she lived, and he couldn’t deny the worry filling his heart for her safety.
Curious, he turned around and headed the way Roxanne’s human had gone a few minutes before. He trotted with his tail held high, ducking under humans and winding his way around trash cans. Along the water, an apartment building stood, some windows displaying lights, most of them shrouded in darkness. He spotted Lady rushing into a door on the far end of the long structure.
Harry leaped onto a table outside an empty restaurant. He watched the dark windows in the tall building until the one at the top—the eighth floor, he noted to himself—spilled light out on a small balcony. The doors to the balcony were thrown open, and a slim red cat slinked outside. Harry watched Roxanne leap to the railing and stare at the city beneath her. He wondered what the view of the city looked like from up there.
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