The Big Kitty Read online

  “The Big Kitty is a charming, witty, exciting new entry in the genre, featuring the best realized and most personable fictional character on four legs. You’ll love Shadow. And Sunny’s fun, too.”

  —Parnell Hall, author of The KenKen Killings

  “A paws-itively winning team! The Big Kitty deftly combines heartwarming humor and nail-biting suspense for a fun read that leaves you looking forward to Sunny and Shadow’s next adventure.”

  —Ali Brandon, author of Double Booked for Death, a Black Cat Bookshop Mystery

  “Applause for paws—Sunny and Shadow take Best in Show!”

  —Susan Wittig Albert, author of Cat’s Claw, a Pecan Springs Mystery

  “A purrfect debut. Four paws up and a tip of the tail.”

  —Carolyn Hart, author of Dead by Midnight

  “Small-town Maine hasn’t been this dangerous since Jessica Fletcher started finding dead bodies in Cabot Cove! In this debut, Sunny Coolidge, with the able assistance of a ‘big kitty’ named Shadow, proves she has the skills to make a successful amateur sleuth. Cozy mystery lovers will adore Shadow and pine for many more adventures for him and Sunny.”

  —Miranda James, national bestselling author of the Cat in the Stacks Mysteries

  The Big Kitty

  Claire Donally

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s

  imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business

  establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over

  and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  THE BIG KITTY

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with Tekno Books.

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / May 2012

  Copyright © 2012 by Tekno Books.

  Cover illustration by Tony Mauro.

  Cover design by George Long.

  Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or

  electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of

  copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-58076-9

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is

  stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the

  author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Mom, who suffered through the first draft of this story, and to editors John Helfers of Tekno Books and Shannon Jamieson Vazquez of Berkley Prime Crime, who suffered through the succeeding ones.

  Additional thanks to my niece Jackie, to Mike, Denise, Jack, Kathleen, and Bill and Karen for their cat stories.

  And of course, to Lily, Mulie, Belle, Dinoot, and Theo—especially Theo—for practical cat demonstrations.

  A Note from the Author

  When I first discussed the idea of a cat mystery set in Maine, I thought, “What better location than the town of Kittery? It even sounds right!”

  With all the outlet stores, the nearby city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and a naval shipyard bringing people from all over the country into the area, Kittery seemed ideal.

  Except …

  Kittery might be a little too real. It’s a fairly small town, and it didn’t seem quite fair, smearing a murder all over a real place. You can get away with killing lots of people (at least on paper) in large, impersonal metropolitan areas like New York, Los Angeles, or even New Orleans. But there’s a reason why small-town murders tend to happen in fictitious places like St. Mary Mead, Pecan Springs, Texas … or Cabot Cove, Maine.

  So I picked up Kittery and sort of smooshed it together with the neighboring township of York Harbor to create Kittery Harbor, a safely make-believe locale with its own politics, movers and shakers … and a cat lady. But as I worked on the plot, the specter of county politics arose, so I decided to secede the whole area from the real world.

  Elmet is the name of an ancient Celtic kingdom that controlled part of what is now Yorkshire, England. So, Elmet County is a sort of parallel universe to Maine’s York County. It’s close to Portsmouth, there are lots of outlet stores nearby, and the town fronts on a harbor but there are still farms in the hinterland. Christopher Levett, an early settler in Maine, is commemorated with a fort in the real world. In Elmet County, he gives his name to the county seat.

  I had a lot of fun creating a world that connects with reality in general, but definitely not in particulars.

  No people were hurt in the creation of this literary crime (if you don’t count the author’s hair tearing), and all places and politics are definitely made up.

  Any resemblance to real people, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.

  However, some cat caregivers may recognize a few traits exhibited by certain feline friends …

  Table of Contents

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  1

  The watcher crouched in the darkness between cars, staring through the plate glass of the storefront at the woman inside.

  He liked the way her dark hair spread out in a mane behind her head, gleaming in the glow from the screen she was watching.

  A splash of light from a pass
ing car invaded his hiding space, and he crouched lower. Not that he needed to worry about passersby. All but two of the shops in this little strip were already dark, and the food store was down at the other end of the block. Besides, even if someone were to stroll by, it was unlikely that they would spot him in the shadows.

  A puff of breeze brought the scent of the sea, never too far away. Then the wind shifted, pulling a bouquet of aromas out the storefront’s open door. The watcher inhaled deeply, catching a mixture of dust and furniture polish, the sharp smell of electrical machinery at work, and then a whiff of the floral fragrance the woman was wearing, and under that the earthier tone of her own smell.

  His head swam a little. The doorway was just a few yards away, beckoning him on this unseasonably warm evening. Maybe he should go in, make his move—

  The breeze stopped being playful, turning into a gust that brought the chill of the ocean as well as its aroma. He hunkered down as it whistled around him. And as he did, the woman in the store moved to close the door, locking it and then rubbing her arms.

  So much for that idea, he thought, turning to slink away.

  Why do I keep coming back to her? he continued as he squeezed under a parked car and out the other side. It’s not as though I see her doing anything interesting—like eating.

  With a flick of his tail he crossed the road, ready to leave. But then he heard the rumble of a car engine and caught a whiff of exhaust … and other familiar smells. He knew this vehicle. Turning around, he settled down on all four paws.

  This could be interesting.

  *

  Still rubbing her arms, Sunny Coolidge returned to her computer and the latest crisis. She should have been home an hour and a half ago, but that was before some jackass had started acting out on a flight from Paris to Atlanta, getting his plane diverted to the customs and TSA facilities at Pease Airport in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

  Frantic Web searches by stranded passengers in search of nearby accommodations had led to a surge of e-mails at MAX—the Maine Adventure X-perience site—and Sunny’s computer. Since the travel agency here in Kittery Harbor, Maine, was just across the state border and less than five miles from the airport in New Hampshire, she’d gone into overtime matchmaking passengers with local B&Bs, beating the bushes for whatever additional accommodations she could find, and arranging transportation.

  Well, at least Ollie—Oliver Barnstable, a.k.a. “Ollie the Barnacle,” the owner of MAX—should be happy tomorrow with all the extra revenue. And in spite of the late hour, Sunny was glad to help out the stuck travelers. It made her feel a little less like a mere Web lackey tending the site. When she’d come home to Maine eight months ago to take care of her ailing father, she’d only intended to take a brief leave of absence from her reporter job at the New York Standard. But unfortunately, the sickly state of the newspaper business had led her editor at the Standard to make her absence more permanent. And to pour salt into that particular wound, after he’d broken off their professional relationship, he broke off their personal one, too. Talk about a one-two punch.

  When Sunny had tried for a job at the local rag, the Harbor Crier, Ken Howell, the editor there, had turned her down flat. Apparently after all his years of running the place, he didn’t want some big-city “professional” sticking a nose in his business. But luckily Ollie, who was a major partner on the paper, had heard she was looking for work and had offered her the job at MAX. Compared to her old New York salary, the pay could only be called puny … but at least puny was better than nothing.

  To tell the truth, it was a little odd to be back working just two doors down from the store where she’d had her first job. In high school, Sunny had spent Friday evenings and Saturdays behind the fountain at Barnstable’s Sweet Shoppe, working for Ollie’s father. Sometimes Ollie would come by, dressed in a suit and tie from his job down in Boston, and give his dad a break. He was a lot older than Sunny and plainly hated working in the place.

  But even if he detested the work and could be a little skeevy—he used to creep Sunny out a little by telling her she was the sweetest thing in the Sweet Shoppe—Ollie was otherwise all business. Sunny remembered him always arguing with his father about how they should open on Sundays, something the elder Barnstable refused to do. In the end Barnstable Senior passed away while Sunny was in college. Ollie had sold the store, taken the insurance money, and gone off to New York City. Apparently he’d invested that money well, because a few years before Mike’s illness, Ollie had come back to Kittery Harbor flush with cash and ready to do business around town. He’d invested in the faltering Harbor Crier, bought the row of stores where his dad’s shop used to be, and put a lot of money into local real estate and other business opportunities, including MAX.

  Sunny had been surprised that Ollie had even remembered her, much less offered her a job. Maybe he just wanted someone around who’d spent time in the big city. Sometimes he’d talk to her about New York—the traffic, neighborhoods, Broadway shows he’d seen, expensive restaurants where he’d dined. He never gave away much about his business there, though.

  And, Sunny was glad to say, he never told her she was the sweetest thing in the MAX office.

  She thought she’d be writing promotional copy for the travel agency, and there was some of that. Mostly, though, she tended the website, arranged accommodations and sightseeing opportunities for prospective tourists, and dealt with the rare drop-in customer.

  The operation struck her as a little underhanded—Ollie had a “select list” of B&Bs, tour operators, and local destinations that gave him kickbacks. But there were occasions, like tonight, when Sunny felt she was actually doing a good deed and helping people. Besides, it wasn’t as if there were that many other ways to earn a living in a town the size of Kittery Harbor, and she didn’t want to leech off her retired father.

  The thought of Dad made her frown as the e-storm finally quieted down on her computer. He was responsible for getting his own dinner tonight, and he still wasn’t reconciled to the realities of a post–heart attack diet. Even worse, there were too many accommodating widowed neighbor ladies who’d be only too glad to cook him a nice, tasty, artery-clogging meal.

  Their cooking’s probably why they are widow ladies, she thought sourly.

  Would things have been different if Mom were still around? Unlikely. Dad had spent much of his working life on the road instead of at home, trucking rock salt all over New England. Sunny suspected that it was decades of diner cuisine which had finally caught up with him, not home cooking. And anyway, Mom’s cooking had ceased to be a factor almost fifteen years ago, when Sunny was just finishing exam hell for her first semester at Boston University. In a cruelly ironic twist, while Dad was out delivering a load of road-clearing salt to Boston, Mom had gone off the road in Kittery Harbor, just before Sunny was to come home for the holidays, another fatal accident victim of what became known as the Christmas ice storm.

  Sunny pushed away her wandering thoughts when she heard a tapping at the door. She rose from behind her desk to see a birdlike woman waving energetically at her through the glass.

  Sunny unlocked the door and the woman bustled inside. “You’re Mike Coolidge’s daughter, aren’t you?” she asked, standing so close she almost poked Sunny in the face with her oversized nose. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Ada Spruance, and I need help.”

  Sunny had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from saying something stupid. Ada Spruance certainly did need help. Standing face-to-face with her, Sunny didn’t need the faint whiff of cat pee that emanated from the woman’s clothes to remind her that Ada was famous—or infamous—around town as the local Cat Lady.

  Sunny shifted a little to put some distance between herself and Ada. Maybe she was wrong about the cat pee. Maybe it was a dab of very spoiled cologne.

  Yeah, right, her cynical reporter alter ego responded.

  “Your boss, Mr. Barnstable, has been around a lot lately, suggesting ways to assist me with my
financial problems,” Ada said.

  That got Sunny’s attention. Ollie the Barnacle turning up in response to money troubles was not exactly a charitable reaction. More like a shark attracted to blood in the water.

  “The problem is, all of his suggestions involve selling my house. But I thought maybe I could bring in some extra money by setting my place up as a bed and breakfast.” Ada smiled hopefully. “What would I have to do to get listed with you?”

  You’d probably have to start with a fumigator—and then maybe an exorcist, Sunny’s hard-edged inner voice chimed in. Ada’s big barn of a house with its scaly paint job served as a hostel for too many cats to count. She lived right around the corner from the home Sunny had grown up in, and though Ada had always taken in a few strays even back then, these days it was apparently something else. From what Sunny had heard, both Ada and her pets drove the nearby householders crazy. Sunny had witnessed her own dad curse his dotty neighbor up and down whenever he detected cat pee on the prized rosebushes her mom had planted around the house decades ago.

  Aloud, Sunny tried to be more diplomatic. “I think you’d face more of a job than many of the people we represent.” How to put it delicately? “Some travelers are allergic to house pets. Those that aren’t might be willing to deal with a dog, or a cat, maybe two, but …”

  Ada nodded. “I have more than that around the house,” she said with massive understatement, then sighed, her hands fluttering. “It’s just … I really need to bring some more money in, and—”

  She broke off. “You’ve been very kind. Not like some of the people who live in this town.” Ada hesitated for a moment. “Could I rely upon your kindness just a little more? I have this other problem, and I—I realize I have no one to discuss it with. The new neighbors think I’m some sort of mental case, and the old-timers, well, they don’t speak with me anymore. I need some advice—some help—and it seems as though I have no one I can trust.”

  The image of Ada sitting alone in her house with only the cats for company made Sunny regret her uncharitable thoughts. “What’s the trouble?” she asked.