Nancy J. Bailey - Furry Murder 01 - My Best Cat

My Best Cat

My Best Cat

A Furry Murder Mystery

By Nancy J. Bailey

Cover Art by Nancy J. Bailey

My Best Cat is a work of fiction. 
Any resemblance to any real character, alive or preferably dead, is purely coincidental.

List of Narrators

Kim Norwich

A plucky redheaded security guard, Kim is a tough-minded individual with a soft spot for animals and detectives with cute derrieres

Cecelia Fox

Dubbed “The Mouth Breather” by Andrew Gilbert, Cecelia is a hopeless nerd obsessed with her Somali, Kenya Strut.  She has stumbled into a co-ownership situation with the narcissistic, flamboyant Roxanne Moore.

Tracy Pringle

A crosseyed blowhard who shows Abyssinians, Tracy is obsessed with winning at all costs, even to the point of overlooking her husband’s affair with Roxanne Moore.

Wesley Taft

Showing a Japanese Bobtail with his partner Max, Wesley is attempting to recover from a bad business deal with Roxanne Moore.

Andrew Gilbert

Andrew is perpetually nervous, contemptuous of his Aunt Roxanne, and head over heels in love with Dennis, the flashy show photographer.

Ginny
Robards

Ginny shows Persians with her eccentric daughter,
Liesl.  Ginny is oblivious to the real world, preferring a fantasy existence flavored by, “The Sound of Music.”

.

Chapter One

Kim Norwich

Saturday Afternoon

It always surprised and disgusted me how a restroom in a cat show hall could start out completely spotless, but by Saturday afternoon, it was inevitably filthy.  This had been a long weekend, since the show was a huge affair that started on Thursday.  The restroom had been cleaned that morning, and smelled of bleach.  Today it was littered with toilet paper and waste paper.  There was hair in the sink and the mirrors were smeared.  The thought crossed my mind again:  What the hell did cat people do in here?

Outside the door, they crowded around.  It was a varied group, but mostly consisted of overweight women, trying to get a peek inside. There had been a murder in the restroom that day, but murder wasn’t pretty, no matter how you look at it.  I had seen a few in my time, even though I was now merely a security guard.  It was the murders, partly, that drove me out of the force. But here was this one, and it was especially garish.

Roxanne Moore was a big woman, flat-chested but with large hips.  She lay sprawled face-down on the floor, one foot propped against the drainpipe of the nearest sink. Her long, disheveled hair was an almost violent gold color, with black roots peeping out beneath. Her dress was hiked up around her waist, so that her red lace panties were exposed, stretched over her bulbous bottom like a tight string bag on a frozen chicken.

“What the hell…” said Detective Reynolds, his eyes narrowing as his head jerked back in an involuntary flinch.

“Strangulation, sir,” I said, flicking my cigarette over the trash can.  It was a bad habit, but at least I tried to be tidy about it.  I couldn’t stand those pigs who crushed their butts on public restroom floors. 

I nodded toward the corpse.  “She was strangled with that feather boa.”

The boa, soft and innocuous-looking, lay in a fluffy purple coil close to the body, with one end of it still wound around the victim’s neck.  The detective gestured to the two officers standing behind him, and they snapped on their rubber gloves and went to the woman and rolled her over. Her head lolled back. Her mouth was agape, stuffed with balled-up blue and white fabric.

“What is that?” 
said the Detective.

I blew stream of smoke, carefully aimed away from him.  Tall and slightly graying at the temples, Reynolds was a fine looking man, but I was through with men.  Especially cops.

“A rosette, sir,” I said.

Again, the squint.
  “What?”

“It’s a rosette, sir.
An award from one of the rings.”

“
Ssshhheeeeessshhhh…”

“That’s not the worst of it.”

The two officers looked up.  They knew what I meant, having been examining her lower body parts.

“What else?” Reynolds asked.  His eyes were scanning the room, the walls, the ceiling.  To an untrained person, it might have appeared that he was avoiding looking at the dead woman, but I knew he was searching for clues.  I respected that.

“More cat toys, sir.  Feathers on a stick.  Stuck in her.”

His eyes darted back to my face.  “Stuck in her, where?  You don’t mean…”

“Yes,” one of the officers piped up. “She’s stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey, sir.  Looks like she tried to ride a feather duster.”

“
Gawd!”  Reynolds shook his head.  “I’ve seen some weird stuff in my day, but this…”

“Yep,” I nodded and glanced out the open door to the cat people who stood crowding and whispering at a cautious distance, craning to see in.  Reynolds had forbidden any of them to leave.  There were cops crawling all over the place, interviewing folks one by one.  It would take all night.  Cat Lovers
Across the World, better known as CLAW, was a huge registry.  It was to cats what the AKC was to dogs.  CLAW sponsored the largest cat show in the country, and there were hundreds of people here.  I had worked security at this show every year for a decade, a huge international thing.

There were hundreds of cats here.  The cages lined the gym from wall to wall, stretched across the space in aisles where the cats were caged back to back.  Cat people milled around our restroom now, forsaking their soap opera magazines and cheese puffs to talk about murder and gossip about the victim.  I suspected that a lot of them knew her.  She had been in the fancy for a few years.  I wondered if any of them were trying to get our attention.  I looked up, and there they stood in a group, most of them overweight middle-aged women dressed in black tops with sequins, and polyester stretch pants with cats embroidered on the pockets.

Reynolds followed my glance.  His eyes scanned my face quickly, as if he were trying to read my thoughts.  That made me uncomfortable and I glared at him.  He didn’t back down, looking me right in the eye, and said, “What’s your name again?”

No apology.  I liked that.

“Norwich.  Kim Norwich.”

“What’s your take on this, Norwich?”

I was surprised to be asked.  It was rare for a detective of his stature to ask a civilian’s opinion.  He wasn’t letting anything get past him.  He was smart.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted.  I nodded toward the darkened corner beneath the sink.  If you looked right, a small glint might catch your eye. “I am sure your people noticed that gold ring.  I think it was tossed there to distract her. She might have bent to pick it up. She was tall, but it wouldn’t be
hard for someone to push her off balance and get the best of her then.”

Both of the officers looked, and I could tell by their faces that they hadn’t noticed the ring.  Reynolds looked at me and smiled a little.  One of the officers stood up and bent to pick it up.  He examined it and handed it to Reynolds.

“It’s a cat ring.  Gold, with green eyes.  Er, a green eye.  One of the little stones is missing.”

“Emeralds.”
  I sucked another puff of nicotine and shook my head.  “I’ve spent some time around these cat-showing folks the past few years.  I’ll tell you one thing, sir.  Cat people are crazy.  They get downright obsessive with this showing stuff.  It becomes a life or death deal to them.  The fact that a rosette was used makes me think that it was someone competing against her.  A disgruntled loser.”

“So we should concentrate on people with the same breed of cat.  That narrows it down.”

“Not necessarily.  That ribbon was from an Allbreed ring.  It’s not a breed ribbon.”

“How do you know?”

“It matches the ribbons hanging in Larry Cox’s ring.  He’s an Allbreed judge.”

He smiled at me.  “That’s very astute of you.”

I shrugged.  “Simple reasoning, that’s all.”

“Well, I guess I will go talk to Larry Cox.”  He looked at me.  “Stick around.  We’ll talk more.”

He strolled off and was immediately surrounded by people asking questions.  He threw his hands up and just kept going.  I waited a moment, then followed him.  It was apparent that Reynolds didn’t know anything about showing cats.  Details might be important.  I didn’t own any show cats, but I was a cat lover, having two of my own at home, and sort of fascinated by the psychology of the cat showing world.  I had picked up little facts about rules and regulations here and there.  I thought I would just tag along and see if I could help.

Crawford Hall was an old gymnasium, part of a community college that had moved on to bigger things.  The ancient bleachers still remained, folded up against one wall, probably welded to the wall.  The old basketball hoops had been removed but there was still evidence of the marks on the padded floors.  The ceiling arched high above us, beautiful in its architecture, with rafters that were carved like scrolls and pillars.  They didn’t make buildings like this anymore.  Round stained glass windows brightened corners at the top of the ceiling.  Years ago, during the first event here, I had noticed to my surprise that there were birds, little sparrows, flitting around up there.  I wondered how they got in, and whether they could get out.  How did they survive on vendor food alone?  But every year, the sparrows were still here, winging around high up in the rafters, chirping and squabbling amongst themselves, sometimes flying low to
light on the bleacher tops or hop briefly around the judging rings.  It was ironic, birds being at a cat show.

The vendors lined one wall, selling all manner of things feline: Umbrellas decorated with cats, cat sculptures, cat jewelry and books. 
Cat food.  Litter boxes.  Grooming supplies.  And the inevitable cat toys: Furry mice, catnip pillows, and of course, the feathers on a stick.

The air was suddenly filled with the sickening sweetness of toasted almonds.  Reynolds paused and nudged me, “Hey.” he nodded over at the vendor who was scooping the almonds into paper cones.  “That smells great.  I’m
gonna get some of those.  You want some?”

I shook my head.  “No thanks.”

“Suit yourself.”  He grinned.  His teeth were straight, and there was one quick glimmer in the corner.  Silver.  A filling.

He went over to the vendor and pulled out his wallet.  The wallet was threadbare, the corners worn and beaten.  He handled his money casually, counting out three bills, waving away the change, keep it.  He put it back in his pocket, snug against his nice tight backside.

I stood waiting, wishing I had a cigarette.  Maybe I should have gotten the almonds.

He came back with the paper cone of almonds, warm and coated, grainy and wafting the strong scent of cinnamon.  He reached in and artfully tossed one in the air, catching it in his mouth like a dog. 
Showing off.  He grinned at me again and held out the cone.  I shook my head.  He was awfully damn playful for someone doing a murder investigation.  He smiled a lot, but I noticed the way his eyes never stopped roving around the room.

He took another almond, popped it into his mouth and chewed it.  “So did you know her?”

The bastard was working me!  I couldn’t believe it.  Well, that was okay, why shouldn’t I be a suspect too?  After all, I had been here.

“Not really.
Sort of.”

Roxanne Moore had been much taller than I, sort of flashy, bordering on slutty.  I never thought much of her.  She carried her cats around the show hall like they were trophies, holding them stretched high above her head as she flounced up to the rings.  Her clothes were always too tight, as if she was in denial about her size,
                                                      not to mention her age.  I remember one time I had followed her to her cage to ask her a question about her breed, the Somali cat.  She looked at me as if I had just crawled out of a manhole, or been caught shoplifting.  I felt my face getting hot, and I had the unreasonable urge to strike her.  I never asked her anything, and in fact I didn’t speak to her at all.  I just turned away.

“She wasn’t a buddy of yours then, hey?”

“Uh, no.”

“So who found her?”

“One of the Turkish Van folks found her and they came and got me.”

I remembered the panic of that moment, Ken the show manager running to me, his eyes wild with fear like a horse when something spooks it.  I had gone in, found Roxanne lying there and quickly felt for her pulse; nothing.  I had turned her over, thinking to give her CPR, but upon finding the ribbon in her mouth I put her back and ran to dial 911.

“Turkish Van; is that some kind of sauna on wheels?”

I looked at him.  He grinned, crunching another almond. 

“It’s a breed of cat.”  I said.  “A Turkish Van is a cat.”

“So that’s how people are identified here? 
The Turkish Van People?  The Persian People?  The Siamese People?”

“You got it.”

“And this is what they do on the weekends.”

“Yes.”

He stood looking around, his eyes quickly scanning over the cage tops, taking in the brightly colored curtains, the bows and lace.  It was dawning on me how absurd this must seem to him, but he just kept crunching almonds.  A fat tomcat, a striped American shorthair, looked up at us from behind its bars, blinked its eyes, stretched and went back to sleep.

“How do you show a cat?” Reynolds said.  “Do you put a little leash on him and trot him around the ring?  How in the hell do you get a cat to walk on a leash?”

“They don’t use leashes.  They carry them up to the rings.  The cat waits in a cage until it’s time to be judged.”

He chomped another almond.  “You sure you don’t want one?  They won’t stay hot forever.”

Was that a double entendre?   I looked up at him quickly, but he was just watching the cats, holding the cone absently in my direction in case I changed my mind.

“No thank you,” I said.

“What do they judge the cats on?  How do they decide which cat is the best cat?”

“There is a standard that’s written for each breed.  They judge according to that.”

“Such as?”

“Oh you know, structure, color, markings, coat texture. 
Eye color.”

“They are judged on eye color?”

“Yes.”

“So what eye color is the best?”

“It depends on the –“

“The standard!” he finished for me, nodding.