Till the Cat Lady Sings (Bought-the-Farm Mystery 4) Read online

  Till the Cat Lady Sings

  Ellen Riggs

  Till the Cat Lady Sings

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  Copyright © 2020 Ellen Riggs

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-989303-59-7 eBook

  ISBN 978-1-989303-58-0 Book

  ASIN B088DHL25C Kindle

  ASIN TBD Paperback

  Publisher: Ellen Riggs

  www.ellenriggs.com

  Cover designer: Lou Harper

  Editor: Serena Clarke

  2008081855

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter One

  Keats and I sat side by side on the porch swing to enjoy the rare luxury of simply staring out at the big red barn and wide pastures dotted with livestock. I pushed off and swung back, off and back, mesmerized by both the movement and the beauty of it all. The magic hour right before sunset added a warm golden glow that would make any scene breathtaking, but this view was special because it was all mine.

  “Isn’t it amazing?” I said. Since much of the outdoor work was all mine, too, I had few opportunities to sit and appreciate how blessed I was to be here. But tonight, forced to wait for my best friend, Jilly Blackmore, to finish dressing for a party—something that had taken me 10 minutes, shower included—I basked in the utter serenity of Runaway Farm.

  There was a grumble beside me and I glanced down. Keats, my black-and-white border collie with one blue eye and one brown, had taken far longer to prepare than Jilly and I put together. It had been a 10-minute fight just to get him into the bathtub. The bravest dog I’d ever known was terrified of water—even more so since our recent tangle with a colony of feral cats in Huckleberry Marsh. But there was no way he could go to this party stinking of farm. My mom was more daunting than a squirming sheepdog and getting Keats past her into the event was going to be a tough sell as it was. I was determined to try, because crowds made me anxious and I needed my unofficial therapy dog for moral support.

  “What?” I said, as he directed his eerie blue eye up at me. “Can’t a hobby farmer and innkeeper take a moment to bask?”

  He offered his signature mumble of protest deep in his throat. This dog wasn’t bred for lounging in a porch swing, or anywhere else. He liked being busy. In fact, he craved work like I craved my morning coffee. No job was too big or too small… unless it involved water. Sitting up, he shook himself all over, as if throwing off the fresh smell of shampoo.

  “I get it.” I ran my hand over his sleek coat, a move that normally left a layer of grit on my fingers. “You’re embarrassed about looking so good. Me too, actually. This dress feels like a costume and I miss my overalls. But you look very dapper, buddy. Your whites have never been whiter.”

  The look he gave me was the canine version of a scowl. Keats was happiest belly down in dust and manure as he kept tabs on his livestock.

  “It’s just for one night, and it’s important to Mom,” I said. “Launching her own business after losing so many jobs is a genius move. This time no one can fire her.”

  “Except for her daughter,” Jilly said, as she stepped through the front door looking spectacular. When we lived in Boston, she dressed up every day, saying it was a key to her success as a corporate headhunter. Since her stilettos touched down in Clover Grove, however, there had been a gradual erosion of personal style until she was just a few rungs above overalls. I hadn’t seen her curly blonde hair blown out in ages and was surprised to see how much it had grown in farm country. Meanwhile, her iridescent emerald dress made her green eyes pop and her heels were an accident waiting to happen.

  My brother, Asher, a police officer that half the women in town coveted, already adored “casual Jilly.” There’d be no hope for him after seeing “glamorous Jilly.”

  “I give it a week before Iris calls a family meeting and asks Daisy to boot Mom from the business.”

  Of my four sisters, Iris was the most reserved, and her desire to open a business in partnership with Mom had come as a shock. I had no doubt that Daisy, the eldest, and our unofficial matriarch, would be in constant demand to negotiate among warring parties.

  Perching beside Keats on the swing, Jilly smoothed her dress. “You’re right about a lot of things, Ivy, but you underestimate your mother. I’ve helped a ton of people find their true calling in life, and I really think this is Dahlia’s. Look at how fast she made it happen. Robbi Ford gave up Crowning Glory less than two weeks ago.”

  “Gave up” was being kind. The longtime salon owner had no choice but to close after her unspeakable crimes took her out of commission. Mom and Iris swept in with backing from all of us, and a business start-up loan. I had a sneaking suspicion that their association with Kellan Harper, Chief of Police, made the bank more receptive to their pitch.

  “They’ve turned that place around fast with help from a great team,” I said. “Tonight’s grand opening party wouldn’t be happening without your organizational prowess.”

  She shrugged before wrapping a silvery cashmere pashmina around her bare shoulders. “That’s my true calling, I guess. Planning and catering events. Luckily things have been quiet here at the inn.”

  “Quiet” was also being kind. My business was currently dead. “Dead” was unkind but nonetheless true. Runaway Farm had been marked by murder three times during my relatively short tenure. Three times, Keats, Jilly and I had helped solve those murders and vindicated the farm. But people only remembered the murders and not the skillful sleuthing. I couldn’t really blame them. Who’d want to escape the city for a bucolic farm experience where murder was as common as cow flaps?

  Keats gave a little whine and rested his long muzzle on my lap. My hand dropped to the soft fur between his ears. He rolled his sympathetic honey brown eye up at me, offering an instant infusion of comfort and confidence.

  “Don’t worry, Jilly,” I said. “I’ll drum up some guests for us soon. Maybe even tonight. I’ve got a pocketful of business cards that I intend to empty before the party ends.”

  “Good plan,” she said. “All except the pocket. I hope you don’t mind but I hung a different dress in your room. The one you’re wearing looks a little too…”

  “Sensible?” I said. My options were limited as I’d tossed nearly everything I owned after leaving my corporate human resources job at Flordale Corporation in Boston. There was just one charcoal wool suit I’d kept for funerals, never expecting it to see so
much use.

  “No offense, my friend, but you might as well borrow one of Edna Evans’ ancient nursing uniforms. She’s not using them right now.”

  That made me smile. After a recent brush with death, my crotchety neighbor had hopped on a long-haul flight to Australia to clean up some family business. She’d left her large colony of feral cats in my care, which was turning out to be a much bigger worry than I’d anticipated.

  “I can’t borrow your dress,” I said. “I stained your second-favorite sweater with ketchup.”

  “Never mind that,” she said. “It was a small price to pay to bring you and Kellan Harper back together.”

  I laughed. “Well, I imagine he would have gotten around to kissing me eventually. But the ketchup obviously served as an aphrodisiac.”

  “You’ve made a good start, but the way you keep interfering in his police cases is bound to slow your progress,” she said. “The poor man is infatuated and infuriated in equal parts. Tonight you need a dress that will tip the balance. It’s in your room now, along with the right shoes and clutch.”

  “If Kellan doesn’t like me in my natural state, then—”

  She cut me off with a flick of manicured fingertips. “I’ll come at this another way. Your mom specifically said no dogs tonight, which is totally reasonable given potential clients could have allergies. I know Dahlia Galloway, and if you waltz in looking like a million bucks she might not even notice Keats.”

  Glaring at her, I got up off the swing. “Using my therapy dog against me isn’t fair.”

  “I’m trying to make sure Keats is at your side, so that you two can mumble all night in your weird private language. Just try not to freak people out with that stuff.”

  I walked over to the door. “You talk to Keats too, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  She pushed back with one stiletto and let the swing go. “Don’t think it doesn’t worry me that the dog and I understand each other better every day. But unlike you, I know strangers find that unnerving. We need business, Ivy. So go doll yourself up.”

  When I came back, Jilly was standing on the front walk, bellowing for Keats.

  “Oh no,” I said, wobbling down the porch stairs in borrowed finery and heels a half size too large. “You didn’t let him go.”

  “He didn’t ask my permission.”

  She gestured to a tornado of dust travelling across the driveway toward the enclosure containing the alpaca, llamas and donkeys. I didn’t need the cloud to dissipate to know what was inside. In moments, a ball of black, white and orange unfurled and a very fluffy marmalade cat leapt onto the fence just in time for Keats to charge directly into the post. He bounced back and sat down hard.

  “Stop it,” I shouted. “Keats, come. And Percy, you stand down. I know you started it.”

  “Percy?” Jilly asked. “He finally has a name?”

  “It took me a while to believe he was staying,” I said. The cat had been part of Edna’s feral colony until recently. “Why would he want to give up his freedom to live with a cat-hating dog? When I took him in to get his shots I had to offer a name, and Percy Bysshe Shelley is what came out. He’s a chatty poet like Keats.”

  She shook her head. “You call that yowling poetry?”

  “I love all the sounds my animals make. The smells… not so much.”

  “Speaking of which, we’d better get going before the farm’s bouquet permeates our clothes.” Her nose wrinkled. “I often wonder how much we stink to others.”

  “Me too. Turning the manure as often as I do, I suspect two showers a day aren’t enough.”

  Jilly clicked ahead of me over the flagstones toward the big black pickup truck. “That’s why I gave our dresses a little shot of perfume.”

  “Let’s take Buttercup,” I said, gesturing to the old yellow Volvo sedan parked further away. “It’ll put both Mom and Kellan in a good mood.”

  Buttercup had been my mother’s four-wheeled pet before Asher basically seized the car. A long string of traffic violations had made Mom a menace on the road and my brother a laughingstock among his colleagues. Recently, Kellan had asked me to drive Buttercup because my truck was winning the battle over the manual transmission. My frequent stalls around town worried Kellan, and possibly made him a laughingstock, too. Buttercup was hardly a sweet ride, since she predated power brakes and steering, but at least there was no clutch.

  I opened the driver’s door and turned, expecting Keats to be behind me, eager to get in. The only thing he liked as much as herding was car rides. Instead, the dog was making frantic leaps at the gate where the cat appeared to be pawing at the latch.

  “Percy, no!” I dropped my purse in the car and started to run. It was too late. The gate swung open and Drama, the feistiest of the llamas, wasted no time lunging through it.

  If the escapee were a lamb or a goat, Keats would have had the situation handled in under a minute. Drama Llama was an entirely different matter. Like all camelids, he came into the world wired to loathe dogs. Even Alvina, the sweet dancing alpaca, mistrusted Keats although she would never aim a kick at him. Drama Llama had been waiting for his chance to do just that and now the cat had offered up the dog on a silver platter.

  Jilly screamed as the woolly white creature took off after Keats. I’d seen my dog move fast, but never as if the devil himself were on his tail. Even so, he managed to keep his sheepdog wits about him and lured the llama in a big circle around us. They disappeared behind the barn and I held my breath until they emerged on the far side. Drama was gaining on Keats and this would end badly if I didn’t run interference. Literally.

  Kicking off Jilly’s heels, I raced toward them, somehow managing to intercept the llama just moments before he reached the dog. Drama slammed on his cloven brakes and skidded but it was too late. He collided with me so hard that I fell flat on my back. The next few minutes compressed like a fan in my mind as I stared up at the sunset sky. A green blur passed and a latch clicked.

  Keats licked my forehead until Jilly swam into focus and offered her hand. “You okay?”

  “I think so,” I said, sitting up. “You got him?”

  “Keats lured the llama inside and circled back like a fireball so I could slam the gate.” She looked over at the pen. “Drama is shredding my pashmina with his hoof right now. Maybe it’s a statement about shearing.”

  “Where’s the cat?” My voice sounded ominous, even to me. “He is so fired. There’s only one thing on his job description: ridding the barn of vermin. And yet the mice frolic while he’s out here unleashing dangerous animals.”

  Jilly pulled tissues out of her purse and tried to brush off my dress. Her dress. It had been such a pretty pink before its collapse.

  “Percy was just doing what cats do,” she said. “They’re brats. You can’t fire him.”

  I shook myself just as Keats had earlier. “They didn’t call me the grim reaper of HR for nothing, my friend. I will downsize that cat’s fluffy butt without a moment’s regret. When Edna gets back, I will hand him over in a carrier with a black bow on the handle.”

  She trailed after me to the car, clucking like a fussy hen. “Ivy, you need to go back inside and shower. Your feet are filthy.”

  I slipped behind Buttercup’s wheel. “The ball’s over for this Cinderella,” I said, accepting the sandals she passed me. “What would a farmer do with glass slippers, anyway?”

  Chapter Two

  I glared at the dog over my shoulder as I drove the big yellow sedan slowly down the twisty lane. Buttercup didn’t like pressure. Too much pedal to the metal caused a vibration and then a squealing sound. With a little coaxing and finesse, however, she’d move along as nicely as my old mare, Florence.

  “Honestly, Keats.” I glanced over my shoulder at him and then shook my head. His white bib was now decidedly gray. “Quit letting that cat get to you. You’re way too smart to fall for Percy’s tricks. It’s like something trips in your brain.”

  Keats mumbled something that sounded l
ike an embarrassed apology.

  “Go easy on him,” Jilly said. “This has been a big adjustment. I think his feelings are hurt over how much time you’re spending with Percy.”

  The whine from behind us was a little overdone. Then Keats pawed at the back of the passenger seat a few times, hard enough to leave marks on the brittle tan leather.

  “Stop that,” I told him. “You know how Mom feels about Buttercup’s upholstery.” He whined again. “What is with you?”

  “I told you, he’s hurt,” Jilly said. “He’s a mama’s boy.”

  I laughed. “Well, he’ll always be my favorite, no question. This week I just had a couple of appointments to get Percy properly vetted after life in the wilds. I couldn’t bring Keats because the cat was like a crazed cougar in the crate.” I held out my arm to reveal a trio of nasty scratches. “So far, he’s more trouble than he’s worth.”

  Now the soundtrack from Keats sounded more positive, as if he hoped Percy would be sent packing.

  “All I’m saying is that you and that dog have a very special bond,” Jilly said. “There’s the upside, like when he’s saving your life. And then there’s the downside, when he’s a little jealous and acting out. On top of everything, you gave him a bath.”

  I sighed and glanced at Keats again. “Right. It’s been an emotional week for you, buddy. How about we trap Percy inside tomorrow and walk over to Edna’s? Just you and me?”