Puss 'N Cahoots

Tucker onto it.
    The animals listened as the humans showered, washing for warmth as much as cleanliness, for both were clammy and cold from the night air, the temperature having dropped after the monumental thunderstorm. They could hear Harry and Fair talking as they scrubbed each other’s backs.
    “Ever notice how all animals like to groom one another?”
Tucker lifted her head off her sparkling paws.
    “Cleans those hard-to-reach spots,”
Pewter, fond of her toilette, replied.
    “Makes us feel closer.”
Mrs. Murphy felt drowsy.
    “You’re right,”
Pewter agreed.
“I’d never let anyone I didn’t like groom me.”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Can you imagine grooming Miss Nasty? Even another monkey wouldn’t do it.”
    “Booty gives her baths. I heard Joan telling Mother that he lavishes attention on her. Joan says it’s a surrogate child or maybe he does it as penance. Don’t know for what, but Joan was laughing about it.”
Tucker rolled onto her side, stretched her legs fore and aft.
    “Men are descended from apes,”
Pewter declared with authority.
“Booty’s grooming a family member, sort of.”
    “If men are descended from apes, then what are women descended from?”
Tucker smiled mischievously.
    “Angels,”
Mrs. Murphy answered, her eyes half closed.
    The three laughed at that, then Tucker thoughtfully wondered,
“Is that why men behave as they do—you know, can’t face reality, dream a lot—because they’re imperfect monkeys?”
    “Apes,”
Pewter corrected her.
    “Same difference. Size—”
Tucker didn’t finish, because Mrs. Murphy interrupted.
    “They’re a mess because their senses aren’t good, and they are even more eroded because of pollution—noise pollution, too.”
    “But so are we.”
Tucker wasn’t argumentative as much as curious.
    “Yes, but our noses and ears are so much better that even with some damage we remain vastly superior to the human animal.”
Mrs. Murphy did not say this with a conceited air.
    “That’s a thought.”
The day’s excitement and upset caught up with Pewter. She felt tired all at once.
“I do hate to think of Harry and Fair being related to Miss Nasty.”
With that statement she closed her eyes, let out a tiny little puff of air, and was asleep.
    “I’m tuckered out, too, forgive the pun,”
Mrs. Murphy said to the dog.
    “Me, too. Who would have thought our visit to Kentucky would be so”
—Tucker searched for the right word—
“depleting.”
    Mrs. Murphy replied,
“One murder, one stolen pin, and one horrible monkey, all in two days’ time. Oh, one stolen horse, too.”
    Harry and Fair emerged from the shower, dashed for the bed, and bounced under the covers. They snuggled to keep warm. The bounce disturbed the cats on the pillows but only for a second, as the cats resettled to curl by the humans’ heads. Pewter went right back to sleep.
    “Chilled to the bone. You don’t think about getting chilled in August.” Harry pulled the blanket under her chin. “Good for me you’re big. You warm me faster than I warm you.”
    “I wouldn’t say that.” He sighed with contentment as she rested her head on his shoulder. He looked at the alarm clock. “It’s two in the morning.”
    “I lost track of time,” Harry murmured. “I feel like we’re inside a washing machine on spin cycle.”
    “My mind feels like that.”
    “What? I mean, what’s whirling around?”
    “Jorge’s body temperature.” He exhaled. “Given that his temperature was pretty close to ninety-eight point six—didn’t have a thermometer, but he felt normal to the touch—what keeps going round in my head is, was this a planned execution or a crime of opportunity?”
    “The storm and loss of power sure were convenient,” Harry said.
    “Help me place everyone. Joan and her folks were with us. Larry, Manuel, and Jorge were getting horses ready, I assume.”
    “Larry and Manuel were on the rail when Renata rode Shortro.”
    “Right. Where were the other trainers?”
    “Don’t know. Ward was on the rail. He had someone in the class. Charly wasn’t there. Guess he didn’t want to see Renata ride, or maybe he had someone in the next class, junior exhibition three-gaited show pleasure. I know Booty had a kid in the class, because we saw him in the practice ring with her when we first came to the show grounds yesterday. If he was there we missed him, but, Fair, the place had so many people it was like ants at a picnic.”
    She sounded sleepy.