Puss 'N Cahoots

stiff, then she died.
    “Hooray,”
Pewter cheered.
    Spike shook her like a rag doll, breaking her neck, then dropped her.
“Death to vermin!”
    Booty, distraught, ran to his pet, as Pewter did, too.
    “Pewter, you get back here,” Harry ordered.
    “I want to make sure she’s dead.”
Pewter stopped midway to her goal.
    “Let’s drive a stake through her heart,”
Cookie suggested.
    Booty picked up the lifeless monkey and said, “Oh, Miss Nasty.”
    Sheriff Cody finally appeared. Renata and Ward noticed him as he was making his way down from the other barns.
    “What’s the sheriff want?” Ward wondered.
    Harry should have kept her mouth shut, but she blurted out, “Booty, you tried to stop Miss Nasty from drinking out of the glass.”
    Holding Miss Nasty in his arms like a baby, he looked hard at Harry. “I—”
    “You knew the glass was coated in poison.” She let her anger get the better of her.
    Ward suddenly got it and said, “You son of a bitch, you tried to kill me!” He lunged for Booty.
    Much as Booty loved Miss Nasty, dead was dead. He needed to save himself. He flung her body hard in Ward’s face, then turned to run out the back of the barn.
    Cookie and Tucker easily kept apace with him, biting his ankles as he ran.
    “Death from the ankles down.” Joan couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.
    Benny tore after Ward, who had regained his balance to chase Booty.
    Sheriff Cody walked into the barn, looked down at Miss Nasty, and just caught sight of Benny at the far entrance to the barn.
    Fair said, “Booty. It’s Booty. They’re after him.”
    The sheriff pulled out his gun but walked the length of the barn as he called his men on his phone. Sooner or later, Booty would be trapped.
    Pewter pounced on Miss Nasty’s body.
“Dead! Whoopee.”
    Spike grinned his snaggle-toothed grin.
    The cats didn’t need to pretend they weren’t thrilled at Miss Nasty being dispatched by Spike and the poison. Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, Spike, and the barn cats surrounded the hateful creature.
    Harry strode over. “Leave her alone.” She unfastened Joan’s pin and handed it back to her.
    Renata said, “That ginger cat won’t die, will he? I mean, he bit into Miss Nasty.”
    “He’ll be fine.” Fair figured Spike didn’t chew her or bite deep.
    A shot rang out in the parking lot. Everyone ran to the far end of the barn in time to see Booty, blood pouring down his leg, hopping away. Ward and Benny tackled him, Ward pulling his right arm up behind his back. Sheriff Cody walked up, as did the deputy who’d shot Booty, moving from the opposite direction.
    Pewter, Mrs. Murphy, Spike, and the barn cats had run down to that end of the barn, too.
    Mrs. Murphy looked from Booty to Miss Nasty.
“No more monkey business.”

T he white truck, loaded and ready to go, sat in the Kalarama drive.
    Harry and Fair had come to say good-bye to Joan and Larry at nine A.M . on Sunday morning. Clients and customers would start showing up around ten. The two weeks between Shelbyville and Louisville heated up business, as did the weeks following the Kentucky State Fair.
    Krista, on deck, had the sitting room clean. A small breakfast buffet had been squeezed on the coffee counter, pot already bubbling outside her office door.
    Harry, Fair, Joan, and Larry were drinking coffee and tea and eating doughnuts. Harry, not much for sweets, found she craved sugar this morning.
    Harry and Fair sat on the sofa, Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker right with them. Joan sat opposite, and Larry kept popping in and out from the long main aisle to confer with Manuel.
    “Would you have guessed?” Harry asked Joan, since Joan knew the people involved better than Harry did. They both had run out to the parking lot last night when Booty bolted for his freedom. Once shot, Booty couldn’t move. They heard everything as they drew close to him.
    Joan tapped the edge of the heavy mug, maroon with “Kalarama” emblazoned on its side in gold. “I thought it was Ward at first. He’s young, needs money, and he did take Queen Esther from Jorge—that was conjecture, but I was pretty sure that’s how it happened, and now we know.”
    In pain and knowing the game was up, Booty confessed at the parking lot while waiting for the medics. Like many people, when hope was lost he just babbled. Ward, standing right there, didn’t deny that he was in business with Booty and Charly, especially since Booty pointed the finger at him. Better to confess