The Purrfect Murder

kill each other if she didn’t kill them first. She didn’t mean that. It was a figure of speech.”
    “Can you think of anyone who hated your mom? Hated her enough to set her up?”
    “No. Even Carla wouldn’t have done that. Carla needed Mom, even if she did treat her ugly.”
The lab’s gorgeous coat appeared almost white in the afternoon sun.
    “True.”
Mrs. Murphy stretched.
“And Tazio needed Carla. It was an important commission. She couldn’t afford to get a reputation that might turn other people away.”
    “They’d only have to know Carla to know the truth of that.”
Brinkley’s neck fur ruffled in indignation.
    “People have to live here for a while to know those things. New people listen. Actually, even people who aren’t new listen. A gossip campaign does damage,”
Mrs. Murphy sagely noted.
“Humans are prone to it.”
    “Remember the Republican primary in South Carolina in 2000?”
Tucker followed these things with Harry as they both watched the TV or read the paper.
“They saw that Karl Rove started a whispering campaign about John McCain having an affair with a woman of color. You’d think no one would believe it. Did. Carla’s gossip could have hurt Tazio if Tazio had really set her off.”
    “Mother didn’t kill her, no matter what.”
Brinkley was adamant.
    “Who’s growling?” Harry turned from the fence.
    Paul did, as well. “Brinkley, be nice.”
    “I am.”
Brinkley lay down, putting his head on his paws.
    “He’s so sad, poor fellow,” Paul remarked. “I’m not much help. I feel…I can’t even describe how I feel.”
    Mrs. Murphy rubbed against Brinkley.
“Anything else, anything at all?”
    “No. Mother said that Carla was an emotionally unrestrained person. She considered it irresponsible. After Dr. Wylde was shot, Carla called to cancel her meeting with Mom and Mike, and when Mom put down the phone she said Carla was behaving like an idiot, that you would have thought Dr. Wylde was her lover, the way she was sobbing.”
    Mrs. Murphy stopped mid-rub. She said nothing, but a tiny piece of this wretched puzzle had fallen into place.

25
    T here’s an old carny trick, successful over the centuries in rural America. A barker called people to the sideshows. He extolled the beauty and weirdness of the bearded lady, the enormous bulk of the fat man, the frightening aspect of the reptile boy, each in their separate tents. Other human oddities filled a row of tents.
    When the crowds became large enough, before the tickets were sold, the barker would helpfully tell the crowd—mostly men, since genteel ladies would be too repelled to attend—to protect their money from pickpockets.
    Human nature: the men would reach for their wallet to make sure it was still there. They’d pat a breast pocket if wearing a seersucker coat or their hip pocket if in jeans or overalls. Since the pickpockets worked with the barker, giving him a contested percent—he knew they underreported their take—they were in the crowd. Pickpockets noted who patted what, and the rest was easy as pie.
    Mike patted his pocket, so to speak, after checking over Little Mim and Blair’s plans. He had been uncharacteristically mild, mindful that she was the vice mayor of Crozet.
    He drove back to Woolen Mills, where he and Noddy owned a well-kept wooden house. Noddy, being queen of that house, suffered few changes to her way of doing things. Mike had his shed for the lawn mower, gun repair, and tools, and a separate office near the tool room. He could live in there, since he’d tricked it out, put in R-19 insulation, added windows. His small desk held a new computer. A small propane fireplace rested along one wall, and in winter it heated the twelve-by-fourteen-foot office area more than enough. He’d also insulated the floor. First, he’d put down a vapor barrier, then the wooden support slats—two-by-fours, running parallel—and stuffed that with insulation. Next he’d put down a good hardwood floor, having been given some nice oak overflow from a construction site. Under his desk he had a trapdoor concealed by a hard rubber floor covering, so he could roll around on his desk chair without marking up the beautiful stained and waxed oak.
    He told Noddy he couldn’t stand sitting at a desk in the house when she roared through with the vacuum cleaner, ordering him to lift his feet.
    He opened his office door and looked out the windows to see if anyone was around, which they weren’t. He