The Purrfect Murder

Harry, Fair, and their friends to harvest the sunflowers. Eventually Harry realized that, while they could do the labor, this was only her first crop. Fearing she’d damage those big, rich heads, she broke down and hired a crew recommended to her by Waynesboro Nurseries, the same company that had put in Benita’s maples. Granted, labor cut into the profit, but there was very little waste. They got it all up in two days, Monday and today.
    “I thought I’d make more.” She put down her fork for a minute. “I mean, I would have, but—”
    “Harry, you did the right thing. If nothing else, you saved Miranda’s back. Our friends are very good to us, but sometimes it’s best not to ask for favors.”
    “You’re right, but she’s on her hands and knees in her garden, remember. As it is, we made three thousand dollars.”
    “Whenever you balance the books, if you wind up in the black, that’s good.” The slightly bitter taste of mesclun burst on his tongue. “These greens are so crisp.”
    “Fresh out of the garden. The battle with the bugs.” She grinned. “I won this year.”
    “You won because we policed the garden.”
Pewter lifted her head from her bowl.
    “What a liar you are.”
Tucker laughed.
“All you did was sleep under the walnut tree with your face pointed in the direction of the garden.”
    “The barn swallows, tree swallows, and purple martins ate the bugs,”
Mrs. Murphy reported.
“Maybe even the blue jay ate a few, worthless though he is.”
    “He’s funny. He imitates the call of a red-shouldered hawk, scares the other birds, then swoops down to eat, undisturbed. They figure it out, come back, and remonstrate with him.”
Tucker studied birds, although in a different fashion from the cats, whose motives were murderous.
    “People, a lot of them, don’t realize that blue jays will mimic other birds. They know that mockingbirds do it, but they forget about the jays. With his versatile voice, he can get close to the hawk notes.”
    “Voice isn’t as smooth. You know, their throats are different from ours. They can make two different sounds at the same time. We can’t,”
Tucker mused.
    “Humans can talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time,”
Pewter added sarcastically, then looked at Mrs. Murphy’s empty bowl.
“You sure ate in a hurry.”
    “So you couldn’t steal my food,”
Mrs. Murphy forthrightly replied.
    “What is this, assassinate Pewter’s reputation day? Tucker calls me a liar, you say I steal food. I ought to box both your ears.”
    Neither animal took the bait, remaining silent. Miffed, Pewter stuck her face back in her ceramic bowl to lick it since she’d gobbled up everything.
    Harry and Fair finished their light supper. As he did the dishes, she turned on the TV in the living room.
    “Thought I’d look at the weather before finishing the rest of the chores. Less light now.”
    “I’ve been so busy I haven’t heard the weather or the news.”
    “No candidate yet for office manager, chief factotum?”
    “No. You know who I’d like to hire is Margaret Westlake. Don’t know what will happen to Will’s practice, so I thought I’d wait a bit to talk to her.”
    “Don’t you think she’ll go with another human doctor?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “What about Kylie Kraft?”
    “She’s a nurse. Might know some office management. Anyway, Kylie goes through boyfriends liked toothpicks. Too much drama and you don’t need that in the office.”
    “That she does.” Harry patiently waited for the weather.
    “She done them wrong.” Fair wiped his hands dry and walked into the living room.
    Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker also watched the news.
    “She’s in her late twenties.” Harry lukewarmly defended Kylie.
    He shook his head. “She’s got a mean streak where men are concerned.” He dropped his arm over her shoulder. “You crack me up.”
    “Why?”
    “You are out of the gossip loop. By the time I hear it, it’s old news, but I hear it.”
    “I hear some things—but not too much.” She watched the world news; a picture of car-bomb debris in Baghdad, bodies everywhere, flashed before their eyes. “They can all kill one another for all I care.”
    “Harry,” he chided her gently.
    “I mean it. For thousands of years those tribes and religious factions have hated one another. We aren’t going to solve it. It’s civil war. They’ll kill one another until they can’t stand it anymore, just like what happened in the