16. Morrie

Oscar pawed at the window again. He looked over at the cage, where the birds were twittering excitedly. They'd seen the cat, too. Oscar touched his paw to Mina again, but looked over at me, as if to say, "Help me. I can't save them all."

"I think Oscar might be trying to protect the birds from that cat," I told Mina. "He can see that you like the birds, so he's letting you know about a danger to them."

"Oh, Oscar, you're so clever." Mina chewed her lip in that way she did when she was thinking. "I wonder…do you think a cat could have made the hole in James' pen?"

"A normal cat? Probably not. But the cat outside is no ordinary feline." I winced as the cat crunched happily on its quarry, breaking the neck with one ruthless bite. Thankfully, the unfortunate victim wasn't a duck. "He's the cat equivalent of Heathcliff, only even more handsome. Why? What are you thinking?"

"I'm wondering if maybe we shouldn't be looking at a human culprit for our bird-napping crime. If that cat got James, he might have brought some piece of him back to his owner, the way Grimalkin delights us with her little presents of bird guts on the staircase."

"Don't remind me. Last time Heathcliff trod on one, he wailed at a pitch that would make dogs cry."

"If we find the owner, we might at least learn the fate of our poor duck." Mina thrusted her fist in the air. "Follow that cat!"

I raced outside, Mina and Oscar hot on my heels. I vaulted over the garden fence into Maisie's yard, but the cat was already dancing along the top of the fence on the other side. By the time I'd navigated my way around James Pond's empty duck mansion, the cat was two houses away.

I noticed that Heathcliff and I had left deep bootprints in the mud next to the duck-napper's bootprint from our adventure vaulting the fences the other night.

"Oh, no you don't. I'm the greatest criminal mastermind that ever existed, inside and outside of fiction. You won't escape me." I shoved myself up onto the fence just in time to see the cat rocket across another back garden and disappear through a cat door.

"Aha! So that's your home, is it, you foul beast?" I hauled my weary body over the penultimate fence and dropped over the other side.

Straight into a holly hedge.

Ow.

"Ow!"

Ow. Owie. Ow.

"Are you okay?" Mina yelled from Stanley's garden.

I winched as I tugged a long thorn from my arm. "I feel like I've just tried to make love to a porcupine."

"You'll be fine, greatest criminal mastermind of all fiction. Find that cat!"

The damn cat. Right. I limped across two more gardens, leaving a trail of holly thorns in my wake. Luckily, two of the houses had a gate between them, so I didn't have to vault any more fences. I made it to the cat's home without any more disasters befalling me.

The cat door was located on a narrow porch, and along the end of the porch was a narrow, muddy path. It looked as though the owner had been laying fresh pavers but hadn't quite made it to the porch.

"Meorrrw!"

The cat shook its quarry, mocking me from behind the glass.

I growled, baring my teeth as I leapt over the mud. As I landed on my feet beside a huge pile of mismatched shoes, I noticed the imprint of a boot in the mud.

Aha.

The cat forgotten, I bent down to examine the footprint carefully. The tread was exactly the same as the footprint we found at the scene of the duck-napping.

Which was also the same boot that I'd seen in the cemetery the night we followed Wayne Bryant. Whoever was in Maisie's garden was also here, and judging by the way the trail of prints left the house and went around to the side gate, I suspect I found the duck-napper's home.

"Meow!" The cat batted what remained of his quarry around the sitting room, like some sort of grisly sports game of which only he understood the rules. I watched him, my mind whirring.

No one came to stop the cat. Either the inhabitants of the home were sadistic villains who enjoyed watching the torture of animals (always a possibility) or no one was home. Good, that gave me ample snooping time.

I checked all the shoes in the pile, but couldn't find a set that matched the tread. That probably meant that wherever the duck-napper was now, they were probably wearing their shoes.

Then, I noticed a corner of the garden bed where the dirt had been disturbed by recent digging. A small trowel was stuck in the dirt. It was the wrong time of year for planting bulbs, and given the garden's proximity to the cat door, and the cat's obvious proclivities, I deduced that the bed was used by the cat's minions for burying its quarry.

I grabbed the trowel gingerly, for these hands were not made for manual labour, and scraped back the dirt, uncovering a couple of rat carcasses and the remains of several distinctive birds, but no duck.

Unless he ate all the evidence (unlikely, I've seen photographs of James Pond. That duck was chonky), or left the remains in someone else's garden, the cat wasn't our killer.

But whoever lives in this house was in Maisie's garden.

Now all we needed to do was figure out who lived here.

I picked a path around the side of the house, avoiding sinking my Brionis into the mud, and ended up on the short driveway. My dark heart pattered as I recognised the large farm vehicle parked in the driveway with ‘Wayne Bryant: Veterinarian' painted on the side.

This house belongs to Wayne Bryant, the writer we are investigating for sabotaging our wedding.

And although his work vehicle is here, he's not home right now.

I was just debating whether to entertain another round of breaking and entering when I heard Mina call my name. Her voice sounded frantic.

"Coming, gorgeous!" I took off down the street. When I rounded Stanley's driveway, my heart stuttered. Stanley held a struggling Mina by the wrist, his eyes narrowed while he tried to fight off a distraught Oscar with his foot.

"Morrie, help!" Mina cried.

"Put her down." I didn't raise my voice. I didn't have to. Years of bossing around lackeys had shown me how to drip malice from every syllable.

Stanley released Mina. His gaze flicked from me to her, his jaw trembling.

"I recognise you two. You were at Maisie Collins' home the other day. What were you doing in my house?" He narrowed his eyes. "I'm calling the police. This is harassment."

"Please don't," Mina cried.

"Sir, we apologize for causing any distress. Mina and I are merely concerned citizens," I said, thinking fast. "We were walking by on our way to visit Maisie, and we happened to notice your door was unlocked. We went inside to check that there hadn't been some kind of medical emergency, then I went down the street to see if I could spot you, while Mina waited here, guarding the door."

"I'd hardly be burgling anyone," Mina said with a laugh, clutching Oscar's harness. "How would I even know where to find your valuables?"

Oh, be still my heart. My girl is too good at this.

Stanley's face softened as he took in Mina and Oscar. "Well, thank you for looking out for me. It's good to know that I have nice neighbors like you around. Most people aren't so nice. They think that I'm grumpy and don't want to talk to me. They're probably right."

"I think that if they got to know you, they'd change their minds." Mina beamed her beautiful smile. "I found all those birds you have in your indoor aviary, and your bird-watching binoculars. You care a great deal about birds, don't you?"

"They are such beautiful creatures. They deserve good treatment. I am sorry that Maisie lost her companion. I hope you find him."

With that, he went inside and closed the door.

I slid Mina's hand through my arm and led her away. "You won't believe what I discovered?—"

"I'm sure it's very interesting, Morrie, but we have to check Maisie's house," she hissed. "When Stanley caught me, he came from her front garden. I heard his feet crunching on the gravel on her driveway."

We walked over to Maisie's. There were no windows broken or duck-related graffiti sprayed on the walls. I was about to give up when I noticed something beside the front door.

"He left her a gift." On the porch was a bunch of yellow flowers that had been thoughtfully chosen to perfectly match James Pond's feathers, and a small card with a smiling duck on the cover. I opened the card. There, in the same handwriting he'd used to pen that note to the council, Stanley had written:

DEAR MAISIE,

I'M DUCKING SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS.

SINCERELY, STANLEY.

"Okay, so it definitely wasn't Stanley." I tugged Mina back down the driveway. "But I've found another lead. You know the footprint we found beside James Pond's pen? I found the same footprint?—"

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Heathcliff's ringtone. Heathcliff wouldn't use his phone unless something had gone wrong with their trap.

Heart pounding against my chest, I stopped in the footpath and brought the phone to my ear. "Let me guess, you forgot which app to use and have accidentally ordered seventeen pizzas?"

"Are you with Mina?" Quoth's voice startled me. He was whispering. "You have to come to Lachlan Hall right away."

"Why are you whispering?"

"Because I'm stark naked and hiding in the bushes, is why."

"And why are you stark naked and hiding in the bushes with Heathcliff's phone?"

Mina's head snapped to me, her eyes wide with fear.

"Because I'm hiding from the police. Heathcliff found Iwan's body. He's been murdered."