compassion.”
Compassionate or not, Peter was not willing to be the shoulder Mari cried upon. Peter wrested himself away from her, managing to extricate himself from the tangle of her arms without spilling a drop. When he was free, he handed her his coffee and pulled his stepmother into a warm embrace. “I’m sorry, Marsha. You know I am.”
“I know, darling. Some things just can’t be helped.”
The two of them turned away from us for a moment, heads bent close in conversation. Peter clasped Marsha’s hands, holding them so tightly that I could see the white outline of his knuckles from several feet away.
When he stepped away, Marsha pivoted and collapsed on Pris’s shoulder. Pris hesitated a moment, alook of uncertainty on her face, then gently raised her hands to pat Marsha on the back. Marsha clasped Pris to her for several minutes, and all I could think about was how Pris would react to having Marsha’s dark eye makeup smeared all over her blush-colored silk shell.
Indeed, when Marsha lifted her head, I caught Pris glancing down at her shoulder, which remained mercifully clean. She caught my eyes as she looked back up, and we exchanged a small knowing smile. We might not be the best of friends, but we’d come to know each other thoroughly since we’d become something like competitors in the Merryville pet-care world.
“Heavens,” Pamela said. “Suddenly everyone’s best buddies.” She sighed before continuing. “Today’s a wash, so we’ll have to move agility to tomorrow morning. We wanted to have the judging in all the rings spread out so visitors could watch everything, but we’ll simply have to double up here and there to make up for lost time. The closing masquerade ball will be held right on schedule.”
Holy cats,
I thought.
Body or no body, the show must go on.
* * *
Jack stood in the middle of a wide ring of Midwest Cat Fanciers, as though a force field were keeping the milling crowd at bay. By the time Phillip Denford’s body had been removed by emergency personnel, everyone involved in the show had heard the news and gatheredin the big ballroom despite police efforts to cordon off the scene. Even after a second officer had been dedicated to crime-scene security, guarding the door in Pris’s corner of the room, there were just too many back hallways and service entrances to keep would-be rubberneckers out. Still, the burgeoning crowd didn’t press in on Jack. The cat-show attendees all wanted to be close enough to him to get the scoop on what was happening, but there was some sort of invisible barrier they didn’t want to cross. As though death were catching.
As a result, Jack turned in awkward circles, voice raised, trying to calm everyone down while a couple of county crime-scene techs kept people from backing into the actual taped-off crime scene.
“Did Phillip die during the blackout?” someone asked.
“I really can’t comment on the time of death.”
I understood where Jack was coming from, but I was pretty sure Phillip’s body had been under the table long before the blackout. The blood beneath his body had been dark and sticky-looking, and he wasn’t actually bleeding when I saw him.
“But if it was during the blackout, someone should sue the hotel.”
“That’s really not a question for the police. And it’s certainly not something that needs to be resolved right now.”
“Was Phillip murdered?” This question came fromthe opposite side of the circle as the first, and Jack spun around quickly. I don’t know if he was just responding to the question or if he was trying to see which of the dozens of middle-aged women in cat-themed sweatshirts had done the asking.
“Well, it . . .” He trailed off and ran his fingers through his short blond hair. “As I said,” he continued, “it would be premature to speculate about the cause and manner of death.”
“He had scissors in his neck,” said a diminutive woman with hair the color of dryer
Compassionate or not, Peter was not willing to be the shoulder Mari cried upon. Peter wrested himself away from her, managing to extricate himself from the tangle of her arms without spilling a drop. When he was free, he handed her his coffee and pulled his stepmother into a warm embrace. “I’m sorry, Marsha. You know I am.”
“I know, darling. Some things just can’t be helped.”
The two of them turned away from us for a moment, heads bent close in conversation. Peter clasped Marsha’s hands, holding them so tightly that I could see the white outline of his knuckles from several feet away.
When he stepped away, Marsha pivoted and collapsed on Pris’s shoulder. Pris hesitated a moment, alook of uncertainty on her face, then gently raised her hands to pat Marsha on the back. Marsha clasped Pris to her for several minutes, and all I could think about was how Pris would react to having Marsha’s dark eye makeup smeared all over her blush-colored silk shell.
Indeed, when Marsha lifted her head, I caught Pris glancing down at her shoulder, which remained mercifully clean. She caught my eyes as she looked back up, and we exchanged a small knowing smile. We might not be the best of friends, but we’d come to know each other thoroughly since we’d become something like competitors in the Merryville pet-care world.
“Heavens,” Pamela said. “Suddenly everyone’s best buddies.” She sighed before continuing. “Today’s a wash, so we’ll have to move agility to tomorrow morning. We wanted to have the judging in all the rings spread out so visitors could watch everything, but we’ll simply have to double up here and there to make up for lost time. The closing masquerade ball will be held right on schedule.”
Holy cats,
I thought.
Body or no body, the show must go on.
* * *
Jack stood in the middle of a wide ring of Midwest Cat Fanciers, as though a force field were keeping the milling crowd at bay. By the time Phillip Denford’s body had been removed by emergency personnel, everyone involved in the show had heard the news and gatheredin the big ballroom despite police efforts to cordon off the scene. Even after a second officer had been dedicated to crime-scene security, guarding the door in Pris’s corner of the room, there were just too many back hallways and service entrances to keep would-be rubberneckers out. Still, the burgeoning crowd didn’t press in on Jack. The cat-show attendees all wanted to be close enough to him to get the scoop on what was happening, but there was some sort of invisible barrier they didn’t want to cross. As though death were catching.
As a result, Jack turned in awkward circles, voice raised, trying to calm everyone down while a couple of county crime-scene techs kept people from backing into the actual taped-off crime scene.
“Did Phillip die during the blackout?” someone asked.
“I really can’t comment on the time of death.”
I understood where Jack was coming from, but I was pretty sure Phillip’s body had been under the table long before the blackout. The blood beneath his body had been dark and sticky-looking, and he wasn’t actually bleeding when I saw him.
“But if it was during the blackout, someone should sue the hotel.”
“That’s really not a question for the police. And it’s certainly not something that needs to be resolved right now.”
“Was Phillip murdered?” This question came fromthe opposite side of the circle as the first, and Jack spun around quickly. I don’t know if he was just responding to the question or if he was trying to see which of the dozens of middle-aged women in cat-themed sweatshirts had done the asking.
“Well, it . . .” He trailed off and ran his fingers through his short blond hair. “As I said,” he continued, “it would be premature to speculate about the cause and manner of death.”
“He had scissors in his neck,” said a diminutive woman with hair the color of dryer
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