Dead Men and Cats, a 20,000 word murder mystery, is a wonderful length for the busy person who loves a good mystery and wants a quick read. This novella is available ALL ebook formats and ebook app formats, such as Nook, Kindle, Kobi, Sony, even your PC, just to mention a few! And priced at $1.99!
To check it out, Google Aya Walksfar at Smashwords and a link to the book will appear.
For your enjoyment, here is the first chapter of Dead Men and Cats.
Dead Men And Cats
On that sun-bright day in late September, Megan Albright and
Janie Sampson never expected to discover a dead man and a live calico kitten
floating around Shallow Point Cove in an old wooden rowboat. And, they certainly never thought it would
lead to Dan Uley’s Island Bookstore being firebombed. With a black cat.
That Saturday had started out lazy with them lingering over
breakfast. After their meal they drove
over to Janie’s riding stables and cared for the schooling horses, the horses
boarded there and their own horses.
Heading home, Megan had swung onto the gravel shoulder of
the road. “Let’s walk on the
beach. We haven’t been here in fifty
forevers.”
Janie smilingly followed her life partner to the gray
gravelly sand of Shallow Point Cove. A
few seashells and various sizes of driftwood littered the beach, scattered by
the careless hand of the incoming tides.
Not much grew this close to the high tide line, not even the tough,
seaside grasses.
A quarter of a mile down the beach, Megan reached down and
picked up a twisted piece of bleached driftwood, carrying it along as her hands
absently ran over its water-smoothed surface.
She tossed the driftwood to the side and glanced over at Janie. “So, what do you think? Now that it’s legal, should we run off and
get married?”
Janie threw her head back and laughed, that sexy, joyous
laugh that was uniquely hers.
Her laugh always made Megan smile. “What’s so funny?”
Even after all these years, Janie’s hair was still a
lustrous auburn that hung halfway down her slender back. The laugh lines bracketing her azure eyes
and full lips made what might have been a plain face, with a nose that was a
little too sharp, an intriguing face.
Arms linked, Janie reached over and tucked a stray strand of
salt-and- pepper hair behind Megan’s ear.
“We’ve been together for twenty-five years and now you’re proposing to
me?”
“Marriage hasn’t been a possibility before and, well, I just
thought….” She halted mid-stride and squinted in the late afternoon sun toward
the water. “Is that a boat over
there?” She pointed at a partially
submerged, driftwood tree.
Janie focused out over the placid, blue-green waters of the
cove. “Yes, it is. Wonder what lucky fisherman forgot to tie up
securely?”
Megan snorted.
“Whoever it was lucked out. If
that tree hadn’t caught it, it would have floated out of the cove when the tide
changes.”
She was about to turn away and resume her conversation with
Janie when a calico kitten clambered to the side of the boat and leapt for the
mostly-debarked tree. Tiny feet
scrambled for purchase on the slick wood.
Just as the kitten appeared doomed to fall into the water, it leapt back
into the boat.
Megan looked over at Janie.
Lower lip caught between her not-quite-straight teeth, eyes wide, brows
furrowed in worry, she drew in a breath to speak. Megan held up her hand.
“Don’t even say it.” Smiling,
she disentangled her arm from Janie’s and toed off her Adidas Cross Trainers
then rolled up her navy blue sweat pants.
As they hurried to the edge of the water, she grumbled
good-naturedly. “Darn water’s going to
be cold. Don’t matter if it is
sixty-five degrees today.”
At the edge of the water, Janie took Megan’s shoes, and gave
her a light kiss on the lips. “I’ll fix
supper tonight.”
Megan grinned, a sly look in her dark eyes. “Humph!
With German Chocolate cake?”
“Okay, with German Chocolate cake. Happy? Now get out there
before that poor baby falls in and drowns.”
She playfully shoved Megan’s shoulder.
Halfway out to the boat, the gravelly bottom dropped from
beneath Megan’s bare feet, dumping her into waist deep water. She sucked in a sharp breath and tossed over
her shoulder, “Oh, man, I should’ve held out for more. This water is freezing!”
“Big wuss!” Janie
called back, laughing.
The prow of the little boat had jammed into the fork of the
tree. She grabbed the weathered side
with one hand and pulled. The boat gave
enough for her to stretch her five-foot-ten height and look into it.
Her smile vanished.
A man, dressed in faded jeans and a t-shirt, so bloody she
couldn’t tell what color it had been, lay in the bottom of the boat, stuffed
between the wooden slat seats. The
kitten cowered next to him, dried blood streaking its side.
As Shadow Island’s lead paramedic, Megan had seen her share
of dead bodies--bodies shattered by gunshots and ripped open by knifes, but
never a body so brutalized as this one.
She reached over and scooped the kitten up, her hand briefly skimming
the man’s rubbery arm.
***
Dan Uley handed Megan her vanilla latte. “What’s Johnny doing about that dead man?”
She sipped her coffee then wiped the foam mustache from her
upper lip with a paper napkin. “What
makes you think he’d tell me anything?”
He shrugged as he poured more milk into the stainless steel
pitcher and stuck it under the steaming wand.
“History?”
Head thrown back, she let out a hearty laugh. “That is ancient history! Hell, I was sixteen and he was, what? All of eighteen?”
Dan shrugged again.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s never
gotten over you.”
“Dan, this is Sheriff Johnny Johnson we’re talking about,
remember? As a boy he was too
homophobic to touch himself, and as a man, he hasn’t changed. You know what he said down at the
Fisherman’s Bar and Grill back in May.”
“Yeah, I know.” His
tenor voice dragged out the unwilling admission. “Just it’s been three weeks and...”
A cat’s unearthly yowl sounded from the front of the
building, drowning out Dan’s voice as well as the hiss of the machine.
Megan bolted up and lunged for the door. She sprinted down the short hall and into
the bookstore part of the building. A
living fireball streaked down the paranormal novels’ aisle. Yanking her t-shirt over her head, she raced
after the cat. As she rounded the end
of the bookcase, Dan charged along an aisle perpendicular to her. The cat banged blindly into the corner of
the back wall.
Buttons clattered against the floor and the shelves as he
wretched open his shirt and jerked it off then threw it over the animal. She quickly tossed hers over the cat,
too. He grabbed the frantic animal,
smothering the flames until only thin wisps of black, stomach-churning smoke
wound their way out of the makeshift wrapping.
Gently cradling the cat, he slid to the floor and carefully
uncovered the animal. Charred skin
pulled away with the fabric. Tears
gathered in his eyes as he glanced up.
Megan flipped open her cell phone and hit the speed dial for Dr. Yang,
the local veterinary.
She had barely closed the phone when the cat shivered hard
then lay still. “Dan?”
He lifted soft brown eyes.
“She’s gone.”
She dropped to her knees on the polished plank floor. “I’ll call Sheriff Johnson.”
* * *
Sheriff Johnny Johnson stared down at the charred carcass,
lying on a blue towel next to the cash register. It was obviously a cat, but that was just about all he could tell
for sure. He prodded it with the tip of
his ink pen and looked across the counter at the young, Asian man. “You think you’ll get anything if you scan
for a microchip?”
Dr. Yang reached over, pushing the tip of the pen away. “No need to prod the poor thing. I’ll take it to the clinic and do my best.”
Dan stared at the small corpse. “Sheriff Johnson, when Dr. Yang is finished I’d like to pick up
the body.”
The sheriff shrugged well-developed shoulders. “Don’t see why not. Can’t see an owner
wanting a barbequed carcass and, except for finding out where the cat came
from, there isn’t much else I can learn from a fried cat.”
“What do you intend to do about this, Sheriff?” Megan ran a blunt-fingered hand through her
shoulder-length.
He turned and stared down at her with glacier-blue
eyes. “You know, Megan, you really
should go get some clothes. The whole
island can walk past the windows and see you in your bra.”
She waved a hand, brushing aside such mundane considerations. “My bra is a lot more decent than some
bikinis I’ve seen. Now, answer the
question, Johnny.”
Heavy brows crashed down over his eyes. “I don’t need you dogging my footsteps,
Megan. This is police business. I’ll take care of it.”
She thrust her chin at him.
“The landowners on this island pay your salary, Sheriff. We have a right to know exactly what
progress is being made in regard to the dead man that was found in that
rowboat.”
He hooked his thumbs in his equipment belt and shook his
head. “I don’t discuss ongoing
investigations.”
Megan’s mink-brown eyes glinted dangerously. “So,” her tone deceptively soft, she said,
“whoever did this is going to go scot-free?
And, they’re probably the same ones who beat that gay man to death.”
He stepped in closer, so close she noticed gray streaks in
his sandy blonde hair. “What gay man?”
Chin jutted up and at him, she narrowed her eyes. “Come on!
You had to realize that I read that note. Whoever wrote on that piece of white cardboard and pinned it to
that man’s shirt, wrote with a black Sharpie.
How could I not read it?” She
made air quotes. “What do gay men and
cats have in common? The only good ones
are dead.”
He glared at her.
“I’m trying to keep that note quiet, for obvious reasons.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “Like I'm going to take an ad out in The Shadow Island Times
about it. You know me better than that,
Johnny. Now, answer my question: what are you going to do about these crimes?”
“Same as I do about any crime. I’m investigating.”
“But these aren’t just any crimes. These are murders, and hate crimes.”
He propped his hands on his belt and a heavy key ring
jingled. “I don’t know that for sure,
and even if they were, it wouldn’t change the way I investigate.”
Nostrils flaring, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What makes you so sure you’re qualified to
investigate murder and arson?”
He rolled his eyes.
“I did graduate from the police academy. That was one of the reasons the good people of this island
elected me, remember? And the King
County Sheriff’s Department is assisting with the murder investigation. I’ve sent all the evidence to their lab for
analysis, except for the actual rowboat.
Their man came over and checked that out. Didn’t think it was worthwhile to transport it to the
Mainland. Satisfied?”
She lifted her chin a notch higher and stared at him. “Why do you think it is, Sheriff, that in
all the time we were growing up on this island, nothing worse than kids
scrapping ever happened to gays? Now a
few months after our sheriff announces, at the Fisherman’s Bar and Grill, that
the only fairies he wants around are the ones in storybooks, we’ve found a
dead, gay man in a boat and have had
a gay man’s store firebombed?”
Red crept across his stubbled cheeks. “I am not responsible for other people’s
behavior. Mayor Royz made it clear that
when I’m off duty I have the right to voice my personal opinions. If you believe my opinions are interfering
with my duties, go talk to Mayor Royz.”
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