The Cats that Stopped the Magic (The Cats that . . . Cozy Mystery Book 9) Read online

  The Cats that Stopped the Magic

  Abra’s Story

  Karen Anne Golden

  Copyright

  This book or eBook is a work of fiction.

  New York’s Catskills region and Oyster Bay, New York, are real places, but the characters I created do not exist, nor have they ever lived there.

  Names, characters, places and incidents are products of my imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, persons or cats, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Edited by Vicki Braun

  Book cover concept by Karen Anne Golden

  Graphic design by Rob W.

  Copyright © 2018 Karen Anne Golden

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1986127530

  ISBN-10: 1986127532

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Introduction

  LATE FEBRUARY 2013

  Before Katherine Moved to Erie, Indiana

  From The Cats that Surfed the Web

  Katherine Kendall’s attorney turned off the Indianapolis airport road onto the ramp to the interstate. The Honda roared into traffic. “I’d like to hear the rest of your story about the magician’s cat,” Mark asked curiously. “How old was he when you got him?”

  “Her. Scout’s a girl,” she corrected.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Katherine smiled. “Scout worked for two years for Harry’s Hocus-Pocus Magic Show and was professionally known as Cadabra. Her sister was named Abra. When Scout, I mean Cadabra, was two, Harry was performing in a luxury resort in the Catskills. And while the Siamese were backstage in their traveling carrier, someone stole Abra. Harry called the police, who tried their best to find her, but their search was in vain. Abra had simply vanished. Harry and Scout never saw the other Siamese again.”

  “That’s too bad,” Mark commented.

  “Scout was so traumatized by the loss of her littermate, she began slipping up in her performances, so Harry retired her.”

  “So that’s when you came into the picture?” Mark asked.

  “Not exactly. Harry gave her to a co-worker of mine, Monica DeSutter, who is currently my boss. Monica didn’t have a clue about how to take care of a cat, let alone a Siamese with a behavior problem. She was constantly calling me and asking my advice on what to do. I must admit Cadabra was a handful, and even I didn’t have the answers to many of her questions.”

  “Did Monica throw in the towel and give her to you?”

  “Cadabra was with Monica for less than a year when she called me, in the middle of the night, and begged me to take her. I could hear Cadabra shrieking in the background. She sounded like a wild animal. I said I wasn’t sure. I’d have to think about it.”

  “I’m surprised,” he said. “I’d think that you’d jump at the opportunity to have a Siamese, considering the fact you have several now.”

  “I explained to Monica that I had just moved into my apartment and I was afraid Cadabra’s shrieks would disturb my new neighbors.”

  “So how did Monica persuade you to take the Siamese?”

  “The next morning, the doorman to my apartment building buzzed my intercom and said I’d better get downstairs ASAP . . .”

  Katherine quickly sketched her first meeting with Scout for the inquisitive attorney. With her voice telling the tale on autopilot, Katherine’s mind replayed all the details of that day in October 2009.

  “B-z-z-z-z.” The intercom blared from the end of the hall. Katherine rushed to answer. She punched the button, “Yes?”

  The doorman’s voice answered, “Ms. Kendall, it’s Mario. You’d better come downstairs right away. This lady dropped off a present for you, and it’s screaming.”

  She pressed the talk button, “A screaming present? That’s a first. Coming right down.”

  Katherine waited impatiently for the elevator, and when it hadn’t come in what seemed like an eternity, she rushed to the stairwell and bolted down twenty-two flights of stairs. She flew out the service door leading to the marble-floored lobby, luxuriously decorated with colonial furnishings. Mario, the Italian doorman with jet-black hair and blue eyes, wore a concerned expression on his face.

  “What is it?” Katherine asked, out of breath.

  “I think it’s a cat,” he said.

  Mario had placed the cat carrier on top of his reception desk at the front entrance.

  Katherine peered inside. “It’s a Siamese. Did a woman named Monica DeSutter bring this?” she demanded, hand-on-hip.

  “Hiss,” the cat inside the carrier snarled.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t get her name,” Mario apologized. “She did say the cat’s name was Cada —”

  “Cadabra,” Katherine finished.

  The Siamese began rocking the cat carrier back and forth and wailing in shrill, mournful cries.

  “I don’t think it likes that name,” Mario suggested.

  “She,” Katherine corrected. “Cadabra is a girl cat.”

  The Siamese emitted a throaty growl.

  “Ms. Kendall,” Mark said, interrupting the remembrance.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Katherine said, waking from her reverie. “What were you saying?”

  “When did you decide to name her ‘Scout?’”

  “It was a few days after I got her. At night she patrols my apartment like she’s on a reconnaissance mission. She’s prowled so much, she’s developed calluses on her paws.”

  “What kind of magic tricks does Scout do?”

  “When you say Abracadabra, she arches her back and dances like a Halloween cat.”

  “You’re kidding,” Mark said.

  “I don’t say it very often because it seems to upset her.”

  “Maybe it brings back a sad memory.”

  Chapter One

  LATE JANUARY 2018

  Katherine “Katz” Cokenberger, a thirty-year-old heiress to millions, leaned against the kitchen counter in her guest house. She sipped hazelnut coffee and gazed affectionately at her seven felines; all had assumed their favorite spots in front of the large kitchen window.

  Scout and Abra, two Siamese, seal-point sisters with an extraordinary ability to predict the future, stood tall on the extra-wide windowsill. Lilac, a vivacious lilac-point Siamese and her best buddy, Abby, a ruddy-ticked Abyssinian, sprawled out on the overhead window valance. Seal-points Iris, Dewey and Crowie snuggled in their large cozy bed near the hot-water radiator by the window.

  Four months had gone by since Katherine, her husband, Jake, and their cats lived in the pink Queen Anne mansion, built in 1897. Margie Cokenberger, master old-house restorer, hadn’t foreseen multiple setbacks in the attic renovation, which complicated Jake’s and Katherine’s plans to move back. The couple didn’t relish living in a house under construction with seven cats that would be disturbed by the comings and goings of workers, so they rented a farmhouse in the country. But after staying in the farmhouse for only a few months, they had to move. The rural property, with the dumbwaiter the Siamese were so fond of, had sold. Kath
erine and Jake had thirty days to move out, and did so on one of the coldest Indiana days of the season, with six inches of fresh snow covering a glaze of ice on country roads.

  The 1912 guest house, a restored, red-brick Craftsman, was the perfect place to move into, since it was already furnished. The cats loved the all-season sun porch, which had become their new playroom.

  Jake walked into the kitchen and slid onto one of the benches under the corner table. “Good morning, Sweet Pea,” he greeted. “Hi, kids,” he said to the cats.

  The cats ignored him, except for Dewey, who looked up and belted a loud, “Mao.”

  “Good morning to you, too,” Jake winked.

  Katherine walked over to the trio in the cozy bed and asked, “Which one of you punks moved the cozy closer to the radiator?” She tugged the bed further away from it.

  Iris woke up and yowled guiltily.

  “I know it was you, Fredo,” Katherine teased. “Listen, you can’t keep moving the bed against it. You’ll be toasted.”

  “Yowl,” Iris sassed.

  Scout and Abra stood up on their hind legs and dangled their front paws, doing their meerkat pose on the windowsill. They began chattering at something in the yard.

  Katherine looked out the window to see what the fuss was about. The object of the Siamese’s rapt attention was a squirrel, hanging upside-down on the bird feeder.

  “At-at-at-at,” Scout chattered.

  Katherine snickered. “Jake, dear, I thought you bought a squirrel-proof feeder.”

  “There’s no such thing,” he laughed. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “No, I was waiting on you. Did I ever tell you that you make the best blueberry pancakes?”

  “Shucks, no, pumpkin, I ain’t never heard ya say that before,” he kidded in an exaggerated country accent. “I’ve got time to rustle up a few.”

  “Great, rustle up a couple for me,” she answered, laughing.

  Jake got up and headed to the refrigerator. Opening the door, he rummaged around for the blueberries. Not finding them, he said, “We’ve got a problem here.”

  “What?”

  “We ain’t got no blueberries.”

  Katherine laughed. “Stop it already. Your fake accent is killing me.”

  Jake changed the subject, and returned to his normal tone of voice. “Not that I’ve been snooping around your office or anything, but why are you researching insurance fraud?”

  “Insurance fraud? I’m not,” she said, with a bewildered expression on her face.

  “I had to fetch my phone from your office—”

  “What was it doing in my office?”

  “One of our cats keeps taking it off the charger, and moving it to your office.”

  “I can only think of one cat that would do that.”

  “She’s one of the brown-masked thieves on the windowsill, right?” Jake chuckled, then said, “Anyway there’s an insurance fraud article in the Times today. I didn’t read it. I just saw the title.”

  “The New York Times?”

  Jake nodded. “It’s up right now on your computer screen, in case you want to read it.”

  Katherine looked confused. “My computer screen? I haven’t been near my computer since last night.”

  “Well, maybe one of the cats did their surf-the-web thing.”

  Abra sprung off the windowsill and ran over to Katherine. She stretched up her slender brown paws to be held.

  Katherine picked her up and kissed her on the neck. “Is there something online you want your mommy to see?”

  Abra struggled to be free.

  “Okay, okay. Stop kicking me,” Katherine said, setting Abra down. The Siamese ran out of the room.

  Katherine followed her. “Where are you going?”

  Abra darted into the bedroom that Katherine used as an office. She leaped on the desk, carefully stepped around the keyboard, and tapped the mouse. The computer screen refreshed itself.

  “Oh, no, you didn’t just do that,” Katherine said, amused.

  “Raw,” Abra cried impatiently.

  “My goodness, little girl, give me a second,” Katherine said, sitting down on her office chair.

  Jake came in and stood behind her. “Anything of interest?”

  She began to read out loud, “Harry DeSutter—”

  Jake interrupted. “Wait, isn’t he the magician we went to see in Chicago?”

  “The one and only,” Katherine said, swiveling her chair to face Jake. “Do you remember when Abra, right in the middle of her performance, jumped off the stage and fetched a cell phone in the audience?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Jumping? I’d call it more like soaring. She had her paws stretched out like Superman,” Jake laughed.

  “That was the funny part, but it wasn’t a joke when we went backstage and Harry was screaming at her,” Katherine countered.

  “Agreed. What about him?”

  Katherine turned back and faced her screen. “He’s being investigated for insurance fraud.”

  “What kind of claim would a magician file with an insurance company?”

  Abra moved in front of the computer screen, reared up on her hind legs, and touched the screen.

  “Abra, really? I can’t see, sweetie. Jake, can you hold her?”

  Jake scooped Abra from the desk and cradled her in his arms. “Do you remember this man, baby girl?”

  Abra nestled her face in the fold of his arm. “Katz, read it to me. I’m busy.”

  “Busy, like holding Abra?”

  “Something like that.”

  “In 2009, Harry DeSutter, stage name Magic Harry, insured one of his performers for a large sum of money. When the cat went missing . . . oh my word, Jake, I wonder if the cat was Abra.”

  “By the way she’s acting, I’d say ‘Yes.’ Read the rest.”

  “During a performance in the Catskills, the cat was stolen from its carrier backstage.”

  Scout trotted into the room and jumped on the desk. She nuzzled Katherine’s hand. “Ma-waugh,” she cried in the affirmative. Katherine petted her, then continued, “A thorough police investigation didn’t turn up any leads.”

  “Where was Harry when the cat disappeared?”

  “Ah, just a second,” she said, scanning the next paragraph. “It says that Mr. DeSutter was finished with his show and was taking a final bow in front of the audience. When he went backstage, he discovered the cat carrier only had one cat in it, when there should have been two. When he reported the theft, he accused his cat handler of stealing the feline.”

  “Well, did he do it?”

  “No, she didn’t. When the police questioned her, she had a firm alibi. In fact, everyone connected to the show had solid alibis.”

  “Why didn’t the thief steal both cats? Why not just pick up the cat carrier and walk off with it?” Jake asked skeptically.

  “I don’t know. Harry offered a reward for the safe return of the cat. After a few months, he filed an insurance claim and collected one-hundred-thousand dollars.”

  “Gone, cat, gone,” Jake noted. “Magic Harry collects big bucks. Isn’t that rather a lot for a cat?”

  “I guess Harry regarded the cat as an integral part of his show.”

  “Go on,” Jake said, interested. “Keep reading.”

  “Several days before the theft, Mr. DeSutter increased the amount of coverage on the cat.”

  “Wow, that’s suspicious.”

  “Four years later, the cat turned up at a Long Island animal shelter.”

  “That’s quite a way from the Catskills.”

  “Oh, here we go,” Katherine said excitedly. “I’m quoting here. “The Siamese cat,” she emphasized, “had been microchipped, which allowed the shelter to locate the cat’s owner, who was—”

  “Drum roll, please. Let me guess . . . Harry DeSutter. And, the stolen cat was Abra,” Jake said.

  “Ma-waugh,” Scout cried, jumping down.

  “The cat was a Siamese, but the
article doesn’t state the cat’s name,” Katherine paused, then said, “It must have been Abra. We know she was stolen from a carrier she shared with Scout, I mean, at that time, Cadabra. Do you think Harry orchestrated the theft?”

  “When we met him, Harry came across as an overbearing jerk, not a thief.”

  “Once the cat was back with the magician, Harry failed to advise the insurance company about the return.”

  “If he’d reported it, he’d probably have to pay back the money. I don’t know how these things work.”

  “Maybe he spent it all, and didn’t have the money to pay them back,” Katherine suggested.

  “I wonder what raised the red flag with the insurance company,” Jake asked.

  “It’s a mystery. Harry is a celebrity. He didn’t hide the fact that Abra was back. Remember the poster outside the theater in Chicago? It said something like Abra, the amazing Siamese, returns after her disappearance.”

  “After her mysterious disappearance,” Jake added.

  “Maybe someone in the audience was from the insurance company and put two-and-two together.”

  Scout hissed.

  “It’s okay, magic cat. You’ll never see the magician again.”

  Jake kneaded Abra’s neck, then asked, “How long did you say Abra was missing from Magic Harry?”

  “Four years. I wonder where she was that entire time. Abra, if only you could talk. We’d love to know. Maybe you can surf up a clue,” Katherine joked.

  “Raw,” Abra cried weakly. She went limp in Jake’s arms.

  “Katz, there’s something wrong with her,” Jake said, rushing to the bed. He carefully laid the Siamese down.

  “What?” Katherine sprang out of her chair. “What’s going on?”

  “She’s had some kind of collapse.”

  Scout hopped on the bed, and nudged Abra on the neck. Abra didn’t move. Then Scout leaped to the floor, arched her back, and began swaying back-and-forth in the death dance.

  Katherine sat down next to Abra. She ran her hand over the Siamese. “Jake, what’s wrong with her? She’s not moving.”

  “Maybe she’s having some kind of seizure.”

  “We’ve got to get her to the vet,” Katherine choked, with tears forming in her eyes.