Read Online Cats on the Prowl (A Cat Detective cozy mystery series Book 1) by Nancy C. Davis - Free Book Online

bottom of the harbor wearing concrete sneakers.”

    Naya bit her lip to stop herself from
smiling. “That’s interesting, but Roy didn’t drown wearing concrete sneakers.
Someone burned down his bakery with him inside it.”

    Marlena narrowed her eyes. “Then it
must have been started by someone who worked there.”

    Carl and Naya looked at each other.
“What makes you say that?”

    “Isn’t it obvious?” Marlena asked.
“Whoever lit the fire had to get into the bakery somehow. How could they do
that if they didn’t work there?”

    Carl shrugged. “Good point.”

    “Did you know anyone who worked there?”
Naya asked.

    Marlena rubbed the drops of
condensation on her glass. “Only Roy. I don’t mix with plebeians.”

    “We’re plebeians.,” Naya pointed out.

    “I wouldn’t mix with you, either,
Detective,” Marlena replied.

    “Roy was a plebeian,” Naya went on.
“You definitely mixed with him. You ever let the local paper print a picture of
the two of you together at the Metro opening.”

    Marlena waved her bejeweled hand. “That
was nothing, and Roy was nothing. I’m sure the world is a much better place
without him.”

    “That’s the kind of thing I would
expect to hear from the person who killed him,” Naya told her.

    Marlena shrugged. “I didn’t kill him. I
wouldn’t stoop so low. If I wanted Roy dead, I could have taken any number of
opportunities over the years to bump him off. I know enough heavyweights in
organized crime that you detectives wouldn’t come knocking on my door to find
out who killed him. You would never even know he’d been murdered. Whoever got
rid of Roy did a very amateurish job, if you ask me.”

    “Where were you yesterday morning,
Marlena?” Naya asked. “Where were you between the hours of seven and nine?”

    Marlena fixed Naya with an icy glare,
but she didn’t bother to correct her for calling her by her first name. “I was
in a meeting with my agent. He can vouch for me.”

    Naya’s eyebrows went up. “You were in a
meeting at seven o’clock in the morning? I find that hard to believe.”

    “If you don’t want to take my word for
it,” Marlena replied, “you can check with his secretary. His building has
security cameras over the doors and in the elevators and in all the hallways.
You can check them for yourself, and you’ll see that I was with him all
morning.”

    Nat turned away from the window and
whispered to Willow. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

    “But the interview isn’t over,” Willow
pointed out.

    Nat jumped onto the fire escape and
started picking his way down to the ground. “The interview doesn’t matter
anymore. Marlena has an ironclad alibi. We don’t have to waste any more time on
her.”

    Willow’s heart pattered when she got to
the top of the fire escape. The ground reeled far below her. How could she ever
climb all the way down without falling? Then she remembered Bella. The tiny
Abyssinian would probably jump from the balcony all the way down to the ground
in one spring without scratching her little toenails.

    Willow plucked up her courage and set
off down the fire escape after Nat. “But you don’t really believe Marlena’s
story about being in a meeting with her agent. That must have been a lie.”

    Nat sighed. “You’re a young cat, Willow,
and you don’t know much about what goes on in this town. Marlena’s agent is
Hanford Laghlan. He’s a known lady’s man, and he’s had a thing going with
Marlena for years. He’s also extremely rich and lives in one of the most
expensive apartment buildings in the city.”

    Willow stopped and stared at him. “Do
you mean she wasn’t really in a meeting with him at seven o’clock in the
morning?”

    Nat chuckled. “Let’s just say it was a
meeting, but it wasn’t a business meeting. What Marlena said about his building
having security cameras everywhere is true. She wouldn’t use Hanford Laghlan as
an alibi if she wasn’t sure the