Progressive Dinner Deadly: Myrtle #2

Chapter Nine

"Oh, who knows? She probably wants to hear a few 'good girls' from me for the rabbit. And the cardinal earlier." Myrtle looked thoughtfully at the cat and it opened its mouth for a silent meow. "I think I'll bring Pasha inside for a couple of minutes. Just to tell her what her name is." 

Miles blinked. "You're not looking for a pet, are you?" 

Myrtle stood up in an abrupt motion. "Of course not. I've got enough going on without having a live-in companion. I'm just curious to see what would happen if I brought her inside." 

"Aren't feral cats completely unadoptable? And unpredictable around people?" 

"Okay, Elaine. I'm not inviting Pasha in for good, just for a couple of minutes. She did go out of her way to slaughter offerings for me, after all." She turned the door knob, stuck her head outside, and called, "Here, kitty, kitty. Here, Pasha!"  

There was the flash of black that was Pasha in motion. Myrtle turned to smile smugly at Miles for Pasha's obedience and obvious intelligence (A feral cat coming when called? What an amazing animal!). The smile died when she saw that Pasha was hissing dementedly and had attached herself to Miles's body like a clawed, fanged limpet.  

Miles gave a high-pitched scream that Myrtle wouldn't have believed he could make and frantically tried peeling Pasha off of him. But Pasha was a virago, and determined to punish Miles for some unknown crime.  

"Bad kitty! Bad Pasha! No!" said Myrtle. 

"Get it ooooofffff meee!" yelled Miles. 

Myrtle grabbed her glass of ice water and threw it on Pasha's back. And Miles's leg, of course, since that's where most of Pasha was. Pasha launched off of Miles, slinking to the corner of Myrtle's living room, and staring sulkily at Myrtle before licking her wet fur with emphatic strokes of her tongue.  

Miles stood up shakily, summoning as much dignity as he could muster after being attacked by a stray cat in a friend's house. "I think I should go," he said coldly. 

Myrtle bit the inside of her lip. She couldn't show any sign of the amusement that she was feeling over the whole situation or that would make him even angrier. "I'm sorry, Miles. I don't know what got into her. Maybe she was abused by a man at some point?" 

"But not," said Miles, "by me. I'm sure Pasha can make the distinction between me and some cat abusing man." He sounded quite offended that the cat could have made such an error when determining the direction of his moral compass. 

"I'm sorry, Miles," Myrtle repeated. "Uh...what did you come over here to tell me to begin with? Before being ambushed, I mean."  

Miles peered suspiciously at Myrtle, as if suspecting she might be laughing at him. "I wanted to let you know that I heard from the checkout lady at the grocery store that Willow and Jill had a huge argument in the store right before Jill was murdered." 

"And she had that huge fight with Jill the night of the supper club, too. Willow's always been upset that Jill married Cullen and that she continued supporting him after he quit working. Was that the argument?" 

Miles still looked pretty miffed. "If it was, it was the loudest, most animated argument about Cullen that they've had yet. That's what the checkout lady said."  

Myrtle knit her brows. "I really want to find out some more information about Cullen. He seems to be at the very center of everything, but I really don't know much about him. I taught him, of course, but that was...well, it was a while back. And Cullen doesn't seem like he's sober enough to hold an intelligent conversation. Maybe I could have a little chat with Simon, instead, and pick his brain about his brother. I wonder how I could make it seem like I've just casually run into him."