“Little stinker was sitting on my back porch as I came home from the grocery store,” Mrs. Whitby chuckles. “Looked like he’d been in a fight, though.”
I clasp my hand over my heart. “Does he need to go to the vet?”
“No, no, no. He’s banged up. A couple of broken claws. Looks a little dehydrated, but a big bowl of food and water got him perked right up,” Mrs. Whitby responds. “He’s running around as if nothing happened.”
I blow out a breath. “That’s good. He’s home now?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Whitby pauses. “But there’s something else.”
The hair on the back of my neck stands up. “What else?”
“Hold on,” Mrs. Whitby puts the phone down. I can hear her muttering to herself as she searches for something. “Ah, here it is. There was a business card on your front door.”
I frown. “A business card. For someone selling something?”
“No,” Mrs. Whitby pauses, probably to get her reading glasses off the top of her head and onto her face so she can read the card to me. “Detective Galvin Janecek. Metro Police.”
“You weren’t there when Detective Janecek left the card?’
“No. It must have happened sometime between me stopping by your house to water the plants yesterday and finding Inigo today. The card fell out of the door when I took Inigo inside.”
“If you could take a picture of the card and text it to me, I’d appreciate it.”
I then spend the next five minutes explaining how to take a picture of the business card and text it. At one point, Mrs. Whitby asks if she could just fax it to me. As I am not currently carrying a fax, nor do I know where the closest fax would be, I continue with my instructions until my phone vibrates with a blurry photo. I remind Mrs. Whitby to clean off her camera lens. She mutters something about Gen-X being “ungrateful” and hangs up.
“It probably would have been quicker and easier if she told you the phone number,” Rand points out.
“Stop being helpful,” I hiss. “This is our thing. She acts like she hates technology, even though she plays slot machine games on her phone and orders off Amazon every other day. I get mad at her for asking me to be her personal technology assistant. And around and around we go.”
“Who’s Inigo?”
I smile. “Inigo Montoya is my cat.”
He snickers. “I never pegged you as a cat person.”
“I’m not a ‘cat person.’ Ihavea cat,” I pout. “Big difference. Huge.”
“Do you have pictures of Inigo?”
I swipe open my phone to the Inigo Montoya photo folder. “Sure. Look at this furry little face.”
Rand snickers as I scroll through no fewer than fifty photos of my little ginger-faced kitty.
“Fine. I love this cat.”
Rand nods. He’s got my number. “Now, do you want to talk about the detective?”
I shrug. “I have no idea what that’s about. Could be about an ongoing case I’m working on.”
“But wouldn’t he have contacted you at work?”
Unease snakes through me. “Good point.”
I dial the number, feeling a little faint, although I’m not sure why.
A gruff voice answers on the first ring. “Detective Janecek.”
“Hello, Detective. My name is Carolina Saber. I believe you’re looking to talk to me?”
