When she hung up, she looked concerned. “Our team searching the house says none of them has seen a cat.”

“Oh no. That’s awful. That cat is declawed; he can’t make it outside that fence.”

“I’ll have the patrol cars look out for him, and I’ll alert the pound in case anyone brings him in. Give me a description before you leave. Now, let’s get back to this morning. You said your sister-in-law called you later, after you’d finished making all your phone calls?”

“Yes. The phone rang while I was getting ready to go. Poppy said Melinda and I should go on ahead, that she’d meet us there.”

“And she gave no reason for this?”

“No.” I hesitated. “She said there was something she had to take care of, and she sounded as though it was something unexpected, but other than that, no.” There’d been the moments of my inattention, but that was for my conscience alone, not for Detective Trumble’s consumption. Nothing could be done about it now. “She just said there was something she had to take care of,” I repeated.

Arthur came out of his cubicle and beckoned to Detective Trumble, who pushed up from her desk and met him on middle ground. Possibly she thought I couldn’t hear her because I was rooting around in my purse.

“Is this a fair example of a southern belle?” she murmured to my former boyfriend. I glanced up, to see her tilting her head toward me.

“Aurora?” Surprise made him a little louder than he’d intended.

“She’s a moron. Her brains are scattered over several miles of bad road.”

“Then she’s hiding something,” he said flatly.

Darn that Arthur.

I saw Melinda leaning out of Arthur’s cubicle, making little gestures at me behind his back. So far, the new detective hadn’t caught sight of Melinda, but she would soon. I shook my head violently then pasted a sweet smile on my face as Arthur leaned to one side to fix me with a glare. The minute my lips moved, I realized a sweet smile was wildly inappropriate, and I wiped my face clean, trying to come up with an expression that wouldn’t be worse.