“Oh, sorry, was I doing it wrong?” I started rubbing behind his other ear. “Like I was saying, what if it’s a combination of the bike club and retirement? I’m not sure how that could be a thing, but you never know, right? What if other recently retired bike club members are in danger? And how would I tell anyone that? Let’s think how that conversation would go. ‘Say, Terry, how long have you been retired? Only a few months? Oh, dear, you’d better start looking over your shoulder because—”

I was suddenly talking to my hand because Eddie had jumped down. “Sorry,” I called after him. “I try to do it right, really I do. It’s just hard when you have so much fur to scratch you in the right place and . . . what are you doing?”

Eddie, of course, didn’t answer, but the noises emanating from the floor were unmistakably of the paper variety.

“Stop what you’re doing, please.” I started turning around. “Because I’m sure whatever it is, it’s annoyingly destructive, and—Eddie!”

He whirled, ran to the end of the kitchen, leapt down the stairs in one stride, leapt up onto the bed, jumped over to the unused bunk, ran back up the stairs, circled me, and ran back to the bed.

“You are the weirdest cat ever,” I muttered, leaning down to pick up the scraps of paper that had formerly been my water bill.

“Mrr!”

“Back at you,” I called.

“Mrr!!”

This time I remained silent because I was staring at the water bill. Thinking.

Hard.

Then I picked up my phone. “Tabitha? How do you feel about an early morning appointment?”

*   *   *

The next morning, I met Tabitha in front of the sheriff’s office. We huddled next to the building in a vain attempt to stay out of the biting wind. I’d started to catch her up on my new line of thinking but hadn’t gone through half of it when she pulled on my coat sleeve and tugged me toward the front door.

“Let’s get inside,” she said. “It’s cloudy, cold, windy, and it’s not going to get any warmer until the end of April, and I’m too old to stand outside shivering.” Though I wanted to protest that there’d be some nice days yet, in general her point was correct, so I allowed myself to get towed into the front lobby.

The office manager, Chelsea Stille, smiled at us through the thick glass. “Hi, Mrs. Inwood. And Minnie, right? Are you two looking for Detective Inwood?”

We were indeed, and in short order we were in the interview room, waiting for Hal and Ash.

“That wind,” Tabitha said, shivering and huddling inside her coat. “It was zipping through me like I didn’t even exist.”