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Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Boomerang Books
ISBN-10: 1735267554
Type: Fiction
Pages: 242
Copyright: Aug. 23, 2021
ISBN-13: 9781735267555
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
5th in the Cat Caliban series, featuring Cincinnati's newest, oldest, funniest detective-in-training.
“Are you the person who normally checks the kiln?”
I started. He’d pronounced it “kill,” like a lot of people do.
Normally, we didn’t have a kill to check.
Crabby is how detective-in-training Cat Caliban has felt ever since menopause hit. Her friends think she can work off her aggressions pounding clay in a beginners’ pottery class. But someone has mistaken Cat’s pot for a blunt instrument and they’re firing something besides clay in the art center kiln. Now that things are really heating up, Cat’s murder investigation leads to a legendary lost collection of vases once owned by an equally legendary madam from Cincinnati’s bygone red-light district. Can Cat catch a killer before the past goes up in flames?
Excerpt
Me and Kinky were parked behind a couple of five-ways down at Skyline Chili in Clifton. Five-ways were to Cincinnati what cheesesteaks were to Philadelphia: its distinctive culinary contribution to the world. Kinky was poking his fork down through the layers of cheese, onions, beans, chili, and spaghetti, scowling.
“Don’t think of it as being in the same food group as Texas chili, Kinky,” I told him. “It’s East European.”
Kinky glanced up, then around, as if searching for evidence that this joint was an enclave of ethnic haute cuisine. Tell me another one, his eyes said.
We were interrupted by a waiter in a white jacket, hurrying to our booth with a white telephone.
“Telephone for Mr. Friedman,” the waiter said.
Now this should have tipped me off that something was amiss. Skyline Chili — or “Skillini’s,” as the local wags pronounce it — does not run to telephones, white or otherwise, or jacketed waiters for that matter. It was one in a chili parlor chain which featured downscale dining, even in the heart of one of Cincinnati’s more upscale neighborhoods. Both the telephone and the white jacket were splashed with tomato sauce, but still.
Kinky told me that the cat was calling to say that his building was burning down.
“How can she tell?” I asked. It was a reasonable question; Kinky was always complaining about the heat in his New York City loft.
But all of a sudden, I could feel it. A wave of heat washed over me and left me soaking wet. Goddamn, I’d heard of reaching out and touching somebody, but this was ridiculous! I dropped my fork.
And woke up.
I was sitting up in bed, scanning the darkness in confusion.
Goddamn, it wasn’t Kinky’s place that was on fire — it was mine!
I fumbled for the light and switched it on.
Sadie and Sophie, who were sacked out on the foot of the bed, raised their heads and gazed at me in sleepy feline confusion. Not a whisker twitched. I sniffed the air.
Hell, it wasn’t my place that was on fire — it was me!
I threw off the wet sheets and raced to the bathroom, nearly tripping over Sidney, who had heard the commotion and come running to investigate. By the time I got the water on, the heat was receding. Behind it came a chill like a Canadian cold front. I stood in the shower, my dripping nightgown clinging to me tight as a corpse’s fist. I sneezed and felt a tiny explosion of wet heat between my thighs.
Sidney was watching me curiously. I think it was gradually dawning on him that I was not up for a game of Kitty Tease.
Menopause. I love it.
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