Free Cat Herding: A Yellow Rose Cozy Mystery Short (Yellow Rose Mystery Series) by K. P. Hilton

CAT HERDING
     
    Betty Hitchens couldn't fully focus on the show she'd decided to watch from her overstuffed DVR, due to the noise caused by the three men who were replacing the roof on her house. Loud bangs, buzzing saws, and bawdy jokes swirled above her head and engulfed her ears. She was trying to enjoy her day off as her young employees, Fred and George Darby, ran things at Betty's Cakes in downtown Yellow Rose but that was proving more and more difficult. Shaking off the intrusive annoyances, she looked up as her daughter entered the living area. By the expression on Brianna's face, Betty knew something was wrong.
     
    “What is it?” she asked. Zorro, the family cat, plopped onto the floor from Betty's warm lap, mewling in protest as she stood.
     
    “You should see this,” Brianna said. She led the way out of the room and down into the basement. She paused and turned to her mother. “Just to warn you, it’s disgusting,” she said as she opened the door.
     
    Inside contained what once had been a rec room, with a ping pong table, a large TV connected to a Nintendo gaming system, and a couple of recliner chairs near the far wall. But of late the place had become more of a storage area. There were boxes stacked everywhere. Christmas decorations sat on the ping pong table, while old pots and pans were nestled inside a big box that had once held the new dish washer. There was a space heater in the room, though it hadn’t been used in quite some time. Two glass doors were shut loosely over the heater's opening, and more boxes were piled in front of it.
     
    And there, in the middle of the floor, was a mouse, clearly dead. Betty heard a meow and turned to see Zorro inching into the room. She hurried and edged him out with her foot before shutting the door on him.
     
    “Gross,” Betty said. “So what, you want me to get rid of him?”
     
    “No, I want you to tell me how he got in here,” Brianna said. “I’m not going to be able to sleep knowing we might have house mouses.”
     
    “Mice,” Betty corrected her.
     
    “Whatever,” Brianna said under her breath.
     
    “Even if we do, it looks like Zorro took care of the immediate problem,” Betty reasoned. “He’ll take care of any others if they're out and about.”
     
    “Mom, there’s no way he could have gotten in here,” she said. “Something else killed that mouse.”
     
    “Maybe he had a little mouse heart attack, Brianna,” Betty said to her daughter. “What do you think, an alligator sneaked in?”
     
    “It could have been a snake!”
     
    “He probably died of natural causes.”
     
    “Mom, go look at him,” Brianna pleaded. Betty resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and stepped forward. She crouched down, though she didn’t really need to. It was obvious that the mouse had been bitten.
     
    “It was Zorro,” Betty said again.
     
    “How?” Brianna asked.
     
    “How what?” Betty asked. “You really think a snake did this?”
     
    That was a horrible thought. Betty could handle the occasional mouse. But a snake, in her house? No, it was Zorro. But she needed to prove it to Brianna, so that each could get some sleep that night.
     
    “The door was shut, as well as the windows,” Brianna said. The basement room had slim windows near the top of two walls that were at ground level.
     
    “If it wasn’t the cat, it means there’s a snake, or something worse, hiding out in here. So let’s figure out how the cat could have done it, all right?” Betty said.
     
    “Okay,” Brianna said, stepping forward. “Cats squeeze under doors,” Brianna said. “Right?”
     
    “He’s never been able to get under this door,” Betty said. “And if he could, I think he would be in here now.”
     
    “So then it’s a snake.”
     
    “How would a snake get in here?” Betty asked.
     
    “I don’t know.”
     
    “Let’s clear our heads. Settle down.”
     
    “I don’t know how I’m going to sleep knowing that slimy death is