Free The Glass Cat: A Detective Kevin Fowler Mystery by Janis Lane Page B

against the window seat in the parlor.
    Each one had been given a name and was a different color. The cat-loving artists had cast them in all sorts of sinuous, feline poses, some with their long tails curled around their bodies and their eyes half-closed, others standing up grooming themselves.
    Queenie was the biggest. A white cat around twenty inches high with long, curling hair and a regal expression frozen on her haughty, porcelain face. Her mate, Big Blue, sleek and masculine, sat on a table against the window perpetually staring with his feral expression at the bird feeder. At times he was turned completely around and glared at a black panther who rested insolently on top the bookcase, gazing down at all with a bored expression. The regal black wore a collar of sparkling rhinestones and the little girl who had been a younger Susan imagined he once belonged to an Egyptian queen. A tiny white cat wearing a bonnet with a blue flower sometimes rested against the black cat’s stomach, and although he allowed it to remain, he disdained it completely.  
    Miss Harper loved her collection of china cats. As the years passed, Susan noticed she would chat to them, telling them about her day and sometimes fussing at them for fighting. Susan was amused, but she understood. Even though frozen in their poses, they portrayed the individualistic personalities well captured by different artists, lending credence to the thought that they had real life spirits. She found herself speaking in a low voice to them while she dusted their smooth heads. Some of them were posed so realistically, she could easily imagine they were listening.
    The ginger cat was the favorite these days. It was snuggled with its tail curled around its body, the fat face half asleep in contentment. The china figurine had a permanent spot on the windowsill in the dining room, but often she found Miss Harper nodding in her chair with it sitting cozily in her lap. It had the sweetest expression and seemed to cuddle right into one’s arms.
    Susan had petted it herself, often feeling the warmth from the sun on its glossy head, but she could not imagine why her friend’s nephew would get upset over a collection of porcelain cats.  
    She had seen his car next door twice this week. Uninvited, Miss Harper assured her. She had no fondness for the man, the oldest son of her brother who had never visited his sister as far as Susan knew. Why this nephew had taken it upon himself to bother Miss Harper, no one could fathom, although Susan suspected she knew. She had noticed him looking around the house with a gleam in his eye. Avarice?
    Perhaps she was being too hard on the man, but she disliked how he upset Miss Harper.
    “Miss! Oh, Miss.”
    Susan turned around to see Carl Wilson waving his hand while still holding his white handkerchief to his face. She paused and waited while he walked rapidly to catch up with her.
    “I still need that phone,” he said, puffing slightly and speaking with a nasal tone. “My nose is almost under control again, and I hate to bother you, but I do need to phone in my request. Do you mind?” he asked pleadingly as he removed the white handkerchief and gave her a beguiling smile.
    “No, of course not. Come with me,” she said promptly and led the way to the two-story home of her childhood.
    “Wow. So you’re an artist. Where are you selling, if you don’t mind my asking?” He wandered into the back room where her easel was sitting amidst a series of drop clothes. He lifted one edge of the drape covering her latest work and she made a negative motion.
    “Oh, sorry,” he said. “You don’t like people peeking?” He gave her an impudent grin.  
    “I’m not comfortable sharing a work in progress,” she confessed. “I might change my mind halfway through and then you’d wonder where the work you saw disappeared to.” She gave him an apologetic smile, but held her ground. She hated having unfinished work critiqued.
    “I promise not