Free How to Catch a Cat by Rebecca M. Hale Page B

supervisors.
    Wanda Williams greeted her with a cold accusing stare, and the niece wondered, not for the first time, why she’d ever agreed to this stint at City Hall. The place was a thicket of unexploded land mines, and the niece felt as if she stepped on one each time she entered the building.
    Wanda’s bruised ego was an easy fault wire to trip.
    She had applied for the position of Monty’s admin after he was appointed to the interim mayor’s slot, and she was still bitter that the niece had been awarded the job.
    Wanda had thick black hair, which she wore in a short bouffant style that lifted several inches off her forehead. Silver streaks streamed out from each temple, the gray highlighted by the pearl drop earrings hanging from her earlobes.
    The woman clearly disapproved of everything the niece did, starting, of course, with the fact that she brought her cats into work each day. But there was little Wanda could do about that since Mayor Carmichael had officially sanctioned the felines’ presence.
    She glared down at the stroller and sniffed derisively at the occupants.
    Curled up in the blankets dreaming about the mythical concoction of fried chicken donuts, Rupert was unaware of the snub. Isabella, however, sat stiffly in her seat, the hair on the back of her neck spiked with distrust.
    Their eyes met, Isabella’s and those of the woman with the wounded pride.
    Wanda was the first to look away.
    The elevator
ding
ed again, signifying they’d reached the second floor.
    The niece smiled to herself. She would happily yield her position as soon as she was relieved of Knitting Needle Ninja duty.
    Until then, Wanda was destined to lose her daily staring contests with Isabella.

Chapter 20
    THE SOUP CART VENDOR
     
    THE NIECE ROLLED the cat stroller into the second-floor mayor’s office suite, unaware that another member of the Ninja surveillance team had just arrived through City Hall’s subterranean service entrance.
    A vendor cart laden with several gallon-sized metal vats squeaked along a dark basement hallway. Barely visible behind the heavy load, an elderly cook slowly pushed the cart down the corridor.
    The cart carried eight different soups, each one prepared from scratch the previous evening. This being San Francisco, there needed to be at least three vegetarian options. Each serving came with a piece of fresh bread that was sliced to order on a wooden cutting board mounted to the cart’s front end.
    Once the chef reached City Hall’s main floor, he would plug the cart’s electrical cord into a designated wall socket. Heating elements attached to the vats would then simmer the contents under low heat for the next several hours. By late morning, a tempting smell would filter up through the rotunda to the second-floor offices.
    The Soup Vendor, as he was known throughout the Civic Center Plaza, had only serviced City Hall for a couple of months, but his hearty meals had quickly become a staple for the building’s office workers and the multitudes of tourists who stopped in to marvel at the ornate interior.
    No one knew much about the grumpy old man behind the soup cart. He wore a cap pulled down over his eyes, and he rarely spoke to his hungry patrons. Each vat was clearly labeled; the price for a generous serving of soup was displayed on the cart’s front panels. There was little need for extraneous communication, and the vendor typically didn’t respond to casual chitchat.
    For Uncle Oscar, the soup cart was the perfect cover for keeping a close watch over his niece—and the rest of City Hall.
    He was convinced that this is where the Ninja would resurface.
    It was only a matter of time.
    He only hoped that he lived long enough to capture the killer.
    —
    OSCAR HAD LIVED a long eventful life, full of fond memories of meals shared with his eclectic group of friends, his niece, and her two cats. The years he’d spent puttering around in his beloved antique shop had been some of his happiest. Overall,