Free Count Catula (Whales and Tails Cozy Mystery Book 9) by Kathi Daley Page A

to the bookstore but hadn’t had a chance to read it yet.
    “You want me to read it?”
    “Meow.” Renfield went back to the door and waited.
    Max was sitting in the middle of the floor, watching our exchange. I guess he’d caught on that Renfield wanted to go for another ride and didn’t want to be left out; he trotted over to the door and sat down next to the cat.
    “We can’t go on another adventure,” I informed my furry companions. “Tara is waiting for me to come in to help her.”
    Max stretched out with his head resting on his front paws and whined in an exhibit of defeat, but Renfield just stared at me, as if daring me to try to leave without him.
    I looked down at the paper in my hand. “You want me to go to the newspaper?”
    Max lifted his head and barked. I assumed the dog, who went to work with Cody on occasion, recognized the word newspaper and was showing his enthusiasm for the idea.
    I looked down at the newspaper and tried to figure out what to do. Renfield did seem intent on taking me on another ride, but Tara was counting on me.
    “If your reason for wanting me to go to the newspaper is to look something up, everything is online now. It’s one of the improvements Cody made when he bought it.”
    That must have satisfied Renfield, who went over to the kitchen table where my laptop was sitting. I called Tara to tell her I’d be longer than expected, then pulled up the Madrona Island News Web site. Assuming Renfield wanted me to pull up the old stories about the murder, I put in a search for Bronwyn Hampton. I found a series of articles beginning the day after the discovery of the bodies. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, so I read them out loud, figuring Renfield would let me know when I stumbled across whatever it was he wanted me to find.
    “‘Bronwyn Hampton and Ruby Collingsworth, both students at Harthaven High School, were found dead in the woods off Redlands Road,’” I began. I remembered that we’d driven on Redlands Road that morning to get to the property where I’d found the box. The spot where the bodies were found was most likely close to the one where I now assumed they’d been murdered.
    I continued to read the article, which detailed what was known of the movements of the teenagers on the night they died. It outlined statements made by people who’d been with the girls on the night of their deaths, but no names were given. I assumed they’d been omitted due to the fact that the witnesses were minors.
    The next article I came to covered the idea that Dracon Moon had been responsible for the deaths. It informed readers that the house had burned to the ground, so any evidence that might have existed there was most likely long gone. There was an all-points bulletin out for him, but as of the time the article was published, there’d been no sign of him.
    I looked at Renfield as I read each article. He appeared to be listening but didn’t seem overly excited by any of the information I’d presented. “We don’t have all day, you know. This sure would be easier if you could talk.”
    Renfield hopped up onto the table and pushed today’s paper onto the floor. He used his paw to turn the pages until he found the one he was looking for. I got up and looked at the page he was displaying.
    “The obituaries? You want me to pull up the obituaries for Bronwyn and Ruby?”
    Renfield jumped back onto the table and sat down next to the laptop. I pulled up Bronwyn ’s obituary first. It stated how and when she’d died, her accomplishments during her short life, the awards she’d won, and the potential that had been stolen from both Bronwyn and the world. The obituary ended by listing the people who survived her, including her mother, father, and two sisters.
    Renfield didn’t seem impressed.
    Then I pulled up Ruby’s obituary, which was quite a bit shorter and quite a bit less grand. It simply stated how and when she’d died and who she’d been survived by, including