A Tale of Two Tabbies Read Online Free

to us directly through Theresa’s cat. On the surface the file didn’t look to be important, but my intuition told me it was going to be very important indeed. It would be a few days before I understood just how important it actually was.

Chapter 3
Thursday, April 21
     
     
    I woke the next morning to the sound of waves crashing onto the shore outside my window. By the time Finn had shown up the previous evening and filled us in, it had been really late. I’d hoped Cody would stay over, but he said he wanted to get home to check on Mr. Parsons, the elderly man he lived with. I had a million and one things to see to that day but decided the most important one was to take Max for his morning run along the beach. I’d been busy lately and Max hadn’t been getting the attention he deserved. Besides, I felt tense and out of sorts, and there was something relaxing about running on the sand as the waves come onto the shore and the thunder of the tide is the only sound that penetrates the rhythm of your own breathing. It was a cool morning, so I’d bundled up in a heavy sweatshirt and long sweatpants before pulling a knitted cap over my head and long ponytail.
    It turned out Finn was able to determine that Theresa Lively had been hit over the head with a blunt object in the parking lot of St. Patrick’s. While the forensic team was still gathering information, it appeared, based on the blood they’d found both on the automobile and the asphalt, she was hit as she was either entering or exiting her car. She was then dragged around to the rear of the vehicle, where she was dumped into the trunk. The killer had used her keys to drive to her home and park the car in her garage. So far Finn hadn’t found any fingerprints other than Theresa’s, so it was being assumed that the killer either wore gloves or had been very careful.
    The thing I found the most interesting was that Sydney was found in the confessional. If Theresa was just arriving at the church, why was the cat inside and how had he gotten locked in the confessional? If she was leaving rather than arriving, it still didn’t explain why the cat was inside. The only thing I could come up with was that the killer had grabbed the cat while he was vandalizing Theresa’s home, driven him to the church, locked him in the cubicle, and then left. The question was, why in the world would anyone do such a thing?
    I took a deep breath as I jogged along the path that paralleled the beach, feeling the tension leave my body as I focused on nothing other than my own breathing and the sound of the sea. There’s a rhythm on Madrona that I’ve found to be true of island living in general. Maybe it’s the fact that there’s really nowhere to go, or that in general folks tend to stay put rather than move around, but I’ve found that island living brings a slower pace. Or at least it used to. It was true that with the changes the island had undergone in recent years, the pace of our lives seemed to have been affected to a certain degree.
    Finn had interviewed Sister Mary the previous evening. Other than Father Kilian, who was away at the moment, she was the only one who lived on the church property. Sister Mary lived in a small house across the lawn and garden area from the church. She reported that she hadn’t visited the church building that afternoon, but she had noticed several cars belonging to members of the St. Patrick’s women’s group in the parking lot when she left to do errands at around three o’clock. Cody and I had arrived at around five and the parking lot was empty then, so the group members must have vacated the property at some point between three and five. Sister Mary couldn’t be certain that Theresa’s car was among those present at three. She hadn’t had cause to pay close attention to which members of the women’s group were on the property.
    The only other person we knew for certain was present on the church grounds on Wednesday afternoon was