Kitten Kaboodle (Zoe Donovan Mystery Book 20) Read Online Free Page B

cages on wheels again.”
    I quickly hit redial and called Nona back. “Nona?”
    “It’s Salinger. I let your grandmother use my phone, but she refused a ride and refused to wait. She just left on foot.”
    “I’m out jogging, but I’m heading home. If you would be so kind as to catch up to her before she leaves the building, let her know I’m on my way and she should wait for me.”
    “That woman is a real thorn in my side. Asking me to go after her is asking quite a lot.”
    “I know, but I really want her to wait for me so she doesn’t do something crazy, like try to hitchhike. I’ll owe you,” I said persuasively.
    “Okay. But hurry. I’m not sure how much of her lip I’m going to be able to tolerate.”
    I ran home as fast as my short legs could carry me. I made sure the dogs had water before I grabbed my keys and headed out to my car. I might have broken a few speed limits on my way into town, but luckily, Nona was sitting on the bench outside the sheriff’s office, waiting as I’d asked. I pulled into the closest parking space, then hopped out to hug the woman who, I had a feeling, was going to get us both into a lot more trouble before this whole thing was over.
    “Oh my God, I was so worried,” I cried as I hugged her. “Are you okay?”
    “No thanks to that snake of a sheriff. Do you know, he wouldn’t even let me watch my shows?”
    “I set them up to tape every week after the last time you missed them,” I reassured the septuagenarian. “Where’s your motorcycle?”
    “The fuzz took it. It’s at the impound lot.”
    “Okay, let’s get you home and cleaned up and then we’ll go get it. Did the attorney Zak sent say if we needed to meet with him?”
    “I don’t need some expensive attorney. I’m perfectly capable of arguing my own case.”
    “No, you really aren’t.”
    “But the man is just a child.”
    “Compared to you, everyone is just a child. Zak went to a lot of trouble to fly the guy out. We’re going to trust that Zak knows what he’s doing and do everything the lawyer tells us to.”
    “Oh, all right. We’ll do it your way—for now. But not only is someone intentionally trying to set me up, the cretin stole my best jacket.”
    “So I heard. Are you sure it was in the storage compartment of your Harley?”
    “I’m sure. It gets chilly in the evenings, so I keep it on hand.”
    “Do you remember the last time you wore it?”
    Nona bit her lip as she considered my question. “It’s been a few days at least. I remember I had it on the day it rained. I left the house early to meet up with Aspen. We planned to solicit signatures from folks in front of the market, asking for support for stricter animal cruelty laws. The sun came out shortly after we arrived, so I took off my jacket and put it in the storage space behind the seat on my bike.”
    “Salinger said the storage space was completely empty. Did you have anything else in there?”
    Nona’s eyes grew wide. “Dang nabbit. The moron who stole my jacket also took my flask. Stealing a person’s jacket is one thing, but stealing a person’s moonshine is something else entirely.”
    “Moonshine?”
    “Gift from the gator wrangler I hooked up with a few nights ago.”
    I was tempted to ask Nona where she’d met a gator wrangler in Ashton Falls, but I had a meeting to get to so I let it go.
     
    By the time I got Nona home and we’d both cleaned up and retrieved her Harley I was late for the committee meeting. I considered skipping it altogether so I could keep an eye on the extremely agitated woman, but she had promised to stay home and catch up on her shows and I really did want to follow up on a couple of clues she’d provided when we’d had a chance to chat. It had been my experience that the good men and women of the Ashton Falls Events Committee were more often than not in the know about what was going on in town.
    The most surprising piece of news Nona had shared was that she, indeed, hadn’t been