About Crafty Cat
Crafty Cat (Crazy Cat Lady Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
11th in the Series
Setting - Oregon
Publisher : Independently Published (October 29, 2024)
Paperback : 265 pages
ISBN-13 : 979-8340449023
Digital ASIN : B0DJPYRLKH
Lynley Cannon has a new hobby—making cat-themed quilt donations for the ShadowCat Rescue auction. The small quilting guild is run by three generations of women and two cats, but when the elder of the family is murdered, Lynley’s job shifts from crafting to sleuthing.
Who would want to kill such a dear old thing? The police think they know, but they don’t have all the facts.
As secrets come out and a romance is uncovered, the quilting project begins to fall to pieces. Lynley jumps in to help the family navigate the justice system, but when a neighbor is found dead and another of the quilt shop’s owners missing, even Lynley is at a loss. It takes a couple of crafty cats to get to the bottom of this stranger-than-fiction crime.
CRAFTY CAT Chapter 1
There are reasons we can’t go back to the past, and we shouldn’t want to. People get hurt. People get killed. Time flows one way on purpose. Trying to relive some golden moment will only get you in trouble.
My name is Lynley Cannon, and as the years pile on since my big six-oh, those facts become clearer to me every day. Not the part about people getting killed… That revelation came only after a series of unexpected events about which I will tell in due time. For now, I’ll just repeat the old adage: You can never go home again.
It started innocently enough when my best friend Frannie Desoto invited me along to her quilting club, a group of cat lovers who get together to sew cat-themed quilts for animal shelter auctions. The idea sounded fun, and being a long-time shelter volunteer myself, the cause suited me. I knew nothing about quilting, but Frannie assured me that Pauleen and Paulette Hart, seasoned quilters themselves, would have no trouble taking me through the basics. The mother-daughter duo had tutored many a would-be seamstress while running their business, House of Quilts.
To look at it from the outside, House of Quilts was just what its name implied, an old residential house off Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, Oregon. The only thing to distinguish it from the homes to either side was the colorful signage depicting a log cabin patchwork quilt that hung above the front porch. With the building nearly obscured by a lush vine maple tree, I would have passed right by it if Frannie hadn’t yelled for me to pull over.
I swooped my little Toyota into an open parking spot on the street and turned off the engine. Peering out at our destination, I shook my head.
“I don’t know about this, Frannie. I haven’t picked up a needle and thread for eons, let alone sat down at my sewing machine.” I pictured the vintage model given me by my mum some decades back which now sat latched in its case on a table heaped with flotsam.
“It’ll be fine. You don’t have to sew if you don’t want to—you can just watch. But I bet you’ll get inspired once you see what the gals are doing.”
Gals, I thought to myself. An outmoded term, but so Frannie Desoto. Though her outfits, always impeccable and expensive, were of a current fashion, there was something about Frannie that harked back to a gentler era.
Frannie and I had met years ago through our volunteer work at Friends of Felines cat shelter. Being more mature than many of the twenty-something volunteers and staff, we’d gravitated toward one another. I admit I’d initially been put off by her styled platinum hair, lavish makeup, and the elegant clothes she wore even for her shelter shifts, but once we got talking, I found we had much in common. Underneath her picture-perfect exterior, she and I were sisters.
Frannie had never lied to me, and there was no reason to think she was lying now, but…
“Fun?” I grumbled. “They’re going to throw me out on my ear.”
“No, they’re not. Why would you say that?” Frannie turned and stared at me with those blue-shadowed eyes. “What’s wrong with you today, Lynley? You’re usually up for anything.”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Sometimes I feel so old, like I’m never going to be able to learn anything new.”
“You’re not old!” Frannie clipped back at me. “Why, you just turned sixty.”
“It’s been a while,” I put in.
“Sixty is the new forty, Lynley, but twenty years wiser. Now come on. You’re going in there if I have to drag you.”
Frannie was right. I was only as old as I felt, but for the past month, I’d been feeling my age and more. I needed new glasses but was hesitant to make that expensive appointment. I had a funny pain in my shoulder that didn’t used to be there. My yearly wellness check was coming up, and though I had no reason to fear, getting poked and prodded, quizzed and questioned, only to sit like a naughty child awaiting the final verdict from my doctor was always a bit unnerving. These were things that never crossed my mind a decade ago.
“Frannie, I really don’t feel like doing this right now. Can’t I just drop you off and pick you up when you’re done?”
“Absolutely not. Now get out of the car and come with me.”
Begrudgingly I did what I was told, lagging behind Frannie as she crossed the sidewalk and climbed the steps to a screened front porch where a sign read, Closed For Class—Ring Bell for Service. I was about to balk again when I saw something that changed my mind.
Or more accurately, someone.
Sitting regally as a queen on a shelf beside the screen door was a cat. Her black fur was long and silky. Her green eyes were trained directly on me. Around her neck she wore a matching green collar.
“That’s Mewella,” Frannie related with a grin. “She and her brother Ridley own the place.”
Frannie moved forward and rang a bell which was quickly answered by a blockish woman wearing a prim white blouse and a long, quilted skirt of a botanical design. Her hair, an unlikely shade of auburn, was piled on her head in a haphazard knot. Through the knot was stuck a pencil and a pair of long, purple-handled scissors.
“Frannie! Come in, come in!” the woman expounded as she scooped Mewella into her arms and unlatched the screen. “And this must be Lynley,” she said to me. “I’m Pauleen. Welcome to House of Quilts.”
Mewella allowed herself to be cuddled in Pauleen’s substantial embrace, but as soon as the door was safely latched, she launched away to resume her vigil.
“She never tries to get out,” Pauleen explained, “but please keep watch anyway. It would be tragic if she were to escape.”
Pauleen led Frannie and me across the wide porch and into the house chattering about quilting things, much of which I didn’t understand. The foyer had been turned into a shop room where bolts of fabric and piles of colorful cut yardage lined the walls. In one corner was a display of sewing machines and rolling cases and a shelf of oversized books. On tables sat baskets of threads, scissors and fabric cutters, markers, pins and needles, a smattering of homemade pincushions, and other sewing sundries that I was hard-pressed to name.
As I stared around with something between awe and confusion, a tiny woman in a yellow jacket ran up to us, an odd look on her face. If everything else about the environment hadn’t seemed so serene, I would have marked it as fright.
It turned out my assumption wasn’t far off. The little woman grasped Pauleen by the arm and gave a whimper.
“I can’t find him anywhere, Pauleen! I’ve looked all through the house—the upstairs parlor and even the bedrooms.”
Pauleen frowned. “Calm down, Dora. I’m sure he’s here somewhere. Have you checked outside?”
Dora hesitated. “I did, yes, but I’ll try again.”
“Good girl. You know how he can disappear when he doesn’t want to be found.”
Dora fled away, shaking her hands in despair. Pauleen turned to me. “That was my dear friend Dora. She’s always got my back. Now it seems we have a missing cat, Ridley, Mewella's twin brother.”
“Oh, dear,” I commented. “And you think he may have got outside?”
“We have an outdoor catio beyond the sunroom with lots of built-in shelves and perches and places for a cat to hide. He’s asleep somewhere. Most likely,” she added with a forced laugh that ended in a frown. “Give me a minute, please? Frannie, why don’t you take Lynley into the sewing room and introduce her to everyone? I’ll be right back.”
And with that, she was gone.
About Mollie Hunt
Cat Writer Mollie Hunt is the award-winning author of two cozy series: the Crazy Cat Lady Mysteries featuring a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip, and the Tenth Life Paranormal Mysteries involving a ghost cat. Her Cat Seasons Sci-Fantasy Tetralogy presents extraordinary cats saving the world. She recently released a COVID memoir which she calls, "a tale of a plague and politics, of depression and inspiration, and an ode to the very real and healing presence of cats." In her spare time, she pens a bit of cat poetry.
Mollie is a member of the Oregon Writers’ Colony, Sisters in Crime, the Cat Writers’ Association, Willamette Writers, and Northwest Independent Writers Association (NIWA). She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like her cat lady character, she is a grateful shelter volunteer
You can find Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer on her blogsite: https://molliehuntcatwriter.com/
Follow Mollie's Amazon Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/molliehunt
Facebook Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/MollieHuntCatWriter/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/molliehuntcatwriter/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7768987.Mollie_Hunt
Purchase Link Amazon
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