Key Lime Pie Murder Read Online Free PDF Page B

nothing happened. The door was open, and Moishe was nowhere in sight. Heart in her throat, Hannah rushed in and tossed her purse on a chair. “Moishe?” she called, fearing the worst.
    There was no answer, and Hannah felt a chill of foreboding. She should have taken Moishe to the vet this morning when she’d found him staring out the window at nothing. Animals couldn’t tell you when they were sick. Their humans had to watch for signs of illness, and one sign was atypical behavior. He’d tried to tell her, and she was a bad kitty mommy for ignoring the sign!
    Relax , she told herself and took a deep breath. It would do no good to panic. She had to stay calm and think clearly. The first thing to do was to find Moishe and check for other signs of illness.
    Hannah headed for the kitchen. Perhaps Moishe had his head buried in his food bowl and he hadn’t heard her come in. But there was no orange and white cat ear-deep in his kitty crunchies. Instead, Hannah found something even more alarming. She’d given him his breakfast before she’d left for work this morning, and her normally ravenous cat hadn’t touched a morsel!
    â€œUh-oh,” Hannah groaned, staring at Moishe’s full-to-the-brim Garfield bowl in disbelief. Moishe always emptied his bowl and was yowling for more by the time she came home. There had to be something drastically wrong.
    Hannah checked the usual places, but Moishe wasn’t there. There was nothing furry under the Formica kitchen table that was only a few years short of becoming antique, and no inquisitive orange and white head peeked out from behind the kitchen wastebasket. Moishe was not in the kitchen, not unless he’d morphed into one of the dust balls that was hiding in the two-inch-high space under the refrigerator.
    The laundry room was next. Hannah checked the space behind the washer and dryer, even though she thought it was too tight a squeeze for him. There was a smattering of gravel outside his litter box. He must have used it since she’d swept the floor this morning. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
    Hannah went down the hall toward her bedroom, but she stopped as she noticed that the guest room door was open. She always kept it closed so that Moishe couldn’t chase after the appliquéd butterflies on the expensive silk coverlet Delores had given her for Christmas one year, but perhaps the latch hadn’t caught. She’d have to be more careful in the future or her mother’s butterflies would meet a force even more dangerous than the rigors of migration.
    Hannah poked her head in, but Moishe wasn’t on the bed and the coverlet looked untouched. Since the butterflies were intact, she was about to pull the door shut behind her when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. “Moishe?” she called out.
    â€œBrrrowww!”
    It was a loud, healthy yowl and Hannah gave a huge sigh of relief. Moishe sounded just fine. But why hadn’t he come to greet her? And why wasn’t he eating? She stepped inside the room and began to frown as she saw what her cat was doing.
    Moishe was balanced, rather precariously, on the guest room windowsill. He was staring out at the condo next door, where the Hollenbeck sisters lived. There was no one home. Today was Monday, and the two sisters spent all afternoon out at Lake Eden Memorial Hospital, working as volunteers. The Hollenbeck sisters were both retired. Marguerite had worked for forty years as a kindergarten teacher, and Clara had put in forty-two years as a court reporter at the Winnetka County Courthouse. They’d told Hannah that they were devoting the rest of their lives to doing good works, and they were active church members. Hannah had met them the day she moved in. They’d invited her over for dinner that night, and they’d dined on Clara’s Mexican hot dish, a casserole of hamburger, corn, mild green chilies, shredded cheese, and spicy tomato