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

didn’t tell Ellie about the discrepancy in Nona’s story. I’d trust her with my life and really had no reason to keep secrets from her, but for some reason I hesitated. “Let’s head out to Edna’s place to see if any of the neighbors are home. Maybe someone saw something that will give us a clue.”
    “Are you sure you want to get involved in this?” Ellie asked.
    “Of course I do. It would kill Nona if she ended up back in jail.”
    “I get that, but it seems like Zak hired a really good attorney. Maybe you should just let him worry about keeping Nona out of jail.”
    I stopped to consider Ellie’s words. The attorney did seem to know his stuff, but could I really trust him to have the skill necessary to ensure Nona’s freedom when even I had doubts as to her innocence? Perhaps I needed to prove Nona was innocent for my own sake. If she simply got off due to a technicality or a superior argument made by the attorney Zak had hired and the truth was never found, there would always be a part of me that wondered.
    “I know you’re worried about my getting involved in yet another murder investigation, but I need to see this through. My gut is telling me there’s more going on here than a simple dispute over the cats. I don’t know what that might be yet, but my Zodar is encouraging me to look at the entire picture and not give in to the tendency to focus on a single motive for Edna’s death—which, by the way, is exactly what Salinger is doing.”
    “You think someone killed her for a reason other than the dispute over the kitten mill?”
    “I think the idea that Edna was killed for a different reason should be explored at the very least. Maybe we should talk to Silvia Downing. I remember Aspen telling me a while back that Silvia and Edna used to be friends. It seems in the beginning Edna just had a couple of cats who lived in the house as pets. After one of the cats became pregnant and she realized how much money was to be made selling Maine coons she began buying more and more cats until she had too many for the house and began keeping them in the barn. At that point Silvia and Edna parted ways. When Aspen began her campaign Silvia was one of her first volunteers. She not only hated the fact that the cats were treated as livestock but she hated what owning the cats had done to Edna.”
    “Does Silvia still work at the sporting goods store?”
    “As far as I know. It’s just down the street. Let’s find out.”
    As it turned out, Silvia did still work at the sporting goods store, and she was more than happy to talk to us. Silvia, like Edna, was a very attractive woman who knew how to play up her assets and seemed to enjoy creating a reaction from the opposite sex by displaying said assets in a friendly yet seductive way. I didn’t know either Silvia or Edna well, but if I had to guess, their friendship had initially been based on a mutual appreciation of outer beauty.
    “Yes, Edna and I used to be friends. When we met we both enjoyed going out and partying on the weekends, but then Edna changed. Not only did she become so obsessed with her cats that she rarely left her property but she used to be kinder and less obsessed with making money. Actually, she used to be less obsessed in general.”
    “What do you mean by that?” I asked.
    Silvia shrugged. “I don’t know; it just seemed like Edna began to focus on select things and select people to an obsessive degree while pretty much ignoring everyone and everything else. It’s like with the cats; she went from having a couple of them she seemed to really care about to having a barnful that, as far as I know, she cared for only to the extent they produced kittens that brought in money.”
    “So you decided to join Aspen in her attempt to shut down the kitten mill?”
    “I was one of the first to sign up. I don’t know if you’ve been out to Edna’s place, but the way she treated those poor cats just wasn’t right. And it had gotten worse. At