Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

this feeling that they wanted one of the Siamese. Do you have any idea why anyone might?"
    Nikki’s hands stayed relaxed. "One of those two?" she asked in a ho-hum fashion. "Seems unlikely. Miss Brooks is getting on in years, and you probably know about Number One Son's problems."
    "Nikki?" Nancy poked her head back inside the room. "I'm sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing part of your conversation earlier. Is something wrong with Mrs. Murchison?"
    Not anxious to hear the sobering news repeated, Leigh quietly excused herself from the room and trooped sluggishly back down the stairs. If news of a plane crash—any plane crash—weren’t depressing enough, the prospect of giving Adith Rhodis the bad news about her grandson—namely that she had failed to save him from one of those quaint cells with a twelve-by-twelve-inch view of the Monongahela River—weighed heavily on her spirits. She crossed over to the Siamese cats’ cage and exhaled in frustration. The female was on her feet now, grooming her ruffled chest indignantly, but the still-recumbent male was only just paddling his legs.
    Thinking that the bony felines must be uncomfortable lounging about on nothing but papers and the steel cage flooring, she turned to the stack of worn towels above the cages, collected a large green one, and opened the cage door.
    " No !" The reaction of the kennel cleaner, who had been happily washing dishes in the sink, could not have been more dramatic if she had approached the patient with a straight razor. Jared whirled around, sending a stainless-steel bowl and dishwater flying across the floor, crossed the distance to her in two paces, and blocked the cage opening with a meaty arm. "No towels with Murchison cats, Leigh Koslow!"
    Despite his bluster, he didn't seem angry so much as scared. "Number One Son eats towels, Leigh Koslow!"
    She stood like a statue for a moment, thinking, then calmly retracted the towel. Wool sucking . It was one of those weird feline psychiatric things she had heard her dad talk about, along with martian-chasing (which affected her own dear Mao Tse) and excessive grooming (which thankfully did not). Wool suckers, which were very often Siamese, had a thing about cloth. They would chew on and sometimes even eat dishtowels, carpeting, drapes...
    Jared pulled back his arm. Leigh shut the cage door quietly, then gazed through the bars at the groggy male, who had begun tossing his head in effort to sit up. Could it be?
    "Jared," she asked earnestly, trying to attract his attention as he diligently began mopping up the water he had spilled. "What types of things has Number One Son eaten? Do you know?"
    "Number One Son gets sick, Leigh Koslow," he answered, working feverishly. "Number One Son have to be operated on over and over. Dr. Koslow says he doesn't want to operate anymore. No towels with Murchison cats, Leigh Koslow."
    She stood thinking for another moment, then reopened the cage door. "I'm going to take him upstairs to my dad," she explained as she wrapped up the awkwardly thrashing cat in the towel she was holding. "I think maybe he needs an x-ray."
     
    ***
     
    "Are you sure Dr. Koslow ordered this?" Jeanine asked skeptically, drawing herself up to full diva height. "I don't believe I heard anything about it."
    Cradling the agitated cat on top of the hard x-ray table, Leigh fought back over a decade's worth of accumulated annoyance and smiled. "Yes. Now if you could just hang onto him for me for a moment, I'll gown up. The film's all loaded."
    Jeanine pushed a strand of unruly, curly dark hair behind one ear with a scowl. "Just a minute," she said shortly, turning in the direction of the treatment room, where Randall was still on the phone.
    Leigh let out an exasperated sigh. She supposed she could wait until her father was available, but she was perfectly capable of taking the x-ray herself, and frankly, she couldn't stand the suspense. What if she were right? Her idea was completely bizarre, but it