Volume 11
Action unfurls around the globe.
Tiger Lily, knowing she and her siblings will be on vacation, leaves Simon Finnegan and Oscar McMurphy in charge of the detective agency in Chelsea. They rise to the challenge with the help of their friends.
Chris and Annie are camping a few hundred miles away. Murder follows. Tiger Lily and her siblings have to figure out “who done it” and help Annie and Chris out of a jam.
Henrie visits his native country, Cameroon, with his new friend Collette. His home town is only one hundred fifty miles from the birthplace of Boko Haram. Unfortunately for Henrie, he traveled without detective cats to help.
George manages the KaliKo Inn for Henrie and Annie. He now realizes how difficult running the Inn can be, particularly when Guests-From-Perdition come for a visit. He doesn’t realize the local cats are there to help.
Come visit with the folks of Chelsea for a while.
Purchase Options
You can order from Tiger Lily’s Store. This is the same paperback book you can get from Amazon. The difference is that it will come from the author and will be signed.
Excerpt from Morel Of The Story
Chapter 1
George turned off the alarm with a groan. With one eye open, he looked at the time. Five a.m. He groaned again, then remembered his promise to Candice. He would not wake her this morning. Not as he had for the last three.
He took a deep breath and rolled out of bed as quietly as he could. Standing in the shower, he tried to think. What day was this? Sunday? No. Monday. If he could get through this day, there were only three more. Then life would return to normal.
As if.
He had often envied Henrie and the position he assumed had been much easier than his own. As manager and bartender of Mo’s Tap, George had long days, starting around ten in the morning and ending sometime after midnight, later on weekends.
He had to admit that as the years rolled on, he delegated closing duties to others more often than not, but his days were still long. He had assumed Henrie, the manager of the Inn, started at breakfast and was relieved of his duties by mid-afternoon.
When Annie, who owned the Inn, the bar, and every other business on this side of The Avenue, had asked George to cover for Henrie, he had quickly agreed.
Too quickly.
Henrie would return from his two-week vacation on Thursday. The first week – for George – had been fairly simple. He went to the Inn a few times to assist Annie and learn the routine. Unfortunately, Annie had been gone since last Thursday, and George was on his own.
Almost.
JoJo, a college student who worked for several of Annie’s businesses part-time, slept in and was onsite for overnight emergencies. She was up early in the morning to start breakfast. She left during the day to attend classes and returned in the evening.
Hilly, who kept the Inn sparkling, was there every weekday. To help George, she made sure the guests had an afternoon snack before leaving. She indicated a willingness to come during the weekend if he needed her, but George told her not to worry.
What a mistake.
George didn’t want to admit defeat and refused to call her back this past weekend.
Well, it was Monday now. He had made it through the weekend – barely – but certainly they were on the downhill slide now.
At least the guests-from-perdition would leave Wednesday. He and Hilly could straighten the Inn before Henrie returned, and maybe they could pretend everything had gone smoothly.
George thought through the last three days, trying to sharpen the blurry edges. The guests-from-perdition arrived Friday evening, early enough to order dinner-to-go from the winery, charged, of course, to their Inn reservation. George left, believing things to be well in hand. Then JoJo called.
The other guests had complained about loud music coming from the second floor, and she had been unable to get the youth of the family to cooperate. The parents had been uncooperative as well. George assured JoJo he would take care of the issue first thing Saturday morning.
On Saturday, George walked through the Inn picking up books, magazines, movies, video games, remote controls, dishes, half-filled glasses, food dropped on the floor, and clothes. He stood still more than once, so as not to be run over, as the teen and pre-teen demons raced into and out of the Inn.
He tried to talk to the parents about menial issues, such as asking their kids to use coasters on the wooden furniture, to pick up after themselves, to turn down the music in their bedrooms at night. The parents zoned out.
At one point, he corralled the youth long enough to lecture them about Inn policies and courtesy to other guests. In response, he received blank looks, eye rolls, muffled curses and shrugged shoulders.
Saturday night, JoJo called again. George stormed over and up to the second floor. He pounded on doors and demanded the music be turned down. When it was not, he pounded on the door of the parents and demanded they do something about it. The father had come into the hallway and yelled, “No allowance for a month if you don’t turn it down!”
The volume – music from three different genres from three different rooms, each turned up to drown out the others – went down a bit. George stared at the father for a while until the father knocked on each door. George heard, “Your allowance is docked for one week. Turn it down and keep it down or it’s gone for a month.”
Eventually, the hallway quieted to a low rumble.
George repeated the same steps Sunday. He also took phone calls and emails from shop owners across The Avenue. Each had a list of items pilfered from their places of business the day before.
Clara, from the flower and gift shop, was the last to call. George had a special affinity for Clara. She had the same devil-may-care attitude as he, but she also had insight into the human soul. She realized his frustration. She came to the Inn and walked him through Henrie’s solution to that kind of problem. She called it “that Henrie thing.”
George also had to spend quality time with JoJo. The demons were rude at the breakfast buffet. They were sloppy, greedy and ungrateful. JoJo took it personally. Well, she was young. George did what he could to prop her up.
He realized the water had gone cold. How long had he been standing here? He jumped out of the shower, looking at the clock as he dried off. It was nearly five thirty. So much for that run on the beach. It would have to wait.
The problem was that Annie had planned a vacation without speaking to Henrie. Actually, it was Annie’s friend, Chris, who put a deposit on a hard-to-rent cabin. When Henrie mentioned his desire to go to Africa, Chris was unable to change the dates. Annie and Henrie decided that certainly, they could find someone to cover.
They found their sucker in George.
Never again.