The Investigators, Inc. The Stray Cat Mystery. Chapter 2. Callison.

Jennifer had just arrived and told us about a grave in the basement, however, she was invisible when she came in so only we could hear her, the man and his wife could not. That’s when I called Director Michaud from the city police department and told him what we found and asked that he come in person for this one since it was a larger case than it looks. He arrived with his forensic team, an ambulance and the fire department. Not sure why the latter, but I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. There was new cement over the grave area which had to be broken up before the digging could begin.

“These people are suspects for the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Featherstonehaugh,” I told the Director, “plus the kidnapping of their 23 year old daughter, the theft of their property and vehicle, plus all of their personal effects.” “You will have to cease investigating this case now,” he replied, “it’s a police investigation as of this moment.” “You may have it,” I said, “but we are actually investigating the disappearance and kidnapping of the daughter and were hired to do so.

Although the two cases may be connected, we were first on the case of the kidnapping and she is a friend of someone on our team, so we would like to stay on that case. We will, of course, keep you informed of our progress and I am thinking this investigation will possibly take us to another country anyway.” “Oh, okay, that will be fine,” he said, “how do you know the daughter was kidnapped and is not the murderer?” “We received an anonymous call from a young male,” I said, “he told us the daughter was observed being taken out to a car, obviously against her will considering how she was fighting the men.”

“Did he see how many men?” he asked. “Yes, there were three of them,” I replied, “and it happened 10 days ago. They stopped at a restaurant in our village for breakfast. One of the regular men at the restaurant left and looked into their car and saw a young woman asleep in the back seat. The windows were very dark so he couldn’t see much, except she had long, dark hair, which would fit the woman we are looking for. The waitress also overheard the one man phone a Mr. Wemyss saying “it’s done and we will be back by 17:00″.”

“What make of car was it and license number?” he asked. “The car was an Audi Q8, either brown or dark red,” I told him. Another officer was writing down the details and Sky looked at his notes. “You spelled Featherstonehaugh wrong,” she said. “How else would you spell Fanshaw?” he asked. So she spelled it to him and he stared at her, then looked at me. “She’s right, it’s a Scottish name,” I said. And then she told him how to spell Wemyss. He stared at her again and shook his head. “Must be the cold climate in Scotland,” he said and Sky giggled.

“Unfortunately he never thought to look at the license number,” I told the Director, “but perhaps this couple can help you out.” Misty had relayed all her information to me through Kristina who is with her this time instead of Kitty. Unfortunately the couple we had met earlier were not talking at all to the police, so I imagine they might be spending some time in jail until they find their voices again. I hope so anyway, we don’t want to lose them. “Do you know the name of the daughter?” the Director asked me. “Um, I’m terrible at remembering names,” I said.

“It’s Callison, Steve,” said Jennifer as she returned from the basement, “Steve is terrible at remembering names, even of his own team sometimes.” The Director laughed a bit at that one. He had given us permission to go through some boxes containing personal effects of the family, hoping to find a photo of Callison, plus get some clothes from her. We especially want some recently worn clothes to make it easier for our cats to pick up her scent, when we get closer to where she might be.

While going through the boxes Jennifer found a photo of the Featherstonehaugh family and Kitty found one under the mattress of the daughter’s bedroom with a message written on it. Kitty is excellent at forging handwriting, as are a couple of our other girls, and she wrote the names of the family members on the back of the photo that Jennifer found in Callison’s handwriting. I didn’t know about the photo Kitty found, so I took a picture of the other one so we would have a photo of Callison. Oh well, now we have two.

They did find the parents buried in that shallow grave in the basement. That led to murder charges for the couple living in the house, plus numerous other charges. As the police took them outside to their car we heard two shots and the couple fell dead. There was a sniper on the roof across the street, someone must have alerted Wemyss to the danger to his friends here and he ordered them killed. Perhaps someone else living nearby is working for Wemyss too. I mentioned this to the Director and he said they would be looking into that possibility right away.

Meanwhile, Sky and her Bad Girls ran around behind the house to try and catch the sniper, but when they arrived they found him lying on the ground, dead. He had also been shot, but when the girls looked around the area they could find no one. This case is certainly starting off with a lot of action. I hope it doesn’t keep up that way.

One thing is for certain, Mr. Wemyss knows we are looking for Callison now and that could make things dangerous for her, unless he needs her alive for some reason. Hopefully that is the case. Either way, he is not going to like it when we catch up with him…

To Be Continued. ©2026 Steve McLeod.