The Year of the Cat

Due to COVID-19, Theodore 'Teddy' Roosevelt Webster and his partner, Alfred 'Stinky' Floyd, are about to lose their business, Pine Valley Outfitters. It seems a miracle when Ruben Benjamin Kaufman, president of On Site Films, offers Teddy a job. Somehow, Kaufman has obtained a rare permit to film in the Pine Valley Wilderness. Since no combustion vehicles are allowed, Teddy's job is to transport (by horse) film equipment, technicians, and actors onto the mountain and keep them supplied. Stinky (who loves garlic and smells of it) will be the camp host, babysitter, and trash cop. Unfortunately, trouble, like snow in the high country, comes early. Tony Pisano, Kaufman's scene scout, is found torn to shreds, apparently the work of Puma concolor—the great North American cougar! Death by cougar is confirmed when its DNA is found in morsels of deer meat embedded in Pisano's body. The head-scratcher: Why would a cougar, who'd just feasted on a deer, kill again? And so soon? Sadly, this is not the end of Teddy's troubles. When Katrina 'Kat' Kasey (the female star) wanders off, she also ends up on the medical examiner's table. The mystery deepens when the cougar's DNA is found to match the DNA of Teddy's (orphaned and rescued) 10-month-old cougar cubs. Caged in Teddy's backyard, waiting to be released into the wild, they have never been anywhere near the Pine Valley Wilderness. Clearly, something is not kosher here. How could DNA from Teddy's 'kittens' end up on the bodies of two corpses? And equally puzzling, why?