Theda Krakow is in a funk. Her sometime boyfriend's gone for good. The death of her beloved cat opened a bigger void. And the career leap she's made from copy editor to freelance writer has left her financesand her spiritflat. She desperately needs a headline to get her life back on track. One day, out for a stroll in her Cambridge neighborhood, Theda spies an adorable stray kitten. This charmer leads Theda to an old woman holed up in a decrepit house full of cats. Is this one of those ''crazy cat ladies,'' a classic hoarder, or is the old woman a neighborhood do - gooder More important, is this the story to catapult Theda out of the dumps But when she returns to interview Lillian Helmhold, Theda finds her fascinating subject dead of an apparent accident. The neighbors are celebrating, the police aren't interested, and the cats are removed to a shelter. End of story Not for Theda - one or two things don't compute. So Theda marshals her investigative journalism skills to turn gumshoe.