A Familiar Tail (29 page)

“Hi, Kenisha,” I said.

“Hi, Anna.” She nodded to me, but her expression remained closed. This was going to be strictly business.

“I guess you must be Anna Britton.” Pete shook my hand too. “Detective Pete Simmons.”

So, not the famous lieutenant, then, which was something. I couldn't tell, though, if Detective Simmons was any improvement. Kenisha's face was as set and still as stone.

“Nice to meet you.”

Pete Simmons was a rumpled fireplug of a man with broad hands and a round, red face. His sandy hair had started to thin. His blue sports jacket strained around the shoulders and his checked shirt had seen better days.

“Well, I guess it's like I told you on the phone, Frank.” Detective Simmons stuck his hands in his pockets and jingled his keys. “We're asking some questions about Brad. Just making sure about things. If you want to do this later . . .”

“No. It's not going to be any better later.” He glanced at me. “Should Anna go?”

The sharp glance the detective gave me was at odds with his awkward act from a moment before. “Actually, we've got a few questions for Miss Britton as well. So, if you
wouldn't mind staying . . . ? This shouldn't take long.” He pulled out a notebook and flipped through it.

While Frank cleared a stack of books and papers off the other leather armchair for Detective Simmons, I pulled a chair out from under the dining nook table and sat. Colonel Kitty immediately jumped up on my lap and rubbed against my shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” I muttered, and scratched the cat's ears.

“You and cats,” Kenisha came over and rubbed Kitty's back. But then her whole tone changed. “What have you been
doing
?” she breathed.

I swallowed and stared at her. Kenisha frowned back at me, scared and angry. This could not be about the tuna casserole. She must have found out about my visit to Maitland and Associates, which meant the rest of the coven knew about that too.

Before I could muster a reply, Kenisha took up a post at Detective Simmons's shoulder. A shiver ran up my spine and I hugged Colonel Kitty closer.

“So, Frank, I understand you and Brad had been arguing lately?” Simmons was saying.

“That's right,” said Frank.

“What about?”

“I rented Aunt Dot's house to Anna.” He nodded toward me. “Brad had been angling to get hold of the property, and he was pretty upset about it.”

Detective Simmons made a note. I watched Kenisha, hoping for some kind of sign, but she was busy looking around the apartment, at the books, at the map, at Frank, at anything and everything except me.

That shiver was back, and it was spreading.

“From what I hear, the real estate market's been pretty brisk lately,” said Simmons. “You wouldn't think one house would mean that much.”

Frank shook his head. “Brad and Ellis have both been
after the house since Aunt Dot died. I've never been able to figure out why.”

“Huh.” Pete flipped a few pages. “Now, Miss Britton, according to Officer Freeman, you and Brad were seen arguing in Raja Rani recently. You want to tell me what that was about?”

Of course the police would be interested in Brad's movements over the past few days. How was I going to steer them toward looking for the other person—the one who maybe helped Brad and his car into the river—without implicating Frank? I couldn't exactly tell Simmons about my Vibes and visions.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Kenisha cut me off.

“Better tell him about the break-in, Anna.”

“Break-in?” said Simmons.

I might not be picking up any Vibes, but I suddenly had a very bad feeling about this conversation.

It turned out Pete Simmons was an extremely patient man. He listened while I told the whole story about following Alistair into Dorothy's house, about looking around for the cat and finding both the cat and Brad Thompson. Simmons didn't interrupt, not once. He didn't even ask any questions until I'd finished.

“But Brad was gone before Frank got there?”

“Yes.”

“What made you stop by that day in particular, Frank?”

Frank shrugged. “Nothing, really. It had been a while and I wanted to check on the place. There'd been a break-in before.”

“Sure, sure, sure. I remember that.” Pete made another note. “And Brad said he was looking for something?”

“It wasn't the first time he'd been in there, either.” I told Simmons about our conversation/argument in Raja Rani. “He seemed to think the computer had been stolen because somebody else had been looking for these ‘copies.'” I paused and looked at Kenisha again. She wasn't looking at me. She
was staring out the window. “I think I know what the copies were of,” I said slowly.

Pete arched his eyebrows. “Oh?”

I told them about how I'd gone down to Brad's office the morning he died and about what happened afterward. If, as I suspected, they already knew, it would be better for everybody if I just came clean, myself included. I also I told them about my little talk with Ellis Maitland. Detective Simmons remained entirely calm, taking notes with professional speed. Kenisha kept her gaze on the window and the chestnut tree outside.

“And this was all before you knew Brad was dead?” Pete asked. “You're sure?”

“Yes. I'm sure.”

“What was it took you down there in the first place?”

Warning bells sounded in the back of my mind. This was going no place good. Especially since I could not tell Detective Simmons the truth; at least, not the whole truth.

“I was trying to figure out why Brad was so interested in the house that he tried to break in,” I said. “Since he was only worried about copies, I thought he must know where the originals were. I thought if he had them, he might have decided to hide them in plain sight somewhere.”

“In plain sight?” Detective Simmons flipped a page. “Under the name Dorothy Gale?”

Everybody was looking at me, Kenisha and Colonel Kitty included. “Yes.”

“Where'd you get that name?”

“I guessed it,” I said, but that sounded hollow even to me. “Dorothy Hawthorne was a fan of
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“That's some guess.” Simmons tapped his pencil against his page. “So, Miss Britton, after having a public argument with Brad Thompson, you go his office. You don't know him well, you don't know he's dead, but you're interested enough that you give a false name to get a hold of some
documents that don't belong to you, and that you had not at that point told the police about. Then what?”

There are moments when you feel the world crack apart and reassemble around you. This was one of them. My vision spun and whatever I'd meant to say dried up in my throat.

“I was just looking for some kind of connection between Brad and Dorothy,” I croaked finally. “That's all.”

“What kind of connection?”

“I . . . I don't know. But I figured there must be something. Brad was so interested in the house.”

“Sure, sure, sure,” said Pete again. He was looking at Frank, at the map, at me. “The thing is, it's pretty common knowledge that Dorothy and the Maitlands did not get along. I'd really hate to find out that feud was getting ugly.” He got to his feet.

“What you mean, Pete,” said Frank, “is you'd hate to find out I'd put Anna up to something.”

He shrugged. “I think Miss Britton here is capable of getting up to all kinds of things on her own. Ellis also told us that her grandmother and Dorothy were still in touch, isn't that right, Miss Britton?”

Oh. No.

Oh, no, no, no.

“Well . . . I . . . yes, I did tell him that, I think.”

Pete's smile was patient. “So it sure looks like this whole thing is moving along family lines, doesn't it?” Detective Simmons read over his last page one more time before putting the notebook into one pocket and the pencil into the other. He got up and strolled across to the map with its pushpins. “Working up an article about the real estate market, Frank?”

“Maybe,” answered Frank carefully. “It's big news these days. Recovering local economy and so on.”

“Well, good luck with that.” He was looking around again. “I think I got everything I need. Miss Britton, I might
want to talk to you about one or two more things. You'll be in town?”

“Um, yes.” I had the sudden feeling I'd better be.

Detective Simmons fished out a card and handed it to me. “If you've got anything else you want to say, you can call me at this number. You too, Frank.”

“So, you're treating Brad's death as suspicious?”

Detective Simmons smiled. It was a very engaging smile. Probably it put a lot of people at ease. “Now, you know the lieutenant would have my head if I said anything to a reporter.”

“Off the record, Pete. Brad was a friend. I was out looking for him half the night.”

“Yeah, Sean and Sean McNally said you looked pretty upset too.” I felt a lump form somewhere in the pit of my stomach. I should have been relieved. Because if Sean and his dad were speaking up for Frank, it meant he had an alibi, right? Right?

The detective was jingling his keys again. “Off the record, Frank, I think Brad knew something he couldn't live with anymore.” He turned, but he turned the long way around, so his gaze swept across the entire apartment, me included.

Kenisha didn't look back as she followed him out the door. I could feel her worry and anger beating against my skin as Frank closed the door.

“I thought you said your grandmother hadn't talked to anybody in town for years,” he said.

“She hasn't.” I'd thought I was being so smart. How had I failed to see how this would look to the police? Because I hadn't thought about it. I'd never thought Ellis would actually tell the police about what had happened. But then, I hadn't known Brad was dead either. “I lied to Ellis when I was in his office to try to get him to talk. I didn't think he'd tell anybody about it.”

“Uh-oh,” said Frank.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Uh-oh.”

39

I DIDN'T DO
much over the next few days. Nobody did. It was like Brad's death had drained all the initiative out of us. I rattled around Dorothy's house. I read her journals. I tried to work. I tried to pick out some furniture and rugs for the house, but I couldn't even focus on shopping on the Internet. I pulled what I recognized as weeds from the garden and dug grass up from between the flagstones. Alistair prowled the house with me and slept curled up on my pillow. Martine came over every day. So did Val. None of us saw Kenisha. Julia said she was focused on the case.

I wished I could focus on anything else.

I didn't go to the funeral. Maybe that was cowardly. What I told myself was that I was staying out of the way. Considering Colin's attitude about anybody associated with Dorothy, I didn't want to risk setting off a public argument. At least that was what I told myself. The truth is, I didn't want to risk running into Pete Simmons at the funeral and having to answer any more of his questions.

Yes, okay, I was hiding. I admit it. But hearing the official
police version of my little attempt at amateur investigation had seriously shaken my confidence.

I did write Laurie a letter, and send flowers. I called Nadia to let her know what had happened. She was sympathetic. She said Laurie should call her when she was ready.

I also spent a lot of time at Frank's apartment going through Dorothy's personal records. Like he'd said, Frank had kept them, and after our disturbing interview with Pete Simmons, he was more than willing to bring the boxes out of storage and pile them in his already crowded living room.

“What is it you're really hoping for?” Frank asked as we cut through the packing tape on yet another cardboard box.

I still hadn't figured out how to tell Frank about Elizabeth's blackmail accusations, so I went with Plan B. “Online accounts.”

“Sorry?”

I pulled out a stack of manila folders. I was truly beginning to hate that shade of beige. “I've been thinking about documents and copies.” Thinking about them, talking about them, making myself a little crazy about them while wondering what Ellis Maitland was telling the police about them. Kenisha had pretty much stopped talking to me. “I thought, Who keeps paper around anymore?” Frank held up his handful of papers and eyed me. “I mean paper that isn't absolutely necessary,” I said. “Maybe Dorothy made computer copies of whatever it was she got hold of with Brad and put them up in an online storage space. That way, it wouldn't matter who got hold of her computer or got into her house.”

Frank nodded. “Not a bad idea. I mean, she did have a UrSpace account, but I've been in it, and there was nothing . . . serious. Photos, some music and videos, that kind of thing. Nothing worth . . .”

Killing over.
Neither one of us said it, but I'm sure he thought it as quickly as I did.

•   •   •

DOROTHY, AS IT
turned out, believed in keeping the regulation seven years' worth of receipts, bills and checks, which made an astounding amount of paper. Frank and I sorted and stacked and read, and reread and shuffled, working side by side, mostly in silence. Colonel Kitty helped by jumping in and out of the boxes and chasing papers across the floor. We all ate tuna noodle casserole until it was gone, and then we sent out for Chinese. I couldn't face an order of Indian food.

There were no signs of any sudden infusions of income, and no bank accounts or bills that Frank didn't recognize. Not even anything convenient like a receipt for a safe-deposit box or a wall safe. Julia came over once and helped us sort checks, scanning them for the name Dorothy Gale or any other alias. Val came over with sandwiches and helped sort phone bills, looking for calls to the Maitlands or the Thompsons.

At long last, we got to the bottom of the last box. Colonel Kitty jumped into it to make sure all was clear.

I sat back on my heels and looked up at Frank.

“Nothing here,” he said bitterly.

“Nothing,” I agreed. “What do we do now? We know there is still something that could incriminate the murderer out there.”

“Unless that something was Brad,” said Frank quietly. “In which case . . .”

“No,” I snapped. “I don't accept that. There is something and we will find it.”

Frank folded his arms and stared out at the chestnut tree. The leaves rustled in the summer breeze, filling the apartment with a sound like the ocean. “
If
there's something, it must be back at the house,” he said. “It's been about that house from beginning to end.”

I stared at the boxes, deep frustration burning in my brain. In the time since Brad had died, I'd been over the house with a fine-toothed comb, and so had the rest of
Dorothy's coven. Julia had turned the dachshunds loose in it, much to Alistair's annoyance, but they'd come up empty. Val and Didi had helped me go through the Books of Shadow yet again, and still nothing.

I was about to tell Frank all this, but in the depths of my purse, my phone rang. I pulled it out and checked the number. It was Martine.

“Martine!” I said as I walked over by the open window. Kitty followed and jumped up on the sill. “What's up?”

“Colin Thompson's come in to work.”

“You're kidding.”

“I know you're still trying to find out about Brad and Dorothy. So, if you come on over, I can maybe help you . . .”

“I'll be right there.” I hung up and turned to Frank. “I've got to go.”

“Anything I can help with?”

“Not yet. I'll call you later, okay?”

He did not like this, but he just sighed. “Okay. And thanks again.”

I left him there, but it wasn't easy.

•   •   •

THE PALE ALE'S
kitchen was in full swing when Martine walked me in. The restaurant shut down between three p.m. and five-thirty so they could switch over from lunch to dinner. Chefs hollered and chopped, line cooks hollered and sautéed, waitstaff came and went and hollered. The only people who weren't hollering were the dishwashers, and I wasn't sure about them, because I couldn't really hear them over the sounds of the spray and the clattering pans.

“Chef on deck!” hollered somebody.

“Thompson!” bellowed Martine.

“Yes, Chef!” Colin turned away from the soup pot he'd been stirring. I hadn't been able to tell him apart from the other white-coated young men, despite the fact that he was
wearing a blue bandanna over his hair instead of the omnipresent baseball caps.

He saw me standing next to his boss, and he went white. Then he went red. For a minute I thought he was going to run.

“Alvarez, take over. Thompson, with me.”

“Yes, Chef!” they both said. Colin fell into step behind us. I could feel the resentment rising off him in waves as he followed us into Martine's cramped office. She closed the door and motioned us to chairs. I sat. Colin didn't. He just folded his arms.

“Am I in trouble, Chef?”

“Not that I know of.” Martine sat down behind a desk piled high with folders, papers and multicolored invoices. Here was the glamorous life of the executive chef in a nutshell. “However, it would be a favor to me if you would answer some questions for Miss Britton.”

No one can sneer like a teenage boy, and Colin turned his up to eleven. “Oh, yes, Chef. I'd be delighted to help out Miss Britton. Yahsureyoubetcha. It's not like I've spent the past week talking nonstop to the police or anything.” Now he did drop into the chair, kicking out his ankles as far as he could. Not that there was a lot of room. “Maybe she wants to hear about the TV crews camped out on my mother's lawn, or how we've had to unplug the phone because it won't stop ringing because the media ghouls want to know what drove my father . . .” His voice broke and he didn't finish the sentence. “Maybe she wants to hear how I had to take away my little sister's laptop so she wouldn't see all the crud on HeyLook and Pointr, or how my mother hasn't stopped crying for three days and how the insurance a . . . jerks are saying they're not going to pay out on Dad's policy because it might have been suicide and we're still inside some kind of time window on the stupid crap policy and . . . !”

“I know it's a nightmare, Colin . . . ,” I began.

“You don't know jack!” he shouted. Martine leaned forward.

“Tone it down, Thompson.”

“Oh, yes, Chef. That I will, Chef.”

I swallowed and tried again. “You said the other day, you thought Dorothy was responsible for your dad's problems.”

“Oh, look!” drawled Colin. “Somebody else here to defend the sacred memory of Dorothy Hawthorne. What a surprise!”

“No. If she was . . . if there was something wrong, you might be the only person who knows, and I want to hear about it.”

“Why? It's all too effing late. What could you do?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “And I won't know until I hear what you've got to say.”

Colin's narrowed eyes shifted from me to Martine. He yanked off his bandanna and ran his hand through his long hair. He looked like what he was, a high school kid who already knew too much about adult life, but hadn't known until now how much worse it could get.

Then he lifted his head and the anger slid right back into place.

“You want to know what Dorothy was doing? She was effing hounding my dad. She was always calling him, at home, at work, everywhere. He kept going over to her house and sitting with her for hours.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw them,” he said. “Mom had found out Dad wasn't in the office a couple of nights when he said he was. I was worried. I thought maybe . . .” He shook his head. “Doesn't matter. I was worried and I followed him and I saw him go into her house. They were locked in there a couple hours before he finally came out and went home.”

“Did you tell the police this?”

“Did you think about minding your own business?” he shot back.

“I wish I could,” I said. “But your dad was involved in some kind of real estate fraud,” I told him, and I hated myself for doing it. “So was Dorothy Hawthorne. And you knew it.”

Colin climbed to his feet, both hands clenched in white-knuckled fists at his sides. “You watch your mouth, lady.”

“Thompson,” said Martine quietly. “Back it down. Your mom doesn't need any more trouble right now.”

Colin dropped back into the chair and slumped backward. It was an attitude of total defeat.

“We don't know he was committing the fraud, Colin,” said Martine. “He might have been trying to expose it.”

Colin's head snapped around.
“What?”

“It's possible,” I agreed. “But if we're going to prove it, I need you to tell me about these meetings with Dorothy.”

“I . . . I . . .” He was shaking; his face had gone dead white. “I don't know anything,” he whispered.

“Colin . . . ,” I began.

“I don't know anything!” he shouted, and dug both hands into his hair, like he was trying to literally hold himself together. “I only thought . . . I . . .” A tear ran down his cheek, ignored, and dripped off his jawline. “I'm outta here,” he muttered and got to his feet.

“Colin . . . ,” began Martine, but Colin had already slammed out the door and bellowed something into the chaos of the kitchen. I sat back in my chair. I watched my friend circle her desk and consider calling him back, but she stopped. Grim and silent, she returned to her crowded desk. There hadn't been a lot of times I'd seen Martine look diminished, but this was one of them.

“That could have gone better,” she said.

“Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked her. “He didn't know anything?”

“I think he's a smart kid who has been helping take care
of his family for a long time now. He probably picked up on way more than anybody wanted him to, but not quite enough to figure out the truth.”