Black Cat Crossing (17 page)

D
EFENDING THE CAT
wouldn’t help, so I waited while Deputy Rosales finished saying her piece.

She snapped handcuffs on Thomas, then opened the car door and guided him into the backseat.

“We’ll get you out,” I called to him right before she closed the door.

When Rosales looked at me with narrowed eyes, I said, “You’re wrong about this, Deputy.”

“The man’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon,” she said. “From what I’m told, he would do anything for Rowena Flowers. I’d watch what I said next if I were you.”

Rosales got in her car and drove away. This was even worse than I had feared. She wasn’t finished with us. Did she think she could interrogate Thomas and pressure him until he confessed? I knew she would use anything he said, no matter how innocuous, as an excuse to go after Aunt Rowe, to claim that Aunt Rowe had asked Thomas to take care of the Bobby Joe problem. My heart hammered as the dust kicked up by the deputy’s car began to settle. If Rosales came back for my aunt, what would I do?

I turned toward the gurgling rush of the river, but found no calm from the soothing sound. Just as well, because it was time for action. I needed to start thinking straight. Aunt Rowe needed my support now more than ever. First, we’d find a lawyer for Thomas, then one for my aunt, no matter how much she protested.

I drove the golf cart, via the road this time, back to the house. Becky stood in the kitchen, wearing wrinkled pajamas and eating a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. Her eyes were so swollen I wondered how she’d found the fixings for her breakfast. Either spring allergies had hit her hard or she’d cried herself to sleep. I didn’t see her as the weepy type.

“What’s going on?” she said. “Rowe’s on the phone with a lawyer.”

Aunt Rowe had beat me to the number one task on my list.

“The sheriff’s department just made an arrest,” I said, “but they have the wrong person.”

Becky’s puffy eyelids flew up. “They got the guy who took Bobby Joe’s money?”

“I didn’t say that. I said they arrested the
wrong
person, Thomas, and he has nothing to do with Bobby Joe or his money.”

“How do you know? I’m gonna ask Rowe right now.” She turned and flounced out of the room, trailing bread crumbs as she took another bite of her sandwich.

The fact that she cared more about the money than her brother’s murder disgusted me. I looked at the ceiling and shook my head.

Glenda came in through the back door. “I hope you’re praying, ’cause we need all the help we can get.”

“I know. Poor Thomas.”

“Him, too, but I was talking about the flood in the Madrid cottage.”

I looked at her. “What flood?”

“I took fresh towels over and the floor was sopping wet. We have a bad leak under the bathroom sink. Had to shut off the water.”

“Where are the guests?”

Glenda shrugged. “Out to breakfast, maybe. I left a note for them. Got to take more towels. Used the first batch drying the floor.”

“Why do you look so calm?” I said. “We can’t leave the people with no water, and I don’t want Aunt Rowe dealing with any more stress.”

“You look like you’re about to stroke out yourself,” she said. “I called Thomas’s friend Wes to get a referral for a plumber.”

“Mr. Krane?”

She nodded. “He offered to bring parts and fix it himself. Better than waiting Lord knows how long for a plumber to show up, so I accepted.”

“Mr. Krane is coming here?”

“Said he’d be here in forty-five minutes.” Glenda’s brow creased. “Are you okay, hon?”

My head ached, but I nodded slowly.

In spite of my worry for Thomas and my aunt and the leak in the Madrid cottage, I needed to hide Hitchcock before Wes Krane arrived.

On the way back to my place, I rounded the Barcelona cottage and found Molly standing in the grass. She was playing with a yo-yo, or trying to, but spent more time rewinding the string.

“Did you find the kitty?” she said when she saw me.

I started to say no, because I certainly didn’t have time for this distraction, but the girl looked so hopeful.

And lonely.

And bored.

“I might be able to introduce you to the cat, if you promise not to tell anyone about him.”

“Why?”

“Because not everyone is friendly to cats like we are.”

She shook her head. “I won’t tell.”

“Let’s ask your dad if you can come with me for a little bit to see the Monte Carlo cottage. Is he here?”

“Yeah, he’s packing,” she said and disappeared inside.

Thirty seconds later she reappeared with her father, and he gave his permission for her to accompany me. Walking to my cottage, Molly skipped beside me, evidently cheered by the fact that she was going to see the cat.

I cautioned her to be quiet lest she frighten Hitchcock, but when I opened the door, he was taking a bath in a patch of sunlight near his food bowl and continued as if our intrusion was no big deal.

Molly knelt on the floor and waited for him to come to her, which he did without hesitation. He plopped down in front of the girl, and she started baby-talking to him and rubbing his belly. Not all cats are fond of belly rubs, and I watched closely to make sure he didn’t look annoyed. From what I could see, Hitchcock ate up the attention.

My phone rang, and I pulled it out. Aunt Rowe.

“Where are you?” she said.

“My place.”

“Glenda’s taking me into town to meet with the lawyer,” she said.

“I can do that. Do you need to leave now?”

“We already left,” Aunt Rowe said. “Thomas’s wife is meeting us there. We’re hoping to post a bond and get him out quickly.”

Thomas hadn’t been gone long enough to reach the jail, but that little fact wouldn’t slow down my aunt. I wasn’t surprised she had turned all aggressive-mama-bear when it came to Thomas. If I were in his shoes, she would do the same for me.

“How’d you get a meeting so fast?” I said.

“Pulled some strings,” she said.

I wished she had pulled strings earlier and convinced the sheriff to keep his finger on the pulse of this case instead of turning it over to Rosales. I didn’t think he would have made the rash decision to arrest Thomas.

I looked over my shoulder at Molly. She sat on the hearth, running the string from her yo-yo across the stone for Hitchcock to chase.

“I want to come and hear what the lawyer has to say,” I told Aunt Rowe, “and tell him about my suspect list.”

“There’ll be time for that later. I need you to meet Wes Krane at Madrid.”

I couldn’t think of a better option for handling the plumbing problem, so I agreed, and we hung up.

Molly trailed her string on the floor, then around her back, then up on the hearth. Hitchcock cooperated fully, jumping up and down, running to and fro, and pouncing on the string. I could hear his loud purr across the room and had to smile at the fun they were having.

I checked my watch. Twenty minutes until Krane’s arrival. I should wait by the Madrid cottage in case the guests returned before we had the problem fixed.

“Hey, look at this,” Molly said.

I turned and saw her kneeling on the left side of the wraparound hearth. She held a piece of stone about the size of a tennis ball in her hand.

What the heck?

“There’s a little hidey-hole back here,” she said. “The kitty kept pushing this stone with his paw. It was loose.”

I hurried over to them and saw Hitchcock had his paw stuck into the crevice where the small piece of stone had come out. Something was snagged on his claws.

I bent to look closer.

“It’s a necklace,” Molly said. “Cool.”

“Let me have a look.” I picked the cat up and unhooked a chain, more tarnished black than silver, from his paw. A small heart-shaped pendant hung from the chain.

I rubbed the heart with my thumb. “It’s engraved, but I can’t make out the initials. I’ll have to get some silver polish and clean it up.”

“This is like a movie,” Molly said. “Will you find the owner of the necklace?”

“I can try.” I unzipped one of the pockets on my cargo shorts and dropped the necklace inside. “Right now, though, I need to get you back. Your dad will be looking for you, and I have an appointment with a plumber.”

Molly pouted and gave Hitchcock one last hug. “Bye-bye kitty. Maybe I can come and visit you again.”

“I could e-mail you a picture,” I said, then realized I didn’t want any evidence on the Internet that Hitchcock existed. Which reminded me that I’d come here to hide the cat.

I walked Molly over to her place, then returned quickly to deal with Hitchcock.

“Sorry about this, boy, but I need to keep you out of sight.”

I didn’t think he could manage to get up on the high, narrow bathroom windowsill, so I put him, his bowl, and his litter box in there, where there was no way he’d be spotted, and closed the door.

When Wes Krane drove up to the Madrid cottage fifteen minutes later, I was there to meet him. He wore his usual frown along with navy work pants, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a Krane’s gimme cap.

“We sure appreciate your help with this, Mr. Krane,” I said.

He set his red toolbox down on the tile floor. I opened the sink cabinet doors where Glenda had left a bucket under the dripping pipes. I pulled it out of his way.

“Hell of a thing,” he muttered as he opened the toolbox and removed a wrench. “I’ll tell ya, arresting Thomas confirms Deputy Rosales is out of her freakin’ mind. She never was one of my favorite people.”

I wouldn’t have thought the perpetually grouchy man had
any
favorite people.

He grunted as he lowered his lanky frame to the floor and shifted his body until his head was under the drain trap, his shoulders crammed into the narrow door opening. He flicked on a flashlight to inspect the pipes, then maneuvered his arm to put the light down and pick up the wrench. He attached the wrench to the pipe and started cranking it.

“There’s only one consolation,” I said. “They can’t possibly convict Thomas simply because his fingerprints are on a shovel. He used that shovel in his work, for crying out loud.”

I didn’t want to think about other witnesses Rosales might have lined up. My own mother for one. This whole mess made me more and more angry. There was no good reason for Thomas to be going through this. An arrest? Making bail? Hiring a lawyer? I would tell that lawyer everything I knew first chance I got. I’d go talk to Frank Palmer today and decide whether or not to add him to my suspect list.

Inside the cabinet, Krane muttered something I couldn’t make out.

I stooped to look at him. “Sorry, what was that?”

“The other wrench, the smaller one.” He motioned with one hand toward his toolbox.

I found what he wanted and handed it to him.

“Mr. Krane, you’ve lived here a long time, haven’t you?”

“All my life,” he said.

“So you must have known Bobby Joe Flowers.”

He grunted with the effort of twisting the wrench inside the small confines and didn’t answer right away.

“Flowers? Yeah, he went to my high school. Small classes. Everybody knew everybody to an extent.” He slid out of the cabinet, holding a section of pipe, then dug around in his toolbox and came up with two new pieces. He compared them to the old piece and chose one. Slid back into the cabinet. Krane was in pretty good condition for a man his age, which I guessed at late fifties.

“What’s your take on who killed Bobby Joe?” I said.

“Don’t know who did it,” he said, “but it wasn’t Thomas.”

“What do you know about Claire Dubois?”

He lifted his head and peered out at me. “What about her?”

“Your daughter told me Claire and Bobby Joe were dating.”

“He could have dated a dozen women. So what?”

I got the impression Krane lacked the patience to listen to my theories about Claire. No good reason to tell him what I knew anyway. I paced from the bathroom to the back door and peered out to see if the guests had returned yet. No sign of them. The Hartmans were still here, though. Molly and her brother kicked a ball around in the grass near the Barcelona cottage. I went back to the bathroom.

“Mr. Krane, do you know Frank Palmer?”

He lifted his head again, accidentally clunking it on the side of the cabinet. “Aw, dammit. Look, you want me to get this fixed today?”

“Sorry. Yes, I do.”

I stooped again to see how the project was coming. It appeared that he had the new pipe in and was tightening it.

“Why are you asking about Frank?” he said. “I know him. He runs that tube rental place.”

“Right. You know, Frank’s sister died on the river, too, and I can’t shake the feeling these two deaths are somehow related.”

Krane put his wrench down, turned on his side, and slid free of the cabinet. “You got quite the imagination there. Guess that’s why you’re the book writer.” He threw his wrenches into the toolbox, then closed and locked the lid.

“I suppose the writing contributes to my wandering mind.”

“I’m going out to turn the water back on.” He opened the sink faucet. “Keep an eye on that pipe and holler if you see a drip.”

“Okay.”

I knelt in front of the cabinet, and he went outside. I heard some thunks and squeaking on the other side of the wall before water rushed from the faucet.

I watched the pipes and held my hands under them for a little while with no sign of a leak. When Mr. Krane didn’t return right away, I decided to turn the faucet off and closed the cabinet doors. I heard voices outside and assumed the guests had returned, so I went out to smooth things over with them. But the guests weren’t back. I walked around the cottage and saw Molly chatting away to Mr. Krane. She was holding the ball she and her brother had been playing with a few minutes before.

Mr. Krane actually looked like he was enjoying the conversation.

Good grief. I hoped she wasn’t telling him about the cat.

I hurried over to them. “Mr. Krane, could you take another look at that connection inside to be doubly sure there’s no leak? Molly, I heard your dad calling you to come back. Sure was nice having you and your family stay with us.”