Black Cat Crossing (8 page)

L
UKE GRIFFIN DIDN’T
wait for the deputy to speak. He looked from Rosales to me to the papers on the table in front of me. He slid from the booth and stood. “I’ll let you get back to your work, ma’am.”

I nodded to Griffin and looked at Rosales. I knew better than to start something with the deputy, but sometimes my mouth doesn’t listen to my better judgment. I pasted on a fake smile.

“You look lovely this morning, Deputy Rosales,” I said. “You must be off duty. I sure hope that means you’ve solved the Flowers case.”

“
This
is never off duty.” Rosales tapped her temple with an index finger. “We’re hot on the trail, so to speak, and I suspect you’ll be seeing me again real soon.”

With that, she took Griffin’s arm. The game warden looked about as happy as a guilty man picked out of a lineup, but he allowed her to lead him across the room and out the door. I stared after them for a few seconds, then jammed the cruller into my mouth and gulped down the rest of my latte.

Dang it. What did she mean about seeing me again soon? Whatever she was getting at, I didn’t look forward to that meeting. And what was with the possessive way she took hold of Griffin’s arm? Was there more to the relationship than her one-way infatuation with the man? Griffin sure had been quick to disconnect from me when Rosales showed up, almost as if he was afraid of her seeing him with another woman.

Whatever. Rosales was his problem for now. What I needed to focus on was figuring out who had killed Bobby Joe before Rosales came to her own conclusion.

I got a latte refill and pulled a red pen from my tote. I flipped my synopsis pages over to write on the blank side of the paper. If I looked at the situation the way I went about plotting a book, things might start to make sense.

I wrote “WHAT IF” in capital letters at the top of the page, then continued writing out my stream of consciousness. What if an unlikable cousin came to visit and someone killed him at the river behind your house? The cops naturally look at you because you have a motive, namely to keep your inheritance and not have to share it with the cousin.

I stopped writing and looked at the page. I had to admit that if I read the actual events that had transpired in a mystery novel, Aunt Rowe would look like the guilty party. But everyone knows that the character who looks guilty at the beginning of a whodunit never turns out to be the villain, right? Well, maybe not
never
, but certainly not in this true-to-life case.

So who else had a motive to be rid of Bobby Joe? Love is a well-known motive for murder. Maybe a jealous husband or boyfriend killed him. If I could learn the identity of the dark-haired woman Lacy had seen with Bobby Joe, she might lead me to a suspect.

Money was also a popular motive. According to Thomas, Bobby Joe usually came to Aunt Rowe for money. Recently, he’d bought drinks for the crowd at The Wild Pony Saloon. At least that was the word around town. No one was going to murder a man for spending money on them. I wondered where the money had come from. Bobby Joe could have Las Vegas winnings for all I knew. Back to the elusive dark-haired woman. She might know more about the source of his funds.

I straightened against the bench seat and tapped my foot to “I Will Survive” coming over the sound system. My thoughts drifted to what Amos had said about Bobby Joe and the pranks he pulled as a teenager. Revenge was also a powerful motive. Was it possible someone from high school held a big-time grudge against Bobby Joe and had waited this long to act on that grudge? Nah, that was weak. I was going with the theory that Bobby Joe’s recent actions led to his death.

But what if his recent actions had a connection to events from the past? I had already made one connection—Bobby Joe and Vicki Palmer had died in the same place. I drew a line across my page and beneath it wrote a new idea.

What if a man returns to his hometown and is killed in the same spot where his high-school sweetheart was killed thirty years ago? The sweetheart part being entirely fictional, of course, since no one had connected Bobby Joe to Vicki Palmer romantically. I could write a story using this plot, though, and the man should be the main character. That meant I couldn’t kill him off, but perhaps someone attempts to kill him and misses. Then—

For God’s sake, Sabrina,
this is real life, not some book you’re writing.

I threw my pen down and blew out a breath. I should trust the sheriff’s department to do a thorough investigation and nail the killer. I should mind my own business and work on my synopsis instead of running helter-skelter searching for clues. Instead, I flagged down Max and asked him who would know the most about events in Lavender thirty years ago.

He referred me to Twila Baxter at the antiques store. That was the second time I’d heard her name today, and I took that as a sign.

•   •   •

W
AGON
Wheel Antiques was located at the far end of Saltgrass Road in a 1900s two-story building with a wide front porch filled with collectibles from days gone by. I had never visited the store, though I had driven by dozens of times. I like antiques, but the ones I owned were in storage along with everything else from my house in Houston. I had no extra space in the Monte Carlo cottage for new, or should I say antique, purchases.

I pulled into a parking slot directly in front of the entrance and took a moment to survey the crowded porch. Old chairs, a red Texaco gasoline pump, crocks, and a large black pot that reminded me of the stereotypical witch’s cauldron sat near the front door. Vintage Americana signs were nailed to the white clapboard exterior advertising Grape-Nuts, Dutch Boy paints, Crisco, and Chesterfield cigarettes.

Looked like I was their first customer of the day, but the Open sign in the front window was lit, so I climbed out of my car and headed up the front steps.

The door opened with a screeching haunted-house-like noise. I stepped inside, my senses assaulted by a combination of mustiness and potpourri. A variety of chandeliers draped with crystal teardrops lit the area, albeit dimly.

A trio of wooden pumpkins sat on top of a glass display case next to a stuffed black cat that looked a little too real for my liking. Next to the cat, a covered glass dish held candy corn, popular around Halloween. It was May. At this point I guessed the fall decor might as well stay out for next October.

Beyond the entrance, a dining table with six chairs was set with two dinner places. Pewter candlesticks topped with hurricane globes held orange taper candles, lit as if dinner would be announced any second.

As my eyes adjusted to my surroundings, I noticed thick spiderwebs in the window frames and hanging from lamps. They looked like the fake webs used as Halloween decorations rather than the fine webs spun by real spiders.

“Hello?” I called out, hoping that Twila was here today. No one answered. The place was huge and had a cavernous feeling not unusual for an antiques store. Twila could be in another section and not hear me.

I followed a path to my left and wove through collections of horsehair sofas, armchairs, and occasional tables. I was startled when I came upon a short church pew with a skeleton seated there. A skeleton dressed in a black suit. Unlike the fake spiderwebs, these bones looked like the real thing.

Surely not.

I couldn’t seem to tear my gaze away from the pew and was thinking about leaving, when footsteps slipped up behind me.

“Hello, my dear.” The voice sounded creaky and very old, like a lot of stuff in this place.

I spun around to face a small woman with blue-tinted curly hair, eighty if she was a day. She wore a stark black dress buttoned up to the neck with a stand-up collar. Her skirt brushed the floor, not surprising as she had to be under five feet tall.

“Uh, hi,” I said. “Are you Twila?”

The woman smiled. “Of course, my dear. Welcome to our home.”

Home? I glanced around and wondered about the woo-woo vibe that slithered up my spine. I reminded myself that I’d come for information. Now that I was here, I needed to go ahead and talk with the woman.

I smiled at her. “I’m Sabrina Tate. You have a nice place here.”

“We do, don’t we?” Twila said. “Cornelius and I snapped up the property when Oberlin’s Drugstore went out of business. Shame, really. They’d been here since 1908, but my Connie always wanted an antique store, so here we are. This way, my dear. You’ve come to ask me questions. Let us find a nice place to sit.” She turned and walked down an aisle.

How the heck did she know why I’d come? I could just as well have intended to shop for one of these smelly old armchairs.

Suck it up, Sabrina. She’s simply an eccentric woman.

I followed Twila down the aisle that wound back around to the dining table with the lit candles. She sat in a chair at the opposite end from the place settings and indicated that I should join her.

The dining chair had a lumpy cushioned seat. I sat with one leg curled under me, trying to get comfortable, when I noticed a living room suite behind Twila. Ghosts occupied the sofa and chairs. Five of them. Merely sheets with black painted-on eyes draped over wire frames, I told myself, but that didn’t stop goose bumps from racing up my arms.

Twila followed my gaze and said, “Do you like my guests, dear?”

“They’re rather, uh, quiet,” I said.

Twila made a rasping noise that may have been giggling. “I forgot to turn on my music this morning. Excuse me for a moment.”

She rose and shuffled toward the front counter. A few minutes later organ music began playing. Eerie music. I felt like I’d landed in an episode of the old vampire soap opera,
Dark Shadows
.

Twila returned to the table, carrying a tray that held a teapot and two china cups and saucers, with a matching sugar and creamer set.

“Tea, Sabrina?” she asked.

I nodded, though I wasn’t too crazy about trying whatever she had in that pot. She filled each of our cups with the steaming drink and took her seat.

“Is your husband—” I didn’t want to say
dead
, though I had a feeling Cornelius was long gone.

“In limbo,” Twila said. “Over ten years now.”

What exactly did she mean by that? I wasn’t surprised when she went on to explain.

“You know, some souls are not given entry to heaven or hell. Poor Connie is in that state, and I need to figure out how to get him past this point before I die so that we can both go to heaven.”

I nodded with what I hoped was an understanding expression, though I guessed the whites of my eyes were showing in a big way.

“The souls of the dead revisit their homes, you know.” Twila poured cream into her cup and picked up a spoon.

She kept saying I knew things that I’d never even thought about and didn’t believe for a second. I curled my hands around my teacup to warm them.

“That’s very interesting.”

“Dear Connie showed up on Halloween eight years ago. It was dinnertime, and I’d fixed his favorite pot roast.”

Max may have been right when he’d named Twila as a person who knew the most about the goings-on in Lavender thirty years ago. But this woman was loony tunes, fixing dinner for a dead husband and believing that he had showed up years after his death. She might not know one thing about what happened in the real world over the past week.

No way was I going to ask if Connie ate some of the pot roast, so I said, “I’m sure you miss him very much.”

“I do, but I trust he will return. He didn’t come back the next Halloween or on any Halloween since then. Not yet. But he will, so I’ve decided to act like it’s Halloween every day to be ready when he comes.”

I stifled the urge to roll my eyes. “Good idea.”

Twila leaned forward and fixed her cloudy blue eyes on me. “I’m hopeful that you’ll be able to help us.”

A shiver crawled up my spine. “Me? How?”

“Well, you’re a witch, my dear, and now you’ve been reunited with your black cat. I believe it’s in your power to restore Connie’s soul.”

I
SLID MY CHAIR
back so fast it nearly toppled backward. “I am
not
a witch, and I don’t know what on earth would make you suggest such a thing.”

“Your name, for one,” Twila said.

“Ha-ha. That’s not a good reason.”

When I was in high school, kids had teased me at times about my name, given that there was a TV witch named Sabrina. I hadn’t expected the same joke from an eighty-year-old woman. I studied Twila’s face—she wasn’t kidding.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t tell a soul.”

One thing was for sure. I really should have reviewed the synopsis for my novel earlier, because whatever I wrote was liable to sound pretty boring after meeting this lady. I wasn’t sure how best to handle her.

“I’m sorry, Twila,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do to help you and your late husband.”

She smiled. “I understand this isn’t the best time. You’re troubled. Perhaps after the murder is solved your powers will be stronger. Then we can readdress this issue.”

Of course she knew about Bobby Joe. I was pretty sure everyone in Lavender knew. If only I could get her off this witch hang-up.

I leaned forward and was about to change the subject when a burst of male laughter startled me. I prayed the sound had nothing to do with the churchgoing skeleton I’d spotted when I came in. Thankfully, a live man, pudgy and fiftyish and wearing a denim short-sleeved shirt, walked out of the shadows toward us. He had a cell phone to his ear.

“We can have the settee you’re looking for by the middle of the week,” he said into the phone. “I located one up in Amarillo, and it’s in pretty good shape.”

After listening for a beat, he said, “Sounds like a plan. I’ll get back to you.”

He ended the call and turned to us with a smile.

“Mom, have you been sharing your tall tales about Dad with this young lady?” He looked at me. “Sorry if she bothered you. Some people are interested, most aren’t.”

He extended a hand. “I’m Ernie Baxter.”

He looked like a relatively normal and sane person. I accepted the handshake and introduced myself.

“I don’t mind listening to stories,” I said, “except for the part where your mother called me a witch.”

Ernie chuckled. “Your name’s Sabrina?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m not surprised she’d make that connection. Mom’s a big sitcom fan, always has been. Right, Mom?”

Twila played deaf and twirled her teacup on the saucer.

Ernie was probably accustomed to the silent treatment. He turned to me. “Now, Sabrina, are you looking for anything specific?”

“What?” It took me a second to catch his meaning. “Oh, I wasn’t shopping. I came to talk to your mother.”

Twila nodded. “About Bobby Joe Flowers and Vicki Palmer.”

My heart rate kicked up. How could she know I wanted to talk about Vicki?

Ernie said, “I knew Flowers back in the day. He was a few years behind me in school.”

I dragged my gaze away from Twila.

“Then you might be able to help,” I said to Ernie. “I’m trying to find out where Bobby Joe was staying while he was in town.”

The man shrugged. “I’ve been busy here at the store. I didn’t even know Bobby Joe was around till I heard about his death.”

I looked at Twila. “Amos Whittle said you told him a story about Bobby Joe being at The Wild Pony Saloon.”

Twila said, “I only repeated to Amos what I heard from my son.”

I ping-ponged back to Ernie.

He said, “That would have been my brother, Eddie.”

“Ernest is my eldest son,” Twila said, “by about six minutes.”

My brows scrunched together, but Ernie quickly cleared up my confusion.

“I’m an identical twin,” he explained. “The responsible one, the one who helps Mom run this place. Eddie’s the carefree twin, the one who sleeps past noon every day and doesn’t give a— You catch my drift.”

I nodded. “Got it.”

“We don’t favor each other as much as we used to as kids,” he said, “but you might recognize Eddie if you see him around town.”

Now that he mentioned it, there
was
something slightly familiar about Ernie. Maybe I had run across the brother somewhere.

“Eddie shoots pool at The Wild Pony most every night,” Ernie said. “If anyone knows what goes on at that bar, you can bet it’s my brother.”

“Where does he live?” I said.

“Here and there.” Ernie shrugged again. “I’d say wherever he can find a bed. We don’t see much of him. If I do, I can tell him to give you a shout.”

“I’d appreciate that.” I gave Ernie my cell number and he stored it in his phone’s memory. “If your brother saw Bobby Joe with a woman, I’d be interested in knowing who she is.”

“Sure thing,” Ernie said, then excused himself to get back to work.

After he walked away, Twila said, “Bobby Joe Flowers thought himself quite the ladies’ man as a teenager. Used to take girls out to his grandparents’ cottages by the river during the off-season.”

“Really?” The cottages had been quite a bit more rustic back then. Aunt Rowe had refurbished them about ten years ago. Teenagers probably didn’t care about the decor, though, only that the cottages provided a place for them to be alone.

“One of his girls was our neighbor at the time,” Twila said. “She’d climb out her bedroom window and take off with him.”

“Was it Vicki Palmer?” I wondered if my fictional brainstorming earlier had been on point.

“No,” Twila said. “Vicki was a sweet little thing, not the type to fall for Bobby Joe’s antics, though she might have been better off. Poor girl dated a boy who roughed her up.”

“Is that who killed her?” I had to ask, though if that were the case, the sheriff would have likely solved the crime.

“No, the boy moved away, but not till after he had terrorized Vicki on a regular basis. The sheriff finally ran him out of town.”

Now there was something I thought only happened in the movies. In films, though, the villain always came back to finish what he’d started.

I said, “How did the sheriff know this guy didn’t come back to hurt Vicki?”

“He was locked up when she died,” Twila said, “for assaulting another girl in his new hometown.”

I wondered about the odds of Vicki dating one bad boy, then being killed after he was out of the picture by a second bad boy. Maybe Vicki’s relatives could shed more light on what had happened back then.

“Do you know Vicki’s parents?” I said.

“Not well,” Twila said. “They moved away after Vicki died. Opened a produce stand just this side of Riverview.”

“Perhaps putting some distance between themselves and the tragedy has helped the family heal.”

“Didn’t help Vicki any,” Twila said. “She and my dear husband are both restless, waiting on someone with the right powers to bring them peace.”

Like these deceased people were comparing notes and reporting back to the living. Give me a break.

Twila looked at me, her eyebrows raised.

“Don’t start,” I warned her. “I am no witch, and I have no powers. I do have one more question for you, though, before I leave.” I grabbed my tote and stood.

“What is it, my dear?”

“You said my name was one reason you thought I’m a witch. Do you have another reason?”

“Of course,” Twila said. “You live very near the home place of Hildegard Vesta.”

“Who’s that?”

“Hildegard was a witch who came to Lavender in the sixties. I’m sure you’ve heard the legend. She and the bad luck cat lived on the banks of the Glidden River.”

I should have left it alone, but I’d come this far, and her mention of a bad luck cat bugged the heck out of me.

“Why would anyone claim her cat was bad luck?”

Twila clucked her tongue. “He was, and he still is. Back then, shortly after Hildegard and the cat moved in, torrential rains came. Much of the town flooded.”

“Everyone knows the hill country is prone to flash flooding when we have a downpour,” I said. “People truly blamed the flood on a cat?”

“The flood and many other strokes of bad luck,” she said, “even today.”

I sighed. “If there was such a thing as a cat that causes bad luck, which there is
not
, that same cat is
not
here today.”

“Of course he is, my dear.”

“What on earth makes you think so?”

“He’s sitting outside on your car as we speak, big as life.”

I told Twila good-bye and hightailed it out to my car.

Sure enough, there was a black cat sitting on the roof, but not some cat Twila knew from the sixties. It was Hitchcock. He had a familiar way of cocking his head when he looked at me. His tail swished across the metal roof.

I approached the car slowly and glanced around me to make sure we had no witnesses, other than Twila, who would end up accusing me of harboring the town’s legendary bad luck cat.

“Hitchcock, you have no idea what kind of rumors you’re starting by sitting out here in broad daylight,” I said.

The cat’s eyes slitted, and he meowed at me.

“Oh, you think this is funny?”

I inched closer to the car. Hitchcock sat near the driver’s side door, and we were nearly eye level to each other. “I sure wish you’d stayed at my place. You can’t trust everyone. Only me, you can trust me.”

I held out my hand, palm up, over the edge of the car roof. Hitchcock stood and stretched. He tentatively walked closer to my hand and bent his head to sniff at my fingers.

My phone blared the Pink Panther theme, my ringtone for Tyanne.

Hitchcock dove off the car roof. I ran around the car to look for him, but he’d already disappeared.

I sighed and answered the phone. “Hey, Tyanne.”

“Tomorrow’s the big meeting,” she said cheerfully. “Is your synopsis ready?”

I circled the car and stooped down to look underneath. No cat.

“Well?” Ty said. “Did you write the synopsis?”

“Kind of.”

“That’s not the answer I was hoping for,” she said. “I was going to offer you a critique.”

“I’m sure you and your red pen are raring to go,” I said.

“Aren’t we in a jolly mood this morning?”

“Sorry. I will welcome your critique. Honest.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“There’s this cat,” I said. “Well, actually, there
was
a cat right here in front of me, a minute ago, right before you called. Now he’s gone.”

“A stray cat?” she said.

“Yes.” I nibbled my lower lip. “Well, not exactly. Last night he was sitting on my windowsill and watching me write.”

“How sweet. And he came back to your cottage this morning?”

“No, he’s in town.”

“Are you writing at Hot Stuff?” she said.

“I was there earlier. I’ve come from a meeting with Twila Baxter. Got sidetracked from thinking about my book when she started talking about me saving her late husband’s soul.”

“Oh, my. How did you get mixed up with her? I mean, she’s a sweet lady, but as eccentric as the day is long.”

“You think?” I laughed. “She accused me of being a witch. Maybe ‘accused’ is the wrong word. She didn’t seem to think being a witch was a bad thing. By the way, have you ever heard of Hildegard Vesta?”

“No. Should I have?”

“She’s someone Twila mentioned. Forget I asked.”

“What’s all this about, Sabrina? Sounds like you’ve lost focus in a major way. Talking with Twila about saving souls. Chasing a cat. I’ve seen you avoid writing before, but this isn’t the time, not with the agent meeting tomorrow.”

“I hear you.” I walked to the edge of the antiques store and looked down the side yard for Hitchcock. He wasn’t there.

“I know you hear me, but you need to take action,” Ty said. “How soon can you have a copy of the synopsis to me?”

“Later today,” I said.

“What time later?” She paused. “Hey, what color is this cat you’re talking about?”

“Black. Why?”

“Thomas Cortez passed by the bookstore this morning. Early. As I was opening.”

“He didn’t come to buy books, did he?”

“Huh-uh. He said something about a bad luck cat sighting. Wanted to know if I’d seen a black cat this morning. I hadn’t. Sounded like someone called him to report it.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “What’s he going to do? It’s one cat. Black, gray, white, purple. A cat is a cat.”

“Hey, don’t get riled up with me. I agree with you.”

“It’s so aggravating that some people believe a black cat will cause bad luck. I feel like I need to do something.”

“If you figure out what can be done, let me know and I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Ty said. “You’d better hurry ’cause Thomas was on his way to Krane’s Hardware. Seems he and Wes Krane have a grand plan to set up traps and capture the cat they claim causes bad luck for the entire town.”