Cat of the Century (25 page)

W
hat should I do?” Harry asked her husband and Inez.

“Write a thank-you, and leave it at that.” Inez raised her gray eyebrows.

None of them could go back to sleep, except Pewter. It was now 4:30
A
.
M
. on Tuesday, April 14. The sleet had started up again, almost like a fine, sharp drizzle.

“And don’t go into the shop,” Inez advised. “She’s not very stable and might lose it again.”

“Right.” Harry took a deep drink from her teacup. “I guess she was ashamed to see me. It sure is weird to drive out to someone’s house in the middle of the night and leave a present.”

“People on drugs are weird. Bet it didn’t seem weird to her.” Fair figured at this point Terri was off her nut.

“Maybe I should tell Liz. She’s a friend.”

“That will just keep the ball rolling,” Fair said.

“Well, I talked to her yesterday. Maybe she told Terri to apologize.”

“Harry, why did you do that?” Fair leaned toward his wife.

“Well,” Harry held her cup in both hands. “Liz knows Terri well. I thought she might know why Terri’s acting so strange.”

“What did she say?” Inez figured it was too late to chide Harry for calling.

“Just that Terri’s the emotional sort and she recently broke up with
her boyfriend. Anyway, she’s worried about money. There’s a lot of stuff sitting in the shop. Guess I set her off by not buying one of those hens.”

“Honey, you’re not obligated to buy anything.”

“I know.”

Fair leaned back in his chair. “For all we know, Liz is on drugs, too. It’s like a forbidden club. Druggies protect one another.”

Harry thought about that. “Liz was drunk at the William Woods party for Aunt Tally.”

Inez pursed her lips. “No, she’s stable. The only time I saw her tipsy was at Tally’s do. I think she’s okay.”

Fair, knowing his wife well, asked, “Harry, who else did you speak to about Terri’s behavior?”

Harry took a deep breath. “Garvey. He’s right next door. I asked if unlikely customers came in to the store. Like young men.”

“And?” Inez leaned forward.

“He said there had been a steady trickle of customers who he was surprised would be interested in imported French dinnerware. I didn’t see the harm in it,” she added defensively.

“Garvey can talk,” Fair groaned.

“All right, I gossiped, but in the name of gathering information.”

The corner of Inez’s lip curled upward in a half smile. “Harry, you can put your nose in other people’s business.”

“I know, I know. Look, it was a big scene, but by telling Garvey and Liz, I really was trying to find out if Terri is using or dealing. Best to steer clear of those people, especially if they won’t go for help.”

“Let’s talk about something else besides Terri Kincaid. None of us is going back to sleep.” Fair was getting irritated.

Little did Fair know that, within two hours, Terri Kincaid would be all anyone was talking about.

G
arvey Watson kept it slow as he drove through the reluctant dawn to his store at six-thirty. At times, a swirl of fog surrounded him. The fine sleet had turned into a light, steady rain. Usually he took the back road from his house, which had been in the Watson family since before the War Between the States. The Watsons had been free blacks since the early 1700s. The dirt road that went past the farm looped around, and he could connect where Routes 240 and 250 converged. However, there were a lot of spots on that road that could fool you. Waters ran swiftly over it if the creek rose. Even when the creek subsided and the waters were calm, if one was foolish enough to drive through, the waters would be halfway up the car door before you knew it.

He peered over his steering wheel, keeping his lights low. All high beams did was bounce off the fog. As the rain commenced again, the windshield wipers stepped up tempo. Garvey loved cars, but he wasn’t so much in love with driving by computer. He’d just bought a new Jaguar XFR, the first one to make the dealer’s lot in Richmond. The 510-horsepower engine thrilled him, while the complicated touch-screen display drove him nuts. The wood and leather in the interior screamed Great Britain, and clearly that was where Garvey’s taste rested, as evidenced by the high-quality merchandise carried at his store. He even included the classic Fred Perry shirts, not the Ralph Lauren Polo shirts derived from them. He also carried authentic
cricket sweaters. Sold like hotcakes. Allied to his good taste was that he knew his market, plus he had received an excellent education at Howard University.

While trying to see ahead, he thought he saw a large animal lying in the middle of the road, not twenty yards away. He slowed. The speedometer held steady at 30 mph. To go faster in this kind of weather was a death wish. He blinked. Again. The large animal was a human being. He slammed on the brakes, and shot out of that gorgeous machine. As he bent over the supine figure of a young woman, he realized it was Terri Kincaid.

“Oh, no, please, God, no.” He checked for the pulse on her wrist.

None. He held his fingers to her carotid artery.

Nothing.

Then he noticed a trickle of blood on the road by her head. There wasn’t a lot, as the increasing rain continued to wash it away.

All he could think to say was “Dear God, into Thy hands I commend this spirit.”

He put his face in his hands and cried, then snapped out of it. Now dripping wet but hardly aware of it, he returned to his car to dial 911.

It wasn’t until after he spoke to the dispatcher that he realized this was the same spot where Ralston Peavey had been found.

Cooper, on the early-morning shift, hit the scene first. After ascertaining that Terri was dead, she put up flares and kept the lights flashing on her squad car.

She listened to everything Garvey told her. She put on thin latex gloves, turning Terri’s head just enough to see the entrance wound of a bullet. Slight powder burns circled the wound. Since Terri had lain with the wound side on the asphalt, the rain hadn’t washed away the powder burn. Looked like a .38 caliber to Cooper. The exit wound—surprisingly not messy—was above the right ear. Terri’s hair had fallen over the wound, and a small piece of skull had exited with the bullet. Using her flashlight, Cooper searched for the bullet but realized that
this would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Locating it would take a team in better weather than this.

She returned to Garvey, who rolled down his window—all electric, of course.

“Garvey, go home. Get dry. You’re shaking like a leaf.” She patted his back. “Want me to call Walter and tell him you’re taking the day off?”

Walter was Walter Thompson, his business partner.

“I don’t know if I should. I’ll think about this more at home than at the store.”

“Well, up to you, but do go change your clothes. Traffic will be one lane here for a good hour and a half. You’re sure you don’t want me to call Walter?”

“I’ll do it. Thanks, Coop. She was a good woman. A little out there but good. Why?” He looked imploringly into Cooper’s strong face.

“I don’t know. All I know is, people have been killing one another since year one. But we’ll do our best to find out who did it.”

“Right.” He nodded, closed the window, turned the car around, and headed for home.

At 7:45
A
.
M
., Inez heard the news on the small radio in the heated tack room. She was cleaning the everyday tack, for she liked to be useful and her fingers remained nimble.

Forgetting to put on her coat, she hurried into the center aisle, Erno at her heels. She heard Harry in the last stall by the back doors.

“Harry, Harry, Terri Kincaid’s dead!”

Harry stopped, pitchfork still in her hand. “What?”

“Shot. Her body was found near the same place where Ralston Peavey’s was. Those are the only details, except that the murderer is at large.”

“Damn.” Harry slammed the tines of her fork into the deep wood shavings.

“I’m going to call Tally.”

Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, who were up in the loft with Simon, heard Inez.

“Tucker,”
Mrs. Murphy called down to the dog, who rested outside the stall Harry was cleaning.
“Hear that?”

“Of course I did.”
The corgi walked to beneath where the two cats looked down at her.

“It means the killer is here. Here!”
Mrs. Murphy, cat intuition at the max, declared with certainty.

Pewter, unwilling to let Mrs. Murphy be the authority, said,
“I always said that. I said the killer would show up here.”

She had said no such thing.

In their excitement and worry, Mrs. Murphy and Tucker let it pass.

“It’s no coincidence that Terri is dead.”
Mrs. Murphy’s whiskers swept forward and back.

“She wasn’t on the board.”
Pewter didn’t disagree but wanted to point this out, as if the other two would have forgotten.
“And Harry graduated from Smith. She is safe.”

“Fat chance,”
Tucker replied with a vengeance.
“Inez is here. Harry is Harry. She needs to be watched.”

Erno’s pupils enlarged.
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to harm Mom.”

Mrs. Murphy mused sadly,
“If only humans would listen.”

Pewter laughed derisively.
“None of them does. They can’t accept information from any species other than their own, and they don’t even listen to one another.”

“Harry’s good.”
Tucker always defended her mother.

“She’s the best of a bad bunch.”
Pewter arched one silky eyebrow.

“You’re being a hardboot,”
Tucker grumbled but then shut up.

She knew, as did Mrs. Murphy, that Pewter covered up her fear for Harry in this fashion. There was no doubt that the three would need to shadow her, as well as get Erno to stick with Inez nonstop.

“Tucker, if someone comes around with a hidden gun, do you think you can smell the oil in the barrel?”
Mrs. Murphy asked.

Gun owners cleaned their rifles and handguns with special brushes dipped in light oil. They also wiped down the weapons with rags that often contained a hint of oil. Even a human could smell the distinctive odor if their nose was near the metal.

“Sure.”

“Good.”

Erno had gone to the office and now sat alertly by the chair as Inez spoke to Tally.

“Where Ralston Peavey lay.” Aunt Tally was incredulous.

“Shot instead of run over. This is sick.”

“You think a copycat murderer?” Aunt Tally thought it was sick, too.

“I don’t know, but it’s a distinct possibility. Look, Blossom, you have resources. Hire a twenty-four-hour guard until this is resolved.”

“Oh, come on. I have Doodles, and Little Mim and Blair are close by.”

“That’s not good enough. Just do it. If you don’t, I’m coming over there and I’m going to bust your provoking head.” This was said with humor.

“Since you put it that way …” Aunt Tally needed an excuse. She didn’t want to look chicken.

“I’m going to call Liz Filmore. Doubt this is in the news in Richmond. Henrico County endures far more murders than Albemarle.”

“Okay, call me back when you’re done.”

“Actually, Erno and I will be visiting you. I want to make sure you’ve hired some kind of security.”

“Oh, all right.” Aunt Tally made it sound as though she was being forced into this, but she did want to see Inez.

After signing off, Inez dialed Liz’s cell and got her driving to the office.

“Liz, I have terrible news. You might want to pull over.”

“Hold on. I’m almost at the office.” Liz pulled onto the road shoulder. “All right.”

“Terri Kincaid has been found shot dead, lying in the middle of the road, near where Ralston Peavey was found, although I don’t know if that name means much to you.”

“Oh, no, no.”

“No murderer has been found, and my worry is that any evidence like tire tracks will all be washed away in this rain.”

“This is awful. I bet it was that worthless boyfriend. She said he tried to get a little rough with her. I’ll kill him myself!”

“Liz, give me his name, anything you know about him. I’ll pass it on.”

“Better yet, have the officer in charge call me. I can tell him or her a lot, a whole lot.”

“Good idea. You’ll tell Tim, of course.”

“He’ll be devastated. He liked Terri. This is awful, just so awful. Are you all right?”

“I am, but there’s been so much death in a short compass of time.”

“Yes, there has, Inez, yes, there has.”