Catch as Cat Can (18 page)

I'll think of something to make her feel sorry,
he decided, padding along the darkened hallway.
Next time.

*

Sunny dragged herself
out of bed the next morning, winced at her tangled hair, washed her face and brushed her teeth, dressed, and headed down the stairs. Mike had breakfast ready. “I heard you go out with Will. Late night, huh?”

“We may finally have gotten some things straightened out with the case,” she said.

Mike nodded. “That's his job, though. What about yours?”

“Just the usual Friday rush for weekend bookings,” Sunny said. “I should be able to keep my eyes open.”

She finished eating, went to get her parka, and stopped, shaking her head. The coat still stunk of cigarette smoke from last night's visit to O'Dowd's. Sunny picked it up and brought it back to the kitchen. “Guess I'll have to hang this outside and let it air out.”

Mike waved at the air in front of his face. “Yeah. And maybe knock off smoking all those cheap cigars.”

Shadow appeared in the doorway. But, instead of making his usual beeline to his bowls, he ostentatiously circled around Sunny and the offending coat.

“I guess that makes it unanimous.” Sunny sighed and
took the parka outside, hanging it on a wrought-iron curlicue that came down from the light beside the kitchen door.

“I'll keep an eye on it,” Mike promised, “and occasionally use my nose to see if the fumes have dissipated.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Sunny got another coat and headed out to her Wrangler. She drove carefully in to work, arrived at the office with no problems, and settled into the daily routine.

But she found she couldn't keep still. She'd be working on e-mails, when suddenly she'd get a vision of Will walking up to an apartment door and a gun battle erupting. Sometimes there'd be uniformed cops with him, and she'd see someone she knew like Ben Semple fall to the ground bleeding. Other times it would be Val Overton. Worst of all, though, her mind's eye would see Will getting hit by a flying bullet, falling, and then lying motionless. She'd shake her head to bump that image away, but it kept coming back.

Sunny bent over her keyboard, trying to keep her thoughts on work alone, when the door abruptly swung open, making her jump. Will strode in.

“Is it over? Do you have him? Kilbane?” The words fairly burst from her lips.

But Will shook his head. “Ingersoll stuck his oar in, and he wants to dot every I and cross every T before we try to do anything.”

Captain Dan Ingersoll was the second in command in the Elmet County Sheriff's Department. As a newly elected sheriff, Lenore Nesbit depended heavily on him for proper police procedure—maybe a little too much in this case, Sunny suspected.

Ingersoll wasn't happy with the way Will tied up the last murder case,
she thought.
He's got Will pegged as
some sort of glory hound, after a high-profile arrest, whether it's justified or not.

Will must have been tuned into her mind, because he said, “The captain thinks we're reaching too far, that we don't really know who this Bear is.”

“We suspect we know who he is,” Sunny tried to argue, but she knew that wouldn't move an editor, much less a police captain.

“So I've tried to find out more,” Will said. “Your friend Jasmine has had a visitor in her apartment for the last couple of weeks, a guy with a motorcycle. He hasn't been seen since the ice storm, when he apparently had an accident. The Harley has been under wraps, and Jasmine has hit several pharmacies for medical supplies.”

Sunny frowned, trying to call up a memory. “Jasmine said something last night about Bear being banged up.”

“At least he wouldn't have road rash.” Will broke off when he saw the look of incomprehension on Sunny's face. “Usually when a motorcycle goes down while it's moving, the biker keeps on going and can scrape away a lot of skin on the pavement. On ice, the cyclist is usually more padded, and the ground is more slippery—that's why the bike goes down in the first place.”

Sunny waved that image aside. “So we know Bear was out the night that Charlie Vane died.”

“So were a lot of people who wound up in hospitals—and a couple in morgues.” Will pulled out a sheaf of papers from inside his coat and put them on Sunny's desk. “I managed to get copies of Kilbane's file from a friend in the state police.”

She laid them flat, examining the mug shot appearing on
the first page. The markings in the background showed that Yancey Kilbane stood several inches over six feet, and his shoulders were wide and husky. He had a surprisingly snub nose with shaggy brows and a shiny shaved scalp above and a big, bushy Fu Manchu mustache below.

“He doesn't look very bearlike to me,” Sunny said. “Except for his build.”

“From what I've been able to find out, he let his hair grow back and sprouted a full set of whiskers now,” Will explained. “Don't know if he did it for this job, but it certainly changed his look entirely.”

Sunny turned a page. “At least you have his fingerprints.”

“Yeah, but they won't help until we've got him in custody.” He blew out an exasperated breath. “The problem is that Ingersoll wants to hedge his bets. If Bear doesn't turn out to be Kilbane, we're only asking him to assist in our investigation. If he is Kilbane, we might be stepping into World War Three, and the captain wants more than a few patrol officers trying to bring him in.”

Sunny blinked. “So where does he figure on getting this extra help? From Val and the federal marshals?”

“Ingersoll wants the state police tactical team. Which means additional hoops to jump through.” Will shook his head. “And more delay. Now I'm hoping we can get this operation underway before the kids start coming home from school.” He reassembled the papers on Sunny's desk. “Wish me luck.”

“All of it in the world. And be careful, Will.”

He nodded and left.

Sunny couldn't eat lunch. She got on the state police
web site and saw pictures of the tactical team, feeding new and unpleasant daydreams. They looked professional as all get-out, in helmets and camouflage uniforms, assault rifles at the ready. One photo showed a guy poised with some sort of one-man battering ram beside a door. In Sunny's mind, however, things kept going wrong. The Yancey Kilbane whose blurry mug shot she'd seen kept appearing in the doorway, wearing what would have been a ridiculous wig and fake beard except for the big handgun he was aiming, making even bigger holes in any things or people who got in his way.

Finally, Sunny couldn't stand it anymore. She used her computer to get the live stream from the local all-news channel.

Might as well hear it as it happens,
she thought.

But there was no news. Oh, there were politics and sports, traffic and weather, and a feature on Seasonal Affective Disorder, but no reports of police activity in downtown Kittery Harbor.

The sky was beginning to darken when Will reappeared at the office door.

“Thank God!” Sunny jumped up from her desk and went to him. But the look on his face stopped her. “The tactical team moved in perfectly. They woke Jasmine out of a sound sleep and probably scared her into a lot more gray hair. But Yancey Kilbane wasn't there, and Jasmine doesn't know where her Bear could be. He was in bed when she came off her shift at O'Dowd's and went to sleep. But he and his stuff were gone. So was her car, by the way.”

He smacked a frustrated fist onto the top of a desk. “I couldn't keep the place under surveillance without tipping
off that we were interested. So while I was doing a lot of paperwork, Kilbane—or whoever—skipped.”

Will took a deep breath. “I apologize, Sunny, but there's no one else I can talk about this with—at least no one that I'd want to. I'm off to headquarters with the head of the tac team to give a report to Ingersoll and Lenore Nesbit.” He managed to summon up the ghost of a smile. “At least nothing else can go wrong today.”

As if on cue, his cell phone began ringing. Will took it out and brought it to his ear. “Price,” he said. “Hi, Val. I guess news about our foul-up must have traveled fast.” His expression changed as he listened. “What? When? Is there anything we can do? Yes. Yes, I can see that. Keep me posted.”

He clicked off his phone and looked at Sunny. “I know it's no fun listening to only one side of a conversation. Trust me, you wouldn't have enjoyed the whole thing. I was wrong. Things could get worse. Val Overton just told me that Neil Garret has disappeared from the motel where the marshals were keeping him under wraps. Apparently he got a text and a little while later was in the
wind.”

“Neil ran off?
Why would he do that?” It didn't make sense to Sunny. Neil hadn't been happy when Val told him he had to go. But he had to realize that with Yancey Kilbane out there, he wasn't safe. “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing much we can do. WitSec is a voluntary deal. People leave it all the time.” Will shook his head. “Of course, that decision doesn't help their life expectancy. And practically speaking, putting a BOLO out on Neil would just make him more conspicuous.”

“What does he think he's doing? Did he take his bag?”

“No, he left that. Used the old out-the-bathroom-window routine,” Will said.

“So he's got the clothes on his back and whatever money is in his pockets.” Sunny frowned in bafflement. “I know Neil didn't want to let his investment in the shop go. But
I don't think he can arrange a quick turnover sale late on a Friday.”

“Val said she was going to check out his house and the store,” Will said. “For the rest . . .” He shrugged. “This is one I'll happily pass along to the decision-makers in Levett.”

He gave Sunny a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. “I'll catch up with you later this evening. After all this stuff has been hashed out.” On that melancholy note, he left.

Sunny plunged back into the rush for last-minute reservations on quaint Maine bed-and-breakfasts. When she surfaced, it was time to close down the office. She drove home to find a welcoming committee by the door—Mike as well as Shadow.

“What's the matter, Dad?” She could tell Mike was worried—he couldn't stand still. And his mood had communicated itself to Shadow, who stayed so close underfoot, Sunny was in danger of tripping with every step she took.

“We don't want to sound like jittery old people, but—well, Helena gave me a call. She took a nap this afternoon, and when she got up, Abby was gone, and so was the car.”

“She could have gone shopping—getting something for supper,” Sunny suggested. The sky had been fully dark when she walked from her Wrangler to the house, but that was just Maine in winter. It wasn't even six o'clock yet.

“Maybe she's making a big fuss over nothing, but Abby's been gone—” He looked at his watch. “Almost an hour and a half. And usually she leaves a note.” Mike bit his lip. “I was wondering—maybe if you gave Will a call—”

Yeah, that would be just about the topper for his day. His third missing person, this one gone an hour and a half.
But she kept that thought to herself.

“I think it's a little, um, premature to go to the police quite yet. And I know Will is tied up right now.” She looked at her father's worried expression. “But I bet that Mrs. M. is pretty upset, too. What do you say we go over there and keep her company?”

She turned to get Mike's coat off the peg by the door and encountered a furry body just about wrapped around her ankle. Shadow's gold-flecked eyes met Sunny's in a full-on guilt stare, sending the message
You're not leaving me again, are you?

Sighing, she reached down and picked up the cat. “We'll all go. Maybe Shadow can distract Helena until Abby comes home.”

Soon, I hope,
she silently added.

They walked the few blocks to the Martinson place and rang the bell, eliciting some disconsolate woofs from the basement. Mrs. M. opened the door. “I put Toby downstairs in his crate. He was getting a little—let's call it high-strung. And what's worse, he was getting it from me. I hope you don't think I'm being a silly old woman, Sunny.”

Mike stepped forward and took Helena in his arms for a comforting hug. “Nobody's saying that.”

“Well, I'm certainly thinking it.” Helena Martinson stepped back to usher them into the house, finally noticing the additional member of the group. “Well, hello, Shadow. What brings you over here?”

“I've been running around a bit lately, and I didn't want Shadow to think I was ignoring him again.”

Helena brought her hand forward for Shadow to sniff. “It should be safe,” she said with a crooked smile. “I washed up after getting Toby settled.”

Shadow lay quietly in Sunny's arms while Mrs. M. gently stroked his fur. “Abby would probably say you're spoiling that cat, but I think it's all right.”

They moved into the living room, seating themselves on the couch. Sunny arranged Shadow in her lap so that Helena could keep petting. “It's better with company,” Mrs. M. said, relaxing a little. “Waiting alone, all sorts of things pop into your head.”

Sunny nodded, remembering her unpleasant daydreams about Will throughout the afternoon.

“It's just that Abby is more thoughtful about letting me know where she's going. At least she has been since coming home on this visit.”

And discovering that her mother is a bit older and, yeah, frailer than she remembers her being,
Sunny thought.
Been there, done that.

“I'm sure she just popped out to get something, and then—maybe she met a friend from the old days,” Sunny said.

Although most of the people our age left town to find careers somewhere else,
that annoying reporter who lived in the back of Sunny's brain commented.

“Or if not a school friend, there are plenty of parents around who might recognize her. Especially after that nice story Ken Howell put in the
Courier
.” Maybe Sunny was grasping at straws, but Helena Martinson nodded.

“Yes, we have a couple of people—parents of schoolmates—who commented on that. They said how nice it was to see her around town.”

Helena smiled, but anxiety crept back into her eyes. “Mike wanted to call you when I first told him that Abby
wasn't around, but I thought if I asked you for help, it should be face-to-face.” Her smile wobbled a little bit. “You have a friend on the police force.”

“And I'm afraid he's up to his neck right now.” Sunny tried to make her voice gentle. “He was expecting to make an arrest, and the person he's after got away.”

Her voice trailed off as she remembered the other missing person of the afternoon. “Helena, could we go upstairs and take a look at Abby's room?”

Mrs. M. stared at her. “Whatever for?”

“Well, she may—” Sunny fumbled for a reason. “She may have left a note for you there. Did you look?”

Hope appeared in the older woman's eyes. “I didn't think of that.” She led the way upstairs. “I know I often get distracted in the middle of something and leave it where it was instead of where I was going to put it.”

She opened the door to a room that looked pretty much unchanged since Abby's college days. A framed poster from the summer Shakespeare festival she'd worked on held pride of place over the bed.

Mrs. M. checked the small student's desk and the spread on the bed. Sunny edged open the closet to make sure Abby's travel bag was still in place. She spotted the wheeled carry-on immediately.

“Sunny?” She turned, silently cursing herself, to find Helena staring at her. “What are you doing?”

“I wanted to make sure Abby's things were still here,” Sunny said, trying to figure out the nicest way to put what she had to say. “Neil Garret has apparently taken off.”

“Is that who Will expected to arrest?” Mrs. M. asked.

“No, this is another thing altogether,” Sunny replied. “But you remember that Abby said she had . . . known Neil back in California.”

“This is the first time I'm hearing about this,” Mike said.

“There are reasons, Dad,” Sunny told him. She turned back to Helena. “Anyway, I remembered their friendship, and it struck me that maybe Abby would help him.”

And maybe their relationship was a lot more than Abby let on, and that Neil either called her here, or maybe she contacted him after spotting him in his shop. However you slice it, Abby might just be the girl a fugitive would turn to for help. Neil has no money. At least Abby has access to an ATM.

Sunny tried for a reassuring smile, but she wasn't sure she managed to get her face quite right as she led the way down the stairs. “Anyway, I've changed my mind. I think maybe it would be a good idea to give Will a call.”

She stopped in the middle of the flight when she realized someone was standing in the hallway downstairs. Neil Garret.

“What are you doing here?” Sunny burst out.

Mrs. M. looked over her shoulder. “Mr. Garret? I'm afraid Abby is out.”

“I know.” Sunny had never seen Neil Garret look more miserable. “And it's my fault. She's been taken, Mrs. Martinson. Taken by a man who wants to trade her for me.”

“Taken?” Helena said the word as if she couldn't quite grasp the meaning.

“The man who's after me, he got hold of a file. It told about my background, my associates, and it included a
picture of your daughter. Apparently there was a picture of her that appeared in the local newspaper, and this guy put two and two together . . .”

Neil gave his head a violent shake. “Abby didn't deserve to get mixed up in this. I'm going to get her out of it. I've got an hour to show up at Charlie Vane's boat. As soon as I get there, this man will let her go.”

“Can you trust him?” Mike said. “I think that sounds more like a job for the police.”

“If this guy sees police, Abby gets it.” Neil's voice was rough. “So I can't let you call your friend Will.”

“And how are you going to stop us?” Sunny asked.

Neil brought up the hand he'd kept hidden behind his leg to reveal a gleaming pistol. “Abby told me about her dad, how he was always hunting and fishing, about his fishing gear and his guns. This was in a nicely engraved box from the Kittery Harbor Sportsman's Club. I don't trust the word of the man who took Abby. This will be an equalizer.”

“Neil.” Sunny tried to keep her voice calm. “You told me you never touched a gun in your life.”

“Yeah, but I watched other people take care of them,” Neil replied. “I know which end the bullets come out of.”

He gestured with the pistol. “So let's all get on the same level here.”

Step by unwilling step, Sunny, her dad, and Mrs. M. joined Neil.

“Turn out your pockets.”

“What for?” Mike demanded.

“I want to get all your cell phones,” Neil explained. Once that was taken care of, he gestured toward the kitchen. “Now—into the basement.”

“What are you going to do down there?” Mrs. M. asked.

“I'm going to lock you in,” Neil replied. “It will just be for a little while. If everything goes right, Abby will be back here to let you out.”

And if it doesn't go right . . .
Sunny pushed that thought aside. It didn't pay to argue with a man holding a gun. He herded them down the basement stairs, standing over them with his pistol. When they were down in the cellar, he slammed the door shut. A second later they heard a click.

Mike charged up the stairs like a much younger man. He grabbed the shiny new lever he'd helped install and tried to twist it.

Of course, it didn't budge.

“Locked,” he said, pointing out the obvious. “I—”

“Shhhh.” Sunny had joined him at the top of the stairs, pressing one ear against the panel and holding her hand over the other ear, which was being assaulted by barks and whines from Toby. “The front door closed. He's gone.”

“We've got to get out of here!” Mrs. M. moved over to Toby's crate and let him out. The dog danced around them in a dithering run.

Pretty much the way I feel,
Sunny had to admit.

“There have to be tools here, something we can use to jimmy the door open.” Mike flicked the switch to turn on a dim bulb on the ceiling.

“Vince kept his workshop and his hunting stuff in the garage,” Mrs. Martinson said. “He redid it as a den.”

“Maybe one of us could squeeze out a window,” Sunny suggested. Mrs. M. was petite. If they could boost her up—

But Helena shook her head. “They've been seriously winterproofed. Nothing's getting in—or out.”

“We could get something to use as a battering ram,” Mike desperately suggested. “The three of us—”

“Wouldn't have much room on those stairs,” Sunny pointed out.

“There has to be something we can do.” Mike pounded a frustrated fist against the wooden panel.

“Wait a second.” Sunny listened carefully—she'd heard a noise outside. A sort of high-pitched mew. The sound of a curious cat.

“Shadow!” she called. “Are you there?”

The answer came as a scratch, Shadow's claws on the wooden door.

“Great, the furball is out there,” Mike grumped. “What are you going to do, slip a note under the door for him to take to the neighbors?”

“I'm hoping—praying—he can do something more useful.” Sunny took hold of the door lever and rattled it. “Hey, Shadow, you hear that? Come and get it!”

*

Shadow stared up
at the door, not sure what kind of a game this was. He'd been kind of annoyed when Sunny put him down on the floor and all the two-legs climbed the stairs, so he hadn't followed them. Instead he'd stayed in the room with chairs, wrinkling his nose. The whole place smelled of Biscuit Eater. At least the big yellow dog wasn't there to annoy him.

Then he heard other footsteps coming in. Maybe this was Good Petter. Shadow peered around the big chair and got a surprise. It was the Generous One, moving in that funny way the humans did when they thought they were being quiet.

Voices came from above, and then Sunny, the Old One, and the Old One's She were coming down the stairs. Obviously, they were surprised to see the Generous One, too. Shadow stayed where he was. He didn't like it when friends fought, and whatever the two-legs were saying, it wasn't friendly. Some of it sounded sad, some angry.

Then the humans began moving toward the room of food.