Divas and Dead Rebels (27 page)

The phrase from an old movie, “Feet, don’t fail me now!” went through my head as I stepped toward the open French door. Truthfully, I couldn’t feel my feet. My entire body had gone numb with irrational fear. Nothing looked out of place in the house. No mess could be seen, no sign that someone may have been forcibly abducted. No sign of another presence, either. Yet I felt in imminent danger.

When I reached the open door, my heart hammering so loud it was all I could hear drumming in my ears, I looked out into the backyard. It was a shaded yard, with tall trees, lots of fading hostas, impatiens and other shade plants, a flagstone terrace, pots of colorful flowers, a wrought-iron patio set, and ornaments scattered across the lawn. Catherine seemed to favor concrete urns and cat statues and had several gazing balls of varying sizes at strategic intervals to reflect the garden.

Maybe I was imagining things, I told myself. After all, it was pretty spooky being in the house of a woman I barely knew. And it was so quiet. The house itself seemed to be holding its breath, as if waiting for Catherine to come home.

I started to turn back to say something to Bitty, and a movement caught my eye. It was in the garden; something had flashed in the biggest gazing ball up on an iron stand. For an instant, I thought it might be a bird or squirrel, but it had been too big, too—furtive.

Hairs along my arms stood straight up, and I had the sudden urge to find the nearest bathroom before I disgraced myself. This was ridiculous, I thought. No killer in their right mind would return to the scene of the crime. But then again, maybe that was a contradiction. People who kill other people aren’t in their right minds anyway. There has to be something inherently wrong with them to do such a thing. Maybe this killer was as twisted and evil as a Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. Maybe this killer was hiding in wait for his next victim . . .
me
.

Now that I had effectively scared myself into major trauma, I needed back-up. I beckoned Bitty closer. Being of sound mind at the moment, she shook her head. I glared at her.

“Of all times for you to get some common sense, does it have to be
now
?” I asked in an irate whisper.

“Now seems as good a time as any. What’s out there?” she whispered back.

“I don’t know. There’s safety in numbers, though. You can stay here by yourself and hope no one comes up behind you, or you can go with me to see if there’s anyone in the backyard who shouldn’t be.”

Bitty glanced around with an uneasy expression on her face. She had a death grip on her purse, and I hoped her pistol’s safety latch was engaged. Otherwise, she was liable to shoot herself in the foot if she held her purse any more tightly.

“All right!” she snapped at me in a whisper loud enough to be heard in Tupelo, “but if someone tries to attack us, I’m shooting him.”

“Fair enough.”

Bitty tiptoed across the living and dining room to join me at the French doors. She got close enough to be in my shoes if I’d had room, but I didn’t protest. At least we presented a united front. And a bigger target, but I tried to ignore that unpleasant fact.

We took baby steps through the open French door until we reached the patio, and I stopped to look around. Bitty’s boobs immediately crashed into me, followed by the rest of her, and I stumbled forward.

“You should have signaled that you’re stopping,” Bitty whispered before I could complain. “So I wouldn’t have run into you.”

“Next time I’ll flash my brake lights,” I snapped back at her. My nerves were just about shot. It didn’t help that I was positive someone had just run around the corner of the house toward the front. It was a fleeting impression, a glimpse from my peripheral vision, a wisp of motion now gone. Before I could share this info with Bitty, another movement caught my attention. The branches of a tall nandina bush to the right side of the yard shuddered with movement that wasn’t caused by the wind.

Bitty grabbed my elbow and dug her claws into me while she hissed, “Bushes at three o’clock!”

Good lord
. She was going James Bond on me again.

“I know,” I said more calmly than I felt. “Try not to look in that direction. Let’s just see what or who it is before we invite trouble.”

My idea was to amble around the backyard as if not noticing someone hiding in the bushes. Then, we could move slowly back to the house, and one of us watch from the window while the other went out the front door and around to get a good look at who was there.

That was my idea.

Bitty had another idea.

Before I could share my brilliance with her, she took a step back and brought up her purse. She didn’t even open the blamed thing when she fired. A loud shrieking sound emanated from my mouth, followed by me going into a prone position on the grass just in case she decided to aim her Gucci again.

“Would you look at that,” said Bitty in a disgusted tone, and when I finally got my eyes uncrossed, I saw our intruder.

It had bolted out of a pine tree and across the yard, a raccoon that weighed at least thirty pounds, fur bristled out and little monkey-paw feet scrabbling over grass and flower beds as it waddled toward a drainage ditch for safety.

“I swear, Trinket,” Bitty continued in an exasperated tone, “here you had me all thinking a serial killer was hiding in the garden, and it’s only a little ole ’coon.”

“Little?” I squeaked. “I’ve seen grizzlies that are smaller!”

“Now I have a hole in the bottom of my purse. And I could have shot that poor critter by mistake.”

“Only if it was sitting in the top of the tree,” I said as I got up off the ground and brushed dried grass and leaves from my clothes. “Did you think you were aiming for the giant in the beanstalk?”

Bitty put both hands on her hips, which made me a little nervous since she was still armed, and I wasn’t at all sure her purse was aimed away from me. “No, I hit exactly what I was aiming at. I shot that branch off the tree, just like I meant to do to scare the intruder out of hiding.”

“Good job. He hightailed it around the corner of the house.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But I think I saw someone running away just as we got out here.”

“Then my work here is done if he took off like a cat with its tail afire. I succeeded in my mission.” Bitty seemed very proud of herself.

I didn’t point out that since we’d scared him away, we didn’t know his identity. Or even if he was male or female. Instead I said, “Way to go, Dead-eye.” When she looked at me in confusion I clarified, “A marksman, Bitty. A sniper. A good shot.”

“Oh.” She looked very pleased. “Yes, I am.”

“And humble, too.”

“Of course.”

When I heard a door slam at the house on the other side of Catherine’s, I sighed. “Unless I’m very mistaken, the police will be here in about two or three minutes. If you want to be here to greet them, fine. I’d much prefer being a good ways away, myself.”

Sometimes Bitty isn’t nearly as obtuse as she pretends. She beat me to the car by a good three yard advantage, and we peeled out in the nick of time. A patrol car passed us going toward Catherine’s house, and I crossed my fingers and hoped fervently that no one had given them our description or identified Bitty’s car.

Chen Ling had gnawed a hole in her special car seat while we were gone, so that her right back leg kept poking through when I tried to fasten her into it. She snarled at me a time or two just to express her gratitude for my efforts, and Bitty was so rattled she didn’t even fuss at me for upsetting her dragon. I mean dog.

“Well, that was a waste of time,” Bitty said after a few minutes went by and no police car tried to ram us or run us off the road. “We don’t know any more than we did before we left home.”

“Sure we do.”

Bitty glanced at me in surprise. “We do?”

“Yup.”

“Well, what?”

“Raccoons aren’t always nocturnal animals.”

“Honestly, Trinket. I meant something about Catherine.”

“I know. Didn’t it feel to you like her house had been broken into? I don’t mean by the police, either.”

“I have no idea,” Bitty said rather crossly. “We never left the living area.”

“Yet, thinking back, I remember I caught a glimpse of her kitchen off the dining area. Food was out on the counter. A few dirty dishes.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s enough. Did she strike you as the kind of person who would leave food out to spoil and dishes cluttering the countertop? Me neither,” I said before she could answer. “I don’t think she or the police left the back door wide open, either. Someone has been in her house, and it wasn’t a raccoon.”

“I think—”

“And we have to consider that the front door was locked, which suggests that the house was entered from the rear since the key was in place. Or it could be that whoever went in already had a key but left in a hurry when we got there. That may be who took off around the corner when I stepped outside.”

“I think—”

“And we didn’t make it to the upstairs bedrooms or baths, either. I’m sure we’d find clues there that might indicate if there was a scuffle and she was abducted. Besides a bullet hole somewhere. I distinctly heard gunfire last night,” I said, mulling it over.

“I think—”

“I’m pretty sure it was gunfire. Catherine screamed, and she was convinced that Breck Hartford was downstairs and had broken in. If he broke in, that means he doesn’t have a key. But wait—did she say he broke in, or did she just say he was downstairs? I can’t quite remember.”

“I think—”

“You know, I don’t even remember if she actually said his name?” I said, and turned to look at Bitty. “Who else could it be, though? I mean, it’s not like she has a long list of enemies. Is it? What do we really know about Catherine Moore?”

“I think—”

“What?” I prompted when Bitty paused. “You think what?”

“Oh. I didn’t know we’d gone back to a discussion instead of a monologue.”

“Honestly, Bitty,” I said, “you say the strangest things. So what do you think? I know Catherine was terrified when I saw her, her hands shaking and her voice trembling. Is it possible she’s been kidnapped, or do you think maybe she’s unwell?”

“Probably the DTs,” said Bitty, and turned the big car into a driveway. I looked around. We were at a Sonic drive-in, of all places, and once the Mercedes nosed into a slot, she shut off the engine and turned to look at me. The smell of hot dogs, burgers and fries drifted out the door when a carhop skated out with a loaded tray and headed for the vehicle next to us. My nose twitched.

“Why would she have the DTs?” I asked, but my focus had changed from the main topic of the day to food, so I wasn’t really paying attention when Bitty made a snippy comment.

“Is it too early to eat lunch, I wonder?” I asked, eying the carhop’s loaded tray. “I bet they serve whatever you want at any time of day.”

While visions of fast food danced in my head, my cell phone rang. I had to stop my contemplation of the brightly colored menu lit up with delicious, cholesterol-laden food to answer it.

“Rayna,” I said when I finally got my phone open and to my ear. “What’d you find out?”

“I can’t believe you two are down in Oxford again,” said Rayna. “I’m getting stir-crazy staying in this office all day, so next time you go on one of these jaunts, take me. I need some excitement.”

“Do you like getting scared to death by a raccoon?” I asked. “Because that’s the most exciting thing that’s happened all day. Other than Bitty chipping her nail polish.”

Rayna laughed. Then she read me off Catherine’s vehicle information while I pawed through my purse looking for my little notebook and a pen.

“Got it,” I said at last. “Stay tuned for any police info on Catherine, okay? You have all those scanners and we don’t.”

When I hung up, I looked over at Bitty. “What were you saying earlier about Catherine? I missed some of it.”

“She can drink a two hundred pound man under the table without a blink,” said Bitty. “I’ve seen her do it a time or two. Of course, so can I if I put my mind to it, but I can stop when I want to and she can’t.”

Finally she had my full attention. “Really?”

“I can’t believe you didn’t notice. She’s been worse ever since her son died.”

“Oh.” I thought about that a moment, then said, “Poor thing. I can’t imagine losing a child.”

Bitty nodded. “Neither can I. And for him to commit suicide . . .”

“Are they sure about that? I mean, Catherine seemed so certain her son would never kill himself.”

“Wouldn’t you believe that, too? No one wants to believe their child would take his own life.”

“True.” I considered that for several moments, and of course, my daughter came to mind. If anything ever happened to her, I don’t think I could stand it. I’m sure every mother feels that way, but I think mothers with only one child feel especially protective. It must be very difficult for Catherine to bear.

That thought led to me asking, “Wasn’t there another recent death that was questionable? An Ole Miss student who died?”