Meow is for Murder (17 page)

Read Meow is for Murder Online

Authors: Linda O. Johnston

BOOK: Meow is for Murder
3.01Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
I dressed and accompanied the pups on a short walk while Jeff showered. When I joined him for a quick breakfast of toast, jelly, and java, I attempted not to shout out my sudden remorse. Not that I had to. Jeff obviously sensed it.
“You didn’t have to hand me the phone, Kendra,” he said in a stilted voice. “Since you did, I had to talk to her.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I assented, my mouth conveniently full.
“Damn it, Kendra, you—”
“Sorry,” I said, swallowing my food. “Got to run. I’ll drop Lexie off at Darryl’s. Bye, Odin. Bye, Jeff.” I knelt and leashed Lexie, grabbed the coffee I’d conveniently poured into a portable plastic cup, then dashed out the door.
At least, since Jeff was a security expert, I could be sure he’d lock the door and set the alarm. But alarms were going off already in my head. I was really making a mess of this relationship. Or, rather, Jeff already had. Or—
“Hi, Kendra.”
No need to turn to see where the welcome distraction came from—especially since Beggar bounded up and began leaping around the delighted Lexie.
“Good morning, Rachel.”
My waiflike young tenant pranced up to us along the driveway with as much vigor as her adorable big pup, her open pink jacket almost flying behind her.
“You done good, kid.” I described the joys of attending the pet-sitters’ club last night without mentioning my doubts.
“Glad it worked out. Er, Kendra?” She suddenly stooped to start petting Lexie.
“Yes?” What was on her mind? Was she about to quit my part-time employ altogether? She certainly seemed uneasy. Those big brown eyes of hers had barely glanced into mine.
“How’s your murder investigation going?” she asked, still squatting on the ground. “I mean the one where the lady’s accused of killing her stalker. The one where you were mentioned in the paper.”
“Oh,
that
murder investigation. Well, I haven’t looked into it much, that miserable reporter notwithstanding.”
“Really? Oh, no!” Rachel rose fast, and those eyes of hers appeared aghast.
“Why do you care?” I queried, since she obviously did.
“Well . . .” Once again, she looked away, but this time only for an instant. “See, I’ve been bragging about knowing you at my initial readings for the new film. And . . . and . . .”
“What?” I encouraged, sure I’d be sorry.
Which I was.
“Well, I’ve bet a bunch of the others that the lady didn’t do it, and you’d find out who did, way before the cops.”
“Rachel, I’m not even a licensed investigator,” I admonished almost angrily.
“But your friend Jeff is, and you always work with him when you’re investigating, right?”
“That’s right,” said that very man, who’d snuck up behind me. “Good wager, kid. I’ll bet you’ll win.”
“Cut it out, you two,” I all but shouted, sprinting, with Lexie, for my car.
I grumbled the whole way to most of my pet-sitting clients that morning. Though I treated them all equally amicably, I was irritable enough to confront Meph’s owner, Maribelle Openheim, when I reached Stromboli’s and found the poor pup again—still—tethered alone and lonely in his backyard, but she wasn’t home.
I brought Lexie with me to my law office, needing the friendly company that day, and even managed amiable greetings to my cohorts at the Yurick office before slamming my door and sitting down at my desk.
I’d barely begun trying to settle down to my legal work when my cell phone sang. Ignoring Lexie’s baleful, fearful stare, I yanked the phone from the drawer and studied the caller ID.
I took a deep breath to conceal my miserable mood from the perceptive person at the other end.
“Good morning, Althea,” I managed to say cheerfully.
“What’s wrong, Kendra?” she responded. “No, wait, hold it a minute. I’ve got something that’ll make you feel better, whatever it is. Guess what I have for you on Leon Lucero.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE WOMAN WAS a whiz! But, of course, I’d learned that in multiple past interactions. “Got a pencil?” she asked.
“No, a pen.”
“Lord, you’re obviously a lawyer—so literal. Or should I say anal? Anyhow, take this down. Better yet, hold on a sec.” In a moment, she said, “Now, check your e-mail.”
Good old cyberspace. I immediately received Althea’s proffered lists. One contained Leon Lucero’s former employers. He might have been a painter and professional heart patient, but he’d also held jobs in retail, mostly as a manager in department stores. Another displayed names, dates, and court-case numbers for numerous TROs and even permanent restraining orders that other stalking victims had obtained against Leon all over Southern California, plus a few in Arizona. Althea had done her homework before, when Jeff assisted Amanda in hiring an attorney, and we already knew the guy was essentially a serial stalker. Now, I scrambled to absorb every chapter, verse, and potential villain—or vindicator, depending on how one looked at it.
“With all that wonderful info,” I said after I’d scanned it, “I don’t suppose you found some indication online that one or more of his victims happened to be in Amanda’s neighborhood the night Leon was offed? I mean, a parking ticket, use of a credit card in a nearby store, a murder confession in a blog . . . ?”
“What do you want, Kendra—for
me
to be the one to save Amanda’s butt? What would that do to your contract with the bitch?” If she learned you weren’t the one—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. She’d use that as yet another excuse to try to stay tied to Jeff’s hip.”
“And a nice hip it is, if I’m any judge,” she said suggestively. “Not that I’ve ever seen it except in his slacks. Care to deliver any details?”
“Hey, Althea, you’re his employee. Not to mention that—”
“I’m more than a decade older than him. That doesn’t mean I don’t notice such things. Wait until you’re my age.”
She had at least fifteen years on me. I shuddered. “I’ll do that. Wait, I mean . . .”
“It’s not so bad. In fact, you worry about a lot less stuff when you get older. Anyway, if there’s anything else you need from me that makes sense for an old computer hack to get—”
“That’s hack
er
.”
“Whatever.”
“One more thing,” I said. “Could you check whether any complaints of pet malpractice have been filed against a certain veterinarian?” I gave her the particulars on Dr. Thomas Venson. “Thanks,” I finished. “You’re a wonder, Althea.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” With that, she severed our connection.
I stared at a wall near my office door. There wasn’t much room above the multiple file cabinets comprising my sole decoration. But what if I started collecting genuine seascapes like Amanda . . . ?
Where was my mind? I moved my eyes back to the computer screen and printed the page.
Then I called Mitch. Amanda’s attorney had undoubtedly received the fruit of Althea’s prior Leon searches. Had he spoken with other attorneys who’d obtained TROs against the guy? If so, he hadn’t shared any tidbits to assist me in aiding his client. I called him.
“No,” he said, “I didn’t figure anyone would share something important to Amanda’s situation, thanks to attorney-client privilege with whoever they represented. Do you think one of them could have killed Leon and is now letting Amanda take the blame? Great job, Kendra.”
Good thing he’d have serious backup in any homicide case against Amanda.
I hadn’t exactly been fully focused on any of the other matters I’d attempted to do that day, such as delving even further into the Santa Barbara resort scandal for Borden’s clients the Shermans. Even Mae Sward’s Pom-neutering problems hadn’t stayed centered in my concentration.
So, without changing my current subject, I started calling suspects on Althea’s handy-dandy little list. Reaching voice mails, I left some vanilla messages about being an attorney researching an unspecified case.
The first genuine person I reached lived in Oxnard, nearly all the way west of the San Fernando Valley to Ventura. Her name was Betty Faust, and she unsurprisingly surmised immediately what case I happened to be researching. In fact, she seemed to know my name—courtesy of Corina Carey, I was certain.
“You’re calling about that horrible Leon Lucero, aren’t you?” Betty said so hoarsely that I could hardly hear her. “I wondered if anyone would remember what he did to me.”
With my monster of a mood that day, I had a sudden urge to get out of Dodge . . . er, Encino. “Betty, would you mind much if I came to see you? I could be there in about . . .” I checked my watch. “An hour, if traffic is on my side.”
“It never is, coming this way,” she said with a sigh, “but that would be fine.”
 
BETTY’S ADDRESS ACTUALLY led me to an exclusive community called Channel Islands Harbor, where small homes along a man-made waterway to the Pacific abutted boat-laden docks.
I made it there, as I’d aspired to, in a little over an hour—even with the detour I took to take Lexie to Darryl’s. Betty was waiting apparently not far from the entry. When I rang the bell I heard a scuffling, and then the wooden door swung open. “Ms. Ballantyne?”
“Yes—Kendra. Ms. Faust?”
“Betty. Come in.”
After my assessment of Amanda’s physical prettiness—notwithstanding her pitiful personality—I’d assumed Leon stalked lookers. Not necessarily. Betty Faust was short, with a thick neck and squat build. Her black hair was beautiful, though—thick, wavy, and long enough to reach her waist in the back.
Maybe Leon had a hair fetish. Or maybe, since he’d painted seaside scenes, he also stalked ladies who lived near the ocean.
Passing a central stairway in the hall, Betty led me into a very blue living room. Not that it rendered me morose, but everything seemed nautical and picked up the shade of the sea.
She motioned me to a vivid blue settee, and I sat.
“Are you trying to help that poor lady who finally had enough and killed Leon?” Betty dove in sans preamble.
“I’m looking for facts that will help in the defense of Amanda Hubbard,” I corrected as a lawyer should. “I’m not her attorney, but I haven’t seen any indication of evidence that would prove her guilty.”
“I see.” Betty ran her fingers through the part of her hair that had slid over the side of her face. Her skin was an olive tone, her cheeks prominent. The more I stared at her, the more attractive her appearance seemed. Beautiful? Maybe not, but absolutely arresting. “Well, if she did it, I applaud her.” Which she did, and the staccato of her clapping reverberated through the small room. “If not her, I still congratulate whoever did it. The man was a menace. He hurt people.” She paused. “He hurt me.”
Her pale brown eyes suddenly studied the blue rug beneath the chair facing mine that she had taken.
“Tell me about it,” I encouraged.
That was all it took to get her to spout out a horrendous story of how she’d met him at a friend’s birthday soiree. She’d learned later that Leon had been a crasher, but he’d acted so sweet and romantic that she’d provided him with her phone number. “And then he’d call all the time,” she said with a shiver. “Somehow, though I never told him where I lived, he found out and showed up nearly every night. I lost two jobs because of him, since he kept coming into the gift shops where I worked and followed me around.”
“But you got a temporary restraining order against him?” I prompted.
“As if those ever help. I read in the paper about how your client Amanda got one, too, and how Leon ignored it.”
“Unfortunately,” I acknowledged, recalling all too well how he’d confronted me at Amanda’s house. “When did Leon stop stalking you? I assume he ultimately did, right?”
“Yeah, when I started seeing Betty,” boomed a deep voice from the doorway. Startled, I turned that way. The man who stood there filled the space, an Incredible Hulk look-alike except for the sweetly human face. The guy, dressed in jeans and a dirty workshirt, was huge, and Leon would have been a wimpy shrimp in comparison. “I told the jerk hands off. He listened.”
“I bet he would,” I said. Only, had he honestly? Betty’s guy clearly could have taken on Leon in any kind of physical contest. If Leon hadn’t listened, who’s to say that Mr. Muscles wouldn’t have decided to do something final about it?
As if he knew exactly what I was surmising, the guy said, “I’m glad the creep’s dead, too, like Betty. And if it helps, I’ll give you a check toward the cost of that poor lady’s legal defense. I’m Coprik, by the way. I own Coprik Marine—sell lots of boats and equipment at the harbor. Fix stuff myself, too.”
That I believed.
“Kendra Ballantyne,” I said, introducing myself. “I’m—”
“A lawyer. Yeah. Betty told me you were coming, which is why I’m here. I wanted to be sure you didn’t try to pin anything on either of us. Sure, neither of us is sorry the jerk’s gone, but we didn’t do it. Hear?”
I heard, and after only a little further discussion I soon took my leave.

Other books

Joyland by Emily Schultz
The Reluctant Alpha by A.K. Michaels
Lady Midnight by Timothy C. Phillips
Bookmaker, The by Fraser, Chris
Questing Sucks! Book II by Kevin Weinberg
Flavors by Emily Sue Harvey
Unrequited (Chosen #3) by Alisa Mullen