The Death of Perry Many Paws (30 page)

When Cam called a couple hours later I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to lose my train of thought trying to explain to him why I was angry. I don’t know much about post-Civil War New Orleans so I struggled with using the Internet to look up historical dates as well as social history of the time period. That was starting to slow me down so I began just putting x’s and highlighting them in places where research was needed so I didn’t stop my flow. Later I would go back and fill in the facts.

I was starting to get lightheaded and realized I was starving. It had to be past noon and I was going to crash soon if I didn’t make some soup or something. I had just jotted down some ideas of where I wanted to go next when I heard the front door open. Had Cam forgotten to “lock me in” when he left this morning? That was odd. Even when we were fighting he always locked the door when he left the house. It was his way of saying, “Yeah, I’m mad at you but I don’t want someone to come in an attack you while I’m gone.”

I silently got up, grabbed the fireplace poker and inched toward the bookcase that opened up to the staircase between the library and our bedroom. I motioned to Mycroft to follow me but he just stared. I didn’t want to leave him in the library alone but wasn’t sure how to get him into the passage if he didn’t walk on his own four feet. Plus I had to have the poker ready in case we were attacked.

“Come Mycroft,” I whispered. “We’re going to play hide and seek. Come on boy …”

The library door flew open and I screamed. Mycroft jumped to his feet and waddled to the door. “Hey boy. At least someone is here to greet me when I come home from work,” Cam crooned as he knelt down to scratch Mycroft’s ears. Then he looked up at me, poised by
the passage door with the poker raised over my head. “I guess this means you’re still mad …”

“You scared me to death. What are you doing home at this time of day?”

“What do you mean, ‘this time of day’? It’s six o’clock. It’s the same time I come home every day. Remember, dinner, watch the news, read the paper, talk about what we did all day …”

“It can’t be six o’clock. That’s impossible,” I countered, lowering the poker.

“Why is it impossible?”

“Cause I haven’t even had my lunch yet.”

“Ah, you must have been writing,” he nodded as he stood up and gave Mycroft one last pat. “You always lose track of time when you’re writing. Finally got Perry and his friends on the hot air balloon?”

I put the poker back in the stand by the fireplace and went over to my computer to press the save button. “No, I’m working on something different, something that I’ve had brewing in my head since the night of the break-in and the appearance of the handkerchief.”

“Why don’t you get to a good stopping place in your writing and I’ll make omelets for dinner. If we eat in fifteen minutes will that work?”

“Sure, I can tie up my thoughts by then.”

Cam gave me a wave and headed to the kitchen. It wasn’t exactly an apology on either of our parts but he had offered to make dinner and I hadn’t refused to eat it with him so we were raising the white flags, or at least handkerchiefs, calling for a truce.

The omelet was delicious. Everything Cam cooks tastes so much better than my unenthusiastic attempts in the kitchen. His parents had had a full-time housekeeper when he was growing up and he learned to cook from her. I wish she was still living here. I could really use her help.

“What ever happened to Mrs. Knapp? I’d like to thank her for teaching you to cook.”

“She’s retired now. She lives at Bugg Hill …”

“The same retirement village where Diane’s parents live.”

Cam nodded, poking at the last of the egg on his plate.

“I hope she likes macaroni and cheese.” That got a laugh out of him and we smiled at each other. I was starting to hate him less. He reached across the table and grabbed my hand.

“I know you were hurt when I laughed at you last night. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings but it was hard for me to picture you sitting in Syra and Bing’s kitchen sincerely thinking she was trying to poison you …”

“And that she had killed Bing …”

“That was even more difficult to imagine. Those two are devoted to each other. Now if Syra thought you were trying to kill Bing I wouldn’t be surprised if she poisoned you. That would be totally different. I don’t think that man will ever suffer any physical or mental stress as long as Syra is around. She’s like the poster girl for the protective older sibling.”

“Not something that either of us ever experienced. Graham would have sold me to the gypsies in a second if he knew where to find any that wanted me …”

“Cassandra didn’t even know I was alive. At least you were able to annoy Graham enough that he noticed you.”

“You know, I think it was the heat of that protectiveness that made me realize Syra was capable of hurting me. She was so calculating, summoning me over there, convincing Bing to go down to his kitchen in the basement to work. She was just so cold and factual and protective. You had to experience it to know what I mean. Cam, it really was very scary. I think you would have been frightened, too.”

“I know. I was thinking today of all the times we felt someone had threatened Abbey and how fiercely protective we were.”

“Like the time Ronnie Hicks pushed her down and got her new coat all dirty …”

“I hated that kid!”

“As I recall you wanted him arrested for assault …”

“It was assault.”

“He was four!”

“He was a heathen. And what about that Allison something or other who didn’t invite Abbey to her roller skating party. She should burn in hell for that. Selfish thoughtless girl,” Cam said.

“She’s touring with Up With People.” I told him as I cleared the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. “You see what we are doing here …”

“Yeah. Yeah,” he admitted. “We’re turning into nutcases bent on revenge at the mere memory of how people hurt Abbey.”

“That’s what Syra was like yesterday—a cold, unfriendly nutcase. It was a horrible feeling.”

Cam came up behind me and put his arms around me as I closed the dishwasher door. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I was a clod. If I’d been there, I probably would have felt the same way you did. Hey, I did think of something you could say to Syra next time you think she is going to murder you …”

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

“No, really, this is a real conversation stopper. Just call her Syracuse Brinkleberger.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because that was her name for a few years when she was married.”

“Syra was married?” I asked. “I never knew that. And that name …”

“Brinkleberger.”

“Brinkleberger? How in love with someone do you have to be to take the name Brinkleberger? I wouldn’t even date someone with that name just in case I ended up falling in love.”

“Well, she must have had a moment of madness because that was her name.”

“Why do you know all of this and I don’t?”

Cam shrugged and began wiping down the kitchen table. “Bing told me once …”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”

“I never thought about it again until today. Bing felt one of the reasons the marriage didn’t last was because Syra insisted that Bing live with them. Apparently Mr. Brinkleberger got tired of the idea. They divorced and Syra took back her maiden name and no one mentioned Brinkleberger again.”

“I can see why. What is that, German? Dutch?”

“No idea. If my mom had been a Brinkleberger rather than a Behrends perhaps she wouldn’t have been so incredibly proud of the family name.” Cam gave me that grin that always melted my heart and gave me a kiss on my neck. “Want to go snuggle on the couch in the library, read the paper and watch Mycroft nap?”

I laid my head on his shoulder and we hugged. “Sounds like the perfect evening.”

We had finished reading the paper and were making mild sexual overtures to each other when something popped into my head.

“Oh, my God!” I screamed, bringing Mycroft to his feet and causing Cam to fall to the floor.

“I didn’t realize I was such a sexual master …” Cam began as he got to his feet and rubbed his lower back.

“You’re not. I mean you are but you aren’t right now …”

“If you would give me a few more minutes, I mean, we just got started. Of course now my back hurts so that may put a dent in my …”

“Shush. I’m thinking.” I circled the room while Cam settled back on the couch, watching me. He was used to this kind of behavior and knew he just needed to wait me out. He pulled the pillow behind his head and spread out so his legs rested on the arm rest at the other end of the couch. “Very comfy,” he whispered to Mycroft, who took that as an invitation to come over and put his head on Cam’s chest and have his ears scratched. “She doesn’t know what she’s missing, does she, boy? Don’t worry. Mommy will come to her senses shortly and we will all know what she is talking about.”

I twirled around and pointed my finger at Cam. “Syra Brinkleberger. Don’t you see? Syra Brinkleberger.”

“I don’t see,” Cam answered bending to look at Mycroft. “Do you understand, boy?” Apparently Mycroft didn’t understand either.

“At one time Syra had the initials SB”

“And …”

“SB Cam. Come on. The break-in. The handkerchief …”

“You think it was Syra’s handkerchief ?”

“Well …”

“But can you even imagine Syra owning a handkerchief ? No one our age owns a handkerchief, much less a monogrammed one. And certainly not Syra. She isn’t that kind of woman. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Does it make more sense that the handkerchief belongs to a
ghost
?” I asked.

Cam sat up, rearranging Mycroft’s head on his lap, and began to rub his neck. “I don’t know …”

“You saw the handkerchief. We both saw it, handled it. It wasn’t something we imagined. It was here in this house and it was monogrammed with SB. I love the Sylvie story but even with my imagination I have a hard time believing a ghost left it as a calling card …”

“But what you’re saying is that Syra broke into our house to steal who knows what and then left something that I can’t imagine her ever
owning. In addition, why would she be carrying a handkerchief left over from when she was married? I think that was twenty years ago or longer. It makes no sense …”

“But you have to admit it makes more sense than Sylvie’s ghost leaving it.”

“There has to be another explanation.”

“And where did the handkerchief disappear to? It’s gone. I’ve looked everywhere.”

“I swear I didn’t move it.”

“I believe you,” I assured him. “But it’s gone. Someone had to have taken it.”

“So now you think Syra came back into the house to get her handkerchief that she left when she broke in. How would she know where it was?”

“There aren’t a lot of places to look near the library. She would have eventually opened the table drawer …”

“And no one saw her.”

“We probably weren’t home.”

“How did she get in? And why did she have a monogrammed handkerchief from a marriage that ended twenty years ago with her when she broke into our house? And how did she get in the first time? The doors are locked …”

“Cam, the house is huge. It’s a monster. There have to be dozens of ways to get into this house that we don’t know about.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“Well, it’s true. There’s no way we can check all the windows on all the floors every night before bed. We’d have to start before dinner and probably fall asleep before we even got to them all. Breaking into this house is probably not very difficult at all.”

“Motive?”

“No idea. But it must have to do with Franklin’s death.”

“So Syra
is
a murderer? We’ve come full circle from last night’s conversation,” Cam warned me.

“But this time it’s different. We have evidence. Syra was once an SB.”

nowing that your home is a veritable Grand Central Station does not make for a restful night’s sleep. I kept hearing suspicious noises all night long and when I woke up from what felt like fifteen minutes of sleep, Cam was already gone to his usual Saturday morning squash game followed by the high school football game. I had a killer headache. I pulled the covers back over my head, thankful that it was Saturday and I had nothing planned.