The Diva Frosts a Cupcake (16 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Dear Sophie,

I would like to home cook for my cats. There are so many recipes on the Internet that my head is swimming. Where do I start?

—Cat Lover in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Dear Cat Lover,

Cats are carnivores. They
have
to eat meat. In addition, cats absolutely must eat taurine, which is found in raw meat. But feeding cats raw meat presents additional problems, such as salmonella. Many people successfully feed their cats a raw diet, but talk to your veterinarian first, so that you do what is best for your cats as well as for the human and canine members of your household.

—Sophie

Feeling a bit ridiculous, I hustled along the street with Nina and turned down the alley. The beam from the streetlight dwindled as we walked toward the rear of the house.

“Did you notice there aren’t any windows on the sides of the houses except in the very back?” she asked.

I paused. In the dark, it wasn’t easy to see. “Do you suppose they knocked down a house to make this alley?”

“Looks like it to me. Both buildings have side windows but only on their rear additions.”

Pulling a penlight from my pocket, I shone it very quickly along the alleyway, but saw no sign of dog poop.

A car was parked on a pad of gravel in back of Maurice’s house. Steep stairs led to a tiny covered balcony on the second floor. Inside lights illuminated a glass door and a window on the second level. On the first level, I spied two windows, one rather oddly looking out at the back of the staircase.

“Shh. What’s that?” Nina stopped in her tracks.

I listened for dog sounds like a bark or a snuffle. But I heard mewing. Strong and loud. In fact, in the background, I could hear Maurice talking. Not loud enough to understand what he was saying, though. “A window must be open,” I whispered.

Nina aimed her tiny flashlight at it. “There’s the cat. Hi, kitty, kitty!”

“Are you nuts?” I hissed. “He’ll see that.”

“Calm down. It sounds like he’s still on the other side of the house.” She flashed her light around the parking pad. A row of railroad ties appeared to mark the edge of the property. The house next door butted against Maurice’s house. Nina’s flashlight flicked over the garbage cans and a sad patch of scraggly grass near the house. Maurice had absolutely no garden, not even an attempt at one. Not that I cared, except for the fact that I had been ashamed when he said he’d brought flowers from his garden as a remembrance of Muffin. I shot my light through the neighbor’s yard very quickly. They used it for parking, too. He must have stolen that azalea branch, but not from them.

The lights on the second floor went out. Something squeaked. A window? Unless I missed my guess, someone was trying to stealthily open the window to the backyard.

And then someone cried out and hurtled down the steep stairs.

Nina yelped and pointed her flashlight at the person, who now lay belly down and motionless.

I ran to him. “Are you okay?”

He groaned.

Thank goodness. He was alive. “Can you get up?” I gently touched his leather jacket but didn’t want to move him in case he’d broken his neck. “Call 911.”

The person moaned. “No!”

Uh-oh. It definitely wasn’t a man. Trying not to point my light in the person’s face, I angled it so I could see. “Joy!” Her hair was tucked into the jacket. No wonder I’d been confused.

“No hospital.” Her voice was weak.

I didn’t want to scare her by mentioning her neck. “Honey, you need help. Can you stand up?”

“Uh-huh.” But she didn’t move. Not an inch.

I gave her a minute, in case she’d had the wind knocked out of her. When she made no effort to right herself, I stood and whispered to Nina, “I think we’d better . . .
Gah
!” I didn’t mean to shriek, but Joy had unexpectedly grabbed hold of my ankle.

“I said
no hospital
!”

Nina whispered, “Maurice must have heard her fall. He’ll be out here any second.”

“I’m okay.” Joy’s voice was still muffled. She’d landed on her face and hadn’t moved. That worried me—a lot. Then again, she’d managed to reach out and seize my ankle.

She lifted herself slightly, like someone doing a really bad push-up. She rolled to her side, and I held out my hands. Joy grasped them, holding tighter than I’d have imagined possible. She rose slowly, but I didn’t want to hurry her in case she was injured.

When she stood upright, she asked with a note of suspicion in her tone, “What are you doing here?”

“We’re looking for Buddy, the dog who went missing at Cupcakes and Pupcakes. What are
you
doing here?”

“I heard about that dog. It’s very sad.” Joy ran her hands back through her hair and briefly clutched her head. “I’m living here, staying with Nick.”

“Nick?”

“He rents the apartment upstairs.”

Nina aimed her flashlight at Joy’s chin.

Dark circles hung under her eyes, and she appeared haggard. She blew air out of her mouth and her hands trembled. “Why are you looking for Buddy here? Did someone spot him?”

“No,” whispered Nina, “we think Maurice has him.”

“Maurice?” Joy shook her head so slowly I wondered if she might be dizzy. “I don’t think so. I haven’t seen him walk a dog. No, I would have noticed. I’ve been on the lookout. I would have noticed for sure.”

“On the lookout? For Buddy?” Nina asked.

“Someone is trying to kill me.”

“Are you sure?” I couldn’t help glancing around.

“You just saw evidence of it. Muffin is dead, and someone tried to kill me with some kind of poison. Now they’ve tried to make me fall.” She clung to the railing for support. “Sophie, would you look at the steps near the top? I tripped over something. I know I did.”

I tiptoed up the stairs and flashed my little light around. Indeed, someone had tied a wire across the opening. It had broken when Joy fell, and the two ends hung loose.

I walked back down. “You’re right. Joy, we have to call the cops.”

Joy shot me an incredulous look. “They think I’m a drug addict. I’m not. There’s no way I had anything to do with drugs. The doctors and the cops keep acting like I took something intentionally so I would hallucinate, but I’m telling you, someone pricked me with it.”

“Pricked you?” Nina asked.

“At the dinner. I remember,” I said. “When the general fell to the floor, you said something stung you.”

“Thank goodness
someone
remembers that. I’m certain that was when it happened. I felt fine that evening until someone jabbed me with something. I was wearing a thin silk dress, and whatever it was just went right through the fabric. That was when I started hallucinating. It was awful. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to feel that way on purpose.”

And now this. It certainly looked like someone was after her. “Joy, there’s evidence this time. No one would think you tied a wire up there to trip yourself. The police
have
to know about it. It’s not an option. Maybe they can get fingerprints.”

She let out a long breath and sank to sit on the stairs. “It would be a relief to have the person arrested. I thought they would find Muffin’s killer right away, but obviously they haven’t.”

“What’s going on out there?”

Oops. That was definitely Maurice peering from the window behind the stairs. “Joy fell down the back steps,” I said.

“Is she going to sue?”

“Maurice!” Myra protested vehemently. “For heaven’s sake! Ask her if she’s okay!”

“Are you okay?” It was a low grumble.

“I’ll be fine.”

The window banged shut.

Nina punched numbers into her telephone and reported the incident to 911. Joy and I listened as she explained that an ambulance wasn’t necessary.

She hung up, and asked, “Are you saying that whoever murdered Muffin also wants to kill you?”

Joy appeared on the verge of tears. “I don’t know. I’m terrified. I can’t sleep. I can’t go to the shop and work because I’m afraid they’ll do the same thing to me that they did to Muffin.”

“You’re saying
they
. Do you think it’s more than one person?” I asked.

“No. Maybe. I’m so confused. I can’t imagine Re . . . anyone killing Muffin.” Joy held a finger under her nose and choked out, “I feel so guilty! If I hadn’t moved out of Sugar Baby, Muffin would be alive today.”

Was she implicating Renee? “You think your split with Renee triggered Muffin’s murder?”

“What else can I think?”

“Joy, I know it’s not really any of our business, but what happened exactly? Why did you leave Sugar Baby?”

“I wanted to expand. To do what Spenser did, have a chain. Maybe a franchise. Renee didn’t think we were ready for that.”

“I’m under the impression that your departure came as a surprise to Renee.” I tried to phrase it gently.

“I would regret that if she hadn’t tried to kill me.” She gasped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t just say that!” She sniffled. “But it had to be her. Who else would want to kill me? She stole my grandmother’s diamond ring, too. It was from Tiffany! Why did I ever trust her? What am I going to do? I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Don’t you have friends or family?” Nina sat down beside Joy.

“I thought I’d be safe moving in with Nick, you know? I could move somewhere else, except I don’t have the money. I borrowed from my folks to open Sugar Mama, and I signed a lease, so it’s not like I can just move out of town. This is such a mess. I wish the cops would hurry up and solve Muffin’s murder.” She closed her eyes and whimpered. “Then maybe I could get back to work.”

I patted her shoulder. “At least you have Nick. It’s nice of him to let you stay here.”

Joy responded with a new torrent of sobs.

A youngish police officer arrived. He questioned us briefly before trotting up the steps to take a look. When he came back down, his attitude had changed. “I’m going to call someone in to get fingerprints. Could I speak with Joy alone for a few minutes, please?”

“Maybe we should tell Humphrey what’s going on. Now that Maurice knows we’re here, it doesn’t really matter, right?” I headed toward the alley.

“If Maurice comes out, what do I say?” asked Nina.

I shrugged. “Tell him we came to see Joy.”

Poor Joy. She was miserable and suffering from enormous guilt over Muffin’s death. It had occurred to me, too, that Joy’s sudden departure from Sugar Baby might have been the catalyst for the attack on Muffin. I couldn’t imagine living with that hanging over me. But if she’d borrowed from her parents to start Sugar Mama, what had she done with the money she took out of Sugar Baby’s account?

I rapped on the window of Humphrey’s car.

He rolled it down, and I heard Francie say, “What the dickens is going on?”

I explained as briefly as possible. “How’s it going with Myra?”

“Maurice has actually been fairly decent. No lecherous moves so far,” reported Humphrey.

“But no sign of Buddy, either,” said Francie.

I hurried back to Joy.

The cop had finished with her. “It’s unlikely we’ll get any prints, but if we do, we’ll want you and Nick to come down to the station so we can print you.”

“Will you rope it off as a crime scene?” asked Nina.

He shook his head. “No, we’ll be done with it very soon. There’s not much here.”

I placed a hand on Joy’s sleeve. “I wish I could do something to help you.”

She sniffled again. “You’ve already been nice just to listen to my woes. Nick isn’t very sympathetic. If you hear of a cheap place to live, let me know?”

“Listen, we’re going to The Laughing Hound for dinner. Why don’t you come with us? My treat.” I looked to the cop. “Is that okay? Do you need her for anything?”

“Go right ahead. I know where to find all of you if I think of anything else.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

Joy wanted to drive herself, but after the fall she took, I insisted she go with us. Instead of fighting for parking spots, I drove home and parked in my garage, and the three of us walked back to The Laughing Hound for, as Nina called it, a Maurice debriefing.

Myra waited patiently at a table. She had ditched the jacket with the camera and looked very much herself again in the flashy sequined top. She tapped long pink fingernails against an empty wineglass. When the hostess showed the rest of us to the table, Myra lifted her wineglass, and said, “I’ll have another zin, please.” She patted the chair next to her. “Sit over here with me, Humphrey.”

We placed our drink order and stared at Myra.

She seemed to relish being the center of attention. “One thing is for sure—you do
not
need to worry about Maurice hiding a dog. The man has fifteen cats. Maybe sixteen. They . . . are . . . everywhere. And he dotes on them. There’s no way he would
ever
bring a dog into his house. It would be utter chaos. Oh, and Sophie, remember Gun-i-vere?” She chuckled. “No wonder he couldn’t get her name straight. It’s not even a girl cat. It’s a boy named Gunsmoke!”

Nina shook her head in frustration. “That man lies about everything. Thanks for checking out his house, Myra. I know it must have been nerve-racking for you, because I was tense, and I didn’t have to deal with him. We’re back to square one now. What did he do with poor Buddy?”

I hated to even imagine what might have become of Buddy, much less voice it. “Did you see anything that might be a clue?”

“Honey, he lives sparsely. Like a guy in his first apartment. There’s a sofa and a TV. No pictures of him, of anyone, actually. I don’t think there was anything on the walls, either.”

“The cats are his décor,” said Francie.

“They’re his family.” Myra accepted the wineglass from the waitress and sipped from it. “I’m so glad that’s over. I thought I would die when I had to go down into the basement, but it wasn’t so bad.”

“What was down there?” asked Francie. “I couldn’t tell on the video.”

“It’s mostly a cat playroom. There’s a washer and a dryer, but he was very proud of the little catwalks he built around the walls. What are those things called that cats jump on and hide in?”

“Cat trees?” Nina twisted the glass of her Berry Acai Cosmo.