What the Cat Saw (5 page)

Officer Hansen adjusted his earpiece, spoke into the lapel transmitter. “Officer Hansen. Garage apartment behind Webster home. Possible intruder. No trace of perp. Search of living room apparent. Unknown if any valuables are missing. Alarm raised at one thirty-five a.m. by guest Cornelia Farley. She didn’t see anyone but heard sounds in living room. Search of grounds yielded no suspects or witnesses.” He stopped, listened. “Yes, sir. I’ll do that, sir. Ten-four.” He was brisk as he turned toward Nela.

She stood stiffly, watching as Jugs disappeared into Marian’s bedroom.

“Ma’am—”

Nela felt a surge of irritation. Why did he call her ma’am? She wasn’t an old lady. “I’m Nela.”

His eyes flickered. “Ms. Farley”—his tone was bland—“a technician will arrive at nine a.m. tomorrow to fingerprint the desk and the front door and the materials on the floor. Sometimes we get lucky and pick up some prints. Usually, we don’t. If you have any further trouble, call nine-one-one.” He stared to turn away.

Nela spoke sharply. “I locked the door. Someone had a key.”

His pale brown eyes studied her. “The chances are the intruder
knew Miss Grant was dead and thought the apartment was empty. Now it’s obvious the place is occupied. I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble.” He gestured toward the desk. “It looks like somebody was interested in the desk and not looking to bother you.” He cleared his throat. “To be on the safe side, get a straight chair out of the kitchen, tilt it, and wedge the top rail under the knob. Anybody who pushes will force the back legs tight against the floor. Nobody will get in. Tomorrow you can pick up a chain lock at Walmart.”

“That’s good advice, ma’am.” The redheaded policewoman was earnest. “I was in the first car the morning Miss Grant died. The housekeeper told me she ran up the steps to call from here because it was quicker. She didn’t have a key. She used a playing card she always carries in her pocket. The seven of hearts. For luck.” The officer raised her eyebrows, obviously amused at the superstition. “Anyway, she got inside. Like Officer Hansen said, it doesn’t take much to jiggle these old locks. Not that it made any difference for Miss Grant that we got here quick.”

“What happened to her?” Nela glimpsed Jugs in her peripheral vision.

The redheaded patrol woman was brisk. “She fell over the stair rail last Monday morning, straight down to the concrete. I was in the first car to arrive.” The redheaded officer—Officer L. T. Baker—gestured toward the opening into darkness. “The housekeeper found her beside the stairs. It looked like Miss Grant tripped and went over the railing and pretty much landed on her head. Broken neck. Apparently she jogged early every morning. When we saw her, it was obvious she’d taken a header over the railing. Massive head wound. She must have laid there for a couple of hours.”

Nela’s eyes shifted to Jugs.

The cat’s sea green eyes gazed at Nela. “…
They took Her away…”

Paramedics came and found death and carried away a broken and bruised body. Nela didn’t need to look at the woman’s cat to know this.

“A header?”…
board rolled on the second step
…Nela felt a twist of foreboding. “Did you find what tripped her?”

Officer Baker shrugged. “Who knows? The stairs are steep. Accidents happen. She was wearing new running shoes. Maybe a toe of a shoe caught on a step.”

No mention of a skateboard. “Did you find anything on the ground that could have caused her to fall?”

The policewoman waved a hand in dismissal. “These grounds are tidy. Not even a scrap of paper in a twenty-foot radius from the stairs.”

“She probably started down the stairs too fast.” Officer Hansen shook his head. “She was a hard charger. She always helped at the Kiwanis pancake suppers, made more pancakes than anybody. There were a bunch of stories in the paper. She was a big deal out at the foundation. Anybody looking for an easy way to make a buck would have known her place was empty.” His look was earnest. “Craddock’s a real nice place, Ms. Farley, but we got our no-goods like any other town. It seems pretty clear what we had here tonight was intent to rob. Now that the perp knows you’re here, you should be fine.” He gave a brief nod to officers Pierce and Baker and they moved through the doorway. He paused on the threshold long enough to gesture toward the kitchen. “Wedge that chair if you’re nervous. I guarantee you’ll be okay.”

3

J
ugs wrinkled his nose, cautiously sniffed the Walmart sack on the bookcase near the front door.

Nela inserted a nine-volt battery into a doorstop alarm. When shoved beneath the bottom of the door, the wedge prevented anyone from opening the door, with or without a key, plus any pressure activated an alarm. She didn’t feel she could install a deadbolt in an apartment that, as Miss Webster had made clear, belonged to her.

Nela felt as though she’d been in the garage apartment for an eon with only the short foray to Walmart as a respite. She glanced around the living room, wished she found the decor as appealing as when she first arrived.

In her peripheral vision, she was aware of the shattered mirror. Slowly she turned her head to look at it fully. The crystal horse still lay among shards of glass. There was something wanton in that destruction. If she had the money, she’d move to a motel. But she
didn’t have enough cash to rent a room for a week. Besides, the cat needed to be cared for.

The blond desk held only a few traces of powder. The police technician, a talkative officer with bright brown eyes and a ready smile, had arrived punctually at nine a.m., fingerprinted the front doorknob inside and out, the desk, the scattered drawers, the tipped-over chair, the statuette. He cleaned up after himself. He’d kept up a nonstop chatter. He’d quickly identified Miss Grant’s prints from a hairbrush in the master bath. “Lots of hers on the desk and some unidentified prints, but the drawer handles are smudged. Good old gloves. It takes a dumb perp to leave fingerprints. Usually we only find them at unpremed scenes.” He’d departed still chatting. “…Not too many prowler calls…usually a bar fight on Saturday nights…”

Now she was left with the mess and her new defense against invasion.

Jugs batted at the sack. The plastic slid from the table and the muscular cat flowed to the floor. He used a twist of his paw to fling the bag in the air.

She ripped off the doorstop plastic cover and threw it across the room, a better toy than a plastic sack.

Jugs crossed the floor in a flash, flicked the plastic, chased, jumped, rolled on his back to toss his play prey into the air, then gripped the plastic with both paws.

“Pity a mouse. Staying in shape until spring?”

Ignoring her, Jugs twisted to his feet and crouched, the tip of his tail flicking. After a final fling and pounce and flurry, Jugs strolled away, game done, honors his.

She stared after him as he moved toward the front door. Every time she saw him, she remembered that searing moment yesterday
when their eyes had first met. She blurted out her thought while berating herself for what was rapidly becoming an obsession. “There wasn’t a skateboard,” she called after him. Her voice sounded loud in the quiet room. “They would have found a skateboard.”

Her only answer was the clap of the flap as Jugs disappeared through the cat door.

Now she was talking out loud to a cat. Possibly he wondered what the weird-sounding syllables—skateboard—meant. More than likely his thoughts were now focused on a bird, a rustle in a bush, the scent of another cat.

Anyway, what difference did it make?

The difference between sanity and neuroses.

No matter what made her think of a skateboard, there was no connection between the vagrant thought, a pet cat, and the accidental death of a woman who moved fast.

Nela felt cheered. Monday she would go to the foundation, try to please Chloe’s boss, and enjoy the not-exactly holiday but definite departure from her normal life. The normal life that an IED had transformed from quiet happiness to dull gray days that merged into each other without borders, without hope.

Nela looked down at the doorstop. There was no need to put the piece in place now. She shoved the doorstop into the corner between the door and the wall. So much for that. At least tonight she would feel safe.

She still felt unsettled by the knowledge that Marian Grant had fallen to her death. The police seemed competent. If there had been a skateboard in the vicinity of the body, the police would have found it. There hadn’t been a skateboard—a board that rolled—on a step. Certainly not. But the image persisted.

She turned, walked restlessly across the room, stopped and stared
at the desk and the litter on the floor and the upended drawers. Why rifle a desk? Did people keep money in desks? Maybe.

However…She turned back toward the front door. Only two items lay atop the waist-high blond bookcase to the right as a visitor entered. A set of keys. A black leather Coach bag. Last night Blythe Webster said the purse belonged to Marian Grant.

When the intruder had turned on the living room’s overhead light, he couldn’t have missed seeing the expensive purse, especially if the purpose of entry was to steal. Wouldn’t a petty thief grab the purse first? Maybe he had. Maybe he’d rifled the purse first, then searched the desk. They hadn’t looked inside the purse last night. Wasn’t that an oversight?

Nela stopped by the bookcase. She reached out for the purse, then drew her hand back. She hurried to the kitchen, fumbled beneath the sink, found a pair of orange rubber gloves, and yanked them on. She didn’t stop to sort out her thoughts, but fingerprints loomed in her mind. She had no business looking in the purse, but she would feel reassured if there was no money, if a billfold and credit cards were gone.

Nela carried the purse to the kitchen table. She undid the catch. The interior of the purse was as austere and tidy as the apartment. She lifted out a quilted wallet in a bright red and orange pattern. It took only a moment to find a driver’s license. She gazed at an unsmiling face, blond hair, piercing blue eyes: Marian Denise Grant. Birth date: November 16, 1965. Address: One Willow Lane. As Blythe had said, the purse belonged to Marian Grant, had likely rested atop the bookcase since she’d arrived home the night before she died.

Nela pulled apart the bill chamber. Two fifties, four twenties, a ten, three fives, seven ones. Four credit cards, one of them an American Express Platinum. She and Chloe always lived from paycheck
to paycheck but, after she’d lost her writing job, she’d waited tables at an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills and she remembered snatches of conversation over lunch at a producer’s table, the advantages of this particular card, automatic hotel upgrades, delayed four p.m. checkout times, free access to all airline hospitality suites, and more.

An intruder could not have missed seeing the purse, but instead of rifling through the billfold, taking easy money, the intruder had walked on to the desk.

Nela placed the quilted billfold on the table. One by one, she lifted out the remaining contents: lip gloss, a silver compact, comb, small perfume atomizer, pill case, pencil flashlight, BlackBerry, Montblanc pen with the initials
MDG
.

Resting on the bottom of the purse was a neatly folded pair of women’s red leather gloves. She almost returned the other contents, but, always thorough, she picked up the gloves. Her hand froze in the air. Lying in a heap at the bottom of the bag, hidden from view until now by the folded gloves, was a braided gold necklace inlaid with what looked like diamonds. Nela had a quick certainty that the stones were diamonds. They had a clarity and glitter that faux stones would lack.

Nela held up the necklace, felt its weight, admired the intricacies of the gold settings. A thief would have hit pay dirt if he’d grabbed the purse as he ran. She returned the objects to the interior compartments and carried the purse to the bookcase. She replaced the bag precisely where it had earlier rested.

And so?

There were lots of maybes. Maybe the thief planned to take the purse but her 911 call induced panic. Maybe the thief knew of something valuable in the desk. Maybe Marian Grant collected old
stamps or coins. Maybe Marian Grant had a bundle of love letters the writer could not afford for anyone to see. Her mouth twisted. Maybe there was a formula for Kryptonite or a treasure map or nothing at all. Lots of maybes and none of them satisfactory.