Catnip (Dunbarton Mysteries Book 1) (20 page)

Once in the car, instead of
turning on the ignition, Alicia sat staring out the window.

Alex waited patiently for a
minute or so and then said, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m just trying to decide if we
should go see Ray Price now or wait until tomorrow.”

“I thought you said you were
leaving Ray Price to the police.”

“You heard what Dani said. They
didn’t seem interested in what she told them. It wouldn’t hurt to nose around a
little.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Detective Samuel said he lives
in a subsidized housing apartment. Let’s go now.”

There was only one subsidized
apartment in Dunbarton. It was a low-rise building at the far end of town near
the highway bi-pass, the Dunbarton equivalent to the wrong side of the tracks.

On the drive over they agreed on
a plan of attack. It was Alicia’s idea that they should go to Price’s apartment
on the pretext of needing some odd jobs done and try to find out where he was
the night of the murder after he left the jail. However Alex pointed out that
he would be sure to recognize Alicia and so, as much as she hated to miss all
the fun, as she put it, she agreed that Alex should go in alone.

They stopped at the park a block
from the apartment. Alicia got out and Alex took the wheel.

The park was not a popular place
that day. Although the projected snowfall hadn’t arrived, the thin, late
November sun could do little against the onslaught of a rapacious wind that
came storming off the lake like a marauder, and there was no shelter. Huddled
on a bench, Alicia decided she would have infinitely preferred lying on the
floor in the back of the car. At least she would have been warm.

Driving the last block to the
apartment, Alex decided her cover-story would be that she needed a handyman to
rebuild the porch steps on the cottage she had just purchased and that someone
she had met in town had suggested she contact him. She was excited. She had
never gone ‘undercover’ before.

It wasn’t just a low-security
building, it was a no-security building. The tenants’ names and apartment
numbers were on the mailboxes at the entrance and a sign above the boxes said
the doors were locked from eleven pm until eight am. Alex walked right in.

Price’s apartment was number 306
on the top floor. There was no elevator, so she started up the stairs when it
occurred to her that if Price had indeed killed Abbot, she would be walking
into a murderer’s lair. She started to turn back before reminding herself she’d
told Alicia that she could do it, and she didn’t want to let her friend down,
so she finished the climb and went through the doors into the hall. But just to
be safe, she decided she’d talk to him from the hall.

The hall was no more appealing
than the stairwell had been, dingy and smelling of a combination of food and
stale cigarette smoke. Number 306 was three doors down. She took a deep breath
to calm her nerves - not a good idea, she decided, considering the odors in the
hall - and knocked on the door.

It was opened by a man who
definitely met the scruffy criterion – torn jeans, a stained sweatshirt with
ragged cuffs, two day’s growth of beard and an over-grown, thinning-at-the-top
mullet. “Mr. Price?”

Hugging herself to keep warm and
failing miserably, Alicia was wondering if Alex had reached Ray Price’s
apartment when an appalling thought suddenly occurred to her. Someone is
considered a murder suspect because he might have committed a murder and she
had just sent her best friend to a murder suspect’s apartment, alone.

“I’m such an idiot,” she said
aloud, leaping to her feet.

She tried Alex’s cell first, but
when it went straight to voice mail, she took off along the street to the
apartment building. The wind snatched at her every breath as she ran, so that
she was gasping for air when she reached the entrance. It took only a moment to
find Price’s number and to start up the stairs.

At the third floor she stopped
and eased the door open to peer down the hall, hoping to see Alex, but the hall
was empty. Fear for her friend’s safety made her heart pound in her chest and
slowed her mental processes. What should she do, she thought frantically. If
Price was a killer, Alex could be in mortal danger, but if he wasn’t, this was
a fool’s errand and Alex would be furious with her for intervening.

She thought of pulling the fire
alarm, but it was at the other end of the hall. Finally she decided to stroll
casually down to 306 and see what she could hear through the door. If she didn’t
like what she heard, she could pull the alarm.

The building must have been
better constructed than she thought because there wasn’t a sound from 306, or
any of the other apartments for that matter. Straining to hear, she walked past
306 as if looking for an apartment number and turned back. She reached the
window at the end of the hall, still listening intently for any sound that
might indicate that Alex was in trouble. Giving up on looking casual, she was
putting her ear to the door when the handle started to turn. In a panic, she
flew back down the hall to the stairwell, through the door, and turned in time
to see Alex leaving the apartment, followed by Dani’s ‘scruffy man’. She was
about to jump in and save her friend from an obvious villain, when she saw Alex
smile and shake the scruffy man’s hand, turn and head for the stairs.

Alex saw her the minute she
walked through the stairwell door. “What are you doing here? I thought you were
waiting in the park.”

“I was worried. I thought you
might need rescuing.” Ignoring Alex’s laughter, she asked, “What did you find
out?”

“I’ll fill you in when we get in
the car.”

After the heat of the apartment
building, it seemed even colder outside. The girls hopped in the car and Alex
cranked the heat up to high.

“Well?” Alicia asked
breathlessly.

Alex shook her head. “Believe it
or not, Ray Price has a wife. I just met her. She bailed him out just after the
Abbots left and they went right home to bed. She was furious with him and ‘cussed
him out up, down and sideways’ - his words not mine - because he had sworn to
her that he hadn’t taken the cat.”

“What did she think he was doing
all those nights when he was haunting our driveway?”

“Office cleaning.”

“I guess that’s why Detective
Samuel wasn’t interested in Dani’s story about the fight. They knew he had an
alibi,” Alicia said wearily.

“You’re probably right. By the
way, you don’t know anyone who needs the porch steps of their cottage replaced,
do you? He gave me a very good deal.”

Back at the house, while Alex
unpacked, Alicia went to her ‘Murder Board’ and reluctantly crossed ‘Ray Price’
and ‘Volunteers and Staff at the Shelter’ off the list, then recorded their new
information under her ‘Suspects’ heading and stood back to see the results. A
picture was definitely becoming clear but what were they going to do about it?

“I don’t think this is a very
good idea …” Alex said for the umpteenth time.

“I know, but do you have an
alternative suggestion?” In the face of her friend’s exasperated glare, Alex
had to admit she didn’t.

The two girls were huddled in
Alicia’s small Toyota on King Street, two cars away from Jennifer Abbot’s
sparkling white Lexus. Jennifer was in Caruso’s, a small family-owned grocery
store. There was a large supermarket on the bi-pass outside of town but the
Town Council had a major campaign in place encouraging townsfolk to support the
small shops on the historic main street, and it seemed that Jennifer was
heeding the call. She had been in there for half an hour and the girls were
becoming Popsicles in the unheated car.

The main street was decorated for
Christmas, with wreaths hung on the Victorian-style street lamps, cedar garland
criss-crossing the road, and miniature lights gracing the denuded branches of
the trees along the sidewalk. The shop-windows glistened with artificial snow
and festive ornaments and holiday music poured into the street each time a door
was opened. The local radio station was playing Christmas music ‘all day every
day’ until December 25th and the store owners were using it to get shoppers
into the Christmas-buying mood. It seemed to be working, because the street was
busier than usual for a weekday afternoon, and Alicia and Alex were wishing
that they were among the happy gift-buying throngs instead of shivering in the
Matrix waiting for Jennifer to reappear.

After the Ray Price fiasco, it
had become clear to Alicia that their first instinct had been right all along.
The only suspect left was Jennifer Abbot and it had been her idea to follow
Jennifer for a day to see if they could learn anything that would lead them to
proof of her guilt. So far the plan had been a dismal failure. Even though the
oft-predicted first snow of the season had yet to materialize, the temperature
was freezing and so were the girls. It hadn’t taken them long to realize that a
stake-out wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and that hot coffee and blankets
should be in the ‘Surveillance Manual for Idiots’ guide under essential gear.

Whatever her life-style had been
like prior to her husband’s death, Jennifer was playing it low-key now -
grieving widow going about the mundane routines of life. Alicia and Alex had
parked down the street from her house in the early morning, but it was
afternoon before Jennifer finally climbed into her SUV and headed into town.
The grocery store was her first stop, but the boredom of several hours of
waiting was taking its toll and they almost missed her leaving the store.

“Finally! I thought she’d never
leave that shop. You sure know how to show a guest a good time, Al!” Alex
watched Jennifer in the side view mirror as she put her bags in the back of the
Lexus, but instead of getting in the car, she dodged traffic to cross to the
other side of the street.

“Where’s she going now?” Alicia
turned the rear-view mirror and with surprise saw their suspect step into the
Ex Libris bookstore. “I can’t believe it!”

“Yeah, isn’t that the store where
you work?”

“It is but that isn’t what
surprises me. I can’t believe she reads. She strikes me as a Vogue and Enquirer
kind of girl. Only hard-core readers shop in a used book store.”

“That reminds me, aren’t you
supposed to be at work?”

Alicia wasn’t surprised that it
had taken that long for Alex to think of work. “No. When all of this started,
Ned told me that I could take as much time off as I needed.”

“That’s awfully nice of him. He
must be putting in a lot more hours himself to make up for that.”

“I think most of the time he just
isn’t opening. He doesn’t live on the profits. He seems to have income from
other sources. Also, since he owns the building and lives in the apartment
upstairs, it isn’t too much of a problem for him. He’s a long-time family
friend. I’ve known him all my life. But you’re right, it is kind of him all the
same. He … Look! There she comes and I don’t see any packages,” Alicia smirked,
her opinion of Jennifer’s reading habits apparently vindicated.

They watched Jennifer, elegant in
a belted tweed jacket and thigh-high boots, stroll casually along the street
looking in the shops until she reached the Simpson’s Travel Agency.

Holding their breaths they waited
… Would she? “Yes, she went in!” Exhaling with gratification, they collapsed
against the seats.

“What do you want to bet she’s
booking a trip out of town?” Alex’s eyes shone with excitement.

“It’s entirely possible but even
women who haven’t killed their husbands can plan a winter vacation in the sun.
It is a good sign, though … but not that good. Look, she’s leaving already. She
wasn’t there long enough to have booked a trip.”

Once more, Jennifer headed down
the street.

“She does have some brochures.”
Alex pointed out, trying not to feel let down. “Where’s she off to now?”

Alicia slumped down in her seat
as Jennifer passed by on the other side and turned into the main headquarters
of the town’s gossip mill, otherwise known as ‘The Tea Room’.

“Lucky her! I could use a cup of
hot tea and a cookie right about now. I can’t feel my feet.” Alex wiggled her
toes to try to get some circulation going.

They watched through the artfully
decorated window and saw Jennifer stop by a table where the silver-haired
brigade had gathered for their daily dose of scones and scuttlebutt. Alicia
wondered who was pumping whom and about what.

It looked like Jennifer had
received some unexpected news because she suddenly looked up through the window
and abruptly left the tea shop, before heading straight across the street
towards their car.

“What do we do now?” Alicia said
frantically.

“Duck!” Alex cried, and did.

“We can’t just duck,” her friend
responded in disgust. “What if she looks in the window and sees us ducking? How
would we ever explain it?” Thinking fast, she said, “Put your hood up.”

“Why?”

“Don’t argue, just do it and
pretend to be looking at this map! Hopefully she’ll think we’re tourists.”
Alicia pulled a map out of the door pocket and opened it.

“Cold tourists,” Alex grumbled,
but did as instructed. “You know, it has just occurred to me,” she continued in
the same tone, “that a bright red Matrix is not an ideal vehicle to be driving
if one wishes to be inconspicuous.”

“It’s less conspicuous than that
big, hulking Navigator you drive.”

It must not have been too
conspicuous because Jennifer passed the car without noticing them. She got into
the Lexus and pulled out into traffic. Waiting to let a few cars get between
them, Alicia thankfully turned on the ignition, and the heat, and followed,
staying well behind.

Jennifer’s final stop for the day
was at Barret’s Funeral Parlor. Defeated, Alicia and Alex gave up the stake-out
and went home.