Last Licks (9 page)

Sunny looked at him, not sure she wanted to hear what Will had in mind. “How?”

“You told me that Reese went out of his way to screw over your friend Rafe.”

“He’s not my friend.” For a second, Sunny felt like she was arguing with her dad. “He just seems like a nice guy.”

“Who has a sick cat that might die if Rafe can’t keep up the payments for chemotherapy,” Will said. “Did you see his shirt today?”

Unwillingly, Sunny nodded her head.

“I’d say he’s pretty close to the edge. Maybe he wanted Reese to find out how it felt to lose someone close to him.”

“But to kill someone?” Sunny objected.

“A not very nice person.” Will’s lips tugged into a sort of smile. “I’ve seen how people act around their cats. You can’t call it strictly rational.”

She gave him a look. “So what do you want to do about it?”

“I’ll ask some friends to check and see if Rafe Warner or Elsa Hogue has ever turned up on the Sheriff Department’s radar screens,” Will said. He stepped around to open the door on Sunny’s Wrangler for her. “We still have Alfred Scatterwell to see tomorrow,” he said.

She nodded. “The guy with the money motive. I vote that if he offers us anything to drink, we say no.”

“I should say not,” Will told her. “If he offers us anything to drink, we take a sample before pouring the rest down the drain.”

*

Sunny arrived home
to find an empty driveway.
Guess Dad’s still visiting with Ollie,
she thought as she parked and walked to the door. No sooner did she step into the house than a four-footed rocket came flying from the living room to orbit around her ankles. Shadow circled her once, then twice, and then drew away, looking almost affronted.

“What’s your problem?” Sunny asked as she walked down the hallway to the kitchen.

Sunny opened the refrigerator and began rummaging in the chiller compartment for salad makings. She brought out a head of romaine lettuce, some tomatoes, a container of mushrooms, a couple of leftover carrots, some radishes, and a jar of marinated peppers. As she closed the door and stood up, she found herself face to face with Shadow, who had somehow gained the high ground on top of the fridge. He lay with his paws primly together, giving her a reproachful look.

“I haven’t forgotten to feed you,” Sunny told him. “I just want to get supper ready.” She washed the vegetables in the sink, tore the lettuce leaves into smaller pieces, chopped the vegetables, and placed all the rabbit food in a large wooden bowl. All the while, she was aware of Shadow’s eyes on the top of her head.

“Dressing,” she said, getting a packet of low-sodium Italian and mixing it with water, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Shaking it vigorously in a bottle, she put it aside and looked at the cat.

“All right!” Sunny burst out. “Dinner for you. Happy now?” She went to the cabinet and got a can of Shadow’s regular food, pulled the pop top, and dug the delicious chicken and tuna dinner into his bowl. It had to be delicious, it said so right on the can. Then she refilled his water bowl.

But Shadow remained on his perch, silently regarding her.

“Fine, fine, have it your way.” Sunny ignored the cat, and dug around in the freezer section for more dinner fixings. The previous weekend, Mike had fired up the grill and cooked up a mess of boneless chicken thighs, which he’d had marinating in the refrigerator for two days before. Sunny had packaged all the leftovers, two to a freezer bag, and frozen them. Now she pulled out a bag with a pair of bigger pieces of meat, put them in a microwavable bowl, and nuked them on
Defrost.

When Mike came home a little while later, Sunny heated the chicken in the microwave and tossed the salad with the dressing she’d made. Splitting the greens between two bowls, she sliced the hot chicken, put it on top, and doused it with the remaining dressing.

“Looks good,” Mike said as he came into the kitchen and took a bottle of lemon-lime fizzwater out of the fridge.

Sunny got the glasses, and they sat down to eat. She glanced around the kitchen, noting that Shadow no longer guarded the top of the fridge but was finally paying attention to the food she’d laid out for him.

But while she—and Shadow—ate, Sunny noticed that he kept looking over at her as if something was wrong.

*

Shadow kept giving
Sunny puzzled glances. This wasn’t fair, not after all he’d gone through today, nearly killing himself climbing that tree, nearly getting killed by that crazy bird, getting trapped on the roof, and finally escaping . . . into the Old One’s room. He knew the Old One usually kept his door tightly closed, just to keep Shadow out. Shadow didn’t mind because it also kept the scent of the Old One in. He feared he’d be stuck in there, and Old One smells weren’t particularly interesting or pleasant. The scent of the human’s sickness was fading away, which was good. But the Old One had one pair of shoes that let off such a terrible stink, Shadow was surprised that Biscuit Eaters weren’t showing up to roll on them.

He’d had a bad time for a while but the door hadn’t latched, and he’d managed to get it open, escaping out into fresh air. The first thing he’d done was go downstairs to the kitchen and drink some water. Then he’d taken a nap. And then, when Sunny came home, he’d rushed to her with an eager nose, hoping to erase all the bad things that had happened, the unpleasant smells he’d endured, by sniffing around her. She carried the same scents that he’d detected for the past few days, scents of illness and, in this case, a particularly nose-twisting odor he hadn’t liked. She also smelled of car, and the He who was often around her, and several kinds of food.

But the scent he really wanted, the scent he’d been looking forward to . . . there wasn’t a trace! For days now, Sunny had brought back traces of the mysterious She. The thought of filling his nostrils with that intoxicating aroma had brought Shadow at a run, only to be disappointed. Was the She teasing him? Or was Sunny?

He sullenly made the cat food disappear, all the while doing his best to give Sunny a cat’s version of a dirty look.

*

The next morning,
Sunny dressed with a little more care than usual. Maybe it was silly; she’d crashed New York’s swankiest enclaves of the rich and famous as a reporter. But today she was heading for Piney Brook, the fanciest neighborhood in her old hometown, to beard Alfred Scatterwell in his den, or stately home, or whatever. That seemed to call for special armor. She got out the dusky blue lightweight suit she saved for the biggest interviews. Will seemed to have had the same thoughts, turning up in dark gray slacks, a slightly lighter shirt, and a sport coat with a very fine houndstooth pattern. “Do you mind riding with me?” he asked. “I’ve got a couple of things to discuss before we tackle Alfred.”

As they drove over, Will said, “I got some files from my friends this morning—figured the night shift was the best time for them to go and look.”

“Anything that helps us?” Sunny asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing on Elsa Hogue, not even a traffic ticket. Her husband passed away about seven years ago—severe heart attack. Rafe Warner was involved in a confrontation once, but it won him a commendation, not an arrest. He once apprehended a guy who grabbed a tourist’s wallet in a restaurant and headed for the door. Warner put him on the floor and kept him there until the cops arrived.”

“So he’s a good citizen,” Sunny said.

“A good citizen who has no problem putting a bad guy down,” Will replied. “I added Alfred Scatterwell to my wish list, just to see if anything came up. He’s never been accused of a crime, but he’s been a complainant in several cases, usually for assault.”

Thinking of Alfred’s attitude when she met him, Sunny wasn’t exactly astonished.

“Of course, given the present administration’s stand on crime statistics, the charges all became harassment,” Will went on.

“Which is probably what they were in the first place,” Sunny said. “Alfred strikes me as the kind of guy who’d claim assault quickly to defend his dignity.”

“You mean have other people—like the cops—defend his dignity.” Will drove on for a moment, then said, “Would it surprise you to hear that Gardner Scatterwell, on the other hand, had been in some kind of trouble stretching back to his high school days?”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Drunk driving, disturbing the peace, harassment—female division, this time. It all stayed pretty low-level, fines and suspended sentences, probably due to him having expensive lawyers. Usually there were fairly long gaps between charges, so I guess he tried to behave himself.”

“Probably he took his bad behavior out of town. My dad mentioned that he often traveled,” Sunny said.

They were getting close to Alfred’s address, but as Sunny looked out the window, she didn’t see the picture of gracious living she’d expected. The houses were nice and well kept, but they weren’t much bigger than the one she lived in, and they were rather close together. “Wait a minute, I know this neighborhood,” she burst out. “My dad used to call it ‘the servants’ quarters.’”

“Sort of Piney Brook by extension.” Will grinned.

“A dump, by Piney Brook standards. If this is where the Scatterwells come from . . .” It took Sunny a minute to find the words. “Well, let’s just say they put the ‘pretend’ in ‘pretentious.’”

“Oh, this is just Alfred’s place,” Will assured her. “The old family manse is a big, dilapidated pile right on the banks of the Piney Brook itself. That’s where Gardner used to live, although he closed the place up when he wound up in Bridgewater Hall.”

“I wonder if Alfred looks forward to moving up to the big house,” Sunny said.

Will grinned and sang, “‘Movin’ on up . . .’”

They stopped in front of a house not that different from its neighbors. Sunny wasn’t expecting Jeeves the butler to appear when they rang the doorbell, but the apparition that answered went way too far in the opposite direction. In a knit polo shirt and plaid Bermuda shorts, Alfred Scatterwell definitely hadn’t dressed for the occasion. Seeing his knobby knees and scaly elbows was bad enough, but his potbelly seemed to bobble with every step.

“So you found the place,” he said. “What do you want?” Apparently while he was only the all-purpose heir, Alfred had held himself back around his uncle. Now that he expected to rake in Gardner’s money, Alfred was letting his true nature out.

“First, we’d like to offer our condolences—” Sunny began, but Alfred waved her off.

“You saw how well the old man and I got along. Do you really think I’m bereaved?”

Smelling the brandy on his breath, Sunny had another description in mind.

“I think you should be concerned about the way your uncle died,” Will firmly told him. “There are some unusual circumstances.”

“The people at Bridgewater Hall told me Uncle Gardner died of a stroke, and his personal physician concurred,” Alfred replied. “Considering he had a stroke three months before, how unusual is that?”

“There’s a situation you’re not aware of.” Sunny told Alfred the story Oliver Barnstable had recounted to her and Will.

Scatterwell looked incredulous. “You’re taking the word of that flabby-faced loudmouth? The man is on pain medication, for heaven’s sake.”

“You yourself complained about the mortality rate at Bridgewater Hall,” Sunny pointed out. “Don’t you feel any responsibility to find out what happened?”

“I felt responsible enough to the family fortune to look into the possibility of suing for malpractice.” Alfred shook his head. “The outlay in lawyer’s fees didn’t match the uncertain chances of winning a settlement.”

Sunny didn’t know what to say to that. She looked over at Will, who was eyeing Alfred as if he’d encountered a strange specimen. “Mr. Barnstable raised enough concern that we’re looking into what happened to your uncle.” Will tried to appeal to Alfred’s penny-pinching side. “It needn’t even cost you anything. If you just approached the medical examiner and asked for some test—”

“Why should I?” Alfred interrupted. “If there was a policy with a big payout, the insurance company may want to quibble, but I don’t. My uncle always sneered at me for inheriting family money. But what did he do? He received the lion’s share of my grandfather’s estate and spent his life wasting it. There aren’t many Scatterwells left, thanks to people like Uncle Gardner who never had children. If I can amass enough money, invest it intelligently, there may be something for the next generation—and we could repair the mansion that’s going to rack and ruin. I was down in the big house yesterday trying to see if we could use any of the public rooms for a memorial. They’re all going to need work.”

Sunny couldn’t get over this attitude. “So you’d wink at murder to get your inheritance?”

“I reject any culpability for my uncle’s death.” Alfred drew himself to his full height. He might have looked impressive, if he’d been dressed better and his belly didn’t jiggle. “But if—
if
—someone hurried his demise along, it stopped him from wasting money on that overgrown home for the senile.” He glared at Will. “Just as his stroke stopped him from throwing money away on a high school he’d barely thought of in the last fifty years or so. When you called yesterday, I knew I recognized your name—so I looked in Uncle Gardner’s papers to find the connection. What did you do to get his money, sing the school song?” Alfred put his hand over his heart and croaked, “‘Saxon, Saxon, onward, upward,’” his expression looking as if he wanted to spit. “Oh, yes, I went there, too. A few years before you did. Family tradition, sending the males to that ridiculous place. And I hate to disappoint you, Mr. Fund-raiser, but they won’t get one thin dime from me.”

He finally led them into the house from the doorway, along a hallway toward the living room. “I was from the same family as Uncle Gardner, went to the same stupid schools. But for my entire life, he lorded it over me, mocked me, belittled me. Well, he’s not so superior now.”

Alfred pointed at the coffee table, which held a waxed cardboard box with a metal handle, the sort of thing that might accompany a large order of take-out Chinese food. “It’s just like that old joke he liked to tell—all men are cremated equal.”