Murder of the Cat's Meow: A Scumble River Mystery (7 page)

“Thanks.”

Bunny tottered away, her black patent leather ankle boots tapping merrily as she dashed into the bar. A second later she returned with a stack of paper napkins and thrust them at Skye.

Using the wad as a kind of diaper for the carrier, Skye made her way to the basement door, descended the stairs, then stopped and looked around. Okay, where was the utility closet? Two rooms to her right and a large one to her left were bisected by a narrow hallway. The closet had to be at the back.

Skye walked down the short, faintly lit passage. Squinting, she was relieved when she spotted a door at the end marked
PRIVATE
. Thankful that the brown waterfall had ceased to trickle from the rear of the Pet Taxi, she balanced the carrier in one arm and turned the knob.

The basement’s lack of windows made it seem like midnight even on the sunniest days, and Skye had been glad that the area around the stairs was lit by low-wattage fixtures that always remained on. But it had grown dimmer and dimmer as she made her way down the corridor, and in the closet there was no illumination.

She felt along the walls on either side of the doorway for the light switch, but couldn’t find any.
Hmm.
It had to be here somewhere. Maybe there was a string hanging from a bulb in the center of the room.

She shuffled toward where she thought the cord might
be and waved her hand around the space in front of her. Finally, her fingers closed around a chain. She gave it a hard tug and the closet lit up.

As she turned, her foot nudged something soft. She looked down and jumped backward. Alexis Hightower was lying spread-eagled on the tile floor. A thin braided wire was wound tightly around her neck. The metal cord was connected to a glittery wand, which stuck up next to her ear like a video game joystick. A toy mouse attached to the wire was stuffed into her mouth.

S
kye swallowed the scream that was threatening to burst from her throat. There was no doubt that Alexis was dead. The only question in Skye’s mind was whether the murderer was still in the building.

After making sure that the hall was empty, she took a firm grip on Bingo’s carrier and sprinted for the stairs. Once she reached the main floor, she rounded up Bunny and enlightened her about the situation as she propelled the three of them into the redhead’s office and locked the door.

As Skye grabbed the phone and dialed 911, she sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that it was Sunday. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with her mother, who was a police dispatcher. Thank goodness May worked the Monday-through-Friday second shift.

When Skye finished explaining the murder to the weekend dispatcher, she, along with Bunny and a vocally unhappy Bingo, sat in the office and watched the second hand on the wall clock inch around its oversize round face. The women didn’t speak, and neither could translate the black cat’s yowls. Although “Get me the hell out of this stinky carrier” would have been Skye’s first guess.

Finally, Bunny jumped up, yanked open a file cabinet drawer and took out a bottle of José Cuervo and a shot glass. She unscrewed the cap, poured, and pounded down the tequila. She repeated the process, then offered the glass to Skye. “For most things,” she said, “there’s MasterCard, but for a situation like this, there’s nothing like booze.”

Although tempted, Skye refused the shooter, and another very long five minutes ticked by before they heard sirens, running feet, and authoritative voices shouting “Clear” over and over again.

Skye knew that they should remain in their present location until an officer informed them it was safe to come out. Bunny, on the other hand, wanted to see what was happening, and Skye was still clutching the redhead’s arm, trying to stop her from leaving, when there was a knock on the door.

“The area has been cleared.” Skye recognized the voice as belonging to Sergeant Roy Quirk, Wally’s second in command. “There’s no one here.”

In order to release the lock, Skye had to let go of Bunny. She hid a grin when the redhead threw herself into the sergeant’s arms as soon as he stepped into the room. Quirk was in his mid-thirties, young enough to be Bunny’s son, but he was male, which qualified him for the redhead’s full flirtation routine.

Quirk’s face turned brick red as he peeled Bunny off his chest. He sat her down and asked, “Everyone okay in here?”

“No.” Bunny popped out of her chair and pointed to Bingo. “The stink is closing up my sinuses. Can Skye wash him up in one of the bathrooms?”

“Nothing in the alley can be touched until after the techs from Laurel process the scene.” There was an unbending resolve in Quirk’s voice.

“But that’s a good forty-five miles from here. It’ll take them forever,” Bunny complained.

“Yep.” Quirk folded his arms across his muscular chest. With his beefy build and shaved head, all he needed was a bunch of gold chains, a Mohawk, and a really good tan to be a stunt double for Mr. T. “If forever is an hour.”

“Sorry.” Skye apologized for Bingo’s dishabille. “Can I take him home? I could be back in fifteen or twenty minutes at the most.”

“Well…” Quirk’s tone was suddenly uncertain. “I really do need to get your information right away.”

“Sure. I understand.” Skye felt sorry for the sergeant. Not only was she his boss’s fiancée, she was also the police department’s psychological consultant. For an ex-military man like Quirk, it was disturbing when he couldn’t figure out who outranked whom.

“Well,
I
don’t understand.” Bunny wrinkled her nose and fanned her hand in front of her face. “I’ll never get the smell of cat poop out of these clothes if you don’t let me out of here right this minute.”

“Sit down, ma’am.” Quirk ignored the older woman’s grumbles. “There would have been a much worse odor if Skye hadn’t found the victim.”

It took a second before Bunny’s expression darkened in comprehension. Swallowing back whatever protest she had been about to utter, she paled and sank into the chair behind the desk. For once, she didn’t have a smart-alecky retort or an innuendo-laden comment.

With Bunny subdued, Quirk perched on the desktop and indicated that Skye should take the visitor’s seat. He flipped open his notebook, clicked his pen, and asked, “Ready?”

“Yes.”

Skye started to describe her actions, but when she got to the part about entering the bowling alley, Quirk interrupted to ask Bunny, “What time did you open the front entrance this morning?”

“I didn’t. I only finished dressing a few minutes before I ran into Skye.” She batted her false lashes at the sergeant. “I never leave my apartment without my war paint and full battle dress.”

“So you forgot to lock the door last night?” Quirk’s face was disapproving. “You know that’s a very dangerous thing to overlook. Scumble River may be a small town, but as Ms. Denison can attest, having found more than her share of murder victims, it’s certainly not crime free.”

“State the obvious much?” Bunny arched a brow. “And I didn’t forget.” She fluffed her curls. “The bowler disco party ended at midnight and the cleaning crew worked until two. Once they were finished, I paid them, escorted them out, and locked up behind them.”

Quirk turned to Skye. “But the door was open when you got here?”

“Yes.”

“And the photographer—” Quirk consulted his notes. “Kyle O’Brien wasn’t here.”

“Correct.”

Quirk wrote something down, then asked Bunny, “Who has keys to the bowling alley?”

“Sonny Boy.”

“And that is?”

“Her son, Simon Reid, the owner,” Skye translated, then added, “I believe he’s spending the weekend in Saint Louis. Right, Bunny?”

“Yep.” The redhead nodded. “He’s not due back until late this afternoon.”

“I know.” Quirk’s mouth tightened. “Since Reid’s the coroner, I had to call the medical examiner to come, and he was none too happy to have his Sunday disturbed.”

Because there were so few murders in Stanley County—usually only two or three a year—the ME was a part-timer. Since there was no rush for accident victims’
autopsies, he wasn’t used to having his weekend interrupted.

“Oh.” Bunny grimaced. “Right. I forgot about Sonny Boy being the coroner.”

“Anyone else have a key?” Quirk asked. “The bartender, one of the waitresses, the cleaning crew, maybe a gentleman friend or two?”

“Nope.” Bunny patted her considerable cleavage. “And I keep mine right here.”

“So only two keys and unless Reid lost his—”

“Sonny Boy never ever loses anything,” Bunny declared.

“Then we’ll assume both keys are accounted for.” Quirk pursed his lips in thought. “Do you need one to unlock the door from the inside?”

“No. The dead bolt has a thumb turn.” Bunny’s heavily made-up eyes widened in alarm. “Are you saying the murderer was here after everyone was gone last night? When I was alone?”

“Maybe.” Quirk shrugged. “Depends on what the ME determines as the time of death.”

“But,” Skye said, “isn’t it more likely that someone killed Alexis during the party and left with the other guests?” She frowned. “Otherwise the murderer would have had to persuade her to hide from Bunny at closing. And why would she agree to do that?”

“Motivation is your area of expertise. I prefer to deal with the facts,” Quirk said, stone-faced.

“Are we done?” Bunny whined, her brush with cold, harsh reality forgotten.

“No, we are not.” Quirk turned his attention to the redhead. “Enlighten me as to what this cat show, speed-dating thing is all about.”

Bunny’s explanation was surprisingly concise and businesslike, and when she finished, Quirk had only a couple of follow-up questions. Then he got to his feet,
walked to the door, and said to Skye, “Why don’t you go get cleaned up and drop off the cat?”

“Okay.”

“There’s no rush, but when you get back, work with Mrs. Reid and the two kids helping her run this shindig to come up with a list of the people from yesterday’s event who might have persuaded the vic to stay behind, and/or who may have had a reason to want her dead.” Quirk paused, then said to Bunny, “And I need the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all the attendees.”

Quirk didn’t have to tell Skye twice that she could leave. She practically ran out of Bunny’s office, hopped in her car, and sped home. Once in the house, her first order of business was to give the ticked-off feline a bath. When he was clean—and angrier than before—she bribed him with cat treats to forgive her for all the indignities he’d been put though that morning.

While Bingo was calming down, Skye threw the ruined Pet Taxi into the outside trash can, then put her clothes directly into the washing machine. By the time the laundry was ready to go in the dryer, she was showered and redressed, Bingo was asleep, and she had half an hour to make noon Mass.

Skye lingered a few minutes after the service, but there was no buzz about the murder. Because gossip had interfered with several investigations in the past, Wally had issued a directive to use cell phones rather than the police radio to notify the officers when a serious crime was suspected.

Happy that his orders had apparently been followed even though he wasn’t in town, Skye left church and drove to the bowling alley. When she arrived at a little after one, the county techs had been and gone.

Anthony, a part-time officer who worked the shifts no one else wanted, stood outside the glass doors. He tipped his hat and moved the yellow crime scene tape so Skye could enter.

“Anyone else still here?” she asked.

“Just me and Zelda.” Anthony jerked his thumb toward the interior.

Zelda Martinez was both the youngest and the most recent hire on the Scumble River police force, and thus she was usually assigned all the boring duties. She was also the only female.

“Anything new on the case?” Skye asked Anthony before stepping over the threshold.

“Nah.” He straightened his police hat. “We took names, addresses, and phone numbers as the folks arrived, then told them they couldn’t come inside.”

“Any problem with that?” Skye wondered how the contestants had taken the abrupt end of their weekend. “Did any of them get mad?”

“A couple started to demand their money back, but Miss Bunny held a speeded-up version of the final round in the parking lot. Good thing it warmed up some today and stopped raining.” Anthony grinned. “There sure were some odd-looking cats. One didn’t have any fur at all.”

“What did Bunny do about the awards ceremony?” Skye asked, sure the clever redhead had come up with something. “It was supposed to have been a brunch.”

“Miss Bunny called some guys and they brought tables and set them up in her garage. Sarge let her take out the food that had been stored in the grill, and she and Frannie cooked it in her apartment kitchen. The servers brought the meal down Bunny’s outside staircase to the garage.”

Skye wondered how they had navigated the rickety wooden steps.

As she walked inside, she said over her shoulder, “I’m glad it all worked out.”

She found Bunny, Frannie, and Justin seated in the lounge. Justin was entering data into his laptop and Frannie was counting money. Bunny had her feet up, a cold compress over her eyes, and she clutched a half-empty martini glass to her chest.