What the Cat Saw (15 page)

“Yes.” Clipped. Definite. One word.
Nada mas.

“How can Miss Farley be involved since she arrived in Craddock Friday?”

“The investigation is following several leads.” Katie came to a full stop, pushed back her chair.

Steve was exasperated. “That’s no answer. You talked to Miss Farley for thirty-one minutes. Is she a person of interest?”

Katie came to her feet. “At this point in the investigation, there
is not a single suspect. No premature announcement will be made.” She pulled out a lower drawer, retrieved a black shoulder bag, stood.

He rose and turned the chair to once again face the gray metal desk.

Katie was already out the door.

In the hall, he watched her stride toward the exit. Katie had been careful, circumspect, cautious, but when he connected the dots, he understood why ice had turned to fire. Nela Flynn was in big trouble.

J
ugs followed Nela into the kitchen, chirped impatiently as she closed the blinds. She put the McDonald’s sack on the counter. He jumped up and sniffed. “Not good for you, buddy. I’ll get yours in a minute.”

With the blinds closed, no one could see her. The front door was blocked by the safety wedge. She dropped to one knee by Jugs’s cabinet, pushed aside the stacked cans of cat food, felt weak with relief. The black leather bag was there. She started to reach, quickly drew back her hand. If ordinary criminals were careful about prints, she wasn’t going to be mutt enough to leave hers on Marian Grant’s purse.

Once again attired in the orange rubber gloves, she edged out the purse, pulled the zipper, held the sides wide, moved the red leather gloves, saw the glitter of gold and diamonds. So far, so good. She took comfort that the police hadn’t entered the apartment, found the stolen jewelry. But safety was illusory. She had to get rid of the necklace. ASAP.

Jugs stood on his back paws, patted at the shelf. “I know, buddy. It’s suppertime and you think I’m nuts.” She returned the purse to the cabinet, knowing any casual search would find it. But for now,
that was the best she could do. She dished up Jugs’s food, placed the bowls on the newspaper, provided fresh water.

Jugs crouched and ate, fast.

She found a paper plate for herself, opened and poured a Coke. By the time she settled at the kitchen table, Jugs was finished.

The lean cat padded to the table, jumped, once again settled politely just far enough to indicate he wasn’t encroaching upon her meal. He gazed at her with luminous green eyes.
“…miss Her…”

Nela stared into those beautiful eyes. For now, she would accept that whenever she looked at Jugs, she moved into his mind. She took some comfort from that rapport, whether real or imagined. “I’m sorry.” And she was. Sorry for Jugs, grieving for lost love. Sorry for everyone lost and lonely and hurt in an uncaring world. Sorry for what might have been with Bill. Sorry for herself and Chloe, enmeshed in a mess not of their making. Sorry and, more than that, determined to do what she had to do to keep them both safe. It was, she realized, the first time since Bill died that she’d felt fully alive.

She looked into Jugs’s gleaming eyes.

“…You’re mad…”

She pulled her gaze away from his, unwrapped a double cheeseburger, began to eat. She felt a flicker of surprise. Yeah. Jugs had it right. She was mad as hell. So many paths were blocked. It was too late to report finding the necklace. She could claim it occurred to her to wonder if anything had been taken from the bag so she opened it…She shook her head. Nice try, but it wouldn’t fly. The detective would never believe she’d found the necklace in the purse. Detective Dugan would see that claim as a lie and be convinced Chloe had stolen the necklace and left it in the apartment for Nela to keep safe. The necklace had to go.

Throw it away?

It would be her luck to toss the jewelry in a trash bin and be seen.

How about taking a drive, tossing the necklace into the woods? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars flung into underbrush? Probably a birdwatcher would ring the police before she drove a hundred yards. If she parked and walked into the woods, maybe dug a hole, she’d leave footprints.

What did you do with something that didn’t belong to you?

She ate, dipping the fries in pepper-dotted ketchup, drank the Coke, and made plans.

A
t Hamburger Heaven, Steve stirred onions and grated cheese into chili and beans. He spread margarine on a square of jalapeño-studded cornbread. He once again sat in his usual booth. Beyond the tables, every space was taken at the counter. A roar of conversation competed with Reba McEntire’s newest country music hit. Steve shut out the lyrics about love gone wrong, picked through the nuances of his exchanges with Katie.

When he’d asked if Nela Farley was a person of interest, Katie could have made several replies. She was never shy about barking, “No comment.” However, he could then have written a story saying that Detective K. T. Dugan declined to reveal whether Nela Farley was a person of interest. Any reader might reasonably assume, as he did, that Dugan’s reply definitely indicated Farley was indeed a person of interest.

That wasn’t the only red flag. Instead of discussing a break-in at Marian Grant’s apartment, Katie talked about the 911 call and the fact that there was no proof anyone had broken in. If no one broke
in, either Nela Farley had searched the room, then placed a fake 911 call—she had permitted someone to enter and leave, then ditto—or someone with a key to Marian Grant’s apartment was the intruder.

If there wasn’t an intruder…

Steve knew he wanted to believe Nela’s story. But Katie was a good cop and she’d lined up Nela Farley in her sights. Why did he want to defend the girl with the intelligent, sensitive face? He knew better than most that beauty didn’t count for much and a woman could look at you with love in her eyes one minute and it’s-time-for-you-to-go the next. Women lied.

Why would a girl who’d never been to Craddock want to plow through the desk in a dead woman’s apartment?

He always thought quickly and the answer was waiting in his mind. Nela Farley had a connection to Craddock. Her sister, Chloe, worked at Haklo. In fact, Nela was in town to sub for her sister while Chloe and her boyfriend were on a two-week freebie to Tahiti. Freddi had written a fun feature for the Life section about Leland Buchholz’s contest win and his and Chloe’s plans for the Tahiti holiday. Alex took some great shots, capturing the couple’s happy-go-lucky attitude.

Nela could be acting on behalf of her sister. However, her sister had been in the apartment for several days and surely had time for a thorough search. Even if Chloe asked Nela to search again, Nela had no need to create an intruder. She was staying in the place as a caretaker for a cat. She could search anything at any time she wished and no one would be the wiser.

Steve ate his chili without noticing the taste.

So he didn’t get Katie’s emphasis on the 911 call…

And then he did.

If it was absolutely essential to remove something from Marian
Grant’s office, a paper, a file, maybe a link to the theft of a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar necklace, a previous search of the Grant apartment by an unknown intruder pointed away from Nela Farley.

But not if the police thought the 911 call was phony.

Steve pushed back the bowl. He lifted his Dr Pepper and drank.

Katie believed the apartment break-in was fake. She linked both searches to the vandalism and the theft of the necklace.

Steve gave a soundless whistle. Now he understood why Katie refused to name a person of interest. Clearly, following Katie’s reasoning, the vandalism and theft had been committed by Chloe Farley and now Nela Farley was desperately trying to protect her sister.

He finished the Dr Pepper, but without his usual pleasure in the tingly burn of the pop. Katie Dugan always spoke carefully. Her final comment had been bland until he parsed the words:
At this point in the investigation, there is not a single suspect. No premature announcement will be made.

He knew every word was true. There was no single suspect. There were two suspects, Chloe Farley and Nela Farley. There would be no premature announcement because Chloe Farley was in Tahiti, a nice place to hang out to avoid prosecution in the U.S.

Steve recalled the feature story written by Freddi. Leland was part of a prominent Craddock family. Though Freddi wrote with humor and enthusiasm, Leland and his girlfriend came across as flakes. Nice flakes, but flakes. Had a quarter-million-dollar necklace been too big a temptation?

Steve realized he’d crushed the empty Dr Pepper can.
Ease up, man. You don’t know her.
But she looked like a woman of courage touched by sadness. Her image haunted his mind.

She could be innocent…

Or guilty.

9

N
ela, wearing the orange rubber dishwashing gloves, carefully positioned Marian Grant’s purse on the bookcase by the door. A casual observer would never suspect the purse had been moved since Marian placed it there. Nela opened the purse and fished out the necklace. The diamonds glistened in the living room light. Nela dropped the necklace into a clear quart-size plastic bag and placed the bag also on the bookcase. The plastic bag, carefully eased by gloved fingers from the middle of its box, was fingerprint free. She felt a spurt of satisfaction as she returned the gloves to the kitchen. She was turning into an old pro at avoiding fingerprints. That was easy. Now came the challenge. She would be safe and so would Chloe if she could follow—sort of—in the footsteps of Raffles, one of Gram’s favorite fictional characters. Nela doubted if Detective Dugan had ever heard of Raffles. Gram had loved the short stories as well as the movies, especially the 1939 film with David Niven as
the gentleman thief. Tonight, Nela pinned her hopes on doing a reverse Raffles.

She ran through her plan in her mind. She’d leave about ten. She glanced at her watch. Almost two hours to go. She was impatient. There was so much she needed to do. She’d already tried to use Marian’s home computer but there was no handy password in the desk drawer. Nela didn’t have a laptop. If she did, she could seek information about the staff at Haklo. Still, she could use this time profitably.

She settled on the sofa with a notebook. Jugs settled beside her. She turned to a fresh page. She always traveled with a notebook. She might not be able to dig for facts and figures, but she could sum up her impressions of the people she’d met. She didn’t doubt that the vandal/thief and possible murderer was among that group. Only someone with intimate knowledge of Chloe’s schedule would have been aware of her departure Friday for Tahiti, leaving Marian Grant’s apartment unoccupied for the first time since her death.

Nela wrote fast.