What the Cat Saw (33 page)

Nela sat numbly at Chloe’s desk and waited. Dugan had taken only a moment to talk to Nela—how did she find the body?—then directed Nela and the other shaken and shocked Haklo staff members, who’d gathered in the upper-west hallway, to remain in their offices until further notice. Rosalind, eyes red-rimmed, brought
lunch, ham sandwiches, chips, coffee. Nela forced herself to eat. The day was going to be long and hard. She needed energy to recall and tell Katie Dugan what she knew. Louise Spear had been worried and upset yesterday, but it had never occurred to Nela that Louise was in danger. Her distress had seemed natural, the care of a woman who had served Haklo for so many years. If only she had asked Louise what troubled her…
If only
…

Nela was painfully aware of the spread of light through the connecting doorway. This morning she’d assumed that any moment Louise would return to her office.

More steps, these coming from the other direction. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m not going to talk to her. I’m on my way upstairs, but I want to see her, Mokie.”

Nela came to her feet. Steve was coming down the hall.

“Katie’ll have my head on a platter if any of the witnesses talk to anybody.” Mokie’s gravelly voice was steely.

Nela realized with a chill that there must be officers stationed in every hall to prevent conversation and ensure staff members stayed sequestered.

“That includes you, Steve.” It was an order.

“Not to worry.” Steve’s voice was nearer, loud, determined. He came through the open door in a rush.

She moved to meet him.

He reached her, gripped her shoulders. His broad freckled face was grim, but his blue eyes looked deep into hers, saying,
It’s bad, I’m here, I’ll help
.

She drew strength from his reassuring gaze and from his touch, the warmth and certainty of his hands.

“I know it’s rotten.” His voice held a recognition of the grisly
scene she’d found and taut anger at the death of a woman who had been good and kind and generous.

“I kept hunting for her.” Nela hated thinking how long Louise’s body had lain there. “And all the while—”

Mokie stood in the doorway. “Save it for Dugan.” Mokie’s voice was gruff.

Nela glanced at Mokie, nodded. “Right.” She looked back at Steve.

He tightened his grip on her shoulders. “I’ve got to cover the story. I’ll see you tonight. I’ll bring dinner.”

T
he afternoon dragged, one slow hour after another. Nothing to do. No one to talk to. Only the sounds of people coming and going. She tried not to remember what she had seen, tried to figure who might have committed murder, knew the list was long. All the staff members had been present late yesterday afternoon. Erik Judd had been in the library. Any of them could have killed Louise.

It was a quarter to five when footsteps came near, purposeful, quick steps. Detective Dugan came through the open door, followed by Mokie Morrison. He was much taller, but Dugan carried with her an air of command.

Dugan flicked a thumb at Mokie. He settled in a chair a little to one side, pulled out a small recorder, turned it on. “Office of Nela Farley, temporary assistant to murder victim. Time: four forty-six p.m. Investigating officers Detective Flynn, Detective Mokie Morrison. Investigation into homicide of Louise Spear.”

Dugan didn’t draw up a second chair. She stood in front of Chloe’s desk, arms folded, and stared down at Nela. Although her white blouse, gray cardigan, and gray wool skirt would have been
proper attire in any office, she looked every inch a cop, eyes sharp and questioning, face hard. “When did you last see Louise Spear?”

“Just before I left yesterday. A few minutes before five.” When had Louise died? Why had she gone upstairs to the artifact room? That was where Abby worked. Once again, always, there was a link to Abby.

“Where did you see her?”

Nela gestured toward the connecting doorway. “In her office. I stood in the doorway, said good night.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“Not then. I talked to her earlier in the day. She was very upset after the necklace was found in Abby’s office. When I came back from lunch, she was sitting in her office and she looked dreadful. She wasn’t doing any work. And later, I talked to everyone, asking about Marian Grant’s last day—”

“We’ll get to that in a minute.” Dugan was impatient. “Tell me about Louise Spear.”

Nela’s eyes narrowed as she tried to remember Louise’s words. “Louise said she didn’t see Marian in the afternoon, that the last time she saw her, Marian seemed fine. Then Louise started talking about the necklace. Louise said that things sometimes weren’t what they seemed to be, but we couldn’t get away from the fact that the police found the necklace in Abby’s office. It was all a little confused. She said either Abby put it in the cabinet or someone put it there to get Abby in trouble. And then she said”—Nela hesitated because the words seemed so damning now—“that ‘she shouldn’t have been there. But I saw her.’ ”

Dugan’s expression was thoughtful. “ ‘She shouldn’t have been there. But I saw her.’ ”

W
hen Nela opened the apartment door, Steve wished he could wipe away the pain and distress in her face. She carried too many burdens. He wanted to see her smile. He wanted her eyes to light up with happiness. He wanted her to know laughter and carefree days. And nights. Preferably with him. He held up a carryout bag. “Greek food. And”—he paused for emphasis, waggling a red can of coffee mixed with chicory—“I brought the Flynn special, coffee that will stiffen your spine.”

Nela had already set the table.

He put the coffee on to brew while she emptied the sacks. “Dinner first, then I’ll bring you up to date. But nothing about Haklo while we eat.”

They feasted on chicken kabobs and Greek salad, finishing with baklava and steaming mugs of chicory coffee. “Can’t end a meal at the Flynn house in the winter without coffee that barks.” He looked toward Jugs, in his usual place at the end of the table. “Sorry for the language.”

Resisting a second piece of baklava, Steve raised his mug in a salute to Jugs. “I don’t usually like to share a girl with another guy, but I’ll make an exception for you, buddy.”

Jugs looked regal, front paws outstretched.

“Jugs is a gentleman.” Nela smiled. “He has definite ideas on the proper place for a cat during meals, but he minds his manners.”

Soon enough the dishes were done and they were in the living room.

Jugs settled between them on the sofa.

Nela smoothed Jugs’s bristly coat, welcomed the warmth. “Tell
me, Steve.” The brightness from their cheerful interlude fled her eyes.

He didn’t have to look at notes. He’d covered the investigation all through the afternoon, written the lead story with five minutes to spare on deadline. “You are the last person to admit seeing Louise, so she was alive at a few minutes before five. Her death occurred sometime between five and nine p.m. They can figure that from the state of rigor mortis. The autopsy will likely be more definitive. Katie thinks she was killed shortly after five p.m. For some reason, she went to the artifact room. There’s no indication from the position of the body that she fought her attacker. Instead, she was apparently struck from behind, a blow that crushed the base of her skull. She fell and was hit at least three more times. Death from massive trauma. The weapon was a Plains Indian war club, a rounded polished ball of stone fastened by a strip of leather to a handle. The stone has a circumference of seven inches. The handle is eighteen inches long, partially wrapped in hide. On the length of the handle, there are several prints belonging to Abby Andrews along with some unidentified prints. Katie doubts the murderer was thoughtful enough to leave prints, and likely the unidentified prints belong to a previous collector or shop owner.”

“Abby was cataloging the clubs. Of course her prints are on them.” Nela had a quick picture of Abby yesterday as Nela crossed the room.

Steve shrugged. “Yeah. A point in her favor. Or a point against her. Everybody knew she was handling the war clubs. If she killed Louise, she didn’t have to worry about gloves. Like you said, her prints are all over the clubs. Some of the prints are smudged either by Abby or by gloves worn by the murderer. If somebody else hefted the weapon, they must have worn gloves. But why not? If
it was after five o’clock, maybe the murderer was already in a coat, ready to leave. Louise wouldn’t be surprised at gloves in this weather.”

“I don’t see why Louise went to the artifact room.”

“That’s easy, whether the killer’s Abby or someone else.” Steve felt confident. “Abby could ask Louise to come up, say she needed to check out something with her. If it’s someone else, it’s even easier. Abby had the tail pinned on her a half-dozen times Wednesday. The murderer says, ‘Louise, I may have found something in the artifact room that implicates Abby but I don’t want to take it to the police unless you agree.’ ”

“Why did the murderer leave on the light?” Nela shivered. “That bothers me. I keep thinking about the light on all night and Louise lying there dead.”

Steve didn’t believe the light mattered one way or the other. “Maybe the idea was that the light would attract attention and Louise would be found sooner rather than later.”

“She would have been found early today by Abby, except Abby and Hollis were gone this morning. I don’t think Grace ever came in today, although she wouldn’t pay any attention if she had.”

“Why do you say that?”

Nela gave him a quirked smile. He noticed for the first time that she had a hint of a dimple in her right cheek. “Grace wouldn’t consider it necessary to personally check on anything. She and Blythe are accustomed to having others take care of details for them. When Blythe came here Friday night, she hadn’t given a thought to who would take care of Jugs. She’d assumed it was taken care of. Minions can always be dispatched.”

“You aren’t a big fan of the Webster sisters?”

Nela considered the question. “Neither for nor against. As
Fitzgerald said, ‘the rich are different.’ But”—and she looked a little shamefaced—“to be fair—”

Steve was touched by her rush to be generous. She had a kind heart. And that, he realized with an odd sense of sadness, was nothing he would ever have said about Gail.

“—Blythe is doing her best to find out what happened, even though I don’t think either she or Grace were fond of Marian. Too much history there because of their father and mother. As for Grace”—and now she again felt the prickle of unease that she’d experienced when she spoke with Grace Webster about Marian’s last day—“I don’t know if she was warning me or threatening me when we talked about the necklace and she said that ‘sometimes it’s safer not to know.’ ”

“It could have been either?”

Once again Nela gave a question grave consideration. “It could have been either.”

“We have to look at everything again.” He hated the sense of uncertainty that enveloped him, but they had to face facts. “I was positive the car fire meant a lot, that one of the men was hot for Anne Nesbitt, that she’d brushed him off. I talked to her. If one of them was interested, she didn’t pick up on it. I think she was telling me the truth. She would have known, right?” He wondered if she knew how he felt, sitting so near her.

Nela looked at him. Her eyes widened, then her gaze slipped away. Her voice was soft when she answered. “She would know.”

He felt a quickening of his breath and then her eyes moved to the photograph of the dark-haired man in the latticed frame with its carefully worked border of red, white, and blue ribbons. Steve willed his voice to be businesslike. “So, scratch the idea that one of the men was getting back at her. That means we still have to figure
out whether the vandalism started with the car fire or whether the fire gave someone a clever way of setting up camouflage to steal a necklace or whether the necklace was just one more way of attacking Haklo and making life miserable for the director and the trustee.” His lips compressed for a moment. “It’s like trying to catch minnows with your bare hands, too many of them and too slippery and fast.”

Nela smoothed Jugs’s fur.

Steve gazed at her long fingers, a lovely hand, smooth, graceful, gentle.

She look at him with quick intelligence. “If the objective was to steal the necklace, would there have been so much destruction? The Indian baskets were slashed. A crystal statuette was thrown at a mirror in Marian’s apartment. The mess in her office was more than just the aftermath of a search. I think”—she spoke slowly—“someone is frighteningly angry.”

“And scared.” He tried to sort out his confusion. “Scared as hell, now. That’s why Marian and Louise died. I don’t think there was ever a plan to murder anyone. It was a campaign to cause trouble. Maybe Abby Andrews really did see a way to snatch a quarter million dollars worth of jewelry. If so, her heroine-tied-to-the-tracks posture is an act. But there are other reasons Haklo could be the target. Blythe decided to get really involved at Haklo this summer. Grace not only resents her sister’s status as sole trustee, she’s mad because Blythe squashed support for her lover’s art exhibition. Erik Judd lost his job and Robbie Powell’s been furious ever since. Cole’s miserable about being pushed out as a vice president. Francis’s budget has been whacked. Peter may be looking at the end of in-house publications if Blythe decides to use a local agency and that might ease him out of his job. Or maybe my first instinct was right and Anne Nesbitt’s wrong. Maybe one of the overtures at the workplace
wasn’t gracefully deflected and somebody was infuriated by Hollis’s usual approach to a good-looking woman.”

Nela looked discouraged. “What troubles me is that when I think of everyone at Haklo, I see nice faces.”

“I do, too. We have to hope Katie gets a break somewhere. She’s smart. If anyone can ever figure out the truth, it will be Katie. She’ll put on pressure. Somebody will crack. The murderer has to be in a panic now. Everything’s spiraled out of control.” He reached out, gently touched her shoulder. “Tomorrow will be better.” He gathered up his papers. He wished he believed his words.

He stood and Nela came to her feet.