The Death of Perry Many Paws (36 page)

fficer Donny couldn’t peel me off him so he offered to carry me downstairs. That seemed like heaven to me until I remembered that I wasn’t the slender young girl I had been when I first came to this house, and politely demurred. I was a little shaky on my feet so Officer Donny held onto my elbow as I went very slowly down three flights of stairs, explaining to him how I was fifteen pounds overweight, which wasn’t obese by anyone’s standards, even the government chart that they kept in the doctor’s office. I told him how much I had weighed when Cam and I were married and how much I gained during my pregnancy. I told him how a woman’s weight is redistributed after giving birth and how much easier it is to gain weight during perimenopause, which, in case he didn’t know, was the actual name for the period of time, no pun intended, when women went from having regular periods to ceasing to menstruate altogether. By the time we got to the first floor I was feeling more like myself but Officer Donny didn’t look so well.

Cam came bursting through the front door and literally swept me off my feet. He was actually crying, which made me start crying and made Officer Donny leave the room. We held each other and cried for several minutes until two women came up to me and explained they were EMTs and needed to check me out. Cam held my hand as we sat in the rarely used living room and they examined my cuts, applying some antibiotic and, in a few cases, a small bandage. They determined
that the pain in my side was nothing more serious than a pulled muscle. A police officer stood in the corner of the room, his back to me, apparently waiting to see if I would say anything more enlightening than “ouch”, and “oh, that stings”. He was disappointed. Cam reluctantly left my side to go upstairs and get me a clean t-shirt and a sweater. The EMTs suggested that I go to the hospital but I didn’t think it was really necessary and apparently they didn’t either, because they let it drop without an argument. When they left, Officer Donny came into the living room and asked Cam and me to follow him to the kitchen. Suddenly I remembered.

“Mycroft! Oh Cam, did they do anything to Mycroft?”

Cam held me and grinned. “Not unless they gave him a sleeping pill. He’s still snoozing in the library …”

“Are you sure he’s alive?”

“Yes. He gave me a signature toot when I went in to check on him. He’s very much alive, although something in his intestines definitely isn’t.” We both laughed, feeling a little giddy and lighthearted until we came to the kitchen door.

Broken dishes and glasses were everywhere—on the floor, on the counters, on the table and in the sink. I didn’t even realize how many dishes we had until I saw them smashed on every surface of the room. I looked at the different colored shards and mourned for the new Fiesta Ware dishes Cam and Abbey had gotten me for my birthday. I love those dishes. I started to cry.

“Abbey and I will get more Fiesta Ware. Don’t worry. We can fix all this.”

I sniffed and held his hand. “It was a gift from you and Abbey. It’s so special …”

“I know, sweetheart. It will still be special. Abbey and I will fix it and we’ll ...”

Officer Donny’s partner interrupted. “I don’t know much about that fiesta stuff but I’d feel worse about the souvenir dishes. Those are more difficult to replace.” Cam and Officer Donny gave him a dirty look.

“This is Officer Lumb …” Officer Donny began. Officer Lumb continued.

“I mean regular dishes you can get in the store but you’d have to go all the way back to Bucky’s Bait Shop to get another dish like that. That’s awesome how they printed the name of the shop with actual worms. Where is that place, anyway? You guys do a lot of fishing?” Cam and I stared at the mess in the kitchen and Officer Donny stared at us as Officer Lumb continued.

“Look at this ashtray. It looks like someone’s butt. I get it. You put your butts out in the butt. Ha! You folks had a lot of great stuff. Look here, a Betty Boop platter. Only it says Betty Boob and she’s naked. Nice. You know, you could easily put that back together. It’s only in two pieces …”

Cam and I continued to stare, looking now at individual shards instead of the overall mess.

“It’s not our stuff,” Cam said tentatively, looking at me. “It’s not our stuff, is it?”

“I’m not sure. I mean some of it definitely isn’t ours, like all the things Officer Lumb is admiring. Definitely not ours …”

“And I don’t see Fiesta Ware. Those colored dishes aren’t Fiesta Ware. Wrong colors …”

“And they’re too fragile. Fiesta Ware is sturdy. Look at that horrible yellow pile of dishes by the sink. Those aren’t ours …”

“And we don’t have dachshund dishes. I see lots of pieces of dachshund dishes all over the place!” Cam started pointing and turning me around to look at various odd pieces he didn’t recognize. “Those
big flower dishes aren’t ours. They’re ugly. We wouldn’t buy something like that …”

“Excuse me,” Officer Donny interrupted. “Do you see anything in this mess that
is
yours? Something that came out of your cupboards? Can you identify anything?”

“No.”

Cam and I were told to wait in the library. There were still two officers traipsing around on the second floor looking for signs of disturbance and Officer Donny and his partner were checking doors and windows on the first floor. I curled up under the corduroy throw on the couch and absentmindedly stroke Mycroft’s head, which was resting on my knee. Cam got called out a couple of times to look at something and the second time he returned with a diet soda, a pack of lemon wafers, and two aspirin. It was past our usual dinner time so I was starving, not being one of those people for whom stress reduces the appetite.

I was starting to doze when I heard someone arguing in the front hall. I perked up and listened and received what I hoped would be my final shock of the day. Cam was scolding his mother! I wrapped the throw around me and opened the library door so I could hear better.

“… won’t have her upset, Mom. She’s been through a terrible ordeal so either you are at your most sympathetic or you will just have to leave …”

“You already said that, Christian, and I don’t appreciate your tone …”

“You know how you are with her, baiting and making jabs …”

“I most certainly am not. Really, Christian. I realize you are upset but don’t take it out on me …”

“Just be nice to her …”

“I’m always nice …”

“No you aren’t …”

This was doing more for my recovery than the combination of diet soda, lemon wafers and aspirin. Unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end and I heard Sybil intercede. Spoil sport.

“All right. We get the point, Cam. Don’t badger your poor mother. She is just as upset as you are …”

“Well, I …”

“Now don’t interrupt, young man. Your mother came as soon as she heard …”

“How did you hear?”

“I have a police scanner,” Sybil replied. I wasn’t surprised to hear it. “We would have been here sooner but Claudia was in the Ashland Belle beauty parlor …”

“It takes weeks to get an appointment there,” Claudia interjected to show how serious the appointment was.

“… and we couldn’t just run right out the door while her hair was still being worked on.”

“But you must have heard it on the police scanner more than an hour ago,” Cam protested. I wasn’t sure why. It’s not like we were upset that they took so long to arrive. We would rather they didn’t come at all.

“Exactly. It takes several hours to get your hair done, dear. As Sybil said, we rushed over as soon as we heard,” Claudia explained.

“It’s a good thing the house wasn’t on fire,” Cam commented.

“I quite agree, dear. A robbery is so much better. Now where is Tamsen?”

I scuttled back to my place on the couch and reached for Mycroft for support. If Cam hadn’t been here, I would have fled back to the attic.

The two septuagenarians sailed in. They both came over and kissed my cheeks, mingling Chanel No. 5 and Evening in Paris in my face. I coughed for a good minute until the battling scents dissipated. Mycroft
continued to sniff and eye the newcomers suspiciously. Sybil made soothing comments and Claudia looked around the room trying to find something out of place that she could draw to my attention. Cam came in followed by the two police officers, and introductions were made. Cam brought coffee. To his credit, Cam ignored his mother when she asked for tea. I don’t think I’d ever seen him be rude to her before. I was thoroughly enjoying it.

Officer Donny asked me to once again go over what had happened that afternoon. When I got to the part about opening the quilt and discovering the bricks of cash, Claudia had to actually put her hand over her mouth to keep from saying something. I toned down the drama that led up to the discovery of the money in the socks but by now Claudia was as wide eyed as a Margaret Keane print and Sybil had gone pale under her layers of makeup. Cam grabbed my hand when I got to the part about the intruder and how scared I was. Claudia nodded in approval at my risking the discovery of my hiding place and my life to warn Cam. All round, the story was well received and I settled back into the couch and pulled my corduroy throw closer around me, spent from recounting the most frightening day of my life.

Officer Donny flipped his notebook back a few pages and scratched at his chin with his uncapped pen, leaving blue squiggles on his face. We all pretended not to notice.

“In summary, this is what we have. A person walks up to your house carrying what must have been a garbage bag full of dishes. He unlocks your front door and drags the bag in, goes into the kitchen, opens his bag and begins smashing things on the floor and against the walls.

“What about the screams?” I asked. I knew there had to be several people and at least one wild creature in the house.

Officer Donny held up his finger.

“Boom box. While he was taking his time smashing things in the kitchen he entertained himself by playing a Halloween CD on his boom box …”

“… a what on his what?” Claudia interrupted. Officer Donny’s finger went up again. Claudia gave him a withering stare. No one gave Claudia the finger, regardless of which one it was.

“… which was filled with screaming and banging and howling noises. Then,” Officer Donny held up both hands to stop all the questions from his audience, “… let me finish. Then he heads up the stairs to the second and third floors, banging on the walls with his fists and on the ceiling with a broom, getting closer and closer to the attic door but never opening it. Then he exits out the back door, dropping his boom box behind a hedge, leaving both the front and back doors unlocked and dripping blood on some of the broken dishes …”

“So you have clues?” Cam interjected.

“Clues? We have fingerprints all over the front and back doors, we have fingerprints on the broken dishes, we have blood, we have the boom box and the CD, all covered with finger prints. We have everything except a calling card.”

“What made him leave?” I asked.

“Probably the sound of you breaking the attic window and yelling to your husband,” Officer Donny replied.

“But what was the point of all this?” Sybil asked. “It seems crazy.”

“Well, ma’am, when you are trying to discover the point of something you need to go right to the end result. What was accomplished?”

“I was scared out of my mind!” I yelled.

Officer Donny nodded his head. “Then most likely, that was the point.”

“To scare Tamsen? Why?” Cam grabbed my hand again and began stroking it so vigorously he was exfoliating my skin. I pulled my hand away and patted his leg.

“That makes no sense,” Sybil chimed in.

“Do you think it has to do with my brother’s murder?”

We all looked at Claudia and then to Officer Donny for enlightenment.

“I don’t know. Can you think of some reason it would?” he answered. We all shook our heads slowly. Nothing made sense.

Even in a small town, without the benefits of expensive equipment and sophisticated crime scene teams, it doesn’t take long to catch a burglar who leaves behind his fingerprints, his blood, and his boom box. Especially when you know he didn’t break in but had a key, and when his fingerprints are already on file with the police. Ryan Kelly was arrested before we had gone to bed that night. Officer Donny came calling around ten o’clock that evening to tell us Ryan had confessed to the whole thing. I served decaf coffee in my bathrobe while Cam and I sat on the couch listening to what Officer Donny had to say.