Black Cat Crossing (14 page)

S
HERIFF CRAWFORD ANSWERED
on the third ring, and my words seemed to trip over themselves as I hurriedly told him what I had found in the woods.

“You have a reason for calling me instead of 911?” he said, in a tone a teacher might use with a naughty student.

“I found a broken handle, for Pete’s sake.” I shifted from foot to foot, though I would have preferred pacing. If this became a crime scene, though, I didn’t want to disturb things any more than I already had. “I found the broken piece, and it was only because I heard about Bobby Joe’s shovel-like wound I called anyone at all. Otherwise, it was an old broken pole someone forgot to pick up.”

“A pole in the middle of the woods along with a bloody shovel blade,” he said.

“I hadn’t seen the blade end yet when I dialed your number.”

“And where did you hear about the wound?” he said. “Those details were kept quiet—or were supposed to be.”

“I, um, I don’t remember where I heard that.”

“Uh-huh,” the sheriff said.

“Seriously.”

Was it Glenda? Tyanne? No, I’d heard that bit from Daisy McKetta, who’d heard it from someone else.

“You know gossip travels like wildfire around here,” I told the sheriff. “It’s likely everyone knows by now.”

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Tell me again where you are. Deputy Rosales and I will be there in two shakes of a rabbit’s tail.”

“Wait, what?” In a panic, I looked at Hitchcock, who needed to be back in my cottage before anyone showed up here.

“We’re on the highway,” he said, “coming your way. Your lucky night—we were out on a Crime Stoppers tip.”

Luck. Right.

“I’m in the woods between—”

At that moment a distant siren split the still night air, and Hitchcock took off. The cat disappeared into the woods, and I could only hope he would head back to my place.

“You’ll see my car parked beside the road with the flashers going,” I said, “about a mile out from Traveler’s Lane.”

“Got it,” the sheriff said and hung up.

I slumped against a tree and attempted to spot Hitchcock with my flashlight. He was out of sight, but I wouldn’t put it past him to climb a tree and watch the action from above. The little dickens was smart enough to sit on a trap instead of being caught in one, and that was a good thing.

The happy realization wasn’t enough to calm me, not after what I’d uncovered. The thought of the killer using this very shovel to bash Bobby Joe’s head hard enough to break the handle had me feeling queasy.

I kept my flashlight turned on so the sheriff could spot me easily. A couple of minutes later the siren turned off. Two beams of light streamed through the woods in my direction. Just my luck Deputy Rosales was out with Sheriff Crawford tonight. Maybe she wouldn’t be quite so testy in his company.

I straightened as they reached my position in the woods. The sheriff and Rosales were both in jeans and sheriff’s department rain jackets, though the rain had stopped.

Sheriff Crawford tipped the bill of his Texas Rangers ball cap to me. “Evening, Sabrina.”

Rosales said, “You again.”

So much for hoping she’d be polite this time.

I pointed toward the place where I’d fallen. “That disturbance in the leaves is where I fell after tripping over the broken handle.”

“So you messed with the scene,” Rosales said.

The sheriff looked at her and said, “She stumbled onto the scene.”

Rosales gave him a look, and I could tell she was itching to dispute him, but she didn’t respond.

“Stay here,” the sheriff told me, “while we look around.”

I went back to my tree and ignored the glare Rosales sent my way before she followed the sheriff to the shovel.

They spent a good ten minutes inspecting the broken handle, the shovel blade, and every leaf and fallen limb around them without picking anything up. Then the sheriff sent Rosales to their car for crime scene tape and their evidence kit.

She headed toward the road, and Sheriff Crawford came over to me.

“Your instincts were right on,” he said. “Chances are we have the weapon that killed Flowers.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “How can you tell?”

“It’s definitely blood on the blade, along with a few strands of hair.”

I cringed.

“What brought you out into the woods tonight?” he said.

“I was driving home, and I saw that.” I pointed to the trap.

“You saw it from the road?”

“I did. My headlights caught a glint of metal. Of course, I didn’t know it was a trap until I got in here.”

“It’s a rainy night, and you got out of your car to traipse into the woods to look at a trap?” His tone grew more skeptical by the second.

“The rain had stopped, and I’ve been a little paranoid about traps the past few days.”

“Why?”

“Because, um, well, you’ve heard about the bad luck cat, right?”

Sheriff Crawford’s thick eyebrows drew together. “I don’t pay such things any mind.”

“I didn’t either until people started talking about trapping this black cat, and that’s wrong.”

I could tell I sounded like a petulant child, but I couldn’t help it.

“We’re not out here because of the trap, Sabrina,” he said. “Did you touch the handle?”

I frowned at him. “Of course not.”

“Good. Then we won’t find your fingerprints on it.”

“No, you won’t.”

“How about the blade?”

“I didn’t touch that either. I’m not stupid.”

He smoothed his mustache with a thumb and forefinger. “Have you ever seen these items before?”

I shook my head. “What are you getting at?”

“Asking a simple question, that’s all.”

“Sounds to me like you’re trying to make something more of this than what it is. I came out here to look at the trap, tripped on the shovel handle, then I called you.”

“Okay,” he said.

“If you’re thinking I had anything to do with putting these things out here before I called to alert you, then you’re mistaken.”

“I didn’t say any such thing.”

I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Good.”

“Actually, Sabrina, you can go home now if you like. Thank you for reporting this.”

I wanted to go, but I sure wished I knew what the sheriff had on his mind. With this discovery, Aunt Rowe should be off the suspect grid, but where would that leave the sheriff’s department investigation? Did they have any of the same information I’d uncovered? I couldn’t trust that they did.

“I hope you’re getting close to finding the killer,” I said. “I’ve learned some disturbing things in the past few days.”

“Like what?”

He wouldn’t want to hear Chester Mosley’s claim that the Palmer family was out to get Bobby Joe, especially since Chester was practically falling-down drunk when he’d told me.

I didn’t want to mention Luke Griffin’s mother. The sheriff had already warned me off discussing Griffin around Rosales, and I was hoping I’d never have to point any fingers in Griffin’s direction.

Claire Dubois was fair game, so I asked the sheriff if he knew about Claire’s disappearance or the fact that she’d dated Bobby Joe before his death.

“Her parents haven’t reported her missing,” the sheriff said. “Even if they had, I saw her myself a day or two ago. Not to mention she’s a grown woman and entitled to leave town if she wants to.”

“But she left right after Bobby Joe’s death.”

“Maybe she’s mourning,” he said.

“She’d have told her parents if that was the case.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

He wasn’t going for this, so I changed tacks and asked if he had talked to the man who called himself Adam Lee and was staying in the Venice cottage.

“I’d have to ask my deputy about him,” the sheriff said. “She interviewed most of the guests.”

Rosales’s bobbing flashlight was almost back to us, and I wasn’t too keen about discussing any of this in her presence. The sheriff didn’t give me a choice.

“Deputy Pat,” he said when she was in earshot. “You talk to a man named Adam Lee over at the cottages?”

“Nope,” she said. “Don’t remember anybody named Lee.”

“He’s renting the Venice cottage,” he said.

Rosales reached us, and the sheriff took the paraphernalia she had lugged from the car off her hands.

She pulled a notebook from her pocket and flipped back several pages, using her flashlight to illuminate the notes.

“I talked to the dude in Venice,” she said. “One Alvin Ledwosinski.”

I gasped, and they both looked at me.

“What?” the sheriff said.

“He’s using an alias,” I said. “Adam Lee.”

“No, he’s not,” Rosales said. “He showed me his ID.”

“When he checked in, he told Aunt Rowe his name is Adam Lee. He’s telling everyone that’s his name, except for you.”

“Is there some reason you’d rather he lied to me?” she said.

“No, but he’s been lying all along. Did he tell you he’s a private investigator?”

“He said he’s on vacation.”

I turned to the sheriff.

“PIs are allowed to go on vacation, Sabrina,” he said.

I threw my arms out to my sides. “Am I the only person concerned that a PI is hanging around with my aunt and claiming he’s a photographer? I know his real name is Alvin Ledwosinski, but he insists on calling himself Adam Lee. He could be Bobby Joe’s killer for all we know.”

Rosales and the sheriff exchanged glances.

“That’s a big leap,” the sheriff said.

I needed to tamp down my anxiety. I took a deep breath and blew it out. “I’m not crazy.”

“Didn’t say you were. I am curious about one thing, though.”

“What?”

“If he’s using the name Lee, how do you know his name is Ledwosinski?” The sheriff’s dark gaze rested on my face.

I paused.

“And don’t say you don’t remember where you heard that,” he added.

“Okay.” I wondered how much trouble a person could get into for looking in someone else’s truck, but I couldn’t think quickly enough to come up with another plausible way to know the guy’s real name. “He makes me nervous, always hanging around Aunt Rowe. He seems so suspicious, and I didn’t believe he sincerely wants to help her create a new pamphlet to advertise the cottages, which is what she said they were working on.”

Rosales said, “What’s this got to do with anything?”

“Adam Lee is out there taking a bunch of pictures,” I said.

“You mean Ledwosinski,” Rosales said.

I ignored her. “Pictures of Aunt Rowe and the other guests. He cozied up to my aunt, and I don’t trust him. I felt like I needed to find out more about him.”

“So you checked out his license registration,” Sheriff Crawford said.

“Something like that,” I said in a low voice.

“Sabrina used to work in a big Houston law firm,” he told Rosales. “Probably has plenty of tricks up her sleeve.”

“I’ll bet,” Rosales said.

He’d given me an out, and I was grateful.

“Think I’ll head back to my cottage now,” I said. “One good thing came from tonight. Now you know Aunt Rowe had nothing to do with Bobby Joe’s murder.”

“How’s that?” Rosales said.

Her snide tone sent a sliver of fear through me. “As you well know, Aunt Rowe has that broken leg and the crutches.”

“And?” she said.

“She didn’t come out here to leave this shovel.”

Rosales continued to watch me. Sheriff Crawford had a weird expression on his face.

He’s worried.

“She couldn’t drive to this spot in her golf cart if she tried,” I continued, “not with all these trees so close together. She wasn’t here, period. Someone else was. The killer.”

“Or . . .” Rosales paused dramatically. “Someone that your aunt sent to ditch her weapon.”

I
TRUDGED BACK TO
my car and got inside. All the uncertainty was making me bone weary. I wished Bobby Joe had never gone out to the river that night. Or come to Lavender at all, for that matter. Which didn’t mean he wouldn’t be dead, because whoever killed him might have gone to the ends of the earth to do the deed. I wouldn’t have tripped over the murder weapon, though, and Aunt Rowe wouldn’t be on anyone’s suspect list.

But Bobby Joe
had
come, and his murderer had likely crept around in the night very close to where I lay trying to sleep. For all I knew, I’d seen the killer in the flesh since then and didn’t know it. I rubbed my upper arms to take away a sudden chill, then drove home.

It was after midnight when I pulled in at my place. Walking from the car to the cottage, I spied the glow of eyes on the front porch and picked up my step.

“Hitchcock, thank goodness you’re here.” I knelt by the cat and stroked his back. His motor cranked into full purr, and I realized my cheeks were wet with tears. “C’mon, you, let’s go inside.”

I stood and unlocked the door, and he followed me in.

“Hey, how’d you get out of here in the first place?”

“Mrreow,” he said.

I checked the cottage for an open window or a cat-sized opening I hadn’t noticed before, but didn’t find either. Everything looked exactly as I’d left it, so I didn’t think anyone had come into the cottage in my absence. How the heck had the cat gotten out?

Hitchcock sprawled on the fireplace hearth clutching one of my balled-up manuscript pages between his paws. He’d decided they made great cat toys. I sat next to him. “Just so you know, I don’t believe you’re some Houdini cat any more than I believe you’re bad luck, and if you’re trying to make me crazy, you’ll have to get in line.”

For the moment, I shoved Hitchcock’s comings and goings to the bottom of my worry list. I sure wished I hadn’t mentioned Aunt Rowe out there in the woods, but it simply hadn’t crossed my mind that Rosales would accuse her of involving an accomplice in her supposed murder plot. At least the deputy evidently didn’t believe
I
was the accomplice, or she’d have happily cuffed me and thrown me in the back of the cruiser.

Sheriff Crawford had to be concerned about Aunt Rowe, but he wasn’t in a position to allow his personal feelings for her to get in the way of a murder investigation. Too bad my information about Claire Dubois didn’t interest him in the least. Her leaving town certainly made her a suspect in my eyes.

Unless someone came up with concrete evidence or a new suspect to steer the investigation away from Aunt Rowe, she was still in jeopardy. I thought about Chester’s story of Vicki Palmer’s family. They were excellent suspects, the whole lot of them. If a family member of mine was murdered and the case remained unsolved, I wouldn’t
ever
let go. The same might be said about the Palmers. If no one else was going to take a closer look at them, I’d do it myself.

Hitchcock crawled up on my lap and reached with one arm to tap a paw softly against my cheek.

I patted his head. “I’m okay, buddy, and I have a plan. Tomorrow, I’ll visit the Palmers and see what I can learn.”

He crossed the room to the table and jumped up to take a seat on my closed laptop. “Mrreow.”

I sighed. “I know. I’m supposed to be writing. Did Tyanne put you up to this?”

His whiskers twitched.

“I’ll work on the pitch, promise, but I hear my sweet tooth calling. I betcha baking would put me in a perfect creative frame of mind.”

The cat didn’t reply, but I didn’t care whether he agreed with me. I stood and headed for Aunt Rowe’s big kitchen. I had a craving for Texas toffee cake that wouldn’t quit.

•   •   •

T
HE
next morning, I woke to whiskers tickling my cheeks. I opened my eyes and found Hitchcock standing on my chest, nearly nose to nose with me.

“Mrreow,” he said.

I couldn’t keep from smiling, though I felt groggy from too little sleep. “I suppose you want breakfast.”

I raised my arm and squinted at my watch. Jeez, nearly ten. I never slept this late, and what the heck had happened to Tyanne? I’d fully expected a call from her to act as my alarm clock.

Hitchcock batted my chin with a paw.

I blinked a few times, looked around to get my bearings, and realized I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Printed pages were stuck between me and the cushions, and others had fallen on the floor. The cat jumped up to the back of the couch and looked down at me.

After baking two toffee cakes the night before—one to cut into immediately, one to take with me to Tyanne’s dinner—I’d returned to the cottage, where Hitchcock supervised as I worked on my book till at least three in the morning. Afterward I moved to the couch, where I practiced my pitch on him until, apparently, I passed out.

I was only partially awake, but my mind was already racing. I needed to get on the road to Riverview soon to see the Palmers. First, I had to talk to Aunt Rowe. When I’d gone to the house to bake, she was asleep. I didn’t see the sense in waking her to share disturbing news about the murder weapon found in the woods.

The screeching of a power tool interrupted my thoughts. “What the heck is that?”

I rolled off the cushions and used the coffee table to push myself to a standing position. I slipped into the flip-flops I’d shed the night before.

Hitchcock marched over to his empty food bowl, so I fed him before heating a leftover cup of coffee in the microwave for myself. Sorry excuse for morning java, but it was all I could manage. While Hitchcock was occupied with his breakfast, I took my coffee outside, careful to close the door behind me.

The weather felt like a hundred percent humidity under the bright sun. The scorching days of summer were almost upon us. I was still in my jeans from the night before, and they felt overwhelmingly hot. The tool screamed again. The noise was coming from the direction of the river, so I headed that way.

The water level was up after last night’s rain. Watching the current and listening to birds singing in the morning usually puts me in a tranquil mood. Today, not so much.

Thomas was drilling holes into posts he had cemented into the ground alongside the river steps. He looked up when he noticed my approach and pushed the brim of his straw hat back. He wiped a shirt sleeve across his sweaty forehead and set his drill on the top step.

“Mornin’.”

“Morning, Thomas.” I walked closer and checked over my shoulder to make sure he couldn’t see my cottage from where he stood. “What are you doing out here on a Sunday?”

“Alma took the kids to a play over in Emerald Springs,” he said. “I feel better staying here to keep an eye on things. I’ll go hang near the house after I make sure I have the right bolts for this project.”

I brushed straggly hairs away from my face and scanned the tools Thomas had scattered around him. Boxes of screws, some supersized bolts, tape measure, and—

My gaze fixed on a shovel that looked nearly new.

“What’s wrong?” Thomas said.

I hesitated, remembering his frame of mind the day he’d walked into the coffee shop to tell me Bobby Joe Flowers was coming.

Did I believe he got rid of the problem? No, surely not.

I shook my head to clear the unwelcome thought. “I’m having a hard time waking up, that’s all. I’ll go to the house with you. I need to see Aunt Rowe.”

“She’s gone to the play. Glenda, too. Said they’d be back by late afternoon.”

“Oh.” By the time I caught up with my aunt, I wouldn’t have to tell her anything about my discovery in the woods. She’d probably know more details than I did.

“If Aunt Rowe is gone,” I said, “what are you keeping an eye on?”

“The Lee fella,” he said. “Hoped he’d leave today. No such luck.”

“Where is he now?”

“Downriver,” he said. “Him and his camera.”

“Watching birds, you think?”

“Nah,” Thomas said. “There’s more to him than that.”

“You have good instincts. I checked him out. He’s Alvin Ledwosinski, using the alias Adam Lee, and he’s a private investigator.”

Thomas shot me a look. “Where’d you get that?”

I told him about Rosales’s interview with the PI who gave her his true identity and claimed he was visiting Lavender for purely touristy reasons.

“If that’s true,” Thomas said, “then why give Rowena a fake name when he checked in?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m glad you’re here to watch him. I’m off in another direction today.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking for any and all clues I can find to help the sheriff nail the killer.”

“So long’s you’re not sabotaging my traps,” he said.

“I haven’t done a thing to your— Wait a second, did you say traps, plural?”

“I did.” He frowned. “I figure you know about the crime scene tape strung up in the woods, and now the trap I had out there is gone.”

“Well, I didn’t touch it. I stumbled across some evidence and had to call the sheriff.”

“So I heard,” he said.

I breathed easier. Thomas wouldn’t bring up the crime scene if he had anything to do with the murder, right? Or was he faking me out?

“You should tread careful,” he went on. “This is not some book you’re writing, and you could get yourself in a load of trouble.”

“I’m searching for clues, and I’ll keep it up until Bobby Joe’s killer is found,” I told him, then switched subjects. “How the heck do you have multiple traps? Judith Krane said the shipment wasn’t coming in until Tuesday.”

Good Lord, had he gone and built several traps because he couldn’t wait a few more days?

Thomas raised his eyebrows. “Nosing into my personal business isn’t going to solve anything.”

I sensed that if I pushed too hard Thomas would only be more adamant about trapping Hitchcock and removing him from Lavender.

“I’m sorry you have a problem with cats, Thomas.”

“Not all cats,” he said.

“Okay, you have a problem with one black cat.”

“That’s right.”

“Maybe you should see someone.”

“What do you mean?”

“A psychologist, someone who treats people for anxiety, maybe a hypnotist, so you won’t get so worked up about your fears.”

“Maybe you’re the one ought to be hypnotized, so you won’t worry about El Gato Diablo.” Thomas stooped to pick up his drill. “I need to work.”

“I’m going to keep investigating, and I sure would appreciate it if you’d quit obsessing about an innocent cat, ’cause you’re distracting me from what’s more important.”

Thomas didn’t respond.

I stomped back to my cottage, frustrated with him and his stupid traps. What would he do if he
did
happen to spot Hitchcock at my window? Would he use his master key to go inside my cottage and take the cat?

Or maybe he was toying with me, and he
had
already gone into the Monte Carlo cottage last night in an attempt to capture the cat, only to have Hitchcock escape and run into the woods, where I’d found him sitting on the trap.

My worry list was growing unmanageably long.

I went inside and checked the clock. I’d have to speed up if I wanted to make it to the Palmers’ place and get back in time for Tyanne’s meet-the-agent dinner. I took a quick shower and dressed in a pair of denim capris with a yellow short-sleeved shirt.

Belatedly, I remembered my phone and found it buried beneath the couch cushions, where I hadn’t heard it ring any of the three times Tyanne had tried. I dialed her number.

“Had a big writing night,” I said when she answered, “and I have good news.”

“Let me hear it,” she said.

“My proposal is ready for Kree.” I eyed the mess of papers around the couch and realized I needed to print a fresh copy. “And I baked a cake for tonight.”

“All good,” she said. “Let me hear the pitch.”

With the events of the past few days tumbling around in my head, I wasn’t sure if I remembered what I had recited for the cat in the middle of the night. Hitchcock ambled into the kitchen and jumped on a ladder-back chair. He kept his eyes on me as if waiting for a performance to begin.

I cleared my throat. “How’s this? A young Niagara Falls mother receives a package intended for a neighbor, but when she attempts to deliver it, she finds the neighbor missing, a dead stranger on the living room floor, and a killer ransacking the bedroom. Now Scarlett Olson is on the run, with her toddler in tow, and only the clues inside the package to help her as she flees into Canada.”

“Could be tighter,” Tyanne said. “Keep working on it. We’re covered up with customers. Any chance you can pick up the wine I ordered on your way to dinner?”

“No problem,” I said.

So long as I’m back in time from Riverview.

“Great. See you then.”

“She didn’t hate it,” I told Hitchcock after I hung up. “Now you be a good boy and stay away from the windows. I don’t want to come home and find you’re missing, and I don’t want to go to Canada to track you down.”

“Mrreow,” Hitchcock said.