Black Cat Crossing (18 page)

When man and girl separated and headed in opposite directions, I fell against the side of the cottage and blew out a breath.

A
FTER MR. KRANE
left, I went back to Aunt Rowe’s house to check on Becky. I hoped she didn’t have a crazy notion to tell Deputy Rosales that Thomas stole money from Bobby Joe. She seemed to have a one-track mind when it came to the money. I guess I couldn’t blame her. If the money I counted on to pay bills suddenly dried up, I’d be pretty darn worried. Still, I wanted to keep an eye on her.

The kitchen was empty, but as I neared the guest room I heard music playing. Hard rock music. I wouldn’t have thought Becky was the Led Zeppelin type. I rapped on the closed door, got no response, and rapped again. Harder.

“Hold your horses,” Becky yelled. “I’m comin’.”

Ten seconds later, she flung the door open. Her hair was wrapped in Velcro curlers, and she held a mascara wand in one hand. I was stunned speechless for a moment as I studied her sparkly lavender eye shadow and thick black eyeliner.

“What is it?” she said. “I don’t have all day.”

“Where are
you
headed?”

I didn’t think she was dressed for a visit to the sheriff’s office in jeans tighter than the ones she had on when she arrived and a V-necked sleeveless white sweater.

“I’m going to meet with Al.” She turned and walked back toward the bathroom. “Now before you say a word, I know good and well I could be the guy’s mother. Doesn’t mean I have to look like an old lady when I see him.”

“Excuse me?” I followed her and stopped in the doorway to watch her apply mascara.

“That private eye,” she said. “Al.”

“You’re going out with Alvin Ledwosinski while everybody else around here is worried sick about Thomas being arrested?”

“Cripes, we are not
going out
,” Becky said. “I’m as concerned about Thomas as you are. What do you take me for?”

I wasn’t sure how to take her. She was a heck of a lot
to
take. So far, I hadn’t seen her grieving over the loss of her brother.

“How’d you find out about the PI?”

“Rowe mentioned him.”

“Why are you meeting with a PI?”

Becky turned and looked at me like I’d told her Fort Worth was the capital of Texas. “He’s an investigator, and I have to find Bobby Joe’s money. I mean, how convenient is that to find a private eye practically on my doorstep?”

It wasn’t
her
doorstep, but I kept the snide thought to myself.

“This might not be such a good idea,” I said. “We haven’t even begun to research where Bobby Joe got his money. More important, I don’t know whether Ledwosinski can be trusted.”

“Oh, I think he’s perfect,” she said. “He’s like a gift from heaven, you know?”

The common sense gene must have skipped her branch of the family tree.

I tried a different tack. “How are you going to afford an investigator with your bank balance so low? Remember those checks you were worried about?”

She finished with the mascara and began removing the curlers. “Al said he just finished a good-paying job, and he could maybe give me a price break. Or wait until I recovered the money, or something. No biggie.”

My brain stuck on the good-paying job comment. “What did he say about his last job? He didn’t happen to mention who he was working for, did he?”

She raised her brows. “He’s a
private
eye. They don’t go around blabbing about their clients. Though you wouldn’t know it from the last one I hired. What a loudmouth jerk that guy was.”

“You’ve hired an investigator before?” I never had, but Becky was beginning to sound like she needed to keep one on retainer.

“Yeah, during my messy divorce.” Becky removed the last curler and fluffed her hair. “That guy followed my husband for a week and got some right-nice pictures of him with his assistant in a
very
compromising position, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, I get it.” My divorce from Elliott was more about us drifting apart than either of us being involved with a different partner. When we decided to end the marriage, the legal process was simply a dispassionate task to check off the to-do list. Things worked out for the best, I supposed, though it might be nice to have a partner again one of these days.

“Anyway,
that
PI gouged me,” Becky said. “Followed Dennis for a week. Seemed more like he charged me for a month, but I gotta give him credit. He got the goods on ol’ Dennis.”

She prattled on while teasing her hair and dousing every little section with hair spray. I was thinking about something Molly had said. She’d rather her mom and dad stayed married. I had assumed Tim Hartman and his wife were already divorced, but if that wasn’t the case—

I turned and hightailed toward the door. Behind me, Becky asked where I was going, but I didn’t stop to reply. I jogged to the Venice cottage, relieved to see Ledwosinski’s Tundra parked in front. The door stood open, and I could see straight through the small cottage kitchen and into the bedroom. The PI stood at the foot of the bed where a suitcase lay open.

I knocked on the door frame, and he looked up. He dropped something on the bed and approached the door where I stood.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he said, smiling.

“This is not a pleasure call,” I said. “You can be sure of that.”

“Okay,” he said. “So tell me why you have a burr up your butt.”

I grimaced. “Guess you’re packing up to take off.”

“Actually, I
was
packed. Now I’m unpacking. My departure got pushed back.”

“Because of Becky?”

“For several reasons.”

“It’s no secret. Becky told me she’s interested in hiring you.”

He shrugged. “I agreed to talk with Becky, but she probably can’t afford me.”

“And Tim Hartman’s wife could?”

Ledwosinski’s lips curled into a smirk. “I’m not discussing her.”

“You could have denied it.” I held a hand to my chest and feigned an innocent expression. “‘Who? I have no idea who you’re referring to.’”

“Why bother?” he said.

The guy’s smug attitude got under my skin. “I don’t appreciate your staying with us under false pretenses. Our guests come here to get away from it all, not to be followed around by some dipwad.”

Ledwosinski busted out laughing. “Dipwad?”

“If the name fits.” I took a breath, attempting to regain my composure. “I guess you’re ready to report back to the wife. Give her some pictures, I’m sure, of Tim and his friend.”

He didn’t respond.

“So your story was true all along,” I went on. “You
are
a photographer, but you weren’t here to take pictures of the birds.”

“Nope,” he said.

“The good news is you weren’t working for Deputy Rosales either.”

He raised his brows. “That’s what you thought?”

“It crossed my mind,” I said, “and I’m glad to know you weren’t here to follow or investigate my aunt.”

He chuckled. “Rowe would eat me up and spit me out.”

“Why’d you bother using an alias?” I said.

“Trying to blend in,” he said. “Can’t do that with a name like mine.”

“I guess not.” I gnawed my lower lip.

“What’s the matter?” he said.

“Guess you didn’t come to Lavender to kill Bobby Joe Flowers.”

“Nope.”

“So I have to cross you off my suspect list.”

“I made the list?” He chuckled. “Seriously?”

I wasn’t amused, especially not today, with Thomas in jail. I wouldn’t mind having an investigator to talk to, one that I could share my concerns with, but Ledwosinski wasn’t the guy. When it came right down to it, he hadn’t given me any straight answers.

“Earth to Sabrina.” Ledwosinski snapped his fingers in front of my face. “Something else I can do for you? I’m kind of busy.”

He looked past me, and I turned to see Becky flouncing down the path toward us.

“No,” I said. “You’ve done plenty.”

I approached Becky and stopped her on the path, out of Ledwosinski’s earshot.

“Hope you’re not tryin’ to horn in on my time,” she said.

“I wouldn’t think of it.” I leaned in and spoke in a low voice. “If you want this guy to investigate your brother and the money, fine. But if he starts asking questions about Aunt Rowe or Thomas, don’t tell him anything.”

“Why not?”

“I already told you I don’t trust him. It’s not his job to nose into the murder investigation.”

She agreed without pointing out that it wasn’t my job either. As she walked away, though, I figured she’d answer every little thing he asked, no matter how private. Nothing I could do about that, and I needed to check on Hitchcock. He’d be happier out of the bathroom, and I didn’t want him to think he was being punished.

That thought was interrupted by my ringing phone.

I pulled it out and looked at the screen. I didn’t recognize the number, but my cell phone was listed on a contact sheet in each cottage, along with Aunt Rowe’s, Glenda’s, and Thomas’s. Since no one else was on the grounds at the moment, I answered.

“Sabrina, thank goodness, you won’t believe what’s happened.”

“Glenda, chill. What is it?”

“They’ve taken Rowe in for questioning, and they say I’m next, and they plan on calling you, too. I’m afraid this isn’t going to go well, and—”

“Wait,” I said. “Back up. Where are you?”

“At the lawyer’s office,” she said. “Rowe went into a meeting with him. I think he contacted a bail bondsman to get the process started for Thomas, but then someone showed up from the sheriff’s department. I guess he saw Rowe’s car parked outside.”

“Sheriff Crawford?”

“No, he’s out of town,” she said. “I think he left to keep his fingers out of this case. Because of his friendship with Rowe.”

My shoulders slumped. “This isn’t good.”

“That’s an understatement,” she said. “It was Brent Ainsley who escorted Rowe to the sheriff’s department. I’ve known him since he was a snot-nosed bully on the peewee football team playing against my nephew’s team. Had a bad attitude that hasn’t improved since he made deputy last year.”

I had heard of Deputy Ainsley, but I didn’t know him personally.

“What should we do?” I said.

“The attorney went with Rowe,” she said. “I’m sure he won’t let her spill her guts about everything that’s ever gone down between her and Bobby Joe. ’Cause there’s been plenty of that.”

“Sounds like you know more than just the couple episodes I’m aware of.” More than I wanted to know, probably. “What if they ask you? Can the attorney accompany you in your interview, too?”

“I haven’t asked him yet,” she said. “But I’m plenty nervous.”

Glenda didn’t rattle easily. The fact that she sounded so panic-stricken sent my heart rate climbing. I remembered a case I had worked on years ago where a client told the authorities one little thing that wasn’t precisely the truth and ended up in a federal prison.

“Either the lawyer will advise you, or maybe they can give you time to get your own lawyer if need be,” I said. “If you answer their questions, make sure you tell the truth.”

“I’m not a liar, Sabrina. You know that.”

“I know, but I’m freaking out here.”

“That makes two of us.”

“This isn’t right. I have so much information that no one will listen to. There are people who disliked Bobby Joe every bit as much or more than Aunt Rowe did.”

“They need evidence,” she said. “You have any of that?”

“Nothing good enough.”

“Can you get some, quick-like? In the next couple hours?”

“How? It’s not like I can pick some up at the grocery store.”

She ignored my sarcasm. “Do what you can before Ainsley comes looking for you. Matter of fact, you might want to stay away from the cottages for a little bit.”

“I can’t leave here with no one to watch over the place. I certainly won’t put Becky in charge.” I purposely didn’t mention Becky’s plan to hire the PI. Glenda had enough on her mind.

“I’ll send Lloyd,” she said. “He’s building some cabinets for the church kitchen, but that can wait.”

Lloyd Kessler, Glenda’s husband, was a cabinetmaker who helped Thomas with carpentry projects from time to time.

“I’ll stay until he gets here,” I said, “then I’ll make myself scarce. And Glenda, if you talk to Aunt Rowe, tell her to stay calm. We’ll figure this out.”

“Calm? Rowe? Somebody’s coming. I need to hang up.”

The phone clicked, and I was left with a dial tone.

Staying calm was not in Aunt Rowe’s DNA, especially not if some bully of a deputy backed her into a corner. She wasn’t a stupid woman, though, and I could only pray she took the lawyer’s advice and realized the gravity of the situation.

I sure did.

I
SPRINTED BACK TO
my cottage and burst through the door, then remembered Hitchcock and hoped I hadn’t scared the bejeebers out of him. I opened the bathroom door and found the cat sitting peacefully on the bathroom windowsill—the one I thought he wouldn’t be able to reach.

He jumped down and wound figure eights around my legs. I picked him up and cuddled him to my chest.

“Boy, we have a terrible mess here. I could use an investigator’s help, but I’ll be darned if I’m going to that Ledwosinski for anything. He could be part of the reason for this catastrophe for all I know.”

“Mrreow.” Hitchcock squirmed to get down, so I let him go and followed him into the living room. He jumped up on the back of a chair by a window where he could watch doves pecking on the lawn outside.

I paced. What if they arrested Aunt Rowe? What if they thought Bobby Joe’s threat to her was as much a threat to me and my possible future inheritance? They might decide
I
was the one who’d killed him. Good grief, we might all be booked for conspiracy to commit murder.

Glenda was right. I should get out of here before they jumped to the wrong conclusion and came to get me. I had things to do.

Sheriff Crawford might not see a connection between Bobby Joe’s and Vicki Palmer’s deaths, but I did. I was going to talk to Frank Palmer today, as soon as Glenda’s husband showed up.

Just in case I didn’t make it back to my cottage, I packed my computer and all of my manuscript pages into a tote. I cleaned out the cat’s litter box and filled his water and food bowls. If I wasn’t back, I’d have someone else come to make sure he was fed.

I said bye to Hitchcock with tears in my eyes and drove up to Aunt Rowe’s to wait for Lloyd Kessler. I sat in a rocker on the porch and rocked hard enough to leave an impression in the concrete. Doing nothing was going to drive me bonkers, even if it was only for a few minutes until Lloyd arrived. I had to make a conscious effort to unclench my fingers from around my phone so I could pull up the picture I’d taken of Felice Dubois’s phone screen.

I reviewed the phone numbers and decided to call the one labeled “The Shop.”

“Taste of Texas Wines,” answered a gruff male voice.

“Mr. Dubois?” I said.

“Speaking. Who’s this?”

I gave him my name. “I saw you the other night at The Wild Pony.”

“I remember.”

“You were looking for Claire. I’ve been worried about her, too. Has she turned up yet?”

“No,” he said. “Three days, and not a word.”

“Does she know someone who’s in the hospital?” I said.

“What? She’s in the hospital? Which hospital?”

“No, no. She’s not in the hospital.” Jeez, now I’d gotten him all stirred up. “I thought I heard a friend of hers was in the hospital.”

“What friend? I have no idea.”

“I’m sorry I scared you,” I said, “but I really need to talk to Claire. If you see her, please tell her to give me a call.”

“If I see that girl, I’d like to whip her butt,” he said, “but I couldn’t even handle her when she was a kid. No reason to think I could control her today.”

“She was a problem child?”

“She had one mean temper, I’ll tell you. And not enough respect for her elders.”

I’d witnessed Bobby Joe setting off Aunt Rowe’s temper. Maybe he’d set Claire’s off, too.

“One more thing,” I said. “Do you know the name Colin Guidry?”

“Why are you asking about that sorry so-and-so?” he said.

“I thought he might be able to put me in touch with Claire.”

“No way,” he said. “That’s the jerk who left her with a boatload of bills. Most of ’em for things he bought before their divorce. Bills I ended up paying.”

“That certainly wasn’t fair,” I said. “She’s lucky she had your help.”

“You can say that again.”

“Thanks for the information. I hope you find her soon.”

“Yeah. Me, too.”

I disconnected and rocked some more. Maybe Felice was calling Guidry in an attempt to recoup some of the money he’d taken from her daughter. If that was the case, he probably hadn’t answered her calls. Guidry didn’t know me, though, so maybe he’d take a call from me.

I tapped in his number and listened to the phone ring six times before a machine picked up. An automated voice answered. No way to know if I had Guidry’s phone, but I left a message anyway.

“Mr. Guidry, I desperately need to get in touch with Claire Dubois. It’s an emergency. If you know where I can reach her, please give me a call. My name’s Sabrina.”

I left my number, disconnected, and continued rocking.

I could imagine this as a novel with Claire playing the villain. She dated Bobby Joe. Maybe he’d swindled some of her money and she, the mean-tempered girlfriend, was still ticked off about the bills her ex had saddled her with. Bobby Joe’s actions sent her over the edge, and she arranged to meet him out by the river.

I stopped rocking. More likely she killed him elsewhere, then transported his body to a place where she could dump it in the river. That didn’t track either. I wasn’t a small person, but I couldn’t have accomplished such a thing if my life depended on it. Maybe Claire had help.

Much as I’d love to quiz her in person about all of these things, that wasn’t going to happen unless I found the woman. I opted for the next best thing and dialed her number, but the call went straight to voice mail. I left my name and number, but I wasn’t going to hold my breath waiting for a return call.

A pickup rumbled down the lane toward the house, and I stood to greet Glenda’s husband. I appreciated Lloyd’s willingness to spend the day watching over the cottages without asking a bunch of questions. Glenda shared pretty much everything with her husband, so he already knew all about Bobby Joe’s death and Becky’s arrival.

“You don’t have any idea where I am,” I told him before I left, “or when I’m coming back.”

“Got it,” Lloyd said with a little salute.

We exchanged cell numbers, and I input his into my phone. Then I drove away, wondering whether Glenda had told Lloyd that the authorities wanted to question her or if he thought she was only there as moral support for Aunt Rowe. That was between the two of them.

•   •   •

F
RANK’S
Floats sat inches from the road, about five miles out of town. The Glidden River flowed right past the run-down wooden structure that housed the business. Back when I was a kid, river-goers parked precariously along the narrow road. Frank had acquired land across the street and put in a nice parking lot. Smart move.

Spring was definitely in the air, but I figured the water was still plenty chilly. That didn’t stop the dozens of people who stood in line to rent tubes. A few schools had already let out for the summer. Come June, thousands of water lovers would gravitate to the river. Frank must be making a good living here.

I took my place in the line, knowing better than to try cutting to talk to Frank. The chatter of excited kids mixed with Willie Nelson blaring over a loudspeaker. I watched as tubes were handed over to patrons and checked out the people working the counter. Looked like three or four teenagers, certainly no one the right age to be Frank Palmer.

Impatient to talk to the man, I decided to take a different approach. I got out of line and moved closer to the river, where I could see kids running down the bank to throw their tubes into the water and jump in on top of them. Took a certain amount of coordination, but everyone I watched eventually got control of their tube as the current swept them away.

I walked through a stand of trees to approach the building from behind, hoping to find a back entrance. I rounded the structure and came up short on the outside of a chain-link fence. A middle-aged man stood inside the fence, next to a mountain of inner tubes. He wore cargo shorts with ankle-high work shoes and a ball cap. Frank, if I had to bet. With his back to me, he flipped a switch on an air compressor and used a hose to air up a partially deflated tube. The hum of the compressor, along with the rush of the river, masked the sound of my footsteps. I circled the fence to stand where he would be able to see me and gave him a little wave when he looked up.

He switched the compressor off. “Yes, ma’am?”

He didn’t look like an angry person. Better to take this slow, though.

“Hi, are you Frank?”

“Yup.” He twisted the cap back on the tube’s stem.

“I was out at the produce market in Riverview yesterday,” I said. “Visited with Debbie Sue.”

“Yeah? How is she?”

“She’s doing well,” I said. “We talked about you for a little while. You and your sister Vicki.”

Frank threw the filled tube onto the pile. “Vicki’s gone.”

“I know.”

He stalked over to the fence to stand inches from me. His complexion had gone from golden tan to flushed red in an instant, and I was glad the fence separated us. “Look, if you’re another one of those damn reporters wanting to tell some sob story about my sister and Bobby Joe Flowers, you can shut your mouth right now.”

Okay, here’s the anger.

“I’m not a reporter. I live on the river at Around-the-World Cottages. Rowena Flowers is my aunt. I found Bobby Joe’s body in the river.”

“Don’t look to me for sympathy.” He removed the ball cap, baring his shaved head, and wiped his sweaty brow on the sleeve of his T-shirt.

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why?”

I couldn’t very well say I was hoping to pin the murder on him.

“What do you think happened to your sister?”

“Wrong place, wrong time,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not unless the sheriff decides to give the case the attention it never got.”

“Sheriff Crawford told me they worked the case as long and hard as they could.”

“What else is he gonna say? My sister’s dead, and no one gives a damn.”

“I do.”

He pinned me with his stare. “Why is that? Did you know her?”

“No, but I think there’s likely a connection between her death and what happened to Bobby Joe, no matter how many years have passed between the two events.”

“So you
are
a reporter.”

“No, I’m
not
. I’m a person who wants to find the truth. I understand Bobby Joe knew your sister.”

“So what?”

“Did you ever suspect him of involvement with her death?”

“No.”

“I heard your family gave him some trouble afterward.”

“Yeah, ’cause he gave kids a place to go, to get away from it all and do the things they shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.”

“Did you suspect Vicki was doing those things with Bobby Joe?”

“No.”

“Really? Because I would have. I heard he was a ladies’ man back then.”

“Vicki wasn’t the type to fall for his line of bull,” he said.

“You sound kind of angry,” I said. “Here we are thirty years later, and I think you’d be pretty darn upset if you learned Bobby Joe Flowers had dated your sister.”

“They never dated,” he said, “and I
told
you I did
not
want to talk about my sister. Now I have work to do, and you need to leave.”

Thoughts of the wrong path the deputies were taking in their investigation spurred me on.

“Why does talking about Bobby Joe get you so riled up?”

“I asked you nicely to leave my property.” He walked toward a gate in the chain-link fence.

“Is it because you don’t want anyone to know what you did to him?” I said.

Frank stopped walking and turned back to me. “I didn’t do a damn thing to Bobby Joe.”

“But you think he murdered your sister?”

He did a double take. “You have one twisted mind, woman. Bobby Joe wasn’t one of my favorite people, but he didn’t do anything to my sister.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was shooting pool at The Wild Pony the night she died. All night long, shooting pool, not a care in the world, while my sister was in trouble.”

His face screwed up, and he looked like he might cry.

“How do you know Bobby Joe wasn’t with your sister?”

“’Cause I was betting pretty heavy that night. Thought I could make some money. Instead, I lost every last cent to Bobby Joe Flowers.”