Death Takes a Ride (The Cate Kinkaid Files Book #3): A Novel (5 page)

“You’re not going home?” Cate asked.

“I want to be here with Kane. I don’t really know him very well, but . . . I feel as if someone should be here.”

And maybe, if Blakely recovered, he’d be very grateful for Shirley’s caring concern. The situation strongly suggested that Shirley had feelings for him.

“I don’t need the car tonight. You keep it there and bring it here in the morning. Then I’ll take you home from here. Do you usually use a bicycle to get to and from work?”

“A bicycle? No, since my pickup broke down, I walk. A guy there at H&B is working on it. But if Jerry can’t fix it, maybe I will be riding a bicycle pretty soon.”

Which meant the bicycle Cate had seen out there by the piles of tires near the warehouse didn’t belong to Shirley after all. Biking and hiking were popular around Eugene, and maybe crooks needed their exercise too. But surely a gunman intent on snatching $30,000 would have a higher-tech getaway plan than pedaling off into the night, wouldn’t he?

“Does someone else who works there have a bicycle?”

“Not that I know of. Why are you asking?”

“Because I saw a bicycle leaning against that pile of tires when I parked back there by the employees’ door.”

“I’ve never noticed one there. Somebody probably just dumped it to get rid of it. People are always dumping stuff there. I suggested to Mr. Halliday that the area ought to be fenced off, but he hasn’t done it.” Shirley asked for Cate’s address and said she’d be at the house in the morning. “Oh, I’m so jittery I forgot to ask about Clancy. Did you leave him in the warehouse?”

“No. Mr. Halliday said he couldn’t stay there.”

“That figures. He isn’t much of a dog person.”

“I brought him home with me, but he and my cat aren’t getting along, so a friend is taking him for the night. We can take him out to your place in the morning.”

Silence on the other end of the line until Shirley said, “We’ll have to, uh, figure that out tomorrow.”

Cate started to ask what Shirley meant by that disquieting statement, but she’d already hung up.

5

Cate planted herself between the hostile animals to await Mitch’s return.

“Some cats and dogs live in perfect harmony,” Cate chided them. “Don’t you two realize you both have blue eyes, and that’s unusual in both cats and dogs? Think of it as a special bond between you.”

A whap on the wall with Clancy’s tail. A hiss from Octavia.

Well, that went over great. Like she’d suggested they both go on vegetarian diets. Octavia and Clancy were obviously not planning to pose for warm-fuzzy calendar shots of two-species togetherness.

While Cate waited, she scratched. Somehow dog hair had migrated under her shirt. Under her waistband. Shouldn’t Clancy be missing some hair, considering all that had transferred to her? But no, his bluish-blackish-grayish coat looked as thick and shaggy as ever. She desperately needed a shower, but she didn’t dare leave these two alone.

Mitch finally arrived, a fragrant pizza box in hand. Clancy sat up and sniffed as if he were familiar with the smells and eager to join in a pizza fest.

“Stay,” Mitch said sternly to the dog. Clancy obediently
plopped back down on the window seat. Mitch looked surprised but pleased with his unexpected dog management skill. “Hey, I should have tried that earlier.”

Cate gave him a congratulatory thumbs-up gesture. She doubted he’d do as well ordering Octavia around. Fortunately, her cat didn’t care for pizza anyway.

While they ate, Cate gave Mitch a rundown on the evening’s events, including the oddity of the gunman apparently knowing about the money. She showed him the cell phone photos she’d taken.

“No one there recognized the gunman?”

“Not Halliday. I haven’t showed the photos to Shirley yet, but she didn’t say anything about recognizing him when Halliday yanked off the ski mask. Blakely is in no shape to talk, of course.”

She didn’t mention her own semi-suspicion of Shirley, but, with no hints from her, Mitch came up with a similar thought about the possibility of an insider conspiracy, since the gunman apparently knew about the money.

“Shirley may be a little rough around the edges, but she seems nice. And very shaken up about Blakely. I don’t think she could have been involved.” Although Cate had to wonder, even as she said that, if it was herself more than Mitch that she was trying to convince.

Mitch separated another slice of pizza. He ate a string of cheese from the dangling end up to the crust. “Maybe she didn’t count on the guy shooting Blakely. Maybe he was supposed to grab the money and run, and then they’d split it later.”

Uneasily, Cate realized she didn’t know enough about Shirley to argue with that scenario. But still she protested mildly. “Shirley struck me as a basically good person. Nice,” she repeated.

“What is it your Uncle Joe says? ‘In the PI business, you have to be suspicious of everyone.’
Nice
doesn’t necessarily cut it.”

“Now you’re thinking like a PI.”

“Yeah. Sometimes I do that,” Mitch muttered. He sounded as if that was more like discovering a bad case of toenail fungus than a welcome surprise. In an abrupt change of subject, he added, “Something unexpected happened today. We got an offer on Computer Solutions Dudes.”

Cate almost dropped her Pepsi. “I didn’t know you were even thinking about selling the company.”

“We haven’t been. This Portland outfit wants to expand into the Eugene area, and apparently they think buying us out would be better than starting cold here. Or competing with us.”

Mitch and his partner, Lance McPherson, had been in business together since before Cate and Mitch had met. Computer Solutions Dudes specialized in complete computer setups, including writing software, for small businesses.

“You’re not thinking about taking the offer, are you?”

“It’s a very good offer.”

Cate took a big gulp of Pepsi, but the fizzy liquid didn’t fill the sudden hollowness that billowed inside her. “But what would you both do if you sold?”

“Lance has contacts with people in a big computer company in Dallas. I think they’d jump at a chance to hire him. I’m not sure about me.”

Mitch wouldn’t leave the Eugene area . . . would he?

“I don’t think I want to go to Texas. I’d be more inclined to try Seattle or the Bay area.”

So he
was
thinking about leaving the Eugene area. “Oh.”

Cate wondered if she sounded as dismayed as she felt. She
and Mitch didn’t have any solid commitment between them, true, but somewhere in the back of her mind she’d kicked around the idea that their relationship might grow into something permanent. If Mitch could ever get past his hang-up with her being a PI. But maybe it was an even bigger stumbling block for him than she’d realized. With his computer experience and expertise, some Seattle or Bay area company would no doubt welcome him with open cyberspace arms.

“Or, if Lance wants to sell and I don’t, our initial partnership agreement gives either of us the right to buy out the other partner’s share of the company.”

Relief whooshed through Cate. She picked up another piece of pizza. “That sounds like a great idea, don’t you think?”

“I’d have to borrow a lot of money to do it.”

Where Cate couldn’t be of any help. Until Uncle Joe hired her, she hadn’t been able to find a steady job for over a year. She had no helpful investment fund socked away. Unless you counted the jar of found pennies on the kitchen counter. That might finance a couple of Snickers bars, but not half of Computer Solutions Dudes.

“How does Robyn feel about this?”

Lance and Robyn had been married less than a year. Both Cate and Mitch had been in their wedding. Fashionista Robyn had turned out to be not nearly as shallow and status/money conscious as Cate had first thought, and she was very supportive of her husband. But right now Cate found herself hoping Robyn would stomp a Ferregamo-clad foot and reject Dallas as if it were some hick cowtown.

“I haven’t heard what her reaction is yet, but I’m guessing she’ll be fine with Texas. Dallas is a lot larger than Eugene.”

Cate almost yelled, “Don’t do it! Don’t go running off to Seattle or somewhere! I want you to stay here!” But he hadn’t
specifically asked her opinion, and without a commitment between them, she didn’t feel she had the right to say anything. So all she did was loop a strand of melted cheese around her pizza and try to sound thoughtful when she said, “I’m sure you and Lance will make the right decision together.”

“What I need to do is talk it over with the Lord, of course,” Mitch said, and Cate gave herself a mental whack. Of course. That’s what she should have said too instead of thinking mostly about how selling the company would affect
her
.

“You’re going to have some decisions to make too, you know, when you get your PI license,” Mitch said.

Right. Uncle Joe was talking about fully retiring and turning Belmont Investigations over to her once she was licensed. He and Rebecca wanted to buy a motor home so they could, as Joe put it, just drive off into the sunset. See all the places they’d never seen. Cate thought it was a great idea for them.

But was she a good enough PI to go it alone? Or would she flounder and wind up working as a Christmas elf at the mall again? Investigating nothing more than the identity of the sticky purple stuff some child left on Santa’s suit.

And maybe all without Mitch.

There were a few crumbs and half a piece of pizza left when they finished eating. Mitch put the box on the floor and called Clancy over. The dog scarfed down the leftovers. Mitch grabbed his studded collar in preparation for taking him out to the SUV.

“You’re sure taking him to the condo is going to work out okay?” Cate asked.

“No, but that’s the kind of thing we noble knights on Purple Rockets do to aid damsels in distress.”

“I appreciate it, Noble Knight.” Cate dipped her head in a little bow. “And I appreciate your coming to get me too.
Along with your admirable humility.” She leaned over the dog and kissed Mitch on the cheek.

Mitch didn’t comment on her snarky observation about his humility. “I think this double rescue rates more than that.” His kiss was more directly targeted, lasted longer, and made Cate breathless enough to forget even a belly button full of itchy dog hair.

Finally she came right out and said it, breathless still. “I hope you don’t leave Eugene.”

“We’ll see. I’m considering various possibilities.”

Which wasn’t exactly the full assurance she was looking for.

6

Cate wouldn’t, however, let herself go all teary and emotional about the situation. She stepped back. “Clancy could use a good brushing when you get him home. He seems to have a lot of excess hair.”

Mitch scratched his neck as if he’d acquired a few dog-hair itches of his own. “This is just for tonight, right?”

“I’ll take him out to Shirley’s trailer tomorrow as soon as she brings my car back. I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Talk to you then.”

After Mitch and Clancy left, Octavia cautiously climbed down from her walkway. She was sniffing like a bloodhound following an escaped prisoner when Cate headed for the shower.

Cate had coffee started and a plump scoop of tuna in Octavia’s cat dish by 7:00 the next morning. Shirley arrived a few minutes later.

Her black curls looked as if they were still in high-voltage mode, but her eyelids drooped and she was still in yesterday’s bloodstained coveralls. She held out the key ring.

“I filled the gas tank,” she said.

“Oh, you didn’t need to do that. But it’s really thoughtful of you. Thank you! How’s Mr. Blakely?”

“Nobody’s telling me anything, but they did let me in to see him. For about twenty-nine seconds.” Shirley sounded grumpy about the time limitation, but the fact that they’d let Shirley see Blakely at all surprised Cate. Probably a tribute to her persistence and determination. “He’s never regained consciousness, and he looks . . . terrible.”

“I think the crime scene people were digging a bullet out of the wall, so hopefully that means they won’t have to do surgery to get it out of his head.”

“He has tubes everywhere. And machines with beeps and green lines keeping track of everything. He looks terrible,” she repeated.

Shirley didn’t look so great herself, and impulsively Cate said, “How about breakfast before I take you home?”

“I wouldn’t want you to go to all that bother—”

“No bother.”

“That’d be great! Mr. Halliday said not to come to work today. Some outfit is coming in to clean up.”

Cate stepped back to let Shirley inside. “There was a lot of blood.” An understatement about the scene that Cate was trying to keep out of her mind.

“I’ll go home and get some sleep before I go back to the hospital. Hopefully Jerry will have my pickup fixed by today.”

“You can freshen up if you like. Bathroom’s down there.”

Shirley started in the direction Cate pointed, but then she spotted one of the unique features of the house. She was too polite to comment on the oddity of painted planks circling the living room about a foot below the ceiling, but she eyed them doubtfully.

“That’s Octavia’s special walkway,” Cate explained. “And that’s Octavia,” she added, as her white cat padded over to inspect the newcomer.

“I guess I’m more of a dog person myself,” Shirley said warily as Octavia, tail swishing, looked as if she might be considering climbing up Shirley’s leg. Cate scooped her up. “You made a special walkway for the cat?” Shirley asked.

Cate explained the basics of how she’d acquired both cat and house. “I was living with my uncle and aunt when I took Octavia to keep her from going to the pound, and then it turned out her former owner had in her will that whoever got the cat also got the house. But then the house that was here burned down, so the lawyer who was executor of the will had this new one built.”

Cate left out the fact that a killer had started the fire in an effort to kill Cate and another woman in the burning house. It was one of the incidents that reinforced Mitch’s negative attitude about her work as a PI.

“Cats like to walk around up high?”

“Oh yes. Octavia spends a lot of time up there. The window seat”—Cate pointed at the padded seat below a picture window—“is so she can be warm and comfortable and still watch birds and squirrels outside. She has an outdoor, screened-in playroom too.” Octavia also had a trust fund, although Cate didn’t mention that.

“Wow,” Shirley said, which was apparently all she could think to say about a house that Mitch called the Kitty Kastle. She hesitated and then looked toward the bathroom as if wondering if it had any peculiar cat features.

“It’s a normal bathroom,” Cate assured her. “Octavia uses a litter box like any ordinary cat.”

Although Octavia’s litter box had her name written in gold
script over the arched doorway, and she was extraordinary in other ways as well. In spite of her deafness, she had some uncanny knowledge about when the landline phone was about to ring. Cate sometimes reminded her she shouldn’t feel all superior about that; she didn’t seem to have any special ability concerning cell phone calls. Octavia also gave Cate occasional advice on PI situations. Cate always assured herself the helpfulness of that advice was surely only coincidental.

“She does like to nap in the bathroom sink occasionally,” Cate added.

“Well, uh, okay,” Shirley said.

Cate heard the bathroom door close firmly. Apparently Shirley didn’t want sink company.

By the time Shirley came out to the kitchen, Cate had coffee perked, orange juice poured, and scrambled eggs, hash browns, and toast ready to dish up. Shirley had folded the coveralls so the blood was concealed on the inside, and she was now in the gray sweatpants and T-shirt she’d been wearing under them. Cate found a plastic bag for the coveralls, and they sat down to eat together.

There were various things Cate wanted to know, but Shirley seemed more inclined to eat than talk. Cate suspected she came from a hard-working family where mealtimes were solely for consuming food, not for bonding experiences.

Finally, however, Shirley had cleaned her plate and leaned back to enjoy a second cup of coffee. They talked a little about what a great hospital RiverBend was, and the beautiful wooded grounds between the hospital and river.

“I don’t see any man stuff around, so I guess you’re not married?” Shirley asked.

The unexpected question momentarily jolted Cate. No subtle small talk before getting right into the nosy stuff for Shirley.

“No, not married.”

“Boyfriend?”

Answering that question was a little more complicated. Cate and Mitch had a steady relationship, but he was still uncomfortable with her being a private investigator and kept offering her a job at his Computer Solutions Dudes company. Although he’d given her a special pen that was really a video camera, great for the possibility of undercover work, plus a voice-activated wrist cell phone, and he’d several times helped with her PI cases. He was closer to boyfriend than
non
boyfriend. “Um, yeah, I guess I have a boyfriend.”

“Of course you do.” Shirley’s hazel eyes appraised Cate. “You’re nowhere near fifty, and you’re definitely fit and fabulous.”

“I don’t know about that . . . though I thank you for the compliment. You know, you can still go to the Fit and Fabulous sessions even if you missed that first one,” Cate said. “There’s more to it than just the fitness stuff.”

“I’ve never been much on churchgoing. Will this woman, uh, preach at us?” Shirley’s eyebrows scrunched, as if this might be a deal breaker.

“I don’t think there will be any actual sermons, but the speaker is supposed to have some good insights on connecting faith with being fit and fabulous.” Now, given Shirley’s blunt questions and comments, Cate shot back a few of her own. “How about you? Married?”

“I was. Thirty-six years. But Hatch got killed three years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Impulsively Cate added, “I’ll bet he thought you were fabulous.”

Shirley looked surprised, then smiled and nodded. “I think he did. Though that word would never have occurred to him.”

“You lived over on the coast?”

“Hatch and I had a commercial fishing boat for years, and he always bragged that I could clean a fish as fast as he could, and a crab even faster.” Shirley’s smile turned rueful. “But, yeah, I need the fabulous stuff. You don’t see anyone bragging about fish- and crab-cleaning talents on those internet dating sites.”

Cate hadn’t visited any of them, but she figured Shirley’s statement was probably accurate. “Boyfriend?”

“Before Mr. Blakely came down from Salem, he asked me to go to dinner with him after his meeting with Mr. Halliday last night. He told me to call him Kane too. We have a larger inventory of parts here than in the Salem branch, so Kane and I often talk on the phone or email back and forth.”

“More than business talk?”

Shirley’s ruddy cheeks reddened further. “Sometimes.”

“I’m assuming you said you’d go to dinner with him?”

“No, I told him I couldn’t go, because I’d already promised Rebecca I’d be at the meeting. She sounded so friendly and nice. I think she was concerned that not many women had signed up, and I told her I’d be there for sure.”

So, if Shirley made a commitment, she kept it. Even if it meant missing dinner with an attractive man who interested her. Admirable.

“But then I got up my nerve and suggested, since he was spending the night in Eugene, maybe we could go out for breakfast. And he said great.”

“Good for you! He probably thinks you’re fabulous already.”

Shirley shook her head. “When he got here, he said he
wouldn’t be able to make breakfast after all because he had to meet with a client.” Shirley brushed a finger over her right eyebrow, which, in some misguided attempt at taming, she’d plucked to the skinny line of a road to nowhere on a map. “Maybe that was true. But I think, after he met me in person, he just changed his mind.” Her throat moved in a hard swallow.

“So he gave you his dog to babysit for the evening.” Cate couldn’t keep the indignation out of her voice.

“Yeah. But I don’t blame him for backing off. I mean . . .” Shirley pulled a black curl out from her head and let it go. It boomeranged right back to her scalp.

Honest, forthright, tell-it-like-it-is Shirley. No oversized ego here. Okay, Shirley’s dye job was a little too crow-black, and her wiry curls looked as if they had popped out of her head with an electric
s-p-r-o-i-n-g!
Her boots would do fine for military combat. But the warmth and frankness about her were surely more important than hairdo and eyebrows, and Blakely should have seen that. A fish-cleaning ability wasn’t to be downgraded, either. Mitch would likely approve a fish-cleaning talent more than he approved of Cate being a private investigator.