Downton Tabby (8 page)

Geoff sat quietly observing and listening.

What was the man up to? If he thought taking an interest in what I was doing would win me back, he couldn’t be more wrong.

“I’ve also tried your suggestion of having some noise in the house while I’m gone, such as setting the television timer so the TV is on for a while after I leave, and that seems to help.”

“She’s beautiful.” Geoff smiled at Audra.

Phony. He didn’t care for small dogs and when we’d been married had insisted the only dog worth having, if you had to have one, was a big dog. Preferably pure bred.

“Nina started having problems when I went back to work.” Audra directed her remarks to Geoff. “She began destroying the house, barking all day, and even became a bit aggressive.”

Nina looked at us with dark, innocent eyes as if we must be talking about some other dog. “I would never . . . ,” her expression seemed to say.

“What about your neighbor?” I asked. “Any further problems there?”

“No, in fact he stopped over last night and not a yip out of her.”

“So the therapy for her separation anxiety appears to have been successful.” Geoff propped his chin on his knuckles in a pose I’d seen many times before. “You’ve done a wonderful job, Audra, in working with her.”

“Thank you.” She tucked her hair behind one ear and blushed.

Alrighty then. I needed to get him out of there.

“It sounds like you just need to keep doing what you’re doing and, please, feel free to give me a call if you run into any problems.” I stood.

“I appreciate it, Caro. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to not have to worry every day when I come home about what Nina has done this time.” She reached over and stroked the little pup’s nose.

Geoff slowly rose to his feet. He shook hands with Audra and gave a slight bow. “Thank you so much, Audra, for letting me sit in on Carolina’s visit. I hope it wasn’t a problem.”

“Oh, not at all.” She smiled up at him.

We said good-bye and walked to my car. I waited until we were out of earshot.

“What in the Sam Hill do you think you’re doing, Geoff?” I saw a bit of a flicker in his deep-blue eyes, but he didn’t respond immediately. That was new.

He took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead as if dealing with a difficult thought. “Don’t you think you’re overreacting, Carolina?”

“Am I?” I bit out.

Unbelievable. He was unbelievable.

“Is it really so awful to want to learn about what you do?”

“If you don’t understand what’s wrong with showing up uninvited on a business call, then I sure as-shootin’ don’t know how to explain it to you, Geoff.” I stared him down.

“I apologize, my dear.” He held up his hands like he was warding off physical blows instead of verbal ones. “I did not know I needed an invitation.”

I opened the passenger side door and threw my things in the seat.

“May I come along on your next call?”

“No, you may not.” I got in my car before I was tempted to smack him upside the head just to punctuate my sentence.

Thanks to Geoff and his mistaken notion that it was okay to tag along on my house call, I had less than ten minutes to get to Jake and Cash’s house to meet Malone. I started the car and looked around, but Geoff was gone.

WHEN I PULLED into the driveway I was again struck by the whimsical nature of the place. Two geeky guys, one adorable cat, and a magical house with a secret room.

Malone’s gun-metal-grey Camaro glided into the drive and parked beside me. Precise, powerful, and straightforward like the man behind the wheel.

I got out and waited while Malone finished a cell-phone call and then joined me in front of the house.

My head whipped around when a smaller car also pulled in and parked. It was a white Toyota Prius with a
Channel 5 News
logo on the side, and I suddenly knew who had joined us. I just didn’t know how he’d known we were going to be here. Maybe he had a mole at the police station. Or maybe he was the psychic instead of Suzanne.

Reporter Callum MacAvoy got out on the passenger side, and the driver, who apparently doubled as cameraman, followed and then began assembling his camera equipment. In a matter of minutes a tripod was setup and MacAvoy had his TV face on.

“Here we are at the site of Laguna Beach’s most recent murder with the detective investigating and the woman who discovered the body.”

Malone ignored him and jogged with purpose up the stairs to the front entrance. I followed his lead.

“Ms. Lamont, what are you and the detective doing here? Revisiting the crime scene?” He shoved his wireless microphone toward me and followed me up the steps.

I slipped through the door that Malone held open. MacAvoy attempted to follow, and Malone blocked his access with a muscular arm across the entrance.

“This is still a crime scene.” His tone had the ring of authority but didn’t deter Mr. TV.

“What are you looking for, Detective?”

Malone didn’t answer but instead closed the door in the reporter’s face.

“That’s okay,” MacAvoy yelled through the door. “We’ll wait right here.”

“How do you think he found out we were going to be here?” I shook my head.

“I don’t know. I didn’t share my plans with him.” Malone’s laser blue gaze pinned me.

“You can’t think I had anything to do with it.” I knew Malone was often frustrated with me and my need to help, but I thought he also knew me well enough to know I didn’t seek attention.

“Didn’t say you did.” He turned away. “But someone had to have leaked it.” His body language said there’d be hell to pay when he figured out who.

He looked up the staircase. “This secret room is up there?”

“That’s right.” I led the way up the stairs and to the turret office.

Stepping into the room, I stopped. There was no gaping wall. No secret room. The open space was now closed up, and you would never know there was anything behind it.

“The opening was right there.” I pointed to the wall.

Malone felt along the molding and ran his hands along the floorboard.

“Something here has to open it.” I picked up the papers Toria had scattered and stacked them on the desk. There was a wooden inbox, and I dropped the papers in it and straightened the box. As I did, it revealed a button the same color as the ebony desk. It blended in so you might not see it immediately, and the box had been strategically placed to cover it.

“Maybe this.” I pointed it out to Malone.

“Push it.” He nodded.

The panel slid open just as I remembered.

But all that was behind the door was a wall of empty shelves.

All of the equipment, all of the blinking lights. Gone.

I was speechless.

Malone looked at me, his face serious. “I assume this is not what it looked like earlier today.”

I shook my head. I was glad he didn’t think I’d lost my mind. I was beginning to doubt my sanity. He seemed to take my word that there truly had been a secret room full of equipment.

“No, there were . . .” I waved my hand toward where all the electronics had been. “And all the boxes were blinking. They kind of looked like some kind of computers, but you know, not like my computer at home.”

“Well, it appears someone didn’t want us to find whatever was here.”

“Who do you think?”

“The obvious answer is Graham Cash.”

“Why would he steal stuff from his own home?”

“I don’t know. Could be it’s something he needs wherever he is. Could be it’s something that would incriminate him.” He examined the opening, running his hands over the mechanism. Then stepped into the room and stared at the shelves.

“It could be the guy that was here earlier who was hiding in there. I wish I’d been able to get a license number for his car.”

“We’ve asked around to see if anyone in the neighborhood saw him or has seen the car before.” Malone wandered the circular room, inventorying everything with his eyes.

“I talked to the guy next door.” I pointed out the window at the house. “He was outside when I left but he claimed he didn’t see the guy.”

“Claimed?” He continued his visual cataloging.

“I don’t know how he could have missed him.”

“Maybe he was busy or not paying attention or doesn’t want to get involved. You’d be surprised how uncooperative eyewitnesses are.”

“Heidi, Cash’s girlfriend, says the guy had claimed Toria was vicious.”

“Toria is the cat?”

“Yes, she’s named after Queen Victoria, and I’ve not seen anything to make me think she’d be aggressive.”

“Hmmm.” His tone said he wasn’t all that interested in how Cash had named his cat or my assessment of Toria’s temperament.

“I wonder what that guy was doing here,” I mused.

“I’d just as soon you didn’t wonder anything.” Malone turned to look at me.

“I know. I know.”

“And if you hear from Cash again, see if you can find out where he is before he hangs up. And make sure he knows he must call me.”

“I feel bad about that, but he really didn’t give me a chance to ask anything.”

Malone paced the small space. “I’ll get our crime-scene techs up here to see if there are fingerprints or anything else that would tell us who has been here, but I’m not very hopeful.”

I stared at the empty shelves. Whoever it was had been pretty thorough. “What are we going to do about the persistent press outside?”

“We’re going to go out, get in our cars, and drive away.”

We made our way back downstairs. Malone phoned in his request for a CSI tech, and I stared out at the patio. The pool area hadn’t really been cleaned up. The energy drink I’d knocked over still lay on its side. I remembered the chill of the liquid as it spilled onto my already soaked jeans. I shivered.

When I closed my eyes, I could still see Jake’s face when I’d finally been able to turn him over. How on earth did people manage to go on living in a house when there had been a violent crime? I wondered who would clean up the place with Jake dead and Cash missing. Were there relatives? Neither of them had talked that much about their personal lives.

I knew Malone was convinced Cash was involved, if not actually Jake’s killer, but I hoped and prayed he wasn’t.

Granted, it looked darn suspicious that he’d disappeared at the same time. But though he’d sounded furtive on the phone, he hadn’t sounded like someone on the run. Whatever that sounded like.

Besides if it were him, what was the motive? The two were successful partners and from what I could tell had always seemed to get along.

And besides, if Cash were on the run, he would have taken his cat. The man was truly attached to his cat.

Detective Malone, or Detective Hottie as Betty liked to call him, finished up his call and glanced my way.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He walked to the entry and peered out. “Still there. All right, we’re going to out. You go first and I’ll follow a little slower. He’ll go for me and you should be able to get in your car and drive away. Ready?”

“Ready.” I nodded.

Malone opened the door, and I stepped through. The reporter pounced right away. I made a beeline for my car as Malone had instructed. Malone lagged behind, and I could see the dilemma on Mr. TV’s face.

He turned toward Malone. “Detective, what did you find?” Obviously an official comment would carry more air-time clout.

“No comment,” I could hear Malone answer.

I reached my car, opened the door, and looked his way.

Malone gave a slight nod, and I slid in and started my car.

I drove quickly to the next house call which was a couple with a young Bichon Frisé. Bichon Frisé means “curly lap dog,” and Alf was that and so much more. The dogs are small and sturdy, and their dark inquisitive eyes are guaranteed to tug at your heartstrings.

Judi and Michael, the couple who owned Alf, had been referred to me by Dr. Daniel Darling, a good friend and our local veterinarian. Alf had developed such a severe limp they could no longer take him for walks. Dr. Daniel, after a full battery of tests, had ruled out any possible injury or physical cause for the limp. He recommended they have me take a look at Alf and get my thoughts.

This was just a get-to-know-you visit. As you might have already figured out, much of my work with problem pets is really working with pet parents. To truly assess the situation, I’ve got to understand the day-to-day workings of the household and the people dynamics as well as the pet ones.

The little dog was friendly but would sometimes whine as if hurt. Often, the couple said, it happened if Alf were touched unexpectedly. His limp was pronounced, but he was still playful and chased down toys or treats. I enjoyed the time with the couple and with Alf and had some ideas but held back on sharing them. I wanted to do a little research first on post-traumatic stress in animals. I promised to drop back by in a week.

Relieved the couple hadn’t questioned me about seeing me on the news or the murder investigation, I stopped by the office and in the quiet transcribed a few of my notes. I’d intended to only do some preliminary research on the topic of PTSD in animals, but when I finally glanced at the clock, I realized I’d been at it almost an hour. It was surprising, both on the human side and the animal side, how little we understood about the effect of traumatic events on the psyche. Puppy mill dogs often show varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder due to the abhorrent conditions they’ve endured. I knew Judi and Mark would never buy from a puppy mill, but they’d gotten Alf from a friend, so the transfer of ownership was unclear.

If I was right, it would take patience and dedication to rehabilitate Alf, and so I wanted to be sure before I offered an opinion.

I stopped outside my office door to make sure I had my car keys. Psychic Suzanne stepped into the lobby from her office at the same time. It looked like she was calling it a day as well.

“Have a good evening,” I called to her.

“Beware of strangers,” she replied as she walked out.

I closed my door with an irritated snap. The woman had a knack for throwing out unsettling but generic warnings.

Starting my car, I tuned the radio to a favorite classical station and was pleased when the strains of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik began. I put the car in gear. A little night music was exactly what I needed as I slowly drove home to my pets and what I hoped was a quiet evening.