Spotted Cats (7 page)

‘Jaguars? What about jaguars?’

I gestured across the room at the seven empty glass cases. ‘Mr Newton owned these seven statues—sculptures—solid gold, Mayan works of art. Very valuable. Very old. They’re gone.’

Maroney glanced at the glass cases, as if to verify that they were indeed empty. ‘What else did they get?’

‘Nothing,’ said Lily, speaking for the first time. ‘Just the cats.’

‘As if that’s what they came for,’ said Maroney, allowing himself a faint smile. He turned to Lily. ‘You live here, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘What was Mr Newton doing outside last night?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He usually sleeps soundly. He takes pills.’

‘Pills?’

‘Sleeping pills. And other pills. He’s not well.’

‘Where’s his bedroom?’

‘In the back of the house. Next to mine.’

‘You didn’t hear anything last night?’

‘No.’

‘These two men, they didn’t come into your room?’

‘No.’

‘Did you hear Mr Newton get up?’

‘No.’

‘Noises?’

‘I didn’t hear anything. I didn’t wake up.’

‘Did Mr Newton take his pills last night?’

She shrugged. ‘I suppose so. I left them for him.’

‘Are you a sound sleeper, miss?’

She nodded. ‘Average, I guess.’

‘Does Mr Newton get up in the night? To go to the bathroom, for example? When the pills wear off?’

‘I don’t really know,’ said Lily. ‘I don’t think so. Sometimes he has bad dreams. I hear him when he cries out. But he doesn’t usually get up.’

‘But he did last night.’

She shrugged. ‘Obviously,’ she said.

Maroney peered at his notebook for a moment. Then he looked up at me. ‘The dogs were supposed to guard the place, then,’ he said. ‘Right?’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘They were trained killers. You had to know their names, to be able to say them properly, to get by them.’

‘Explain.’ Maroney’s eyebrows furrowed.

‘Tondo and Ngwenya,’ I said, pronouncing them carefully. ‘Their names. African words. He—Jeff—he used to be a professional hunter in Africa. You can’t pronounce the dogs’ names unless Jeff taught you. If you couldn’t say them right, the dogs would bite off your leg.’

‘So the bad guys knew their names, then, huh?’

‘No,’ said Lily. ‘Only we three could say their names.’

Maroney turned to look at her. ‘And you were sleeping. Miss Robbins, when Mr Coyne here was being taped to his bed and Mr Newton was outside getting hit on the head and the dogs were getting their throats cut?’

‘Miz,’ she said.

Maroney rolled his eyes. ‘Miz. Sorry.’

‘I was sleeping, yes,’ she said. ‘I told you that. I didn’t hear anything.’

‘So,’ said Maroney, glancing at Kinney, who was sitting back in a soft chair, his little pig eyes darting from one to the other of us as we spoke, ‘they came into your room, Mr Coyne, tied you up, scratched you with a knife, and hit you, but they didn’t go near Miz Robbins here. What do you make of that?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. But, of course, I did. Lily could have been in on it. I doubted it. But it was possible.

‘Miss?’ he said to Lily. ‘I mean, miz?’

‘I don’t know.’ She sat forward and jutted her chin at Maroney. ‘My bedroom’s in the back. Brady was in the guest room, right off the living-room. Maybe that’s why they went in there.’

Maroney nodded.

‘Why are you asking a question like that?’ said Lily.

He stared at her for a moment. She returned his gaze levelly.

‘It’s a logical question,’ he said finally. ‘Did they take a blanket or a pillowcase or a slipcover from the sofa or something?’

My estimate of his competence clicked up a notch. He was asking if the thieves brought something with them to carry the jaguars in, meaning they knew exactly what they were after, or did they break in, see the golden cats and decide they were valuable, and then look around for something to lug them away in.

‘Nothing,’ said Lily. ‘Nothing else is missing.’

‘You’re sure?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing that I noticed, anyway.’

Maroney jerked his head towards the scattering of papers on the floor by the desk. ‘Have you looked through all that stuff?’

‘No,’ said Lily. ‘We didn’t think we should touch anything.’

Maroney nodded and glanced again at Kinney. Kinney nodded. It was hard to tell if the younger cop was following this.

‘Back to those dogs,’ said Maroney. ‘You said if someone knew their names—’

‘The dogs would lie down,’ I said. ‘Friendly as cocker spaniels. You could kick them and they wouldn’t do anything.’

‘But—’

‘Otherwise, they were vicious, monomaniacal killers.’

‘So our burglars—’

‘Either knew their names, or—’

‘Or tranquillized them or something,’ finished Maroney. ‘Otherwise they couldn’t have gotten close enough to them to cut their throats.’

I nodded. ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking.’

Maroney stared out the wall of windows. A brilliant, cloudless Cape Cod Saturday. The beaches would be mobbed, as would the pizza and ice-cream and T-shirt emporiums that lined Route 28 on the ocean side of the Cape. A fun place.

‘I suppose we could have somebody do an autopsy on the dogs,’ he said. ‘Don’t know what it would tell us.’

‘Shit,’ said Kinney. ‘Never heard of that.’

‘Me neither,’ said Maroney. He shrugged. ‘Are those jaguars insured, do you know?’ he said.

I nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘A good thing. Someone best call Mr Newton’s adjuster. Describe the missing pieces for me.’

‘They were solid gold,’ I said. ‘Emerald eyes. Each weighed about twenty pounds. The smallest was fifteen and a half inches long. The biggest was nineteen and a quarter. They looked—like cats, you know? Jaguars, of course, are spotted. Like leopards. These gold ones weren’t spotted. Just burnished gold. Quite beautiful, in their fashion. A little crude, representative. Primitive. Jaguars were kind of gods to the Mayans.’

‘So the seven of them—they’d weigh well over a hundred pounds.’

I nodded. ‘Closer to one-fifty.’ Maroney was taking notes.

‘What’s their value?’

‘They’re insured for seven hundred seventy thousand. One-ten each. They were appraised for about double that. That was a number of years ago.’

Maroney whistled softly between his front teeth. ‘You have photographs of the cats?’

‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘Want to see them?’

Maroney nodded.

She stood up. ‘I’ll get them.’

She left the room. Maroney watched her go. ‘We’ll circulate the pictures,’ he said, still staring at the doorway through which Lily had disappeared. ‘Local art dealers, junk stores, and so forth. If we’re lucky, your burglars’ll turn out to be kids looking for crack money, have no idea what they’ve got for themselves, and your cats’ll turn up. I’m guessing that won’t happen, though.’

‘Because they brought sacks to carry them out in,’ I said.

‘I’m guessing that’s what they did,’ said the cop. ‘That plus the way they handled the dogs.’

‘What do you make of their slugging Jeff?’ I said.

Maroney shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine right now. Maybe after we look around something’ll suggest itself. On the surface, it looks as if he heard something, maybe the dogs barking or something, and went outside to see what was going on—’

‘Those dogs didn’t bark,’ I said. ‘All they’d do was whine. You couldn’t hear them from inside the house.’

He shrugged again.

‘And anyway, Jeff’s room’s in the back, and he doesn’t get around very well, and he takes sleeping pills. And if he did hear something, he’d most likely call for Lily.’

Maroney cocked his head. ‘If she was there.’

I shrugged.

He glanced at Kinney, who was watching me.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘they weren’t kids. They were adults. Judging by their voices, anyway.’

‘Some kids on crack are pretty old,’ said Maroney.

Lily came back and handed Maroney a large manila envelope. Maroney reached into it and took out a sheaf of eight-by-ten colour photographs. He shuffled through them. ‘Seven of them, right?’

‘Yes,’ said Lily.

‘Mind if I keep these?’

She nodded. ‘We’ve got duplicates.’

‘Lily,’ I said, ‘were the papers there?’

‘Papers?’

‘The papers on the jaguars. The appraisal that Dan LaBreque and Maria Conway did, the import papers, insurance policies?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. Right with the photos. The file cabinet’s in Jeff’s bedroom.’ She gestured at the mess of papers on the floor. ‘They must’ve been looking for them, huh?’

‘Looks like it,’ I said.

Maroney tucked the photos back into the envelope and glanced at his notebook. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I need some names.’

‘Names?’ said Lily.

‘Who knew about the jaguars. Who knew the dogs’ names. You know. Suspects. People who visit Mr Newton. Who could’ve done this. We’ll have to talk to Mr Newton when he’s able, but for now, what can you come up with?’

Lily stared at him blankly. ‘No one. No one I know would do this.’

‘Well,’ said Maroney placidly, ‘someone did. Think, please.’

She shrugged. ‘His children. They visit him. I don’t think they stole the jaguars.’

‘He’s—’

‘Divorced,’ said Lily. ‘For about fifteen years.’

‘Names?’

‘James and Ellen.’

He wrote them down. ‘How old are they?’

‘Jimmy’s twenty and Ellen’s twenty-two.’

‘How does he get along with them?’

She shrugged. ‘OK, as far as I know. I’m usually on vacation when they’re here.’

‘When were they here last?’

‘Late August. They come every August.’ She hesitated. ‘Come to think of it, last summer Jimmy didn’t make it. He was working up in New Hampshire and couldn’t get away.’

‘So he didn’t see his son all year?’

Lily shrugged. ‘I guess not.’

‘But you say he gets along OK with his kids?’

‘Ellen, anyway. I think there’s some tension between him and Jimmy. He doesn’t talk much about it.’

‘What about Mr Newton’s wife?’

‘I told you. He’s divorced.’

Maroney looked up. ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘His ex-wife, then. Does she visit him?’

‘No.’

‘But she probably knows about the jaguars. From the children.’

Lily rolled her eyes. ‘I doubt that Sheila came down, hit Jeff on the head, tied up Brady, and stole the jaguars.’

‘It was two men,’ I said.

‘OK,’ said the cop. ‘Who else?’

‘Well,’ said Lily, ‘his insurance person. She comes by now and then. She certainly knows about the jaguars, what they’re worth. At least as likely a suspect as his children.’

‘Name?’

‘Miss Kline,’ she said. ‘Jeff calls her Tory. For Victoria. Tory Kline. She’s with the Seacoast Agency in Hyannis. They broker all his insurance, and she’s the agent he deals with. She arranged the policy for the jaguars. Also the homeowner’s policy, life insurance, my automobile, and so forth. She helped Jeff get his claim for disability.’

‘You know a lot about Mr Newton’s business,’ said Maroney mildly.

‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘I do. I take care of him.’

Maroney was writing into his notebook. ‘Hyannis, you said?’

Lily nodded. ‘The Seacoast Agency.’

‘When was she here?’

‘She’s been here several times.’

‘Most recently?’

She gazed up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know. Last winter sometime, I guess. Periodically she calls, wants to come over to sell Jeff more insurance. He generally lets her come.’

‘What’d you say those cats are insured for?’

‘Seven hundred seventy thousand,’ I said.

‘Good thing,’ said Maroney. ‘Anybody else you can think of?’ He looked from Lily to me.

‘Well, Dr Sauerman,’ I said. ‘He comes every week to examine Mr Newton.’

‘And what exactly is the matter with Mr Newton?’ Maroney arched his eyebrows.

‘He was mauled by an African leopard,’ I said. ‘He spent six months in a Nairobi hospital. Bad infection, serious wounds. He still needs medical treatment. He used to be a professional hunter.’

‘The Great White Hunter, huh?’ said Kinney, smirking so that his fat cheeks bunched up and his eyes became slits.

‘They’re called professional hunters,’ said Lily. ‘Sometimes professional white hunters. Never great white hunters, except maybe in movies. To call a professional hunter a great white hunter is to reveal ignorance.’

Kinney squinted at her for a minute, then shrugged.

‘He’s really got a thing for cats, though, huh?’ said Maroney.

‘I suppose so,’ said Lily.

‘Alan Sauerman,’ said Maroney, looking sideways at Kinney.

Kinney nodded. ‘Sure. The Doc’

‘He was here last evening,’ I said. ‘He knows about the cats. He knew about the dogs, too.’

‘Good,’ said Maroney, again writing in his notebook. He looked at Lily. ‘Miss? Miz? Anybody else? How about you? Boyfriend?’

She shook her head.

‘There must be other people who come here. To visit, to make deliveries. Relatives?’

Lily shrugged. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘The usual meter readers, oil delivery men. We had an exterminator last May. Carpenter ants. Does that help?’

‘Sure,’ said the policeman. ‘Everything helps.’

‘I can’t think of anybody particular,’ said Lily. ‘We don’t have a great deal of company. Occasionally one of Jeff’s old friends will drop in. I mean, how can we tell you every single person who’s ever been here, who might’ve known about the jaguars?’

Maroney shrugged. ‘Sure. Right.’ He turned to Kinney. ‘Anything else?’ This struck me as a courtesy to his partner, who had not seemed interested in any of the interrogation, and who did not appear to have a question—or, for that matter, much of anything else—in his head.

Kinney shrugged.

‘Well,’ said Maroney, pushing himself to his feet with a sigh, ‘we better have a look around, then.’

He flipped his notebook shut and jammed it into his shirt pocket. ‘That gate have a lock on it?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ said Lily.

‘That fence, it goes all around the property?’

‘Yes.’

‘So someone could sneak over anywhere.’

‘The dogs would get him,’ she said. ‘No matter where they came over.’