The Black Cat Knocks on Wood (20 page)

“I knew that woman a loooonnng time,” McKinney said in a low voice. “She got my fiancée killed. Sweetest woman ever lived. Ruined my life forever.”

My eyes widened. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting McKinney to say, but it wasn’t this.

“So you ask me,” he went on, “am I sorry that Crystal Devlin is dead?” McKinney’s eyes went crazy and his mouth turned up in an obscene smile. “Nosiree. I hope that bitch rots in hell.”

McKinney threw his partially smoked cigar on the ground and stomped the end. I was too unnerved by his stormy expression to ask the question foremost on my mind. What exactly had happened to his fianceé?

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” I said.

He grunted, and I expected him to walk away. He looked toward the parking lot, then back at me.

“Appreciate it,” he said, all of his usual bluster gone.

I readjusted the tote on my shoulder, and Hitchcock began to purr. Ace didn’t appear to notice the cat sound coming from the tote. Curiosity about the man’s fiancée urged me to continue the conversation.

“Did this happen recently?” I said.

He shook his head. “Nineteen years.”

“Thinking about my dad’s death brings me to tears,” I said, “and that was long ago, too. I understand how you feel.”

“Was he killed?” McKinney said in a tone that insinuated his grief held more weight than mine did.

“No. Sudden heart attack.”

He removed his hat and used a shirt sleeve to mop his perspiring forehead.

“How did Crystal, I mean, how did your fiancée—”

“They were on a boat,” he said.

I had a healthy fear of boats and found myself holding my breath. After a few seconds he went on without any prodding.

“Crystal was one of them bridezillas,” he said. “Spent money like water. Rented some villa in Mexico for the bachelorette party. Tabby—” He paused, and his whisker-stubbled chin quivered. “Her name was Tabitha.”

I felt myself tearing up as I watched the crusty old cowboy talk about the woman he loved.

“Tabby was a bridesmaid. A dozen of ’em total, partying on some fancy-ass boat with a bar, waiters, the whole nine yards. Nothin’ too good for ol’ Crystal.”

His eyes met mine.

“What happened to Tabby?” I said.

“They ain’t sure,” he said. “She got seasick, but did Crystal give a crap about her friend? Think about turnin’ back? No, ma’am. They stayed out there partyin’, drinkin’, till near midnight.”

I waited, dread growing until it felt like a solid lump in my stomach. Sweat trickled down my forehead.

“Got back to the dock,” McKinney said in a near whisper, “Tabby wasn’t there. Guy who rented them the boat says, ‘Hey, where’s the other one, you had a dozen women, now you got eleven.’”

“How awful,” I said.

“Crystal was too drunk to understand the question.”

I rubbed the side of the tote, and Hitchcock’s purring sped up. “So no one knows to this day what really happened?”

Ace swallowed visibly. “One of ’em saw Tabby hangin’ on the rail, sick as a dog. My Tabby never drank. Didn’t like the stuff. Seasickness got her. They think she passed out. Fell over.”

“Dear Lord.”

“We found her. Brought her back home.” He bowed his head.

Tears leaked from my eyes to mix with the sweat on my face. No wonder Ace disliked Crystal so much. If she’d chosen a different location for her party, Tabby would probably still be here. She and Ace could have married, had children.

“I’m really sorry I brought this up,” I said.

Not to mention accusing you of murder and attempted murder.

“Wasn’t you,” he said. “It’s everything happened this week.”

“It’s been a crazy one,” I agreed.

“I didn’t run nobody off the road,” he said, “and as many times as I’d’ve liked to get my hands around Crystal’s neck and squeeze till there wasn’t a breath left in her, I didn’t kill the woman. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

“Okay.” After hearing his tale, I could hardly blame the man for holding a grudge against Crystal even though she’d only done what she set out to do—rent a boat to go out with her friends and party hard. Plenty of brides-to-be did the same sort of thing.

“I ain’t perfect,” Ace said. “Drink way too much, and I take a few bets at the rodeo. Strictly small-time. Crystal didn’t like it, but it wasn’t none of her business. Lance don’t care, and nobody gets hurt.”

I shrugged. “Not a big deal.”

He put his hat back on his head. “Better get on back.”

“Okay. Sorry I kept you.”

He pinned me with a stare. “Talkin’ about Tabby ever’ so often does me good,” he said. “Keeps her memory alive.”

We exchanged a smile. The private Ace McKinney sure was the total opposite of the persona he wore for the world to see.

“You enjoy acting like you’re a big bad cowboy, is that it?”

“Basically. Got a reputation to uphold.”

“What about Remy? What’s his story?”

Ace waved a hand. “He’s harmless. Spends most of his time watchin’ old westerns on TV. Guy’s livin’ in the age of
Gunsmoke
. We do some playactin’ when nobody’s around. Just for grins.”

Until now I wouldn’t have imagined either of these cowboys ever smiled, much less acted like a couple of silly kids.

“I suppose you get to play Marshall Matt Dillon.”

“Every time,” Ace said. “Remy’s a good Festus.”

He pointed at me. “You don’t need to go tellin’ anybody about this or how I went soft and mushy talkin’ about Tabby either.”

“Not a word,” I said.

*   *   *

After Ace McKinney left, I felt emotionally spent and guilty for keeping Hitchcock pent up in the tote for so long. I let the cat out of the proverbial bag and put him on the grass.

“Bet you’re ready to stretch your legs,” I said and took hold of the end of his leash. “How about a little walk?”

“Mrreow,” he said.

We headed down the lawn next to the sidewalk in the direction away from the main drag through town. I turned on a residential street, thinking about all that I’d learned today. Lots of interesting bits and pieces. Nothing to pinpoint the killer.

“Maybe it’s time to go home and get to work on that book,” I said. “Give up this investigation business.”

Which I could do since it looked like Pearl was going to be in the clear soon. Hitchcock gave me a meow that I was pretty sure meant he was ready for his afternoon nap on my deck. The day was slipping by, and if we didn’t get home soon, the afternoon would be over. I kept walking anyway, mulling over the secrets people kept, figuring I must be a pretty boring person ’cause I couldn’t think of any secrets of my own.

We reached Lavender Square, a small park in the midst of the residential area. I circled the park to head back the way we’d come. Two children were climbing on a play set while a woman I assumed was their mother looked on from a nearby bench. A few people sat at the picnic tables under a grove of trees off to my right.

As we grew closer, I noticed a young woman seated by herself reading a book. Nothing curious about that. A tall man and someone younger—I assumed his son—occupied another table.

I stopped walking and stooped next to Hitchcock. “You doin’ okay? Want me to carry you?” I stroked his back a few times, then picked him up. Rather be safe than sorry. Cats weren’t accustomed to being walked with a leash, and I didn’t want to him to hate me for making him overexert himself.

As I stood, the men at the table stood, too. They hugged each other, and the older man strode toward the street where a pickup truck was parked. The boy sat back down at the table. I squinted and checked each of them out.

“It’s the Devlins,” I said to the cat. “Huh.”

He looked up at me.

“Well, if you insist, I don’t mind going over there and saying a few words to Cody.”

“Mrreow.”

“It’d be rude to ignore him. I wonder what he’s doing here.”

My feet were already headed that way as if by their own volition. I swear my nosiness was worsening by the day. I wouldn’t mind having a talk with the boy, though, if only to assure myself that he had nothing to do with his mother’s death. He looked up when I approached his table, and brushed dark bangs from his eyes.

“Mind if we sit here for a minute?” I said.

He looked at the other table where the woman was still by herself, reading.

He shrugged. “No problem.”

I slid onto the bench opposite him and put Hitchcock down beside me.

“You doing okay?” I said to Cody.

“Sure.” He gave me a palms up with another shrug, then looked at Hitchcock.

“Cool,” he said. “Never saw a cat on a leash before.”

“It’s not his favorite thing.” I scratched Hitchcock’s head and returned my attention to Cody. “You’re kind of far from home. What brings you here?”

“Waitin’ on my girlfriend to get off work,” he said.

“Oh.” Hitchcock tensed, ready to jump on the table. I kept a firm hold on his leash and hoped he’d get the hint.

Don’t distract us. Let the boy talk.

“I saw your dad leave just now. Has he made plans yet for a memorial service? I’d like to pay my respects.”

“He’s workin’ on it,” Cody said.

“I was thinking about my dad earlier. He passed away years ago. Whenever I think of him, I’m still as sad as the day it happened. People will say things trying to make you feel better. Doesn’t really work.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Somebody told me you’re going into acting.”

“Thinkin’ about it,” he said.

“Sounds interesting. How does your dad feel about the idea?”

“Dad’s listening.” Cody’s complexion seemed to brighten with the change of topic. “Least he’s not as freaked as my mom. She was doing everything she could to force me to go to college. Keep me in Texas.”

“Lots of mothers have trouble letting their kids go.”

“Mine wanted to control every move I made, like from now on.”

“And the two of you fought about this?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You realize that might make you a suspect?”

His eyes widened. “No way. I’d never hurt my mom, not
physically. I probably would have gone to California, though. That’s what I really wanted.”

“Past tense?” I said.

He dipped his head. “I’m kinda rethinking everything. Might get away for a few days with Mimi. She’s pushing for that ’cause I’m so stressed.”

“You’re young,” I said. “No need to have a woman start tellin’ you what to do already.”

Cody smiled. “That’s what my dad said.”

“Sometimes Father knows best.”

“Yeah. I’ll probably stay with him and work on the ranch for a while till I figure things out.”

“Good plan.”

“Dads are kind of like an anchor, you know? I think that’s what I need for now.”

I smiled at the boy and hoped that his anchor didn’t get yanked away and sent to jail for murder.

When we got back home a little after five in the afternoon, I noticed a patch of black clouds in the distance. A rainstorm would be welcome—lessen the thousand percent humidity. Give the grass a much-needed drink.

One could hope.

Aunt Rowe’s car was parked in her driveway. I’d fill her in over dinner about the ground I covered today. First on the agenda—Hitchcock and I needed water. With the brutal summer heat, staying hydrated seemed like a losing battle.

The cat eagerly leapt out of the car when I parked at the Monte Carlo cottage, and he was up on the porch in three seconds. While unlocking the door, I glanced toward the Paris cottage and wondered how Rita would get home from the hospital now that her car had been wrecked. Best-case scenario, someone would pick her up and take her straight home to Houston.

I scolded myself for the nasty thought and went inside to
feed the cat. With Hitchcock chowing down on his dinner, I decided to check my e-mails and make sure there wasn’t anything earth-shattering going on in my world that I didn’t know about.

Not that anything would rattle me after today’s conversations with a handful of murder suspects. And who stood out as a killer in that group? No one really.

I sighed. Hopefully Sheriff Crawford, or even one of his unlikeable deputies, had the perfect clues that would lead them to solve the murder and Rita’s hit-and-run. They’d close the cases, and I would go back to the quiet life of a writer who only dealt with death on the page.

Twenty minutes later I’d deleted what seemed like a thousand junk e-mails and scanned the ones that were halfway important. In spite of my late lunch, I was feeling hungry. I went outside and found Hitchcock curled on a bench cushion on the back deck.

“Hey, I’m going to Aunt Rowe’s. You wanna come?”

He lifted his head and gave me his contented slit-eyed look.

“Okay, next time,” I said.

I walked up the driveway to the house. Thirty seconds into the short trip, sweat rolled down my back and I wished I had driven. I found Glenda in Aunt Rowe’s kitchen making dinner.

She looked up from stuffing bell peppers with a mixture of ground beef, rice, and onion when I walked in. “Where have you been all day? In a sauna?”

“Very funny.” I tore a section of paper towel off the holder and used it to dry my face. “Actually, I went to five or six places. Never a dull moment.”

“Still investigating instead of writing?” she said.

“I’d rather you didn’t put it that way and make me sound so irresponsible.”

Glenda grinned. “If the shoe fits.”

“I had a good motive,” I told her. “Aunt Rowe will be glad to hear her friend Pearl is off the sheriff’s suspect list.”

“You don’t say?” Glenda placed one filled pepper in a
baking dish and picked up another. “Glad to hear it. I never thought Pearl was involved.”

“Her only involvement with Crystal, if you can call it that, was planting a black cat in Crystal’s office to cause her bad luck.”

Glenda froze in mid-pepper-stuff and looked at me. “Did she take Hitchcock?”

“No. I told her she couldn’t take him, so she found a substitute black cat.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Glenda said. “Does Pearl believe that bad luck cat hooey?”

I shrugged. “More like she believed Crystal would think she had bad luck coming her way after the cat crossed her path. Turns out she did.”

“But not because of any cat.” Glenda finished with the second pepper and added it to the dish.

“Absolutely not because of a cat,” I said. “Because of a killer. Hey, you have dessert planned for tonight?”

Glenda shook her head. “Hadn’t thought that far.”

I opened the pantry and perused the contents, my eyes settling on a box of graham cracker crumbs and a can of cherry pie filling. Hmm. I went to the refrigerator and pulled out two packages of cream cheese.

“How about that no-bake cheesecake?” I said.

“Sounds good to me. Rowe will love it.”

I took out a nine-by-thirteen pan. As I measured brown sugar and butter with the crumbs to make a crust, I reported on my conversations with Jordan and Ace. Touched briefly on Jordan’s financial problems and told her about Ace’s history with Crystal Devlin.

“Now that you mention it, I remember hearing about that woman falling overboard. Sad, sad story.” Glenda had finished stuffing the peppers and had them sitting in the baking dish, lined up like little green soldiers. She went to the stove and stirred a pot of tomato sauce I knew she’d made from scratch with tomatoes from her garden.

“I saw Cody Devlin, too,” I said. “Poor kid is trying his best to hold it together, not sure what to do with his life.”

“Bless his heart,” Glenda said.

“Talked to Mimi at the real estate office.”

“What was she doing there?”

“Working. You didn’t know she worked with Jordan?”

“Mimi? In an office?” Glenda looked over her shoulder at me. “She’s more of the artsy type.”

“Maybe it’s a temporary thing,” I said. “Crystal had Jordan to help her. It makes sense that Jordan needs some help.”

Glenda shrugged. “I’m sure Mimi’s glad to spend time away from her parents. Sometimes I can hear them screaming from three doors down. The parents, not Mimi.”

“Yeesh. That’s no fun. My mom got on my nerves constantly, but at least she wasn’t a screamer.” I pressed the crumb mixture into the pan and smoothed it out with the back of a spatula.

“So after all this visiting around town, who do you think murdered Crystal?” Glenda said.

“Sheriff Crawford suspects Hayden Birch.”

“That’s surprising,” Glenda said. “I like Hayden.”

“So do I, but turns out he was having an affair with Crystal. Maybe things took a bad turn.”

“He should have known better than to mess around with a married woman,” Glenda said. “Behavior unbecoming to a clown, that’s for sure.”

I grinned. “Maybe he didn’t read the clown manual. Anyway, I have a hard time seeing him as the guilty party.”

“Who do you think did it?”

“Well, I think Rita showed Lance how things would look financially if he divorced Crystal. Male clients have a tendency to blow up when they realize how hard a divorce will hit their bank account. I haven’t ever known one who killed his wife instead of divorcing her before.”

Glenda spun to face me. “You think Lance Devlin killed his wife? Are you serious?”

“I think it’s a distinct possibility.”

“You know, Rowe said that on the first day.”

“I’ll bet lots of people said that. The husband’s always the number one suspect. This time, it might be true. All I know for sure is I wouldn’t trust Lance Devlin for a second.”

Glenda turned, her brow creased, a big frown on her face.

“That’s really bad news,” she said.

“Why? You have some connection with him?”

“I don’t, but Rowe is there.”

“What do you mean? I thought Aunt Rowe was in her room.”

“She’s not. She’s at the rodeo.”

“Are you kidding me?” I dropped the spatula on the counter. “She witnessed Rita being run off the road last night. She knows somebody killed Crystal. She wouldn’t go back there.”

“She did,” Glenda said. “All she talks about is those darn goats. Had some brainstorm about turning the whole performance into a comedy skit instead of the standard rodeo event, so she headed back out there again tonight to work on her new idea.”

“But her car’s in the driveway.” My heart was racing, and taking deep breaths wasn’t slowing it down.

“Pearl picked her up,” Glenda said. “The two of them are crazy, you ask me, dressed in their new purple shirts with those long sleeves in this heat. I told her I’d fix the stuffed peppers and she could warm ’em up if she’s not back in time for dinner.”

“I’m going out there,” I said. “I won’t be able to eat until she’s home safe and sound.”

“You watch yourself,” Glenda called to my back.

I ran to my place. My clothes were nearly dripping with sweat when I got there and went inside to snatch the car key. Outside, I saw Hitchcock sitting on the car hood.

“Sorry, bud, not this time.” I picked him up and took him to the porch. “You can’t go to the rodeo.”

I paused and looked him in the eye. “Do I need to lock you up inside?”

“Mrreow.” He jumped up on the porch railing and sat down.

“Good. I’m taking you at your word. I’ll return soon with Aunt Rowe in tow.”

I kept one eye on the rearview as I drove down the lane. The heat must be getting to the cat, too, because Hitchcock didn’t even try to catch up with me.