Cat Got Your Tongue

by Louise Clark

  * * *

  Midnight in L.A. Quinn dug his fingers into Christy's thick hair and savored her kiss. Since the first night they made love, she was always on his mind.

  Strike that. She had been in his mind since she'd moved into the townhouse two doors down. This vacation, though, this combination of family retreat and adult playtime, had shown him a side of her he'd never expected. Practical mom by day. Siren by night. The combination had him on edge and aware, even when they were hurtling through space on the Magic Mountain rollercoaster ride and he felt like he'd left his insides behind.

  He slid his hand along the smooth silk of that sexy nightgown she was wearing and enjoyed the way she quivered under his touch. She was always wearing it when she came out of the room she shared with Noelle after her daughter had gone to sleep and she always put it back on after they made love, and before she went back to her bedroom. In between she loved letting him take it off and everything they got up to after he'd done it.

  He hadn't been sure that she would come to him tonight. Today had been their last day in L.A. They'd filled it to overflowing with a day at Universal Studios, then back to their hotel for a final dinner with the princesses, followed by a visit to the pool. Noelle was tired, but restless when they returned to the suite. Christy had let her watch some TV to help her settle, then sat with her and read to her once she was in bed. While he was waiting, he'd checked his e-mail, caught up on the news and watched some sports. He'd been considering going to bed when his patience was rewarded by the sight of her in the alluring green gown.

  His hand found the lace insert that covered her breast. He skimmed his fingers over the fabric, rubbing it against her sensitive skin. She gasped and tilted her head back. He put his lips against the vein throbbing in her neck and kissed her until she began to quiver. She murmured a demand that he give her more and he laughed. She laughed too and he forgot about being logical and trying to rationalize how she made him feel. He scooped her up from the couch and carried her into his bedroom. There he could shed his clothes and tease that sexy gown off her, and claim her once more.

  They both fell asleep afterwards. The sound of a ringtone woke him up. He looked blearily at the bedside table where he'd dropped his phone. The hotel had an alarm clock there. The red numbers said it was just before two in the morning. Quinn frowned as he reached for his cell. He was becoming more alert by the second, because the ringtone was his father's. Roy kept odd hours, so it wasn't unusual for him to be awake now, but he wouldn't phone unless there was a problem.

  Beside him, her head on his shoulder, her body tangled with his, Christy stirred. "What's up?" she asked, as she yawned sleepily.

  "It's my dad," Quinn said, and answered.

  "Did I wake you?" Roy asked, sounding worried.

  Something was wrong, Quinn thought. But what? "It's late, Dad. Is there a problem?"

  "Yeah," Roy said. "You could say that."

  Though Quinn hadn't put the phone on speaker, the agitation in his father's voice came through loud and clear. Christy eased away and reached for her slinky green nightgown.

  Quinn watched her, feeling the disappointment he had felt every night she'd done this, but still enjoying the sexy way she twisted her body to allow the gown to slide down her. Other nights she would have kissed him good-bye and slipped away to her own room. Tonight she hiked up the skirt and eased back into bed with him.

  He banked his pillows and sat up. She curled against him, clearly listening. When he slid his arm around her waist she moved closer and rested her head on his shoulder. "Out with it, Dad. What's happened?"

  "We're at the SledgeHammer party. All of us." Roy paused.

  "Yeah," Quinn said, trying to be encouraging. He didn't want to say 'spill it!' to his father, but that's how he felt.

  "Trevor, Ellen, Frank, and me."

  "You took the cat to the SledgeHammer party?" Had something happened to Stormy? Was that what Roy was calling about? Had some intoxicated party guest, who shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car, run him down?

  Beside him, Christy stiffened. Clearly she was thinking the same way he was.

  There was a little hesitation, then Roy said, his tone now belligerent, "He wanted to come. He liked Sledge's house and he's a big fan of SledgeHammer."

  Quinn resisted the urge to sigh. He was pretty sure where this was going and he didn't like it. Not that he really cared about what happened to Frank Jamieson if his host body expired. But he did care about Christy and from her expression she expected the worst and had already started to grieve.

  "What happened to the cat?" Quinn said, wanting to get the issue out into the open.

  "What? Nothing! The thing is, he found the body. Saw the murder, that is." Roy broke off and there was the sound of voices in the background. Then Roy said, "I'm just talking to my son. I'll be with you in a minute." Additional voices, more urgent now, with an edge of demand in the tone. "He's got nothing to do with this. He's out of town. In L.A. No, he's not my lawyer. Do I need a lawyer?"

  Christy sat up straight, her eyes wide. "What the hell?" Quinn said to no one in particular, because although Roy hadn't disconnected, he wasn't on his phone at the moment.

  There was more background talk and Quinn thought, with some relief, that one of the voices belonged to Trevor McCullagh.

  "Probably telling the cops that he's Roy's lawyer," Christy murmured, indicating that she could hear as much as Quinn was.

  "Great, but if he is at the party, he might be a suspect too," Quinn said.

  "What's that?" said Roy, suddenly back on the line.

  "I was talking to Christy, Dad. I woke her up when you called and she's here now. I'm going to put the phone on speaker."

  "Don't do that! It's—"

  "Why not? I'm going to tell her anyway."

  "I know, but... Better if you break it to her gently. Later. I don't have time to put everything that's happened into a nice package. There's a pompous ass of a West Van cop who wants to question me. Trevor bought me a couple of minutes, so I'll have to be quick."

  Quinn glanced at Christy, who was sitting up straight now, tense and wide-eyed with fear.

  "Who's dead?" he said.

  "Vince Nunez. SledgeHammer's manager."

  "You said Frank saw the murder. Who did it?"

  Roy's voice lowered. "That's just it. We don't know. We heard Frank demanding that someone stop and then the cat howling, so we all rushed out to see what had happened. There was Stormy, sitting with his paws on Vince's chest and yowling, but no one else was around."

  "Was it a stranger who did it? Someone Frank didn't know?"

  "No. I mean, I don't know. Yes, yes, I'm coming!" The last must have been to the officious detective from the West Vancouver police department.

  When he spoke again, Roy's voice was even softer than before. "Here's the problem. Frank hasn't communicated with any of us since he saw the murder being committed. No words. No visions of what happened. Nothing."

  He hesitated and Quinn had a sense that his father was about to tell him what he wanted to Quinn to shield Christy from.

  His voice almost a whisper, Roy said, "I think he's gone, Quinn. I think Frank has left Stormy's body behind."

  Chapter 19

  The call to Quinn had made Roy's worries real. Stating his fears aloud gave them weight and importance. By the time he went to make his witness statement, his heart was heavy and he was grieving for more than the man whose body he'd so recently found.

  He took Stormy with him into the music room, carrying the cat in his arms. He told himself that Frank had not passed on, along with Vince, that he was simply traumatized by the experience of seeing the SledgeHammer manager murdered. He hoped that being part of the interview would get Frank involved in the deduction side of the murder and help him deal. He also thought that having Stormy with him would annoy Szostalo and perhaps cause him to let some information slip, like how his suspicions were coalescing and who he had set his sights on.

&n
bsp; He was right about Szostalo. The detective focused on Stormy, limp and huddled in Roy's arms, and frowned. "What the devil is going on here, Constable?"

  The uniform cop who had escorted him into the interview room shot Roy a look of loathing. "I tried to get him to leave the cat behind, sir, but he refused. He said if the cat didn't come, he wouldn't either."

  Szostalo's frown turned into narrowed eyes and a glare. "The choice isn't yours, Mr., ah, Armstrong."

  Roy didn't bother answering that. He sat down on one of Sledge's kitchen chairs and settled Stormy on the table so that he crouched between the detective and Roy. "The cat saw the murder, Detective. I think he deserves to be part of what's going on."

  "It's a cat," Szostalo said impatiently. "It can't talk so it isn't any use to me."

  "He was traumatized," Roy said. "I want to give him closure." He thought perhaps he was still a little stoned, despite several cups of the coffee someone had produced, and the adrenaline rush caused by finding a dead body. He didn't want to admit to anything he'd later regret, so if the detective thought him both stoned and off his rocker, that was all to the good.

  Szostalo stared at Stormy and the cat stared back, green eyes wide and very cat-like. He looked over at Roy, who smiled and did his best to appear vacant. "Fine," he said. "The cat stays. Now, Mr. Armstrong, tell me exactly what you saw when you found the body." He paused then raised his eyebrows and added, "Just the facts, please. Not the kind of embellishments you use normally."

  The constable had already collected personal data—address, email, phone, occupation, driver's license and all the rest—so Szostalo clearly knew who Roy was. He grinned. "Read some of my books, Detective?"

  Szostalo stiffened. "I've read the articles you published lambasting our police forces for upholding laws you disapprove of. And yes, I read the novel you wrote after your incarceration for civil disobedience. I am well aware of your views on the value of the laws that govern this land and of the justice system I serve."

  Roy sat back. This was going better than he expected. "Don't like me, do you, Detective?"

  Szostalo stared back at him, that flat, unemotional stare, and refused to rise to the bait. "I don't know you, Mr. Armstrong. I am here to find a killer and you are amongst the group of people who found the deceased. I need your input. Please answer my question calmly and succinctly."

  Stormy sat up and stretched, distracting Szostalo. Roy let his thoughts drift back to the moment and visualized the scene in his mind's eye. "Vince was sprawled on his back on the ground. There was a wound on his temple. Lots of dark goop on the grass. Blood, I guess, pooling around his head and matting his hair. He wasn't moving and he wasn't breathing. Stormy here, was crouched over the body, with his paws on Vince's chest. He was howling. Horrible sound. Trevor told the ladies to stand back and not look." Roy shrugged. "I wish he'd told me not to look, too."

  "You were the first to see the body, were you not?"

  Roy shrugged again. "I'm responsible for the cat. I heard him howling, so I came out to see what the problem was."

  "You went outside because of the cat?"

  Szostalo sounded incredulous. He was clearly not a cat person. "Yes," Roy said.

  Szostalo huffed. He didn't sigh like any normal person would when he was dealing with a difficult interview. No, he huffed like the self-important SOB he was. "There was no other reason you went out?"

  "None," Roy said. He wondered if Kim, who hadn't been interviewed yet, would tell the detective that Stormy was a talking cat and if she did, how Szostalo would take it. He wished he could be an unseen eavesdropper on that conversation.

  The detective shot Roy a look that said he didn't believe him. In Roy's experience, his next question would be on another subject, but he'd circle back to the answer he didn't like and ask the same question a different way. Guys like Szostalo were like that. Crafty, prepared to entrap you with your own words. Roy had his own ways of dealing with the pompous asses who blindly upheld the law. He leaned forward and plunked his elbows on the pine surface, taking possession of his half of the kitchen table. He scratched Stormy behind the ears. Stormy started to purr.

  "Mr. Armstrong!" Szostalo said.

  "Just tending the cat," Roy said, smiling at the detective as innocently as he could, which wasn't easy given that all of this was meant to be a sass and a distraction. Not innocent at all.

  "Describe your movements prior to going out to, er, tend to the cat."

  Roy put his chin on his upraised palm and thought back, visualizing again, while he continued to pat the cat. "I was sitting on the white couch, talking to anyone who stopped by."

  "Were you drinking?"

  An easy one to answer. "No."

  "Did you indulge in any other substances?"

  Roy sat up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  The detective huffed again, before he said, "I don't care what you were taking, Mr. Armstrong. I'm here to investigate a violent death. I need to know how valid your recollections of the time around and before the murder are."

  "Ah," said Roy, and subsided into his slouched position again and resumed patting the cat with one hand. Chin on the palm of the other, he inspected the detective. "I was smoking." He deliberately didn't say what. Szostalo could draw his own conclusions. He was admitting nothing.

  "Were you in the great room when Hammer and Sledge had their argument with the deceased?"

  "Yes."

  "Describe it, please."

  "It was three guys who knew each other well sounding off."

  "So nothing much. A tiff, as it were."

  Roy nodded. Szostalo stared that flat stare of his, and as he continued to question Roy his voice wasn't any more expressive. He guided him through the aftermath of the fight—Hammer storming out, Vince disappearing from the great room a few minutes later, and then the search for the cat.

  "And you decided you had to go after the cat why?"

  They'd circled back to the finding of the crime scene again, just as Roy had expected. He sighed. He was a regular, decent person, not a pompous ass of a policeman, so he didn't huff. He wanted to, though. A good huff at this point would have been very satisfying. "Sledge was worried about the cat's amorous intentions toward Mrs. Tam's Siamese."

  Stormy rolled onto his back and splayed his legs so his belly was exposed. Roy scratched it absentmindedly. The cat purred loudly.

  Szostalo stared at the purring cat, then checked his witness list and frowned. "There's no Mrs. Tam at the party. Why would Sledge worry about this woman's cat?"

  Roy scratched Stormy's belly. Stormy continued to purr. "Neighborly relations. She lives next door and she has a Siamese female. Apparently, Mrs. Tam is very protective of her cat."

  "But why would he think the Siamese would be out at night for your cat to encounter?"

  Roy moved his fingers up so he was scratching behind the cat's ears. Stormy opened his eyes and gave a little cat yip of protest. Szostalo frowned. Roy moved his fingers back to Stormy's belly and the purr began again. "Some cats like to roam at night, Detective. I guess the Siamese, like Stormy, is one of them."

  Szostalo considered Roy's answer for a moment, then he nodded. Roy thought that his answer must have tallied with Sledge's. "Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Armstrong. That will be all for now, though I may have to contact you again."

  Roy nodded. He stood, then scooped up Stormy. Or tried to. Stormy hissed, did a boneless cat twist that had him leaping out of Roy's arms, then landing back on the kitchen table inches from Szostalo face. Szostalo reared back and the constable who had been taking notes, jumped up, prepared to defend his chief.

  Did Stormy's action mean that Frank was still in the cat and wanted to stay in the music room to hear more? Hope unfurled in Roy's chest and with it relief and not a little elation.

  Stormy ignored Szostalo, brushing past him as he hopped off the table. Then, tail high, he strutted for the door.

  Roy sighed, his hope dashed. It was Stormy who had his
sed his annoyance when the patting ceased, not Frank expressing irritation because he was being removed from the center of the action. Roy nodded to the detective, then turned and opened the door for the cat.

  Chapter 20

  Sledge was sitting on the most uncomfortable sofa he had ever had the misfortune to use. The back was straight, so a person couldn't slump comfortably the way he ought to be able to. It met a hard bench seat at a ninety-degree angle that allowed no flex. There was a minimum of padding on the back and seat. He thought the padding was more to plump up the green velvet fabric that covered the whole, than for the comfort of the unfortunate souls—like him!—who had to sit on it.

  The sofa was an antique from the Victorian era, according to Ellen Jamieson who was sitting opposite him on a chair that had thin spindly legs, a seat covered in yellow silk and an oval shaped back, covered in the same fabric. If anything, her chair looked even more uncomfortable than the sofa. Sledge thought longingly of the deep squishy cushions on his chesterfield in West Van. He could stretch out on it, snooze, watch TV or eat his dinner, if he felt so inclined. Hell, he'd made love on it more than once and neither he nor his partner had complained.

  He wouldn't be sitting on his sofa for a while, though. Not only was his house a crime scene, but news of Vince's death had got out and caused a media sensation. News trucks and paparazzi had started to assemble before dawn and every departing guest, already strung out from an interview with the annoying Szostalo, had to run the gauntlet of the media frenzy. The cops were all over his house looking for clues—though what they expected to find, since Vince was murdered outside, Sledge didn't know—so he was restricted to rooms they'd finished with. As the night had greyed into dawn, they gave him access to his bedroom. By that time his guests had all been interviewed, Szostalo had departed, and the only people who remained were the meticulous crime scene techs. He had crashed for a few hours, hoping they'd be gone when he woke up, but they weren't.