Purrfect Murder

by Louise Lynn

  Hazel slid her arm around his pudgy shoulders and squeezed. “Looks like neither of us has great taste in romantic partners. But, you need to tell this to the police right away. Understand? Did you drive here?”

  Michael nodded. “I thought she might’ve been here, so I came to look. Then you came in, and I thought I’d get in trouble,” he said, and dropped his chin to his chest.

  “I don’t think you’ll get in that much trouble if you tell the truth. You didn’t really do anything wrong. Much,” she added through clenched teeth. She really shouldn’t be making promises because she had no clue what Sheriff Cross would do. “And you have no idea where she might be?”

  Michael shook his head again and wrung his hands. “No. She went to the bathroom and then you and Sheriff Cross chased Simone or something? I never saw her after that.”

  A feeling of certainty solidified in Hazel’s stomach. That was the last piece of the puzzle.

  April was Avril Vanderbilt.

  And she was the killer.

  Chapter 16

  Hazel followed Michael in his car to the sheriff’s station and waited while he trudged inside. She saw him talking to the receptionist through the large front window, and finally felt that she could go home.

  The thick snow made the usual ten-minute drive twice as long. Her headlights, even on full blast, barely provided enough visibility for ten yards in front of her.

  Good thing there weren’t any stoplights between that edge of town and the turn off to her cabin. She hadn’t heard back from the sheriff since she’d called, so she hoped that meant he’d found Tommy at the bar and brought him into custody for safekeeping until they could find Avril.

  When she pulled up at her cabin, she blinked in surprise at the two cars still present. Her sister’s silver Nissan SUV and her mom’s neon-green Toyota hatchback.

  Not to mention the warm light spilling out of the large windows.

  It’s not like they were snowed in, but they hadn’t gone home either. However, after the day she’d had, Hazel couldn’t argue with the idea of company.

  As she stepped inside, the smell of baking engulfed her. “Have you been baking all day?” She knocked the snow from her boots outside the door before shutting it behind her.

  Ruth ran up and engulfed her in a tight hug. “You’re freezing Auntie Hazy! Grandma picked me up from school and brought me here. I wanted to play with Anthony Ray. And Mom said she spent lots of time cleaning your kitchen, so she might as well mess it up again,” Ruth said, and charged away, jumped on the couch, and rolled off onto the rug on the other side.

  Hazel took off her coat and hat and gratefully leaned against the kitchen counter. The fire roared in the stove, and the room buzzed with warmth, a line of fresh-baked loaves stood on the counter, and her mom sat at the table chopping up another bundle of strawberries.

  A pot of something bubbled on the stove—chicken stew if Hazel had to guess, and she walked up and took a nice long whiff of it before slumping across from her mother at the table.

  Esther bustled back-and-forth, her hair tied in a low ponytail and her apron covered in flour.

  “My kitchen was clean before you even got to work in here,” Hazel said.

  Esther smiled. “Yes, but it got messy when I made breakfast. So, I had to clean it. And then I thought why not use it? You hardly ever do,” she said with a grin.

  Hazel stuck her tongue out. “With a sister like you, I don’t have to.”

  It was Esther’s turn to stick out her tongue, and she did with aplomb.

  Their mother thankfully didn’t say anything about the spirit board or the sheriff.

  Yet.

  Hazel’s stomach grumbled. “Is that stew done yet? I missed lunch,” she said, and checked the time.

  It was just edging toward six p.m, but it was already dark outside. Twilight had fallen as she’d driven home, and through the heavy flurries of snow, the lake wasn’t even visible from the back window.

  “Hungry, hungry, Hazy,” Ruth sang, and twirled in a circle.

  “I told you that you need to eat on a regular basis. That’s another reason we stayed. I figured if we left you to your own devices, you’d come home and have a microwave burrito,” her mom said, and shook her head as if it was the worst thing possible.

  Hazel snorted. “Burrito? No. Maybe a frozen pizza though.”

  Esther wrinkled her nose. “Well, I guess you can’t order out in this weather. No way Leonardo’s would deliver in a blizzard.”

  That was true enough. And she knew from experience that the pot of stew would last for several days. Whatever they didn’t eat that night, Esther would leave for her.

  A pang hit Hazel in her chest, and she thought of Avril Vanderbilt. Her sister had died, and she was doing all this for some strange form of revenge. Not that Hazel agreed with it, but she thought she could understand in a twisted way.

  Since they had been working in the kitchen all day, Hazel set the table and helped dish up the stew and cut up the bread. A slab of butter melted into the fluffy center of her slice, and she took an oversized bite and chewed before she told the story of what she’d learned.

  Hazel tried to ignore Esther’s disapproving frown, and focused instead on Ruth’s wide eyes and excited smile. “You’re like Wonder Woman, but without superpowers,” she said, and leaned across the table to give Hazel a high-five.

  Hazel returned it. “Wonder Woman? Not quite, but thanks.”

  Their mom shook her head. “I still think it was the ghost. You say it’s this girl, but you don’t really have any proof besides, what do they call it—conjecture?”

  Esther shook her head. “Where did you hear that, Mom? Law and Order?”

  Their mother nodded and slurped a spoonful of stew. “Yes. Very good show. But Hazel worked with the police force so she’s probably more than familiar with that sort of thing.”

  Hazel chose to ignore that. “Actually, Dad gave me the most help.”

  Mom’s smile brightened. “Oh good. You finally asked his opinion?”

  Hazel shrugged, but she couldn’t really ignore the glower that Esther projected across the table any longer. “He pointed me in the right direction.”

  Esther snorted. “I’m surprised he had time to get back to you being so busy in Kenya or wherever.”

  “Indonesia, dear. And he’ll be back by Valentine’s Day. He promised,” their mom said, and dug back into her stew.

  Esther met Hazel’s eyes across the table and rolled them in an exaggerated fashion. “How many promises has he broken in the last forty years? He’ll be home for my birthday. He’ll be home for Christmas. He’ll be home for Ruth being born.”

  Hazel swallowed the lump in her throat—the same one that always came up when they talked about their father. It wasn’t a secret that Esther held some bitterness toward him. And that Hazel and her mother were maybe too permissive of his flaws.

  But she couldn’t deny that he’d helped.

  They finished dinner to Ruth chattering about her role as a tree in the fourth-grade play, and how Mrs. Martin kept getting angry when she claimed that she was a magic tree who could talk.

  “I told you that woman has a problem with imagination. Don’t you let her stifle you, Ruth. If you want to be a talking tree, you can,” Hazel’s mom said and, gave Ruth a kiss on her coppery head.

  After that, Hazel helped Esther pack the food into the fridge, and they looked out at the snow that covered their vehicles. It was already several inches thick, which didn’t bode well for the rest of the night.

  “You want to stay over? I’ve still got some of Ruth’s things, and you all have toothbrushes here,” Hazel said with a smile.

  Esther sighed. “It’d probably be for the best. If we try to make it to the other side of town now it’ll take about an hour to get there. And I hate driving in this kind of weather with Ruth in the car.”

  Hazel nodded sagely. There were accidents every year where people spun off due to ice on the road
and ended up in the lake itself. Terrifying prospect, considering hypothermia set in within minutes.

  A shiver trailed up her spine at the thought. That could’ve been what killed Simone. It probably helped kill Sara Barkley as well.

  But the case was in the sheriff’s hands now, and she wasn’t going to have anything more to do with it.

  She settled on the couch with her mom, sister, and niece to watch a movie and enjoy a dessert of strawberry shortcake. Anthony Ray curled on her lap and purred, content with another dollop of cream on his nose.

  Just when they were a quarter of the way through the film, her cell phone rang.

  Hazel grumbled and got up to answer it, yanking it from her purse.

  “Just let it go to voicemail,” Esther called.

  “I would if I didn’t think it was a client.” Hazel blinked at the unfamiliar number. “Hello? Hazel Hart from Wild @ Hart photography.”

  “Ms. Hart, you said Tommy was at the Taproom in town? What time did you see him there?” Sheriff Cross asked.

  Hazel let out the breath she’d been holding. That’s why the number was unfamiliar. She hadn’t added Sheriff Cross’s number to her list of contacts—nor did she think she ever would. “Around one. But that was hours ago. Did Michael talk to you?” she asked, and her stomach clenched.

  “Yes. We got a lot of interesting information from him. But Tommy wasn’t at the bar, and the bartender claims he had no idea what time Tommy left. But that you were talking to him prior to that.”

  “I was, but that was a good five hours ago. He’s not at his house in town? His parents own the Indian place, Shanti’s. He could be there.”

  Sheriff Cross grumbled something Hazel didn’t catch. “Sorry to bother you. But, if you see him, be sure to give us a call right away.”

  “Course,” she said, and hung up.

  If she saw someone?

  Did Sheriff Cross think Tommy would come to her house? Or that Avril would?

  She was about to discard the whole idea, put her phone away and settle back down to watch the movie when she heard Anthony Ray let out a mournful meow.

  He stood by the back door, the snow flurries whipping back and forth, and he scratched the glass.

  “You really don’t want to go out there right now,” she said, and moved to scoop him up.

  He yowled, and she squinted into the snowy darkness.

  Was there a dark figure out there or was she imagining it?

  Snow always seemed to bring with it a heavy silence. It didn’t patter and make a racket the way rain and hail did. It cast a shroud of silence over the landscape that muffled sounds that would otherwise be loud.

  She stood by the door for a long moment, stretching her senses as best she could.

  There!

  She swore she heard something. A faint call—croaked and pained.

  “Help! Help me,” came the distant cry.

  With only a moment’s thought, Hazel knew what she had to do.

  Chapter 17

  “Esther, call the sheriff right now. His number is the last one that called me. Ruth, can you dress Anthony Ray in his harness, please?” Hazel cried, and rushed for the closet. She threw on her hat, coat, and snow boots in record time and pocketed a flashlight just in case.

  Esther fiddled with the phone Hazel had tossed her, eyes wide. “What’s going on? I thought you said you were done with this case, and that the police had it figured out and were dealing with it.”

  “I don’t know if this has anything to do with the case,” Hazel said, though that wasn’t entirely the truth.

  Who else would be out at the edge of her property in the middle of a snowstorm?

  “I’ll come too, dear,” their mom said, and started hustling to put her own coat on.

  Hazel shook her head and grabbed the poker from the stove. It was heavy, well-balanced, and could be used as a weapon in a pinch. Only, she hoped she never had to do that. She’d only seen it used as such in films, and real life was obviously different.

  “No. You guys stay here and wait for the police.”

  “Wow. See? I told you you’re like Wonder Woman,” Ruth said, and handed Anthony Ray’s leash to Hazel. “Only instead of an invisible plane you have a cat. Which is kind of cooler.”

  Hazel gave her a quick smile and rushed out the back door.

  The brief cry she’d heard a moment before had vanished, and the heavy shroud of silence rung in her ears. She lingered for a moment on the deck, waiting to hear it again. She had no idea where it came from, now that she thought about it. But her gut told her it was near the water’s edge.

  Anthony Ray didn’t have any such reservations about stepping out into the storm as Hazel did. He leapt, belly first, into the first snowdrift and started plowing his way through.

  Hazel followed, stepping carefully, and squinting into the snowy distance.

  It was only a few hundred yards to the lake from her cabin, but that was enough to get lost if the snow was falling too thickly.

  When she was a child, she remembered Billy Thompson got lost in the snow like this and had to have three of his toes cut off due to frostbite. Thankfully, he’d survived.

  Other people, however, hadn’t.

  She shoved the thought aside and marched after Anthony Ray.

  She hadn’t told Esther the whole truth. Because if she said, ‘I don’t know if the police will get here in time,’ she knew her little sister would try to talk her out of it.

  And Hazel didn’t need any other reason to tarry. If another person died and she could’ve done something to stop it … She shook her head.

  “Hello? Is someone out here?”

  She wasn’t stepping into a darkened room, so the same rules that apply to horror movies shouldn’t apply here.

  But, if Avril was out here, it meant Hazel wasn’t going to be able to sneak up on her unaware either.

  “Help,” came a weak voice.

  The flashlight beam illuminated every individual snowflake and they glowed with the light. It helped that the snow itself didn’t swallow shadows the way the forest would in the summer. It radiated light instead, and even if it cut down on visibility, it did make it easier to see.

  Anthony Ray’s black fur stood out against it starkly.

  A branch cracked nearby, and Hazel turned in that direction, the light flailing wildly.

  A flash of blonde hair darted behind a tree.

  “April? I know it’s you. Where’s Tommy?” Hazel was amazed that her voice didn’t tremble like she feared it would. The girl didn’t answer, so Hazel went on. “I know you’re the one who put the gun in my studio. And you’re the one who killed Simone. And I’m pretty sure you have Tommy out here with you. You’re trying to take them out one by one because of what happened to your sister, aren’t you?”

  Anthony Ray crept toward the tree that April hid behind, and Hazel let him.

  “It wasn’t supposed to be Dirk,” her voice came out from behind the tree. It didn’t sound as weak or quiet as it had the few times Hazel heard April talk before. Now, it was sharp with bitterness.

  Hazel sucked in a breath of the freezing air.

  It wasn’t supposed to be Dirk?

  Who then?

  “Nobody killed Sara. She—”

  April swept out from behind the tree. She was dressed in the same floral dress she had the night before and wore another oversized black jacket. Hazel hoped she had some sort of leggings and snow boots on underneath, because the material was far too thin for this weather.

  “I know Sara jumped. They are the ones who drove her to it. They’re the ones who—” her voice broke off into a sob, and she shook her head.

  Hazel was only about fifteen feet away, but she could see April’s face clearly. How much she looked like her older sister now.

  “The gun you stashed in my studio was meant for Simone and Tommy?” Hazel asked.

  She’d had it all wrong. The pieces of the puzzle fit together so easily, but she’d org
anize them in the wrong way. Her mind snapped back to the things she’d learned. Simone crying that she knew what happened. The argument Sara and Simone had that day Sara died.

  And it didn’t all revolve around Dirk, the way she thought.

  It revolved around Tommy!

  “You weren’t supposed to lock the door that day,” April said. “When I hid the gun, I didn’t mean for anyone else to use it.”

  Hazel stared. “You wanted to shoot him, but I locked the studio door and you couldn’t get back in. You were the one skulking around dressed like Sara’s ghost—to lure Tommy to my studio.”

  April’s mouth twisted into a snarl. “You have no idea what it’s like! They got to go on after what they did to Sara. It wasn’t fair. I was trying to make things right!”

  The pieces fell into place in Hazel’s mind. “Sara didn’t figure out that Simone and Dirk were having an affair. It was the other way around, wasn’t it? Sara and Tommy were having an affair and Simone found out. When Simone threatened her—”

  “Help,” a weak male voice cried from behind April.

  “They were friends! Simone claimed they were like sisters, but she was ready to tell Dirk everything! And Tommy? Ha! He was just using her to get to Simone. He was in love with her, but she never paid any attention to him. Now he’s going to get what he deserves for hurting my sister,” she cried, and turned to run.

  But she didn’t make it very far because her foot caught on something and she fell into the snow.

  At the same moment, Hazel was tugged forward.

  The leash!

  Where was Anthony Ray?

  A flash of black fur darted past Hazel and the leash yanked out of her hand.

  She turned to run after him, but April rolled over and pointed a pistol in Hazel’s direction.

  She only needed to glance at it to recognize that it was a Colt .45.