Farewell to Felines

by Kathi Daley

  “Did Travis ever say anything to you about breaking things off with Devon?”

  “He did. The last time we spoke on the phone I asked him how Devon felt about him being away so long. He said he’d met someone else and had decided to break things off with Devon. I don’t know for sure he did it before he went missing, but I suspect he did. I ran into Devon a week ago Friday and he was in a really bad mood. He told me he needed to get away and was going home for the weekend.”

  Suddenly everything, or almost everything, fell into place. “Thanks, Beth. This helps a lot. I have to go now, but I’ll call you back when I can talk longer.”

  I headed to the main house. Finn and Siobhan were sitting at the kitchen table having coffee. At least Finn was having coffee. Siobhan seemed to be drinking hot cider. “I think I know who killed Travis,” I said after pouring my own cup of coffee.

  “Who?” Siobhan asked before Finn had a chance to.

  “Devon Benson.”

  “Why would Devon Benson kill Travis?” Finn asked. “They were friends.”

  “They were more than friends,” I offered. “I just spoke to Beth and she told me that Devon and Travis had been involved in a romantic relationship. It all makes perfect sense. Devon was in love with Travis. Travis was in a tight spot financially and might get kicked out of school, so Devon sold his soul to the devil, making the ultimate sacrifice by agreeing to work for his dad for a year upon graduation in exchange for the money Travis needed. Travis then came here and met Marie. He fell in love with her and began spending more and more time on the island, the whole time telling everyone he was here doing research. Beth told me that when she spoke to Travis last week he confided in her that he had met someone and planned to break if off with Devon. She also said she ran into Devon a week ago Friday and was in a dark mood. He told her he needed a break and was going home for the weekend.”

  “Only he didn’t go home; he came to the island and confronted Travis,” Siobhan finished. “He had, after all, made the ultimate sacrifice out of love for a man who’d thrown that love back in his face.”

  “Exactly,” I said. I looked at Finn. “I bet if you check you’ll find Devon rented a boat over the weekend. And if you check his credit card records I bet you’ll find transactions in the area.”

  Finn stood up. “I like your theory. I’ll head into the office and check it out.”

  “What did you find out about the bat?” I asked.

  “I sent it to the ME. He thinks there’s a good chance we’ll find a match. I’ll let you know when I find out for sure.”

  ******

  “Wow I never once thought Travis’s death would turn out to be the result of love gone wrong. It’s a crazy world we live in,” Tara said.

  After I’d left Finn and Siobhan I’d taken Max for a run as planned and then cleaned up and came to the store.

  “Finn called to say the Seattle PD have picked up Devon, who pretty much confessed to everything. We started off trying to solve Thea’s murder, stumbled onto the situation with Travis, and got sidetracked. Now that we’ve figured out why the water in the hollow was tainted and who killed Travis, we should get back to Thea’s murder.”

  “I’ve almost forgot where we left things,” Tara admitted.

  “The last I recall we’d eliminated Pam Wilkins and Victoria Grace. Danny talked to John Walkman, who said he didn’t do it, but we both agreed he should stay on the list. In addition to John Walkman, another love interest of Thea’s, Walter Bodine, was added to the list just before we became distracted by Travis’s death. And there was reason to believe Thea may have stumbled on to sensitive information that she planned to use in a blackmail scheme, making the blackmail target as well as Caldwell and Benson suspects.”

  “Okay, that gets us back to where we were. We just need to eliminate each of the five until we’re left with only one.”

  “In my opinion the subject of the blackmail scheme seems to have the most motive. Finn didn’t find any evidence that Thea received any money despite mentioning to several people that she was about to come into some. I think her blackmail demand was met with violence.”

  Tara poured a cup of coffee for each of us. “How do we figure out who she planned to blackmail?”

  “I suppose someone from Caldwell and Benson would know. She was fired for snooping, so she must have been caught in the act. Siobhan said there’s a man named Bruce Wong working in the local office. It’s Saturday, so I imagine they’re closed, but I’m sure Finn could track him down. I’ll call him.”

  Finn agreed speaking to Bruce might be a good idea. Danny knew John Walkman better than any of us, so I called him and suggested he buy him a drink to get more out of him than he had during their last meeting. That left Lilly Kent and Walter Bodine. I didn’t know Walter, but I did know Lilly, so I was going to start there. Cassie was due to come in to the store later in the morning, so I figured Tara should be fine if I took an hour out of my day to buy Lilly a cup of coffee.

  “I imagine you want to talk to me about Thea,” Lilly jumped right in as soon as she arrived at Coffee Café.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I’ve known you for what, fifteen years? And never once in those years have you asked me out for coffee. You have a reputation for helping that cute brother-in-law of yours, so let’s save some time. I hated Thea Blane. As far as I was concerned, she was the one unscalable wall between me and the relationship I should have had with Steve. They’d been divorced for years, but it was obvious they still loved each other. She’d call the house two or three times a week needing help with one thing or another and Steve would go running. I knew deep down in my heart that as long as she was in the picture he would never be truly mine, but I didn’t kill her.”

  “Do you have an alibi for last Saturday?”

  “Isn’t that a question Finn should be asking?”

  “Yes, I guess it is,” I admitted.

  Lilly handed me a business card. “This is the contact information for my masseuse. I was with her from eleven until twelve-thirty on Saturday.” Lilly handed me a second card. “This is the number for my hairdresser. My appointment started at one and went until about three. Then I met my friend Leia for drinks. We were together until six, at which time I met Steve for dinner. While I suppose it’s possible I could have stopped by Thea’s between appointments, I didn’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go.”

  She stood up and left. I guess she’d told me, and I suppose I didn’t blame her. I was about to accuse her of murder. Her comment did make me wonder why Finn hadn’t interviewed her. I took out my phone and called him.

  “Hey, Cait, what’s up?”

  “I just spoke to Lilly Kent. I don’t think she killed Thea.”

  “I know. I cleared her days ago.”

  “It would have been nice if you’d mentioned it.”

  “I’m sorry. I guess it just slipped my mind. Her name hasn’t come up since that first night. I guess we should update the suspect list now that we have Travis’s murder solved.”

  “Okay, who do you have?” I asked.

  “Just the blackmail victim, if the rumors are true and she really did try to blackmail someone.”

  “Did you speak to Bruce Wong?”

  “I did, and he told me Thea was fired for making copies of documents from client files. When he caught her, she was making copies of a file belonging to Samantha Erwin. It seems Samantha is being sued by one of her clients over a bad haircut.”

  “A bad haircut? You can be sued for something like that?”

  “You can be sued for anything. In this case, the client claimed the haircut was so bad it prevented her from getting a job she was qualified for and would have been hired if not for it. Samantha is claiming her customer brought in a photo and she gave her exactly what she asked for. Both women are furious, and it looks like it may go to court, but I spoke to both Samantha and the customer and neither of them seemed to know who Thea was.”

  “I
s it possible Thea looked at other files she wasn’t caught copying?”

  “Very possible. Bruce didn’t know off hand what she might have stumbled on to, but he said he’d review his client files to see if anything stood out. I mentioned to him that Thea was asking about local codes relating to the manipulation of the environment.”

  “So unless we can figure out who Thea was trying to blackmail, we probably won’t be able to identify her killer.”

  “We don’t know for certain she was killed by an intended blackmail victim, but even if she was, we have other means of uncovering clues that aren’t readily apparent. Look, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I didn’t see what more I could do at that point, so I headed back to the bookstore. I suppose I could have tried to track down Walter Bodine, but I didn’t know him, and we should all really compare notes before we did more so we didn’t waste time interviewing the same people, as I had with Lilly. When I got there Tara told me that she and Cassie had things handled if I wanted to go home early, and I took her up on her offer.

  I took Max and Apollo down to the beach. It was a warm, sunny day, and I felt I needed some time to process things and come up with a plan. The fact that we’d eliminated all named suspects and were left with an unnamed blackmail victim was progress, I supposed, but where did we go from there? Finn was certain Samantha Ervin hadn’t killed Thea, and while I didn’t know her well, I tended to agree. Not only did I not consider her to be aggressive, but the lawsuit seemed to be pretty cut and dried. I didn’t see how there could be any secrets buried within the notes in that file in the law office that would be worth killing over.

  Which led me to wonder why Thea was copying those notes in the first place. I supposed one could argue that Samantha might not want news of her lawsuit circulating around town. Even the suggestion that the haircut she’d given was so bad it had cost a customer a job could be damaging to her business, though I still didn’t think it was so scandalous as to be blackmail-worthy. There had to be something more.

  I picked up a stick and tossed it down the beach for Max. Apollo, as usual, seemed happy to trot along next to me. “You know,” I said to him, “I just realized the key word here is copy. Thea was caught copying files. Sure, the day she was caught the copies she made would have been confiscated, but it sounds like she may have made copies of other files. Where are they?”

  “Meow.”

  “You see it too. The answer has to be in the copies. Thea’s house has been gone over on more than one occasion. If there were copies of legal documents someone would have found them. Though I suppose they could have been hidden in an air vent or in a tool box in the garage. Somewhere stealthy.”

  “Meow.”

  “Blackmailing is a high-risk activity. If she had proof she wouldn’t want to risk it being found. She wouldn’t have left it in a drawer or her desk. She would have put the file somewhere no one would think to look.”

  “Meow.”

  I stopped walking. “Okay, buddy, it’s time to figure this out.” I looked out toward the sea as I tried to focus my thoughts. There had to be something I was missing. “Should we go back to Thea’s home?”

  The cat remained silent. I’d learned in the past that a silent cat meant no. Where else could I look? This case had been complicated because there’d been so much going on at the same time. I needed to think back and remember all the clues the cat had given me.

  The first day we met Apollo had led me to Thea’s house. When I’d followed him inside he’d been sitting on the desk in front of the stairs. I’d assumed he wanted me to go upstairs and find Thea. The second time he’d led me somewhere it was to see Tansy, but she wasn’t there; Bella was. Bella had told us that Tansy was ill, but she’d also shared her vision about the owl. I wondered for the first time if the vision was important to the investigation. Bella had said owl power represented change and intuition. I didn’t see how either could help us now.

  The next time I followed the cat was back to Thea’s home. This time he also led me to the desk. Maybe the desk was the key. I couldn’t imagine that Thea had hidden the copies she’d made in her desk and I hadn’t seen them, but both times we were in Thea’s home Apollo had headed to the desk. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  The next time I’d followed Apollo he’d led me to Travis’s body, the time after that to the bat that had washed up on shore. I called to Max and turned around and headed back to the cabin. I felt like I was close to some sort of revelation if only I could figure out how everything was connected.

  The idea that the desk could be the key stuck with me, so when we returned to the cabin I took out my backpack and dug through it for the things I’d taken from Thea’s. There was the small notebook with dates and initials, a two-for-one coupon for Shots, a popular but seedy bar, and a copy of Thea’s phone bill. I tossed the phone bill on the table and looked at the notebook. Checking the calendar on my phone, I looked at the dates in the notebook. Every date listed was a Thursday.

  I frowned and picked up the coupon. I glanced at Apollo. “I think I know where to look next.”

  Chapter 15

  As I’d sat in my cabin looking through the items I’d taken from Thea’s house, I’d realized that not only were all the dates in Thea’s notebook Thursdays, but the logo for late night double shots included on the coupon was an owl wearing glasses and drinking from a shot glass. Once I had that image in my head, it was a short hop through my memory bank to remember that Jared had said he and Thea had met for drinks every Thursday at Shots.

  When I arrived the bar was mostly empty. There were a few people there, but it was early, and Shot’s tended to attract a late-night crowd.

  “What can I get you?” the bartender asked.

  “I just need some information. I understand my friend, Thea Blane, used to come in here on a fairly regular basis.”

  “Yup. Every Thursday.”

  “Did she meet anyone?”

  “Sometimes. Other times she just picked up someone once she got here. I heard she kicked the can. Too bad. That dame was a real hoot.”

  “When she came in did she have a favorite place to sit?”

  The bartender pointed. “That booth in the corner. If someone was in her seat when she got here she was real quick about kicking them out.”

  “Maybe I’ll have a drink and take a moment to remember her.”

  The bartender slipped me a draft and I headed across the bar to the booth. Apollo was in the car because I didn’t think the bar allowed animals, but I sure wished he was here right now to show me what to do next. Thea had certainly been a more interesting person than I first imagined. On the surface, she was a churchgoing choir member who volunteered at the library, but it seemed her alter ego was a blackmailing trollop with a regular booth in the sleaziest bar in town.

  I sat down and looked around. If Thea had hidden something in the bar, where would it be? I ran my hand over the booth bottom and sides but didn’t find any sign of a hidden compartment. I bent down and peeked under the table, then sat up and let my eyes scan the walls around me. It would have been almost impossible for Thea to hide something in plain sight of all the other patrons. My instinct was to come to the bar, but suddenly it hit me that Thea’s hiding place wasn’t a where but a who.

  “Thanks for the drink.” I waved at the bartender as I left without having drunk any of the beer.

  I got to the car and took out my phone to call Finn. He didn’t answer, so I left a message: “Hey, Finn, it’s Cait. I’m at Shots and I think Jared Pitman killed Thea. Not only did the two of them meet here every Thursday, which happens to correspond to the dates on the page in the notebook I found, but I remember him commenting that he hoped we’d catch the person who hit Thea on the back of the head when she wasn’t looking. I never told him how Thea died. I just realized I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone but the others in the gang. Anyway, unless you told Jared how Thea died, he has to be our guy. Call me back. I’m heading home.”
>
  I hung up, took my keys out of my bag, and slipped them into the ignition. I was about to pull away when a man from the bar came running toward me with something in his hand. I rolled down my window and waited.

  “Excuse me, but is this your scarf? I found it near the booth where you were sitting.”

  I glanced at the scarf. “No. It isn’t mine, but I appreciate you checking.”

  “Okay, then.” The man turned back toward the bar.

  I was about to roll up the window when Apollo leaped across the front seat and out the open window.

  “Apollo, you get back here.”

  The cat ignored me and trotted toward the building. I groaned and opened my door to follow. I thought he was going to go inside the bar, but instead he went around the building toward the alley in the back.

  “Come on, kitty. I called Finn and he’ll take care of things. Let’s go home.”

  The cat continued to ignore me. He paused at the back door. I slowly made my way toward him, intent on grabbing him, when he jumped up onto a stack of empty boxes set out for disposal.

  “Please come down. Tuna for dinner if you do.”

  “Meow.”

  I slowly walked toward the boxes, hoping he wouldn’t scamper away before I could get to him. He waited until I could almost reach him before he leaped from the boxes and into the building through an open window. I really didn’t want to go back into the bar and almost left him. Almost. I whispered a very unladylike word under my breath and climbed up on the boxes, which, fortunately, held my weight. When I was high enough to see inside the window I realized it was the ladies’ room. The window wasn’t all that big, but I was pretty small, so I grabbed the ledge and slithered through on my belly.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at the cat. “This had better be good.”

  The cat jumped up onto the sink. From there, he hopped up onto the top of the stall wall. I tried to see where he was trying to go, but all I could see were a couple of stalls that held toilets and paper supplies, a sink, and a small storage cabinet. I opened the latter, which. contained extra toilet paper and paper towels.