Kittens Can Kill: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir

by Clea Simon

  An idea hit me. “It was Laurence Wilkins who started the rumors,” I said, to test it out loud. “It was Wilkins who suggested that you were careless or worse—that you wanted your lover’s wife dead.”

  She blinked up at me. “No, he was furious, when it finally came out,” she said. “He still is. After the funeral, he actually accused me of telling Dad that he and I…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Wilkins isn’t angry with you, Judith. He never was. That was his cover. His excuse.” I made my own voice as gentle as I could. “But he wasn’t going to start up again with you. Not once he found out what Jill was going to inherit.”

  She slumped down, shoulders bowed, but she didn’t argue. When she looked up at me, I could see the toll it had all taken.

  “Jill must hate me.” Her voice was flat.

  I shook my head. The pieces falling into place. “No, she’ll understand.” The charm. The connections. The sense of entitlement. Jill spent enough time at County to guess at what was going on, even if Doc Sharpe hadn’t shared the details. And at Wilkins’ she must have seen some papers—either her boyfriend’s or her father’s. That was why she’d called. She’d started to tell me about it, before the attack. I hadn’t understood.

  “She uncovered the truth about his finances,” I said now. “That he’d been embezzling.” She must have seen something at his house, something that tied in with what the forensic accountant had told Doc Sharpe—or maybe she put two and two together. Saw how he was spending and how little was coming in. “She realized that he didn’t love her either. That he was using her. She wanted to tell me, came over to tell me all this last night. Only I…”

  I stopped, my thoughts flying back to the scene after the funeral, back to the Canaday house. All the fuss over the food, and how Wilkins took charge of Jackie when she was searching for her father’s herbal tea. The “attack” Jill had had, and the disappearance of that tea. “You’re lucky you got away, Judith,” I said. “Jill is, too. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had married her, and if she too had died of some undetected heart ailment.”

  “Larry?” Judith shook her head, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t an accident, Judith.” I looked into her eyes. She had to understand. “Larry Wilkins poisoned his own wife with foxglove. It looked like an accidental overdose because it mimicked the medications she was on. He did the same with your father. I believe it was all planned, keeping him close with their weekly lunches. Getting him accustomed to herbal tea. And finally, when your father grew too suspicious, began asking questions about the books—about County’s endowment—spiking that tea. Probably just a little, just enough for someone who already had a bad heart.

  “Maybe he got lucky. Your father had a call in to Doc Sharpe at County about the books. Maybe Wilkins managed to add more foxglove during his last visit. We may never know, but he sure knew it worked when Jackie called, frantic, looking for a reason—any reason—to get out of the house. He had the keys, so it would have been easy enough to slip in, to remove the tea, just as a precaution. Do you remember him yelling at her, after the funeral? She was looking for the tea. Looking to serve it, but of course it was already gone.”

  I thought about Ernesto, about Sheila. I could never explain. Instead, I settled on what I could talk about. “If it weren’t for the state lab taking over, your father’s death would have been considered natural. As it was, we’re going to have to talk to Creighton. Tell him everything, and get them to reopen the investigation.”

  “An investigation.” She hung her head in her hands. “I can’t go through all that again.”

  “He played you, Judith, just like he played both your sisters.” I sympathized, truly I did. That didn’t matter now. “Once Wilkins realized that there were going to be tests, he did everything he could to foment rumors. Jackie already felt guilty for her…” I paused, unsure how much Judith knew. “For the lapses in her care. And you were already under a cloud here. All he had to do was drag Jill in somehow. Drop a confidential word in the right ears, and she was a suspect as well.”

  “I can’t…” She wasn’t listening, and so I left her. She didn’t have to do anything more.

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Creighton would get on this. I knew he would. But he thought I was still in bed, and, besides, I couldn’t wait to tell Doc. I wasn’t sure how much Wilkins had stolen or how much the hospital could recover. Still, I was more optimistic than I’d been in days. The old Yankee had taken care of me when I needed help, and now I was going to be able to return the favor. I left the Mont and headed toward County, windows open to the new day.

  Not only was Wilkins behind the hospital’s money troubles, I realized, he was indirectly behind Ernesto’s illness. That poor kitten had been splashed with the tainted tea and only his lack of skill at bathing himself had kept him from ingesting more. I’d seen how the leaves had nearly killed Sheila.

  Sheila. With Jill in the hospital, the little dog was on her own. Laurence Wilkins might not actively hurt the sheltie, but he wouldn’t take any special care of her either. And if she got out again…if he simply let her out, there was nothing to keep her from that patch of spiky leaves.

  She’d be fine, I told myself. I’d been on the road for twenty minutes. I was almost at County. The sheltie had lived with Wilkins for years, keeping her secret close. She must have realized that I had put it together, had interpreted her sacrifice. The old girl would know. She’d be fine.

  It was no use. With a squeal of the brakes, I swung a U turn. Creighton might be there already. He might have already taken a statement from Jill. In which case, I could pick up the little sheltie. Find a place for her to stay while Jill recovered. And if he wasn’t, well, then, Wilkins would be none the wiser. I never had picked up Albert’s ladder anyway.

  Creighton’s car was nowhere in sight when I got to the lawyer’s east side home. I caught a glimpse of a car in the driveway—a late model, big and dark—so I backed out to the street. Just as well, I figured. The lawyer wouldn’t raise a fuss with a client there to see me.

  I approached the house wondering about his visitor. Maybe Wilkins had been warned. Maybe he had called an attorney of his own. Before I rang the bell, I paused. Evidence—if Creighton weren’t here yet, it might still be removed. Stepping back from the door, I made my way around the house once more.

  “What are you talking about?” I was right. Wilkins knew something was up. I could hear his voice through the open window as I made my way through the planting. “Have you gone crazy?”

  Pointed leaves and a green shoot, the pink-purple buds already forming along its length. Foxglove—Digitalis purpurea—my mother’s favorites. I picked a few leaves but left the flowers in her memory. The animals out here would know better than to eat it.

  “Judith, no!” Wilkins’ yell broke through my reverie, and I raced to the window. The shade was down, but slightly ajar. Inside I could see Wilkins, hands raised before him. He was backing up—backing to the other window. Then Judith came into view. She must have driven straight here, gotten into her car the moment I’d left.

  She was holding a gun.

  “Judith!” I yelled and banged on the window. “Don’t do it!”

  She kept advancing until both were behind the shade, out of my sight. I heard barking. Sheila yelling, “No! No! No!” A high-pitched scream—a ghastly sound—and a thud as something large—a chair, a table—hit the ground.

  Then a shot, and the barking ceased.

  I looked around for a branch. For anything. Saw Albert’s ladder, damp under its tarp, and hauled at it, raising it, staggering, into the air. Falling forward with the weight, with my own exhaustion, I rammed it into the window, shattering the glass. Pushed the shade aside, and then I was through.

  “Judith!” I raced up to the woman who now sat, collapsed on the floor, weeping. She had no blood on her. No obvi
ous injury from the gun, which I could now see lay several feet away.

  A growl alerted me. Turning, I saw Laurence Wilkins, also on the floor, a dazed look on his face. One arm was outstretched, reaching toward the gun he’d dropped, the gun he had wrestled from his former lover. He wasn’t moving. He hadn’t been shot, either, but he was pinned in place. Held there by pain, by the small, sharp teeth that an aging dog had sunk into his arm.

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  “You’re lucky that lawyer paid you.” I was buying a round. Yes, at Happy’s. “Lucky he paid us, too.” Dave Altschul had accepted a beer. Mack was sticking to soda water.

  “Jill would have made it right,” I said with assurance. “Out of the estate.” Once she’d regained consciousness, the youngest Canaday girl had been only too happy to tell Creighton what she knew. Wilkins’ crooked books might have confused her at first, but his blatant attack on us both—and his ham-fisted attempt to conceal it with a fire—had negated any feelings she might still have for the double-dealing lawyer. She had turned into the star witness, which meant that I could keep myself—and Sheila—out of it.

  Judith wasn’t so lucky. She had to testify, and that nearly broke her. Not only because of what had happened so many years ago. She had to admit to the gun, to her attempt to use it. I liked to think that her relationship with her sisters would sustain her though. They were there to support her in the courtroom, and she’d moved back into the family home for the duration of the trial.

  “She’s sticking around?” Dave seemed quite interested.

  I nodded. “At least until the wedding.”

  Randy was marrying her sister—her older sister—at the end of the summer. Jackie must have forgiven his betrayal. Maybe she’d even welcomed it—his attempt at mitigating her worst impulse, at keeping her family safe. By then, he’d confirmed that the note was his, the poor slob’s way of dealing with the guilt of their attempted collusion, the rumors he had helped to spread to distract attention from Jackie’s panicked flight. Jill wasn’t guilty, he’d been trying to communicate. She was helping. It wasn’t the way I’d want to start a marriage, but Jill had forgiven her oldest sister, and Judith had agreed to take part in the ceremony. It seemed like the family squabbles were over.

  “Speaking of families…” An hour later, I was at home, with my tarps and paint. A beer with friends was nice, but I had a cat to feed. Besides, Creighton had said he’d come by later.

  “I miss Ernesto, too, Wallis.” I watched as she devoured the chopped turkey I’d set before her, and then as she carefully cleaned each paw. “But he’s got his own house to look after now.”

  “Some mama that one is.” Wallis didn’t think much of Jackie, who’d be keeping Ernesto while Jill finished school. Didn’t like that she’d walked out on the kitten, who had bonded with her so quickly, as well as on the dying man. “Then again, she does need looking after.”

  “Don’t we all, Wallis?” I looked toward the window. Saw headlights approaching. Looked back down to see those green eyes appraising me. “No, I haven’t figured it out yet, Wallis. But it’s spring, you know?”

  And I went to open the door.

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