Cats Can't Shoot: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir #2 (Pru Marlowe Pet Mysteries)

by Clea Simon

  “Fed. That’s it.” The voice came as a rumble against my cheek, warm as I picked my way down the road.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t have anything on me.” Nor did I want to start foraging in the woods. I wasn’t sure what we’d heard last night. I didn’t want to take the chance that it might still be hungry.

  “No, no.” Claws dug into my shoulder with impatience. “She wanted to be fed.”

  “Louise?” I remembered the steak bones. The Bordeaux.

  “No!” The claws again. I thought of Robin, plump and pretty. Mack had said she’d grown up poor, but she didn’t look like she’d missed any meals lately. I could have used a hot dish right then. Something with bacon. Meat. I could almost smell the coffee when the prick of claws brought me back. I’d been falling asleep on my feet. I had also, I realized, made the mistake of listening to an animal on human terms.

  “Fed? You mean, she was hungry?” Nothing, and I could almost feel the Persian’s impatience growing. “She wanted something. Of course.”

  “To be fed.” What would Robin want? Money, probably. A share of the spoils.

  There’d been talk at the funeral, and I remembered Llewellyn scoffing at his friend. Something about how he didn’t want to spend money on women anymore. Not women who already had enough. Creighton had said that, too—the will isn’t a potential motive, he’d told me. So what did Robin have? What gave her a hold over the widow? “Was Donal going to change his will?”

  Felicity was silent. Cats don’t deal with details, and I sighed as we turned the bend. The sun was rising, the sky growing lighter by the second. People were just as predictable, weren’t they?

  All except for Jim Creighton. The thought of my sometime beau warmed me. Creighton didn’t blindly follow the clues. He’d had every chance to close this case, and he had refused to follow the obvious trail. He’d tried to keep me out of it, sure. He hadn’t let go, though. He had kept investigating.

  “He kept the case open.” I stopped so short, the cat shifted and I reached for her with my right arm. Mistake. I let her down, and we walked side by side. I no longer worried about her bolting. I no longer had the energy to worry. Instead, I thought about Creighton and hoped Felicity would understand. “He was still working it, see? That must have been why Robin hadn’t been paid. That’s why they were fighting. If the case was open, Louise might not have access to any joint assets.”

  With the sun, the wind had picked up, and I shivered. Maybe I could carry the Persian again soon. “But that’s not a big deal. All she had to do was wait it out.” Assuming she inherited, that is. A stray memory began to surface. Something I’d heard. “Unless—”

  I stopped. Off to our left, there had been a noise, an animal sound—not a bark, more like a “chuff.” Frozen in place, we both turned. Nothing was visible under those trees, but my sensitivity or an instinct older still told me something was there. Watching. The skin on the back of my neck rose. I stared into the blackness, trying to see, to understand. And jumped back as a crow went flying, cawing his displeasure loud into the sky.

  No, not displeasure. Something louder. Fear.

  Even on the wing, the crow was afraid, broadcasting his warning near and far. There was a predator on the hunt. A wolf.

  I grabbed the cat and ran, heedless of the pain in my arm, of the rough road. Of anything but getting through this barren land and back into territory where humans held sway.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  A half hour, maybe more. We’d turned one corner and still the road stretched out, as vague and endless as my sense of time.

  I was running a fever, I could tell. The cold, the flu, whatever bug had been wearing at me all week long. My wrist. Together, they’d broken down my resistance. Not my will to live. I had a good head of steam, and I was going to get us out of these woods. Without it killing either one of us.

  Will can only take you so far, though, and the morning sun gave more light than warmth, glaring off a cold mist that lurked beneath the trees. Before long, Felicity had squirmed to be let down again, and I’d lowered her to the road. Ten minutes later—or was it twenty?—I could tell she was regretting it.

  “You okay?” The Persian was limping, and as I looked over, I stepped on something—a rock, a pinecone—and stumbled to the ground, catching myself by habit on my hands. The pain that shot up my arm was electric, bringing a wave of nausea that had me choking. I rolled onto my back, cradling my bad arm to my chest. Tears leaked out through my clenched eyes, and I could hear the sound I was making—an animal noise. I lay there on the smooth blacktop. The cold seeped through to my back and I waited for it to get to my arm, to stop the throbbing. To stop the pain. Only then did I feel the soft touch of whiskers on my face, the slight snuffling breath of the cat.

  That was it. I wasn’t giving up. I don’t give up. For a moment, though, I needed to catch my breath. Felicity needed to rest. We both needed to take stock of the fact that we were stuck on a scenic route in stick season, freezing and vulnerable. Whether we’d heard a wolf or not was going to be immaterial in a few hours. The cold would be enough.

  I didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to lay back down, to go to sleep on the cool, cool road. Those whiskers, though. The breath they carried was warm. Alive. I sat up. I made it to the roadside and sat on a boulder. Felicity jumped into my lap, and I rested my bad hand on her soft body as I stared through the trees. A mist was rising, blurring the ground, but the bare trunks were stark and black. Between their trunks, I could see the fog rolling in, obscuring the bend in the road. I squinted against the haze, and tried to make out the road, the further curve. The one below that. If only I could let myself fall forward and roll, like the rock I was seated on, down through the trees. Then I could get us down there, back to a land of color and warmth.

  I slumped forward, stopping only when the cat in my lap shifted. We were beyond words by this point, both wrung out. I felt my head nod. The mist rose. It stung my eyes and they closed. I thought I was dreaming when I heard it: the whine of an engine, somewhere above us. I blinked, sat up. Peered up through the mist to see a flash of color. Red. The color of a cardinal, or of blood. The whine grew louder, changing in frequency like a shift in gears. And then, through the trees, on the stretch of road we’d walked down only moments before, I saw it. Coming down from nowhere. A cherry-red sports car, going through its paces as it made its way down the slope.

  I should have stood. I should have yelled and waved. As still as we were, that car could have driven right by us. Someone had sharp eyes, however, and as the red sportster came around the curve, it slowed to a stop, idling before me in the road.

  A Maserati, in mint condition. Gregor “Bill” Benazi leaned over to open the passenger-side door.

  “May I offer you a lift?”

  I was too tired to question. Almost too tired to stand, but Felicity sank her claws in, just enough to wake me up, and I did both, carrying her over to place her on the empty seat. The leather felt welcoming, almost warm to my touch, and I wondered who else had been sitting in it recently. And what strange fate had brought this man down from a wilderness overlook at dawn in the middle of March.

  “What?” It was all I could manage.

  “I needed to drop off a package.” Bill leaned over as if to confide a secret. “Happy to be able to oblige a lady on the way back.”

  There was something chilling in his voice, but I was too dazed with pain and cold. I’d run out of options. Felicity shuffled over. I got in the car.

  As I warmed up, I felt myself getting sleepy. I didn’t want to relax. The leather upholstery was soft, though, and the cat warm in my lap, and my eyes kept closing. To keep myself awake, I sat up and made myself focus on the big, unanswered questions: What hold did Robin have on Louise? Why had they fallen out?

  I wished I could figure what Creighton had been doing. He’d been investigating, I got that. But had he let Robin know? Was he applying pressure that way? No, it didn’t make sense. A woman cool e
nough to commit murder wasn’t likely to crack. Was she?

  I leaned back into the leather. It smelled new, like money. I yawned and stretched my good arm, looked around. A Maserati doesn’t have a backseat per se. It does have a slight storage area, just big enough for groceries. Against the black leather, the tan stood out like a flag. Just a corner, peaking out from under the abbreviated rear seat. It reminded me of something. A good leather purse. A girl’s first.

  All of a sudden, sleep was the farthest thing from my mind. What had Mack said? Robin was broke. She couldn’t pay him. Who knew whom else she couldn’t pay.

  I looked over at our driver, his angular face silhouetted against the morning light. Gregor “Bill” Benazi. Gentleman gangster. Creighton had warned me. Nobody had warned Robin. Had she owed for the pistol? For other favors? Or was it simply that murder had not been on the menu, and Robin had carried things a bit too far?

  “He was a man of honor,” Benazi had told me that day in the cemetery, fresh from Donal Franklin’s funeral. “I, too, am a man of honor,” he had said over salad and a glass of red wine.

  As if on cue, Benazi turned and smiled at me. A lupine smile, full of teeth. A wolf.

  I grabbed the Persian as I recoiled, pushing myself as far away as I could. The smile only broadened. “Good morning,” he said.

  “You—”

  To my surprise, the cat pushed back against my embrace. “Kitty,” I leaned down and whispered into her fur. “Stay away from this one. He’s dangerous.”

  “No, he’s strong.” My bad arm hurt too much. She squeezed herself out of my embrace and jumped over the gearshift to lean against Benazi’s side. “He will keep his word.”

  “Lovely animal.” He reached down to stroke her as he drove. “Is she Himalayan?” And as I looked on in horror, she began to purr.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  When I asked to be dropped at the Beauville police station, Benazi only chuckled. He did lean over Felicity as he stopped, as if to whisper in the Persian’s velvet ear. I reached over and grabbed the cat, startling them both, and stumbled out of the car.

  “No!” The Persian’s angry howl conveyed her sentiments to us both, and Benazi nodded. I wondered what he’d said—and how much the white cat had understood. I didn’t have time for questions. I raced into the glass foyer and the police station beyond. And there, I gather, I fainted dead away.

  When I came to, Creighton was leaning over me, and for a moment I thought we were still in the station. Then I realized I was warm and clean—and my arm was in a cast.

  “Well, if it isn’t little red riding hood.” Creighton smiled. “Welcome back. How was Grandma’s?”

  “Robin Gensler killed Donal Franklin,” I said. “And Benazi—I think he may have killed Robin.” At least, that’s what I tried to say. My mouth was too dry to work properly, and whatever sounds I made had Creighton looking around for a nurse. “No, no.” I shook my head and raised my good hand. “Water?”

  That he understood and in a moment was holding a plastic straw to my chapped lips. “Thanks,” I managed to rasp. He nodded. So I repeated, “Robin killed Donal. She used the Persian and she was trying to set up Louise.”

  “The original cat’s paw, huh?” Great minds think alike.

  “Not news?” I sipped some more, pleased by our tacit understanding.

  “We’ve had our suspicions.”

  “The shopping trip? Too obvious?”

  He nodded. “For starters. Yeah, she and Louise were planning something. Louise wanted out of the marriage, but she was supposed to catch her husband cheating—not witness his murder.”

  The makeover, the cat. Throwing Donal and Robin together. Those had been Louise’s ideas, only they had given Robin a hold over Louise, the proofs of a setup the younger woman could threaten to reveal. If the accident theory fell through, she could frame the widow. Her benefactor, her friend. “The cuckoo.” That was all that came out. “You raise them in your nest, but they take over.”

  He didn’t ask. “But Robin didn’t know the whole story.” He paused, playing for effect. “The will. Anything other than a natural death—with doctor’s certificates, you name it—and it all went to charity. Seems our Donal Franklin had a history. And, yeah, his wife had been informed.”

  Robin hadn’t. Instead, she’d gotten greedy. Rather than be the wife’s paid accomplice, she thought she could set herself up for life. Kill Donal, and blackmail Louise for everything. Only she hadn’t bothered to check the details. Wallis had tried to tell me. They all had. I found myself sinking back into sleep and jerked forward with a start. “The cat!”

  “She’s fine. Back at the hospital, a little worse for wear, but she’ll be all right now.”

  I nodded, suddenly very tired. “There’s something on the cat. On the brush.” I’d never figured out exactly what. Felicity hadn’t been able to decipher human evil.

  “I’d told you I wanted to examine that cat, Pru. You thought I was bluffing.”

  I waited. This was Creighton’s show.

  “There was more powder on the cat. Even with all she’d been through. And not just on her paw, but around her middle, deep under the fur. As if someone had held her.”

  “Is that enough?”

  He snorted with laughter. “Hardly. But we found a brush, too, wedged under the spare in Louise Franklin’s trunk. That had prints on it—prints made with fulminate of mercury…”

  ***

  When I next woke up, he was glancing around the room.

  “You okay?” I tried to sit up. Mistake.

  “I’m not here.” He closed the door by leaning back on it. That’s when I saw what he held in his arms.

  “Wallis!” The big tabby leaped onto the bed, and I felt my eyes tear up as she nuzzled me with no other sound but her loud, rumbling purr. I didn’t care. So, I’d been sick again. Maybe this is how it went.

  “This is so against regulations.” Creighton spoke softly and picked a dark hair from his shirt. Wallis’, not mine.

  “Boy Scout.” My voice sounded soft, even to me. Imagine my surprise, then, when another, more acerbic, chimed in.

  “Watch it, Pru. He’s not as stupid as he seems.”

  “Wallis?” I murmured into her fur. “I thought…”

  “Sometimes you think too much, Pru.” It took me a moment to realize the voice, clear in my head, didn’t carry to the man beside the bed. “Try not to be so…human.”

  I didn’t have a response to that. Instead, I kept my face in my soft pet’s fur until the fear of tears had passed. When I looked up, Creighton was still there.

  “So how long have I been here?”

  “Since Tuesday morning.”

  I gave him a look.

  “It’s Thursday. Two days. You’ve had pneumonia—as well as a broken wrist. Anyway, I’ve been going by to feed your friend here, and today she followed me out. Jumped in the car. I swear she knew I was coming over to visit you.”

  Neither Wallis nor I had to respond to that.

  “Sometimes, Pru, I wonder…” He shook his head. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the smell of warm, clean cat.

  He smuggled her out a little later, with a promise to spring me as well. When I next woke up, I found Doc Sharpe leaning over me, a worried frown on his usually placid face.

  “Doc!” Even through my drugged haze, he’d startled me.

  “Pru, you’re awake.” I nodded. He always did have a firm grip on the obvious. “I’m so glad. We were, well, they tell me you had quite an ordeal.”

  Through the haze of sleep and drugs, a thought began to bubble up to the surface.

  “It was worth it, for the cat.”

  He cleared his throat, and I realized how little of the story he knew.

  “I didn’t steal her, Doc. I rescued her.” I didn’t have energy for anything more.

  “So I gather, so I gather.” He reached over and patted my hand. “Officer Creighton has been telling me quite a tale.”

  I nod
ded, fatigue getting the better of me. It helped to know I might still have a gig. Another thought was nagging, however.

  “How’s Felic—I mean, the white Persian. Fluffy. How’s she doing?” I had to catch myself.

  “Strangest thing. She’s had a total turnaround in her behavior, and then a foreign gentleman came in to ask if he could adopt her. Bengazi?”

  “And you let him?” I was awake now.

  “After Officer Creighton examined her, Mrs. Franklin called. Said she didn’t want to fuss anymore. So I saw no reason not to put her in the adoption area. This gentleman seemed to have been waiting for just such an opportunity. He went right to the Persian, and she began purring. When we took her out of the cage, she was actually kneading his shirt. With everything I’ve heard, I would say this is the best possible outcome.”

  I lay back on the pillow and closed my eyes. Let him think it was the flu.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  It took me longer to get back on my feet than I’d have liked. Spring was in full blast by the time I was completely back to normal, April’s showers washing away the rest of the snow to reveal a gaggle of daffodils in my front yard. My mother’s last project.

  Doc Sharpe had commandeered Pammy, making sure she took over my regular gigs for those few weeks. She was only too happy to give up the early morning dog walks after that, though I suspected from some comments that Tracy Horlick made that my substitute had been more forthcoming with the gossip.

  No matter, I was grateful to get back to the routine. Maybe it was me, maybe it was that spring had finally sprung—I sensed a new mellowness in the air. Growler still hadn’t succeeded in winning his person over, but he didn’t seem to resent our entire gender anymore. Once I could have sworn he wagged his tail when he saw me. I knew better than to mention it, though.

  Lucy seemed to take it all in stride. “Yup!” She had barked, when I heard that my job—the walking, as well as the training—had come to an end. “Training, done!”