“Let me get Henry inside, and I’ll be ready to leave.” I stood on the porch and called him. Usually when I do that, he comes loping in, pretending he was already on his way home when he heard me call because cats don’t answer to anybody. That morning he didn’t appear.
Fred came up behind me. “Do you want to hang around here until he shows up?”
I shook my head. “He’s probably hiding in a bush, watching me and laughing. He wasn’t very happy when he left this morning. We won’t be gone long. If he has to wait for me when he’s finally ready to go inside, maybe it’ll teach him to come when I call.”
I didn’t like going off and leaving him outside, but in the few months I’d been owned by a cat, I’d learned a lot about them. The number one lesson was that cats will do what they please, and those of us who love them must accept that and learn to live with it. Not a bad lesson to learn about relationships in general, I supposed. Trent needed to learn that lesson.
Fred and I set off for Tiger Lily’s apartment shortly after eight.
She lived in an older building in an older part of town. Not the best area, but not the worst, either. However, Fred’s pristine vintage Mercedes did look a little out of place parked at the curb.
“Are you packing heat?” I asked as we walked up the cracked sidewalk toward the red brick structure that also had a few cracks.
He shook his head and continued walking. “You watch too much television.”
“Define too much.”
“Whatever amount you watch. I don’t need a gun. We’re simply paying a visit to a woman.”
“Yeah, a woman who killed her sister.”
I made a mental note to look into getting my right to carry when this was over. An iron skillet was a good weapon, but I’d have to get up close and personal to use it. I could fire a gun from across the room. There was a reason cops carried guns instead of iron skillets.
Fred opened the door, and we entered the building. Again I was met with the overpowering smell of stale cigarette smoke, but this time scents of bacon, cabbage and various other foods mingled and lingered. Four wooden doors with metal numbers sat along the hallway.
“Upstairs,” Fred instructed, pointing in the direction of a battered wooden staircase. “Fourth floor.”
“Fourth floor? How about we take the elevator?”
“Very funny. Let’s go.”
When we finally made it to the fourth floor, I stopped and turned to Fred. “Don’t let her kick you. That woman has got to have strong legs if she makes it up these stairs every day.”
“Apartment 4B,” he said, pointing to the door on the right.
We walked over and knocked.
And knocked.
“Sleeps pretty sound,” I said.
Fred took out his cell phone and punched in a number. A phone inside the apartment began to ring.
And ring.
Fred disconnected the call. “We’re early. We’ll wait.”
“Fifteen minutes early. Big deal. She ought to be up and at least in the shower by now.”
Fifteen minutes passed.
Thirty.
“I think you’ve been stood up,” I said. “Maybe you were too threatening.”
“I told her there might be money in it for her. That usually works.”
I studied the door. In addition to the ancient lock which, according to the TV shows I watched, I could open with a credit card, it also had a much sturdier looking deadbolt. “I’ll take care of the bottom one if you can open the top,” I offered.
“What are you suggesting, that we break in?”
“Oh, like you’ve never done that before?”
“We need to go home and regroup.”
I sighed in disappointment. “I guess so. Henry’s probably ready to come in by now.” We started trudging back down the stairs. “I wonder if Trent got here early and arrested her.”
“Was he planning to arrest her today?”
“I have no idea. Nobody tells me anything.”
“I’ll check when we get home.”
“And you’ll let me know?”
“Of course.”
I was very much afraid Trent had beaten me to the punch on Tiger Lily. Damn. I hated to lose, but at the same time I felt an immense relief at the thought that neither my cat nor I would be threatened that night. I would never again take for granted the feeling of safety and security when I locked my doors at night and went to bed.
And I was definitely going to look into taking those gun classes. A machine gun like the one Fred had would go a long way toward restoring my sense of safety and security.
***
Henry was not waiting when I got home. An ugly little worry niggled as I climbed the steps to my front porch. I told myself I was being silly. Henry had been on his own when he came to live with me. He could take care of himself. In the less than a year he’d lived with me, he’d terrorized all the cats in the neighborhood and most of the dogs, even the big ones. Especially the big ones.
I went upstairs to change into something comfortable. The sun blazed out of the clear blue sky without a cloud in sight. It was going to be another cut-offs and tee-shirt day. As I changed clothes, I thought about what I was going to do for the rest of the day. I’d spent most of my time at the restaurant for so long, I had no idea what to do with spare time.
Maybe Fred and I could make another trip to Tiger Lily’s place that afternoon.
Maybe I’d take Henry to the park when he got back. Find him some new cats and dogs to terrorize.
I smiled to myself as I went back downstairs. He’d enjoy that, maybe forgive me for the bad night.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into my living room.
“Lindsay Powell, we finally meet.” A tall blonde woman dressed in a pair of minimal shorts and a tube top that emphasized her huge boobs stood in the middle of my living room holding an enormous gun. Okay, the gun was a pistol, not even close to the size of Fred’s machine gun, but that barrel pointed in my direction was way too big for my comfort.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I swallowed hard. To be more precise, I gulped.
To be totally honest, I almost peed my pants.
“Who—?” I said in a whisper. It was the best I could do under the circumstances.
“I think you know who I am. You and your cop friend made that bogus appointment to see me this morning. Like I’d believe that bitch Lisa would leave me any insurance money.” She snorted and waved her gun toward my recliner. “Sit down.”
I didn’t bother to correct her that it was Fred, not Trent, who’d made the bogus appointment with her. At that point, I didn’t think it made much difference. I just stumbled obediently in the direction she indicated.
On the far side of the coffee table I saw a pet carrier with an unmoving white animal inside.
My heart stopped and I dropped to my knees, oblivious of guns and anti-aircraft or any other weapons that evil woman might have. “Henry!” I fumbled with the latch on the door.
“Don’t open that! Your cat’s okay. I’d never hurt an animal. You think I’m some kind of a monster?”
Actually, I did, but thought it best to keep my mouth shut for once in my life.
“Get up,” she ordered. “Leave him in the cage so I don’t have to hurt him.”
“He’s not moving!”
“He’s just asleep. I lured him into that cage with catnip. He’ll come out of it in a couple of hours.” She rubbed her free hand over her arm, and I saw the healing evidence of cat scratches. Yay, Henry!
I reached a finger through the wire mesh of the door and stroked him. “Henry?”
He lifted his head, opened his eyes, purred and lay back down.
When this was over, we were going to have a talk about his addiction.
If we both survived.
“Get up off the floor,” Tiger Lily ordered. “Sit in that chair. We got some business to take care of.”
I obeyed. That gun ac
complished what Trent, Rick and even my parents had been unable to accomplish. I did exactly as the woman ordered.
“You’ve got something of mine,” she said.
“Your earring? Whatever it is, you can have it back.”
She smiled. Well, her lips curved upward, but it wasn’t the kind of smile I was accustomed to seeing when someone bit into one of my chocolate chip cookies. “I’m glad you’re going to be reasonable. Just give me my ten million dollars, and everybody will be happy.”
Somehow I didn’t quite believe her. If I had the money and gave it to her, I suspected she’d still kill me so I couldn’t tell on her.
“If I had the money, I’d give it to you. I don’t have it. Somebody got to it before you.”
“Yeah, I know somebody did. It wasn’t Lisa, so that leaves you.”
My stomach clenched into a hard little knot. “You really did kill your own sister?”
She grimaced and waved the gun through the air. “She was not my sister! She was my mother’s third husband’s daughter.”
“Your step sister.”
“Call her whatever you want. She was a bitch, a spoiled bitch. She was two years younger than me…two freaking years! But she was the baby. We always had to take care of poor little Lisa.”
I cringed as she echoed the very words Rick had used about the woman. “She wasn’t all that little,” I said, hoping that would somehow be conciliatory.
But Tiger Lily continued to rant and wave the gun around. Obviously Lisa was a sore spot for her. “Poor little Lisa got a new dress whenever she wanted one, but I had to work for my clothes! Poor little Lisa had the same last name as everybody else in the family, everybody but me. Poor little Lisa had every guy in the neighborhood on her string. Poor little Lisa got the trailer when our parents died because her daddy owned it, not my mother. Poor little Lisa thought she was going to be rich, but I took George away from her, and I’m going to get the money!”
“George loved you, not her.” Surely that was something she wanted to hear, something that would calm her.
She looked down at me, her expression a little closer to happy than it was before. The hand holding the gun dropped to her side. “Yes, he did. He was going to run away with me, not her. But then she turned him in.” She straightened, lifting the gun to point directly at me again. There was no longer any sign of happy on her face. Her mouth settled into a thin line.
“That was a terrible thing for her to do,” I said sympathetically, “betraying him like that, sending him to prison just so you couldn’t have him.”
“George knew I’d wait for him until he got out, but that bitch got Rodney Bradford to betray George’s trust, and they were going to steal our money.”
“They were bad people.” I was making every effort I could think of to become her new best friend.
She nodded. “They were. When George heard he married Lisa, he knew what they were up to. He told me where to find the money so I could get it before they did. He trusted me. Bradford only knew it was somewhere in your house. They had to get your house and tear it down to find the money.” Her scowl deepened. “That damned husband of yours was helping them.”
I heard a low growl and looked down to see Henry’s paw groping with the latch on his cage. He was finally sobering up and not happy about being confined. His cage was behind Tiger Lily, so she didn’t see him. I lifted my eyes quickly before she noticed and followed the direction of my gaze. If Henry could get out, between the two of us, we might be able to take her.
Okay, Henry would be able to take her, and I’d stand back and watch. He’d already run her off a couple of times without my help.
“But they didn’t get the money,” I said, talking loudly so she wouldn’t hear Henry grumbling and jiggling that latch. “Rodney died. Someone poisoned him, someone much cleverer than Lisa.” I tried to smile. “Someone like you.”
She shrugged, and looked proud. “Getting rid of Bradford was easy. He always stopped at the same place for coffee because poor little Lisa couldn’t make decent coffee. Never had to learn. Somebody always did it for her. So I just waited for Bradford to show up, sat down at his table, got him to talking and looking at my boobs, and dropped in some ground up amoprine berries I got from his old girlfriend’s tree.”
Henry almost lifted the latch. He’d get it eventually if I could stay alive until then. Tiger Lily liked flattery. I’d better pour on some more of that.
“You sent him the text message asking him to come by Dorothy’s place so she’d be blamed. Smart. But did you know he was only leading Lisa on? He planned to dump her and go back to Dorothy once they got the money.”
Tiger Lily smiled for real that time. “I wish I’d known that so I could have told her before she died. George didn’t love her, and Bradford didn’t love her either.”
“George loved you. You stole him from Lisa. You’re the only one he trusted with the location of his money.”
“That’s right. He knows I’ll keep it safe for him until he gets out of prison. Then we’re going to get a big house and a new car.” Her eyes narrowed. “You need to give it to me now. I killed Rodney Bradford and that bitch Lisa to keep them from getting it. Don’t think for one minute I won’t kill you too.”
I shifted uneasily in the chair. “Yeah, I believe you. But I don’t have your money. Somebody broke in here and dug up the basement right after Bradford was killed.”
She frowned.
“They did, I swear. I don’t know how they got in, but they did, and when I got down there, somebody had already been digging around.”
She shook her head. “That was me. I came in through the coal chute, just like George did when he was a teenager and his stuffy grandparents didn’t want him to go out at night. He told me where the padlock key was hidden, and I got right in. I dug around where George told me to dig, but there was no money.” She centered the gun barrel on my forehead. “That means you found it first.”
I blinked and flinched backward. “You talked to Paula. You found out from her that I haven’t come into any huge amounts of money.”
“She’s your friend. I don’t trust what she told me.”
I was right. That had been her driving George’s car. “George gave you his car, didn’t he? You, not Lisa.”
She nodded. “He trusts me with his car and his money. He loves me.”
“That was you wearing the coat and hood and driving his car the evening you thought we were gone but we were just behind the house having a barbecue.”
Her lips thinned. “That was me. I was trying to get inside to search. I came back once, and that damned cat of yours attacked me.” She rubbed her arm again.
That damned cat of mine rattled the cage door and growled, his paw successfully lifting the latch and pushing the cage door open.
I cleared my throat to hide his noises and his escape, give him a chance to leap on her from behind and scratch out her eyes.
I caught a fleeting glimpse of him moving toward the kitchen. The kitchen? I was being threatened by a murderer, and my cat was going for a snack? Damn! Probably had the munchies from the catnip.
My heart sank. I was on my own.
“Maybe I know where your money is,” I said.
Her eyes lit up. “Now you’re getting smart. Where?”
“In my bedroom upstairs.” If I could get her up there, maybe I could grab my iron skillet.
I rose and headed for the stairs. She was right behind me with that evil-looking gun. I was really going to have to get one of those when this was over. Actually, I needed to have one of those while this was going on.
Just as we crossed in front of the door, someone knocked.
Both Tiger Lily and I froze.
“Lindsay, it’s me.” Trent.
“My friend, the cop,” I whispered, hoping the mention of a cop would scare her into leaving.
“Don’t say anything,” she instructed.
He knocked louder. “I know you’re in there. I can se
e your car through the cracks in the garage. I’m not leaving until we talk about last night.”
Tiger Lily smirked. “Have a problem with the boyfriend last night?”
“You have no idea.”
“Tell him you’ll talk to him later. Tell him to go away.” She lowered the barrel of her gun to my right knee. “If you ever want to walk again, get rid of him.”
I was quite fond of that knee and had high hopes of being able to walk again, but I had to try to get Trent to help.
“Go away,” I shouted. “I haven’t had my coffee yet, and you know I don’t like to talk to anybody before I’ve had my coffee. I can’t start the day without coffee.”
He knew I never drank coffee, so he would surely realize I was sending him a coded message for help because someone was holding a gun on me and I couldn’t talk except in code.
That was the way it worked on TV.
Trent heaved a deep sigh. “I get it.” I hoped he did. “I understand you’re mad because I can’t share things with you like normal couples share things.” He didn’t get it. “We need to talk about this. You do things that worry me. You get yourself in situations where you could get hurt.”
Yeah, like standing on the other side of the door with a crazy woman holding a gun to my knee.
“Go away, Adam.” That would surely alert him that something was wrong. I never called him by his first name.
“Ouch. First-name basis? You really are mad at me. We need to talk.”
My cat was a catnipaholic who’d deserted me for food, and my almost-boyfriend was being dense. I was totally on my own.
Tiger Lily nudged me with the barrel of the gun. “Get rid of him, now!” she whispered.
“I’ll meet you at our favorite restaurant in two hours,” I said. Since Death by Chocolate was my favorite restaurant, surely he’d figure that one out.
“Why are you standing on the porch, yelling at Lindsay?” Fred! Fred always knew everything that was going on. He’d doubtless come to rescue me because he had my house bugged and had heard every word Tiger Lily said. And even if he hadn’t, he’d understand the coffee reference.
Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 02 - Murder, Lies & Chocolate Page 18