Cat Nap

by Claire Donally

  “What?” Christine seemed genuinely shocked by that news.

  “Maybe the word hasn’t made it out here yet, but it’s common knowledge in Portsmouth that Martin and his receptionist didn’t have a merely professional relationship.”

  “But she’s barely older than Kristi!”

  Sunny nodded. “Some people might see that as motive.”

  “I didn’t kill Martin, and don’t know who did.” Christine’s show of spirit quickly fizzled. “Maybe it was the blackmailer. Maybe it’s all my fault.” The tears began again.

  “How is it your fault?”

  “The night Martin . . . died”—Christine tripped over the word—“I was supposed to bring money.”

  “Where?” Sunny asked.

  “To his office—he was going to deliver it. I was supposed to come in the secret way—”

  “Wait a minute,” Sunny said, “you’re getting ahead of me. What secret way?”

  Christine actually blushed. “It’s stupid, really. He had a panel built into his office wall. It led out to the back stairs—and the back door. No one could see me come in, and we—we could go up to his bedroom. And then I could leave again by the back way. He said he’d leave it unlocked so I could bring the money.”

  She looked down, trembling. “But I couldn’t. I could only get my hands on half of what they wanted. When I went to the bank, I found out that my husband had withdrawn most of the money from our joint account. We are separated, and I guess that was the first step toward a real divorce.”

  “And you lost it,” Sunny said, remembering Kristi’s story about her mom’s out-of-the-ordinary behavior.

  Christine nodded. “I didn’t know what to do. I got a bottle of wine, trying to work up the nerve to call Martin and tell him. But I had too much. The next thing I remember, I was waking up at one in the morning.” Humiliation and guilt added ten years to her face. “If I’d even brought what I could have, maybe the blackmailer—”

  “I hate to tell you this, but the blackmailer was Martin.” Sunny tried to make her voice gentle. “You have to know he was having money problems.”

  Christine shook her head violently. When she spoke, she picked up on the second thing Sunny had said, not the blackmail. “His wife took him to the cleaner’s in the divorce.”

  “He messed up their finances way before the divorce,” Sunny told her. “And then he borrowed money from some shady characters to set up his new office. That got him in worse trouble. Martin tried to pressure money out of Jane. When did he tell you about this blackmail?”

  “Right before he died,” Christine said. “He told me he’d gotten pictures and a demand for fifty thousand dollars. I knew he didn’t have that kind of money.” Her chin trembled, but she held it high. “And you’re wrong about Martin being the blackmailer. Now that he’s dead, they’ve come after me. It’s sixty thousand dollars now. That wasn’t easy to get. I had to sell some family jewelry.”

  Sunny blinked, the wheels in her head suddenly spinning into high gear. “And the drop-off is tonight?”

  Christine nodded. “I was told to wait for instructions. That’s why I thought—”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Christine, but I don’t think you’re cut out to deal with this,” Sunny told the woman, her voice calm and confident. After weeks of stumbling around in the fog, she’d suddenly stepped out into blazing clarity. “I know who’s behind this little scheme.” She smiled. “And I know a person who can help stop it.”

  *

  “This is crazy,” Will said for about the tenth time as they drove to Portsmouth.

  “Maybe.” Sunny sat with a canvas bag in her lap as she drove, wearing one of Christine’s coats—one with a hood. “But if this works out, it will take care of all our problems.”

  She ran through the instructions from the blackmailer. She—or rather, Christine—was supposed to leave the moneybag in a kid’s activity structure in a playground. “It sounds familiar,” Sunny said.

  “It should,” Will told her. “Did you watch the cop show this week where the kid was abducted? This is how they were supposed to pass on the ransom.” He looked at the street signs and then ducked down in his seat. “We’re getting close. I’m going to bail at the next red light.”

  That was a block away. As Sunny made the obligatory stop, Will opened the door and slid out. They had already taken the precaution of turning off the Wrangler’s dome light. Sunny slowly drove on, as if she were unsure of the neighborhood. Got to give Will a chance to get into position.

  At last she reached the playground. Pulling up the hood, she got out of the Jeep, moving hesitantly and looking around. I don’t see anyone. Hope nobody else does.

  Her destination was pretty obvious—a structure painted in very primary reds, yellows, and blues. Sunny advanced and put her bag as directed on the corkscrew slide. Then, keeping her head down, she walked back to her Jeep and started the engine.

  Sunny drove off, took the first right and then the first parking space she could find, running back to the park on foot. She arrived to find two figures struggling by the play structure. The smaller one had a distinct disadvantage because she was also carrying a large duffel bag.

  “Give it up, Dawn!” Sunny called as she came forward.

  That apparently took the fight out of Dawn Featherstone. She stopped struggling with Will and swore. “You’re always sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted,” she said. “Getting the cops to ask me a bunch of questions about how things were between Martin and me. Helping that witch who killed him.”

  “You mean Jane?” Sunny was confused. Why was Dawn still claiming that Jane had killed Martin? She glanced over at Will, who stood with his cop face on, listening to Dawn’s confession.

  “Yeah. She was always holding Martin back, until he finally had to get rid of her,” Dawn accused. “And then she kept trying to get back at him. She had money, but she wouldn’t help Martin out. Oh, no. And then, when he finally got hold of some money and we were gonna get outa town, she killed him.”

  She tapped the duffel bag hanging from her shoulder. “But I was the one holding the money. It was in the trunk of my car when the cops came. It’s enough to get me started somewhere else, but I figured I’d get some more from that other old hag that Martin was stringing along. I just had to time it right.” Her voice wobbled. “I couldn’t be sure when the memorial would be. When we could have the cremation and the urn.”

  Sunny was still digesting the first part of Dawn’s outburst. “Old hag?” she echoed. “Do you mean Christine Venables, the woman who was Martin’s age?”

  “Martin was always young—always fun,” Dawn spat. “And he was smart, too. Look what he got hold of.”

  She unzipped the bag and dropped it to the ground. Packets of bills spilled out. It was hard not to stare, and Dawn took advantage of the instant’s distraction, pulling a gun from her coat pocket.

  “And I’m gonna hold on to it!”

  23

  Shadow carefully hooked his claws into one of the ceiling squares and pulled, peering down into the room below through the opening he’d made. Yes, this was the place where he’d been imprisoned. He pulled the square aside, disentangled his claws, and dropped to the shelf below. For a long moment, he crouched in silence, straining his senses to the fullest. The room was empty.

  He glanced toward the window. Good, it was long dark. He’d feared that his wanderings in the dimness above might have thrown off his internal sense of time. But he’d obviously made the right choice about when to scout this area. This was an hour when most humans slept.

  He crept down to the floor level, sniffing about. His nose wrinkled at a bad scent, but this was good news. The One Who Reeks had been in here not too long ago. As he came to the wall, he detected a more welcome smell. Shadow quickly stepped forward to eat and drink.

  She may smell terrible, but I have to admit, this one is generous.

  Shadow ate enough to take the edge off his hunger and d
rank greedily. It was dry and dusty up beyond the ceiling. Then he took a quick trip to the litter box and started climbing back up again. Humans were supposed to sleep at this time of night, but he couldn’t be sure about the One Who Reeks. Best to be gone in case she came in to check the room.

  Although she’s welcome to all the gifts I left. He hadn’t covered up the deposit he’d left in the litter box.

  *

  Dawn Featherstone told Sunny and Will to back up. “You a cop?” she asked Will, who nodded.

  “Okay. Take out the gun, just with the tips of your fingers, and put it on the ground. And then both of you, drop your cell phones,” Dawn ordered, following the TV cop show writer’s rules of procedure.

  Will disarmed himself, and he and Sunny dropped their phones.

  “You have handcuffs?” Dawn asked. “Yeah. Toss me the keys. Then take the cuffs and put ’em on your right wrist. Stick that hand over here.” Dawn pointed to a sturdy metal ladder on the side of the play structure. “Now, you. Come around and click the other side of the cuffs to your left wrist.”

  When Sunny complied, they were pretty well attached to the jungle gym. The ladder was kid-sized, the rungs set too closely together to squeeze through. Its base was set in concrete, and the top was welded to one of the metal pipes supporting the structure, Looks like we’re here for the duration, Sunny thought as the cuff snapped shut.

  “Good.” Dawn might get most of her ideas from TV, but she seemed to know her way around firearms. She picked up Will’s pistol and efficiently removed the magazine. After throwing that and the handcuff keys in one direction into the darkness, she kicked the empty pistol and the phones the opposite way.

  Then she checked the bag that Sunny had brought. “Newspaper. It figures. Those rich old broads, they’re really cheap.”

  Dawn shrugged. “Well, I still have what I came with. And by the time anybody finds you, I’ll be long gone.” She repacked the duffel, slung it over her shoulder, and left.

  Sunny tugged against the cuff, wincing as the hard metal cut into her wrist. “What are we going to do?”

  “Looks as if Dawn knows lots about TV cops, but not so much about real ones.” He twisted around, trying to get his free hand into his right pocket. “For instance, in the real world, it’s a good idea to carry a spare set of keys.”

  He fished the keys out, freed himself and Sunny, then retrieved his pistol. “You also carry a spare magazine or two.” He clicked one in place, worked the action, and started after Dawn.

  “Stay back,” he warned Sunny. “I don’t know if that gun she was waving around is loaded, but she seems to know how to use it.”

  Sunny let him lead, but she was almost on his heels as he ran in the direction Dawn had taken. “Carrying all that cash, Dawn won’t want to run far. She must have a car close by.”

  They exited the darkness of the park and looked up and down the street ahead. It was empty. Keeping his pistol down by his side, Will ran to the first intersection, looking first right, then left.

  Halfway down the block, Sunny spotted Dawn dangling from a big figure’s right hand. His left hand held out her gun. Olek gave the girl a shake and then deposited her in the street. Beside him, Dani was shouldering the duffel bag as Will and Sunny came up. “It was just as well we give you the backing,” Dani said. “She was a trickier one than you thought.”

  Olek kept a cold eye on the pistol in Will’s hand, Dawn’s gun ready in his.

  “Okay, you got what you wanted.” Will’s voice went into tough cop mode. “You’ll be heading out of town now?”

  “Right now,” Dani promised. “We finish with the doctor’s business, so you tell the other cops to check his bank. Not so good. I don’t know if I come back.” He sighed. “More trouble.”

  Then he looked at Sunny. “But remember this. I owe you a favor.”

  She watched the Ukrainian odd couple head off for their car. “Guess we’d better start looking for our phones so we can call Trumbull,” she said. “I bet he’s going to love this.”

  *

  Detective Trumbull was definitely not in a good mood. Even Fitch was staying out of his way. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve,” the big man rumbled at Sunny. Then he glared at Will. “And why in God’s name did you help her?”

  “We were trying to break up an extortion attempt,” Will said. “Preferably in a way that wouldn’t cause any embarrassment for an elected official.”

  “Yeah? Well, you’ll find that Maine officials don’t have much pull on this side of the river,” Trumbull said, but that was mostly bluff. One thing that Sunny had learned from her dad was that politics was definitely the art of the possible.

  Trumbull regarded them sourly for a moment. “So you thought that you could talk this girl out of blackmail, and she turns up with a duffel full of money—money that Rigsdale had gotten his hands on.”

  “Money that these two foreign guys turned up and claimed,” Sunny said.

  “They’re some sort of Ukrainian loan sharks,” Will said. “I thought things were going to get hairy, but they had paperwork proving that the money belonged to them.”

  “You can check with Martin’s bank,” Sunny added.

  “Right,” the detective said with heavy irony. “Everything nice and neat. I know when I’m being handed a package. And don’t keep smiling at me like a nine-year-old, young woman. I should rat your boyfriend here out to Sheriff Nesbit and get his butt roasted but good.”

  Sunny continued to give him a bright smile. But you’ve got other things to worry about, like a murder investigation circus that’s just gained two more rings. And I’ve done some checking. As annoyed as you might be with Will, you really don’t like Frank Nesbit.

  Finally, Trumbull made a cutting gesture with his hand. “All right. Thanks very much for your statements. I’ll be questioning Ms. Featherstone. Good-bye.”

  As they got back into Sunny’s Wrangler, she was still in a good mood. “Well, that could have gone much worse. Feel like having a very early breakfast?”

  Will shook his head, frowning in thought. “We’ve dumped a lot on Trumbull’s plate, but it still doesn’t clear Jane. And even worse, we’re clean out of murder suspects.”

  “Then we’ll have to look for more,” Sunny replied. “And considering the way Martin liked to spend his time, I expect that they’ll be female.” She drove for a moment in silence. “In fact, I’m pretty sure there must be another lover in the underbrush.”

  “What leads you to that conclusion, Sherlock?” Will asked.

  “Martin’s secret doorway to paradise,” Sunny replied. “It has to be the way the killer got in. I expect Dawn didn’t know about it—after all, that was how Martin was sneaking Christine in, literally behind her back. Dawn was on the front desk, and we were the only people who came in that way—that’s why she keeps insisting that Jane did Martin in.”

  Will nodded slowly. “We know the back door was unlocked for Christine. Now we just have to find out who used it instead.”

  “At least we’ve gotten Jane and Tobe some breathing space.” The conversation lapsed for a moment as Sunny negotiated the bridge crossing. “In the meantime, I’d like to suggest a new project.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with blackmail and foreign money launderers, does it?” Will asked warily.

  “No,” Sunny told him, “it’s a lot farther down the scale—catnapping.”

  As they got off the interstate and began negotiating the winding country roads, Sunny related the other story that Mrs. Martinson had passed along.

  “So you think this Dowdey woman might be holding Shadow against his will?” The skeptical, tough-cop tone crept into Will’s voice.

  “Shadow is a wanderer,” Sunny said. “That’s the first thing Ada Spruance told me about him. And I guess he proved it when he wandered off from my house. If someone is locking him up in the hopes of turning him into a house cat, I don’t think that’s going to turn out well.”

  Will sig
hed. “So what do you want to do?”

  “Tomorrow—or later this morning—”

  “Try ‘early this afternoon,’” Will suggested.

  “Whenever,” Sunny said impatiently. “I’ll print out some more posters. Then we’ll visit Mrs. Dowdey, pretending we’re going door to door.”

  “Try to shame her into giving up Shadow if she’s got him?” Will nodded. “Sounds like a workable plan.”

  “And if that doesn’t do it, we’ll try some old-fashioned snooping,” Sunny added. “I’ll mention this system for getting cats acclimated, and ask to see what sort of setup she uses.”

  “I’m glad you started using ‘I’ instead of ‘we,’” Will said.

  “Well, of course you’re coming along,” Sunny told him. “I’ll have a lot more clout if I come knocking at her door with a town constable at my side.”

  *

  The weather was chill and blustery that afternoon as they made their way up Carolyn Dowdey’s walk. But that wasn’t the reason that Will looked so very ill at ease. “After last night, I’m going to be on pretty thin ice with the sheriff,” he muttered. “This could be considered a misuse of authority.”

  “You’re helping to look for a lost kitty,” Sunny said. “What could be more innocent?”

  She gave the bell a healthy ring and held her lost cat posters up. After a moment, Mrs. Dowdey opened the door a crack, peering doubtfully out at them. “Can I help you?”

  “Oh, I hope so.” Sunny tried to put a little excess enthusiasm into her voice. “Have you seen this cat in the neighborhood?” She went to hand over a poster and then brightened. “Wait a minute, you’ve actually met Shadow. It’s Mrs. O’Dowd, right?”

  The woman stiffened at having her name mistaken for that of the town’s worst dive bar. “It’s Dowdey,” she corrected.

  “I’m so sorry.” Sunny went for her best contrite look. “It’s just that I’m nearly out of my mind with worry over this little guy. He went off wandering in this horrible weather.”

  Mrs. Dowdey nodded, an odd expression on her face. “Some cats do that, I’m told.”