Pet in Peril

by Marie Celine

  Kitty told Fran not to be too hard on her producer. After all, he may not have saved her life but he and Roger had carried her up the mountain and then a good mile or so down the trail without complaint until the medics with the stretcher had shown up to take over.

  The two medics had lugged her the rest of the way down on the folding stretcher to the trail head where an ambulance had been waiting to meet them and lead them to civilization and the Little Switzerland Medical Center – a place Kitty was now getting very familiar with.

  Fran pulled back the curtain and headed down the hall. ‘Hey,’ said Kitty, ‘why don’t we go see how Eliza’s doing?’ If she was awake and alert, maybe Kitty could get some answers from her. About who might have wanted to poison her and why she lied about only arriving in town after her husband’s murder.

  As they swung around the corner, Kitty had a straight view into Eliza’s open door. ‘Stop,’ whispered Kitty. Eliza was sitting up in bed, the pink bed sheets cinched up around her waist. Her hair and makeup were immaculate and she looked absolutely gorgeous. A smoky-taupe silk pajama top with wide lapels clung to her skin, exposing a narrow but deep V of perfect skin. How did she manage to look so sexy lying in a hospital bed?

  The woman had been poisoned the day before and looked like she was ready for the red carpet. She either had good genes or a good witch doctor. Whichever it was, Kitty wanted it. A quick thought passed through Kitty’s mind. Could Eliza have been faking it? No, she’d been there. Eliza wasn’t that good an actress. Besides, no way she could have fooled the doctor and his medical staff.

  And why would she want to connive her way into the Little Switzerland Medical Center?

  John wore cuffed charcoal trousers with a silver gray turtleneck sweater. He was handing her a bouquet of flowers – yellow and red roses interlaced with delicate white baby’s breath, all wrapped in green tissue.

  Eliza took the flowers with both hands, smiled and placed them on the tray beside her. Kitty had read somewhere that in some cultures it was offensive to accept a gift with one hand; accepting with two hands showed that you appreciated the gift and respected the giver. Did Eliza know this?

  John leaned in and kissed his ex-wife on the lips.

  ‘The rat,’ muttered Fran.

  ‘Quick,’ whispered Kitty, her hands gripping the wheelchair’s armrests, ‘wheel us into that room across the hall.’

  Fran nodded and pushed Kitty across to the open door at a diagonal to Eliza’s. The rubber tires of the wheelchair rolled silently over the linoleum. There were two beds in the room, both empty.

  ‘Turn me around,’ Kitty insisted, twisting this way and that. ‘I can’t see anything.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Fran turned the wheelchair on a dime; she was like a pro with the thing. Kitty was going to have to ask her if she’d ever driven one before. But right now she had better things to do.

  They watched in silence as John and Eliza canoodled. Kitty patted Fran’s hand. Her friend had to be hurting. Not that she’d expected anything serious to come of Fran’s vacation romance with John Jameson, but it still had to hurt to see him in the arms of another woman, especially when that woman was his ex.

  What were they talking about in there?

  Had they plotted Victor’s death together? It was looking more and more like they might have. Were they a couple again? Did John want his ex-wife back? Maybe Eliza and John had been having an affair behind Victor’s back. Talk about irony.

  Jameson handed his wife a glass of water he’d poured from the plastic pitcher on the nightstand. As she drank, he glanced at his watch then gently ruffled Eliza’s hair.

  Uh-oh, it looked like he was getting ready to leave. Kitty motioned for Fran to shut the door. Fran peered out the door’s small rectangular glass window, careful to keep her face far enough away that John wouldn’t spot her. ‘I’d like to strangle that guy.’

  ‘Be careful what you say, Fran. That’s what got you into the trouble you’re in now.’

  Fran nodded. ‘Right.’ She turned to Kitty. ‘You can forget I said that.’

  ‘Forgotten. Keep your eye on those two,’ Kitty admonished. ‘I want to know what’s happening.’

  ‘Relax,’ Fran replied. ‘What’s happening is that John has gone.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Fran made a face. ‘Trust me – the scum has left the building.’

  Kitty chewed her bottom lip a moment. ‘Let’s give it a minute and then go pay the grieving widow a visit.’

  Fran smiled. ‘I like the way you think. I’d like to have a word with her myself.’

  After waiting a minute or two, Kitty had Fran wheel her across the hall. ‘Better let me do the talking,’ Kitty said under her breath as Fran pushed her through the open doorway. The last thing she needed was for Fran to get Eliza’s hackles up. If the ex-Mrs Jameson and widowed Mrs Cornwall became defensive, she’d zip her cosmetically enhanced lips and tell them nothing.

  They discovered Eliza sitting up in bed leafing through a copy of Glamour. ‘Kitty.’ Eliza lowered her magazine to her lap. ‘What happened to you?’

  Kitty almost forgot her own injuries and the fact that she was being tooled around in a wheelchair. A girl could get used to this limousine service. ‘Slight mishap on the trail.’

  Eliza frowned but quickly let it go. The woman no doubt had a primal fear of frown lines. ‘What room are you staying in?’

  Was Eliza afraid she might be gaining a roommate? That might not be a bad idea – infiltrate the enemy, get close to her. Learn who she saw and when. Would Dr Peter admit her? Not bloody likely. Unless she was willing to fake a worse injury than she’d sustained, and the likelihood of her pulling that off seemed infeasible. ‘I’m good to go,’ answered Kitty. ‘The doctor’s given me a clean bill of health. A few cuts and bruises. Nothing to keep me.’

  Eliza pouted. ‘I wish I could say the same. The doctor tells me I have to stay another night in this awful place.’

  Kitty looked around the private room with its high thread-count sheets and elegant mauve draperies, private bath, the flat-screen TV mounted in the corner. The around-the-clock service. Yeah, awful, wasn’t it?

  ‘Was that Mr Jameson I saw leaving?’ Did Kitty detect a slight flush wash over Eliza’s face?

  ‘Oh.’ Eliza pushed two fingers through her hair. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘I thought I noticed him down the hall.’

  Eliza nodded toward the flowers. ‘He brought me flowers. He’s such a dear.’

  Was he now?

  ‘So what’s the deal with you two? John’s your ex, right? Are the two of you getting back together again?’

  ‘Excuse me?’ If Eliza had been covered in feathers rather than unblemished skin, every feather would have been ruffled about now.

  ‘Fran,’ Kitty said through gritted teeth. Leave it to Fran to rattle the suspect. Here Kitty was trying to butter the woman up and Fran had to go and rile her. If Fran wanted honey she’d probably go beat it out of the hive rather than try to coax it out of the bees.

  ‘Who is this woman?’

  ‘This is Fran Earhart. She works with me.’ Kitty shot Fran a look that might have knocked a lesser woman to her knees and wheeled closer to the bedside. Time to change the subject. ‘So, flowers, huh?’ She sniffed the bouquet. ‘Very nice.’

  Eliza plucked at the flowers. ‘Yellow and red roses. John knows my weaknesses.’

  I’ll bet he does, thought Kitty. ‘Does that mean your ex-husband might stand a chance with you?’ Kitty held her breath, expecting an angry explosion.

  Instead, Eliza bent her head back and laughed. ‘Don’t be silly. John’s a sweetheart but I was married to him once.’ She folded her arms. ‘And once was enough.’

  ‘So you aren’t having an affair with him?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Eliza pushed the buzzer beside her bed. ‘I think the two of you should leave.’

  Uh-oh. ‘What about the speeding ticket?’ Kitty said quickly.

&n
bsp; ‘What are you talking about?’ Eliza huffed.

  ‘The speeding ticket you got only a few days ago in Santa Barbara.’

  A stout no-nonsense-looking nurse with a pageboy haircut blocked the doorway. ‘Everything OK in here, Mrs Cornwall?’

  ‘No, I would like to get some rest.’ She glared at Fran and Kitty. ‘But it’s quite impossible under the circumstances.’

  The nurse cleared her throat and stepped to the side. ‘I’m afraid you two ladies will have to leave now.’

  Fran turned Kitty’s wheelchair around and lunged for the door. ‘I know you were just an hour or two away from here in Santa Barbara when you got that ticket,’ Kitty hollered, twisting back to face Eliza. ‘You could easily have driven to Little Switzerland and murdered your husband.’ The nurse slammed the hospital room door behind them and stayed with them the rest of the way. Kitty fumed. That hadn’t gone as well as she would have liked. She never did get any answers from Eliza.

  Now she had more questions than ever. She toyed with the idea of going back and confronting Eliza once more, but the nurse looked like she could have played left tackle in high-school football and didn’t seem the type to tolerate any nonsense.

  With the nurse keeping an eye on them, Kitty signed out at the desk then Fran wheeled her out under the portico and told her to sit tight. ‘I’ll pull the car around.’ Fran explained how the manager had loaned her one of the resort’s courtesy vans.

  When Fran arrived with the van, the left-tackle nurse made sure she got in.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Fran pulled up to the curb outside the Little Switzerland Market and Pharmacy.

  ‘Ouch!’ Kitty groaned and rubbed her shoulder. Did she say ‘pulled up’? She meant bounced up. Kitty’s shoulder did some bouncing of its own, off the van door. If she let Fran drive her around much longer she was going to need that pain medication.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Fran. ‘I’m not used to driving something so big. Sure is nice though.’ She ran a hand along the dash. ‘You ought to think about trading in that old Volvo of yours. A vehicle like this would be great for you.’ She pushed a recessed button on the key to lock up. ‘It even comes with an MP3 connection.’

  ‘Does it come with its own ATM?’ Jack had recently had to replace his Jeep and the last thing Kitty wanted was for them to have another car payment. Fran told her she worried too much. That was OK, because the way Kitty figured it, Fran worried too little. Between the two of them, hopefully they got it just about right.

  With a tiled roof as red as the Swiss flag, the market was sandwiched between the Yodel Inn on one side and the Alpine Mountain Cheese Shoppe on the other. The Alpine 4U Card and Gift Shoppe sat directly across the street. Kitty had noted the name of the store on the gift tag that had come attached with Eliza Cornwall’s flowers.

  Inside the market, they discovered a small but well-stocked grocery with two checkout lanes located near the automatic entrance.

  ‘Hey, there’s Bobby Bridges and Traci Nelson.’ Fran pointed to a weekly gossip rag on the rack by the cash register. ‘Did you know they’re staying at the resort?’

  ‘Doctor Newhart told me.’ The photographer had caught a shot of Bobby and Traci holding hands at the beach. ‘Wow, what big news. Couple holds hands at beach. Stop the presses.’

  ‘I haven’t caught a glimpse of them yet,’ she said, pulling on her lower lip and ignoring Kitty’s baiting sarcasm. ‘I’d love to see them. Maybe get Bobby’s autograph.’ She dropped a hand on Kitty’s shoulder. ‘I heard that Bobby took a swing at Vic a few days ago.’

  Kitty was about to tell Fran to get back on point, but this got her attention. ‘He what?’

  ‘Took a poke at Vic.’ She faked a punch. ‘Got him pretty good too.’

  Kitty gave this some thought. ‘That might explain that light bruising under his eye.’

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it could.’

  Kitty lowered her voice. ‘Don’t you see? Bobby could be the killer.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Fran replied with a quick shake of her head. ‘Look at those dreamy eyes. Bobby would never harm anyone. I mean, in the movies, yeah, maybe.’ She folded her arms across her chest. ‘But not in real life.’

  ‘I’m still putting him on the list.’

  ‘What list?’

  ‘The suspect list.’ The list Ted had stolen from her. ‘Now let’s move on.’ Kitty swatted Fran’s hand as she reached for the magazine and urged her forward.

  Two cheaply framed photos adhered to the wall below a stack of small green shopping baskets. The first was a shot of the store manager; the second was an equally amateurish-looking shot of Deputy Jerry Lee Nickels. It identified Nickels as the store’s pharmacist. Well, well, well, thought Kitty. ‘I wonder—’

  ‘Wonder what?’ Fran said.

  ‘Follow me.’ Kitty strode carefully up and down each aisle. As she wandered up the baking aisle, she slowed. ‘Bingo,’ she said pointing toward a low shelf.

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘Peanut oil,’ Kitty said, picking up a plastic bottle and turning it around in her hand. She placed it back on the shelf. The pharmacy counter was located in the back of the store. Nickels was there at the register speaking to a man who had his back turned to them. He looked familiar, though.

  The man turned his face to the right. Kitty recognized that profile.

  ‘Isn’t that—’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kitty. She lowered her voice and beckoned for Fran to follow. She wanted a vantage point from which they could see but not be seen.

  ‘Ted Atchison. What’s he doing here?’ He was dressed as he’d been that morning, in baggy cargo pants and a blue chambray shirt. His hiking boots were dusty. Had he been responsible for her tumble? Ted had been the one to tell her about the trails. Had he been planting the seed? Luring her out to the mountains where he could kill her?

  Seeing him again, he did look rather devious. Those twitching eyes, that sharp nose. Maybe Fran’s sense about him had been right all along. Ted Atchison was clutching a small white bag, the kind that pharmacists stapled drugs in – or payoff money.

  ‘What do you suppose the two of them are talking about?’ Fran whispered.

  Kitty shook her head side to side. ‘They do seem to be talking a long time. I wonder if they know each other.’

  ‘How could that be?’ Fran asked. ‘Nickels is local. Ted said he was from San Juan Capistrano.’

  ‘Yeah, but remember,’ said Kitty, ‘his dog, Chloe, came from the local animal shelter. Maybe Ted’s local, too.’

  Fran scrunched up her face. ‘Why would he lie about a thing like that?’

  ‘Let’s ask him.’ She was also going to ask him why he’d stolen the list of suspects she’d written up.

  ‘Look out!’ Fran said.

  Kitty turned in time to see a blowzy elderly man with thick-rimmed glasses turn the corner of the aisle a little too quickly. His cart went up on two side wheels then slammed into her hip. Kitty went down and the cart fell across her legs. Fortunately, the guy hadn’t done much shopping yet – some toilet paper and a bottle of gin. She pushed down her skirt.

  The old man scooped up the gin in both hands while Kitty massaged her thigh. ‘You OK?’ He squinted at her, his bug-eyed milky cataract brown eyes blinking.

  ‘Yes,’ Kitty managed to say. Fran lifted the cart up on its wheels and tossed the toilet paper inside. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’ What was one more bruise when she already had a couple dozen?

  ‘OK,’ he said quickly. He set the liquor in the baby seat, grabbed the handle of the cart with both hands and sped off around the next corner.

  ‘That guy could do some real damage,’ quipped Fran.

  Kitty was still rubbing her hip. ‘I think he just did.’

  Fran’s look of bemusement turned to one of concern. ‘You sure you’re OK?’

  Kitty said she was sure. ‘Let’s go tackle Ted.’ She headed toward the back of the market. ‘When we’re through with him, we�
�ll tackle Deputy Nickels. He lost a bundle to Victor Cornwall, too. He and his wife lost their condo.’

  ‘That would put a murderous thought in a person’s head.’

  Kitty concurred. But when they got to the back of the store, Atchison was gone.

  A young woman with fluffy blonde hair stood at the pharmacy register now. Nickels was dispensing pills into a small plastic vile behind her but stepped forward as he watched Kitty and Fran approach. ‘I’ll take this, Sally.’

  The young woman moved away. ‘What are you doing here?’ Nickels asked. He was in pharmacist rather than deputy mode today, dressed in charcoal slacks and a navy-blue lab coat.

  ‘I came to fill a prescription.’

  ‘I see you brought suspect numero uno with you.’

  Fran opened her mouth but a look from Kitty shut it again. Kitty didn’t need Fran stirring up any more trouble, especially with the police. Fran was in enough of a jam as things stood. Particularly since she was the last one to have seen Victor alive – excluding the real killer, of course.

  Nickels looked rather dubious but held out his hand. Kitty reached into her purse and drew out the prescription that Dr Peter had given her.

  He looked it over. ‘You’ll have to give me a few minutes.’

  ‘Was that Ted Atchison I saw leaving a minute ago?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘Could’ve been. Why?’ He leaned over the counter, towering over Kitty like an impending storm cloud. ‘You’re not nosing around in Victor Cornwall’s murder investigation, are you?’ He glared across the counter at her. ‘The chief told you to stay out of this, Ms Karlyle.’

  ‘Why?’ demanded Kitty. ‘What are you afraid of? Afraid I might find something the police missed? Or,’ she said, fueling his fire, ‘are you afraid I might find something you’d rather I didn’t?’

  His eyes turned to steel. ‘What are you trying to say?’

  ‘I’m wondering what it is that you and Ted Atchison might have to hide.’

  Nickels cursed. His young assistant glanced at him then turned away when she caught the look he gave her. Kitty flushed.

  ‘Me and Atchison hiding something?’ He forced a laugh. ‘That’s rich.’ He was practically gloating. ‘I don’t even know the man.’