A few people below started to clap and cheer, but I heard Mark silence them. I descended slowly, rung by rung, hoping my luck would hold out. Though very sleek and fit, Ayesha still must have weighed about fifteen pounds, enough to unbalance me if she made the wrong move.
Fortunately, she reverted now to her more civilized nature. She seemed to realize she needed my help and shouldn’t shake things up. She rode on my shoulder as easily as a trained monkey.
As we neared the ground, I could hear people snapping cell phone pictures.
Once on terra firma, I petted Ayesha, told her again what a good girl she was, and popped her into a carrier that Jay had waiting. Mark hugged me—not concerned about the onlookers—and whispered, “Great job.”
Hugs from Dawn and Sarah followed.
“You walked all the way up here on the crutch?” I asked my assistant.
“I know, right?” Jay grumbled. “I could have driven her, but by the time I turned around, she was behind me.”
“Couldn’t miss seeing the daring rescue,” his mother insisted. “Don’t worry, I locked up the shop.”
“What happened with Teri?” I asked her.
“Cops took her to the station. Her boyfriend got away, though.”
I thanked Mr. Reynolds of the hardware store for the loan of his ladder. A little woman with wiry gray hair and a sharp nose, who said she was from the Courier, tried to interview me about the cat rescue.
“She escaped from a handler who removed her from my shop without permission,” I said. “There may be more to the story, but right now that’s all I can tell you.”
At this point, I and my Chadwick Day display had begun to attract way too much attention—the street fair crowd suddenly had lots of questions to “Ask the Cat Lady.” Mark and Jay helped me fend them off. Since it was almost four thirty, we hastily packed up my stuff, took down the canopy, and carted everything back to my shop. I’d sold a few pieces of the cat furniture, so at least our load was a bit lighter for the return trip.
Jay brought up the rear to keep in step with his mother. I noticed then that Sarah wobbled a little, even with her crutch. Maybe the two-block trek uphill had been too much for her.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“Just a little groggy,” my assistant said.
“Thanks to Teri,” her son added with a scowl.
“Y’know those tarts she brought us?” Sarah went on. “There must’ve been something in them. I ate about half of one, but it didn’t taste right to me, so when she wasn’t looking, I threw it out. A few minutes later, I dozed off at the counter. Just for a second, but Teri must have thought I’d be out longer. That’s when she made her move.”
Mark stopped in his tracks to gape at this. “Unbelievable!”
“God, Sarah.” I hugged her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Good thing I’ve heard of kids pulling pranks like that on teachers over the years.” She sniffed. “Otherwise, she and her boyfriend might have gotten away with it, and Ayesha would be long gone. When I saw what she was up to, I guess I could’ve hit the alarm, but I was afraid she’d get away, so I just went after her as fast as I could. My adrenaline kicked in.”
“It sure did.” I laughed. “You clobbered her pretty good for someone who was still woozy.”
As we all resumed walking, Mark and I ahead, I remembered his own challenges of that afternoon. “Say, speaking of sneaky females, how did things go with Jennifer?”
His lips tightened before he answered. “She’s history.”
“No kidding? Because of the note?”
Mark shook his head sadly. “You were right about everything, Cassie. Not that she admitted it, but her excuses were ridiculous. I started with the note—she told me she thought Elena had already entered the information in the computer, so we didn’t need it anymore. I mean, come on! Then I asked her if she’d handled that dog last week, whose neck cone got loose. Jennifer said she didn’t even stay late that night, when I know she did. After a few more questions, she got flustered and said she couldn’t believe I was cross-examining her like this, when all she wanted to do was help. Didn’t I appreciate her loyalty?”
“Oh, man.” I could imagine how uncomfortable the scene must have been for Mark, who hated any kind of drama.
“At that point, she turned on the waterworks.” He mimed sniffing and dabbing at his eyes. “You’d have been proud—I just ignored the whole performance. I said I need a cooperative team, not one member sabotaging things and blaming the others. I told her she was out, effective immediately, and I’d put her last paycheck in the mail.”
I was truly impressed. “Bravo! I’m not happy to have been right, because I’m sure it was painful for you. But at least now you know the rest of your staff is still reliable.”
“I owe a few of them apologies, too. I can’t believe I let the girl play me like that!”
“Hey, she was pretty clever. Maybe this will teach her to use her powers for good instead of evil.”
The two of us stepped into the shop’s welcome air-conditioning and laid our burdens down. When Jay and his mother followed, they’d obviously been talking also, and wore grave faces.
Jay said, “Mom just told me something else, Cassie, that you should hear.”
I gave Sarah my full attention. “What’s that?”
My assistant sat on one of the counter stools and began slowly, choosing her words. “This whole thing today had to be planned for a while. I spent a fair amount of time with Teri this afternoon, and something about her made me uneasy, but I couldn’t pinpoint it. Not until I saw her walking off with the cat, in a hurry, across the parking lot. Cassie, I think she’s the person who bumped into me and knocked me down.”
Just one more rude shock in a day full of them. I sank onto the other stool, opposite her. “Really? But you kept saying ‘he’ . . .”
“I just assumed it was a small man or a teenaged boy with a slim build. But if Teri had on boyish, baggy clothes . . . and the hoodie pulled up in a peak, to make her look taller . . . I swear, I recognized that fast walk. Even the sound of it over the gravel was the same.”
I glanced toward the coffee stand, where two blueberry tarts still remained on a paper plate. Got up and crossed to the back for a better look at them. “Did Teri eat one of these?” I asked Sarah.
“She did. That’s one reason I never imagined anything was wrong with them.”
“They have two different kinds of leaves on top.” The difference was very slight, but I guessed one might be peppermint and the other something like spearmint.
Sarah huffed in annoyance. “Probably two of them were regular and two were doctored. Dumb of me not to notice that!”
“Unless you already had some reason to be suspicious, though, you wouldn’t.”
Not knowing which of the remaining tarts might be the bad one, I covered them both tightly in the plastic wrap again, as evidence.
At least Sarah seemed fine now, but it still horrified me to think that Teri had tried to drug her. Back in front, I slumped in my pink chair again, feeling suddenly exhausted.
“Boy, I made a great choice of somebody to watch the shop, eh?” With a bitter chuckle, I told Mark, “Guess I’ve got nothing on you when it comes to judging character.”
“Well, Teri offered, didn’t she?” Sarah reminded me. “Maybe she and Rick saw an opportunity and grabbed it. Very strange, though . . . I hope someday we find out the whole story.”
Jay, who leaned against the counter, silently clenched and unclenched a fist at his side. As if he wished he could belt the person who had so callously hurt his mother.
My phone rang, and I checked the ID. “Hmm. Wonder if this might bring some answers.”
Detective Bonelli’s richly sardonic tones filled my ear. “Cassie McGlone, did I ever tell you that I started out as a beat cop on the mean streets of Paterson? Just out of the police academy, I had to face down drug dealers, gangbangers, pimps, and all kinds of lowlifes. Not to mentio
n the hassling I got from some guys on the force. But I worked my way up, over many years, and took special training. When I made detective and got assigned to Chadwick, I thought I’d struck gold. Out here, my family and I could finally relax a little. Enjoy the beauties of nature, take things slower.”
I wondered where all this was leading, but she was on a roll, and I knew better than to interrupt her.
“Take today. I thought I could go to my son’s baseball game and actually get to stay for the whole thing. I mean, what could go wrong at a nice, nostalgic street fair, with everyone just out to have a good time? But no. A guy in the classic car parade turns out to be driving a vehicle that belonged to a missing person. And if that weren’t enough, a woman tries to make off with a valuable cat that also might be evidence in a murder. Seems like these two incidents have no connection, except for . . . you.”
Though I picked up on her teasing tone, I went on the defense. “As far as Todd’s car goes, you can’t blame me for anything except suggesting that you search for it. And in terms of the cat-napping, since my business was robbed, I was the victim. I even had to climb a tree to get Ayesha down after she escaped from Teri.”
“Yes, I heard about that. Guess I have to give you credit, at least, for not tying up the resources of the Chadwick Fire Department.”
“See? I’m sure the hardware store got great publicity out of it, too.”
“I suppose so.” She sounded disappointed that she couldn’t lay the blame for the day’s chaotic events on me. “And actually, having all these incidents happen at once, and all the people involved down at the station at the same time, turned out to be a stroke of luck for us.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, we had Danny Lorenzo and Bob Gillis both on the bench in the waiting area, since neither of them is under arrest as yet. Officer Waller sat in between, to keep Gillis from harassing the kid. Meanwhile, in walks Jacoby with this Teri Marshall in cuffs. When Lorenzo sees her, he yells to Gillis, ‘That’s her—the chick who sold me the Camaro!’”
“You’re kidding.” Connections started forming in my brain, swiftly but still just below the surface. “Did you get a chance to ask her about it yet?”
“I tried. She wants a lawyer. She was allowed one call and she made it, but whoever she tried to reach, I don’t think he picked up.”
I remembered how quickly the green truck had pulled away when it became clear we were going to catch up with Teri. That slime. “I can tell you who she was trying to reach. Her business partner, Rick Schaeffer. I can give you a lot of dope, so to speak, on those two.”
“Well, if you do have a free moment, Ms. McGlone, want to join us down here at the station?” Bonelli suggested. “The more, the merrier!”
Chapter 18
In Bonelli’s office, still wearing my cutesy cat earrings and socks, I told her that Teri might have been the one who’d knocked Sarah down in my parking lot, and that Schaeffer’s Organic Produce included more than just fruits and vegetables. I also handed over the tarts for testing, and relayed my assistant’s theory that Teri had attempted to drug her.
“Personally, I think Rick masterminded all this and Teri was just carrying out his orders,” I said. “I suspect that he knocks her around. She’s got a big bruise on her lower back and pressure marks from fingers on her arm.”
Angela met my eyes and then nodded slowly. She knew about my history with my ex-boyfriend. “So, you think she’s scared of him.”
“She might have good reason.” I remembered the photos of Pete Reardon’s battered face after he’d been run down on Morton Road. “Rick was the one who suggested that Teri help out today at my shop. It had to be a setup, so she’d get a chance to steal Ayesha.”
“For money? Is the cat valuable enough for them to go to so much trouble?”
“A few thousand, at least. But you’re right, I think there’s something more going on.”
Bonelli ran a hand through her blunt, dark bangs, the gray roots still needing a touch-up. “I’d love to grill this chick on the Todd Gillis disappearance, but I can’t do that if she lawyers up. Unless she and Schaeffer have deep pockets, all she’s going to get is a public defender, anyway. She’ll probably do better if she cuts a deal to give evidence against him.”
“Maybe I can talk to her?” I suggested.
“That’s what I was hoping. As far as you know, you hired her to watch the shop and something went wrong. Start with that, then gradually try to get her to open up about the rest.”
“Might work,” I agreed. “After all, Teri and I both love cats . . . and we have a couple of other things in common, too.”
* * *
A few minutes later, I was back in the all-white interrogation room, seated across the metal table from Teri Marshall. Bonelli could hear and see us through a two-way wall mirror, but Teri might not know that.
The young woman slouched in her chair, arms wrapped tightly around herself, as if the station’s very moderate air-conditioning felt arctic to her. Even her center-parted hair and her gauzy top seemed to have gone limp with defeat. She eyed me defensively and said, “What are you doing here? You’re not a cop.”
“I asked Detective Bonelli if I could talk to you first, as a friend, and find out what happened today.” When she said nothing, I began, “Sarah dozed off, and you decided to walk Ayesha in the parking lot. How come?”
“She was acting restless, and I was bored, too. Dawn told me she could be walked on a leash.” More likely, Pete Reardon had told them that, I thought. Teri added, “She wouldn’t have gotten away if Sarah hadn’t come after me and knocked me down.”
“She thought you were trying to steal the cat. And I saw Rick’s green truck pull up at the curb, like he was waiting for you. Was that the plan?”
Teri’s gaze slid sideways to avoid mine, and I figured this would be the hard part for her—betraying Rick.
“I think I know where you’re coming from,” I told her. “I had a boyfriend who hit and bullied me, too.” Her eyes came back, finally connecting with mine. “One of the reasons I moved to Chadwick was to get away from him. He stalked me for a while, but when I threatened to tell the cops, he finally backed off. Unfortunately, I think you’re in a worse situation, but this could be your way out.”
“No, you’re wrong,” she argued, but without conviction. “Rick just loses his temper sometimes, but he wouldn’t . . .”
“I think at heart you’re a good person, Teri. You help grow all that wonderful produce and you handle cats well, too. You’re good at nurturing things, and you shouldn’t let someone like Rick drag you down.”
Flatly, she demanded, “Am I under arrest?”
I dodged that question, because I knew Bonelli didn’t want Teri to clam up and demand a lawyer. “Right now you’re suspected of assault and attempted robbery. At least you didn’t use a weapon to attack Sarah. Although . . . did you put something in those blueberry tarts to make her fall asleep?”
She let a second pass before admitting, “Nothing terrible. Just some of that nighttime cold medicine. It’s fruit-flavored, so I figured she wouldn’t notice.”
“Unfortunately for you, she did,” I said. “So, you were going to give the cat to Rick, and then what? Tell us Ayesha just got loose and ran away?”
A sullen shrug. She was closing down again.
I pushed harder. “Like I said, Teri, so far you’re only in medium-sized trouble. But if Rick has committed worse crimes and you cover up for him, you’ll be charged as an accessory, which is much more serious.” Once again, I tried to get her to meet my eyes. “Rick doesn’t care about you. He ditched you pretty fast when you lost the cat, and now he’s not even taking your phone calls. You need to protect yourself. If you do, the cops can protect you from him. Don’t you see that?”
A tear rolled down her thin cheek, and I detected a trace of a nod.
I saw my chance to get some real information. “Okay, let’s talk about something else. What was the deal
with the Camaro? Danny Lorenzo said you sold him that car. Did it belong to Todd Gillis?”
“I really don’t know. Gillis answered one of our ads and came up to the farm. He was kind of a jerk from the start. We didn’t have exactly what he wanted, and he asked to see what else we had for sale. But Rick doesn’t let just anybody go prowling around.”
“I don’t imagine he does. You guys grow some marijuana with the vegetables, don’t you?” When Teri stared as if I must be psychic, I explained about the leaf I’d found among the tomatoes. “Is that what Rick didn’t want Todd to see?”
“Th-that’s part of it, anyway. Rick’s pretty paranoid, and he started thinking the guy might be a narc. On top of that, Gillis asks him if we’re married or just business partners. Like he’s trying to hit on me!”
“So what did Rick do?”
“I don’t know, honest. Rick wanted him off the property and offered to walk him back to his car. Like, to make sure he really left. Gillis said he parked a ways off down the road and walked up to our farm. They left together, and about ten minutes later, Rick came back alone. If they got in a fight or something in the meantime, he didn’t say anything to me about it.”
Not likely he would, if he’d done something to Todd. “And the Camaro?”
“If Gillis was driving it that day, I never saw it. I just know it showed up at our farm a couple of days later, when I came back from working in the garden. Rick said some guy had ditched it out on the highway, and we should take an ad to sell it. I did ask if it belonged to Gillis, but he said no and just got angry, so I let it drop. Anyway, that guy Lorenzo answered the ad, and we sold it to him.”
Something occurred to me. “Rick wasn’t worried that someone might recognize Todd’s car?”
Teri frowned. “Lorenzo lives a couple of towns away, so I guess Rick figured it was safe. Who the hell would expect the guy to show up in the Chadwick Day parade?”
Unlikely, yes, but the classic car parade had been open to the public. “So, that’s your side business? Is that what Todd wanted to buy from Rick, another car?”
The Bengal Identity Page 17