Catch as Cat Can

by Claire Donally

  Neil scowled, staring sightlessly down at the few fish displayed in his large, no doubt expensive case.

  “Suppose I wasn’t in town that night,” he finally said.

  Bingo! Sunny silently cheered, but she kept all trace of celebration out of her voice. “And whatever you were doing out of town was worse than being accused of murder?”

  “If Val heard about it, I might get yanked—or maybe dumped out of the program,” Neil confessed. “You can’t tell her.”

  “How do I know until you tell me?” Sunny said.

  “Technically, I’m still on parole,” Neil said. “Which means I can’t hang around with criminal types. But I had to.”

  “Had to?” Sunny repeated.

  “If you can’t get money from banks, and nobody in the area knows you, the only place you can get money is from criminal types,” Neil explained. “Also known as loan sharks.”

  “I know a little bit about them. Not from personal experience,” she hastily added. “But from working with Will.”

  “I had to go across the river into Portsmouth to find somebody who could handle the amount I needed.” Neil shook his head. “I spun my case as best I could, but in the end they turned me down. Between the talking and the traveling, I was there a good part of the evening—the evening that Phil Treibholz was murdered.”

  “So you do have an alibi, but the alibi will get you in trouble with the marshals and WitSec.” Sunny shrugged. “Will is looking at a murder, and he wants to eliminate you as a suspect. Maybe we can have a private chat with these loan sharks.”

  Neil looked a little nervous. “I don’t think they’d like having any police looking into their business. And I don’t want this to blow back on me. One of them was as big as a house. The strong, silent type who could twist me into a pretzel.”

  That sparked a memory for Sunny. “A foreign gentleman?” she asked.

  “Ukrainian,” Neil said. “They have a reputation for playing rough. But the one who did the talking was fairly decent with me.”

  “Dani.” It was a good year ago now, but it was hard to forget the Ukrainian loan sharks she’d met while trying to save a friend from getting arrested for murdering her former husband. “And Olek. Danilo Shostak and Olek Lipko.”

  Neil stared at her with new respect. “I heard that you helped Will Price investigating crimes, and wrote about them for the paper. But you know these guys?”

  Sunny shrugged. “You do that kind of stuff, you get around. Where did you meet them?” The last time she’d seen Dani and Olek, they were getting out of town because things had gotten a little too warm for them. Supposedly, they’d gone back to Montreal. Now it looked as though they’d returned to reestablish themselves in this territory.

  “Shostak had me meet him in a little hole in the wall down in the artsy-fartsy part of town,” Neil said. “A place called the Cafe Ekaterina.”

  Then that’s where I’ve got to go, Sunny thought. And the sooner the better. Problem is, how do I get out of here gracefully?

  Neil must have seen the change in her expression, because he asked, “Now that you’ve wrung everything you can out of me, can I interest you in some skate wings?”

  “Only if they’ll keep till tomorrow,” Sunny told him. “I’ll be in to get them then. This evening—well, I’ll be busy.”

  She escaped from the fish store, got back to her office, and dealt with a few small-scale emergencies while also getting the address for the Cafe Ekaterina. Sunny closed down the office as early as possible, got aboard her Wrangler, and joined the slow stream of traffic to one of the bridges over the Piscataqua River. She crawled along through greater downtown Portsmouth to an area of old factories repurposed as artists’ studios.

  Driving around through the neighborhood, she finally found the Cafe Ekaterina. It was in a dingy-looking brick building that had probably gone up in seventeen-something, with dim lighting that made it difficult to see through newer but still pretty old plate glass windows. Sunny pulled up by a fire hydrant across the street to check the place out. Obviously, the landlord hadn’t done much to maintain the place, saving his money for when the rush of gentrification drove the artists out and put tenants willing to pay big rents into the property. By then the Cafe Ekaterina would probably be pushed out by a Starbucks or some similar chain operation. For the present, it offered a whimsical sign with its name in mismatched letters.

  Like a ransom demand. Sunny pushed that thought out of her head. She was spending way too much time with Will and his investigations.

  The door to the cafe opened, and a figure stood silhouetted, blocking most of the doorway. Olek, the muscle end of the loan-sharking operation, had apparently shrunk in Sunny’s memory. Looking at him now, the big man seemed even more enormous. He stepped to the side, reaching into the pocket of a coat that looked like a tweed circus tent, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The brief burst of flame illuminated a face like a kid’s drawing, all squares and angles.

  So, Olek keeps up his bad habits, Sunny thought. She’d originally managed to track down the Ukrainians because Olek smoked a brand of cigarettes from the old homeland, available only in one store in the area.

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette, blew out a cloud of smoke, then abruptly dropped the butt, stubbing it out with his toe. Olek returned inside the cafe. A moment later, a smaller, slimmer figure appeared in the doorway, making a beckoning gesture. Dani. And from the way he was looking at her car, he knew she was there.

  Looks as though I have to brush up on my surveillance techniques. Sunny lowered the passenger side window and waved an acknowledgment. Then she pulled out to find a legal parking spot.

  Arriving shortly afterward in the cafe, she scanned a sparse crowd and spotted the Ukrainians sitting at a corner table where Olek had a clear view both of the front door and the entrance from the kitchen. Dani Shostak politely gestured toward a seat. Polite, but judging from the look on his face in the dim lighting, not delighted to see her.

  Sunny sat. Like the letters on the sign outside, none of the chairs in the cafe matched one another, and this one wobbled alarmingly when she rested on it. The walls were exposed brick, and a designer might call the tables “distressed.” To Sunny’s eyes, they looked just plain worn.

  “Miss Sunny Coolidge,” Dani said when she was seated. “Why you come to visit us? I don’t think it’s because you need money. I think it’s because you give something to Olek and me.” His face got cold. “Trouble.”

  Sunny shook her head. “Actually, I’m trying to keep trouble away. Unless you want police coming around to ask you questions.”

  Dani sat for a second, then said, “Then you are less trouble, Miss Sunny. What questions do you want to ask?”

  “I want to ask about a customer.” She raised a hand as Dani began to shake his head. “A person you turned down.”

  “The fish man,” Dani said. “I read about the body in his shop the day after he comes here. ‘Oho,’ I think, ‘he finds another way out of his trouble—by making worse for himself.’”

  Sunny nodded. “The thing is, we do have a time of death. And Neil Garret told me he was here with you when the murder happened.”

  Dani scowled down at his cup of cappuccino. “You get people to tell you the craziest things.”

  “Believe me, he didn’t want to talk about it,” Sunny said. “But being charged with murder was worse trouble.”

  Dani exhaled heavily. “All right, then. He comes to me Wednesday evening. Not last night, but a week ago. He asks for twenty thousand. I say no. He says how about ten. Again, I say no.”

  “I thought you were in the business of lending money,” Sunny said.

  “Lending, not losing,” Dani corrected. “If I lend money, I got to get it back—with interest. This fish man, he tells me he needs a bridge loan. He can pay me back when Lent comes. Business wil
l pick up.”

  He took a sip of coffee and made a face. “Do I look like idiot? How he is supposed to make back twenty or even ten in six, seven weeks? He goes out of business and leaves me holding the sack.”

  “You could have taken over the business,” Sunny suggested. “I’ve seen you do that.”

  Dani shook his head. “Best business to take over, dentist who makes too many bad sports bets. Lots of customers, lots of them pay cash. Lets us move other money through to clean it. But what do I know about fish?”

  Olek rumbled something, and Dani shot him a look. “Yes, smoked fish is nice. Everything with you is smoke, smoke, smoke. I’m talking about store not even open for a year. If all of a sudden it makes a lot of money, people might notice. Then, trouble. Trouble I don’t need. I tell Mr. Fish Man just let his store close. ‘Cause if someone like Olek come and he got no money to pay, big, big trouble.”

  “So when did Neil come?” Sunny asked.

  Dani frowned. “Eight o’clock, maybe a little later. He spent a lot of time trying to convince me he was good businessman, just having bad luck. Me, I have nothing important to do that night, so I let him talk. He try very hard, tells me he needs some cash in his hand, but I say no. It was dinner time, so we eat. Food is pretty good here, coffee, not so much. He finish, I guess nine thirty, some later, and goes home.”

  With the traffic, less than half an hour to get back to Kittery Harbor, Sunny thought. But that still covers the window for the time of death the medical examiner estimated.

  “Okay,” she said. “Thanks, Dani.”

  Dani leaned across the little table. “I tell you this because I trust you. Don’t expect I go tell this in court.” He shook his head. “They might ask other questions I don’t want to answer.”

  “I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Sunny said, silently adding, I’m the one who’ll have to answer unpleasant questions when Will finds out what I’ve been doing.

  Dani must have been thinking the same thing, too, because when Sunny got up to leave, he sent Olek to accompany her to her car. “This is nice enough neighborhood,” he said, “but sometimes things happen. I don’t want your cop friend blaming me.”

  Sunny nodded. “I know. No trouble.”

  They walked the block to where Sunny had left her Wrangler. She thanked Olek, and the big man rumbled something in reply. Sunny noticed he stood there until she had the engine started and actually pulled into the street. Then he turned around, that enormous coat of his flapping in the breeze, and headed for the cafe.

  Sunny’s cell phone rang, and she pulled over to answer. It was Mike.

  “I tried the office and got the voice mail,” he said. “Wanted to catch you before you set off on a big shopping expedition. Helena just invited us to dinner—you, me, and Will, if he can make it. All she asks is that we don’t read the latest issue of the Courier before we come.” He paused for a second, trying to keep the curiosity out of his voice. “Did you?”

  The delivery of the local weekly had been a bit late today, probably thanks to the ice storm, and Sunny had been too busy with other stuff to sit back and read it. “Nope, I missed it today,” she said. “I guess there must be something in there Mrs. M. wants to celebrate.”

  Either that, or she wants to use up all the supplies she accumulated for the ice storm, that irrepressible voice in the back of Sunny’s head suggested.

  Out loud, she asked, “Is there a time set for this dinner? I had an errand to run in Portsmouth.”

  “I think you can make it all right,” Mike said. “You’ve got about an hour.”

  Traffic was light enough that Sunny was able to get back, wash up, and put on some nicer clothes than her usual office wear. As she was putting on a little face paint, she heard the doorbell below.

  That must be Will, she thought. She’d already decided not to discuss her conversation with Neil or her excursion to Portsmouth until after their visit with the Martinsons. If he decides to blow his top over Dani and Olek, at least the condemned will enjoy a hearty meal, Sunny thought.

  She came downstairs to find Will hanging up his coat, chatting with Mike. Will turned to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You look nice. I came from work, so what you saw this morning is what you get.”

  Sunny nodded. “You’re wearing the same tie you had on the last time we saw the Martinsons,” she said. “They’re going to think it’s the only one you own.”

  He fingered the embroidered silk. “It’s the only one I like.”

  Shadow made the usual wary approach he reserved for times when his humans departed from their normal schedule. Still, he came over to give Will’s ankles a good sniff.

  Laughing, Will bent down, let Shadow sniff his hand, and then gently ran fingers through the fur on top of the cat’s head. “Don’t worry, little guy. We’ll be back soon.”

  “Speaking of soon, I suppose we should get a move on,” Mike said. “What’s the condition of the sidewalks?”

  “Looks to me like most people put some kind of ice melt down,” Will reported. “Worse comes to worst, we can detour into the street.”

  They strolled the couple of blocks to the Martinson house without any slippery incidents, and Mike rang the doorbell. Mrs. M. must have been watching for them, because she opened the door almost immediately. Excited woofing rose in volume as Toby came nearer. Then they heard Abby say firmly, “Toby! Heel!”

  Even the barking diminished as Helena Martinson led them inside. Toby stood beside Abby, looking up at her and wagging his tail, obviously eager to rush over and play with the newcomers. Abby reached down to take hold of the dog’s collar. “Toby, come.” She led the overgrown pup over to Mike, Sunny, and Will. Sunny could see Toby’s muscles bunching for a jump up to her waist, but Abby saw that, too. “Down, Toby.”

  Astonishingly, Toby relaxed, just coming forward for a greeting sniff.

  “Wow,” Sunny said. “You really are a dog whisperer.”

  “I’m not.” Abby shook her head, but she was grinning at her success. “This is what I learned from being a dog walker when I first got out to the coast. It’s not something you put on your resume, but it left me with some useful skills. Then again, maybe I should have put it on my resume and tried for directing jobs. If I could get animals to behave, maybe I could do the same with actors.” She bent down to Toby. “What do you think, pooch? Aren’t you a happier dog now that you have some rules to live with?”

  Mike took off his coat. “So, what’s in the new newspaper that we weren’t allowed to see?”

  Abby turned to Helena, looking for a moment like a mortified teenager. “Mom, you didn’t invite them over for that?”

  “I most certainly did.” Mrs. M.’s voice was full of pride as she held up a copy of the Harbor Courier and opened it up. There on the third page was a big photo of Abby with the headline,

  FROM HOLLYWOOD BACK TO THE HARBOR.

  15

  Helena Martinson stood beaming, while Abby looked embarrassed. “Mr. Howell was kind of a fan, back when I was doing shows all around the area,” she said. “He even reviewed a couple of them and said I could go places. So when I bumped into him on the street the other day, he asked a lot of questions.”

  “He must have been disappointed to hear that you’d kind of given up on the acting,” Mike said.

  Abby laughed. “He said Hollywood’s loss was the legal profession’s gain—even put it in the story. Then he brought me around to his office and shot some pictures.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t go for a glamour shot and have you perched on a trunk, showing a little leg,” Sunny teased.

  “If he had the trunk, I wouldn’t be surprised.” Abby grinned at Helena. “To tell the truth, I think Mom’s more excited about it than I am.”

  “It’s a nice picture,” Mrs. M. defended herself. “A nice, big picture.”

&n
bsp; Will took a long look and shook his head. “I guess it makes a change from the number of people hurt in the storm and the Vane murder.”

  Sunny gave him a worried look. Was he going to bring up the investigation over dinner?

  Mike was still looking at the photo. “You know, Sunny’s gotten her picture in the paper a few times.” He wasn’t about to be one-upped in the family pride stakes.

  Now Sunny had to laugh. “Dad, when I turn up in the papers, I’ve usually been conked on the head or just escaped some ridiculous situation by the skin of my teeth. It’s not quite the same as this.” She looked at Abby’s photo. “I just wish I had a chance to look nice in one of those shots. Hey, I’d even pose on top of a trunk if that was the only way.”

  That got a laugh out of everybody. A moment later, the oven timer pinged and Helena and Abby headed back to the kitchen and started preparing to serve.

  It was a nice, stick-to-the-ribs sort of meal: roast beef and gravy, potatoes, and peas and carrots. Abby asked Mike if he wanted to carve. “Mom bought this big hunk of cow when she heard about the storm on the way, figuring we could cook it and live for a week on the leftovers.” She looked around the table. “I think it’s nicer to use it up this way.”

  “Better eating than I expected this evening,” Will had to admit. “I just hope a satisfied stomach won’t put me to sleep.”

  “You’re going back to work after this?” Sunny asked.

  Will nodded. “Got a couple of things to look into.” He hummed in appreciation as he took another mouthful.