Murder of a Cranky Catnapper

by Denise Swanson

  After availing herself to the facilities, Skye found Wally waiting for her at the restaurant’s entrance. He escorted her to the cruiser, opened her door, and helped her inside. They were both silent, lost in their own thoughts, as he drove her to the school to pick up her car.

  It was only after he kissed her good-bye and she headed the Bel Air toward home that she realized that they hadn’t discussed the ketamine. If Palmer was indeed the catnapper, what was his interest in the drug?

  Skye was still contemplating why a man like Lynch would want to secure a large amount of ketamine, when she turned into her driveway and swore. A large white car was parked in front of the sidewalk leading up to her porch. The only one in town who drove an Oldsmobile Eighty-Eight was Skye’s mother. What was May doing there?

  Instead of following her first impulse, which was to throw the Bel Air into reverse, Skye blew out a breath and pulled into the garage. Gathering up her belongings, Skye trudged toward the house. She slowly climbed the stairs and tried the knob, not surprised that it turned without having to use her key. May wasn’t a fan of locked doors.

  As she stepped inside, Skye’s nose twitched at the distinctive odor wafting down the hallway. Her mother loved to clean so much that Skye and her brother joked that if May had Windex in her hand, it was best to keep a safe distance or you might find yourself covered in the blue liquid.

  Dropping her purse and tote on the hall bench, Skye followed the smell into the sunroom. May was concentrating so hard on the window she was polishing, she didn’t see Skye at first, but when she did, she put down the bottle and rags and hurried toward her.

  “Are you okay? Is my grandchild okay? Where have you been?” May demanded, grabbing her daughter’s arms and gently shaking her. “Roy said that you drove Mrs. Lynch home a couple of hours ago.”

  “I’m fine. The baby’s fine. We’re all fine.” Skye was getting tired of reassuring everyone about her and Juniorette’s well-being. She eased out of her mother’s grasp. “When Wally picked me up, he suggested we go to the new restaurant in Clay Center.”

  “You went to lunch during a murder investigation?” May’s tone was doubtful.

  “Yes.” Skye shrugged. “I hadn’t had anything since breakfast and I needed to eat.”

  “What’s wrong with the Feed Bag here in town? Or McDonald’s?”

  Suspicion glimmered in May’s emerald green eyes. She patted her short salt-and-pepper hair and tilted her head, examining Skye.

  “I’m trying to cut back on fast food and we’ve been to the Feed Bag so many times I have the menu memorized.” Skye shrugged. “Wally just wanted to treat me to a nice meal after I spent my morning with a dead body.”

  “Wally doesn’t generally go off to have a leisurely lunch a few hours after a murder has been committed.” May fingered the crease in her perfectly ironed tan capris. “Did you two have a fight?”

  “No! Why the heck would you assume that?” Skye was tired, and between the day’s events and May’s hovering, her temper flared. “I’m married to a wonderful guy that I love more than life itself. I’m pregnant with our first child. We both are gainfully employed with little or no debt. What do I need to do to prove to you that I’m a successful adult? What more do you want from me, Mom?”

  “How can you talk to me like that?” May sniffed, then clutched her chest. “It just seemed odd that you two would leave town.”

  “We wanted a few minutes of peace.” Skye ignored her mother’s nonverbal threat of a heart attack. During Skye’s teenage years, May had often claimed she couldn’t breathe and was having a coronary whenever Skye or her brother did something that displeased her. “Is that too much to ask?”

  Skye patted her baby bump and pasted a sad look on her face. Now that she was carrying May’s grandchild, two could play the guilt game.

  “No. Of course not.” May nudged her daughter toward the sofa. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll go get you a glass of water.”

  “Milk would be better.” Skye hid her smile at May’s about-face.

  “I brought some of the lemon bars that I baked yesterday.” May hurried away. “I know they’re your favorite. I’ll put a couple of those on a plate for you, too.”

  “No, thank you. I already had dessert,” Skye called after her mother.

  But either May didn’t hear her or chose to ignore Skye’s words because, a few minutes later, May returned with Skye’s snack. She placed it on the coffee table and took a seat next to her daughter.

  “When I got off of work, I went to see Dorothy.” May reached for a cookie. “She told me all about finding Palmer Lynch dead.”

  “What did she say?” Skye asked carefully, unsure of how much Dorothy had revealed and not wanting to add to what May already knew.

  “That she arrived early so that she’d have time to clean for you.” May shot Skye an accusing glance and muttered, “I don’t know why you don’t just let me do your house instead of hiring someone.”

  “What else did Dorothy tell you?” Skye ignored her mother, who had been repeating that same sentiment since Wally announced that he was bringing his cleaning lady with him into the marriage.

  “The back door was open, and when she went to get the sheets to wash, she found Palmer in bed dead so she called you,” May reported.

  “Is that all?” Skye crossed her fingers that Dorothy had kept to herself the fact that Palmer was nude and tied up.

  “That’s all Dorothy said.” May’s eyes narrowed. “What else is there?”

  “Uh.” Skye thought fast. “We found Dr. Quillen’s cat in Palmer’s garage.”

  “What was Palmer doing with that animal?” May asked, a look of distaste on her face. She was not fond of indoor pets. “Had it run away?”

  “No.” Skye took a sip of milk, but resisted the lemon bars. “Belle was Dr. Quillen’s therapy cat. She was stolen from the veterinary clinic sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning.”

  She opened her mouth to mention the ransom call, but stopped herself. That might be something Wally wanted kept quiet.

  “How odd. A stolen animal, a break-in at the American Legion, and a murder all within the same twenty-four to forty-eight hours.” May scrunched up her face. “What’s going on around here?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Skye agreed. “I can sort of see how the cat and the murder might end up being related, but not the break-in.”

  “Why would the animal have anything to do with Palmer’s death?”

  “I don’t know.” Skye shrugged, then gave in to temptation and picked up a cookie. “But at least they are geographically connected.”

  “Yeah.” May ate the last bite of her lemon square and dusted the powdered sugar from her fingers. “The Legion is all the way across town.”

  “Why would anyone decide to burglarize the American Legion Hall?” Skye allowed the buttery cookie to melt in her mouth, then asked, “How much could they possibly hope to get?”

  “Well.” May stood, retrieved her cleaning supplies, and went back to washing the sunroom’s windows. “The King of Diamonds raffle currently has a prize worth thirty-two thousand dollars.” May scrubbed at a stubborn streak. “That would certainly be enough for folks to consider stealing.”

  Skye inhaled sharply. “That’s for sure. A lot of people have killed for less.”

  CHAPTER 11

  In a cat’s eye, all things belong to cats.

  —ENGLISH PROVERB

  Relieved that her mother’s attention had been diverted from the murder, Skye said, “Tell me about this King of Diamonds raffle.”

  “It started as a little fund-raiser for the Legion, but it just got bigger and bigger,” May said while continuing her pursuit of sparkling windows. “They have it every Sunday night at seven o’clock.”

  “What exactly is it?” Skye mumbled around the second lemon bar she’d
shoved into her mouth.

  She really had to stop eating like this. Either that or quit worrying about it. She so didn’t want to regress to that person she’d been in high school. The one who obsessed about calories and her dress size.

  “The object of the game is to find the king of diamonds,” May explained, moving on to the next window. “They take a deck of cards, including the two jokers, and number them from one to fifty-four on the back. Then the cards are taped facedown on a huge whiteboard.”

  “Uh-huh.” Skye nodded her understanding, gesturing for May to continue. “Do the people playing buy a certain number?”

  “Not exactly.” May closed her eyes, clearly trying to visualize the process. “For five bucks they get a raffle ticket and write their choice of number on it. At seven o’clock a name is pulled from the entries, and if that person has picked the right card, they win.”

  “And if they don’t, the money rolls into the next week’s pot,” Skye guessed, then did a little mental math. “If there’s thirty-two thousand dollars, I assume no one has won in a while.”

  “Almost three months,” May confirmed. “This is the longest it’s been between winners, and that means it’s the biggest prize.”

  “Wow.” Skye shook her head. “If no one wins, does the number they picked come off the board?” Then she answered herself. “Of course it does, because it’s been revealed as a loser.”

  “Right.” May sprayed Windex on the next pane. “So every time someone picks the wrong number, there are fewer and fewer cards left.”

  “When someone finally does win . . .” Skye stopped to take a sip of milk, swallowed, then continued, “Do they get the entire amount?”

  “If the person is there, they get seventy percent of the pot,” May answered distractedly as she used her fingernail to scrape something from the window. “If not, they only get forty-five percent.”

  “So the Legion gets thirty to fifty-five percent of the proceeds and sells a lot of booze and snacks while people wait for the drawing.”

  “Exactly.” May frowned. “It’s actually turning into a bit of a problem.”

  “Why?” Skye glanced down at the last cookie on the plate and sighed.

  “Because while folks can buy their tickets at any time throughout the week, they all want to be there when the drawing happens so they can win the big money.” May put her hands on her hips. “People are coming in from all over the county to play.”

  “Ah.” Skye rested her hands on her stomach in an effort not to grab the final lemon bar. “That means heavy traffic clogging the streets leading to the American Legion and parking issues for the businesses and houses nearby. I bet the Legion’s neighbors are thrilled.”

  “When I’ve dispatched on those nights, we get a lot of complaints.”

  “I can imagine,” Skye said, envisioning the average Scumble Riverite’s reaction. “Anything besides traffic jams and cars blocking driveways?”

  “Some guy claimed that the Legion’s parking lot was a hotbed of drug deals and prostitution.” May snorted. “But it’s the same man who’s always writing letters in that gripe column in the Star.”

  The local newspaper had added a section that encouraged its readers to voice their opinions. Occasionally there was something positive, but more often than not, the content was negative.

  “I’ve been saying attempted burglary, but did the thieves actually get the money?” Skye asked. “Would the Legion keep that amount in cash?”

  “No and yes,” May answered, finishing with the windows and tucking the bottle of Windex and used rags into her large purse. “The safe wasn’t opened and evidently it was too heavy for them to carry out of the building because it wasn’t moved.” May shrugged. “But the cash was inside. One of the big draws of the raffle is seeing the pile of dough in this clear box they keep next to the whiteboard with the cards.”

  “Well, I’m glad they didn’t get the money.” Skye drank the last of her milk, still resisting the lemon bar staring at her from the coffee table. “Was the woman who locked herself in the closet okay?”

  “Chantal was fine when she was with me or Zelda. Heck, she even was answering the nonemergency police line although I told her only employees were allowed to touch the phones and she sure as shooting doesn’t work for the PD. But the minute any of the male officers were around, she was suddenly overcome with hysteria over her ordeal of being at the Legion during the break-in.” May looped her purse straps over her arm, then picked up Skye’s empty glass and the cookie plate. “She’s a dead ringer for Miranda Lambert, even down to that Texas twang. And the skirt and top she was wearing weren’t much bigger than two washcloths.”

  “Really?” Skye chewed her thumbnail. Maybe she hadn’t been as paranoid as she thought when Chantal hung up on her earlier. Skye forced a casual tone into her voice and asked, “Any guy in particular?”

  “Chantal appeared to be an equal opportunity flirt.” May headed toward the kitchen with Skye at her heels. “Although she seemed like the type of gal who would start at the top and work her way down.”

  “Oh.” Skye caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the microwave door and bit her lip. She’d gotten used to being curvy, but . . .

  May returned the sole remaining lemon bar to the Tupperware container holding the rest of the batch and placed the empty plate in the sink. Turning from the counter, she stared at Skye’s face, wrinkled her brow, then walked over to hug her.

  “Wally loves you like mad,” May whispered into her daughter’s hair. “You can see it in his eyes every time he looks at you.”

  “I know.” Skye leaned into her mother’s embrace and absorbed her unexpected reassurance. “But I’m having a harder time than I thought I would with looking”—she pointed to her middle—“like this.”

  With a final squeeze, May let go of Skye and stepped back. “Then I guess,” she said as she moved toward the kitchen counter, “I should take the rest of these cookies home. Not to mention the chicken parmesan and garlic bread I put in the refrigerator for your supper.”

  “Let’s not get crazy.” Skye stood in front of the fridge to protect her dinner.

  She’d been wondering what she could cook, since on Mondays, Dorothy usually did the grocery shopping and prepared their evening meal after she cleaned. Hmm. It looked as if a visit to the supermarket was in Skye’s immediate future. Their cupboards were nearly bare.

  May’s teasing voice refocused Skye’s attention to the present. “Only if you promise to stop worrying about your husband not finding you attractive now that you’re pregnant.”

  “I know it’s silly.” Skye hated it when her mother was the voice of reason in their discussions. “And I know women will always flirt with him.”

  “He’s a good-looking man.” May marched down the hall to the foyer. “You have to come to terms with the fact that gals will come on to him.”

  “You’re right.” Skye’s head was spinning. This was not like any other conversation she’d had with her mom. “Wally would never cheat on me, but since I started showing, it feels as if all the other women look so beautiful and perfect next to my beach ball belly.” She sniffed. “I can’t even find clothes that I like.”

  “Oh, honey.” May tsked. “Every woman who has ever had a baby goes through this.” Cupping Skye’s chin, she said, “Just try real hard not to say anything to Wally about it. It’s not fair to him. Even if it’s always in the back of your mind, keep it to yourself.” She lightly slapped her daughter’s cheek. “Believe me, no matter how big you get, Wally will still feel like you’re the most beautiful woman in the world because you’re carrying his child.”

  “Did you go through this with Vince and me?” Skye asked, still dazed to see this side of her mother. “Were you jealous of Dad?”

  “Sure.” May moved back, opened the front door, and chuckled, “Once I even poured a pitcher o
f lemonade over one of my friends when I thought she was getting a might too friendly with Jed.”

  “Who was that?” Skye asked, intrigued. “Let me guess. Hester?”

  “Nope.” May stepped outside. “It was Dorothy. You know how she likes to play up to guys. She never means it and usually it’s funny, but . . .”

  “But not when you were feeling ugly,” Skye said, following her mother onto the porch. “What did she do after you doused her?”

  “She dumped a full plate of spaghetti on me.” May waved and walked down the steps. “I never did get that stain out of my white blouse. It looked as if I’d been beheaded.”

  Skye giggled.

  Getting into her car, May said, “Just remember, this, too, shall pass.” She paused before closing the door. “It might be as excruciating as a kidney stone, but it’ll pass.”

  Skye stood watching the white Oldsmobile disappear down the road. What had happened to May? Had she been kidnapped and replaced by a Stepford Mom? Or was it because Skye had stood up to her?

  It had felt good to say exactly what she was thinking. To tell May that it seemed that no matter what Skye did, it would never be enough to please her mother. She’d have to do that again sometime. Especially concerning the baby.

  Walking back into the foyer, Skye almost stepped on Bingo. When she’d first arrived home, she wondered why he didn’t greet her at the door. He normally demanded a hug and a chin scratch before allowing her past the foyer.

  The cat and May didn’t get along, but instead of hiding, Bingo usually stalked her. Had Skye’s mother somehow managed to lock Bingo up somewhere and only now he was able to get loose? Skye squinted. Yep. Her ferocious feline seemed ticked off. His routine greeting was to rub against her ankles, but instead, he was sitting in the middle of the throw rug glaring at her.

  Once Bingo was sure he had her attention, he got up and strolled toward the stairs. Aligning himself with the oak newel post, he extended his claws, then glanced back at Skye and smirked.