Collared For Murder

by Annie Knox

  I understood why Pris, as a prime suspect, would want to keep quiet, but I was dating the cops. While I might someday come to regret it, I had no choice but to speak with them. Besides, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had to come clean with Jack. Not only was it the right thing to do for our relationship, but I was pretty sure I was Pris’s alibi.

  * * *

  I met with Jack that night at his place.

  He lived in the second-floor apartment of an old Victorian house, just a few blocks down Maple from Trendy Tails. It was spacious but sparsely furnished. Jack wasn’t a complicated guy. He needed a comfy couch and a good TV, not a lot of bric-a-brac and fancy paintings on the wall. In fact, the only decoration on his walls was a series of framed family photos taken by his uncle Paul. They were good black-and-white photos, but they were nothing arty or pretentious. My favorite was a close-up of his mother, Louise, and her fat beagle, Pearl, both grinning at the camera.

  I walked in and was instantly enveloped by the pungent scent of cilantro and the piquant bite of jalapeños. Shortly after we’d begun dating, I’d discovered Jack’s hidden passion for cooking.

  “Salsa?” It was one of his specialties, a complex blend of roasted chilies brightened with fresh lime juice and herbs.

  “Yeah,” he called from the kitchen. “Just finished a batch. I’ll be right out.”

  I made myself at home on the canvas sofa, pulling a squishy velvet pillow from between the cushions and pressing it to my chest. I scanned the living room floor, taking in the cat toys strewn every which way.

  “Are you and Steve getting situated?”

  “Absolutely. The minute I set him down in the apartment, he went on patrol, checking out every room, before jumping up on my bed, rolling onto his back, and conking out. He’s right at home. And thanks for all the toys. He’s a big fan. As a cop, I shouldn’t approve, but the little guy likes to get high on the ’nip.”

  I laughed. “Where is he now?”

  “Probably passed out on the bed.” Jack emerged from the kitchen with a big basket of tortilla chips and a dish of his salsa, both of which he set on the coffee table in front of the couch. “But, see, I’ve already got a couple of great pictures.”

  He handed me his phone, and I scrolled through shots of Steve pouncing on toys, sleeping with his paws curled beneath his chin, and even a selfie of Jack with the cat stretched out next to him. It looked like Steve had quietly fallen into a very sweet gig with a human who was eager to shower love on the little guy.

  He’d look great in a little black kitty-hoodie. I suspected that Jack would balk at first, but eventually I would get my way. Eventually, I was going to have fun dressing Steve.

  I grabbed a chip and scooped up some of the chunky salsa. After savoring that first bite, I got down to business. “I just got back from talking to Pris.”

  Jack groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “Izzy, I thought we’d been clear about this. Listening is okay, but actual investigation is off-limits.”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s a fine line.”

  “Not so fine.”

  “Whatever. Just hear me out. This is important.”

  He leaned back against the cushions, angling his body so he could see me sitting next to him without craning his neck. “Okay. Shoot.”

  “There’s no way Pris killed Phillip Denford.”

  “Uh-huh. And you know this because . . . ?”

  “Because I’m her alibi.”

  He sat up straight. “You were with Pris yesterday morning?”

  And this was where things got tricky. “No. I was with Phillip.”

  He frowned and opened his mouth, but I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

  “Pris said you guys think that she met Phillip at the ballroom, killed him before anyone else arrived, stashed his body, went home to change, and got back by nine. But the timing doesn’t work. Quail Run is on the opposite side of town from the hotel. It’s easily a twenty-minute drive. That’s forty minutes round-trip, plus a good ten minutes for Pris to clean up at home and get all done up the way Pris does. That means Pris had to have killed Phillip and left the hotel by ten after eight.”

  “Okay.”

  “But at eight yesterday morning, Phillip was at Trendy Tails with me. So that leaves ten minutes for him to get back to the North Woods Hotel, get in a fight with Pris, get himself killed, and for Pris to shove his body underneath the table. It’s just not enough time.”

  I’d spilled my story quickly, the words tumbling over one another in a torrent. When I finished, the sudden silence felt tense.

  Steve chose that moment to come into the living room to see what the fuss was about. He rolled his big shoulders as he walked, giving him a gait like a tiger’s. But as soon as he made a pass by Jack, rubbing the length of his body along Jack’s leg, he found a felt bird filled with catnip. He held it between his front paws and—following thousands of years of genetic wiring—tried to gut it with his back feet.

  Jack paid no attention to Steve. He just stared at me for a few minutes. I could see the muscles in his jaw working.

  “Maybe Pris got to the show late. We haven’t finished corroborating her story.”

  “No. Rena saw her right before the show opened at nine. She was on time. And, in fact, I was looking for her before the lights went out and that’s when she was gone . . . when you all think she was stealing the collar dangle.”

  “Maybe you didn’t see her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there,” Jack said. “Still, this does change things. What, may I ask, was Phillip doing at your place at eight in the morning yesterday?”

  This was the bit I’d really been dreading.

  “He was threatening to ruin my business.”

  Jack sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face again. I might have been giving him a migraine.

  “For crying out loud, Izzy. What do you mean?”

  “He’s started making knockoffs of the clothes I design. He’s got a huge Web presence, and he can produce the clothes way cheaper than I can. I don’t know how legal it all is, but I can hardly afford a protracted court battle with the man.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday? This is important information.”

  I stared down at the pillow clutched in my lap. The piping around its edges was fraying. If I was still dating Jack at Christmas, I’d make him new covers.

  “I didn’t want you to think I killed Phillip.”

  “I don’t think you killed anyone,” he replied without so much as a heartbeat of a pause.

  I looked up through my lashes to find him studying my face. “I could never think anything like that.” He reached out to lay a hand over mine.

  I flipped my own hand over so I could clasp his fingers and squeeze. “I was afraid. Despite what you may think, I’ve had enough of murder to last me my entire life. I have no desire to be wrapped up in another killing. And I really don’t want to be arrested for one.”

  “Dang it, Izzy. I love you, but you’re killing me.”

  “What?”

  “I said, you’re killing me. I want to protect you. I want to keep you out of this whole mess. But I can’t just pretend this conversation never happened. I have to tell my colleagues. Your information is critical to the timeline of the crime, but it also makes you a suspect. I mean, I know you didn’t kill anyone, but you’ll still be a suspect.”

  I waved off his explanation. “No. Did you say you loved me?”

  He froze, a look of shock on his face. “I . . .” He frowned, then shrugged. “Yes. Yes, I did.” The challenge in his voice was almost palpable.

  “Is that true?” I felt warmth blossoming in my chest.

  “I don’t lie.” Typical Jack response.

  “Oh.”

  “Is that okay?” It was the first time I’d heard real doubt in his voic
e.

  I launched myself at him, throwing my arms around his neck. “Okay? Of course it’s okay. It’s amazing.”

  He wrapped his arms around me, squeezing tight, then pulled back so he could look in my eyes.

  “You took me by surprise, Izzy McHale. At first I thought I’d just go on a couple of dates with a pretty girl. But there’s something about you, like this purity in your soul or something. I can’t describe it, but it’s addictive.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to echo his proclamation back to him. The words gathered in the back of my throat—I love you, too!—but being dumped by Casey Alter had burned me badly, and the words couldn’t quite get past the scar tissue. I gazed up at him, praying he saw the intensity in my eyes. Finally, I leaned in to plant a series of quick kisses on his lips. “You. Are. The. Best,” I pronounced between pecks.

  “Yeah, well, ‘the best’ has to go call Gil Dixon about bringing you in for questioning.” Gil Dixon was Jack’s partner in crime-solving, another member of Merryville’s finest.

  His words definitely killed the mood. And as I leaned back and he went for his phone, we exchanged a brief and somber look.

  I think we both realized what had happened: Jack had said he loved me, but I hadn’t said it back.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  Being questioned at the Merryville Police Station wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. They left me to stew in a tiny, windowless room for about an hour, but I had a cup of mediocre coffee and a copy of the Merryville Gazette to keep me company. The entire front page of the paper was devoted to the cat show and Phillip’s murder.

  Ama had written a great series of interwoven stories, with sidebars about the history of the M-CFO, Phillip Denford’s personal and professional life, and a brief guide to cat shows. She’d also gotten a great picture of the prize table before the collar dangle went missing. The dangle in its cage had caught the light from the flash and appeared as a spark of pure energy on the page. The picture was beautifully framed, at just the right angle to capture the lavish table setting. The only slight flaw to the picture was that it captured a person just in the foreground. The figure was too blurry to even tell if it was a man or a woman—just a pale blur of an arm, really—and I guessed that Ama had done her best to crop out the unwanted element from her otherwise postcard-perfect picture.

  I read the articles carefully. They didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it was nice to have all the facts and factoids that were swimming around in my head laid out in clean, precise prose.

  Eventually Sean—whom I’d insisted on calling before I left Jack’s—arrived, and Gil Dixon came in to question me right on his heels. Jack had wanted to sit in, but both Sean and Gil nixed that plan.

  “Ms. McHale, I’ve read through the statement you gave the day of the murder. Is there anything in that statement you would like to amend?”

  Sean laid a restraining hand on my arm. He leaned in close. “Is everything in the statement true? A simple yes or no.”

  “Of course,” I said, taken aback that he might think I’d lied.

  Gil raised his eyebrows. “Let’s face it: All of your words may have been true, but you did lie by omission when you left out the bit about Phillip Denford, our victim, being at your house within an hour of his death. So don’t get all prickly with me for asking whether you may have left out something else.”

  I sighed. “It’s all true,” I whispered.

  “My client stands by the statement she gave the authorities,” Sean said. Obviously I knew Sean was a lawyer, but I was still shocked at how formal he sounded responding to Gil. It was heartening to know I had him on my side.

  “It is my understanding that you met with Phillip Denford on the morning of August eighteenth at your shop”—he shuffled some papers—“Trendy Tails, located at 801 Maple Avenue. Can you describe the nature of that meeting?”

  I had opened my mouth to answer, but Sean beat me to it. “My client declines to answer that question.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “We were talking about business.”

  “What about business?” Gil asked.

  “Izzy,” Sean hissed.

  “Mr. Denford said he was going to make knockoffs of my animal-apparel designs and he’d probably run me out of business. He was just giving me fair warning.”

  Sean face-palmed. He swiveled his head to look at me. “Why did you want me here if you weren’t going to follow my advice?”

  “Because you’re my lawyer.”

  “But what good is having a lawyer if you don’t listen to him?”

  “I’m listening to you. I just disagreed about whether I should answer that question or not. I don’t see the point in trying to keep it a secret. Someone Phillip worked with must have known what he was doing and that he was planning to talk to me. I mean, it’s not like Phillip just phoned up a Korean textile manufacturer and sent them the sample of my cat’s pajamas. He has an army of people to do that sort of thing. One of them would eventually come forward. Besides, I didn’t do anything wrong, so I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “You’re killing me, Izzy.”

  It was the second time that evening that a man had said that to me. I was starting to feel insulted.

  “Look,” I said to Gil Dixon, “I don’t have much to tell you. Phillip was in my shop until eight fifteen. Even if Phillip went to the ballroom straight from my house, there’s no way Pris had time to kill him. She lives too far away.”

  Gil’s smile was bemused. “But you know who lives a lot closer to the show venue? You. I’ve got statements from three people, including one Ruth Kimmey, whose table is right by yours, all saying you were late to the show. If you followed Phillip from Trendy Tails to the cat show, you could have killed him, gotten home to clean up, and made it back to the show by nine fifteen, which is when Ruth Kimmey said you arrived.”

  “Oh.”

  Sean closed his eyes and exhaled hard. “This is why you listen to your lawyer.”

  Honestly, I’d realized that Phillip’s visit gave me motive for murder, but I hadn’t realized how neatly my story fit the timeline of his death. Opportunity and motive, I thought. I was in deep doo-doo. I thought about mentioning that Wanda could verify that I was at Trendy Tails when she arrived, but she hadn’t gotten to the store until almost nine that morning. That still gave me forty-five minutes to drive to the North Woods Hotel, kill Phillip, get home, and change—easy peasy given that my house was only about five minutes from the hotel. I’d given Pris an alibi, but now I sorely needed one of my own.

  “Do you now or have you ever owned a pair of grooming shears or a set of pet-grooming tools?”

  “Aha! No. I have not. Not ever. I’ve always taken Jinx and Packer to Pris’s for grooming. I’m scared I’ll cut one of them if I try to do it myself. Those shears are sharp.”

  “They are, indeed,” Gil deadpanned.

  “Izzy. Seriously. Be quiet,” Sean pleaded.

  I had needed to get Pris’s alibi on the record because it was the right thing to do, but Sean was right that I didn’t need to give the police any ammunition to use against me. I finally decided to follow my lawyer’s advice.

  While I was now squarely in the crosshairs of the investigation, the police had no basis to keep me. They’d arrested Pris the day of the murder because she was in possession of the stolen collar dangle. But there was no hard evidence linking either one of us to Phillip’s murder.

  Jack was waiting in the lobby when Sean and I emerged from the interrogation room. He jumped out of his chair when he saw us, but Sean waved him away.

  “I think you’ve done enough for today. Don’t you?” Sean snapped.

  Jack actually looked guilty, but he leaned forward on his toes in a time-honored stance of male aggression. This had been a long, hard day for him, and
I was worried he’d take out all his pent-up emotion on Sean. I held up my hands to quiet them both.

  “Sean, that’s not fair. Jack was doing his job. That doesn’t mean he liked it. And everything is fine now.”

  “Fine? You call this fine?”

  “Keep it down,” Jack growled.

  “Listen. I just want to go home,” I said with a sigh of pure exhaustion.

  “I’ll drive you,” Jack said. I’d left my car at his place and he’d driven me the few blocks over to the police station.

  “No. I’ve got this.” Sean ran his fingers through his sable hair, sending the loose curls pointing in a dozen directions.

  “Oh, for the love of . . . Do we have to flip a coin?” I pulled Jack aside. “Let Sean give me a ride. I didn’t do exactly as he told me to in the interview room, and I think he’d like to be able to do something concrete to help me. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t forget we’re having dinner with Jolly and Rena tomorrow night.”

  Jack swept the room with a glare, as though he were willing all his colleagues—not to mention Sean—to disappear. Finally, he leaned down and planted an awkward peck on my forehead. “Fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I started to turn away, but he caught me by the arm. “Izzy, I need you to know that I’m sorry about this.”

  I offered him a weak smile. “Nothing to be sorry about. You wouldn’t be my Jack if you didn’t play by the rules. It’ll all be okay.”

  The irony wasn’t wasted on me: I was the one up to my eyeballs in trouble, but I’d spent the last five minutes trying to convince my two manly protectors not to worry.

  * * *

  Sean and I drove back to Trendy Tails in a silence that was broken the minute we walked through the front door. Rena, Aunt Dolly, my mom, and both my sisters, Lucy and Dru, were waiting inside, and they pummeled me with questions as soon as I appeared.

  “Good heavens, Izzy,” my mother said. “What have you gotten yourself into?”