Collared For Murder

by Annie Knox

  For my part, I felt a pang of sorrow at Ruth’s passing. She’d been kind to me, showing me the ropes of the cat show and telling me what she knew of the players in this strange performance. And whatever her last bit of information had been, whatever had prompted her to invite me out to the agility field, she’d taken it to her grave.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if, had I been on time, I could have saved Ruth Kimmey’s life.

  * * *

  It took the police a lot less time to clear the people from the crime scene the second time around. Most of the onlookers were already on file as witnesses in the first murder, and no one had seen a thing. At least, not that they would say aloud.

  I went back inside as soon as I could. After stopping to tell Rena what little I knew, I made a beeline for Ruth’s table. The police had cordoned it off already, leaving poor T. J. Leuzinger standing outside a ring of crime-scene tape, Cataclysm Ranger draped over her shoulder and tears pouring down her face.

  “Oh, T.J. I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said.

  “Poor Ranger,” she said, looking at me with a puzzled expression. “What happens to Ranger? Ruth’s horrible husband had Ranger neutered just to hurt her. Ranger can’t go live with him.”

  I hushed her softly and petted Ranger’s head. “I don’t think you have to worry, T.J. Ranger isn’t their child. He doesn’t just automatically get custody. Legally, Ranger is stuff and will belong to whoever is her heir.”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her voice approaching a hysterical pitch. “She never said. She doesn’t have children. But I think she has a sister in Illinois.”

  “There you go. I bet Ranger will belong to the sister in Illinois. And if the sister doesn’t want him, I’m sure she’ll just let you have him. You’ll take good care of him if it comes to that. Ranger’s in good hands.”

  I made a mental note to have Sean draft my will. I’d already had to take care of one murder victim’s orphaned animal, and now seeing T.J. freaking out about what would happen to Ranger, I realized I should be responsible and make sure that there was a plan in place for Packer and Jinx if something should happen to me.

  “T.J.,” I said softly, “Ruth said she had something to tell me. I was supposed to meet her outside, where she died. It might be really important. Did she tell you what it was?”

  “Something to tell you?” I could see the wheels spinning in T.J.’s mind. “Yes. Oh yes, she did say something. But it didn’t make any sense.”

  “What was it?” I prodded.

  “She’d run upstairs to get another sweater. You know, she would never just start the day dressed right and she always found herself cold. I don’t know how many times I told her to just put on a sweater first thing in the morning—”

  “T.J. She went to get a sweater, and . . .”

  “Oh. Well, she came hustling back into the ballroom, no sweater to be seen, and told me she had to tell you something important. ‘It’s in the blood.’ That’s what she said she needed to tell you. ‘It’s in the blood.’”

  “Did anyone else leave the ballroom at the same time Ruth did? Or thereabouts?”

  “I honestly wasn’t paying attention. Right before Ruth left, the two of us had been talking with Marsha about plans for next year’s show. It won’t be nearly as elaborate as this, but Marsha’s determined to make it special in honor of Phillip. Anyway, she’d just left to take her afternoon nap when Ruth decided to get her sweater.”

  “Afternoon nap?”

  “Oh yes, every day. Marsha’s not a well woman. I would never say this to her face, but I think she should limit her travels with Phillip and stay home to rest. And I don’t think it’s the best idea for her to take on the major task of organizing next year’s show. That will take a lot out of her.”

  “What, exactly, is wrong with her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I suspected I did: clonazepam and the occasional cocktail. That would certainly explain the need for a nap.

  T.J. shifted Ranger on her shoulder.

  “Do you want me to hold him for a while?”

  She sighed and offered me a watery smile. “That would be great.” She placed the cat in my arms. I was so used to holding Jinx, my sweet, massive kitty, that Ranger felt insubstantial as I held him against me.

  “T.J.? Do you know much about Mari Aames?” It was a long shot, but since we were standing there shooting the breeze . . .

  “Oh, Mari. Bless her heart, but Phillip runs her ragged. Or I guess he did run her ragged. Now it will be up to Marsha to keep her employed. Frankly, I don’t know why she’s worked for the Denfords as long as she has. They pay her a pittance.”

  I leaned in close. “I heard a rumor that Mari and Phillip were, you know . . .”

  At first T.J. just stared at me, but then she caught on and laughed. “I can see where people might think that. After all, everyone knows Phillip had a wandering eye, and Mari was positively dazzled by him. But I was talking to Phillip the day before he died, and he said that he was planning to let Mari go after the show.”

  I was stunned. “Really? But she seems to do such a wonderful job.”

  T.J. shrugged and reached out to take Ranger back. “He hinted that her adoration was a little much. That she was too clingy. I saw her in the bathroom that same day, vomiting and weeping after Phillip had criticized some decision she’d made. I think Phillip needed an assistant made of stronger stuff.”

  T.J. cuddled Ranger like a baby and began idly rubbing his tummy, eliciting a deep, rumbling purr from the cat. “Come to think of it,” T.J. mused, “I saw Mari running out of here at about the same time Ruth went up to her room. I can’t remember whether it was before or after, but she had her hand over her mouth and looked to be fighting back tears. Some other crisis, I suppose.”

  It’s in the blood. Something Ruth saw or heard during the last hours of her life led her to that cryptic statement. And got her killed.

  CHAPTER

  Sixteen

  “What the heck does that mean?” Sean asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking it must have something to do with breeding.”

  “Breeding?” He took a sip of Taffy’s chamomile mint tea. “Like cat breeding?”

  “Yeah.”

  The police had insisted on shutting down the cat show for the rest of the day. I’d left Jack back at the North Woods Hotel, working with his crew to sort through whatever evidence they might find, and had asked Sean to meet me at the Happy Leaf for scones and herbal tea: something to soothe my nerves after a long and emotional day.

  “Why on earth would anyone care enough about cat breeding to kill someone?”

  “There’s a lot of money involved. Not to mention pride. T. J. Leuzinger was about to have a breakdown after she heard about Ruth’s death, and I think a good chunk of her emotion had to do with Ranger’s fate rather than Ruth’s. She didn’t even own Ranger anymore, but she acted like she was basking in the cat’s reflected glory.”

  Sean tore off a corner of a lemon cream scone. “So which breeder would want Phillip dead?” he asked before popping the tidbit in his mouth.

  “I’m guessing Phillip made plenty of enemies along the way, but I know that he basically destroyed Pamela Rawlins’s breeding business by blackballing her Tonga from the show circuit. It meant that Tonga was no longer a viable sire, and it cast a cloud of doubt on her entire breeding operation. I think Ruth’s comments move Pamela to the top of our suspect list.”

  I took a sip of my tea. It was tasty, but still a little bitter for me. I added another spoonful of sugar. I looked up to find Sean smiling at me.

  “What?”

  “You have such a sweet tooth.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  His smile widened. “I know. I need Rena to bake for me more. Do you think she’d start me on a regular rotatio
n of her banana bread and her chocolate-chocolate-chip cookies if I asked her pretty please?”

  I clinked my spoon against the side of my cup to shake off any excess liquid. “I think she’d do just about anything you asked her to do. That girl adores you.”

  “And you?”

  “And me, what?” I said.

  “Do you adore me?”

  “Sean. That’s not fair.”

  His smile disappeared. “Right. And life is always fair.”

  “I don’t want to start this.”

  “Of course not. On the one hand, you can’t keep your nose out of everyone’s business. But on the other, when the spotlight is on you, you become completely nonconfrontational. You don’t want to face anything ugly.”

  “Seriously? Sean, after the day I’ve had, I cannot possibly have this fight with you. I need you to support me right now.”

  “Yes, you certainly do.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Sean frowned at me, and for a second I thought I saw a flash of fear in his eyes. “I got a call from Gil Dixon right after you called me this afternoon. He’d heard that you were buying the property at 801 Maple, and he suggested the cops were going to get a subpoena for your financial records.”

  “So? There’s nothing hinky with my financial records, unless hovering on the edge of broke is hinky.” Trendy Tails was doing reasonably well, but every penny of profit was going back into the business, and I took only enough salary to get by.

  “That’s the problem. How does someone with no money expect to buy a well-constructed, recently renovated three-story house?”

  I shook my head before taking a sip of my now-sweet tea. “Ingrid’s selling me the place for a song.”

  “I know that, and you know that, and eventually the police will know that. But for now they’re going to look at that apparent anomaly and wonder. The very fact that they’re bothering with your financials means that someone—at the very least Gil Dixon and possibly someone in the county attorney’s office—still considers you a viable suspect for the theft of the collar dangle. And they’re only looking at you for the theft because you have a motive for the murder.”

  “But now it’s clearly not me. Ruth’s death proves it.”

  Sean popped another bite of scone in his mouth. “It proves no such thing. Another person you were close with is dead. Pris never even spoke to Ruth, but you have been attached to the woman’s hip.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Pris said she’d been speaking to Ruth right before the lights went out on the day of Phillip’s murder. She did know Ruth.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Pris.”

  “Well, someone’s lying, then. I’d just heard about Ruth’s death, so I asked Gil about Ruth’s statement the day of Phillip’s murder. Ruth told the police that she’d run up to her room to get a sweater. The lights were on when she left and on when she got back. She wasn’t talking to anyone when those lights went out. In fact, the police think that that may be why she was killed: that she may have unwittingly seen the person who tripped the breakers out in the hallway on her way up to her room.”

  I swallowed hard. “Maybe that’s exactly why she was murdered,” I said. “Maybe she saw Pamela or Mari out in that hallway and had just realized the significance of what she’d seen.”

  Sean set his cup down hard enough to rattle its saucer.

  Taffy looked up from the counter, where she’d been quietly humming while she piped frosting on her famous tea cookies. “You two okay?”

  “Fine, Taffy. Just got a little carried away,” I said.

  Sean forced a smile. “Sorry about that.”

  She went back to her piping.

  “Listen, I don’t really care what Ruth saw or didn’t see. I don’t care what she said, what she thought, or why she died. What I care about is you, and I want you to stay away from that cat show.”

  “What?”

  “Two people are dead, and you’ve managed to become a suspect in both murders . . . not to mention the theft. Somehow your efforts to solve this case are making you look guiltier by the second. And then there’s the danger. Let’s say Ruth was killed because she saw something. She was killed where and when she was supposed to meet you. Do you realize how close you could have come to being hurt?”

  “Okay, Sean. I get it. I’m not actually trying to get into more trouble here. I’ll do my best to lie low. I promise.”

  He offered me a grudging smile, and I returned it with all the warmth I could muster.

  I had every intention of keeping that promise. I swear I did.

  * * *

  Later that day, I decided to take Jinx in to be groomed at Pris’s brick-and-mortar store so she’d be looking her best for the cat show. While Jinx was infinitely tolerant of me dressing her up in all sorts of outfits, she did not handle baths well. It was likely my fault. I’d always considered cats to be self-cleaning creatures, so she wasn’t used to being forced to stand in water while having more dumped over her head. Those rare times when she needed assistance with her ablutions, it had not gone well. Jinx was a big girl, and I had a hard time wrestling her in a bathtub. Always, she shot her four legs out to brace herself on the sides of the tub, making it impossible to get her down to the level of the water.

  Frankly, I had an ulterior motive for bringing Jinx in for grooming. I was hoping to run into Pris at her store, too. Since Phillip’s death, she’d avoided the cat show, and I really wanted to talk with her. Luckily, she was working the front desk. Even though she was alone in the salon, she wore a pale pink twinset with an A-line khaki skirt, a string of pearls at her throat and a diamond tennis bracelet gracing her wrist.

  “I’ve decided to enter Jinx in the household-pet division of the show.”

  “Really? That seems so unlike you.”

  Normally, I would have spent a few seconds reading into that statement, trying to parse out if there was a jab in there or not. Instead, I responded right away: “I know, right?”

  “So what’s prompting all of this?”

  “Well, Ruth Kimmey was saying . . . Ruth is one of the—”

  “I met Ruth.”

  “Right, well, she was saying that Jinx has great coloring and all the markers of a prizewinning Norwegian forest cat. And I thought, why not? I won’t be hurt if she loses. Either way, it will be a great story. You only live once, after all.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?”

  “So do you have time for a quick groom?”

  Pris craned her neck to look around the empty store. “Yes. I think I can fit you in.”

  She took Jinx’s crate and lifted it over the counter that separated her from her clients. “To be honest, I’m losing my mind working here all alone. It’s been so quiet. Would you be willing to stick around and keep me company for a bit?”

  “Me?”

  Pris smiled a soft, secret smile. “Come on. Don’t act so shocked. I know we don’t usually move in the same social circles, but we are in the same profession.”

  Not to mention that Pris’s own social circle had all but given her the boot at that point.

  “And it’s true you’ve accused my husband of murder. Twice. But I think giving me an alibi this go-around more than makes up for that.”

  I laughed at her lopsided math.

  I followed her around the counter and into the back of the shop. While the front of Pris’s store was all luxury—heavy carpets, gold-framed mirrors, gilt shelves lined with high-end grooming products—the back was where the action happened. There looked to be six stations, each with a sink and a long extender hose like my hairdresser used, a table with a stand for hooking collars, and a dryer box. It was utilitarian but pristine, sparkling with white and chrome.

  “So have the police backed off you for Phillip’s murder?”

&n
bsp; Pris laughed. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

  “Hey, we’re both smack in the middle of this thing.”

  “I guess so.” She sighed. “They went through all my inventory of grooming shears to confirm what I’d already told them: I only use Cutsright grooming products. The shears that killed Phillip were Guttenheim. I have no problem with Guttenheim shears, but I get a better discount through Cutsright. So the shears that killed Phillip weren’t mine. That seems to have helped a little.”

  “A little?”

  She took Jinx out of her cage and dropped her into the sink. Jinx, being the generally chill cat she was, seemed perfectly fine hanging out there, though something told me she’d be less happy when the water came on.

  Pris reached for a pair of elbow-length rubber gloves, much thicker than the kind I used in my own kitchen. Before putting them on, she spun around and leaned against the sink. She raised her hand to stroke her pearls, but then flinched and dropped the hand to the gloves again.

  “They’re still after me hard about the stolen collar dangle. I’ve told them I have no idea how it ended up in my purse, but of course that’s falling on deaf ears. ‘Yeah, right, lady.’ And then,” she said with a sigh, “there’s my great big fat motive for killing the man.”

  “Motive? Does this have anything to do with the fight you had the night before he died?”

  Pris narrowed her eyes, sizing me up. “I guess you’ll hear all about this from your great big hunk of a detective. Nice job, by the way.”

  She made my relationship with Jack sound so calculating. I couldn’t muster up the will to thank her.

  “Well, here’s the thing,” Pris said. “Phillip’s death made Hal’s and my life so much better.”

  Pris was married to Hal Olson. He was one of those guys who everyone thought was slightly shady, always trying to put together some kind of deal (preferably a deal that brought him money). Still, he’d managed to get himself elected mayor of Merryville, and he hadn’t bankrupted the town yet.

  “How did Phillip’s death help you two?”

  “A few months ago, Marsha—who’s a lovely woman, by the way—talked Phillip into serving as an angel investor for The Woods at Badger Lake. He provided us with the capital to keep the contractors at bay while we fought the Department of Natural Resources on the whole rare-owl-habitat brouhaha. But in exchange for Phillip’s financial support, Hal gave him a fifty-percent share in the project. Just last week, we got some good news from our lawyer. It looked like the DNR was going to relocate the burrowing owls so we could continue to build. But we were tapped out. Like, we didn’t have enough money to pay our mortgage for one more month.”