Meow is for Murder

by Johnston, Linda O.

  Only—I dug out a phone number and called it. “Hi, Mitch,” I said to Amanda’s attorney when he answered. “Did you see Corina Carey’s report on Channel—”

  “Of course,” he responded, sounding huffy. “I’ve even tried to talk to the woman about what she’s found so far, but she only asks me questions and won’t answer mine. She refers me to the attorneys for her paper and TV station. They’re claiming journalistic privilege regarding sources, or something else that shouldn’t work but is at least delaying things.”

  “Damn,” I said. “I promised Amanda last night to push even harder to figure out who else could have killed Leon, and Corina made herself sound like an ideal resource. What does your cocounsel, Quentin Rush, think about all this?”

  “I haven’t reached him yet to ask,” Mitch said. “Do you have any other information you can share with him and me?”

  “Sure. You and I can get together and compare notes. Feel free to bring Quentin. I’d love to meet him and get his perspective. Meantime, I’ll continue trying to talk to Leon’s stalking victims. He was definitely a champion.”

  “Lots of people with motive,” Mitch agreed.

  Yeah, and if you’d done your homework, you’d be able to save me a whole lot of research right about now. “Absolutely,” I said. “I’ve already talked to some and I intend to speak with even more.”

  “Great! Yes, let’s do lunch and discuss it soon. Today’s Friday … next week? I’ll check Quentin’s schedule, too.”

  “Great,” I said.

  Today was Friday, I realized as I hung up. I’d have the whole weekend to attempt face-to-faces with other local stalking victims. Wouldn’t it be a kick if I could impress famous counsel-to-the-stars Quentin Rush with my snooping prowess?

  Which made this an excellent opportunity to return to Amanda’s medical office and see what I could learn.

  Not much, as it turned out. Oh, her boss Dr. Henry Grant was in, and I was able to convince the receptionist to allow me a brief audience between patients in the disinfectant-fragrant hall near the waiting room. But the heart of the cardiologist seemed in the wrong place that day. His beard-laden chin twitched as he reiterated how he hoped the best for Amanda, but out of sight, out of mind, was how he now looked at Leon Lucero. He hadn’t exactly wished his difficult patient dead, but now that he was gone things were much more serene around this office. And, no, he still hadn’t any ideas who besides Amanda might have murdered the man. Not him, certainly.

  When he stalked off, I was glad enough to find myself still in that hallway. For the next ten minutes, I hastily interviewed other doctors who looked alternately angry or impatient or unnerved by my pointed questions. Same went for their equally irritated and upset staff. More than one suggested strongly that I leave, but it wasn’t until a white jacket-clad Amanda herself exited one of the examination rooms that I was given a direct order.

  “You’re supposed to be helping me,” she hissed, “not putting my job in jeopardy. Get out of here.”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “I’m just doing my best to absolve you of Leon’s murder.”

  The whites of her gray eyes were shot with red, and I noticed wrinkles at the edges of her eyelids and mouth that had appeared overnight. The woman was aging before my eyes.

  Which, nasty person that I was, seemed just fine with me.

  “Well, until you do, I don’t have to stay away from Jeff,” she said with a snotty smile.

  Incredible! I drew in my breath. Talk about things growing old. I was getting damned tired of my disagreements with this irritating ex-wife. And, by extension, with her ex-husband. “Fine. Knock yourself out,” I said. “Better yet, knock him out.” I stomped out of there.

  Only … well, I didn’t expect her to take me literally.

  But late that night, when I’d finished my pet-sitting and picked up Lexie, and she and I sat on my small living room sofa staring at some silly TV sitcom, my cell phone sang. It was Jeff, not much of a surprise at that hour.

  But what he said nearly knocked my socks off.

  “Kendra?” His voice sounded weak. “Can you come over to my place and take me to the emergency room? Amanda just ran me over with her car.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “SHE MAY NOT have killed Leon Lucero, but she sure as hell tried to kill you!” I exclaimed to Jeff a couple of hours later, after he’d gone through the emergency room and been poked, prodded, x-rayed, and bandaged.

  He looked truly awful, but he was going to live. I helped him climb into my Beamer in the parking lot of St. Joe’s—the Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

  I always adored how Jeff’s blue eyes twinkled, but just then they looked more like black holes than lively stars. “She didn’t try to kill me,” he protested. “The woman’s just at her wit’s end. Like I told you, I made the mistake of explaining to her I’d continue helping you find suspects in Leon’s murder, but reminding her yet again that she wasn’t welcome to drop in on me at home. I made the even bigger mistake of walking her out to her car. I walked behind the car to get back on the sidewalk, and she backed into me. She claimed she lost control.”

  “Not of the car, but her emotions,” I said. “Even if she didn’t intend vehicular homicide, it could have been the result. And she didn’t even stick around to see if you survived.”

  “No,” he said sadly. He stayed quiet for the rest of the ride to his home.

  We’d gone through most of this before. He’d no intention of reporting anything to the cops, and he’d prevaricated plenty at the hospital when asked what had happened.

  He was protecting his ex-wife, who’d bopped him with her bright red car.

  He’d claimed over and over that he was over the woman, but this said otherwise.

  Tonight wasn’t a good time for me to make up my mind where my relationship with Jeff was heading. But I was afraid I had a pretty good idea.

  Under Amanda Hubbard’s wheels.

  Back at Jeff’s, Lexie and Odin acted delighted to see us. Yes, I’d brought my pup when I’d dashed to Jeff’s. I figured poor Odin would need company while I rushed his master to medical care. I was especially glad about the dogs as a diversion while I helped an aching Jeff sponge-bathe and change into nightwear—no nudity or canoodling this night, that was for sure.

  Lexie and I slept—or at least I tried to—not in Jeff’s spacious bedroom, but back in the semistoreroom where I’d spent nights when I’d first started pet-sitting for the P.I. and his Akita. I didn’t snooze much. I spent too much time checking on Jeff, standing in his bedroom door and listening for his breathing. Yes, he stayed alive for that night. And my feelings for him?

  Well, let’s just say they’d started hovering somewhere in purgatory.

  I definitely drifted off, since I was awakened in the morning by barking dogs and chiming doorbells. I hurried to the front door. Unsurprisingly, Amanda stood there.

  “Let me in,” she insisted. Her beautiful blond hair was in absolute disarray, and her eyes were red enough to assert that she’d cried all night.

  I opened the door but stayed in her way. “Jeff’s okay, more or less, no thanks to you,” I said.

  “I can’t believe what I did,” she said, ending on a sob. “Okay, I promise I won’t see him anymore. I wanted everything—your help, and him, too. But he told me off, and I couldn’t take it. He’s yours, Kendra. But, please, let me apologize to him.”

  Since I sensed his presence behind me, I couldn’t forcefully say no. When I turned, I saw that the expression on his bruise-blued face was hard. “Apology accepted,” he grumbled inamicably. “But don’t come in, not now or anytime.” Obviously he was as ambivalent about what was between them as I was about what was between him and me. Last night he’d sorta defended her. Today, he’d kicked her out.

  Could I continue to attempt to clear this wild and miserable woman from a possible murder charge? Besides the challenge, all that was in it for me was her commitment to clear out of my lov
er’s—former lover’s?—life.

  Did I care if he didn’t see her again?

  “WHAT SHOULD I do, Darryl?” I asked out loud about an hour after the scene with Amanda. I’d taken Lexie and headed to Doggie Indulgence, needing the sage advice of my dearest human friend.

  We sat in his office overlooking the rest of his resort, which he now kept open most weekends to accommodate his many customers in the entertainment industry. Fortunately. Although I’d have sought him out at home if I’d had to. Lexie was loose in the playroom, and last I’d seen her, she’d headed for the human furnishings area—probably needed a nap on the people sofa after our disquieting night.

  I pushed some of the papers stacked on Darryl’s desk out of my way and folded my head in my arms on top of it.

  “What would you like to do, honey?” Darryl asked me. “Do you want to dump the whole defend-Amanda idea?”

  “I don’t know,” I said miserably.

  “Do you think she killed Leon?”

  “That’s the thing.” I lifted my head and looked beyond Darryl’s wire-rims into his sympathetic and omniscient brown eyes. “Whatever else she’s done, I think she’s being framed for Leon’s murder.”

  “And how do you feel about that?”

  “Who turned you into a shrink?” I demanded irascibly. Then I sighed and said, “Sorry. How do I feel, Doc Nestler? Shitty. I mean, I know what pressure the woman’s under, and she obviously can’t take it. And I’d feel a hell of a lot worse if I didn’t help to clear her and she was tried and found guilty.”

  His smile was sympathetic. “Well then,” he said, “what’s your game plan for today?”

  I’D ALREADY INTENDED to seek out some of Leon’s alternate stalking victims today. He’d selected several in Southern California besides Betty Faust, but all had resided in different areas.

  One was in Redondo Beach, and after Lexie and I enjoyed our pet-sitting rounds, I decided to head that way, with a stop en route in Santa Monica.

  At Kennedy McCaffrey’s office.

  He was the patient of Dr. Henry Grant’s to whom Amanda had introduced me. The contractor who appeared athletically gorgeous but actually evinced some symptoms of heart disease.

  The painter who’d had his palette piqued when Leon copied from him.

  Did I know he’d be in? Sure did! I called first, using one of those cards with long distance minutes on it, in case he had caller ID. Not that I knew of any reason for him to avoid me, but I hated to drive all that distance and find that he knew of a reason.

  His tiny office was many blocks from the beach, in a small complex of three-story buildings connected by a central courtyard. I skipped up the steps to the second floor, found “McCaffrey Contracting” on a door and walked in.

  The first room I entered was small and empty but had a couple of doors leading out of it. I knew I’d found the right place since every wall had several seascapes on it, most resembling those I’d seen at Amanda’s.

  Only—were hers Kennedy’s or Leon’s? They mostly looked alike to me.

  I chose the door on the left, since I thought I heard a muffled voice from that direction. Sure enough, there he was, sitting behind a desk large enough to unroll blueprints on, chatting on a cell phone. He still looked well built, tanned, and handsome, but I remembered how he’d coughed and grown ashen at our last encounter. I’d try not to upset him—too much—today.

  When he looked up at me, recognition dawned in his eyes, chased by a frown on his mouth. He said goodbye to whomever he conversed with and demanded, “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” I replied. “I happened to be passing by and hoped to see some of your artwork, since you said Leon Lucero had stolen from you.”

  “Copied me,” Kennedy grumbled. “Same thing, to an artist.”

  “Right. I saw some of your work on the walls in the other room. They’re really nice! Did you give some of your paintings to Amanda? Or sell them to her?”

  “Gave her a couple,” he said. “If she’s got more, then they’re his.”

  “Oh.” Would that be motive enough for Kennedy to kill Leon? We’d gone over this once before, and I hadn’t thought so then. But now I was more eager to lay the blame on someone besides Amanda. Had I slipped this guy off the hook too easily?

  “Like I told you before,” Kennedy continued, “yes, I hated the guy and his thievery. But no, I didn’t kill him. Is that what you’re here about today? I’ve got a potential customer coming in, so let’s talk and get it over with.”

  “I’m that potential customer,” I admitted, sagging against his doorframe. “I just called to see if you’d be here.”

  “Well, I am.” His scowl grew darker. “So what is it you really want?”

  “Help,” I said. “I’m stuck. I’m still tracking down people Leon harassed, but some live outside this area. I’m not sure I can track everyone’s schedules to see which non-locals happened to be visiting when Leon was killed. There were simply too many people with motive to kill him—did you know the guy was a serial stalker?”

  He leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “Why am I not surprised? He didn’t stalk me, though. And if I knew who had more than a motive to kill him—like, who really did it—I’d be glad to tell the cops.”

  “Did he ever confront you?” I persisted. “Or did you ever confront him?”

  “Yes to the latter,” Kennedy admitted. “But the guy was essentially a coward. I looked him up when I was seeing Amanda to tell him to lay off her. He did for a while, maybe because he figured I knew where he lived and I’d have no hesitation about beating him up. What he didn’t know, then, was that, appearances notwithstanding, I have to limit my exercise.” His sudden smile was sad. “He took up against Amanda again with a vengeance after he first saw me at her doctors’ offices as a patient.”

  “Interesting,” I mused, eyeing a chair across Kennedy’s office. Did I want to sit there?

  Not really. I’d left Lexie in the Beamer in the parking lot next door. And, despite Kennedy’s questionable health, I preferred being near enough to the door to escape, if necessary.

  “So, did I tell you anything helpful?” Kennedy asked, obviously ready to dismiss me—a good thing, I thought.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I admit I’m floundering. I’m just hoping something someone says will turn on a light and let me see Leon’s killer.”

  “I specialize in foundations and walls,” Kennedy said. “But I’d be glad to refer you to an electrician.”

  “Very funny,” I said. After handing him another of my cards and getting his concurrence to call if he thought of anything enlightening, I left.

  LEXIE LISTENED SYMPATHETICALLY as I told her what a waste of time that had been. “But he was sort of on the way to our next stop,” I assured her.

  Which was another beach community not many miles down the coast, still in Los Angeles County. There, at an address on Pacific Coast Highway, I’d be able to locate Nellie Zahn—or so Althea’s superb info said. The data indicated that Nellie had been stalked by Leon about four years ago, which was when she’d obtained a TRO.

  I pulled into a parking space on the block containing Nellie’s address. When I regarded the single-story building, I blinked in surprise. The sign over the big front window read, “Nellie’s Super Self-Defense.” Which didn’t suggest a stalking victim to me. Especially a victim of Leon’s, whom Kennedy had suggested was a sort of wimp.

  I tucked Lexie under my arm and headed inside.

  There, a whole flock of women were dressed in a variety of gear, from sweats to white martial-arts wear. Shouts mixed with grunts as they kicked and punched in unison.

  Facing them, at the front, was a lady whose fighting skills seemed excellent. I watched for a while, until the class ended, keeping a wriggling Lexie under control.

  The crowd soon disbursed, and I headed toward the instructor as she likewise headed toward me. We met in the middle of the polished hardwood floor.

 
; “Hi, are you interested in self-defense lessons?” she said. “Unfortunately, we don’t have any available for dogs.”

  “Oh, Lexie’s pretty good at knowing when to growl and when to run,” I said. “I’m looking for Nellie Zahn.”

  “Look no longer,” she said. “That’s me.”

  Somewhat shorter than my five-five, she wore a white canvas toga over loose white pants, and a black belt tied about her waist. Her blond hair was short and curly, and there was a pugnacious and proud set to her thick jaw.

  Some of my puzzlement must have been written on my face, since she said, “You were expecting someone else?”

  “It’s just that I came here to speak with one of Leon Lucero’s stalking victims,” I said, “and, frankly, you look less like a victim than nearly anyone I could imagine.”

  Her face suddenly seemed cast in stone. “Come with me,” she insisted. I followed her from the workout area into a small office. “Sit.” She pointed to a green upholstered metal chair. As if I were Lexie, I obeyed. She took her place behind a small wooden table stacked with promotional brochures for this place. “Now, who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  I handed her one of my law office cards. “I’m not here representing a client, exactly,” I admitted. “The police are investigating a …” What was Amanda to me? A friend? An acquaintance? A highly hated bitch I was attempting to boot out of lives including my own? “Er, let’s just say I’m looking into Leon Lucero’s murder for motives of my own.”

  “The bastard got exactly what he deserved,” Nellie spat, contorting her face belligerently. “Whoever killed him did the world a humongous favor.”

  “I can’t disagree,” I said, “but the reality is that he was unlawfully killed, and whoever did it will be tried for murder. I’m just hoping to ensure the wrong person isn’t railroaded.”

  “I see your point.” She settled back in her seat. “I’d be glad to help with the legal expenses of the right person, though. What do you want to bet it was done in self-defense?”

  “Maybe, but if so, why not come forward and admit it? And it was done in someone else’s house.”