by Elaine Viets
Helen saw a frown crease Nancie’s forehead. She was running out of patience. “Let’s go pick up Justine,” Helen said. “What’s Mort’s address?”
“Forty-two Peerless Point,” Nancie said. “Mort and his cat are rattling around in eight thousand square feet of prime waterfront real estate. Call me as soon as you get Justine.”
Helen and Phil made the trip in twenty minutes, slowed by morning rush-hour traffic. Peerless Point was an enclave of historic waterfront homes. Mort’s estate was hidden behind a ten-foot white stucco fence. Phil punched in the code and the ornate wrought-iron gates swung open.
“Wow,” Helen said. “This looks like a silent screen star’s house.” The two stucco wings were perfectly balanced by a series of arches: arched windows, an arched portico draped with red bougainvillea, and a white arched door.
The pale rose-brick drive wound through a sculpture garden. They drove past time-weathered marble statues of gods and angels.
“Mort’s at home,” Phil said. “At least his red Ferrari is. It’s parked under the arches.”
Helen parked behind it and they walked carefully to the front door.
Phil had the door keys out, but Helen tried the massive wrought-iron handle.
“It’s open,” she said. “What’s the dark red puddle on the doorstep? Paint?”
Phil kneeled down for a closer look, but the coppery smell and clouds of flies gave them their answer. He peered inside.
“It’s Mort,” he said. “He’s dead.”
CHAPTER 2
Monday
Mort Barrymore died in style, facedown under a crystal chandelier, his blood spattering the Carrara marble foyer. The rusty halo around his dark hair could have been a decorator’s “pop of color.”
Helen felt her stomach twist. “His skull is smashed,” she said, her voice thin and shaky. “What’s that wooden thing on the floor by his head, Phil? A knickknack shelf?”
“I think that’s Justine’s Zen Cat Tower,” Phil said. “Solid mahogany. Looks like someone bashed him with it. There’s blood and hair on that cat tower.”
Helen shivered. “Poor Mort. Such a waste. I’ll call 911.”
“Not yet!” Phil said. “We have to find the cat first. Come in, but watch where you step.”
Helen batted away the swarm of fat flies and entered gingerly. Phil crouched down for a closer look at Mort’s right arm, splashed with dark blood.
“Lucky for us, Mort held up his arm to defend himself,” he said. “He took a direct hit on his watch. It stopped at six p.m.”
“How do you know he was whacked last night?” Helen asked. And why am I talking like I’m in a gangster movie?
“Because his Rolex shows a.m. and p.m. time,” Phil said.
“What’s that on the floor beside the body?” Helen asked. “Looks like a round spot of blood, but it’s brighter red.”
She balanced carefully on one knee to examine it.
“Don’t pick it up,” Phil said. “It’s evidence.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Helen said. “It’s a red enamel medallion with a snarling cat’s face.”
“That’s no house cat,” Phil said. “‘Coventry’ is printed in gold around the edge.”
“Maybe it fell off a necklace. See that brass loop?” Helen said, as she photographed the medallion with her camera phone.
“Do you see Mort’s cell phone?” she asked.
“No,” Phil said. “Unless he’s lying on it, it’s not here.”
“We’d better find Justine fast,” Helen said. “If the police show up and we’re chasing a cat through a crime scene, we could lose our licenses.”
“How fast can we search eight thousand square feet?” Phil asked.
She glanced up the graceful curved staircase. “The door at the top of the steps is closed,” Helen said. “I’ll run upstairs and check.”
“Take my handkerchief,” Phil said. “Don’t leave prints on the knob. And don’t spend a lot of time up there.”
“Won’t have to,” Helen said. “If Justine is up there, she’ll be howling to get out. No cat can stand to be on the wrong side of a closed door.”
Helen opened the paneled wooden door and saw no sign of a cat. Back downstairs, she said, “We should look for a cell phone, charger and laptop while we’re searching for the cat.”
They surveyed the kitchen, a sleek white wilderness. “A gray cat would stand out here,” she said. “It’s feline free. No phone or laptop, either.”
They swept down a picture-lined hall to a sunny salon. Phil whistled at its size. “This room has to be two thousand square feet.” He lifted two massive couches and a love seat, while Helen checked under them for crouching cats. There were no curtains to hide behind, and the tables were glass.
“Nothing,” she said. “Not even cat hair under the furniture. We’ve caught another break: The powder-room door is shut. What’s in this next room?”
“Judging by the chlorine smell, I’d say it’s a swimming pool.” Phil’s voice echoed in the warm, humid room.
“A vintage one,” Helen said. “With a stunning Art Deco mosaic on the bottom of the pool.” The light-filled room with the pale blue tiles was a quick, easy search.
“No cat,” she said.
“The music room looks like it belongs to someone who played the radio,” Phil said. “Just a sound system, a lot of CDs and a grand piano on an acre of white carpet.”
“No dust on the piano,” Helen said. “Or cat hair. Mort must have an army of cleaners.”
Phil lifted two more couches in the room in search of the lost kitten. “Glad I don’t have to lift the piano,” he said, when he set down the fourth couch.
“That’s it for the downstairs,” Helen said, as they made their way back to the entrance.
“Wait! Look at that.” She pointed to a modern cat flap cut into an antique door behind the curving staircase. The heavy door opened on well-oiled hinges.
“Check this out, Phil. I think I’ve found the cat’s room.”
The sunlit space was about the size of a hotel room. Scattered across the floor were a pink-eared toy mouse and yarn balls. The large window, with a carpeted cat perch for sunning and bird-watching, was surrounded by catnip growing in glazed blue pots.
Two blue bowls were filled with dry food and water.
“The cat hasn’t eaten anything in half a day,” Helen said.
“Thumbs wouldn’t go without eating that long,” Phil said.
“If we’re late with his dinner, he howls so loud everyone at the Coronado hears him,” Helen said. “I’m getting a sinking feeling about Justine. Hey, this is cute. I didn’t realize they made feline furniture.”
She pointed to a cat-sized red velvet chaise with gold claw feet.
“That cat’s a wuss,” Phil said. “Our cat wouldn’t bother shedding on something so girly.”
“Neither has Justine,” Helen said. “Do you realize we haven’t seen a single cat hair in this house? There’s enough of Thumbs’s hair under your bed to knit a new cat.”
Phil was scanning shelves of cans and bags. “Look at this food,” he said. “Savory salmon, shrimp and brown rice. Chicken stew with sweet potatoes and carrots. That cat eats better than I do.”
“You don’t like carrots,” Helen said. “Mort definitely buys the best grade of litter. And washes the scoop, too.”
“I wonder why this shelf is completely empty,” Phil said.
“I bet that pet carrier, the Baby Coach, sat there,” she said, and photographed the empty shelf. “We’ll have to ask our client.”
A beige wicker chest with an arched opening squatted in the corner. Helen peeked inside. “This is the fanciest litter box cover I’ve ever seen. The litter is untouched. Someone took Justine, Phil. She’d have used it sometime in twelve hours. It’s time to call Nancie and then the police.”
“I’m calling the police now,” Phil said. “Then we contact Nancie. You know she’ll go all lawyer on us. She won’
t let us talk to the cops until she gets a signed release from Trish. We’ll be waiting here all day.”
“So?” Helen said. “It will be boring, but we’ll get paid.”
“The Peerless Point cops and detectives will have to wait, too,” Phil said, “and they won’t like it. They’ll take it out on us—and our client, once they find out who she is. Let’s call the cops now and deal with Nancie later.”
“We can’t,” Helen said. “Under Florida law, a PI can’t disclose case information unless the client authorizes it. How do we get around that?”
“Easy. We’ll simply say we were on a case and came to see Mort. We found him dead, and by the way, the valuable cat is missing. That way, we haven’t divulged a thing.”
“Why are you so anxious to call the cops?” Helen asked. She heard a noise. Was that a car coming up the drive?
She froze, waiting to see if someone would stop in front of Mort’s mansion. A dozen excuses for being in a murder victim’s home ran through her mind. None of them sounded good.
“Helen?” Phil cocked an eyebrow. “Are you here?”
“Yes,” Helen said. “We need to call the cops now. We’ve been here half an hour. Someone could show up anytime—the lawn service, the pool service, the housekeeper or the regiment of cleaners who keep this place free of cat hair.”
“Now you change your mind. Don’t you want to see if Mort’s office is upstairs?” Phil said.
Helen shook her head no. “Someone will find us. Call the police. But you’ll have to tell Nancie.”
And we’ll both get chewed out, she thought.
Soon the sculptures in the rose-brick drive were looking down their imposing noses at a fleet of official vehicles. Two Peerless Point uniforms arrived first. Helen and Phil were immediately separated. Helen was sent to the light-filled salon. She paced the room, watching a CSI van arrive.
I wonder if the crime-scene workers will find any cat hair, she thought.
A slender Latina housekeeper showed up next. Her sorrowful cries resounded through the house.
Soon after that, a muscle-bound man marched into the salon. “March” was the only way to describe his stiff, military walk. His dark suit fit poorly, the way suits often did on muscular men. He seemed to have no neck. His head looked like a spit-shined watermelon sticking out of his tight collar. It was a squared-off oval—a squoval, if that were a word. His shiny head was crowned with a grizzled laurel wreath of hair.
The man looked comical, but Helen knew better than to smile.
“Detective Lester V. Boland, Crimes Against Persons, Peerless Point force,” he said.
“Helen Hawthorne, partner, Coronado Investigations,” she said, then stopped. Was she supposed to say she was a private eye? The answers she’d carefully rehearsed with Phil flew out of her head. She felt queasy every time she thought of Mort’s body.
Detective Boland fired questions at her: Why was she here? How did she know Mort? When did she and her partner arrive?
Helen tried to give Boland carefully correct answers, but she was more rattled by Mort’s death than she realized.
“How did you get past the gate?” Detective Boland asked.
“Mrs. Barrymore gave us the key and asked us to check on her cat.”
“Mrs. Barrymore,” he said, rolling the name around in his mouth. “Mrs. Trish Barrymore? The nutcase who called the station and wanted the desk sergeant to put out an Amber Alert for her cat? Hah! Figured it would be the wife who killed him. Usually is.”
“What?” Helen said. “You haven’t even talked to her yet and you’re making her a suspect.”
“She was a suspect as soon as I saw her husband’s body,” Detective Boland said. “A very angry person smashed his head in, and dumped wives are angry.”
“But she wasn’t hiding anything,” Helen said. “She called the police for help. When you turned her down, she called her lawyer.”
As soon as the words slipped out, Helen realized her mistake. She’d blabbed too much.
“Smart, isn’t she?” he said. “The Barrymores are getting a highly publicized divorce. Mr. Barrymore’s death ends the wrangling. Mrs. Barrymore gets the houses, the cars, all the money—and she doesn’t have to share the cat.”
“What about her call to the police last night?” Helen asked.
“She was trying to give herself an alibi when she said her husband didn’t bring the cat back on time, but she didn’t fool us,” Detective Boland said. “She wanted her husband dead so she could have everything. Divorcing couples fight like cats and dogs. She killed him.”
CHAPTER 3
Monday
Phil delivered the bad news to Nancie as promised—but Helen got chewed out.
Detective Lester Boland kept the pair of private eyes four hours. He grilled Helen first. After she let the cat out of the bag, the detective went back to Phil. He shuttled back and forth between the couple until he finally allowed them to sign statements and escape.
Helen gathered her husband didn’t give the detective any more information, but she didn’t want to dissect her failure. She drove to the lawyer’s office in discouraged silence. She’d made a mistake—a big mistake—and she knew it. There was nothing else to say.
Yes, they should have called Nancie. They should have called her after Helen said too much. But they didn’t, and now they had to live with their blunder. Helen hoped it wouldn’t hurt Trish Barrymore.
The little lawyer frowned when the PI pair entered her office. By the time Phil finished giving her the details, Nancie was seething. Her tongue-lashing left Helen’s hide hanging in bloody strips.
“You told that police detective you were a private eye?” Nancie said, her voice heavy with disbelief. She marched around her office, then raised both hands theatrically, appealing to an invisible jury.
“Why? For the love of God, why?”
“Uh,” Helen said.
“You don’t have to disclose that information,” Nancie said. “You don’t have to disclose anything, not even that you and Phil are private eyes. All you had to say was, ‘We know Mrs. Barrymore and we were asked to check on Justine if we were in the area.’”
And we just happened to wander over to Peerless Point with the Barrymore security code, Helen thought. But she didn’t say it. Nancie didn’t stop ranting long enough to let Helen wedge in a word. The lawyer ran her hands through her short, dark hair and circled her desk like a jetliner looking to land.
“You didn’t even have to say that Justine was a cat,” Nancie said. “You could have just said her name and let it go at that, hoping the cops didn’t know what Justine was. That’s it. That’s all you had to do.” Nancie was behind her desk now, pounding on it. “Simple.” Pound. “Easy.” Pound. “Legal.” Pound, pound.
Helen felt each pound as if Nancie had hit her on the head with a hammer.
“You’re usually so levelheaded, Helen. What were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Helen said, staring at her shoes.
But she did know. Mort Barrymore wasn’t the first dead body Helen had seen, and if she and Phil kept working as private eyes, he probably wouldn’t be the last. But Mort’s corpse had unnerved her. Even though she’d never met the man, she’d seen his photos in the local papers. She’d watched him accept a civic award on the TV news, and liked him.
Trish was polite, poised and elegant, but Mort was funny, charming and self-effacing. Now he was 170 pounds of spoiled meat, a feast for flies. His murder scene had shaken her to the core. But she couldn’t say that to Nancie. Private eyes were supposed to be tough and emotionless.
“Of course, once you started talking,” Nancie said, “the door was open for the cops to ask an endless list of questions.”
And they did, Helen thought. They were better grillers than chef Bobby Flay. But at least I didn’t give them more information. I hope.
“Here!” Nancie handed the couple two sheets of white typing paper. Each had a large section highlighted in ye
llow and was protected by a clear plastic holder. “Keep these in your cars. I made them up when Phil called and told me there were problems. This is Florida Statute Four Ninety-three. Next time this situation arises . . .”
Next time, Helen thought. She said “next time.” She hasn’t fired us.
“Hand this paper to the cops,” Nancie said, “and simply say you can’t divulge any details of any investigation without the client’s express permission—or a court order. And, in my opinion, those details include who the client is.
“Which leads to the most important question, Helen,” Nancie said, raising her voice. “Why didn’t you call me as soon as you discovered the body? I would have been there immediately and prevented this debacle.”
Helen had no idea how such a small person could produce such a mighty blast of sound.
Phil stepped in front of Helen. “That was my fault,” he said. “I told her that the police would take it out on our client if we waited for you to arrive. I accept full responsibility.”
Helen thought her husband looked irresistible when he smiled like that. Nancie did not.
“Good,” she said, acid etching her voice. “And how are you going to take responsibility when our client is locked up for murder, Phil? Because you know Detective Boland is going straight to Trish’s house to interrogate her. I’ve warned her to call me the moment he shows up.”
The lawyer’s phone rang, blessedly interrupting the ferocious harangue.
Nancie checked the caller ID, then said, “It’s Trish Barrymore.”
She answered the phone, listened a moment, then said, “They’re at your home with a search warrant? Trish, you can’t do anything about the warrant. But I’m on my way now. Don’t say a word until I arrive. Be brave, dear.”
After Nancie hung up, she said, “At least someone listens to me. I have to leave. You can go now. Don’t let this happen again.”
Phil and Helen were out the door before Nancie left her desk. Helen stuffed her copy of the Florida statute into the Igloo’s glove compartment, hands trembling.
“Are you okay?” Phil asked, his voice soft with concern.
“I’ll survive,” Helen said, and shrugged. “I’m surprised I can sit down after she chewed me out. Thank you for defending me.”