What the Cat Saw

by Carolyn Hart

  No mention of a skateboard. “Did you find anything on the ground that could have caused her to fall?”

  The policewoman waved a hand in dismissal. “These grounds are tidy. Not even a scrap of paper in a twenty-foot radius from the stairs.”

  “She probably started down the stairs too fast.” Officer Hansen shook his head. “She was a hard charger. She always helped at the Kiwanis pancake suppers, made more pancakes than anybody. There were a bunch of stories in the paper. She was a big deal out at the foundation. Anybody looking for an easy way to make a buck would have known her place was empty.” His look was earnest. “Craddock’s a real nice place, Ms. Farley, but we got our no-goods like any other town. It seems pretty clear what we had here tonight was intent to rob. Now that the perp knows you’re here, you should be fine.” He gave a brief nod to officers Pierce and Baker and they moved through the doorway. He paused on the threshold long enough to gesture toward the kitchen. “Wedge that chair if you’re nervous. I guarantee you’ll be okay.”

  3

  Jugs wrinkled his nose, cautiously sniffed the Walmart sack on the bookcase near the front door.

  Nela inserted a nine-volt battery into a doorstop alarm. When shoved beneath the bottom of the door, the wedge prevented anyone from opening the door, with or without a key, plus any pressure activated an alarm. She didn’t feel she could install a deadbolt in an apartment that, as Miss Webster had made clear, belonged to her.

  Nela felt as though she’d been in the garage apartment for an eon with only the short foray to Walmart as a respite. She glanced around the living room, wished she found the decor as appealing as when she first arrived.

  In her peripheral vision, she was aware of the shattered mirror. Slowly she turned her head to look at it fully. The crystal horse still lay among shards of glass. There was something wanton in that destruction. If she had the money, she’d move to a motel. But she didn’t have enough cash to rent a room for a week. Besides, the cat needed to be cared for.

  The blond desk held only a few traces of powder. The police technician, a talkative officer with bright brown eyes and a ready smile, had arrived punctually at nine a.m., fingerprinted the front doorknob inside and out, the desk, the scattered drawers, the tipped-over chair, the statuette. He cleaned up after himself. He’d kept up a nonstop chatter. He’d quickly identified Miss Grant’s prints from a hairbrush in the master bath. “Lots of hers on the desk and some unidentified prints, but the drawer handles are smudged. Good old gloves. It takes a dumb perp to leave fingerprints. Usually we only find them at unpremed scenes.” He’d departed still chatting. “…Not too many prowler calls…usually a bar fight on Saturday nights…”

  Now she was left with the mess and her new defense against invasion.

  Jugs batted at the sack. The plastic slid from the table and the muscular cat flowed to the floor. He used a twist of his paw to fling the bag in the air.

  She ripped off the doorstop plastic cover and threw it across the room, a better toy than a plastic sack.

  Jugs crossed the floor in a flash, flicked the plastic, chased, jumped, rolled on his back to toss his play prey into the air, then gripped the plastic with both paws.

  “Pity a mouse. Staying in shape until spring?”

  Ignoring her, Jugs twisted to his feet and crouched, the tip of his tail flicking. After a final fling and pounce and flurry, Jugs strolled away, game done, honors his.

  She stared after him as he moved toward the front door. Every time she saw him, she remembered that searing moment yesterday when their eyes had first met. She blurted out her thought while berating herself for what was rapidly becoming an obsession. “There wasn’t a skateboard,” she called after him. Her voice sounded loud in the quiet room. “They would have found a skateboard.”

  Her only answer was the clap of the flap as Jugs disappeared through the cat door.

  Now she was talking out loud to a cat. Possibly he wondered what the weird-sounding syllables—skateboard—meant. More than likely his thoughts were now focused on a bird, a rustle in a bush, the scent of another cat.

  Anyway, what difference did it make?

  The difference between sanity and neuroses.

  No matter what made her think of a skateboard, there was no connection between the vagrant thought, a pet cat, and the accidental death of a woman who moved fast.

  Nela felt cheered. Monday she would go to the foundation, try to please Chloe’s boss, and enjoy the not-exactly holiday but definite departure from her normal life. The normal life that an IED had transformed from quiet happiness to dull gray days that merged into each other without borders, without hope.

  Nela looked down at the doorstop. There was no need to put the piece in place now. She shoved the doorstop into the corner between the door and the wall. So much for that. At least tonight she would feel safe.

  She still felt unsettled by the knowledge that Marian Grant had fallen to her death. The police seemed competent. If there had been a skateboard in the vicinity of the body, the police would have found it. There hadn’t been a skateboard—a board that rolled—on a step. Certainly not. But the image persisted.

  She turned, walked restlessly across the room, stopped and stared at the desk and the litter on the floor and the upended drawers. Why rifle a desk? Did people keep money in desks? Maybe.

  However…She turned back toward the front door. Only two items lay atop the waist-high blond bookcase to the right as a visitor entered. A set of keys. A black leather Coach bag. Last night Blythe Webster said the purse belonged to Marian Grant.

  When the intruder had turned on the living room’s overhead light, he couldn’t have missed seeing the expensive purse, especially if the purpose of entry was to steal. Wouldn’t a petty thief grab the purse first? Maybe he had. Maybe he’d rifled the purse first, then searched the desk. They hadn’t looked inside the purse last night. Wasn’t that an oversight?

  Nela stopped by the bookcase. She reached out for the purse, then drew her hand back. She hurried to the kitchen, fumbled beneath the sink, found a pair of orange rubber gloves, and yanked them on. She didn’t stop to sort out her thoughts, but fingerprints loomed in her mind. She had no business looking in the purse, but she would feel reassured if there was no money, if a billfold and credit cards were gone.

  Nela carried the purse to the kitchen table. She undid the catch. The interior of the purse was as austere and tidy as the apartment. She lifted out a quilted wallet in a bright red and orange pattern. It took only a moment to find a driver’s license. She gazed at an unsmiling face, blond hair, piercing blue eyes: Marian Denise Grant. Birth date: November 16, 1965. Address: One Willow Lane. As Blythe had said, the purse belonged to Marian Grant, had likely rested atop the bookcase since she’d arrived home the night before she died.

  Nela pulled apart the bill chamber. Two fifties, four twenties, a ten, three fives, seven ones. Four credit cards, one of them an American Express Platinum. She and Chloe always lived from paycheck to paycheck but, after she’d lost her writing job, she’d waited tables at an upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills and she remembered snatches of conversation over lunch at a producer’s table, the advantages of this particular card, automatic hotel upgrades, delayed four p.m. checkout times, free access to all airline hospitality suites, and more.

  An intruder could not have missed seeing the purse, but instead of rifling through the billfold, taking easy money, the intruder had walked on to the desk.

  Nela placed the quilted billfold on the table. One by one, she lifted out the remaining contents: lip gloss, a silver compact, comb, small perfume atomizer, pill case, pencil flashlight, BlackBerry, Montblanc pen with the initials MDG.

  Resting on the bottom of the purse was a neatly folded pair of women’s red leather gloves. She almost returned the other contents, but, always thorough, she picked up the gloves. Her hand froze in the air. Lying in a heap at the bottom of the bag, hidden from view until now by the folded gloves, was a braided gold neckl
ace inlaid with what looked like diamonds. Nela had a quick certainty that the stones were diamonds. They had a clarity and glitter that faux stones would lack.

  Nela held up the necklace, felt its weight, admired the intricacies of the gold settings. A thief would have hit pay dirt if he’d grabbed the purse as he ran. She returned the objects to the interior compartments and carried the purse to the bookcase. She replaced the bag precisely where it had earlier rested.

  And so?

  There were lots of maybes. Maybe the thief planned to take the purse but her 911 call induced panic. Maybe the thief knew of something valuable in the desk. Maybe Marian Grant collected old stamps or coins. Maybe Marian Grant had a bundle of love letters the writer could not afford for anyone to see. Her mouth twisted. Maybe there was a formula for Kryptonite or a treasure map or nothing at all. Lots of maybes and none of them satisfactory.

  The cat flap slapped.

  Nela turned to face Jugs. He sauntered past her, beauty in motion, sinuous, graceful, silent.

  “It’s your fault that I’m worried.” Her tone was accusing.

  The cat flicked a glance over his shoulder. “…My territory…I showed him…” He disappeared into the kitchen.

  Nela wondered if he had vanquished a neighboring tom or if she was simply thinking what he might have done when outside. What difference did it make whether the thought was hers or Jugs?

  A big difference.

  Either the cat remembered a board that rolled on a step or she had dredged up a long-ago memory of a teenage Bill on a skateboard in happy, sunny days.

  What if the cat was right? What if Marian Grant hadn’t seen a skateboard on the step when she hurried out to jog early that January morning? The police surmised she’d caught a toe on a steep step, that she’d been going too fast. There had been no skateboard near the stairs when her body was discovered. But there could be reasons. Maybe some kid lived in that big house. Maybe the housekeeper saw the skateboard and either unthinkingly or perhaps quite deliberately removed it. Maybe the cat was thinking about some other skateboard on some other steps. Maybe the cat wasn’t thinking a damn thing.

  Moreover, a skateboard on the steps might explain why Marian Grant fell, but again so what? She fell because she caught her toe or slipped on a skateboard or simply took a misstep. Her death had been adjudged an accident. To think otherwise was absurd.

  Then why did someone creep into the dead woman’s apartment last night and search the desk?

  This was the easiest answer of all. As Officer Henson said, every town had its no-goods and last night one of them had taken a chance on finding something valuable in a dead woman’s apartment.

  Still…Why the desk and not the purse?

  The apartment was utterly quiet. She felt a light pressure on her leg. She looked down. Jugs twined around her leg, whisking the side of his face against her, staking claim to her. She reached down, paused to remove one rubber glove, and stroked his silky back.

  His upright tail curved slightly forward. “…You’re all right…I like you…”

  Nela felt a catch in her throat. “I like you, too.”

  The sound of her voice emphasized the silence surrounding them. There was no one to see them. With a decisive nod, she walked toward the door, retrieved the doorstop, pushed it beneath the door. Moving around the living room, she closed the blinds in the windows. She pulled back on the rubber glove and crossed to the desk.

  She wasn’t sure why she was wearing the gloves now. Maybe she had the instincts of a crook. After all, wasn’t it reasonable for her to clean up the mess around the desk, make the room presentable again?

  Although Nela was sure she was unobserved, she worked fast as she stacked papers. The cleanup turned out to be reasonably easy. In keeping with Chloe’s judgment of Marian Grant as efficient, each folder had a neat tab and it soon became apparent that the drawers had been emptied but the papers had fallen not far from the appropriate folder and showed no signs of having been checked over.

  Nela was looking for something to explain what drew an intruder past an expensive purse to this sleek desk. She started with the drawer emptied nearest the desk, turned it right side up. She restored Miss Grant’s personal papers to the proper folder—insurance policies, a car title, medical records, bank and credit card statements, travel receipts, copies of tax submissions. Near the next drawer, she found clips of news stories about individuals, research programs, fellowships, and educational institutions. Each person or group featured had received a grant from the Haklo Foundation. She was getting good at her project and quickly placed clips in the correct folders. The second drawer slid into its place.

  Doggedly, Nela continued until the floor was clear, the drawers replaced with the proper contents.

  When she’d finished, she stared at the desk with a puzzled frown. She had a conviction that the searcher had emptied the drawers not to mess up the papers or even to check them, but to be sure there wasn’t something hidden among the folders.

  She looked across the room at the Coach bag. Instead of finding reassurance, she felt more uneasy. Had the searcher been hunting for that obviously expensive necklace? If so, why not look in the purse? Why the desk? But who knew what a thief thought or why?

  Nela stripped off the rubber gloves, returned them to the kitchen. She found a broom closet, picked up a broom and dustpan. Soon the last of the broken mirror had been swept up and dumped into the trash container. Lips pressed firmly together, she carefully eased the frame with the remnants of the mirror from the hook on the wall. When she’d placed the frame inside Miss Grant’s bedroom, she returned to the living room. She opened the blinds, welcoming bright shafts of winter sunlight.

  Yet the apartment held no cheer. She had rarely felt so alone, so cut off from human contact. She wouldn’t be around anyone until she went to Chloe’s job Monday. The job…There probably wouldn’t be anyone at the foundation on a Saturday but she could take a drive, find the way, make Monday morning easier. She grabbed her purse and Chloe’s coat.

  She was almost to the door when she paused. The Coach purse now seemed huge to her because she knew that it contained a large sum of cash and an obviously expensive necklace. She yanked wool gloves from Chloe’s pockets. She put them on and picked up the Coach bag.

  In the kitchen, she knelt by the cabinet that held Jugs’s canned food. In only a moment, the purse rested snugly behind cans stacked four high. Maybe a thief would head unerringly for the cat food cabinet. But she felt better. Monday at work, she’d find out how to contact Marian Grant’s sister and suggest that the purse, bank books, and other obvious valuables be removed from the apartment. She didn’t have to admit she knew the purse’s contents to suggest that it be put away for safekeeping.

  She was considerably cheered as she stepped out on the high porch. The wind had died down. The day was cold, possibly in the thirties, but brilliant sunshine and a pale winter blue sky were exhilarating.

  As she started down the steep steps, a streak of dark blue on the second baluster caught her gaze. She stopped and stared. An oblique line marred the white paint about sixteen inches above the step. The scrape on the wood indicated that something had struck the baluster, leaving an uneven mark on the paint.

  Nela pictured early-morning darkness and a woman in a hurry, moving fast, not thinking about a familiar stairway. Likely her right foot would have come down on the first step, her left on the second. A skateboard could have flipped up to strike the baluster while flinging her sideways to tumble over the railing.

  The police had searched the area and found nothing, certainly not a skateboard.

  The streak looked new and fresh. Nela was abruptly irritated with herself. Since when was she an expert on a marred surface on a white post? Since never. The scrape might have been there for months.

  She started down the steps. Carefully.

  HAKLO FOUNDATION glittered in faux gold letters in an arch over stone pillars. Nela turned in. Leafless trees bordered well-
kept grounds. Winter-bare branches seemed even more bleak in contrast to a green lawn of fescue. The velvety grass emphasized the Mediterranean glow of the two-story golden stucco building atop a ridge.

  At the foundation entrance, an impressive portico covered shallow stone steps. The imposing statue of Harris Webster gazed into infinity at the base of the steps. The red tile roof made Nela feel homesick. There were so many Spanish colonial buildings in old LA. Even the ornate stonework on oversize windows seemed familiar, but there should have been palm trees, not leafless sycamores.

  A discreet sign with an arrow pointed to the right: PARKING.

  Obediently Nela turned right. She passed a line of evergreens. The short spur ended at a cross street. A sign to the right announced: GUEST PARKING. The guest parking lot was out of sight behind the evergreens. A sign to the left: STAFF ONLY.

  She turned left. A wing extended the length of the drive. At the end of the building, she turned left again. A matching wing extended from the other side with a courtyard in between. Arched windows overlooked a courtyard garden with a tiled fountain, waterless in January. A cocktail reception could easily spill out into the courtyard in good weather. She glanced about but saw no parking areas. Once past the building, another discreet sign led to the staff parking lot, also screened by evergreens. Beyond the evergreens, a half dozen outbuildings likely provided either storage or housed maintenance. On the far side of sycamores that stood sentinel alongside the building, she glimpsed several rustic cabins.

  She was a little surprised to see a car in the lot, a beige Camry. Nela turned into the parking area and chose the slot next to the Camry. It would take only a minute to spot the entrance she should use Monday.

  When she stepped out of the VW and closed the door, the sound seemed loud, the country silence oppressive. She wasn’t accustomed to stillness. There was always noise in LA. She followed a covered walkway to the end of the near wing. The walk ended in a T. To her left was a doorway helpfully marked: STAFF ONLY. To the right, the sidewalk led past the sycamores to the cabins.