What the Cat Saw

by Carolyn Hart

  “You put the necklace in Blythe’s office?” His broad face reflected surprise, uncertainty, calculation, concentration. He stared at her for a long moment, then slid the phone into his pocket. “Show me.”

  The heavy silence of an empty building emphasized the sound of their footsteps on the marble floor. At Blythe’s office, he opened the door and flicked on the lights. The necklace was starkly visible in the center of the desk, the diamonds glittering bright as stars.

  Steve Flynn walked slowly to the desk. He stared down at the magnificent diamonds in the ornate gold settings. “I’ll be double damned.” He pulled his cell from his pocket. A tiny flash flared. He looked for a moment at the small screen. “You can tell the damn thing’s worth a fortune even in a cell phone picture.” He closed the phone, turned, and looked at Nela. Finally, he shook his head as if puzzled. “Why didn’t you throw it away?”

  “It would have been smarter.” But nobody gets second chances.

  “Why didn’t you?” He was insistent.

  “It wasn’t mine.” It was ironic that basic honesty was going to put her in jail. “The more fool I.”

  “Yeah. There’s a small matter of property rights.” He sounded sardonic. “All right, I may be a fool, too, but everything in here”—he waved his hand around the office—“appears to be in place. You came in, you dropped the necklace, you left. Come on.”

  “Aren’t you going to call the police?”

  “No. For some crazy reason, I believe you.” He jerked a thumb at the door. “Let’s get out of here. We need to talk.”

  10

  Steve leaned back against the plumped pillow, legs outstretched, and listened. Pretty soon he had a sense of how Haklo appeared to her: Blythe Webster imperious but shaken, and staff members who weren’t just names but individuals with passions. Louise Spear grieved over Marian and Haklo’s troubles. Francis Garth was furious at a threat to his beloved Tallgrass Prairie. Francis was proud of his Osage Heritage—the preserve was the heart of the Osage Nation—and Francis was a formidable figure. Robbie Powell and his partner, Erik Judd, bitterly resented the new director. Hollis Blair was in a situation where aw-shucks charm didn’t help. Abby Andrews was either a wilting maiden or a scheming opportunist. Cole Hamilton appeared subdued and defeated, but his comment that emphasized the necessity of a key to Haklo might be disingenuous. Grace Webster was at odds with her sister. Peter Owens was affable but possibly sly.

  When Nela revealed the existence of the obscene letters sent out on the director’s letterhead, he saw another link in the chain of ugly attacks on the foundation. But this one appeared tied directly to Abby Andrews, which might tilt the scale toward schemer instead of victim.

  Steve liked Nela’s voice. Not high. Not low. Kind of soft. A voice you could listen to for a long time. She looked small in an oversize chintz-covered chair, dark hair still tangled by the wind, face pale, dark shadows beneath her eyes. But she no longer seemed remote as she had in his first glimpse at Hamburger Heaven.

  His eyes slid from her to a photograph on the table next to her chair. A dark-haired laughing man in a tee and shorts stood near an outcrop of black rocks on a beach, the wind stirring his hair. Across the bottom of the photograph was a simple inscription: To Nela—Love, Bill. A red, white, and blue ribbon was woven through the latticed frame.

  Steve was accustomed to figuring from one fact to another. The picture had to belong to Nela. To carry the photograph with her as she traveled meant that the man and the place mattered very much to her. He was afraid he knew exactly why the ribbon was in place and that would account for the undertone of sadness that he’d observed.

  But tonight, she was fully alive, quick intelligence in her eyes, resolve in her face, a woman engaged in a struggle to survive. The brown tabby nestled next to her. One slender hand rested on the cat’s back. As she spoke, she looked at him with a direct stare that said she was in the fight for as long as it took.

  When he’d caught her coming out of Haklo, he’d felt a bitter twist of disappointment, accepting that Katie had been right, that she was covering up for her light-fingered sister. At that point, he had a picture of her leaving Haklo, the time electronically recorded. She was cornered. All he had to do was tie up the loose ends. It was like ballast shifting in a hull. When the heavy load tipped to one end, the ship was sure to go down.

  Now the ballast was back in place. He was pretty good at keeping score and she had two heavy hits in her favor: the return of the necklace and the door wedge. Sure, she could have found the necklace at the apartment, maybe not in the purse as she claimed, decided her sister was the thief, and returned the necklace to protect her. But the smart decision would have been to fling the necklace deep into woods on the other side of town. She could easily have found some woods and jettisoned the jewelry. She took a big chance bringing the necklace to Haklo tonight, which argued she not only wasn’t a thief, she was too honest and responsible to throw away a quarter of a million dollars that didn’t belong to her. That was one home run. The second hinged on one small fact: The morning after her 911 call, she went out and bought a wedge to shove under the door.

  She turned her hands palms up, looked rueful. “I understand if you decide to call the detective. You’re a reporter. You have to be honest with the cops you know. I was a reporter, too. Trust is a two-way street.”

  He wasn’t surprised. She had the manner of someone who was used to asking questions, looking hard at facts, winnowing out nonsense. She’d showed she was tough when he confronted her at Haklo. She’d asked if he would listen to truth. Truth was all that mattered, all that should matter to a reporter. Maybe that was why he’d felt a connection to her right from that first look. They might have lots of differences in their backgrounds, but they would always understand each other.

  “If you call Dugan”—her voice was calm—“I’ll tell her what I’ve told you. Someone came here hunting for the necklace and that’s the reason her office was searched. Unfortunately, Dugan won’t believe me.”

  He didn’t refute her conclusion about Katie Dugan. If Katie learned the necklace had been in Nela’s possession, she’d be sure her judgment was right. As soon as Chloe returned from Tahiti, they’d both be booked.

  “Let me be sure I get it.” He watched her carefully. “You arrived here Friday afternoon. Everything was fine. You went to bed, somebody got inside, hunted in the desk. You called nine-one-one. When the cops came, you had to unlock the front door. You believe someone entered with a key. That likely comes down to a small list. Marian’s life was centered at Haklo. Either someone knew where she kept an extra key or maybe the intruder entered Haklo first and found a key to the apartment in her office and came here when the necklace didn’t turn up in the office. Saturday morning you checked Marian’s purse and found the necklace. You didn’t do anything about it because you had no business snooping and no reason to think she shouldn’t have a necklace in her purse. You hid the purse to protect the necklace. You went to Haklo Saturday, Louise took you around. Monday you heard about the vandalism, including the obscene letters. But that receded into the background after you found Marian’s office trashed. Then you learned that the necklace was stolen property. Katie Dugan believes your sister heisted the necklace after puffing up a smokescreen with the vandalism and you are covering up for her. Tonight you decided to put the necklace on Blythe’s desk. That’s everything?”

  She hesitated, frowning. Her gaze dropped to the cat nestled close to her.

  Why wasn’t she looking at him? What else did she know? Steve came upright, leaned forward, his eyes insistent. “I’ve gone out on a limb for you. I know you went in Haklo after hours. I know where the necklace is. If this all came out, I could be charged as an accessory. I need to know what you know.”

  Slowly she looked up.

  He stared into dark brilliant eyes that held both uncertainty and knowledge.

  “I don’t have proof.” Her gaze was steady.

  “Tell me, N
ela.” He liked the sound of her name, Nee-la. “I’ll help you. All I ask is that you don’t lie to me. I’ve heard too many lies from beautiful women.” He stopped for a long moment, lips pressed together. “Okay. I want honesty. I’ll be honest. I heard too many lies from one particular beautiful woman, my ex-wife. I’m telling you this because I want you to know where I’m coming from. I’ll help you—if you don’t lie to me. You have to make a choice. If you can’t—or won’t—be honest, tell me and I’ll walk out of here and tonight never happened. I never came here, I never went to Haklo, I don’t know anything about a piece of jewelry.”

  “I won’t lie to you. I may not be able to tell you everything.” She was solemn. “Whatever I tell you will be the truth. I think I do know something.” She glanced again at the cat, then said, almost defiantly, “I can’t tell you how I know.”

  He wanted to believe her, wanted it more than he’d wanted anything in a very long time. Steve, you damn fool, women lie, don’t let her suck you into something screwy. Why can’t she tell how she knows whatever it is that she knows? Protecting somebody? He almost pushed up from the chair. He could walk away, avoid entanglement. But he was already speaking. “All right. Keep your source.”

  As for how she obtained a piece of knowledge, the possibilities were pretty narrow. Either she or her sister had seen something that Nela now believed to be important in the saga of Haklo and its troubles. He’d bet the house she was protecting her sister. He was putting himself in a big hole if he didn’t report her entry into Haklo and the necklace on Blythe Webster’s desk. He needed every scrap of information to dig his way out. He would be home free—and so would Nela and Chloe—if the jewel thief was caught. “What do you know?”

  “Marian Grant was murdered.”

  The words hung between them.

  Steve had covered the story. Marian Grant was a prominent citizen of Craddock. Her death was front-page news. Marian’s accident had been a surprise. She had been in her late forties, a runner, a good tennis player. However, accidents happen to the fit as well as the unfit. For an instant, Nela’s claim shocked him into immobility. Then pieces slotted together in his mind—vandalism at Haklo, a missing necklace in Marian’s purse, a thief fearing arrest, Marian’s death—to form an ugly pattern, a quite possible pattern. Still…

  “Are you claiming somebody was here and shoved her down the steps?”

  “No. I have reason to believe”—she spoke carefully—“that someone put a skateboard on the second step.”

  “A skateboard?” He pictured that moment, Marian hurrying out the door for her morning jog, taking quick steps, one foot landing on a skateboard. Hell yes, that could knock her over a railing. “If somebody knows that for a fact, the cops have to be told.”

  “They would want to know how I know. I can’t identify the source.”

  He liked piecing together facts from a starting point. “You arrived here Friday, right? You can prove you were on a certain flight and that you were in LA until you took that flight?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You’ve never been to Craddock before?”

  “No.”

  “Therefore, you couldn’t know about a skateboard on the steps from your own knowledge. Who told you?” The list had to be short. Her sister, Chloe, had to be the only person Nela knew before she arrived.

  Nela brushed back a tangle of dark hair. “I promised the truth. I’m telling you the truth. No one told me.”

  “If”—he tried to be patient—“no one told you and you weren’t here, how do you know?”

  “All I can say is that no one told me.” She spoke with finality, looked at him with a faint half smile.

  He understood. She wasn’t going to budge. There had to be a strong reason for her silence. But she had nothing to gain from making a claim that Marian Grant had been murdered. If anything, turning the search for the necklace into a murder investigation might place her and Chloe in more peril. Once again Nela was making a moral choice: Return a quarter-million-dollar necklace. Expose murder.

  “Steve—”

  It was the first time she’d ever said his name. Someday would she speak to him, call him by name, and be thinking of him and not stolen jewels or murder?

  “—you said I could keep my source. But we need to tell the police. Sometimes I got anonymous tips on stories. Will you tell the police you got a tip, an anonymous tip? Can’t you say that somebody said”—she paused, then began again, this time in a scarcely audible wisp of sound—“Marian Grant was murdered. She knew who took the necklace. Someone put a skateboard on the second step of the garage apartment stairs…”

  Craddock had few public pay phones left. In the parking lot of a Valero filling station, Steve stood with his back to the street, his shoulders hunched against the cold. He not only didn’t have his jacket, he didn’t have gloves. In fact, he didn’t own a pair of gloves. He’d found a shammy crammed in the glove compartment. He dropped in the coins, pushed the buttons. The phone was answered after five rings. He listened to the entire message, waited for his extension number, pushed the buttons. He heard his own voice, waited again, finally whispered, repeating Nela’s words. He hung up and used the shammy to clean the receiver.

  Nela looked down at the muscular cat stretched out with his front paws flat on the surface of the kitchen table. “You look like one of those stone lions that guard the New York Public Library.”

  Jugs regarded her equably. “…You’re happier today…”

  Yes, she was happier today. Removing the necklace from the apartment was like kicking free of tangled seaweed just before a big wave hit. “That’s just between you and me, buddy. Thank God cops don’t read cat minds. I’d be in big trouble.”

  Jugs continued to stare at her. “…You’re worried…She was worried…”

  As she sipped her morning coffee, a faint frown drew her eyebrows down. Although she felt almost giddy with relief every time she thought about the necklace now in Blythe’s office, the removal of the jewelry didn’t solve the main problem. Maybe that’s why her subconscious, aka Jugs, was warning her.

  She pushed away the quicksilver thought that her subconscious could not possibly have known if someone had rigged the step to make Marian Grant fall. But something had to account for that searing moment when she’d looked at Jugs and imagined his thoughts…. board rolled on the second step…When she thought of a rolling board, the image had come swiftly, a skateboard. Saturday morning when she’d looked at the banister, a streak of paint was just where a skateboard might have struck if tipped up. That was confirmation, wasn’t it? Something had hit that banister. They said violence leaves a psychic mark. Who said? Her inner voice was quick with the challenge. All right. She’d read somewhere that there was some kind of lasting emanation after trauma. If Marian had been murdered, if someone left a skateboard on her steps, that certainly qualified as a violent act. When Marian plunged over the railing, did she have time to realize what had happened?

  Nela shook her head. She might as well believe in voodoo. But some people did. Maybe she’d had a moment of ESP. But she’d never had any use for so-called psychics. The explanation had to be simple. There was that gash in the stair rail. Maybe subconsciously she’d noticed the scrape when she first arrived and the shock of confronting Jugs stirred some long-ago memory of a skateboard.

  She looked at Jugs, but his eyes had closed. When he’d looked at her Friday night, other thoughts had come to her mind…. She was worried…She didn’t know what to do…

  About a stolen necklace?

  Nela thought about the last few days in the life of a woman she’d never known, a smart, intense, hardworking woman who had devoted her life to Haklo.

  A vandal struck Haklo again and again.

  Blythe’s necklace was stolen.

  The necklace was in Marian Grant’s purse that she placed atop the bookcase the last night of her life.

  Did Marian steal the quarter-million-dollar adornment?

  T
he violent searches of her office and apartment after her death appeared almost certainly to be a hunt for the necklace. Dumped drawers indicated a search for some physical object, not incriminating papers suggested by Detective Dugan. The destruction in her office reflected a wild and dangerous anger on the part of the searcher when the effort to find the necklace failed. From everything Nela had been told about Marian, there was nothing to support the idea that Marian could have been a thief. Instead, it was much more likely that Marian had discovered the identity of the thief and obtained the necklace. However, she didn’t contact the police. She kept the necklace in her purse.

  Why hadn’t she called the police?

  As Steve had made clear, Marian always protected the foundation. Her decision to handle the theft by herself meant that a public revelation would create a scandal. She was a confident, strong woman. Perhaps she insisted the thief had to confess or resign or make restitution. Perhaps she said, “I’ve put the necklace in a safe place and unless you do as I say, I will contact the police.” Perhaps she set a deadline.

  Had the thief killed her to keep her quiet?

  She died early Monday morning. The funeral was Thursday. Chloe had stayed in the apartment since Monday night to take care of Jugs. Whether Marian’s death was accident or murder, the presence of the necklace in her purse was fact. The thief’s first opportunity to search the apartment had been Friday night after Chloe had left town.

  Nela welcomed the hot, strong coffee but it didn’t lessen the chill of another pointer to someone on the Haklo staff. All of them knew about Chloe’s trip to Tahiti. Chloe hadn’t mentioned that Nela would stay in the apartment until Chloe’s return. As for access to Marian’s apartment, perhaps a key was, as Steve suggested, secreted in some simple place known to the searcher. Or perhaps the office was searched before the apartment and a key found in that desk.

  Whatever the order, the searches were fruitless because the necklace was in Marian’s purse. The treasure wasn’t hidden. The necklace had simply been dropped to the bottom of a Coach bag, a safe place in the eyes of its owner. A killer scrabbled through drawers, dumped files, and all the while the necklace was within reach.