“They should have taken me to a hospital, not here.” I frowned, still not understanding. “What am I doing in jail?”
I gulped after I said it, wishing I could remember.
Danny looked chipper. “You’re here for the attempted assault.” He brightened further. “It was pretty intense.”
“Attempted assault?” I stared at them both, astonished.
Travis held up his hands to calm me. “You didn’t assault anyone. It’s a legal statement.” He threw Danny a reproachful glance. “You said a few things, made some accusations . . .”
“Made some enemies at the local PD,” Danny put in. It occurred to me that he, notorious avoider of police stations everywhere, had come to one to be with me. On purpose. He cared.
“Got a little out of line,” Travis finished staunchly, “but everyone understands you were injured. I spoke with a few of the officers already. They’ve agreed not to press charges.”
That was a relief. “Then I have to stay only overnight?”
I tried to keep the telltale tremor from my voice. I failed. I didn’t want to spend a night in jail. Any jail.
“Nah.” Danny’s grin lit the room. “I already bailed you out. You’re free to go whenever you feel ready to walk out.”
I could have hugged him. “I could hug you.” More tears.
He only shrugged. Then, to my bewilderment, Danny leaned nearer. Very gently, he thumbed away a tear from my cheek.
“You’d do the same for me,” he said. “Hell, you have.”
“It was a good use of his retainer salary,” Travis added.
My financial advisor seemed much less thrilled with Danny’s generosity than I was. At that moment, I didn’t care. “Thanks.”
Danny grinned. “You’re not cut out for the big house.”
I laughed. “Are you saying I’m not tough enough? You just watch, mister,” I threatened. Then I remembered something. I switched my gaze to Travis. “Our movie date! Did we miss it?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said immediately. “You’re more important than any old movie.” His throaty tone had deepened.
I was lucky that both of them cared about me. I inhaled.
“I’m happy you think so,” I said honestly. “Now, let’s get out of here!” I looked straight at Danny. “I just thought of something that needs to be done.” I glanced at Travis. “And sorry, Trav. But this is something only Danny can help with.”
Eighteen
As cover for our mission, Danny and I moved our Christmas lights–viewing hayride to that night. My bodyguard buddy wasn’t thrilled about putting me on a quaking, stopping-and-starting vehicle while I was still (mildly) concussed, but I insisted.
“I feel fine now!” Which wasn’t strictly true. My headache persisted, joining my achy knee in making life difficult for me. I still had gaps in my memory, too. But I was resolute. “Plus, if anyone questions us later, I want us to have an alibi.”
“I’m already intrigued.” Danny’s eyes gleamed.
I told him my plans. “It’s simple,” I said. “Donna had a cat. I saw it through her kitchen window.” I’d glimpsed evidence of the little critter’s furry existence on her coat, too. “Did anyone at the police station talk about rescuing her cat?”
My friend frowned. “Nobody reported seeing a cat.”
That was what I’d thought. “But the police searched the house?” I still wanted to know what had happened. “For clues?”
“It’s not an official crime scene. They think Donna’s fall might have been an accident.” Of course they did. “On the other hand, the police might still be watching the place, so—” Danny broke off, then eyed me with something close to apprehension. He’d guessed my intentions: a break-in, obviously. “Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously. We have to get into Donna’s house and rescue her cat. It’s probably scared half to death in there. It’s abandoned now! No one will be coming to take care of it.”
Eventually, I assumed, Donna’s next of kin would arrive. Someone close to her would take possession of her cat. But Donna had been single; a casual questioning of Travis had told me the police hadn’t yet reached anyone. That left an unknowable number of nights for Donna’s poor cat to hide, all alone, in her house.
I couldn’t bear the thought of it. I’m an animal lover through and through. The fact that I don’t have any pets of my own (yet) doesn’t change that. I’m sure I’ll adopt a lovable golden retriever the minute I quit gridskipping for good.
Also, given the police’s seeming indifference to Melissa Balthasar’s murder, I wasn’t sure anyone in Sproutes would go out of their way to care for Donna’s cat. Plus, I wanted a look inside her place for clues. If anyone caught me doing that, rescuing Donna’s cat would be my excuse.
Which was a long way of saying that, yes, Danny and I jumped off the Christmas-lights hayride that night and sneaked over to Donna’s street in east Sproutes.
We made our getaway while the hayride was stopped for carolers. I doubted that even Tansy and Josh, who’d come along, noticed. It was a dark night in mid-December, after all.
I did have one lingering concern. “Won’t Tansy need you?”
Danny shook his head. “Not for the few minutes this will take.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. I saw his mischievous grin flash in the darkness. “I told Josh I wanted to sneak away with you to make out. He said he’d watch Tansy. I trust him.”
“Okay, cool.” I crept in Danny’s wake down the dim street. Fortunately, some of the residents hadn’t lighted their houses with quite as much Christmas zeal as Donna had; we were nearly invisible. Belatedly, Danny’s earlier remark registered. I did a double take. “You told Josh you wanted to make out with me?”
He nodded. “Why not? I thought it was believable.”
“You couldn’t think of anything else as an excuse?”
A shrug. “It was expedient.” Danny led us along Donna’s side yard. He made his way to the back door. “Here. Hold this.”
“This” was his lock-picking gear. I fumbled to catch the small pouch he carried it in, trying not to envision all the less than lawful black marks on Danny’s record. Thievery. Forgery. Bar brawls and general criminal misbehavior. Next to them, a simple bump key and torsion wrench were nothing, right?
“I’m a little disappointed you’re still carrying this,” I murmured, low enough that we wouldn’t be overheard. “You were supposed to be reformed, remember?” I was worried about him.
He paused to toss me an ironic look. “Is it okay if I finish breaking into this house, the way you asked me to, before we have a heart-to-heart about my life on probation?”
My heart leaped to my throat. “You’re still on probation?”
“Nope. That’s how little you know about it. Also, you’re missing the point.” Danny wiggled the doorknob. The lock popped open. He gave me a sarcastic, chivalrous wave. “After you.”
Duly chastened, I stepped inside. Instantly, I felt enveloped in Donna Brown’s mousy, trinket-stuffed life.
I’d brought a pocket flashlight (Danny forbade me to use it while he handled the job), but I didn’t need any extra light to see that the theater director and teacher’s small house was packed with overstuffed furniture and tchotchkes. There were souvenirs of shows at the Sproutes theater, a bulletin board crammed with reminders, a calendar full of volunteer events, crafting projects in various stages of completion, and more Christmas décor than I’d seen anywhere short of a boutique.
The realization that Donna would never again enjoy the bits and pieces of her busy life—or her Christmas tree!—made me sad.
Danny distracted me by saying, “The police found one of those Santa Claus costumes in here. It was Donna’s size.”
I thought about that, squinting as I searched for the cat. “I don’t remember seeing her at the Santa pub crawl. Do you?”
My friend gave me a headshake. He crouched to look under the floral-print sofa. It was chockablock with holiday pil
lows.
“That doesn’t mean Donna wasn’t there, though,” Danny said as he straightened. “That’s the whole point of a costume.”
“We could have overlooked her. She was involved in a lot of community events.” I hurried down the hallway, past a litter box, following my nose toward the cat’s likely hiding place. I told Danny about what I’d learned from Zach—that Donna had, indeed, favored some of her students. That she definitely had considered herself Albany’s unappreciated creative-writing mentor. “If Donna blamed Melissa for taking her place with Albany—”
“She might have wanted revenge for that.”
I agreed. “As recently as today, Donna was my top suspect.” I reached the bedroom and experienced a new wave of melancholy. It was intrusive to be there. Spooky too. “It’s going to be harder to prove anything now that Donna is gone, though.”
“Why?” Danny dropped to the floor, agile and stealthy.
That cat didn’t have a chance of staying hidden.
“For one thing, Donna can’t confess,” I told him.
My buddy crawled farther, his torso half enveloped by Donna’s ruffled Christmastime bed skirt. I heard the cat yowl.
Lights shined against the bedroom window. Car headlights. I felt momentarily trapped in their glare. Donna had died before closing her drapes for the evening. She’d let in the whole world.
Had she also let in a murderer? Or had her fall from the roof been an accident? Panicked, I threw myself onto the carpet.
At my side, Danny graciously ignored the oof ! sound I made upon impact. He continued coaxing the cat. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s outside,” I whispered. “Hurry up!”
“Persuasion takes finesse. It can’t be hurried. That’s going about it all wrong.” His voice dropped into a pet-friendly register on that last remark, turning singsongy. “Here you go!”
I saw him reach into his jacket pocket for some kibble. It disappeared beneath the bed. “I didn’t even see you grab that.”
“You need to learn to pay attention, Miss Marple.” Soon after that, Danny emerged with Donna’s pet cradled against his burly chest. I heard the cat purr. My security-expert pal stood, then scratched the cat between its furry ears, making friends.
“Nice finesse.” I was impressed. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Okay.” In the dark, Danny led the way. “Grab the kibble.”
I balked. “How am I going to explain carrying a bag of kibble on the Christmas-lights hayride a few minutes from now?”
“How am I going to explain carrying a fifteen-pound cat?”
Hmm. It appeared that we hadn’t thought this through.
“You just got out of jail,” Danny pointed out, smiling at the cat as he cuddled her more closely. “You’re an official badass now. You can pull it off. No one will dare question you.”
“Really?” Maybe there were unforeseen benefits to having a bad reputation. If anyone knew about them, it was my friend.
“No, not really.” He flashed a grin as we rushed into the living room, still alert for any clues. “Not for you, at least.”
“Hey!” I objected, stopping on my way to the back door.
Danny wasn’t in the mood to humor me. “Go wait outside.”
He veered in the opposite direction from the back door. I watched him go, feeling indecisive. I still needed kibble.
But where was he going? I heard the subtle whoosh of air as he opened a door somewhere nearby. Defiantly, I followed him.
“If you’re getting yourself arrested, I am, too!” I hissed at him in an undertone, still worried about the headlights I’d glimpsed through Donna’s bedroom window. “We haven’t even found any clues here. It’s not worth spending time in the hoosegow.”
I’d tried to lighten the mood with that cheesy jailhouse slang, but it was no use. Not after I saw what Danny had found.
I wheeled to a stop in the doorway he’d passed through and looked around. At my feet, in the small mudroom I found myself in, were a broom, a dustpan, and an unopened bag of dry kibble. Ahead of me, in the garage that had been adjoined to the mudroom, was . . .
“Is that Swerving Santa’s dark-colored SUV?” I asked.
“Maybe so.” Gravely, Danny looked over his shoulder at me, trying to gauge my reaction. “I had a hunch we might find this here. I was trying to keep you from seeing it, just in case.”
Just in case I broke down in tears again or something, I guessed. That explained his detour. “You don’t have to baby me.”
“I might.” He appeared unyielding. Then, “You didn’t know?”
“About Donna’s SUV? We’ve spoken only a handful of times.”
None of those times had taken place beside her incriminating vehicle. All the same, it occurred to me that my ongoing sympathy for Donna might be misguided. Maybe she deserved to be at the top of my suspects list. If so, what now? Now that she was dead, I couldn’t get any answers from her.
“Feeling all right?” Danny swaggered to my position on the landing, still holding the cat. His gaze searched mine. “You were almost mowed down by this SUV that night. Don’t freak out.”
“Yes, sir.” I looked at it, expecting terror to strike. It didn’t. It could have been the same SUV. Or not. “This doesn’t technically prove anything.” Although it was chilling to think that I could reach out and touch an SUV that had been used in an attempted vehicular attack. “We have to find out if anyone saw Donna at the Santa pub crawl. She must have been with someone.”
I doubled back to the kitchen, not sorry to leave behind that dark-colored SUV. Danny and I were both wearing gloves—because of the cold and because of our covert mission—so I was unconcerned as I seized a few things from the area.
The unopened cat food. A canvas tote bag. A crumpled, mostly used-up bag of kitty litter. One of those disposable foil pans used for baking cakes.
Don’t use those pans for baking your own chocolate goodies, by the way. Not if you can help it. They don’t conduct heat efficiently. That means you might wind up with mushy brownies or soggy-bottomed chocolate cakes. There’s no reason to gamble with your best cacao, is there? I planned to use that foil pan as an improvised kitty litter box, so that was different.
Last, I grabbed Donna’s electronic tablet, where I hoped to find her full schedule. “Maybe she kept a diary,” I theorized. “If she detailed her resentment and her murder plans, we’ve got it made.” I felt my mood worsen. “If the police will listen.”
In Sproutes, it seemed, that was a big if.
For once, Danny didn’t join me in bad-mouthing the local police force. “They weren’t that bad at the station earlier.”
“They essentially chained me to a hospital bed,” I reminded him with renewed ire. “They weren’t that great, either.”
“If we’re lucky, something will break soon.”
I headed for the door. “Am I hearing things, or are you actually being optimistic about solving a murder case?”
A pause. Then, “You’d better have your ears checked.”
I smiled, then slipped out the back door.
* * *
As it turned out, the best excuse for our brief absence from the Christmas lights–viewing hayride was the thing we most wanted to hide: the cat. On Danny’s suggestion, we brazened out our return, showing up at the next stop with Donna’s cat in full view. Rather than becoming suspicious, everyone applauded.
“You got Hayden a kitty for Christmas? That’s so sweet!” Tansy squealed, reaching out to pet the black-and-white cat.
A few more hayriders joined in. Danny cast me a triumphant look, reminding me of our conversation a few minutes earlier.
“Won’t people suspect we’re up to something?” I’d asked when my friend suggested this plan while offering me the cat to hold on to. “What if someone recognizes Donna’s cat?”
“It’s a cat, Hayden. No one will recognize it.”
“But if someone does, we won’t have a good excuse.”
“No one will recognize the cat, especially in the dark,” my bodyguard buddy had insisted. “Cats are pretty interchangeable.”
“Not to their owners, they aren’t!”
Danny’s expression had said it all. This snuggly cat’s owner wouldn’t be there tonight, or ever again. So I’d agreed.
Well, Danny had been right. No one had even blinked.
Partly, that was because everyone accepted the idea that Danny would give me a cat as an early Christmas gift. Partly, it was because it really was dark outside, aside from the holiday lights up and down the streets we toured, and it was difficult to make out any details of the cat’s appearance. Partly, it was because the hayride ended early, and on a semi-threatening note.
“Sorry, everyone!” the driver announced a few minutes after Danny and I rejoined the group. “We’re going to have to head back early. The snowstorm is headed this way, earlier than expected. I’d suggest everyone go home, for safety’s sake.”
There was a unified groan of disappointment, mingled with resignation. As one, we all glanced up at the gloomy sky.
There really was a new chill in the air. A few snowflakes had started falling, too, swirled by the steadily rising wind.
“I’ll take you back to the B and B,” Danny told me.
“No need for that. My car is parked a few streets over, remember? Just outside Donna’s place. I can make it by myself.”
His expression remained unyielding. “I’ll bring you back into town tomorrow morning so you can pick up your car.”
“But what about Tansy?” I objected with a glance at her. “You have to take her back to the Sproutes Motor Lodge.”
“You have a concussion, Hayden. You’re not driving.”
“I can get someone else to do it for me. Maybe Josh?”
My friend’s hard look disagreed. “It’s settled.”
But I persisted. “I don’t want you to shirk your duty.”
“You’re my duty,” Danny told me. “First and foremost.”
The Peppermint Mocha Murder Page 22