The 9 Lives Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Louise Clark

Christy trudged along the sidewalk, on her way home after dropping Noelle off at school. The morning was cool, the air not yet warmed by the sun, but the cloudless blue sky promised that later in the day the temperature would rise. The beautiful fall day hardly made an impression on Christy though, for she stared down at the sidewalk as she walked.

  Ellen didn't return from the police station last night and there'd been no message from her or Trevor with an update on her status. Quinn had called with the news that his father was back, but Trevor was not, and that was the last Christy had heard. She had a sinking feeling that Ellen had been arrested for the murder of Brittany Day.

  She shoved her hands into the pockets of the jacket she was wearing and hunched her shoulders. It wasn't the cool temperature that made her shrink inside herself, but a fear of what the future would bring.

  Noelle's morning had been blessedly normal. Mrs. Morton had greeted her at the classroom door the way she always did, and showed no evidence that Joan Shively had been on the telephone, telling her to grab Noelle and turn her over to child services. Noelle herself had been deep in conversation with Mary Petrofsky from the moment they met in the playground and she hardly noticed when Christy kissed her good-bye and left.

  Now Christy was on her way home, desperately trying to figure out how to keep her daughter safe—and with her—and not in the custody of child services because the whole Jamieson clan had been designated as unsuitable adults.

  She didn't see a lot of options. The best—and most obvious—would be for the police to admit that they had made a mistake and that Ellen was not implicated in Brittany's murder. Hopefully that would happen, but it didn't look likely to be anytime soon. The next option was to remove Noelle from the vicinity of the complex and scandalous Jamieson family.

  She could do that, Christy thought. She could take Noelle home to Kingston, where they could stay with Christy's very respectable parents until this mess with Brittany Day's murder was all sorted out. Even the disapproving Joan Shively couldn't disparage a household that included two academics who taught at one of Canada's most prestigious universities.

  Kingston was a long way from Vancouver, though. Across the Rocky Mountains and past the Great Plains. At the mouth of Lake Ontario, in fact, the most easterly of the Great Lakes.

  She reached the bottom of her street and paused before heading up it. She and Noelle would be safe in Kingston, but they'd be biding their time, unless she decided to stay and rebuild their lives there. Did she want to make that change? Leave Vancouver behind and along with it all the good and bad that had defined her life here?

  She started moving again and headed up the street. Her muscles protested as she tromped up the small rise, which was ridiculous. It was a little hill, not the Grouse Grind, a hiking trail to the top of one of the North Shore Mountains. But then, perhaps it was her thoughts that were making her footsteps drag, not the physical exertion.

  She reached her townhouse and paused at the end of her front walk.

  The cat was sitting at the top of her porch steps, tension visible in the bunching of his blocky muscles. Don't bother coming up. We're going over to the Armstrongs.

  Christy resisted the urge to sigh. She wasn't sure she could handle seeing Quinn right at the moment, not when she was contemplating leaving him behind as she fled to Kingston for safety. "It's pretty early to be knocking on someone's door."

  They're awake. I've already talked to Roy and Three.

  "I need a coffee."

  They have coffee. The voice was urgent. Impatient. Look, Chris, I want to get this sorted out. Aunt Ellen is a prickly old broad, but she's not going to do well in jail. Not to mention prison.

  Christy stood her ground. "Frank..."

  Stormy stood up, then bounded down the stairs with a tiger-like grace. The cat might have been any feline headed over to a human for pats and scratches, but for his tail, which lashed back and forth in an irritated way. Three didn't get back until late last night and he was beat, so there was no time to plan. But we need to. Now.

  The cat brushed past Christy, rubbing the length of its body along her leg as it went. This time she did sigh as she turned and followed her dead husband and the cat he inhabited further up the street.

  * * *

  Quinn answered the door when she rang. There was a smile on his mouth and a welcoming warmth in his eyes. He was holding a coffee cup and morning stubble still covered his jaw. Christy's stomach did a little flip then settled into a warning cramp. If she went back to Kingston the promise in his gray eyes might never be anything more than a promise. Whatever might be between them would never come to pass.

  He would be forbidden fruit. Perhaps he already was.

  The cat prowled into the house, not waiting for an invitation. It hissed as it passed Quinn. His smile twisted into a rueful one and he handed Christy the coffee cup. "Come on in."

  His voice was low, morning-rough. Awareness slithered through Christy and she had to clear her throat before she could say, "How did you know I needed a coffee?"

  Quinn raised his brows as if to say, You have to ask? "My father told me to bring you a cup when I got the door."

  She looked at the mug, then back at him and laughed. "Right. I should have figured. I told Frank I didn't want to come over until I'd had a cup."

  "There you go," said Quinn. He glanced up the stairs. The cat's tail was disappearing around the corner as it headed for the kitchen. Quinn looked back at Christy, his gaze wicked. "Good morning," he said, his voice even huskier than before. Then he bent and kissed her.

  Christy kissed him back. She loved the touch of his lips on hers and somehow the caress seemed to give her hope. Maybe there was a way out of this mess without going to the extreme of leaving town.

  Anything was possible.

  He broke the kiss all too soon. As she shifted back, he drew his knuckles down her cheek in a tender caress. There was a smile on his lips and in his eyes as he said, "Come upstairs."

  The Armstrong kitchen was filled with edgy men and an upset cat when Christy and Quinn entered. Roy was at the stove, manning the frying pan, while Trevor sat at the table bleary-eyed, nursing his own mug of coffee. Stormy had taken up a position in the middle of the table and was sitting motionless, like a warm, furry statue. His stillness held its own kind of tension though, perhaps all the more anxious for it.

  She's here now. Let's get to it.

  "We haven't eaten," Roy said, flipping bacon. "Morning, Christy."

  "Morning Roy, Trevor. Thanks for the coffee, Roy."

  Roy looked over his shoulder. His smile was mischievous. "Thank Frank. He said it was the only way to get you over here. Would you like some bacon and eggs?"

  She shook her head. "Thanks, but I've already eaten."

  Roy nodded and went back to his cooking. Quinn dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, then picked up a half-full coffee mug. "Have a seat," he said, gesturing toward the table.

  "How was Aunt Ellen when you left last night?" she asked Trevor as she pulled out a chair.

  "She was holding it together, but only by a thread, I think," Trevor said.

  Of course she was. She's a Jamieson. She's not going to let some two-bit policeman break her.

  Trevor's expression was so gloomy Christy's heart sank, despite Frank's bravado.

  But what had she expected? Being booked for murder was a trauma Ellen wasn't going to get over for a very long time. "What can we do?"

  Trevor shrugged. "An initial court date is set for this afternoon. When she appears before the judge, I'll ask that she be allowed to return home on her own recognizance. Because she's being indicted for first degree murder, the judge will probably demand that she posts a surety—bail, in other words—to ensure that she returns to stand trial. I'm hoping her good reputation in the community will mean that it's only a token amount, but it could be sizeable."

  "It's murder. A messy, emotional murder that they're charging her with," Roy said from the stove. He put ba
con to drain on a plate covered by a paper towel, then cracked an egg into the frying pan.

  Christy stared into her coffee mug. What to do if Ellen was released from custody? She'd expect to return to the Burnaby townhouse, which would put Noelle square in Shively's disapproval sights. Could she put her daughter at risk for a woman who had never been her friend?

  The egg sizzled. Roy cracked another and dropped it in. The toaster popped. Quinn pulled the bread out and dropped in two new slices. He put the toasted bread onto a place and buttered it, his knife scraping over the surface.

  The sights and sounds of a normal morning meal. Christy drank her coffee and wondered if anything would ever be normal again.

  Trevor rubbed a hand across his eyes in a weary gesture. "Yeah, and because the cops are painting it as a murder of passion, they may ask that Ellen be retained in custody."

  Christy looked up, frowning. "You mean they may keep her in jail?"

  Trevor nodded. "I'll do my damnedest to make sure that doesn't happen, but we have to consider it."

  Why?

  "Because the evidence is overwhelmingly against her," Trevor replied.

  Quinn brought a plate with toast on it over to the table. "Don't mind me. Just pretend I can hear the damned cat like the rest of you."

  Grates, doesn't it? There was a gleam of malice in the cat's green eyes.

  "You," Quinn said, pointing at the cat. "Leave the food alone."

  Stormy lowered his head to sniff at the plate. His whiskers twitched and his nose curled, then he studiously ignored the toast.

  Quinn laughed.

  He doesn't like toast. He wouldn't even take a bite, though I tried to convince him to. Frank sounded aggrieved. Christy wasn't sure whether he was mad at Stormy or Quinn.

  "Emotions are running high," Roy said. He plated two eggs, then added another two to the pan to cook. "No need to bicker."

  Quinn saluted the cat with a lift of his coffee mug and dropped more bread into the toaster. He picked up the coffee pot and brought it over to the table to refill the mugs. "What's the evidence against her?"

  "Timing, to start with," Trevor said. "They can't believe she could be in her apartment and not be aware of Brittany's death. They found blood on the nightgown she was wearing that night. The blood type is the same as Brittany's and they expect that DNA testing will prove that it was Brittany's blood. And they found hairs the same color as Brittany's on the pillows of Ellen's bed. Those are being tested as well, but again the cops expect them to be proven to be Brittany's."

  Roy handed around plates of eggs and bacon. "Sounds like they've painted Ellen into a pretty tight corner."

  Quinn dropped cutlery at each place, then sat down. "Is Ellen still claiming that she wasn't in a relationship with Brittany?"

  She wasn't in a relationship with Brittany or anyone else!

  Christy picked up the cat and dropped him on her lap. "You can get back into the center of things later. For now, let the guys eat."

  "Yes," Trevor said, apparently responding to Quinn's question rather than Christy's instructions to the cat. He popped a forkful of egg into his mouth. "The police don't believe her, though. The evidence is there and it's pretty clear. A woman's hair doesn't get on your pillow unless she's slept beside you and her blood wouldn't be on your clothes unless you were there when she was killed."

  "Sure it would," Roy said. He dipped a piece of toast into an egg yolk and ate it. "I can think of a bunch of scenarios that would account for it and not implicate Ellen."

  "You're a writer, Armstrong, and a damned good one. You snatch ideas out of the ether like they were fish in a pond. Most murderers aren't as smart as you. They don't have the imagination to successfully implicate someone else."

  Good thing, since policemen wouldn't be smart enough to catch them if they did.

  "Now, Frank," Roy said. "Think positive."

  How can I? It took my wife and your son to prove I'd been murdered. The cops didn't even think I was dead!

  "What's your scenario, Dad?" Quinn had obviously decided to ignore the rest of the dialogue, part of which he couldn't hear.

  "Brittany wasn't dead when Ellen left the apartment."

  While he calmly scooped up egg yolk with his toast, the rest of them stared at Roy.

  "You're suggesting that the murderer and Brittany were in the apartment when Ellen woke up, packed her bag, and left?" Trevor said. "The cops have already ruled that out."

  Roy shook his head. "No. I'm suggesting that the murderer came into the apartment, made noise that sounded like a scuffle, broke the mirror and table, then crept out again. When that person saw Ellen leave, he or she forced Brittany into the apartment, then took her out onto the terrace and killed her. He or she would know they had plenty of time since Ellen left with a suitcase. Once Brittany was dead it would be easy to soil the nightgown and put the hair strands onto the pillow. It would also be easy to slip away unseen before the housekeeper arrived."

  "Ellen left the apartment about six thirty in the morning. The housekeeper usually arrives about noon. That's a pretty big window of opportunity," Quinn said. He looked intrigued. Clearly his brain was working along the same lines as his father's. "So how did he or she get in? I presume Ellen didn't sleep with her doors unlocked."

  "I'm sorry to burst your bubble, Armstrong, but the police asked the same question," Trevor said. He sounded weary. "Ellen's lock is a standard Yale, but only the building superintendent and her housekeeper have keys. And she doesn't leave a key on the exterior of the residence, for instance on the lintel or under the carpet in the hallway."

  Quinn studied him. "Let me guess. Both the housekeeper and building super have alibis for the time in question."

  "They do."

  "So Ellen is doomed?" Christy felt almost relieved as she said it.

  "No, she's not. Keys can be copied." Quinn shot Christy a quick look. "Has she ever loaned her key to a friend to water her plants when she's away?"

  Christy shook her head. "The super does the watering for all the tenants. It's part of the condo service."

  "Left her keys on the table when a tradesman was in the apartment?"

  What kind of tradesman?

  "Does it matter?" Christy asked impatiently.

  I'm just trying to get a clear picture, here. But actually, that's not the sort of thing Aunt Ellen would do. She's almost paranoid about watching service people when they're in her space. She trusts no one.

  Quinn looked at Christy and the cat with a raised brow. She colored and said, "Frank says she would never be so careless."

  "Then maybe the housekeeper murdered Brittany and planted the evidence," Roy suggested.

  "And arranged for a falsified alibi? Not likely, Dad."

  Roy shrugged. "The thing is, I don't think Ellen is guilty. I don't like the crime of passion as a motive. It's not in her characterization. I couldn't sell this to a bored reader, let alone to a hypercritical editor."

  "I wish this was a novel, Roy," Christy said, surprising herself by how wistful she sounded. "But it's not. The cops think that the romance gone wrong motive is pretty good. They must. They're not even looking for other suspects."

  "Then we'll have to do it," said Quinn. He stared across the table at the cat, raising his brow in a pointed challenge.

  Still sitting in Christy's lap, the cat shivered in reaction. Frank might have conflicted feelings about his Aunt Ellen, but obligations to name and family ran strong in the Jamiesons. Tell him he's on. There was a moment of tense silence. But he'll have to be the eyes and legs.

  Chapter 16

  Christy cleared her throat nervously as she ignored her late husband's response to the challenge. "Frank and I might not be able to help."

  Quinn frowned, but it was Trevor who spoke, his voice as sharp as his piercing gaze. "You don't believe Ellen is innocent?"

  "No! No, it's not that. It's... I may be taking Noelle to Kingston, where my parents live, for safety. If I do, Stormy will come with us
."

  On her lap, the cat leapt to his feet, back arched, tail quivering. His extended claws bit into Christy's flesh and dug. No! I won't go. I'll stay with the Armstrongs.

  "Ouch. Frank!"

  I'm not going to abandon Aunt Ellen. The old broad might not be my favorite person, but she's family. I'm not going to let her be railroaded into prison without a fight. The cat wriggled out of Christy's hold and jumped down from her lap. He circled the table to where Roy sat, then jumped up into his lap where he positioned himself so that he could glare at Christy to the maximum effect. I'm disappointed in you, Chris.

  "I'm not abandoning Ellen—"

  "That's the way the police will see it," Trevor said.

  "I can't help that," Christy said, her voice tight. "I have to do what is best for my daughter."

  What's best for Noelle is for us to remain a family.

  "Then come with us, Frank! You don't have to stay here."

  If Ellen's here, I'm here.

  "You're impossible!"

  I'm trying to do what's best for my family, but you're not helping. If you run home to your mom and dad, you'll never come back to Vancouver. I told you I'd always look after you, but you aren't listening. You never listened.

  She launched herself to her feet. "I hear plenty of talk, Frank, I just don't see any action."

  That's because you don't believe. You never believed in me!

  "This isn't about you, it's about Noelle. I'm going to talk to her after school, then I'll make the travel arrangements when we get home."

  You're making a mistake, Chris!

  "Maybe I am, but Joan Shively has power I can't defeat. I've already tried once, but she's still out there, after me. After us! I have to go if I want to keep Noelle safe."

  Okay. Run. Turn away. It's what you do best.

  Stung, she pushed back her chair and lunged to her feet. "I've heard enough. And I've had enough. I'm leaving."

  Emotion and embarrassment had her keeping her head down to avoid Quinn's eyes and his outstretched hand as she hurried away from the table. She heard the scrape of his chair, but she didn't pause. Instead she ran down the stairs, anxious to be gone. She was out the door and halfway down the porch steps when his voice called her name. She stopped and turned slowly to face him.