I pressed my lips together. I had a lot to do, what with trying to find the note and all, but I did want to get rid of that portfolio. “Sure. I’m just about to close up shop then I have an errand to run, but I can swing by after that. Is six thirty okay?”
“Perfect.”
That would work out perfect for me, too. It was just about closing time and I didn’t have any other plans. Striker would be busy incarcerating Maisie, so my only plan was to try to dig up that note. Since Paisley wasn’t cooperating, I was going to have to go snooping around her store again. I just hoped Kenny didn’t catch me and do something drastic.
I went over to the window, looking out at Paisley’s store and scratching Pandora behind the ears. “Since I have to go over and look for that cat anyway, I guess I might as well look around for the note at the same time. You never know, I might get lucky.”
“Meow!” Pandora jumped off the windowsill and trotted over to the door. I guess she wanted to come with me. Maybe she knew something about the cat that I didn’t know.
I turned the sign on my door to ‘Closed’ and we slipped outside. I checked for signs of Kenny and when I didn’t see any, I figured it was safe to proceed. Pandora trotted across the street beside me and we turned down the alley, slowing our pace so that I could search the edges next to the buildings for a note.
I kicked at the piles of dried leaves, hoping maybe the note was lying underneath. No such luck.
We walked slowly toward the back parking lot. Pandora kept pace with me, looking up at me and mewing encouragingly. I didn’t know what she was being encouraging about, but at least it was something.
We got into the parking lot and I noticed the cardboard box I’d seen earlier was still there. There was no cat or kittens, and I couldn’t tell if the box had been occupied since I’d last been here. If the cat had given birth, the kittens would be too young to wander around on their own. She must have hidden them somewhere nearby … if she was even still on the premises.
“Where is Momma cat, Pandora? Do you know?”
“Meooo.” Pandora shook her head as if she understood what I had asked. She sniffed at the box and trotted over to the dumpster, crouching down and looking underneath.
The dumpster was on wheels and there was a small, four-inch gap underneath. The perfect amount of space for a cat to hide her kittens.
Figuring Pandora might be onto something, I crouched down and tried to look under. My stomach curdled at the smell of sour milk and wilting lettuce. It was impossible to see underneath. I would have to lie on the ground.
The area surrounding the dumpster was littered with various pieces of paper and some unidentified, gooey-looking stuff. I did not relish the idea of lying in any of it.
I cast around for a less icky spot and found one on the side furthest from the building. I lay down on my stomach gingerly, the effort aggravating my shoulder. No cat was to be seen. Pandora sat beside me, her head cocked to the side, watching with a quizzical look on her face. Then, she went over to one of the corners and started scratching and clawing.
“Meow!” She stopped scratching, looked over her shoulder at me, and then started scratching again.
What was under there?
I shimmied over to take a look, but I didn’t see anything other than the usual dumpster debris.
“Merah!” She pulled her paw out, holding it up triumphantly to reveal a piece of paper skewered on one of her sharp claws.
“What’s that?” I reached out and freed the paper. My heart gave a little thump.
The paper was ripped on the corner and stained with dumpster goo. The purple writing was blotched with food stains and smudged by drops of water, but I could still make out what it said.
Meet me at your store at 9 PM. I know what you’ve been up to.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I put the note in my pocket. The words made me wonder if Paisley was up to something else or if the killer just wanted to imply he knew something to make sure she showed up.
I walked back across the street, putting a call in to Striker and then Gus on the way. Neither one of them answered. They were probably busy with Maisie.
“I need to start over to Brenda’s now to meet her on time. I guess it won’t hurt if I quickly drop off the portfolio and then head over to the police station with this note. Maybe by then either Gus or Striker will be available.” I wasn’t sure why I was talking out loud to my cat. It was getting to be a bad habit.
“Meow!” Pandora trotted to the back as if she was getting ready to go in the car with me.
“No, you have to stay here. I can't take you to Brenda’s.” My car was parked in the little lot in back of the building, so I grabbed my purse and the portfolio, then headed toward the back door.
“Meroo!” Pandora frantically twisted around me, rubbing against my ankles. Guilt flooded my chest. The poor cat had been alone all night at my house while I was in the hospital. No wonder she was being so clingy. She probably felt abandoned.
“Okay. You can come, but you have to stay in the car.”
“Mew.”
Pandora hopped into the passenger seat and curled up in a ball while I pulled the car onto Main Street. I’d never been to Brenda’s house before, but I knew she lived a little ways out of town. In a small place like Mystic Notch, everyone knew where everyone else lived.
I drove the three miles in silence, wondering if I should have dropped the note off first. I didn’t want to just show up at the police station and hand it to a stranger, though. I’d wait until I could hand it to Gus or Striker personally. As I neared the road, I noticed a car had been following me. My nerves prickled uneasily when I noticed was a Toyota—the same car I had seen Kenny driving at the town hall.
Was he following me?
Once again, I debated whether I should even go to Brenda's. Maybe I should go straight to the police. Then I realized if it was Kenny, he would hardly do something to me at Brenda’s. I was almost there, so I might as well stop.
I turned onto Brenda’s road and slowed down expecting the car to follow me, but it didn’t. It continued on the main road. I realized I was just being silly. Paranoid. That probably wasn’t even Kenny. Lots of people had Toyotas and it wasn’t even his car in the first place. He’d borrowed it from a friend.
Brenda’s house was impressive, a large cape with a two-car garage that looked like a barn and a screened breezeway in between. I remembered that Elspeth had said the lumberyard had been heavily insured.
“You stay in the car.” I shook my finger at Pandora, who blinked at me with innocent green eyes. As soon as I opened my door she leapt across my lap out into the driveway.
“Pandora get, back here!” I yelled.
She ignored me and trotted over to the screened-in porch.
“Meow!” She pressed her nose to the screen. I hoped she didn’t punch a hole in it. That’s all I needed, to have to replace Brenda’s screen. Then I noticed another cat was on the porch, looking out. A very unusual cat with half black face and half orange face. I walked over to look more closely.
“Hi, Kitty.” The cat pressed her pink nose up against the screen and I bent down to scratch her through the mesh.
“Hiss!” Another cat, this one a white Persian, appeared around the corner and seemed to take an instant dislike to Pandora, who weaved in and out of my ankles, throwing smug looks at the white cat as if taunting him.
“Mew.” The cat inside the porch meowed daintily. She was tiny and I judged that she was probably barely a year old. I wondered if it could be the cat Brenda’s sister had saved in the fire. As I watched her while trying not to trip over Pandora, she batted at something in the corner. It rolled toward me. A purple-capped sharpie.
Doesn’t Brenda give the cat any better toys? I thought.
“I thought I heard someone out here.” Brenda's voice pulled my attention from the cat and I looked over to see her hanging out the screen door. “Come on in.”
“That’s a neat cat
you have out there.” I gestured toward the porch.
“Oh, that was my sister’s cat.” I was surprised at the tone in Brenda’s voice. It wasn’t affectionate like I thought it would be. Maybe the cat brought up bad memories.
“Is that the portfolio?” Brenda nodded at the book in my hand.
“Yes.” I handed it over and stepped through the threshold, turning back to give a warning glance at Pandora. “Don’t go far.”
“Mew.” She sat down in front of the car as if she was going to obey my command. She didn’t fool me, though. I suspected that as soon as I was inside, she’d go exploring.
The inside of Brenda’s house was as nice as the outside. She led me through the foyer into a plush living room that opened up into a white kitchen with gleaming, black granite counters. It smelled faintly of lemons.
Brenda set the portfolio on a table, her glance lingering on it as she asked, “Do you know anything more about the investigation into Paisley’s death? I hope I didn’t cause trouble for Maisie.”
I grimaced. “As a matter of fact, I heard they arrested her.”
“Really? She really did do it? It hardly seems possible … did they have a lot of other evidence pointing to her?”
“Apparently, Paisley took a picture as she was dying. It was a picture of Maisie leaving her place. That combined with you placing her at the scene was enough, I guess. I personally thought it could be Paisley’s brother, Kenny.”
Brenda’s face pinched at the mention of Kenny.
“Do you know him?” I asked.
She nodded curtly. “He worked in our lumberyard for a while. He was suspected of burning it, you know. He was sort of a troublemaker, but my sister Amanda had taken him under her wing.” Her face turned sad, then brightened. “But anyway, can I get you something to drink?”
“I can’t stay long. I just wanted to drop this off…” But she was already in the kitchen, grabbing a pitcher out of the refrigerator.
“I made fresh lemonade.”
I didn’t want to be impolite, so I figured I’d stay for a quick drink. I looked around while she busied herself in the kitchen.
A mirror that was designed to look like a big, old window hung on the wall. I caught my reflection in it and realized I had smudges of garbage on my shirt. I tried to brush them off hastily, thankful that at least I’d worn the good shirt I bought the other day—the one with the Eiffel Tower on it. Except … the words were backwards … no, not backwards they just looked that way in the mirror.
Below the mirror was a small, black table with pictures in silver frames. They looked like pictures of Brenda, but I assume they must be Amanda because who keeps photographs of themselves like that? I remembered what Hattie had said about the part and double checked. The hair was parted on the left, so it must be Amanda. I felt a pang of sympathy for Brenda.
“It must be hard for you to look at these photos in the portfolio. Especially the one of your sister. I’m very sorry about what happened.”
Brenda’s voice took on a sad tone. “Yes, it was a very hard time for me. I was away at a convention when the fire happened and have never forgiven myself.”
She finished pouring the lemonade, picked up two glasses and came over to me. I tore my attention from the photos of Amanda … something in them had caught my eye.
She held the glass out to me, her charm bracelet jangling against it as she put it in my hand.
“Have some.” She must have been really proud of the lemonade because it seemed like she was really eager for me to try it.
I took a small sip. It needed more sugar. My lips puckered at the bitter taste.
“It’s good,” I lied. The photos of Amanda tugged at my attention and I turned back to look at them. One of the photos in particular caught my interest. In it, Amanda was leaning against a car. I looked closer. My heart froze.
It wasn’t a car—it was a black truck … just like the one that had run me down.
I glanced at my shirt in the mirror again and couldn’t help my sharp intake of breath. Everything clicked at once. The room started to swim in front of me.
I’d thought Brenda had an adverse reaction to Paisley’s portfolio because of the subject matter, but I’d only been partly right—she didn’t want those pictures on display because it proved that she’d lied about where she was that day. Everyone thought the picture was of Amanda because her hair was parted on the left, but the Founder’s Day picture had been taken in the reflection of the window, which meant the part was really on the right.
That was Brenda in the picture. And she couldn’t risk someone figuring it out and getting curious as to why she would have lied about her whereabouts. I remembered Elspeth saying that Brenda and Amanda didn’t run the business as well as their parents. They were losing money, but they had good insurance. Brenda had burned it down on purpose for the insurance money. Had she meant to kill Amanda, too, or was that really an accident?
I glanced at the charm bracelet on her wrist, my pulse quickening. Was it missing one charm?
I realized that if Brenda had seen Maisie at Paisley’s, then that meant she was in town that night, too. My mind flicked to the cat on the porch and her unusual toy. A purple sharpie, just like the one that had written the note. My stomach sank with the realization that Brenda had written both notes and somehow killed Paisley and then set Maisie up for it.
My eyes flicked up to Brenda’s face. She was studying me, her head cocked to the side.
“I just remembered. I’m late for an appointment.” My voice felt thick. I put the glass down and stumbled backward to the front door, which I jerked open as fast as I could.
I pivoted around, ready to run … and came face to face with Kenny Brown pointing a gun right at my chest.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My heart jerked in my chest. I felt woozy.
Kenny's eyes narrowed. "I knew the two of you were in cahoots."
My forehead creased in confusion. "What? We're not in cahoots."
"Yeah, right." He crowded me in the door, motioning with his gun for me to get back inside and I reluctantly stepped backwards. Before he slammed the door, I could see Pandora outside in the yard, craning her neck to look in.
"Get over there with her." Kenny jerked the gun in Brenda's direction.
I raised my hands in front of me. "Wait a minute. I'm not in on it with her."
"Sure you are. That's why you were nosing around my sister's shop. Probably trying to get rid of evidence."
"No. I was trying to find evidence to figure out who the killer was." I refrained from saying that I had thought it was him.
Kenny ignored me and addressed Brenda. "What I can't figure out is why you tried to run her down the other night. Did she try to double-cross you?"
"You saw her try to run me down?" I cut in.
Kenny nodded. "I was in the alley. Who do you think called 911? Though I probably should've left you there, knowing that you had a role in killing my sister. I recognized the truck right away as Amanda's truck. I knew it was still kept at the lumberyard and only Brenda and I have access to get in. And since I knew I wasn't driving the truck, that only left one other person."
Brenda snorted. "I was looking for that stupid computer to get rid of your sister's pictures. I wouldn't even have known she had them on there if it weren't for what Willa said in the judges’ meeting. Anyway, I didn't find one and when I saw Willa snooping at the front door, I thought I could get rid of her and make it look like an accident."
"Looks like that didn't work out the way you planned," Kenny said.
Brenda glared at him. "I never liked you. Especially when you were cleared of setting the fire. You were supposed to be my scapegoat."
I whipped my head around to face Brenda. The movement made me dizzy. "You tried to frame him for the lumberyard fire?"
Brenda laughed. "Yep. It would have worked perfectly, too, except he had an airtight alibi with Father Tim."
I stared at her incredulously. "So
, you really did set it. And you killed your own sister."
"That was a mistake!" Brenda said sharply. "She should never have been there, but she was looking after that stupid kitten."
"The one on your porch," I said.
"That's right. I can't stand the way that cat looks at me … as if it knows what I did. It was in there that day, watching me. I should have gotten rid of it long ago, but for some reason, I couldn't."
My legs felt weak. I swayed on my feet. I glanced at my lemonade glass, remembering the bitter taste. "You put something in my drink."
Brenda had been slowly backing toward the kitchen. She laughed again. It was a high, shrill sound. "That's right. I wanted to be sure you would cooperate. But now that he's here screwing things up, I might have to have a little change in plans. But that's okay. I can improvise."
"Stop right there." Kenny raised his gun and I saw a flash of white launch toward Kenny. It was the white Persian cat! It must have snuck in when the door was open. The cat flew into Kenny's right arm, knocking the gun to the floor. It slid under the couch. Kenny stumbled sideways, then caught himself but it was too late. Brenda had made it to the kitchen and flung open a drawer. She turned, a gun of her own in her hand, its aim hovering between me and Kenny.
The white cat trotted to her side and purred loudly.
"Now, isn't this nice," she cackled. "Not exactly how I planned it, but I think I can make it work."
Kenny looked stricken. He glanced from me to Brenda and then back to me. "You really aren't in cahoots?"
"No. Why did you even think that?" I asked.
"You were so nosy, coming around my place and breaking into my sister's shop."
"Shut up!" Brenda advanced on us with the gun. "Put your hands up and turn around. We're going to take a trip out to the shed. I have it all prepared."
We had no choice but to follow her instructions. Kenny opened the door and we went outside with Brenda and the cat behind us. My mind whirled, trying to think of a way to escape, but my thoughts were fuzzy and disjointed. What had she given me? I was just glad I hadn't had more of the lemonade or I would probably be out cold by now.
A Mew to a Kill Page 17