by Edie Claire
It had started raining again—a brisk April downpour. When she returned to the clinic there were only two cars left in the parking lot, which was good news, since yesterday she'd left her umbrella at Hook, Inc., the fledgling advertising agency at which she was a partner. She parked close and beat a hasty sprint to the back entrance. Her father was in the treatment room, gazing at a series of x-rays with Nikki Loomis at his side.
"Well," Leigh asked, almost breathless from her jog in. "Can you tell what it is?" Her eyes scoured the various x-ray views, trying to put the different shapes together like a three-dimensional puzzle. From side to side the white shape looked like a dagger symbol; from top to bottom it was only a thin line.
"I think it's some sort of key," Randall stated. "What I'm wondering is what it's attached to."
"One of those thin suitcase keys?" Leigh suggested. "Or a briefcase key, maybe?"
"Either way, I can't think of any he could get to," Nikki said with frustration. "He spends a lot of time in Ms. Lilah's room, and I really don't know what all's in there. But I know she keeps it safe."
Leigh's mind seized on several possibilities. "Does Mrs. Murchison have a locked briefcase in her room? Or maybe a jewelry case of some sort?"
"What matters to the cat," Randall interrupted calmly, "is that the object passes without obstructing the bowel." He turned to Nikki. "We'll have to keep a close eye on him the next few days. I won't be back until tomorrow night, but I'll have Dr. McCoy come check on him if you'll leave him here at the clinic."
"No problem," Nikki answered. "But I wish you’d come to the will reading tonight. The lawyer said it was important you be there."
Leigh's eyebrows rose. She didn’t consider herself particularly materialistic, but the words "will reading," when applied to a millionaire, were enough to get any normal person's blood pumping. Particularly when her father seemed to be the only person in Pittsburgh who actually liked the woman.
The veterinarian shook his head. "I'm sure it's just about making arrangements for the cats, and I can call her attorney Monday about that. But I’ve got to get Frances to Hershey ASAP, or I’ll be sleeping on dog-food bags tonight."
Unfortunately, Leigh knew her father was only half joking. After twenty-odd years of planting tulips and pruning shrubs for various city beautification projects, her mother had finally won the coveted Garden Club Community Volunteer of the Year Award, entitling her to a plaque, a ribbon, and a free night’s food and lodgings at the Hershey Hotel. And if Randall didn't deliver her mother to that wondrous institution in plenty of time for a leisurely dinner, he would not only be sleeping on dog food—he would be eating it for breakfast.
She, on the other hand, had nothing whatsoever to do tonight. With her handsome husband still out of town, her Saturday night was looking like a frozen dinner, a few taped episodes of That '70s Show, and about five hundred boxes to unpack. All while a bunch of other people were gathering in Lilah Murchison’s eerie old mansion, learning how much money they were in for when—or if—the mistress of the house was ever fished out of Lake Michigan. Might one of them be anxious to reacquire Number One Son’s little snack?
"Dad," she began hopefully, "If the lawyer said it was really important, maybe I should go. As your proxy."
The veterinarian didn't look up, but Leigh could feel his eyes swiveling suspiciously in their sockets. She was surprised when he gave the desired answer. "Makes no difference to me. But you should check with the attorney."
His last words were only partly audible. A loud crash of shattering glass assaulted their ears, and she and her father both jumped in response. Nikki Loomis hit the deck. "What the hell was that?" the small woman boomed from the floor.
Randall answered calmly, but his eyes were wide. "I'll check it out." He strode off in the direction of the noise, and both Leigh and Nikki took off on his heels. At the threshold of the waiting room, they all stopped abruptly.
One of the colored glass windows that bordered the street was almost completely gone—its red shards scattered widely across the aged linoleum floor.
"Stay here," Randall ordered. He walked carefully around and through the broken glass to the front door, opened its three separate locks, and disappeared onto the front porch. Leigh stepped forward, her eye on a brown object that had slid under one of the chairs. Skirting the shards on the floor the best she could, she reached the chair and pulled it out.
It was a smooth rock, roughly the size of a grapefruit, and it was covered with printing from a red marker. "What is it?" Nikki asked, hustling over. "What does it say?"
Leigh looked up, her hands shaking slightly. It had been a strange day already; this was over the top.
"Nobody out there," Randall announced bitterly, coming back through the door. His blue scrub suit and sparse hair were completely soaked with rain, and his ordinarily unflappable face was now a pale shade of red, which Leigh knew to mean he was at his maximum anger point. He pounded across the reception area to the desk phone, now crunching glass heedlessly beneath his feet. "Twice in one weekend!" He exclaimed while he dialed, his voice strained.
"What happened?" Nancy had come up from the basement office and stopped at the doorway, her eyes wide. Jared stood behind her, looking equally perplexed.
"It was a rock," Leigh responded. "Somebody threw a rock through the window."
The veterinarian's eyes fixed briefly on the object in his daughter's hands, then his call was answered. "Hello? Yes, this is Dr. Koslow at the animal clinic. We’ve been vandalized again—"
Nikki grabbed Leigh's wrist and took a look at the rock herself. "Jeez," she muttered. "What gives?"
Leigh wished she knew. Ricky Rhodis' little adventure might be explained away harmlessly enough, but hurtling a rock through a window was a prank of a different color; someone could have been hurt.
Was the message intended for her father? As the clinic owner he was the obvious target, but Dr. Koslow wasn't the type of person who liked keeping other people's secrets, much less harboring ones of his own. Belatedly worrying about covering up fingerprints, she leaned down and dropped the rock on top of the chair.
"Is that writing I saw on it?" Randall asked, hanging up the phone and crunching back across the room.
It was no accident that Leigh had dropped the rock print-side down. She faced her father and nodded grimly. "It says, 'If the truth comes out—I'll kill you.'"
Chapter 4
The rain had let up by evening, and as Leigh climbed out of the Cavalier in church dress number one, she was glad. She had no idea what type of apparel one wore to a will-reading, particularly when nobody was completely sure the individual in question was dead. But she figured a nice, blue, hundred-percent cotton number could pass by in most crowds without drawing an eyebrow.
She paused a moment beside her car to ogle the Murchison mansion. By modern suburban standards, its square footage was nothing to brag about. But in terms of aura, the house was huge. It was one of the oldest and stateliest mansions in the distinguished riverside borough of Ben Avon, and that was nothing to sneeze at. A dark, second-empire creation with three stories, a mansard roof, and ghoulish-looking bracketing around the large windows and under the eaves, it evoked images of everything from haunted wine cellars to dusty attics filled with dotty old uncles. Like most houses on the steep, populated river bluff, it had little yard to speak of, but every inch of what it did have was ruthlessly hemmed in by dense, aging shrubbery. The main entrance was not even visible from the road, as the narrow brick walk zigzagged through a series of tall hedgerows. Even the entrance to the quaint two-story garage was concealed; the driveway pulled off from the side road at an acute angle and immediately disappeared behind a line of evergreens.
Lilah Murchison liked her privacy.
Leigh hadn't taken a step before a disturbingly familiar sedan rattled up behind her, rolled two wheels onto the grass, and stopped with a disturbing "whomp." Adith Rhodis popped out instantly. "Honey!" she began in a fluster. "I'v
e been trailing you ever since your driveway. Didn't you see me? I was trying to get your attention. Danged horn's out."
Leigh imagined with horror the older woman swerving all over the road behind her. As preoccupied as her mind was, she hadn't seen a thing. "I'm glad you're okay," she said with relief. "What’s up?"
Adith looked at her disbelievingly. "What's up? That's what I'd like to know! I haven't heard from you all day, and you know I hate those phone machines. Did you talk to your Daddy? What did he say?"
Leigh sighed and dove into an explanation that was complicated, and not necessarily encouraging. Because although her father had backed off his insistence that the break-in was drug related, the rock incident had made him considerably less inclined to welcome Ricky Rhodis back onto the streets. Not just yet, anyway, he had said firmly as he scuttled off to Hershey. Too many unanswered questions.
Which is why she had decided to push her luck by showing up at the Murchison mansion a little early. She finished her explanation to Adith as gently, yet realistically, as possible, and was surprised to see the older woman's eyes light up with optimism. "Told you my boy doesn't do drugs!" she chortled. "Didn't I tell you? Everything will be all right, then. Your daddy will come to his senses soon."
Leigh smiled politely, then looked pointedly at her watch, hoping the older woman would take the hint. She should have known better.
"Albert and Lilah Murchison's house," Adith murmured, looking it over with such reverence that Leigh halfway expected her to genuflect. Instead, she spat into a palm. "Never thought I'd see the day." Rubbing her wetted hands together, she made a futile attempt to tame the white-gray hair that sprang straight out from her head. "Oh my. The girls will love this."
Leigh tried not to panic. "Mrs. Rhodis," she began carefully. "You can't go in with me. I'm only here as a proxy for my father."
The older woman waved away the concern as if shooing a gnat. "Oh, honey. Don't you worry about that. We'll just say I'm your aunt."
"But—"
"Now, look, child," Adith continued firmly, adjusting her polyester dress over her ample bosom. "I've lived in these boroughs for seventy-eight years now, and I haven't once been in one of these Ben Avon mansions, much less the mansion of the Lilah Murchison, who wouldn't let her best friend in on Christmas if she had one, which she never did. Now she's dead and doesn't care and I'm alive and do—and I'm going in that house with you and you aren't going to stop me." She paused, then donned her sweetest little-old-lady smile. "Now. Are you ready, hon?"
Leigh bit her lip. She could either risk a scene with Adith when the lawyer arrived, or have a public one on the street right now. Procrastination ruled. "All right," she said with defeat, heading toward the house. "But behave yourself, please? Don't go snooping around or anything."
Adith nodded and fell in step. "Fine. I'll just distract the housekeeper for you."
Leigh reeled. "You'll do no such thing! I'm only here to find out about the will. For my father."
The older woman grinned. "Uh huh. You want to know what it is that cat ate that's so danged important to somebody, and so do I. Now, let's do it."
No response came to Leigh's mind as they followed the meandering walk up to the mansion's carved oak doors. She had to admit that getting Ricky Rhodis out of jail was no longer her only motivation. Someone was trying to intimidate her father—or someone else at the clinic—and though that whole situation could very well have nothing to do with Number One Son, the timing could not be overlooked. And Nikki Loomis, despite her insistence on not knowing what the cat might have swallowed, was clearly the person to talk to. Leigh pressed the doorbell.
"Yeah? Um, what time is it?" The startled personal assistant, wearing exactly the same jeans and T-shirt she had had on at the clinic earlier, greeted the odd twosome curtly.
"It's not time for me to be here yet, I know," Leigh explained quickly, cursing herself for being intimidated by a woman who weighed less than a Saint Bernard. "I'm sorry. But I didn't get a chance to talk to you again after the police came, and I need to. It's important."
Nikki looked up at her skeptically, but her gaze was not unfriendly, and Leigh found herself wondering just how old the woman was. She appeared to be somewhere in her mid twenties, yet somehow she seemed wise beyond her years. "All right," she answered, swinging the large door wide. "But you'll have to talk while I get ready."
Adith chortled with delight, brushing past Leigh's shoulder and scuttling inside.
Leigh threw her hostess an embarrassed smile. "Um, this is my friend Adith," she explained weakly as she followed. "I was—well—obliged to bring her." Perhaps the aunt story would have made more sense, but Leigh had enough batty aunts already. Nikki threw the older woman a brief but critical look, then, much to Leigh's relief, simply shrugged her shoulders.
The spacious tiled foyer, which was dominated by a splendidly carved wooden balustrade, looked elegant—and fairly normal. But when Leigh glanced at the library and parlor to either side, she couldn't help but feel as if she had walked into an industrial cleanroom. The hardwood furniture and flooring were rich and beautiful, but without a single rug on the floor or curtain on the windows, it all looked disturbingly stark.
Adding to the bizarre milieu was the tremendous cacophony that rattled from every direction—a mixture of howls, mews, and cries that put one in mind of a medieval torture chamber. Leigh suppressed a shudder as the kitten-eating nightmares tried to fight their way back into her consciousness.
Nikki looked back at the other women's faces and laughed out loud. "Yeah, I know," she chuckled. "Weird, isn't it? They're not always this loud, but I had to shut up the free-rangers in the bedrooms. You should hear them when the exterminator comes and they all have to go in the kennels with the toms. That really ticks them off."
Leigh smiled self-consciously, aware that there was no good reason a big old house full of Siamese cats should cause the hair on the back of her neck to stand at attention. Nevertheless, Hitchcock could have made a fortune off the place.
Nikki pressed back toward the large kitchen where she began pulling glass tumblers out of a cabinet and onto the gleaming black-marble countertop. The floor, too, was of marble tile, though its gleam was somewhat compromised by a thin coating of white fuzz. As Adith began buzzing about, peering into cabinets unabashedly, Leigh attempted to hold her hostess's attention.
"I need to talk to you about whatever it was that Number One Son swallowed," she began somewhat nervously. She had only met Nikki a few hours before and had no good reason to consider her an ally, but given that the woman already had access to Mrs. Murchison's cats 24/7, it hardly seemed likely she would involve herself in an elaborate plot to steal one from the vet clinic.
"Okay," Nikki answered, struggling to flip open the safety latch on a large, shallow drawer of dish towels.
Leigh halted, impressed. "I can't believe how much trouble Mrs. Murchison has gone to to keep that cat away from cloth," she remarked.
"Oh, Number One Son's not the only one," Nikki responded. "Auntie Em has a taste for it too, though she hasn't swallowed anything so far. Ms. Murchison fixed up the house a long time ago for some cat named Abbott. He's dead now, but she always has at least one wool sucker to watch out for."
A light dawned. "They're named after characters from old movies," Leigh realized aloud.
"Yep," Nikki answered distractedly, "Radio and television too. Ms. Murchison named a few that way when she first started out, and it bugged the other breeders, so she kept it up."
"So," Leigh mused. "Number One Son isn’t a direct knock on this Dean guy."
Nikki’s eyes narrowed immediately. "No—it's from the Charlie Chan movies. But there is a kind of justice to it, if you ask me."
Anxious to strike before the mood soured further, Leigh pressed on. "There are some things I think you should know," she began lightly. "You said earlier that you couldn't think of a reason why anyone would want to steal one of Mrs. Murchison's cats, but I think I
can. I think they wanted whatever it is that Number One Son swallowed."
Nikki showed no response. Leigh went on to explain about the cat carrier and litter bag Jared had found, and when she had finished, Nikki stood still for a moment and looked at her.
"Maybe," she said flatly. "But I still don't know what it could be."
"A broach?" Leigh suggested. "A key to a jewelry box or a safe?" She wasn’t sure what she expected from Nikki, but a little enthusiasm would have been nice. Had their positions been reversed, Leigh would at this point have been scouring every inch of the mansion on her hands and knees, scouting for tiny keyholes. Perhaps having a pathological lack of curiosity was a prerequisite for Team Murchison.
"Look," Nikki said impatiently, cutting her off. "Ms. Lilah does have some valuable pieces of jewelry, but they pretty much stay in her bank vault. The stuff she keeps in her bedroom is only costume jewelry. So forget it."
A muffled crash made them both turn their heads toward the walk-in pantry, which Adith was exiting rapidly. "Cans came unstacked," she offered sweetly.
Leigh feared an explosion from Nikki, but none occurred. The personal assistant did look exasperated, but her focus was not on Adith so much as the glasses on the countertop. "I don't know anything about this entertaining crap," she said suddenly. "I just pay the bills, make appointments, and tell charities to go to hell. Do either of you chicks know what to put out at a will reading?"
Since there was probably no one on the planet less qualified to answer that question, Leigh had to laugh. "If it were me, I'd break out pop and pass the cheese curls."
"White wine," Adith suggested eagerly. "With caviar."
Nikki looked from one to the other, then retrieved a couple of two liters from the pantry and slammed them on the counter next to the tumblers. "Self-serve. Now, come with me into the parlor," she ordered, "The others should be here any minute."
She walked ahead of them out of the kitchen, and Leigh caught Adith's eye and motioned for her to follow. She couldn’t give up now; her time was limited. "Nikki," she called out as she walked, "could Number One Son have swallowed something that belonged to somebody else? A visitor in the house, perhaps?"