Jeff suddenly seemed uncomfortable. Then he smiled and gestured expansively. “She probably didn’t say those exact words. Plus, I have had the dubious pleasure of their company on several occasions. It would color anyone’s view.”
“I’m sure it would. All in all, they sound like real characters.”
“That’s a generous way to put it.”
“I thought since I was here, I’d have another look around.”
Jeff’s blue eyes opened wider.
“Of course. Would you mind if I asked why?”
“With everything that happened last night, I just want to make sure I haven’t missed anything.”
“So you’re convinced this man from the alley is connected to Flash’s disappearance.”
“I really don’t know anything yet. I’m not trying to be tight-lipped; I just don’t know.”
“Do whatever you think necessary. Shall I go with you?”
I stood. “I think I’d rather go through the house by myself. Sort of take it all in without distractions. Do you mind?”
“I don’t mind. It’s not my house. Since Stuart Masterson isn’t here, I suppose he won’t mind, either.”
“Where is he, anyway?” I asked.
Jeff shrugged. “I have no idea.”
He stood and went to the kitchen, coming back with a key ring, which he handed to me. The ring was heavy, with at least a dozen keys.
“The house key has the red ring. Just drop them back when you’re done.”
“Sounds like a plan.” I headed out the door.
“Sara. Wait,” Jeff called, joining me on the porch. “Could you do me a favor?”
“Sure. If I can.”
“Keep your eyes open for another ring of keys. Somehow I managed to misplace them. I’m pretty sure they are in the house somewhere, and it’s no big deal, but I would really rather find them.”
“If I come across them I’ll bring them back with me.”
“I appreciate it.” He smiled his gleaming smile and gave me a jaunty salute.
I waved in response and went toward the main house. Connor appeared at my side.
“A cat?” he asked, falling into step beside me.
I sighed. “A cat. A millionaire but four paws, yes.”
“Okay, then. You take the inside, I’ll take out.”
No ridicule, no laughter, no offer to send me to a shrink. Just “okay.” He had to see how nutty this was, right?
“Okay, then,” I said.
“I’m still in range. Yell if you need me.”
“All righty, then.”
Reasonable men creeped me out.
“Connor?”
He stopped and turned around.
“Don’t you think it’s weird? This cat goes missing and my boss puts me on the case full-time, but Stuart Masterson, a bazillionaire, drops off the radar and no one seems to notice.”
“They’ve noticed. They just don’t care.”
“Yeah. Weird, right?”
“Everybody loves pets. Maybe Masterson is an ass.”
He had a point. I climbed the shallow steps and inserted the key, turning the knob and letting myself into the kitchen.
I closed my eyes, deliberately clearing my mind. Yesterday, the Masterson estate was a Seattle Street of Dreams private viewing. Today it was a post-dead-guy maybe crime scene. If I was going to risk my job by ignoring my boss’s direct order, I needed to figure this thing out. Investigate like I knew what I was doing. At least make it worth it.
I opened my eyes and took inventory in the kitchen. There was a huge, marble-topped island, complete with double stainless sinks and a grill top. Dozens of copper-bottomed pots hung from an elaborate iron rack in the center of the room. More marble was used in long countertops, and there were at least thirty cupboards with glass doors revealing crockery of all types. Unlike yesterday’s walk-through, I took my time, carefully opening each cupboard and looking inside for the missing cat. I was methodical, forcing an attention to detail that would have felt ridiculous yesterday.
I thought about Morris and his theory. A stray cat, a drug deal gone bad, and all of it a complete coincidence. I needed to find Flash and figure out what was really going on. I needed to figure out how Connor did the cool-nonchalance thing. It was driving me crazy.
I finished searching the living room and moved into the pantry. Shelves lined every wall, crammed with food. I peered behind peanut butter and soup, boxes of pasta and cereal. I started at the higher shelves and worked my way down. I hesitated at the last shelf, eyeing a dozen cans of unopened cat food. He’d been missing seven days. The dead guy was going to stay dead, but the cat still had a chance. I wasn’t really a cat person, but I hoped if I were missing for seven days without food, someone would be looking pretty hard to find me. I promised myself I wouldn’t get so caught up in the bigger aspects of the case that I forgot Flash was counting on me.
I continued to search the house, moving from room to room. In the living room I checked under the couch and peered into the fireplace. In the den I snooped through bookshelves packed with classics, textbooks, and best-sellers. In the bathrooms I checked under the sinks and in the bathtubs. As they had been on the previous day, most of the doors were already closed. Maybe Flash sneaked in when the door was open and was trapped when the door got closed. A simple explanation in a case big enough to warrant murder. Probably not. Still, it wasn’t like I really knew what I was looking for, anyway.
I reached the third floor before there were any signs of human habitation. I finally spotted personality in the first room on the right at the top of the ornate wooden staircase. Opening the door, I walked into a scene from Aladdin. The style was so different from the rest of the house, I assumed the room belonged to Millicent. Masterson must have allowed her free rein in her own quarters. A tragic, opulent mistake.
The bed was huge, its brass canopy draped in shimmering blue material. The bed itself was covered in a satin spread with a riotous print that forced me to squint against the visual assault. Dozens of pillows in various shapes, sizes, and colors were propped against the headboard. The bedside tables, wrapped in the same gauzy material as the canopy, held matching lanternlike lamps with green-tasseled shades. Both were stacked high with crossword-puzzle books, discarded magazines, and romance novels. Next to one of the bedside tables there was an enormous gilt mirror set in front of a dressing table swathed in purple velvet. The tabletop was bare but smudged. I leaned down and peered beneath the velvet cloth. Underneath was a pair of gray flannel slippers with rubber soles.
I straightened and moved to the closet. It was a walk-in affair with double rods on both sides. There were half a dozen polyester suits in boring blues and blacks and ten blouses, six white. Three pairs of shoes. The entire contents didn’t use six inches of rod length. The only flash of color in the entire space was a pink silk robe embroidered with delicate flowers in yellow. The room of a madam and the wardrobe of a nun. Maybe the decor hadn’t been Millicent’s idea. Had Masterson decorated the room for her? For that matter, what was a personal assistant doing living with her boss? Did she really have to be on call twenty-four hours a day? In this room? Interesting job description.
I retreated from the closet and walked to a black-lacquered wardrobe. Opening the doors, I spotted a stereo, television, and VCR, all seemingly new. The lower drawers revealed video- and audiocassettes in a huge jumble, most of them having been pulled from their protective cases and tossed back into the mix with no thought to organization. I wondered how Millicent found anything in the mess.
The matching tallboy dresser was nearly as bad, the few T-shirts and jeans wadded up and jammed into the drawers with no regard for neatness. The only interesting thing I discovered was her penchant for Victoria’s Secret lingerie in a size sixteen. Quite the contradiction, Millicent.
And then it hit me. If I excluded her underwear, there wasn’t a single personal thing in this entire room. No pictures of family or friends, no memento from a v
acation trip. No address book, no old bills, nothing. Millicent had been dead for a few months, but no one had gotten rid of her clothes yet. What happened to the rest of her things?
I started pulling open drawers in the dresser. Socks, support hose, one loose shoelace. Two empties. Who had empty drawers? Maybe some of her stuff was gone, but why? Where? Who? The last drawer handle stopped abruptly halfway open. I reached in to dislodge the mess and allow the drawer to open more fully. It finally yielded with a jolt, sending the drawer out of its housing and onto the floor with a clatter. I stared at a bloodred lipstick smear I had managed to get on my hand during my efforts before reaching for a tissue from the tabletop and wiping the mess away. I dropped to my knees and scooped up makeup, costume jewelry, scarves, and various other girlie-girl things.
I lifted a scarf, a blue-and-tan-checked silk with a Nordstrom price tag still attached. A hundred and twenty dollars. For a scarf. A scarf that now sported a lipstick accent. Makeup in a bottom drawer?
I slid the drawer back into its slot, imagining my own apartment. I wasn’t a collector. I preferred my flat surfaces clean, but even I had a picture of Russ stuck to my refrigerator door with a magnet. My wedding picture, a blurry Polaroid obligingly snapped by a boozy tourist, I kept with my underwear.
I went back to the closet and stared at the empty rods.
I had no way of knowing if anything was missing. Maybe I should talk to Jeff about it. Then again, why would he know? I walked to the bed and sat down, trying to picture my own bedroom and superimposing my personal effects over Millicent’s.
There was the picture. And a dog-eared, floral-covered journal I used to vent my frustrations. I had a hundred-dollar bill in my cookie jar for emergencies. And in the bottom drawer of my night table, I had the ugly rhinestone brooch Jimmy Wilcox had given me in the seventh grade. Millicent didn’t have anything like that. No valuables of any kind. Of course, some of that costume jewelry could be real. I could be staring at the Hope Diamond and, unless it was on a velvet cloth in a museum, still think it was a Cracker Jack prize. But her stuff had seemed too gaudy. Too loud to be real. Then again, she hadn’t spent her money on flashy clothes. What did a personal assistant make? Enough for a $2 million trust but not a designer suit? Would any woman buy real diamonds to wear with knockoff clothes?
“Ahem.”
I jumped, my heart thundering into my throat.
“You scared me.”
“Find anything interesting?” Connor asked, standing in the doorway.
“Not really. I’m not sure what I’m looking for.” I gestured toward the room.
“Anything out of the ordinary, I guess.” Connor came in and went to peer into the closet. “This room doesn’t match the house.”
“Yeah. And the clothes don’t match the room. Stranger still, Millicent has nothing personal, and I think maybe this room’s been searched.”
“Why?”
“She’s got an expensive scarf in with the lipsticks.”
“That’s some sort of woman rule?”
“Common sense.”
“Think they found anything?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. None of this makes sense. If someone wanted to steal, why leave some things and not others? And why search at all? Looking for Flash? I doubt it. You wouldn’t look in the drawers. Money? She set up the trust. Maybe someone thought she had cash. Or jewelry or a bankbook or, I don’t know, the Maltese Falcon. None of it seems linked to the body from last night.”
Oops. I had been trying not to remind him about the body, but he seemed unbothered when I mentioned it.
“Anything else I should know about last night?”
“I don’t think I’m going to be arrested for murder, but that might just be wishful thinking.”
“Okay, then. You done here?”
“Pretty much.”
Jeff was waiting for us in the living room.
“I can’t stop thinking about what you said,” Jeff began. “That I might have been the target last night. It doesn’t make sense. I honestly don’t have any enemies.”
Connor and I took matching wing-back chairs.
“Which leaves us with Flash’s disappearance as the motivating factor,” I suggested.
“Or the trust.” Jeff’s fingers tapped against the silk.
“Plenty of reasons to be up to no good,” I agreed.
“Did you get a copy of the trust document when you became Flash’s trustee?”
“I’m not trustee. A bank does that. They hired me to provide the day-to-day care. I might have seen the trust document. I don’t remember.”
“How do you get paid?”
“Wire transfer at the first of the month. It covers my salary and Flash’s expenses.”
I crossed my legs and folded my hands.
“What bank is it drawn on?”
He tipped his head to one side. “It’s a wire. I’m not actually sure where it comes from. Is that important?”
“ ‘I don’t know’ seems to be my answer of the day. I don’t suppose you kept copies?”
“No.”
“What do you do if there’s a problem?”
“Until now there’s never been a problem. When he went missing I called your law firm. They represent Stuart Masterson.”
“And Millicent.” I thought about the empty files.
“Millicent?” Connor asked.
“She’s the one who left her money to the cat.” I turned back to Jeff. “Do you know anything about the trust?”
“Such as?”
“I’m wondering where a personal assistant got two million dollars.”
“Stuart Masterson is rich.” Jeff shrugged. “I assumed Millicent . . . well, um . . .” He cleared his throat.
“Was she the type?” I asked.
“Is there a type?” Jeff asked, exchanging a look with Connor.
Men. Honestly.
“Maybe she inherited it from a generous uncle,” Jeff suggested. “I don’t know. Do you think any of this will lead to Flash?”
“I’ve got my doubts he just wandered off,” I told him. “When was the last time someone was in Millicent’s room?” I leaned against the table, carefully keeping my tone casual.
“I don’t know.”
“Have you ever been in there?”
“Sure. When I was looking for Flash.”
“What happened to her personals?” Connor asked. He’d been letting me lead the conversation. Background was definitely not his strong suit. I tried to drill him with my eyes.
“Everything is still in her room, I suppose.”
“No one disputed the will?” He remained oblivious to the drill, so I reached across and tapped the back of his hand.
Jeff was looking back and forth between us like we were at Wimbledon.
“Not that I know of.”
“What happens to the money if . . .” I tapped Connor with more force and a fingernail. He looked over at me.
“What happens to the money if Flash doesn’t come home?” I grinned evilly at Connor before turning back to Jeff.
His eyebrows were raised.
“I mean, surely Millicent didn’t expect Flash to run through the whole stash on catnip.”
“He was spoiled.” Jeff shrugged. “As for the rest, I don’t know.”
“Not you?” I asked.
“Definitely not. Millicent and I were acquaintances. I think she chose me only because I was already living in the guesthouse and I’m fond of animals.”
“Why were you living here?” Connor asked.
“I’m working on my dissertation at the university. Psychological disorders and criminal victimology. Specifically, I’m researching the techniques employed in confidence crimes. The guesthouse is convenient and free. I think Masterson had some sort of alumni connection.”
I stood up. Connor and Jeff rose, too.
“I think that’s all I have for today, Jeff.”
“Are you staying on the case? I mean, with last
night, I would understand if you wanted to quit. Flash might be okay. If he’s loose, his instincts will probably take over and he’ll fend for himself. I’m not sure you should risk yourself for him. I’m very attached, of course, but you’re a stranger.”
“I promised you I would find your cat. That’s what I’m going to do.”
Jeff sighed. “I am grateful, Sara. Please be careful, though.”
“I will. You might want to keep your doors locked, too.” I offered him my hand. He took it and held on.
“You don’t have to tell me twice. I’ve definitely picked up a taste of the house paranoia. Rumor has it Stuart Masterson checks under his bed every night.”
Jeff and Connor shook hands. “Connor, it was a pleasure to meet you.”
“You, too,” Connor murmured.
As we were pulling out of the driveway, Connor said, “Interesting guy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He lives on-site but doesn’t know anything. He gets paid to take care of some cat. He doesn’t pay rent. He’s a poseur.”
“Connor, he’s a student.” I rolled down my window.
“Dresses pretty well for a student, Sara.”
“Fine. He dresses well. What did you think of the house?”
“Rich-guy place. Security’s a joke. Everything’s wired but nothing’s on. Dead bolt is decent but new, and there was no key in the back of the lock.”
“So?”
“People who use them keep the key there in case of fire. Or close to the lock, anyway. I didn’t find one. My guess is they’re for show. What’s next?”
“I’m going to check with the animal-control people again. And then I thought I’d try to talk to the Mastersons and the business partner, Henry Jepsen.”
“What do you hope to get from them?” Connor merged onto the bridge. I stared at the lake, shimmering blue in the sun.
“They were all here in the last few days. They could have seen Flash. They probably knew about the money. They’d know who to call to get it.”
“Talk as in phone?” Connor asked.
“Probably.”
“If it’s only probably, I’ll stay with you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No. I’m not being difficult, Connor. These are probably phone calls. At worst, it means a couple of office visits. Public buildings, bright light of day. Short of my being run down by a caffeine addict lunging toward a Starbucks, I’d bet real money on coming back in one piece. Besides, if I do end up face-to-face, any one of these guys could call my boss, and it will be hard enough to explain why I’m there without having to come up with a reason for you.”
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