The Cat, the Lady and the Liar acitm-3

by Leann Sweeney

  I pointed at my mouth, indicating I couldn’t answer.

  Tom waited, never taking his eyes off me.

  After I’d swallowed and paid close attention to cleaning off my hands and around my mouth, I smiled. “Just Hildie to go. Better check what time that visitation is so we can pace our last interview.”

  “Jillian, what did Longworth say that hurt you so much that you couldn’t tell me?”

  My turn to avoid a stare. “We’ve been so involved in these interviews, I haven’t checked on my cats since we arrived—not to mention Ritaestelle and Kara.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and pulled up the cat-cam feed.

  Tom placed his hand over the screen. “Jilly,” he said quietly. “Trust me.”

  Another deep breath needed. Why did this still bother me so much? “Guess you won’t quit until I tell you.”

  “That’s me. Persistent,” he said.

  “And perceptive. That’s probably what made you a good cop and makes you a great PI.” I sighed. “When Farley called, he said people have been talking, saying that I probably murdered my husband for the house and the money.”

  “What?” Tom said, incredulous.

  “I knew then what Ritaestelle must feel like—what she was going through with all the whispers and stares she must have been getting recently. I wanted more than ever to help her. Because it hurts to think that—”

  “No one thinks you did anything to hurt your husband.” He slid the phone away and took my hand. “You are one of the most well-liked people to have ever moved into town. Excuse the cliché, but people in these parts don’t take kindly to strangers. But you? No one has an unkind word to say.”

  “You’re only saying that—”

  “Because it’s true,” he said. “Besides, that lunkhead is full of hot air. He’s a middle-aged bully. Bullies attack other people because they don’t want people to look at them and see that they’re empty inside.”

  I laughed. “Lunkhead?”

  “One of my mom’s favorite words,” he said with a smile. “You better?”

  “I am fine. Let’s see the strudel maker. I might just kiss her.”

  George Robertson arrived as I was cleaning strudel remains from the table and Tom was pouring himself more iced coffee.

  “Please, Mrs. Hart,” Mr. Robertson said. “I’ll take care of clearing the table. Would you like to take some strudel to Miss Ritaestelle? I’m sure she’s missing Hildie’s sweets.”

  “Great idea,” I said.

  “I’ll help you take the dress, her shoes and the dessert to the car when you’re ready to leave.” He began gathering empty glasses and dirtied napkins. One, I realized, was covered in Justine’s makeup. I felt awful for her. She was one miserable woman.

  Once Mr. Robertson had most everything on one tray, he said, “Follow me. Hildie’s in the kitchen, and there is no way I could get her to come up here and talk to you.”

  That was how we found ourselves on two of the half dozen stools that surrounded a large stainless-steel preparation area in the center of a gigantic kitchen. To my left was an entry that led to a narrow winding staircase and the elevator that apparently got plenty of use. Across from us were the sinks—four of them—and three windows that looked out on the back driveway leading to the four garages. To the right was a huge refrigerator, gas stove, stacked ovens and a three-tiered rack where fresh fruits and vegetables waited for Hildie to work her magic.

  Hildie herself might as well have been an appliance in the kitchen. The chubby, graying woman with the round, ruddy face had said nothing when Mr. Robertson introduced us. She was busy peeling mangoes.

  “Hildie—or would you rather I call you by your last name?” I said. “Trouble is I don’t know what it is.”

  “Hildie is fine,” she said. “Everyone call me Hildie.”

  She had an accent—I recalled Ritaestelle saying she was from Germany—but she’d been in this country long enough that her English was probably fine.

  “Good. And please, we’re Jillian and Tom. Nothing formal down here, right?” The kitchen was about a half dozen steps lower than the rest of the house.

  “No. Nothing formal,” she answered, focused on her work.

  “Thank you for the great food,” Tom said. “Bet you keep the folks here well-fed.”

  “Is my job,” Hildie said.

  “Yes, but Ritaestelle thinks you are wonderful,” I said.

  Finally she looked at me. “How is my lady? She okay?”

  “She is looking forward to coming home. You can help her with that. We need to know what happened to Miss Preston and why. We need to know who might have been trying to hurt Ritaestelle’s reputation.”

  “Miss Preston is bossy young woman. They didn’t like her much.” She put her paring knife down, made a mound of the mango peelings and pushed them aside.

  “Who didn’t like her?” Tom said.

  “The family,” she said.

  Okay, I thought. This might be like pulling teeth, and we had to get home and get ready for a funeral visitation. “But Ritaestelle liked her?”

  “My lady is foolish. She likes everyone,” Hildie said.

  “Was it foolish to like Miss Preston, then?” Tom asked.

  “She was cold like a fish.” Hildie began to cube the mangoes. “But my lady thought the family needed a person like her. They were always taking advantage. My lady is very generous. Too generous.”

  “Did you like Miss Preston?” I said.

  Hildie stopped cutting and looked at me. “What does this matter?”

  Good question, I thought. “I suppose it doesn’t. Was there any one person in the family who disliked her enough to kill her?”

  She considered this for a few seconds. “If love and hate are close, then I would say Mr. Farley. I could tell about him. How he wanted her. But she didn’t like him. Not at all.”

  “He had a thing for her?” Tom said.

  Hildie smiled for the first time. “Yes. A thing. She had no thing for him. Who would?”

  I was beginning to like Hildie. “The night Ritaestelle left here, did you see or hear anything?”

  “I was in my room.” She pointed at the ceiling with her knife. “Way up on the top. I hear nothing.”

  “Did it surprise you that Ritaestelle left like that, so late?” Tom said. “And not exactly dressed to go visiting?”

  Hildie smiled at him again. “You’re a funny man. Not exactly dressed. I like that. Was I surprised? I think yes. But she was worried. She was sick. I would run away myself if someone was hurting me that way.”

  “Do you have any clue who might have been hurting your lady?” I said.

  “I don’t know much. I stay here most of the time. But I know why she came to you.” She scooped up her cubed mangoes and tossed them into a stainless bowl. Then she went to the sink and returned with a colander filled with strawberries and blueberries. She added them to the bowl.

  “Why did she come to me?” I said.

  Hildie walked over to the rack and returned with two limes and a squeeze bottle of honey. She rolled a lime on the counter. “What I see about you now? Or what I knew then?” she said.

  “What you knew then,” I said, watching her quickly cut the lime in half and squeeze the juice on top of the other fruit.

  “She knew you could help her find the black cat.” Hildie shook her head disapprovingly as she drizzled honey over the fruit. “Black cats are supposed to be good luck in some countries. Here, I think they are bad luck.”

  It all came back to Isis.

  Tom, his eyes intent on that luscious-looking bowl of fruit, said, “What do you see about Jillian now?”

  Hildie looked into my eyes for the first time. “That you have much kindness in you. That my lady did the right thing.”

  I felt embarrassment heat my cheeks. “Back to Isis. Do you know how she got out?”

  “Of course I know.” Hildie took a spatula from the drawer in front of her and gently mixed the fruit.

/>   “You know and you never told anyone?” Tom said.

  She kept working. “No one ever ask.”

  I almost laughed. This was a woman who only wanted to work, not be bothered by questions. “How did the cat get out?”

  “I saw Mr. Farley take her away, wrapped in a towel so she wouldn’t scratch him with her back claws. That Isis, she is good with what she has left. That black cat has what you Americans call an attitude.”

  I could see Farley doing that. Yes, indeed.

  Thirty

  We arrived home thirty minutes later after I made a convincing speech to Tom that he should not beat Farley Longworth senseless after the revelations about how that spoiled man had hurt me and tried to kill a cat. Knowledge is power, and we had plenty of that after our visit. Giving Farley some of that knowledge would not be a good idea, and Tom was well aware of that—after he’d calmed down.

  When we came in through the back door, I saw Ritaestelle and Kara sitting in the living room. They were listening to a classical music station on a digital TV cable station. My cats hurried into the kitchen to greet us—probably hoping for a treat as well as some petting. I usually gave them treats when I came home after being away for hours. My guilt issues definitely extended to my fur friends.

  “There’s a visitation for Evie tonight,” I called out over the music.

  Kara picked up the remote and muted the TV. She stood, and soon Ritaestelle rose as well. Just took her a little longer.

  “Oh my,” Ritaestelle said. “How will I—”

  I held up the dress. “Justine sent clothes, and Mr. Robertson gave me all the information.”

  “Thank goodness.” Ritaestelle’s hand went to her heart. “I could not stop thinking about that poor girl today.”

  Kara took the dress and the shoebox. “Pay attention to your babies. They have been vocalizing their unhappiness about your absence every chance they got—well, Syrah and Merlot have. Chablis just clung to me like a toddler missing her mommy.”

  I smiled.

  Tom set the sack with the strudel on the counter. “I’ve got to get home, check my messages and change. Meet you at the funeral home?”

  I nodded, and he brushed my lips with his before leaving.

  “I’ll take these to the guest room,” Kara said, draping the dress over her arm. She hurried out of the kitchen, her bare feet slapping on the floor.

  After I doled out a pile of crunchy tuna treats to my cats, I grabbed a paper napkin and the strudel. Ritaestelle was still standing, Isis in her arms.

  “I have something especially for you.” I held up the bag. “From Hildie.”

  Ritaestelle put her cat down, and Isis raced into the kitchen. She’d bully Chablis out of her share of the treats, but I’d given Chablis a few extra anticipating this.

  Kara returned and soon the three of us sat down in the breakfast nook to enjoy the strudel. The lake sparkled beneath the low-slung sun, but we’d heard on the radio that storms were moving in from the east. I would need an extra umbrella for Ritaestelle tonight.

  I summarized our visit to the Longworth Estate, leaving out many details even though Kara tried to squeeze them from me. Tom and I had to talk to Mike Baca before Kara could print any of what we learned, anything that might prove newsworthy, that is. Plus, Ritaestelle didn’t need to know just how nasty her nephew was—though she probably knew more than I gave her credit for.

  “That is the best apple anything I have ever tasted,” Kara said. “Maybe the paper can do some of Hildie’s recipes in a Wednesday edition.”

  “She would be honored, I am sure,” Ritaestelle said.

  Kara stood. “I want to make this visitation, too, so I have to get back to my apartment. My kittens have probably shredded an entire roll of toilet paper in my absence. And I have to figure out what to wear. By the way, Candace was released from the hospital. She’s at her mother’s. She called here when she couldn’t reach you.”

  “Oops. I had my phone on silent while we were at Ritaestelle’s house.” I pulled it from my pocket. Sure enough, the message icon showed the missed call. I would have seen it if Tom hadn’t covered up my phone so quickly when I took it out at the Longworth house.

  “Do you mind if I call her now?” I said to Ritaestelle.

  “You go right ahead. I need to bathe and dress, perhaps pray on what to say to poor Evie’s mother before we meet with the family,” Ritaestelle said.

  I watched Ritaestelle head for her room, Isis beside her. The limp was almost nonexistent now. Maybe on the ride to the funeral home I would ask her about those tranquilizers. Perhaps she didn’t even know what they were. Some of what we’d learned today was certainly puzzling, and those pills were part of it.

  I speed-dialed Candace, and she answered after a half ring. “Kara said you went to the big house today. Why? What’s going on?”

  “Remember how Ritaestelle hired Tom to investigate the case and that she asked me to help him? We went over your notes together this morning,” I said.

  “Right,” she said, sounding like she didn’t recall this at all. “This morning seems like a hundred years ago. What did you find out?”

  “You should be resting, not thinking about the case. Your brain needs a time-out. Your notes matched up with what we learned.” Your very brief notes, I said to myself. I wasn’t about to add that I now knew a secret about my friend Candace—she relied heavily on her memory when she wrote up her reports, because her notes didn’t even begin to give the full picture.

  “Nothing new?” she said.

  “Nothing that can’t wait until you’re feeling better,” I said.

  “Come on, Jillian. Don’t freeze me out.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I am already going insane here with my mother—and I’ve only been home a few hours.”

  “Here’s a nugget. There’s a visitation for Evie Preston this evening,” I said. “I’m taking Ritaestelle. I’ll call you and tell you all about it the minute I get home. How’s that?”

  I heard the cat button game commencing in the hallway and smiled to myself. No matter what awful things I’d learned today, no matter what sadness came around, my cats would always find time to play.

  “You promise to call me?” Candace said.

  “I promise. Now, lie down and get well so you can find this killer.”

  “You’re the best, Jillian. Thank you for caring. Thank you for understanding that I need to know what’s going on.”

  “You bet I understand. And we’ll always have each other’s back,” I said.

  After I disconnected, I ventured to the foyer and peeked down the hallway. Syrah was going crazy over one particular button. Must be made of metal because it sure didn’t sound like plastic or wood. Chablis, meanwhile, was lying down, front paws tucked, watching Syrah swatting and tossing the thing in the air. That activity was a little too vigorous for her.

  I heard the guest bathroom water running and decided I needed a shower myself. I felt a little dirty after my visit to that house today. On the surface, everything at the Longworth Estate was pristine, but it was what we’d uncovered about the people who lived there that had me feeling grimy right now.

  When I passed the cats on the way to my room, Syrah stopped, pushing the small shiny button toward me. Guess shiny was better, and there was a scrap of blue fabric attached. How my cats loved fabric, even in minute amounts.

  “Sorry, buddy. We’ll play tomorrow. I promise.”

  Ritaestelle and I arrived at Griggs Funeral Home at seven sharp that evening. The small parking lot had only one spot left.

  I took Ritaestelle’s arm and helped her. The footing wasn’t good, even for me.

  “I have prayed on this and know coming tonight is the right thing to do,” Ritaestelle said. “But I am worried others might not see it that way.”

  “You said in the car that Evie’s mother was very nice on the phone the other day. Maybe that’s all that counts,” I said.

  I heard the crunch of gravel behind
us. I turned, worried we might be the next two to be smacked on the head. But it was Desmond Holloway. He came up to Ritaestelle on her other side, and she was so surprised she stopped dead.

  “Um, Desmond,” I said. “Do you think this is a good time?” I gripped the two umbrellas I held in my left hand a little tighter. This wasn’t what the poor woman needed right now.

  He ignored me, saying, “Ritaestelle, I am truly sorry for our misunderstanding about Augusta. Please forgive me?”

  “Misunderstanding?” Ritaestelle said. “I did not misunderstand. What I have done is choose to close my eyes to your flaws. That has now come to an end. If you will please be so kind as to leave me be. I am here to mourn the loss of a young woman who met a tragic and untimely death.”

  Desmond stepped back and buttoned the top gold button on his nautical-looking blazer. Jeez. We were headed to a funeral visitation, not an outing on a yacht.

  He couldn’t hide the desperation in his eyes and apparently wasn’t about to be dismissed so easily. He grasped Ritaestelle’s elbow. “Please talk to me, my precious. Let me make this up to you—”

  “Leave her alone,” came the strong, firm voice of Nancy Shelton.

  When had she arrived on the scene? But I was relieved to see her.

  Desmond dropped his hand, and I was grateful. I could tell Ritaestelle was, too.

  Clouds had hidden what was left of the sun, and thunder rumbled in the distance. A light rain began to fall.

  Shelton said, “You two go inside. Desmond, you stay. I want a word with you.”

  We left, leaving them behind. I glanced back and saw Shelton’s face close to Desmond’s, but whatever she was saying, the words didn’t carry. But her body language said she wasn’t happy with him at all.

  I heard the organ music before we even opened the door to the old building. There was only one funeral home within twenty miles of both Mercy and Woodcrest. The Griggs brothers had been in business for more than fifty years, but now Anna Griggs, daughter of one of the brothers, managed the place. She greeted us when we walked in.

  If she was surprised to see Ritaestelle, her face didn’t show it. She smiled and gestured at the guest book on the table behind her. Two vases of lilies framed the book. She never said a word, just stepped back after we signed and pointed to our left with another smile and a nod. I left the umbrellas in the stand by the door where others had left theirs and helped Ritaestelle down the short hall.