When the Cat's Away

by Molly Fitz

  Our table was nearly empty. Lisa sat a few seats away, tapping into her phone. Liam had accompanied the Kinsleys to the kitchen to speak with the chef. A place that specialized in sandwiches and deep-fried items may not offer the best workarounds for someone like Victoria Kinsley.

  A back alley place like this would have an interesting kitchen, though. Would it be too strange for me to suddenly develop a food issue I simply had to discuss with the chef?

  As I played this out in my mind, I didn’t notice Lisa finish up on her phone until she slid into Amber’s chair beside me.

  “Clive said he’s going to call the magazine and get Liam fired.” When she leaned in to whisper this, she reminded me of Donna Mayberry from church, our town gossip.

  “He thinks Liam’s taking bribes?” I guessed, remembering the statement Clive had made on the walk here.

  “He was going to go outside and call the first two restaurants to confirm it. I went out with a guy like him once. If you ask me, he just likes to stir up trouble.”

  I couldn’t disagree with that sentiment. He’d even tried to make a fuss over Amber not being old enough to be in the Irish pub.

  She huffed. “Someone like him shouldn’t even be allowed on a food tour.”

  I nodded, even though her opinion was a little extreme.

  “Did you hear what he said to Mrs. Kinsley at the Irish pub?” She went on without waiting for my answer. “He said he was a big believer in natural selection. Only the strongest of us should survive and use up the resources on this planet.” Lisa threw up her hands. “None of us could believe it. I mean, he was basically saying that if Victoria can’t handle a little gluten, she might as well be dead!”

  “Yes, that was certainly out of place.” I glanced around for Juliana, needing a refill on my water, as this conversation was making me parched. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  What a crazy group of people we’d been slotted to spend two days with. It was amazing they hadn’t all killed each other.

  That was my last thought before the door swung open, and a pale-faced Amber stood in the doorway. Her stunned energy quieted the place.

  “Mallory, come quick! Mr. Richards is collapsed in the alley.”

  Chapter Eight

  I raced out the door with my phone already at my ear. When the 911 operator answered, I gave her a play-by-play.

  “There’s an unconscious man in an alley in the French Quarter.” I surveyed the gathering crowd, most from within the restaurant, and begged for help with an address. I sputtered it off as our waitress recited it. “He’s facedown, and he isn’t responding to his name. Clive Richards,” I told the operator when she asked. “Should I check for a pulse?” The operator only instructed me not to move him.

  I decided to take this as permission and bent to feel Clive’s cold and clammy wrist. No pulse at all. I reached for his neck and saw a green string of Mardi Gras beads beneath his overturned body. He’d been given a string of purple beads. I was sure of it. These weren’t around his neck, though, but were doubled and lying on the ground beneath him. Looking closer, I saw impressions of the beads along the side of his throat. Avoiding the impressions, I checked for a pulse, but found nothing.

  Had Clive Richards been strangled to death?

  After relaying the details, I hung up and called to the growing crowd, “An ambulance is on its way. We’ve been instructed not to move this man.”

  “When I left, he was pacing and yelling into his phone.” Amber sidled up beside me. She had Hunch on his leash, which he had little patience for under normal circumstances. Now, with a murder afoot, he pulled toward Clive’s body like a dog straining for a meat-encased bone. “I came back and he was like this. Hunch really wants to have a sniff?” She asked it as a question.

  I doubted, after my recent instruction, the crowd would overlook a cat sniffing around a dead body, so I murmured to her, “Just a little closer, under the pretense of keeping everyone back.”

  “All right, people.” She didn’t need any more instruction. “Let’s give the man some room and make way for the ambulance to get through as soon as it gets here.”

  The crowd shuffled and murmured to each other. Amber used this opportunity to circle the body, with Hunch leading the way. As soon as I got Hunch away from public scrutiny, I’d be sure to explain my suspicion of strangulation.

  While Amber played her part, I played mine, surveying the crowd for anyone who had known Clive Richards. As I found each person from our table around the perimeter, looking on with interest, it occurred to me that each one had some heated feelings against Clive. Each one was a suspect.

  Liam O’Conner, who had been clearly frustrated by having Clive on the tour and had heard Clive threaten to get him fired on the way here.

  Victor and Victoria Kinsley, who Clive had offended at the Irish pub. Not to mention he may have sent Victoria into a depressive spiral.

  Lisa Lorenson, who had clearly wanted Clive off the tour altogether.

  And Emile Dubois, who had a grudge against the food critic who had left a scathing review of his restaurant.

  Even our waitress had had an abrasive reaction to Clive or, at least, to his antique choker. I walked around his body to see his neck again. Sure enough, the choker was no longer on him.

  I looked around for Julianna, our waitress, but all of the wait staff seemed to have gone back inside.

  The only person whose presence I could account for at the time of Clive’s death was Lisa’s, as she had been sitting at the table with me the entire time. Clive had embarrassed Amber, too, and even her presence was unaccounted for.

  A sick feeling filled my stomach as I envisioned having to stay in New Orleans to prove Amber’s innocence.

  Chapter Nine

  I fingered the purple strand of beads around my neck as the ambulance siren grew closer.

  Mrs. Kinsley’s beads were also purple. Mr. Kinsley and Liam both wore yellow-gold strands of beads that were still around their necks. Monsieur Dubois had definitely been given a green strand, but he no longer wore his.

  Before the ambulance came into view, a police officer jogged around the corner and down the alley toward us. “Step away from the body,” he called, not noticing Amber had already completed his first task for him. As he arrived on the scene, he took one look at Clive’s body and held a phone to his ear.

  Help must have already been on its way because, by the time he hung up, two paramedics, three more police officers, and what I suspected was the medical examiner by his white lab coat headed our way. The alley was too narrow for driving, so the medical staff all carried cases of supplies with them.

  One loudmouthed fiftysomething cop barked orders. “Get some crime scene tape up! Question the bystanders! And for the love of everything holy, don’t touch anything!”

  These cops seemed used to their boss and hurried to the business at hand.

  “Those who were in the restaurant,” one called, while another started wrapping yellow police tape around the area where the medical examiner loomed over Clive’s body. “Please return to your seats and remain there until we have spoken to you!”

  I was about to follow the crowd inside when the same officer called, “Mallory Beck?” and I froze in place, feeling like I was being accused. I nudged Amber toward the restaurant’s door, even with my cat in tow. She obeyed without an argument.

  I turned back and held up a hand. “That’s me.”

  The officer took me by the arm and guided me away from the body and the people still gathered. Another officer called for those who had seen the man collapse to come forward.

  No one did, and so he started at one end of the row of remaining bystanders with his notebook and pen poised. The officer with me wore a black suit, likely a detective. “I understand you called 911?”

  “That’s right,” I told him.

  “And can you please tell me how you came upon the incident and everything you saw?”

  I took a breath and tried to pret
end I was just telling everything to Alex, my detective friend back home. “I was sitting inside when someone called from the door that Clive Richards, a man from our table, had collapsed in the alley.”

  “And this person at the door knew him by name?”

  I had been attempting to keep Amber out of it, but it occurred to me that this tactic might only make her look guiltier.

  “It was my traveling companion, a young teen named Amber Montrose. She had been out taking my cat for a walk …” I trailed off when the officer surveyed the crowd again, looking for Amber.

  Hopefully, she’d had time to catch her breath. Then again, what would they expect from a sixteen-year-old who had stumbled across a dead body?

  I pointed to the restaurant. “I told her to wait inside at our table.”

  He nodded and marched for the door. I followed, not about to let him question her alone. He continued to interview me on the way. “When you arrived outside, was anyone else out here?”

  This was the part I didn’t want to admit. But Alex had taught me that lies and half-truths would only hinder an investigation. “Not until people from the street and inside the restaurant made their way here.”

  He nodded, and I led him straight to Amber, who had Hunch on her lap and was nervously stroking him. Food and drinks had arrived at our table, but none of the six remaining tour participants touched them.

  “Amber, this officer needs to ask about what you first saw outside.”

  The officer scowled at me, not appreciating my warning. “Miss Montrose, can you please accompany me outside for a few questions?”

  She stood, trying to hand Hunch over to me, but I suspected Hunch would keep her calm, so I said, “It’s okay. I’m going with you.”

  Before the officer could argue this, I turned and told him, “She’s sixteen, and I’m her guardian on this trip.” Not legally, of course, but if he called her mother, it would take hours or even days for her to get onsite, and I was hopeful that Helen Montrose wouldn’t allow her daughter to be questioned alone.

  The cop nodded and led us back outside. As Amber and I trailed behind, I murmured, “Where are your Mardi Gras beads?”

  Her brow furrowed. “I was trying to play with Hunch and they broke.”

  I hoped they’d broken in our room or somewhere we could still find some proof that she hadn’t used them to strangle Clive Richards.

  The cop took us back to where he’d briefly questioned me. The outdoor crowd had thinned considerably in the last few minutes, so I could only assume they hadn’t had much to tell.

  I hoped this detective would understand quickly that he should look more closely at those currently seated at our table, and maybe even our waitress.

  “I understand you knew the man you found collapsed in the alley?” the cop asked Amber.

  “Mr. Richards was on a food tour with us. This was our third stop,” Amber explained, stroking Hunch methodically.

  The detective made a note. “So you just met Clive Richards today?”

  Amber nodded, but my need to be helpful overshadowed my desire to stay in the background. “Actually, last night. We arrived at the hotel at nearly midnight, and the tour organizer introduced us to Clive Richards and his girlfriend, Scarlett, at that time.”

  The detective asked me for the name of our hotel and for the tour organizer’s name. When he asked us to point out the girlfriend, Scarlett, and for her last name, we were unable to help.

  “She left over an hour ago. She had to work at a local museum. I don’t remember her last name, but I’m sure you can get it from Liam.”

  “Did anyone else from the tour seem to have prior knowledge of Mr. Richards?”

  I started to shake my head, but then remembered. “Mr. Emile Dubois owns a restaurant in town, and Clive Richards had been a food critic in his restaurant. Monsieur Dubois didn’t have any love for Clive Richards.”

  I hated throwing the sweet Frenchman under the bus, but then again, if he had truly followed Clive outside and strangled him, he wasn’t a man I wanted to protect, no matter how nice he seemed.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Kinsley didn’t like him either,” Amber told the detective. “He didn’t have any patience for their diet restrictions.”

  “Clive even told them he believed in survival of the fittest, and those who couldn’t handle regular food deserved to die off.” I wasn’t sure if those were the exact words.

  The detective made a messily scrawled note and went on to question Amber about what she had seen when arriving back at the restaurant.

  “Basically the exact same thing we’re seeing now, but with less medics and police.”

  “Did you come close to the body or touch anything before you went into the restaurant and called your friend?”

  She shook her head, but the detective squinted as though he didn’t believe this.

  Again, Helpful Mallory had to jump in to explain. “We’ve assisted with a few investigations in West Virginia. We both know better than to touch anything at a possible crime scene.”

  I wasn’t sure the detective believed us, but he went on to ask about how long we planned to be in town and how we had ended up on the food tour.

  “It was a prize in a recipe contest. Clive Richards was also a prize winner, I think, but you’d have to check with Liam O’Conner to confirm.”

  He asked about each of the other tour participants and their whereabouts when Mr. Richards left the table. Most of my answers were vague, except for with Amber, who I knew had gone to our hotel, and Lisa, who had been sitting at the table with me.

  “And why had you brought your cat back to the restaurant?” the cop asked Amber.

  That hadn’t occurred to me, but it was a good question.

  Amber looked down at Hunch as she answered. “He wanted to know where we were eating. He’s a pretty curious cat, and he was pulling away from our hotel, so I said I’d show him.”

  Even though the words sounded completely believable to me, I knew before she’d finished explaining that Hunch wasn’t your average cat, and the detective wouldn’t put any stock in them.

  “Gibson, you finished with everyone inside?” one of the other cops called.

  The detective with us called over his shoulder. “Haven’t even started. If you’re finished here, why don’t you clear some of the people from the perimeter inside.” It sounded like a directive, not a question.

  Two other officers headed inside. The older ornery cop returned from his police car at the end of the alley and called out to the medical examiner as he walked toward him. “What do you say, Mitch? Can we move the body out of here yet?”

  Gibson, the detective with us, asked about how long ago we had arrived at this restaurant, and I was glad the interruption had directed him away from our unbelievably strange cat. I spent a few seconds pretending to think about it because I wanted to hear Mitch-the-Medical-Examiner’s answer.

  Amber and I were the only nonofficial patrons in the alleyway, but Mitch-the-Medical-Examiner seemed to know how to keep the details of an investigation quieter than the brash fiftysomething cop.

  The medical examiner murmured and held up a baggie with the green Mardi Gras beads inside, and the brash cop asked loudly, “What do you mean, that’s not the cause of death?”

  More quiet murmuring from the medical examiner and then, as he turned away, the gruff cop said, “Still, we gotta find out who had those green beads. Gibson?”

  Detective Gibson cut his next question to us short. “Yes, sir?”

  “Find out who had green Mardi Gras beads and who might be missing them.”

  We’d almost made it away from Detective Gibson without being asked about the beads. Now Amber would have to admit hers were green and they were missing.

  I had a feeling Detective Gibson wasn’t going to accept her excuse of playing with my cat.

  Chapter Ten

  Detective Gibson looked first at me. “Is that the only strand of Mardi Gras beads you’ve had on your person today?�
�

  I fingered the purple strand. “Yes, our waitress, Juliana, gave them to me. She had a bit of an altercation with Mr. Richards as well.” I tried to deflect from Amber, but it didn’t work.

  “And you, Miss Montrose? Were you given Mardi Gras beads?”

  “The waitress gave me a green strand, but when I went to get Hunch from the hotel room, he’d been lying around for the last hour, so I tried to get him playing out on the grass with the beads. Mallory’s cat doesn’t have much patience for playing, though. He swatted at them once, and they broke. I decided to take him for a walk and show him how close the restaurant we were eating at was instead.”

  “And which hotel was this?” Detective Gibson asked. I told him the name and location. He showed recognition. “I’ll have to ask you both to remain in the restaurant until one of our detectives can accompany you to your hotel.”

  We agreed and followed him inside. Of course, Amber’s beads had to have been green and she had to have taken Hunch into the grass with them. I prayed that at least one of those beads would still be around and visible by the time we got there.

  Or better yet, I prayed we’d find the true murderer and clear Amber’s name.

  The people from the perimeter of the restaurant were being quickly questioned and dismissed by the time we got inside. Amber and I were told to sit and wait at one of the outer tables, but that wouldn’t give us much ability to hear the others being questioned.

  I asked Detective Gibson, “Do you mind if I just grab our sandwiches?” I pointed at the two platters of cut-up po’ boys.

  He shrugged so I took that as a yes. Another detective was taking names and contact information from around our table. I took my time arranging all the po’ boy portions onto one platter.

  Thankfully, the people at our table weren’t as compliant as Amber and I had been and kept offering “helpful” information over the cop’s basic questions.

  “You should check with his girlfriend, Scarlett Marsh,” Lisa told the cop. “If anyone wanted to strangle him, it was that girl.”