Frozen in Cherry Hills

by Paige Sleuth

  Frozen in Cherry Hills

  A Cozy Cat Caper Mystery

  Book 10

  Paige Sleuth

  Copyright © 2016 Marla Bradeen (writing as Paige Sleuth)

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Marla Bradeen.

  This book or portions of it (excluding brief quotations) may not be reproduced without prior written permission from the publisher/author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), actual businesses, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If this ebook copy was not purchased by or for you, please purchase your own copy before reading. Thank you for respecting this author’s work.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  MURDER IN CHERRY HILLS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER ONE

  “It’s a nasty habit, but I can’t seem to stop,” Maura O’Malley said to Katherine Harper, taking another puff from her cigarette.

  Kat cinched her coat tighter, wishing she had thought to grab her mittens from her desk before heading outside. “I understand.”

  Maura blew out a breath, smoke swirling in front of her. Kat could see her own breath as well, but she blamed the cold for that. It was only the last day of November, not even winter yet, and it was already freezing. It didn’t help that it had snowed all Thanksgiving weekend, the results of which now sat in heaps alongside the sides of their office building. Kat felt as if she’d been dropped into the middle of Siberia.

  She needed a better coat, she decided. Either that or she would have to make sure she didn’t volunteer to accompany Maura on any more of her cigarette breaks until the first spring blossoms made an appearance in Cherry Hills, Washington.

  Kat eyed her new boss, who didn’t seem bothered by the cold. Maura’s cheeks were as rosy as they had been inside, although maybe that was the result of her wearing so much makeup. Kat suspected that with Maura’s lush brown hair, green eyes, olive complexion, and wide smile she would be pretty even without the makeup.

  Although, Kat couldn’t help but think, Maura would be ten times more attractive if she’d lose the cigarette in her hand.

  Maura toed a patch of snow. “This will sound crazy, but I feel like smoking is part of my identity. I mean, I started when I was twenty. That’s over half my lifetime ago. How do you shake something that’s been with you your entire adult life?”

  Kat shifted from foot to foot in a vain attempt to get her blood circulating. “I hear it’s a tough habit to break.”

  “It’s the worst.” Maura paused, then said, “Have you noticed not many people smoke in Cherry Hills? Why do you think that is? Before I moved here I knew a bunch of smokers. We used to . . .”

  Kat mentally willed Maura to stop talking and start working on getting her nicotine fix. As much as she liked her new boss, she was starting to lose feeling in her fingers and toes.

  She probably wouldn’t have agreed to join Maura outside today, except it was her first day at her new programming job and she didn’t want to start off with her boss thinking she wasn’t a team player. After all, it wasn’t as if she had any assignments to work on yet. She had spent most of the morning filling out new-hire paperwork, and Maura had only just finished giving her a tour of the DataRightly offices before claiming she needed a short break.

  “You don’t have to stand here with me,” Maura said, squinting at Kat. “You’re obviously cold.”

  ‘Cold’ was an understatement, but Kat didn’t want to admit as much. “I’m okay,” she said instead.

  Maura looked around, her brow furrowed. “I wonder where Sadie is today.”

  “Who’s Sadie?” Kat asked.

  “Sadie Cramer. She’s another hopeless nicotine addict, the only other one working in this building as far as I know. We made a pact to quit together once, but you know how that goes.”

  Kat smiled, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. “At least you’re trying.”

  “Not hard enough.” Maura’s face lit up. “Oh, look at that.”

  Maura jabbed her cigarette toward the side of the building. When Kat saw what had caught her attention, she jolted. The fluffy white face of a cat was barely visible above one of the snowbanks.

  “He looks as cold as you do,” Maura told Kat.

  “Have you seen him before?”

  Maura shook her head. “First time ever.”

  Kat wondered whether the cat belonged to someone or if he was a stray. His body was hidden behind the snowbank, making it difficult for her to tell what kind of physical condition he was in.

  But her lack of knowledge about his health didn’t prevent her from worrying about him. As cold as it was now, the temperature would drop even more after the sun went down. This was no weather for a cat to be outside in.

  “I should see if he’ll let me get close to him,” Kat said.

  “What will you do if you catch him?”

  “Call Imogene Little. She’ll either know how to find his family or she can take him into 4F custody.”

  “What’s 4F?”

  “Furry Friends Foster Families. It’s a nonprofit organization, and Imogene and I are both board members. Our mission is to help homeless animals find permanent homes and place them with foster families in the interim.”

  “Hey.” Maura set her free hand on Kat’s arm. “You’re the group who took in Leo’s cat after he died, aren’t you?”

  Kat nodded, feeling a pinch in her chest. She still remembered the shock she had felt upon hearing about Leo Price’s murder—a murder that had occurred in the very parking lot they were standing beside.

  “How’s he doing?” Maura said. “Leo’s cat, I mean.”

  “Right now Stumpy is being cared for by the Belleroses, one of our foster families.”

  Maura’s lips twitched. “His name is Stumpy?”

  “Yes, on account of him being a Manx and only having a little stump for a tail.”

  A pained look swept across Maura’s face. “I bet he misses Leo. I know I do. I’m still getting used to not seeing him around DataRightly anymore.”

  Maura’s words weighed down Kat’s heart. “I’m sorry I didn’t know him better.”

  “Oh, you would have gotten along great. It was hard not to like Leo.” Maura rolled her cigarette between her fingers. “I should look into adopting Stumpy, for Leo’s sake. I’ve been thinking about getting a pet for a while now anyway. It gets lonely living all by yourself.”

  Kat grinned, thinking of her own cats and how they made her laugh every day. “Well, I, for one, can attest that having a cat or two at home really makes the days brighter. And from what I’ve heard, Stumpy is a very friendly cat, once he gets to know you and comes out of his shell.”

  Maura smiled. “I knew I made a good choice hiring you. You have a heart as well as a brain. I could tell when I interviewed you.”

  “Oh.” Kat flushed, unsure how to respond to the praise.

  “Where do you think he came from?” Maura said, jerking her chin toward the white cat.

  Kat shifted her attention back to the feline hiding behind the snowbank. “I’d have to guess from one of the houses down there,” she said, pointing.

/>   “His owner probably let him out, and he wandered over this way.”

  “Or he snuck out, got lost, and doesn’t know how to get home.”

  “Go see if you can catch him,” Maura urged. “Maybe he’s wearing a collar that will tell you where he lives.”

  Kat started toward the white cat, moving slowly so as not to alarm him. He watched her, but otherwise didn’t seem bothered by her approach.

  “Hi there, kitty,” she crooned. “What are you doing out here all by yourself?”

  The cat stared at her as if he suspected she was only speaking to him because she’d lost her mind.

  “So I talk to cats,” she said. “What of it?”

  His whiskers twitched.

  “I have two of your kind at home, you know. Their names are Matty and Tom.”

  The white cat stretched his jaws into a yawn, clearly unimpressed.

  “Are you going to let me pick you up?” Kat asked him.

  He tilted his head as though seriously considering her offer. But when Kat bent down and extended her hand, he turned around and dashed off, disappearing behind the building.

  Kat stood up and sighed. “So much for that.”

  She glanced over at Maura, who was watching her with an amused quirk to her lips. Kat lifted her hands up in defeat.

  She was on her way back to rejoin her boss when something in the next snowbank caught her eye. She crept closer, spotting the edge of a purple glove. She reached down to pick it up, figuring she could leave it in the lobby in case someone had dropped it. But before she could grab it she saw something that froze her whole body.

  This glove looked as though it were already covering someone’s hand.

  Goosebumps broke out over Kat’s skin. She forced herself to peek over the wall of snow, which was when she saw there was indeed a hand inside the glove—and the hand was attached to a woman who looked almost as pale as the snow surrounding her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Maura’s scream echoed through the parking lot, nearly giving Kat a heart attack.

  “That’s Sadie!” Maura shouted. “Sadie Cramer!”

  Kat twisted around, coming face-to-face with her boss. Maura must have snuck up behind her while Kat was still reeling from the shock of what she’d found.

  Maura looked at Kat with huge eyes. “Is she dead?”

  “I—I don’t know.” Kat crouched down and picked up the woman’s gloved hand to check for a pulse.

  “Oh my goodness, she’s dead,” Maura muttered, not bothering to wait to hear whether Kat discovered any signs of life. “She’s dead. Dead. I can’t believe Sadie’s dead.”

  Kat set the woman’s hand down, feeling as if a stone had settled in her chest. Unfortunately, she couldn’t dispute Maura’s statement.

  “We have to call the police.” Maura fumbled in her coat pockets with her cigarette-free hand. “Where’s my phone? I must have left it on my desk.”

  “I have mine.” Kat reached for her pants pocket before she remembered the new slacks she’d worn for her first day on the job didn’t have any. “Actually, I don’t. My cell is upstairs in my purse.”

  Maura pivoted around, her eyes wild, before she looked back at Sadie. “We’ll use Sadie’s phone.”

  Kat waited for her to retrieve it, but Maura stood rooted in place. Evidently she expected Kat to do the honors.

  Kat swallowed. “Do you know where she keeps it?”

  “Try her coat.”

  Kat held her breath as she extended her hand toward the woman’s coat. Her stomach was roiling at the notion of pawing through a dead person’s clothes, but she also wasn’t sure she had the strength to run back upstairs for her own phone. Besides, it seemed wrong somehow to leave Sadie out here by herself.

  Luckily, Sadie’s iPhone was tucked inside the first pocket Kat checked. She withdrew it and turned it on.

  “It’s password protected,” she said, her heart sinking.

  “Use 1-1-2-4,” Maura suggested.

  Kat did, unable to hide her surprise when the combination worked.

  “November 24 is her birthday,” Maura said, her face crumpling. “She’d just turned sixty.”

  Kat dialed 9-1-1 with shaky fingers, forcing aside thoughts of how Sadie had only lived a handful of days past such a personal milestone.

  “9-1-1, police, fire, or medical?”

  Somehow, Kat managed to keep a clear enough head to answer all of the dispatcher’s questions. When they ended the call, she cradled Sadie’s phone in her palms, wondering whether she should put it back where she’d found it. But the thought of touching Sadie again, even if it was only her coat, seemed too intrusive. She slipped the phone in her own coat pocket instead.

  “I can’t believe she’s dead,” Maura muttered over and over again as she and Kat stood there waiting for the first responders to arrive.

  Kat hugged herself, trying to get warm. It felt twenty degrees colder now than it had ten minutes ago, although she suspected that had more to do with the discovery of Sadie’s body than any change in ambient temperature.

  “What do you think happened to her?” Maura asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  Maura’s eyes drifted toward Sadie’s body. The smoldering cigarette in her hand was all but forgotten. “She was in excellent health. She did yoga and all that. And her daughter’s a nurse, so I’m sure she knows all the warning signs for heart attacks and strokes and whatnot. Sure, she smoked, but that wouldn’t cause somebody to keel over.”

  Kat swallowed past the tightness in her throat. If Sadie hadn’t died from natural causes, there were only a few options left—options that made Kat’s veins feel as if they were filled with ice water.

  “You should go inside,” Maura said, clearly misinterpreting the cause of Kat’s shiver.

  “The dispatcher said to wait here.”

  “We can wait inside just as easily.” Maura glanced at the cigarette in her hand, as though she were surprised to see she still had it. She stubbed it out on the sidewalk and tossed the butt into the garbage can near the door. “C’mon.”

  Maura grabbed Kat’s arm and steered her into the building. Warm air swirled around them when they stepped through the doors. But as chilly as Kat had been outside, the change in temperature didn’t offer her any relief. Instead, the artificially hot air felt smothering, and she had to work to draw it into her lungs.

  “Let’s sit over here,” Maura said, dragging Kat over to a bench by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that flanked the entrance.

  “Tell me about Sadie,” Kat said when they were both situated.

  “She’s a career counselor.” Maura pointed down the corridor. “Her office is at the end of the hall.”

  Kat peered down the corridor. Although she thought of the building as the DataRightly building, the software company only occupied the second floor. A dozen or so other small businesses leased space on the ground level.

  “How long have you known her?” Kat asked.

  “About a year, since she moved her business into this building.” Maura flashed Kat a sad smile. “I kept telling her we should do something together after work, something besides smoking, but we never did. I guess I figured we’d always have more time.”

  An ache bloomed in Kat’s chest. “There’s just no telling when somebody’s time will be up.”

  “I guess not.”

  A car pulled into the parking lot, causing them both to sit up straighter. But Kat deflated when she saw it was just an ordinary vehicle.

  She and Maura watched in silence as a tall blonde swung her legs out of the car. She wore oversized sunglasses and kept her shoulders hunched as she hurried toward the building. When she stepped inside, she paused.

  “Maura?” she asked.

  Maura offered her a weak smile. “Hi, Rachel.”

  Rachel took off the sunglasses and slipped them into her purse. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”

  Maura scooted closer to Kat and patted the bench besi
de her. “You might want to sit down for this.”

  “Sit down for what?” Rachel asked.

  “Sadie’s dead.”

  Rachel’s jaw slipped open, her eyes widening as she grasped the gravity of Maura’s words. After standing there in stunned silence for a long moment, she finally stumbled over to the bench and practically collapsed onto it.

  “Are you s—sure?” Rachel stammered.

  Maura nodded. “Kat here checked for a pulse.”

  Rachel peered at Kat as though to evaluate how likely she was to have mistaken a living woman for a dead one.

  “Were you here to see her?” Maura asked Rachel.

  “I came to pick up my last paycheck.”

  Maura nodded, then turned to Kat. “Rachel used to work for Sadie,” she explained. “She was her receptionist.”

  Rachel sucked in a breath. “Oh gosh.”

  “What?” Maura said. “What is it?”

  Rachel’s eyes were so wide that Kat could see the whites around them. “How did Sadie die?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Maura said.

  Rachel pulled her hands into her lap and wrung her fingers together. “She was too fit to have dropped dead. She had to have been murdered.”

  Maura gasped. “Murdered?”

  Kat cleared her throat, causing both women to whip toward her. “We don’t know for sure that Sadie was killed. She could have fallen down. Maybe she slipped on the snow and hit her head.”

  “That seems more likely than a murder,” Maura agreed.

  “Right. As of this moment there’s zero evidence that somebody deliberately killed Sadie.” Kat wasn’t sure whether she was trying harder to convince them or herself. “And there’s no sense in speculating until the responders get here. They can tell us what really happened.”

  Rachel didn’t appear to hear her. “I hope the police don’t think I killed her.” She grabbed Maura’s arm. “Do you think they’ll arrest me?”

  “Of course not,” Maura said. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because Sadie let me go. They might think I hated her for that. They might think I snapped.” Rachel’s knuckles turned white around Maura’s arm. “This isn’t going to look good for me, especially after Allen.”