Meow If It's Murder (Nick and Nora Mysteries)

by T. C. LoTempio

  I hefted him into my arms—geez, he seemed heavier than ever—and smiled at Chantal. “I don’t think he likes bright colors—how about navy blue?” I looked down at Nick as I said this. He hesitated, then purred loudly.

  “Hm.” Chantal swept her materials back into their linen bag. “That might work. Navy with clear stones. I’ll give that a try.” She slipped the bag into her tote, and then moved over to stand in front of Nick. She bent over and said in an apologetic tone, “Sorry, handsome. I did not mean to upset you.”

  Nick hung his head and meowed.

  I laughed. “And I think that’s about as much of an apology as you’re going to get.”

  Chantal gave Nick’s head a final pat, then moved toward the door, where she paused, hand on the knob. “How did your appointment go?”

  “It could have gone better, but okay.”

  Her eyes searched my face. “Is everything all right?”

  I set Nick back on the counter and brushed a stray curl out of my eyes. “Well, like I said. It could have gone better. Daniel Corleone—excuse me, Detective Daniel Corleone—didn’t exactly turn a cartwheel at the thought of reopening the Lola Grainger case.”

  Chantal suppressed a smile. “Well, you knew going in it wouldn’t be easy.”

  “Yeah, I just didn’t realize it would be that hard.” I flopped into a chair and kicked off one shoe. “He was polite enough, but not overenthusiastic. I got the impression he was laughing at me.”

  Chantal shook her head. “That is because he does not know you, chérie, or how tenacious you can be.”

  “Oh, he knows me,” I spat. “He Googled me, can you believe it? Maybe it’s for the best. Working with him would be like climbing Mount Vesuvius when it’s getting ready to explode. No, wait, scratch that. Climbing Vesuvius would be easier.”

  Now Chantal laughed outright. “Surely you exaggerate?”

  I shook my head. “I wish. Basically he told me that because there were no eyewitnesses, there’s no reason to suspect Lola’s death was anything but a tragic accident. I brought up the fact that if a bit more effort had gone into questioning those aboard the yacht, perhaps their carefully matched stories might have crumbled a bit.”

  Chantal nodded in approval. “Good point.”

  I rubbed absently at my forehead. “One thing I found odd—he didn’t seem to know about Adrienne Sloane, or care too much after I informed him. He did want to know where I got all my information.” I chuckled. “I told him I had my sources—that seemed to satisfy him.”

  “So, what was the outcome? Is he going to help or not?”

  “He did agree certain aspects of the case might bear further investigation. We were interrupted, but he did say he’d like to discuss it further.”

  “So he’s going to try and get the case reopened?”

  I shrugged. “He said he’d call.”

  “And you do not think he will,” she prompted as I lapsed into silence.

  I gave my head a quick shake. “I’m not sure. I got the impression he considered my presence a nuisance, that I’m just another reporter out after a sensational story, out to exploit Kevin Grainger’s grief.”

  “Perhaps you should have told him the truth—that you only do this part-time now.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered. Anyway, I told you—he Googled me. He knew all about me.” I sniffed. “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think Detective Daniel would be of too much help. He’s the kind of guy who thinks he knows it all, and they can be particularly frustrating, because, well, half the time they do . . . know it all, that is.”

  “I see.” Chantal’s lips twitched slightly. “Tell me—what does this Detective Daniel Corleone look like?”

  “Tall—six-two I’d guess—blond hair, not golden blond, but kind of an ash-blond, dirty blond, shaggy around the neck, no bangs, high forehead. Eyebrows that match his hair, and blue eyes—sort of a cross between sky blue and cornflower blue, and really bright. Tanned skin, like he spends a lot of time outdoors in the California sun. Probably hits the beach each weekend, chasing down beach bunnies. Broad shouldered, narrow waisted—man, he must spend a lot of time in the gym, too, to get those muscled thighs and his waist—what’s the matter? Why do you have that silly grin on your face?”

  Chantal shot me a look of mock innocence. “No reason.”

  “Oh yes, there is.” I lunged forward and gripped her wrist. “Out with it, missy.”

  She laughed. “It’s just that—well, it’s written all over your face. You’ve got a crush on this guy!”

  Nick’s eyes narrowed and his upper lip curled back, exposing his fangs.

  Chantal leaned back and crossed her arms. “See—even Nick agrees.”

  “The two of you are nuts, then,” I growled. “Why would you think that?”

  Chantal rolled her eyes. “Chérie, if you have to ask the question . . .”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “While he might be physically attractive, his personality leaves a lot to be desired—or haven’t I mentioned the man seemed very full of himself and condescending?”

  Chantal just looked at me and shook her head. Ditto Nick, squatting at my feet.

  I let out a nervous giggle. “You guys are too much. I have one meeting with the guy and you’ve got me engaged already.”

  “Oh, not engaged, chérie. It is too soon for that. Going steady maybe.”

  I cut her an eye roll. “Trust me, I have no interest, romantic or otherwise, in Detective Daniel Corleone—other than possibly proving him wrong about the Lola Grainger case, that is. The good detective doesn’t interest me in that way. Not at all. No sir.” I pushed a hand through my curls. “Besides, something just doesn’t jibe.”

  “Doesn’t jibe? In what way?”

  “That’s the problem, I don’t know. Couldn’t tell you anything specific, but something just seemed—I don’t know—off about him.”

  “Besides the Mafia surname? You didn’t sound like you thought anything was off when you were describing him.” Chantal laughed. “As a matter of fact, if you ask me, you sounded pretty darned excited over him.”

  “Excited? Hardly,” I snorted. “And I didn’t ask you.”

  “Fine. Be in denial.” Chantal turned to leave, then abruptly paused. “Something you should know, though, chérie. Before I started working on Nicky’s collar, I pulled out my tarot cards and did a reading for you.”

  “And?” I asked as she hesitated. “Don’t tell me—the Death card came up?”

  “That would have been better. The Death card refers to transformation and a total change in life cycle, not one’s demise. No, the card that concerned me was Strength.”

  “Strength? I would think that would be one of the better ones.”

  “You have to take it in context. In the reading I did for you, it indicated you would soon find yourself in a situation over which you have no control. It was sandwiched in between the Tower and King of Swords. That indicated to me the situation could have dangerous overtones, but the King of Swords would help you overcome the obstacle.”

  I gave her a look. “You do know one way not to creep yourself out is to refrain from reading cards for people who aren’t right there with you.”

  Chantal stuck her tongue out at me, turned on her heel, and with a quick wave was gone. I had to admit, I’d felt an uncanny chill slice right through me at her words. One thing I definitely did not need was to get involved in a dangerous situation.

  That King of Swords stuff, though—now that didn’t sound half-bad—even if the King should turn out to be one sarcastic detective.

  I felt a tug on my skirt and looked down to see Nick regarding me with a steady, golden stare. I bent down and gently disengaged his claw. He turned around twice, and motioned with his paw toward the back table. I saw Scrabble tiles lying on the floor and let out a little cry.


  “How did you get those? I could have sworn I had them in the pouch in the drawer!”

  I bent over to scoop them up and noticed they were an F, an I, and a B. I chuckled.

  “FIB. Very appropriate. Of course, I wouldn’t come out and call Daniel Corleone a liar, but I just get a strange vibe from him. Like he’s hiding something. Oh, I don’t know.” I made a motion with my hand, swept the tiles up, and deposited them back in the drawer. I looked at Nick.

  “Like I was saying, I doubt Detective Corleone is going to be of much help. If I’m going to get to the bottom of all this and find out what happened to Adrienne and your owner, I’m going to have to do some digging on my own. Besides interviewing the captain, I need to know more about the other people who were on the yacht that night. If I can figure out who had the most to gain from Lola’s death, I can narrow down the field.”

  I leaned down and gave Nick a quick pat on the head. “I picked up something on the way home that should prove extremely helpful. Come on. We’re going to do something I haven’t done in quite a while—make a murder board.”

  * * *

  I set the board up in the center of my den. Nick hopped up on the divan and watched as I opened my new package of markers and started to draw boxes on its surface.

  “Here we have the victim—Lola Grainger.” I drew a box and wrote Lola’s name inside. “And here we have the people who were on the yacht the night of her death.” I drew five boxes underneath Lola’s name, with lines running from her box to each of the others. “First, her husband, Kevin Grainger.

  “Next there was the boat captain—Shelly Lott. And then the other three were Kevin’s employees.”

  I consulted the listing I’d made earlier. “Marshall Connor—the controller of KMG, and one of Kevin’s key people.”

  I pointed to the next box. “And then there was Buck Tabor—VP of Accounting, I believe. He went to the same college as Kevin—there were some rumblings when he was hired. Lots of other employees thought Mike Shale should have gotten the job, instead of Buck.” I tapped the marker against my chin. “Maybe Buck had something on Kevin. Blackmail’s always a good possibility.” I started to write on the board again. “Last but not least, Patti Cummings, Kevin’s administrative assistant slash majordomo.”

  I made a face. “I know she’s pretty, but I just hate to think of Kevin cheating on Lola. Of course, from all accounts, Patti is devoted to Grainger—maybe a little too devoted. Unrequited love is another possible motive. Get rid of the wife and you’ve got the husband all to yourself.”

  “A-rowr!” Nick made a guttural sound deep in his throat. He turned in a semicircle in front of the board.

  I beamed. “Ah—so you agree. Good.”

  I stepped back to survey my handiwork. “Back in Chicago, I was involved with lots of cases where the police messed up, overlooked important facts because they were in a hurry, or they thought something wasn’t relevant. Sometimes the most obvious answer isn’t always the correct one.”

  I flopped down on my couch and ran my hand through my tumble of curls. When I worked the true crime beat, the biggest thing I’d found police messed up was looking at suspects. Lots of times they tried to make the evidence fit the obvious choice.

  Except in this instance, there were no suspects, obvious or otherwise. It’d been written off as a tragic accident—owing in large part, I was certain, to Grainger’s standing in the community.

  “Police tend to gravitate toward the most time-efficient solution. Rather than cast a wide net and see if they can locate who might have committed a crime, they tend to focus on a few likely suspects and build their case against them. It makes sense, of course, but it’s not always the best way,” I muttered, tugging absently at a stray curl. “There’s got to be some sort of connection somewhere. What I’ve got to do is determine the weak link in the chain and snap it.”

  Nick clawed at the carpet, another kitty sign of approval. I set down my marker and paused. Something still nagged at me, something I couldn’t quite define. As I started for the kitchen, I suddenly stopped, snapped my fingers.

  “He knew an awful lot about this case,” I cried, startling Nick, who’d been trotting right beside me, no doubt anxious for a more substantial afternoon meal. “Danny Corleone. He’s only here filling in, he’s not even from around here, and yet he seemed to know an awful lot of details about the Grainger case. What’s more—he did it all from memory—never even opened a file folder. He knew so much and yet—he didn’t seem to know about Adrienne Sloane. Very, very odd.”

  “Yargle,” Nick gurgled.

  “Glad you agree,” I chuckled. “I think we’ve done a good job today, don’t you?”

  Nick looked me right in the eyes and inclined his head in a nod.

  I riffled his fur. “Come on—I think there’s some salmon with your name on it. Tomorrow I’ll start narrowing down our pool of suspects.”

  We went into the kitchen, where I spooned out a generous portion of salmon for Nick, unable to escape the gnawing feeling that there was more to Detective Corleone than appeared on the surface. It might be wise to keep an eye on him—a task I doubted I’d find too hard to take on.

  TEN

  I had to start somewhere, and I figured my best bet was Captain Shelly Lott. Adding in the fact that Hank had tagged him as “nervous,” he appeared to be the only one so far with ties to both Lola and Kevin. Plus, I had a niggling suspicion Lott might also have been the one feeding Adrienne Sloane information. If so, she’d gotten him to talk—now I just had to figure out what buttons to press to get him to open up to me.

  Since I had some time in between my breakfast crowd and the lunch rush, I did a quick Internet search and came up with Lott Cruises, located right in the Cruz Marina. Lott himself answered on the third ring. I introduced myself, explained that I was writing an article on the Lola Grainger accident for Noir, and was greeted with thirty seconds of complete and utter silence. Finally he rasped out, “That? It’s old news. What on earth do you want to write about that for?”

  “Lots of reasons, Captain. This case was closed before the right questions were framed, let alone answered. I think we owe it to the public—and to Lola—to ferret out the truth about what really happened that night.”

  “I can save you the trouble. Lola Grainger’s death was an accident. End of story.”

  “Is it?”

  More silence. Then, “Just what good do you think writing a story about this would do? Authorities don’t like to reopen cases, especially open-and-shut ones involving high-profile figures. Why would you want to embarrass yourself like that, miss? ’Cause asking questions that are none of your business is all that will do.”

  “I’m of a different mind. I believe asking questions is the best way to get at the truth.”

  He sniffled. “Are you insinuating that we all lied?”

  “I believe you weren’t asked the right questions.”

  There was a pause and then, surprisingly, Lott let out a gravelly laugh. “Maybe so. But it’s over. Take my advice, little lady, and let it be. Find something else to write about.”

  I sensed he was about to hang up so I interjected quickly, “Adrienne Sloane wouldn’t let it be, though, would she?”

  The note of surprise in his tone was evident, at least to me. “Adrienne Sloane?”

  “Lola’s sister. You’ve spoken with her, haven’t you?”

  “Absolutely not. I wasn’t even aware Mrs. Grainger had a sister.”

  Somehow I doubted that, but I pressed on. “She did. They’d been estranged for quite some time.” I paused and then added, “She believed her sister was murdered.”

  He snorted. “Where’d she get a crackpot idea like that?”

  “From an inside source. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “Are you intimating I’m her source?” A moment of stu
nned silence, and then Lott barked out a nervous laugh. “I don’t know where you get your information, lady, but it’s all wet. I never Fed anybody anything, least of all a woman I never met.”

  Prying information out of Lott was akin to pulling out a wisdom tooth. No wonder Grainger trusted the man. “Look,” I said in a gentler tone, “all I’m asking for is a half hour of your time. One half hour, and I promise I’ll never bother you again.”

  He sighed. “One half hour, and then that’s it? Fine. I’ve got an afternoon cruise leaving in fifteen, but I’ll be back in my marina office at five.”

  Perfect. “I’ll see you then.”

  I hung up the phone and caught a swish of black out of the corner of my eye. A second later Nick hopped up onto my lap. I ran my hand along his soft fur.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if he was making a call to Grainger right about now,” I murmured. Nick’s head moved up and down, as if in agreement. I laughed and pushed my chair back. I’d planned to see how I did with Lott before deciding on a plan of attack for the others. Patti Cummings was a possibility—admins usually had a good handle on lots of details others weren’t privy to. I’d run into a few in Chicago who knew where their bosses’ bodies were buried—literally. But if she and Grainger were indeed warming the sheets together, I doubted she’d want to do anything to upset that arrangement. And if all there was between them was the usual employer-employee relationship, well, then I had to hope he’d screwed her out of something big, like a raise or promotion. No one gave up a cushy job like that without incentive. Although here the incentive should be fairly obvious—staying out of jail as an accessory to murder.

  Hell, it would work for me.

  * * *

  I was knee deep in my lunch rush when I glanced up and saw none other than Detective Daniel Corleone standing in Hot Bread’s doorway. Several ladies in line graciously moved out of the way, allowing him a clear view of the large sign listing the various sandwiches, and there was no mistaking the rapturous looks on their faces as he smiled and thanked them ever so graciously.