Spotted Cats

by William G. Tapply

  Maroney whistled softly between his front teeth. ‘You have photographs of the cats?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘Want to see them?’

  Maroney nodded.

  She stood up. ‘I’ll get them.’

  She left the room. Maroney watched her go. ‘We’ll circulate the pictures,’ he said, still staring at the doorway through which Lily had disappeared. ‘Local art dealers, junk stores, and so forth. If we’re lucky, your burglars’ll turn out to be kids looking for crack money, have no idea what they’ve got for themselves, and your cats’ll turn up. I’m guessing that won’t happen, though.’

  ‘Because they brought sacks to carry them out in,’ I said.

  ‘I’m guessing that’s what they did,’ said the cop. ‘That plus the way they handled the dogs.’

  ‘What do you make of their slugging Jeff?’ I said.

  Maroney shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine right now. Maybe after we look around something’ll suggest itself. On the surface, it looks as if he heard something, maybe the dogs barking or something, and went outside to see what was going on—’

  ‘Those dogs didn’t bark,’ I said. ‘All they’d do was whine. You couldn’t hear them from inside the house.’

  He shrugged again.

  ‘And anyway, Jeff’s room’s in the back, and he doesn’t get around very well, and he takes sleeping pills. And if he did hear something, he’d most likely call for Lily.’

  Maroney cocked his head. ‘If she was there.’

  I shrugged.

  He glanced at Kinney, who was watching me.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘they weren’t kids. They were adults. Judging by their voices, anyway.’

  ‘Some kids on crack are pretty old,’ said Maroney.

  Lily came back and handed Maroney a large manila envelope. Maroney reached into it and took out a sheaf of eight-by-ten colour photographs. He shuffled through them. ‘Seven of them, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily.

  ‘Mind if I keep these?’

  She nodded. ‘We’ve got duplicates.’

  ‘Lily,’ I said, ‘were the papers there?’

  ‘Papers?’

  ‘The papers on the jaguars. The appraisal that Dan LaBreque and Maria Conway did, the import papers, insurance policies?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes. Right with the photos. The file cabinet’s in Jeff’s bedroom.’ She gestured at the mess of papers on the floor. ‘They must’ve been looking for them, huh?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ I said.

  Maroney tucked the photos back into the envelope and glanced at his notebook. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I need some names.’

  ‘Names?’ said Lily.

  ‘Who knew about the jaguars. Who knew the dogs’ names. You know. Suspects. People who visit Mr Newton. Who could’ve done this. We’ll have to talk to Mr Newton when he’s able, but for now, what can you come up with?’

  Lily stared at him blankly. ‘No one. No one I know would do this.’

  ‘Well,’ said Maroney placidly, ‘someone did. Think, please.’

  She shrugged. ‘His children. They visit him. I don’t think they stole the jaguars.’

  ‘He’s—’

  ‘Divorced,’ said Lily. ‘For about fifteen years.’

  ‘Names?’

  ‘James and Ellen.’

  He wrote them down. ‘How old are they?’

  ‘Jimmy’s twenty and Ellen’s twenty-two.’

  ‘How does he get along with them?’

  She shrugged. ‘OK, as far as I know. I’m usually on vacation when they’re here.’

  ‘When were they here last?’

  ‘Late August. They come every August.’ She hesitated. ‘Come to think of it, last summer Jimmy didn’t make it. He was working up in New Hampshire and couldn’t get away.’

  ‘So he didn’t see his son all year?’

  Lily shrugged. ‘I guess not.’

  ‘But you say he gets along OK with his kids?’

  ‘Ellen, anyway. I think there’s some tension between him and Jimmy. He doesn’t talk much about it.’

  ‘What about Mr Newton’s wife?’

  ‘I told you. He’s divorced.’

  Maroney looked up. ‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘His ex-wife, then. Does she visit him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But she probably knows about the jaguars. From the children.’

  Lily rolled her eyes. ‘I doubt that Sheila came down, hit Jeff on the head, tied up Brady, and stole the jaguars.’

  ‘It was two men,’ I said.

  ‘OK,’ said the cop. ‘Who else?’

  ‘Well,’ said Lily, ‘his insurance person. She comes by now and then. She certainly knows about the jaguars, what they’re worth. At least as likely a suspect as his children.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Miss Kline,’ she said. ‘Jeff calls her Tory. For Victoria. Tory Kline. She’s with the Seacoast Agency in Hyannis. They broker all his insurance, and she’s the agent he deals with. She arranged the policy for the jaguars. Also the homeowner’s policy, life insurance, my automobile, and so forth. She helped Jeff get his claim for disability.’

  ‘You know a lot about Mr Newton’s business,’ said Maroney mildly.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily. ‘I do. I take care of him.’

  Maroney was writing into his notebook. ‘Hyannis, you said?’

  Lily nodded. ‘The Seacoast Agency.’

  ‘When was she here?’

  ‘She’s been here several times.’

  ‘Most recently?’

  She gazed up at the ceiling. ‘I don’t know. Last winter sometime, I guess. Periodically she calls, wants to come over to sell Jeff more insurance. He generally lets her come.’

  ‘What’d you say those cats are insured for?’

  ‘Seven hundred seventy thousand,’ I said.

  ‘Good thing,’ said Maroney. ‘Anybody else you can think of?’ He looked from Lily to me.

  ‘Well, Dr Sauerman,’ I said. ‘He comes every week to examine Mr Newton.’

  ‘And what exactly is the matter with Mr Newton?’ Maroney arched his eyebrows.

  ‘He was mauled by an African leopard,’ I said. ‘He spent six months in a Nairobi hospital. Bad infection, serious wounds. He still needs medical treatment. He used to be a professional hunter.’

  ‘The Great White Hunter, huh?’ said Kinney, smirking so that his fat cheeks bunched up and his eyes became slits.

  ‘They’re called professional hunters,’ said Lily. ‘Sometimes professional white hunters. Never great white hunters, except maybe in movies. To call a professional hunter a great white hunter is to reveal ignorance.’

  Kinney squinted at her for a minute, then shrugged.

  ‘He’s really got a thing for cats, though, huh?’ said Maroney.

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Lily.

  ‘Alan Sauerman,’ said Maroney, looking sideways at Kinney.

  Kinney nodded. ‘Sure. The Doc’

  ‘He was here last evening,’ I said. ‘He knows about the cats. He knew about the dogs, too.’

  ‘Good,’ said Maroney, again writing in his notebook. He looked at Lily. ‘Miss? Miz? Anybody else? How about you? Boyfriend?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘There must be other people who come here. To visit, to make deliveries. Relatives?’

  Lily shrugged. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘The usual meter readers, oil delivery men. We had an exterminator last May. Carpenter ants. Does that help?’

  ‘Sure,’ said the policeman. ‘Everything helps.’

  ‘I can’t think of anybody particular,’ said Lily. ‘We don’t have a great deal of company. Occasionally one of Jeff’s old friends will drop in. I mean, how can we tell you every single person who’s ever been here, who might’ve known about the jaguars?’

  Maroney shrugged. ‘Sure. Right.’ He turned to Kinney. ‘Anything else?’ This struck me as a courtesy to his partner, who had not seemed interested in any of the interrogation, and
who did not appear to have a question—or, for that matter, much of anything else—in his head.

  Kinney shrugged.

  ‘Well,’ said Maroney, pushing himself to his feet with a sigh, ‘we better have a look around, then.’

  He flipped his notebook shut and jammed it into his shirt pocket. ‘That gate have a lock on it?’ he said.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lily.

  ‘That fence, it goes all around the property?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So someone could sneak over anywhere.’

  ‘The dogs would get him,’ she said. ‘No matter where they came over.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said.

  They all looked at me.

  ‘The gate was unlocked.’

  ‘When?’ said Maroney.

  ‘When we went down there this morning. When the EMTs came, it was ajar. I didn’t think about it at the time.’

  ‘Is it always locked?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lily.

  ‘Did you lock it after Sauerman left last night?’ I said to her.

  She nodded slowly. ‘Sure.’ She paused, frowning. ‘At least, I think so.’

  ‘You could have forgotten to lock it?’ said Maroney.

  She shrugged. ‘I could have, I guess. I don’t think I forgot. I mean, I always lock it, but I can’t specifically remember…’

  ‘Mr Newton had a key, right?’

  Lily nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Just me,’ she said.

  Maroney and Kinney exchanged glances. Then Maroney stood up. ‘You folks just sit tight,’ said Maroney to us. ‘We’ll have a look outside. We’ll be back in a few minutes, see what we can see in here.’

  After the cops left the room, Lily said, ‘Do you think Jeff let them in?’

  ‘Maybe he did,’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘Sure. So they could bash in his skull.’

  I shrugged.

  She stared out the window for a minute. ‘That Maroney,’ she said. ‘He suspects me.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I told him it was two men.’

  ‘He thinks I left the gate unlocked for them. He thinks I set it up.’

  ‘He might think that,’ I said.

  She turned to me. ‘I didn’t, you know.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Professionals,’ said Lily. ‘It was professionals. They were prepared for the dogs. They came for the jaguars. They had it planned.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said. ‘Could somebody else have a key?’

  ‘Jeff could’ve given somebody a key, I don’t know.’ She shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to think. To tell the truth, I don’t much care about figuring it out. Figuring it out isn’t going to change anything.’

  ‘I’m pretty interested in revenge, myself,’ I said.

  Lily and I remained in the living-room while the policemen prowled around outside. We had more coffee. We didn’t talk. There wasn’t much to say.

  Maroney and Kinney came back in about fifteen minutes later. ‘We found the crutch,’ Maroney said. ‘It was fifteen or twenty feet away from where it looked like his body was.’

  ‘As if he threw it or something,’ added Kinney.

  ‘Don’t you folks touch those glass cases,’ Maroney said. ‘We’ll get some forensics guys over here. Maybe we’ll get lucky.’

  ‘What else did you find out there?’ I said.

  Maroney shrugged. ‘A coupla dead Dobermans. I’ll give the dog officer a call, have him come by to pick them up. We’ll see if there’s some way they can be tested for a drug.’

  ‘Why is that important?’ said Lily.

  Maroney sighed. ‘If they were drugged, it tells us your burglars didn’t know how to talk to them. It also tells us the bad guys came prepared, knew what they were after, what they were doing, had the whole thing planned out, that they weren’t just beered-up kids on a lark, which I seriously doubt anyway.’

  After the cops left Lily called the hospital. I stood beside her while she nodded wordlessly at the telephone. When she hung up she turned to face me. I couldn’t read her expression.

  ‘Well?’ I said.

  She shook her head. ‘He’s in the operating room. They wouldn’t tell me anything else. It seems I’m not next of kin or something. He’s alive, I got that much out of them.’

  I nodded. I reached for her hand. She allowed me to squeeze it, then she moved away from me.

  ‘I’m going to change,’ she said. ‘I’m going to the hospital.’

  ‘It won’t do Jeff any good.’

  ‘It’ll do me some good.’

  About an hour later we were out back on the patio sipping coffee. Lily had changed into a narrow grey skirt and a yellow blouse. She was wearing heels. I had never seen her in heels before. She was attempting to summon up the courage to drive to Hyannis. When we heard the bell by the gate bong, she stood up and said, ‘I’ll get it,’ and I also stood and said, ‘I’ll go with you.’

  We walked through the house and down the path. In her heels, Lily was as tall as me. Two men stood outside the gate, one a portly guy with a bald head and round wire-rimmed glasses and the other a teenage boy who reminded me of Tom Cruise with acne. The older of the two blinked at us and said, ‘Dog officer. Francis Filmore.’

  Lily unlocked the gate and they came in. Francis Filmore spotted Ngwenya’s body sprawled by the path. He went to it and squatted down. ‘Aw, jeez,’ he said softly. He touched the dog’s black fur, already dulled by death.

  ‘Its throat was cut,’ I said.

  Filmore peered up at me. ‘Why do people do things like this?’

  I shrugged. ‘It was a robbery.’

  ‘So I heard. There’s another one?’

  I nodded and jerked my head in the direction of Tondo’s corpse up the path. Filmore stood up slowly. ‘Dobermans are nice dogs,’ he said to me.

  ‘I guess that depends on your definition.’

  ‘Smart, loyal, dependable.’

  ‘By that definition, I agree.’

  At that moment, a dark blue sedan pulled up beside Filmore’s wagon, and two men in suits got out. Lily went to the gate. One of them flipped a leather case open, showing her a shield. ‘Forensics,’ he said.

  She jerked her head up the path in the direction of the bungalow. ‘Up there.’

  The detective nodded, and he and his partner moved towards the house. Lily came back and stood beside me and the dog officer. The detectives exchanged hellos with Francis Filmore on their way by.

  ‘Road pizzas,’ said Filmore, after the forensics cops had disappeared into the house.

  I frowned at him. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Some people try to run dogs over,’ he said. ‘Also squirrels, coons, possums, housecats. Turtles and snakes and frogs, too. They think it’s sport. The kids around here, they like to cruise at night, see what they can run over. Dogs get them the most points. They have contests. Half a dozen kids in cars. End of the evening, they tote up their points. Loser buys a case of beer for all of ’em. They guzzle it down, then, lots of times, they end up as road pizzas themselves. Great sport.’

  ‘Some people deserve to have their throats cut,’ I said.

  Filmore nodded and sighed. To the boy he said, ‘Well, come on, Jackie. Let’s lug ’em out.’

  Jackie took Ngwenya’s front end and Filmore lifted the dog by its hind legs. Ngwenya’s body had already stiffened. They carried him to their van, laid him gently in the back, and returned for Tondo. Lily stood close beside me, watching.

  When the two were done, Filmore slammed the back door shut. ‘Sorry about your dogs,’ he said to us with a wave.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  ‘Why people think they have to kill dogs,’ he said, shaking his head.

  We watched as the van turned around and bumped down the dusty road. Then Lily took my hand and we went back into the house.

  CHAPTER 5

  AFTER FRANCIS FILMORE CARTED away the dogs and the forensics detectives
finished snooping around the house and grounds, Lily said, ‘I’m going to the hospital.’

  ‘Want company?’

  She touched my face with her fingertips. ‘I don’t think so. Do you understand?’

  I nodded. ‘Sure.’

  ‘I’ll be back for dinner. You’ll be here?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘I want. I’ll cook something fancy.’

  I walked down the path with her to her Cherokee. She opened the door, then turned to face me. She leaned against me and kissed my mouth. It was a sweet, quick kiss. All affection, no passion. ‘I’m sure glad you were here, Brady Coyne,’ she said.

  I fingered the Band-Aid on my throat. ‘Yeah, me too.’

  I wandered back to the house. I made myself a sandwich from the leftover lobster salad I found in the refrigerator. There was a bottle of Grolsch beer in there, too. I ate at the kitchen table. Then I went back into the living-room.

  The contents of the desk still littered the floor. Maybe the forensics guys had looked over everything. But they didn’t clean up.

  I decided to save Lily the trouble. I knelt down and began to gather everything into a pile. There were bills waiting to be paid, some correspondence, assorted pieces of junk mail. I couldn’t help glancing at it all as I picked it up. I told myself I was Jeff’s lawyer. His business was my business.

  A letter from James, Jeff’s son. News from school and a carefully worded request for money, dated back in April.

  A note from Sheila, Jeff’s former wife, June 6. Civil, formal, short. Her cheque hadn’t arrived.

  There was an insurance policy and an accompanying bill. The policy was a standard homeowner’s. The bill noted a health policy, the homeowner’s, and the separate policy for the jaguars. Jaguar insurance was costly, but now it looked like a shrewd investment.

  I stacked everything up after glancing at it. There was an electric bill, a bill from the exterminator, a property tax bill. There was a phone bill which listed about a dozen long-distance calls. Three I recognized as my office number. There was one to Rutland, Vermont—that, I figured, was Sheila, who lived in Rutland—two to Saratoga Springs, New York, where Ellen attended Skidmore, and one, collect from Lewiston, Maine. James went to Bates.

  There were also four collect calls from the same number in West Yellowstone, Montana, all on consecutive days at the end of May. They caught my eye, because it just happens that West Yellowstone, Montana, is one of my favourite places in the entire world. Aside from being the gateway to Yellowstone Park, West Yellowstone is the fly-fishing centre of the universe. I’ve spent lots of time there. I have many friends in West Yellowstone.