Cats Can't Shoot: A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir #2 (Pru Marlowe Pet Mysteries)

by Clea Simon

  “Someone’s spouse stepping out?” The mountain resorts weren’t at their best during stick season. Then again, the odds of running into anyone you knew were small.

  He shook his head. “No, more like a bad debt, but it’s turned into something bigger.”

  “Blackmail?” This was getting interesting. Frankly, Tom was proving a better date than I’d expected. He’d aged some. Now that we were in the restaurant, I could see that he’d bulked up since I’d left the city, and not all in muscle. I might have showed the miles, too, though, and before long, we fell into our old familiar banter. I wanted to know more, and I knew how to talk to him: a little flirty, a little sharp. But as I was getting into it, our food arrived: two steaks, mine bloody rare. And when Tom changed the topic, I had all the work I could do to fend off his questions.

  “Call me crazy, Pru. I don’t see you as the caretaker type.” We’d moved on to a good Brunello.

  “It’s not that.” I was buzzed and I knew it. It had been a long day, and my eyes kept straying to his hands, thick fingers cradling the glass. I’d have to be careful, and the best way to lie convincingly is to mix in a little truth. “By the time she died, I’d kind of settled in here. I got her house and, well, it seemed like time to make a change.” That should have worked. Tom knew I wasn’t one for the long term.

  He wasn’t buying it. “Chicago, maybe. Even LA.” He topped off my glass and then refilled his own. “You in the country? I don’t see it.”

  “I grew up here.” I was working too hard. “And it is a great house.”

  I regretted that one as soon as it was out of my mouth. I might invite him back at some point. Right now, too many alarm bells were going off. It hadn’t escaped my notice that he was on a case. This wasn’t purely a social evening.

  To test my theory, I started yawning as soon as the check arrived and made noises about my early appointments. He didn’t have to know they were with two miniature dogs. He didn’t seem to mind, which piqued my curiosity further. So I kept quiet as he walked me to my car and waited. When he brought up business, I wasn’t really shocked.

  “I need help, Pru. That’s why I looked you up. You were always good with people. I respect that.” I could have smiled. People were never my forte. Respect wasn’t his, either. “And you know everyone around here, I figure. You growing up here and everything.” He was still talking, adding bits that he’d picked up over dinner. Still, I had the sense that he was reciting from a script. “I want you to introduce me to someone,” he said. “Local guy. Big wig.”

  He wanted a job. A reference. Creighton’s face flashed before me. There were similarities, but I couldn’t see them working together. Maybe I didn’t want to.

  “He’s wealthy. Maybe he can use someone discreet.” Not Creighton then. But if he was thinking of Donal Franklin, he was out of luck.

  “I’d like you to introduce me to one of your boyfriends, Pru. A hotshot named Llewellyn. Llewellyn McMudge.”

  I turned toward my car, hoping that the dark would hide my surprise. “Llewellyn?” I heard my voice crack and brought it down a notch. “I don’t think I can do that. He and I, we don’t have that kind of relationship.” I pictured what we did have. A phone call every few weeks. A good dinner. A fun time. I turned down the presents he’d offered me. That necklace had looked too much like a collar, but I’d appreciated the attention. Beyond our dates, I didn’t know anything about his personal life, and he didn’t ask about mine.

  “Pru, it’s me. Tom.” He leaned in, voice low and soft, and I remembered why I’d gone for him. “I know what you do to a man.”

  I like flattery. I smiled back, keeping my eye on his scar. “Really, Tom. It’s occasional. Very occasional. And I don’t even know what his business is.”

  “Really.” I couldn’t tell if Tom was surprised, or just acting. The tension was gone, though, and he sounded more like himself. “Well, why don’t you take my card. Just give it to him, next time you see him. For old time’s sake.”

  “For old time’s sake,” I parroted back. He leaned in and kissed me, a soft peck on the cheek. Leaving me standing there and wondering what the hell was going on.

  Chapter Nine

  “I don’t know, Wallis.” The tabby appeared to be sleeping, curled into a perfect disk on the sofa when I got home. The fact that she was downstairs, though, meant she was waiting. The way her ear flicked when I started talking confirmed it. “I don’t know why Tom is interested in Llewellyn, or what he wants me to do.”

  Somehow, the suggestion that he wanted an introduction just didn’t fly. Tom had no problem meeting anyone. No, he must have wanted info from me. Background. He’d been fishing, but I hadn’t bit. Didn’t mean I didn’t wonder why, and I mulled over the possibilities. “It’s not that I can’t see Llewellyn sneaking out with someone’s wife,” I said to my silent cat. Despite his silver hair, age hadn’t slowed Lew down where it counted. “I just don’t see him bothering with anything complicated. And I know he’s not the client, or Tom wouldn’t need me to vouch for him.”

  I paused to consider my own words. “Unless Tom knows something and thinks Lew will hire him to investigate.” As I hung up my coat, I tried to picture what that something could be. Like Donal, Llewellyn was the kind who always seemed to have money. The kind who knew other wealthy people, their habits and their tastes. I remembered him laughing about Donal. “Sometimes, I think Don is getting old,” he’d said. “Wants to leave it all to good works.” At the time, I’d laughed too. Now the comparison sat badly. I turned toward the couch, my own thoughts surprising me.

  “Could be it’s something personal with our guy Lew,” I suggested to the supine cat. “Something he’d pay to know. Maybe there’s a Mrs. Llewellyn McMudge.”

  “Stranger things have happened.” She appeared to be waking, but I knew better. She’d been letting me sort out my thoughts before interceding.

  I opened my mouth to protest. The man I’d partied with was not the marrying type. He was here today, gone tomorrow. Gallant after his fashion, he was…I stopped before the words could form. What did I really know about my sometime playmate, besides that he had money and taste and enjoyed good times? Very little. And I had never really bothered to find out more. Swallowing my half-formed answer, I looked down at my diminutive companion, waiting for the feline equivalent of “I told you so.”

  Whatever else she picked up, she must have gotten my confusion. Even, I’ll admit, my dismay. “I find that sometimes sleep is the best option.” I sensed rather than heard that thought as the weight of the day collapsed onto me. Before I could agree, she rose, stretching in a long yawn that reached from her front paws through her arched back. Then, with a look, she jumped down from her perch and led me, also yawning, up the stairs. My head was spinning as I collapsed onto the bed, and it wasn’t just the wine. Three men. One dead. One…returned. It was too much to take in as I slipped into oblivion.

  ***

  Wallis joined me at some point during the night. The soft thud of her landing on the bed was comforting, waking me as it did from evil dreams in which fluttering papers were sinking slowly, soaked in blood. I was struggling against them, feeling myself weighted down by their heavy wetness when she woke me, and I felt a wave of warmth for my longtime feline companion. I rarely expressed how I felt toward her. Neither of us were the type, but I was grateful for her presence in our big old house. More grateful than I’d have been for any of the men who had recently shared my bed.

  Donal Franklin’s death had disturbed me, and the mystery of his Persian meant I wasn’t going to be able to walk away from it anytime soon. Wallis and I would disagree about that, but even she had to understand that I had taken charge of the creature and that meant assuming responsibility for her life. I couldn’t abandon her.

  Besides, the puzzle aspect intrigued me. First Donal, then Llewellyn. Something was going on that I didn’t understand—and I didn’t think the cat was at the heart of it. If gossip was saying that the
Franklin marriage was on the rocks, then the white Persian was more likely an innocent bystander than a perpetrator. I needed to talk to Llewellyn and the widow, maybe even to this Robin. More than anything, I needed the white Persian to tell me what she had seen.

  Tomorrow morning, I would get to work. The presence of Tom had distracted me. Maybe all the more because of the questions Wallis had raised about Llewellyn. About us returning to the city and about my relative solitude out here. I’d get on it. Tomorrow.

  ***

  Wallis was gone when I awoke. She didn’t show even as I cracked three eggs for breakfast. Maybe that was the point. I had to figure some things out by myself. But if she thought I’d be poring over my soul alone at the windowsill, she had another think coming. I had dogs to walk. After a few bites, I scooped the rest of the eggs into a saucer for her, and started on my day.

  Besides, I had a few other cards up my sleeve. If they weren’t aces, they could still score me points. Growler, my first client of the day, was one of them. It had taken some work, but Growler and I had a relationship. A self-possessed bichon frise who had little use for humans, I’d won his respect, if not his affection, partly by looking beyond that fuzzy-cute exterior and acknowledging the alpha dog within. We didn’t talk much, but I listened to his requests. In return, he often gifted me with his acute observations—often gleaned from the scents around town. Today, I wanted to get on his good side. Ignoring his human—a chain-smoking busybody named Tracy Horlick—I let him ramble down to the school yard. There was a new dog in town, a purebred saluki, and Growler wanted to check him out. I gave him his head, let him set the pace. His person was a gossip of the worst sort—always ready to pass along the latest scandal. Growler wasn’t necessarily kinder, but his information was better. If there was something funky with the Franklin marriage, he might have caught the scent. If nothing else, he might be able to fill in the blanks Lucy the poodle had left.

  Growler talked on his own terms, though. I had to wait till he offered. We were heading toward the river, following the big dog’s scent, when my cell rang. With an apology to the bichon, I answered.

  “Pru?” The question in the voice as much as its low guilty timbre clued me in. Albert, our local animal control officer-slash-dog catcher.

  “Yeah?” He wasn’t a bad guy, not really. He’s not Jim Beam, either.

  “Um, Pru? I hate to ask. But could you come down here, like, now?”

  My sigh should have carried all the way to the shelter. Growler had already turned, those button eyes telegraphing resentment. “I’m working, Albert.”

  “There’s a lady here. She’s freaking out on us. She says you stole something.” Behind him, I could hear another voice. High pitched. Angry. “She says you’ve taken her cat.”

  Albert. Knowing him, this could be anything from a real accusation to some client’s fit of pique. As much as he fancied himself a ladies’ man, the flannel-clad animal control officer was as terrified of the gentler sex as the chipmunk who had just spotted Growler was of the dog. I wouldn’t get anything useful out of him, and as I called to the bichon—who had caught the chipmunk’s sent—I knew that avenue had been shut down as well.

  “Sorry, little guy.” I muttered under my breath. As always, I’m never sure how much verbal communication is necessary.

  “Useless.” I got that back, clear as day. “Women. Can’t put two and two together.”

  “Speaking of,” I drew a breath, unsure how to continue. “Lucy the poodle was asking after you.” Silence. “I think she likes you.”

  “Stupid bitch.”

  I stopped short at that. He was a dog. He meant it in a technical sense, I was all but sure. Still, the little bichon had already let me know his sexual preferences, and his chain-smoking owner had left him with a strong aversion to anything female. Did he dislike the yappy toy—or was he warning me off trusting her? I wanted to ask, but I was already on shaky ground. Growler had started tugging at the leash and so without another word I let him lead me back to town.

  Chapter Ten

  Here’s another reason I prefer animals to people: the lack of drama. An animal will kill you, rip your throat out if it feels threatened or you look like dinner. But it won’t throw a tantrum. Given the choice, I’d take the teeth.

  Right now, I didn’t have the choice and vented by cursing out loud as I manhandled my car toward Albert’s office. Returning Growler early hadn’t helped the situation—either with the bichon or his person. With her unerring knack for picking up the whiff of gossip, Tracy Horlick had been waiting. I cut her off before she could say anything—but from the yelp of pain that escaped as I pulled the door shut behind me, I knew Growler was going to pay for it. No wonder that dog hated people. I figured I was bitching for us both as I went back to my car. Once I had run through my extensive repertoire, I started to wonder what had actually happened.

  Taken? What did that mean? I hadn’t stolen anything, much less a cat. I ran through my current clients: dogs, for the most part, except for her Highness, the Princess Achara, who never left her house. I’d brought the white Persian to the county shelter the day before. But that had been on police orders. Something was odd here, and I was going to get the worst of it.

  It’s not that I don’t trust Albert. The man is a mess, dressed in flannel from Labor Day through the Fourth of July, and neither the plaid nor the stout body it covers are likely washed more than a dozen times during that interlude. As far as I could figure, his only qualification for the job was that he was someone’s drinking buddy and, when he was kicked off the police force for sheer stupidity, somebody had pulled a string or two. Old Sheldon had retired by then, and while Albert had taken a crash course and knew words like “zoonotics” and “feral,” he was not that much different from our old-time dogcatcher. He was also a coward, afraid of many things. Most notably, despite the occasional off-color joke, women. That there was some broad in his office screaming bloody murder, I believed. I had heard her shrill voice in the background. What she was actually going on about? That I’d have to find out for myself.

  Albert did have one redeeming trait: his ferret, Frank. I made a mental note to watch my use of the possessive. Wallis would give me hell if she’d heard that. Old habits do die hard, however, and I doubted that the sleek little mustalid who cohabited with Albert did so out of choice. Frank—I’d recently gotten Albert out of calling him “Bandit”—was as sharp of eye and wit as his human was dull. If Frank were there, and I could have a moment alone with him, I’d get a better idea of what was really going on. I might even get some insight into the whole Franklin affair. Frank picked up on things. Actually, he frequently picked things up—a tendency to covet small, shiny items had gotten the small beast into trouble more than once—but those bright eyes saw even more.

  As I pulled into the town office’s parking lot, I realized that Albert’s summons might have another benefit. Albert’s office, which also housed our minuscule town shelter, was right next door to the police department. The two buildings had been constructed after I left, when the new money had started flowing in. Red brick, in a tribute to the town’s old mill buildings, and fronted with the kind of modernistic glass entrance that did neither old nor new style a favor, they leaned up against each other. Cheek by jowl, as some wag had said. Which was which could be left to the onlooker. But if I lingered in that see-through alcove, I might manage to run into Jim Creighton. Hell, I could corner him afterward anyway. He was a boy scout at heart, which meant a workhorse. And I still had questions that he could answer.

  I didn’t have far to go. As soon as I stepped through those double glass doors, I saw my sometime beau. He was leaning back on Albert’s desk, listening to a distraught woman whose voice was broken by rasping breaths. He saw me, too, and nodded, and I came closer. The woman, up close, was a wreck. Red nose, those gasps clearly coming after a bout of sobbing. Plump, maybe a bit overripe for her knit suit, she was still pretty, or would have been if her face hadn’t been
swollen with grief. Maybe it was her smooth dark hair, drawn back into a tortoiseshell comb and neatly curled. Maybe it was the younger man—her son? a brother?—who stood next to her, gently stroking her back. Something about her reminded me of a cat. I immediately felt guilty.

  “Hi, may I help you? I think there’s been some confusion.” Jim Creighton’s eyebrows went up slightly. He’s not used to hearing me sound contrite. He’s still a cop, though, so when I caught his signal to be quiet I shut up.

  “Mrs. Franklin? Louise?” He stood and gestured to the woman. “Would you like to sit down now, please? I believe we’re about to clear this all up.”

  “Franklin?” I’d wanted to meet the widow. I hadn’t thought I would today. “Mrs. Franklin?”

  That did it. The plump brown tabby noticed me, turning to look at me with eyes of a startling light grey.

  “You! After all I’ve been through—”

  She nearly hissed, and I—accustomed to angry animals—took a step back. Something about those eyes, particularly against the dark hair, was uncanny. Striking, yes, but disturbing. I glanced away from their cold, direct gaze. Albert, I realized, had disappeared.

  “Louise, please.” Creighton was in calming mode. I noticed his voice, low and even, with professional respect, as well as the gentle downward motions he made with his hands. The man knew his job, and I relaxed, curious as to how this was going to play out. “I am sure there has been a misunderstanding.”

  He was smiling as he talked, but now he turned to me. “Pru Marlowe works with many of the animals we bring in. I have no doubt she has an explanation for the disappearance of your cat.”

  The Persian? I could have spit. “What happened? I brought her in to Doc Sharpe yesterday. After you called me.” That last was aimed at Creighton.

  “Ah, mystery solved. I’m afraid I’m to blame, Mrs. Franklin.” He was using her name an awful lot. Was this part of his calming technique, or was something else going on here? “You see, when Ms. Marlowe helped us out yesterday, she must have thought the cat needed to be taken in for veterinary care.”