Till the Cat Lady Sings (Bought-the-Farm Mystery 4)

by Ellen Riggs

  “And either someone else had a key, too, or she made poor choices in the company she kept tonight,” I said. “I assume the killer had already left through the back door when you arrived.”

  Sirens blared nearby and Mom reached out to squeeze my hand. “You believe me, don’t you? That I didn’t do this?”

  I looked down at her. Never had she looked smaller, or, truthfully, older. She’d fended off aging with fierce determination and plenty of product, but tonight she’d put on 20 years.

  As rash as Mom could be, however, I knew she wasn’t a murderer. This was a case of wrong place, wrong time, and I knew exactly what that felt like.

  “I do believe you,” I said, squeezing back.

  “Me too,” Jilly said. “We’ve got your back, Dahlia.”

  “And so does Keats,” I said, pointing to the tuft of his white tail, still fanning. “He knows you’re innocent. I’ve seen him with people who aren’t, remember?”

  “That is reassuring,” she said. “If only the chief would accept Keats as a character witness.”

  “He does,” I said. “At least sometimes.”

  “This is going to be so awkward,” she said. “Just when things were finally looking up for me. I love this salon. What if I lose it?”

  I walked to the door, flicked on all the lights and twisted the lock to let the police in. “One thing I’ve learned the hard way is that the truth always comes out eventually. And I hope for everyone’s sake that this is an open and shut case.”

  The small salon filled quickly with uniformed officers, including Kellan and my brother. No matter the circumstances, Asher couldn’t help lighting up when he saw Jilly. It was involuntary, like a tic. He was a happy-go-lucky person by nature, who’d ended up on the police force after a short stint as a fitness trainer. Sometimes I wondered if he regretted the career change, because fixing flabby abs was the least of his worries now. His smile was always at the ready but never more so than when my best friend was in the room. It was love at first sight for Asher, but Jilly was methodical and deliberate about everything from headhunting to cooking. She’d take her sweet time about making up her mind and Asher would have to cool his jets.

  Kellan, on the other hand, had the demeanor of a big city police chief, not to mention movie star looks. I bet more than a few female criminals were happy to be detained, just to spend a little time in the interrogation room with him. I knew the room well from a couple of intense chats. Mom did, too, and the way she squared her shoulders now suggested she was preparing mentally.

  “Chief Harper,” she said, pleasantly. “I’m sorry we have to meet in such circumstances. You must understand I’m in shock over what happened to Portia Parson on my premises. Ivy said she’s never seen me so rattled.”

  “Mom, just let Kellan—I mean Chief Harper—ask the questions, okay? It works better that way.”

  “It most certainly does,” Kellan said. His tone told me to stand down. My boyfriend was off duty, and with another Galloway murder problem, perhaps he’d stay that way permanently.

  “I’m just worried you’ll see what happened here and jump to the wrong conclusions,” Mom said.

  “I never jump to conclusions, Mrs. Galloway,” he said, before turning to head downstairs. “Have a seat, ladies. This is going to take a while.” He turned at the top of the stairs. “Ivy, the dog’s eying me like a stuffed toy. This isn’t the time for his games.”

  I looked down at Keats and saw his mouth hanging open in a sloppy smile. “He heard you. Your pant cuffs are safe tonight.”

  “They’d better be.” The faintest hint of a smile played on his lips, which I found reassuring. My boyfriend wasn’t far beneath the surface of official propriety.

  After the entire team disappeared downstairs, Mom said, “I hope he remembers that later.”

  “Remembers what?” I asked.

  “How much he likes you. It would be inconvenient to have his future mother-in-law in jail.”

  “Mom! Don’t say things like that.”

  “Let me rephrase it.” She crossed her legs in the barber chair, clearly recovering her mojo. “You wouldn’t marry Chief Hottie if he put me in jail, would you?”

  I looked quickly at the basement door to make sure Kellan was truly gone. He was… and so was Keats. The dog had clearly followed the police downstairs, either to annoy Kellan, or do his own investigating.

  “It would depend on whether or not you were guilty,” I told Mom.

  “You’ve already said you know I’m not.”

  I shrugged again. “Keats believes you so I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. But it’s up to Kellan to make the case. He’s very good at his job, Mom. He didn’t get to be the youngest chief of police in the state by letting emotions cloud his judgement.”

  Mom turned to Jilly. “You won’t desert me in my hour of need, will you? We’ll be family soon, too.”

  Jilly’s face flushed bright red. “Ivy already calls me family, Dahlia. I love being an honorary Galloway.”

  “Wonderful. Then maybe you can convince my daughter to put me first and use her powers of investigation to clear my name and the salon. That’s what you three do, isn’t it?” She made a circle with her index finger that included Keats, in his absence. “Solve crimes?”

  “Not by choice,” I said. “Necessity keeps demanding it because it’s involved the farm. This time is different. And remember… you asked me to get out of the crime business.”

  “Because it was bringing trouble on the family. And now look what’s happened. You got into a situation with Portia and I defended you and now she’s died with a terrible haircut that reflects very poorly on Iris’ skills.”

  I turned to Jilly. “Lord, give me strength. She’s saying this is my fault.”

  “Is she right?” The deep voice belonged to Chief Harper, not boyfriend Kellan. He was in the basement doorway with Keats at his side.

  “No, she’s not right. How could you say that?”

  He cued something up on his phone and handed it to me. Jilly crowded closer and we saw an image of someone crouched in front of the old Bingham manor, peering into the dining room window.

  “What have you to say about that?” he asked. “Portia sent me the photo yesterday. Apparently she was out walking on the grounds and saw some creeping Ivy.”

  “You can’t prove that’s me,” I said, trying to hand the phone back.

  “Blow it up,” he said. “The dog and the cat are a giveaway. I heard Jilly was in the getaway golf cart.”

  “Okay, fine. Sue me for wanting to know where Edna’s missing cats had gone. They’re over there now, along with plenty of others. You and your team need to save them all.”

  His eyebrows shot up as he processed that new information. “After we’ve been through the manor I’ll call Animal Services.”

  “Animal services! Edna should have the right to place the cats as she likes.”

  “Well, I can’t just open the door and release them all, hoping they’ll run miles back to Edna’s. Some of them aren’t feral. How would they survive?”

  “I’ll deal with it, Kellan. I can take responsibility for them until Edna gets home.” I was pleading with him now. “Once they’re in the pound, I’ll never get them out. It would be against County bylaws to let me take more than six. What if the County…?”

  He rested his hand on my shoulder for a second, letting the boyfriend surface. “I’ll speak to them. Go home and stay safe. My first priority is Portia right now.”

  Jilly gave me a little smile. “You can adopt six, and Edna can adopt six and we can round up some other friends, right? Like Teri Mason and Mandy McCain. With enough friends, we could get them all out of jail.”

  “Right,” I said, catching her drift. “Well, if that’s how it has to be, Kellan, I understand.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “It’ll take us a few days to finish our investigation here and at the manor. No running around on harebrained stunts. I shouldn’t need to
remind you of this, but I probably do… there’s a killer on the loose.”

  Mom’s smile had returned, appreciating that the spotlight was on me instead of her. “Girls, what have I told you about sneaking around at night?”

  Kellan turned to her. “Probably the same thing she told you when she heard you were here tonight. Now get your things, Mrs. Galloway, and let’s head down to the station.”

  Mom started to protest, but Keats did the arguing for her. He darted at Kellan’s pant legs and tried to drive him away.

  “Keats, off,” I said. “Kellan’s just doing his job. Let’s go home and do ours. We have livestock to protect.”

  Kellan gently nudged the dog away with one boot. “You do that. I’ll be in touch tomorrow, ladies.”

  “I look forward to it,” I said, snapping my fingers at the dog. “Please ask Officer Galloway to see his mother home safely when you’re done, will you?”

  Chapter Ten

  Miss Bingham was dressed impeccably when I dropped in unannounced at Sunny Acres retirement villa the next morning. In Clover Grove, it was still common practice to visit without calling ahead. Personally, I hated being on the receiving end of those visits, but making them worked in my favor quite often. It was my first time doing so at a seniors’ residence, however, and my conscience did light up with guilty fireworks. Luckily, the smile on Miss Bingham’s face told me I was welcome.

  “Why, Ivy Galloway, what a pleasure to see you,” she said, coming into the foyer after the concierge buzzed her room. “And your handsome young friend in his tuxedo. Where’s my ginger admirer, Percy?”

  “He wanted to join us, trust me,” I said. “It’s so hard to escape without him. I need to factor an extra half hour into every plan just to round him up and trap him. He expects equal rights with the dog.”

  “Well, he is the most dog-like cat I’ve met,” she said, leading me away from the concierge toward the front door. “How about we take a turn in the courtyard? It will be more private.” Lowering her voice, she added, “Sunny Acres is full of nosy parkers and I don’t want to give people any more to talk about than they already have.”

  I laughed as I helped her into her coat. “Why would they talk about you?”

  There were a few wheeled walkers lined up in a corner. She gestured for me to grab one, and then passed me her cane.

  “I’m too proud to use a walker when I’m in town,” she said. “But here I still look pretty spry compared to most people. That’s one thing they talk about. Some think I’m not sick enough to be here. But I simply couldn’t keep up the manor anymore and it was falling to ruin around me. So what they talk about most is what I did with my property.”

  I opened the door and she glided through in front of me pushing the walker. “You mean selling it to Portia Parson?” I asked.

  “Exactly. Everyone said it should have stayed in the family.” She shook her head. “My own family didn’t want it. I offered to sell it to my nephew, Michael, years ago so I could downsize before I actually needed to. He didn’t want to move home to Clover Grove. So I found someone who’d love it and care for it like a pet.”

  I swallowed hard at that. She clearly had no idea what had become of her stately home.

  We walked around the side of the villa and followed a smooth, paved path lined with trees and some hearty asters. The U-shaped building provided enough shelter to keep things flourishing longer than elsewhere. It fit the retirement theme perfectly.

  Benches dotted the courtyard and I pointed to the first one. “Could we sit down for a moment, Miss Bingham? There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “No need to stop just yet,” she said, pushing ahead with her walker. “I already know about what happened to Portia, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “You do?” I’d skipped half my morning chores to get here early, figuring the notorious Clover Grove grapevine probably wasn’t hardwired into the retirement community.

  “This place thrives on gossip, as I said. Your handsome boyfriend probably hadn’t even closed the squad car door on your mother before someone came to tell me about it. I was already in bed, mind you, but I got up to wait with everyone else for news. It wasn’t clear for some time who’d passed away, and as you can imagine, there was no sleep for me after that.”

  Keats kept a steady pace at her side, looking up frequently with his brown eye. She managed a smile when she noticed, and he swished the white tuft of his tail in response.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, simply. “I know how close you two were.”

  “We were,” Miss Bingham said. “At least at one time. Less so recently.”

  “Oh? What changed?”

  She gave a slight shrug, keeping a tight grip on the walker. “Honestly, I’m not quite sure. Portia was always a little quirky, as you probably know. She had rules for cat care that clients were expected to follow, even when she wasn’t cat-sitting. There were approved foods, an approved schedule, approved veterinary care and approved codes of cat conduct. She didn’t endorse single cat households, for example, and refused to work for people if you didn’t meet her expectations.”

  “That’s a strong stance for a small business.”

  “It grated on some people, no question, because she was also the most reliable service in town. I didn’t mind, because I knew her heart was in the right place. You know as well as I do that passionate animal people get strange notions, sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” I said, grinning. “I’m one of them. But someone must have taken serious issue with Portia’s attitude.”

  Pausing, Miss Bingham peered at me over her glasses. “You’re sure it wasn’t your mother? Dahlia can be a pistol, too.”

  “No argument there,” I said. “But Mom’s all talk and no action. Besides, she’s madly in love with her new salon and now it’s in jeopardy.”

  “I can’t imagine why Portia was there after hours, other than to confront your mother.”

  “So late in the evening? It seems odd she’d come by then.”

  Miss Bingham started walking again. “Well, a clash like she had with Dahlia wasn’t unusual for Portia. It was just the most recent.”

  I looked up at the villa and was startled to see so many gray or bald heads in the windows. No one was even pretending not to spy on us.

  “I would imagine the police will come by today to talk to you,” I said. “But I want you to know that I’m also committed to figuring out what happened to Portia.”

  Turning, she waggled her iron gray eyebrows. “And how will your handsome boyfriend feel about that?”

  “About as you’d expect,” I said, laughing. “Jilly says he’s equal parts infuriated and infatuated.”

  “Sounds like the perfect balance,” she said. “You need to keep them off balance and on their toes, Ivy. Just because I never married doesn’t mean I don’t know a thing or two about men.”

  I had no doubt. Not only was she still attractive in her eighties, she had a lovely voice, a pleasant manner and a sharp wit.

  “Why didn’t you marry?” I asked. “I bet you could have had your choice among Clover Grove’s eligible men.”

  “Still could.” She tipped her head at the peeping residents. “I have a suitor or two. But I never found the right man and wouldn’t settle for less.” Finally she gestured to a bench near a fountain that still burbled. “There aren’t enough good men in this town. They all run off to chase careers and end up marrying city girls. Not that I have any complaints about Caroline, my nephew’s wife. She’s as meek as they come and quite talented with crafts. I’ve never heard her say a harsh word about anyone. Still, there are so many lovely, spirited women here with limited choices, like your sisters.” She eased down on the bench and looked up at me. “Not you, though. You don’t have to settle, and I’m happy for you.”

  My face got a little steamy as it always did when Kellan came up. Even with the “boyfriend” word getting tossed around it would be quite a while before I felt comfortable
discussing it.

  “I take it Portia never married?”

  Miss Bingham shook her head. “Hard to say whether she was too quirky to find love, or whether not finding it made her quirky. Unlike me, she was a little bitter about being single.”

  “Maybe there was a story. A heartbreak in her past. That’s what happened to someone else I know.”

  “Edna Evans, I presume?” She laughed at my expression. “I’ve been around this town even longer than Edna, remember? We were friends once, before she got…”

  “Quirky?” I offered.

  “Downright strange, in her case. I do hear she’s mellowed since you came into her life.”

  “Credit goes to the feral cat colony she adopted,” I said. “And that’s really what caused tension between Portia and my mom. Although Mom doesn’t know it.”

  She patted the seat beside her with her right hand and offered her left hand to Keats, who happily submitted to being stroked with sapphires, diamonds and emeralds. “Please elaborate.”

  I told her about the missing cats, and my suspicion Portia had been pilfering them. Her eyes brightened as I described my joyride through the trails with Jilly to the old manor.

  “Keats and Percy came with us,” I said. “We peeked into the dining room window of your old home.”

  “And…?”

  “And I saw that Portia had added quite a few cats to the six you left her.”

  “How many more?” Now her voice became quietly thunderous.

  “Enough to be called a cat hoarder,” I said. “Although I’m really not one to judge since I’m always taking on more rescues, just like Hannah Pemberton.”

  “Ivy. How many?”

  I couldn’t avoid the direct question. “Dozens.”

  “Dozens? Plural?”

  “I’m afraid so, yes.”

  “Inside the house? All of them?”

  “That’s a good question. There may be some outdoors as well. But there were dozens inside.”

  “Inside my mother’s stately dining room? The one that hosted two governors and many other dignitaries?”