Choked in Cherry Hills

by Paige Sleuth

  “Who cares if I had motive? I didn’t do it.”

  “But until the police find out who did do it, you’d be wise to watch what you say.”

  Marta flicked her wrist as though to dismiss his concern.

  From the way they talked to each other, Kat gathered Eli and Marta were close. But exactly how close were they? Close enough to want John out of the way so they could be together, or were they simply good friends united in tragedy?

  Except, how tragic did either Eli or Marta consider John’s death to be? Not only had his passing opened up a new career opportunity for Eli, but it had also released Marta from an unhappy union.

  Of course, there were other suspects to look at besides Eli and Marta, Kat reminded herself as she peeked over her shoulder at Diane and Dmitri. If John had taken a mistress, who was to say she hadn’t choked him in a fit of jealousy? And if the mistress had a husband herself, that introduced one more motive and suspect.

  Kat shook her head. Investigating John’s murder was the police’s job, she reminded herself. She was only here on behalf of Furry Friends Foster Families. And since her 4F business with Eli was finished, she was free to move on to the next item on her agenda—finding Sundae a forever home.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Kat pushed aside thoughts of John Sykes as she took the hotel elevator up to the second floor. She found room 207 and knocked. When she heard Sundae’s muffled meow through the door, she had to smile. Evidently the tabby didn’t like being in the bathroom any more than his carrier.

  Sally opened the door, looking frazzled. “Oh, good, you’re here.”

  “Is everything okay?” Kat asked.

  “Yes.” Sally paused. “Except Zoe doesn’t want the cat.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s better to find that out now.” Even so, Kat couldn’t keep her heart from sinking a little.

  Sally stepped aside. “You want to come get him? He’s in the bathroom.”

  “Where he’s been meowing like crazy,” a twentyish woman added, standing up from the farthest of two queen-size beds. “I can barely hear myself think.”

  Sally swept her arm toward the woman. “This is my sister Zoe.”

  Although Zoe looked to be anywhere from ten to fifteen years younger and stood a good half foot shorter than her sister, Kat could definitely see the resemblance between the two. They had the same high cheekbones, full lips, and big, brown eyes. Zoe’s hair was more of a strawberry than a golden blond, but Kat suspected coloring products had more to do with that than genetics.

  Sundae meowed again, eliciting a grimace from Zoe. “Poor thing. Sorry I can’t take him.”

  Sally crossed her arms over her chest. “You can take him, you’re just being stubborn.”

  Zoe’s eyes flashed. “Can’t you just lay off? I told you I’m not in the mood right now.”

  “Really, it’s no problem,” Kat assured the sisters. “Pets are a big responsibility, and they aren’t for everybody.”

  Sally and Zoe didn’t seem to hear her. They continued to glare at each other across the bed.

  Kat shifted her feet. “Anyway, I might as well grab Sundae and head off.”

  Neither woman paid her any attention. “I don’t see why you’re so upset,” Sally told Zoe. “It’s not like this was ever going to turn out in your favor.”

  “That’s what you think, but you don’t actually know, do you?”

  “Of course I know. Don’t be so dense.”

  Zoe fingered her necklace, her eyes filling with tears. “Well, it doesn’t really matter now, does it?”

  Sundae meowed again. He sounded more urgent now, as though he could sense the growing tension between the humans and would prefer to be elsewhere. Kat couldn’t blame him. She would rather be somewhere else, too.

  As though she’d just remembered she and Zoe weren’t alone, Sally’s eyes snapped toward Kat. “I’ll get Sundae,” she mumbled, her face flushing.

  Kat mustered up a smile. “Thank you.”

  Sally spun on her heel and pushed her way into the bathroom. Kat was about to follow her, but the sight of tears streaming down Zoe’s face stopped her cold.

  “Are you okay?” Kat asked. She cringed at her own choice of words. Obviously Zoe was anything but okay.

  Zoe swiped at her wet cheeks. “Sorry. She really gets to me sometimes.”

  Kat’s stomach twisted in sympathy. “It’s okay.”

  “You know what’s really sad? She’s right. I am dense.”

  Zoe’s fingers glided along her necklace. The jewelry caught the sunlight streaming through the window, and Kat found herself momentarily blinded by a flash of silver that hit her square in the eye.

  Zoe sniffled. “I feel like such a fool, breaking down like this in front of you.”

  Kat wanted to tell her not to worry about it, but she lost her train of thought before she could form the words. Something was niggling at the back of her brain.

  “I never should have come up here this weekend,” Zoe went on. “And I wish yesterday had never happened. Then maybe . . .” She trailed off, her eyes welling with tears again.

  With a jolt, Kat realized exactly what was bothering her—Zoe’s necklace. Was it the same one detailed on the receipt she had found in John Sykes’s coat pocket?

  Kat leaned forward, trying to get a good look at the delicate silver chain as Zoe’s fingers skimmed its surface. It was simple enough, but that didn’t mean it was cheap. Could Zoe have seen John with it and decided she was willing to kill in order to have it for herself? People had killed for less.

  Except, would someone who had murdered a man over an expensive item of jewelry dare to wear the stolen goods the very next day? Wouldn’t it make more sense to hide the necklace until enough time had passed for the police investigation to cool down?

  Marta Sykes’s claims of her husband’s infidelity ran through Kat’s head, sending tingles down her spine. There was another way Zoe could have ended up with John’s necklace. John could have given it to her himself, as a token of his love.

  Zoe was still talking, oblivious to the turn Kat’s mind was taking. “Sally always says I let my emotions guide me.” She plucked a tissue from the box on the nightstand and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “She hates to see me cry. She says it makes her feel helpless. I get her point, but sometimes I can’t stop, you know? It’s like—”

  “Zoe,” Kat interrupted, “did you and John Sykes have a romantic relationship?”

  Zoe froze, and the tissue fluttered out of her grasp. The silence created by Kat’s question was so profound that Kat swore she could hear the tissue hitting the carpet.

  Kat pointed to the necklace. “Did John Sykes give you that?”

  Zoe glanced down. When she saw she was touching the silver chain, she yanked her hand away as though the metal had singed her skin. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “John bought a silver necklace recently. I found the receipt in his coat pocket.”

  Zoe stared at her. Kat’s words seemed to have stunned her speechless.

  “That’s who you and Sally were arguing about, isn’t it?” Kat said, slowly putting the pieces together. “She didn’t like you being involved with a married man.”

  Zoe didn’t say anything, but her hand drifted back toward the necklace. Kat wasn’t even sure she was aware of what she was doing when she began caressing it again. The gesture seemed almost automatic.

  Had killing John been a thoughtless act too, one she had embarked upon in the heat of the moment? Maybe seeing Marta at the auction had reminded Zoe that the man she loved refused to commit to her alone. Or maybe watching him flirt with his fans had opened her eyes to the fact that he never intended to give up his playboy lifestyle despite what he might have told her. She could have decided if she couldn’t have him all to herself then no one else was going to have him either.

  Yet, although Sally might be right about Zoe letting her emotions guide her, Kat couldn’t see the young woman being foolis
h enough to advertise her relationship with John by wearing his gift if she had been the one to kill him. Besides, she didn’t look as if she possessed the physical strength to strangle an adult male.

  Sundae howled, causing Kat to jump. Sally opened the bathroom door just wide enough to slip through it, a defeated look on her face.

  “He refuses to get back in the carrier,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “Look at what he did to me.”

  Kat’s mouth went dry as she zeroed in on the fresh scratch marks on Sally’s forearms—Sally’s very muscular forearms. Kat could easily picture a woman with arms like that overpowering a man like John Sykes.

  “Looks like it’s up to you,” Sally told Kat. “I’d keep trying, but I’m running out of time. I still need to pack, and check-out time is in half an hour.”

  Sally brushed past Zoe. Zoe herself didn’t move. She still looked stupefied.

  “Zoe,” Sally said, eyeing her sister down the bridge of her nose. “Start gathering up your stuff. It’s time to go.”

  It took Zoe another second before she obeyed. Her motions were labored when she walked over to her suitcase and lifted it onto the bed, as if her limbs were encased in concrete.

  Watching them pack, Kat flashed back to Sally’s comment about Zoe being young and having poor judgment. She envisioned Matty protecting Tom from her belt, and the bigger Burmese cat looking out for his smaller, shier brother. By all accounts, Sally seemed just as protective of her sibling as the felines were of theirs. If she had viewed John Sykes as a threat to Zoe’s happiness, she might have felt it was her sororal duty to take action.

  Even Sally’s attempt to foist Sundae upon Zoe could have been borne from a desire to protect her little sister. What better way to help Zoe get over her lover’s death than to remind her of everything she’d had to sacrifice in order to be with him—a man who was not only allergic to cats but committed to another woman?

  “Hey, you okay?” Sally asked.

  Kat met Sally’s eyes. There was a hardness there that she hadn’t noticed the night before. Or was she imagining things now that she was putting everything together?

  Kat’s gaze traveled lower, to the hairbrush Sally was gripping so hard her knuckles had turned white. Staring at those bloodless fingers, she had no trouble picturing them wrapped around John’s black scarf as it cut into his throat.

  Kat swallowed the bile rising up her esophagus and lifted her eyes back up to meet Sally’s. “It was you,” she said. “You killed John Sykes.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Now that the accusation was out there, Kat knew it was true. The resigned look on Sally’s face erased any lingering doubts.

  “What’s she talking about, Sal?” Zoe said. Her voice was high and shrill, and the color had drained from her face.

  Sally stared at her sister, her face bleak.

  “Tell her she’s wrong,” Zoe demanded, planting her hands on her hips. “Tell her you didn’t kill John.”

  Sally shook her head. “She’s not wrong.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. She stumbled backward, falling onto the bed when her legs hit the mattress. Her half-packed suitcase tumbled to the floor, clothes and toiletries spilling all over the carpet.

  Sally sighed. “I did it for you.”

  Zoe pressed her palm to her chest. “Me?”

  “He was taking advantage of you, and you were too lovesick to notice or care.” Sally’s eyes flicked to the silver necklace around Zoe’s neck, and her jaw tightened. “He was using you, Zoe.”

  “You don’t know! He loved me.”

  Sally scoffed. “Don’t be so blind. You were just a diversion for him. Watching you with him was like watching you with that loser Tim all over again. Face it, Zoe. You don’t know how to pick men. You don’t know what’s good for you.”

  Zoe rose to her feet and glared at her sister, a spark igniting in her eyes. “You have no right to say that. And John—” A strangled sound emerged from her throat. “You had no right!”

  “I was protecting you.”

  “By murdering the man I loved?”

  Zoe’s composure unraveled, and she collapsed back onto the mattress. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed, tears leaking between her fingers and dripping onto her lap.

  Sundae meowed from inside the bathroom. Sally whipped around, her eyes landing on Kat.

  Kat took a step forward. “Sally, you need to turn yourself in.”

  Sally swung her head from side to side. “I’m not doing that. I’m not going to jail over some worthless womanizer.”

  “That worthless womanizer is dead because of you,” Kat said, trying to project a calmness she didn’t feel.

  Zoe let out an anguished cry. Sundae howled in response.

  Kat kept her eyes trained on Sally. “You broke the law, and you need to own up to that.”

  “I couldn’t just stand by and watch him take advantage of Zoe,” Sally said. “As the older sister, I have an obligation to look out for her.”

  “You killed a man, Sally. There’s no justification for that.”

  “And what was his justification for using Zoe?” Sally’s face fell. “You should have seen what he did to her. Every time she came home after seeing him she would be destroyed, emotionally wrecked. He kept promising to divorce Marta so he could be with her, but it was all talk. He was never going to trade Marta for Zoe. She was just a toy to him. People like John, they think they own the world. They think they’re entitled to take whatever they want with no consideration for anybody but themselves.”

  “John loved me,” Zoe cried, jumping off the mattress.

  Sally looked ready to spit. “You kept telling yourself that, and look where it got you. He sucked your spirit away, bit by bit until you had no life left in you. You were miserable.”

  “I’m miserable because of you,” Zoe countered, rushing across the room and sticking her finger in Sally’s face.

  Oddly enough, Zoe’s anger seemed to calm her sister. When Sally spoke next, her tone was much softer. “I couldn’t stand to see you coming home heartbroken after every date you had with him. I tried to tell you to let him go, that he was never going to give you what you wanted. You wouldn’t listen.”

  Zoe drew in a breath, her hand reaching for the necklace again. “Is that why you came with me this weekend? To kill him?”

  “No. I came because I knew you’d need me. I knew when you saw him with Marta or hitting on those other girls he strings along that you’d end up in tears.” Sally let a pregnant pause elapse. “Which is exactly what happened.”

  “That’s not true,” Zoe said, but her voice held no conviction.

  “Yeah?” Sally challenged. “Then why did you come running up to our room an hour into the auction?”

  “I came up here because I needed . . . I needed some space.”

  Sally didn’t say anything, but the set of her jaw told Kat she wasn’t buying Zoe’s excuses. This argument was undoubtedly similar to many others they’d had in the past.

  “And besides,” Zoe continued, squaring her shoulders, “even if John did make me cry, that’s no reason to murder him.”

  “I snapped, okay?” Sally gazed past Zoe’s shoulder. “After I saw you fleeing the party, I was going to join you up here, to comfort you. I went to fetch my coat, and as I was reentering the hallway John was coming out of the bathroom. I didn’t think, I just stormed over and told him he’d better stay away from you or I would find some way to destroy his career. But he was more worried about somebody overhearing us than about your happiness.” She scoffed. “He even had the nerve to tell me to calm down.”

  Kat winced. Telling an angry woman to calm down was a surefire way to enrage her even more.

  “While I was yelling at him, John loosened his scarf,” Sally continued. “I guess the fear of being exposed had made him hot under the collar.” Her narrowed eyes focused in on Zoe. “You want to know what I saw when he did that?”

  Zoe flushed crimson and averte
d her eyes.

  “A hickey,” Sally spat. “One you gave him, I imagine.”

  A meow interrupted Sally’s tirade. Kat held her breath, silently encouraging Sundae to do the same. She feared the cat’s cries would distract Sally from her story, and she wanted to hear the rest of her confession.

  But Sally didn’t give any indication of being aware of Sundae. Her eyes were glassy as though she were getting lost in her own memories. “He told me if I kept making a scene he would walk away, but if I would stop yelling he was willing to continue our discussion in private. That’s exactly how he put it, too—discussion, like we were in the middle of business negotiations rather than talking about my sister’s life. But I agreed. I had to if I wanted him to listen. And since the big bathroom—the one large enough for a wheelchair—was right there, we went inside.”

  Kat’s chest constricted when Zoe clapped her hands over her mouth, her head moving slowly from side to side. As terrible as it was for Kat to picture John Sykes’s final minutes alive, it had to be ten times worse for Zoe.

  “I tried to reason with him.” Sally turned pleading eyes toward Zoe. “I tried to get him to see how he was tearing you apart. I told him to let you go, that he had plenty of other girls to choose from. But he wouldn’t listen. He said what you and he did together was none of my business, like I was just supposed to sit back and watch him hurt you without saying anything.”

  The room grew quiet enough for Kat to hear scratching. She risked a peek at the bathroom door, spotting one of Sundae’s paws sticking through the gap at the bottom.

  “I couldn’t stop looking at that scarf, the one he’d used to hide the mark you left on him.” Sally twined her fingers together and stared down at them. “When he turned around to leave, I grabbed it with both hands and pulled.”

  A wail ripped past Zoe’s lips. Her eyes were so huge that Kat could see the whites around them.

  Sally nodded, her gaze still on her hands. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t need to. Everyone in the room knew what had happened next.