Mew is for Murder

by Clea Simon

  He was staring at Connor-Davey again. I peeked down at the street. Nothing.

  “I wasn’t.” Ethan continued talking in that same quiet, reasonable tone, the madness held down underneath. “She was fast, though.” His arm had to be getting tired, but the gun didn’t waver. “She was still awake, that was the problem, Davey. Didn’t go back to sleep once you’d run off, even though I waited for an hour after you’d gone. She had her hand on that necklace almost before I could grab it and shove her against the wall. Couldn’t be quite sure she hadn’t pushed the signal button. Otherwise I’d never have left before turning this place upside down.”

  “So you killed her.” Violet was whispering, but every word was clear. “You left her, not knowing if she was going to die.”

  “Oh, I knew. See enough bodies, you get a feel for these things. After a while, they don’t bother you anymore.” He turned that awful grin on Violet, and I felt her stiffen. “Didn’t want to wait around to see if the paramedics were going to show up, though. I’d planned to be in and out without any fuss. That’s always been the plan. Nobody else involved, nobody else hurt.” He turned to me. I wished he hadn’t. “That wasn’t a lethal dose of Haldol, Theda. I guess it wasn’t even enough to keep you out of this. And who thought your friend here would be up and about so early after a gig? But I guess we all saw those signs on the street. It seems like we’ve got a deadline, folks. Luckily, I’ve always been great on deadline. So, Davey, why don’t you just kick that knife over to me? Gently, please. It’ll make my work easier.”

  Just then we heard the tap-tap-tap of heels on the stairs again.

  “The door was unlocked, you people! I called the—” The quick gasp of air that punctuated Patti’s sentence told me that she had seen Ethan’s gun.

  “Another guest for the party. Come in, my dear.” Ethan motioned with his head, rather than the weapon, which remained pointed straight at me.

  “Theda?” With panic growing in her eyes she stumbled over, shaking visibly.

  “The cops? You called….” I couldn’t tell if she had it together enough to understand my half whisper. Then it hit me. She hadn’t known about Ethan; at most, she’d phoned in another complaint about us. How quickly would the police respond to a report of trespassing? To the kind of call that had been coming in regularly from an irate neighbor of an empty house? They’d think it was a nuisance, nothing more. My hope evaporated.

  “That’s enough chit chat, folks.” Without looking away, Ethan knelt and reached into his pack, pulling out a roll of duct tape. “Davey boy, here.” He tossed it. “Tie the ladies together, if you please. Use it liberally. We don’t want any accidents.”

  “Connor?” I looked up into those blue eyes and heard Ethan laugh.

  “Don’t be fooled, darling. Our Davey has a way with the ladies, but that’s just made him soft and lazy. He’s not going to risk his own neck for anyone.” I stared at my onetime beau, but Connor—Davey—lowered his head and pulled the end of the tape loose.

  “Don’t worry about fingerprints on that tape, Davey.” Ethan looked positively gleeful. “In fact, the more the merrier.” With a slight movement of his gun, he motioned for Violet and Patti and me to move closer together.

  We shuffled, knowing that we were readying ourselves for slaughter. But as we pulled closer together, something caught my eye. There, down by the street, was another movement. A patrol car. No, an actual uniformed cop—but he was simply standing there, looking at Ethan’s tan Hyundai. He had to be waiting for Patti. Without her, the complainant, he’d probably write up the visit and drive on. Even the No Parking sign wasn’t in effect till tomorrow.

  We were standing side by side now, and Ethan was motioning for us to move closer with his gun, waving it gently to indicate we should stand back to front. For a moment it pointed off to the left. I started to turn. “Duck!” I yelled—hoping Violet and Patti would act fast enough—and smashed my elbow back through the window, breaking through the fragile old pane and the storm window with a crash. Surely the sound if not the shower of glass would catch the cop’s attention. Ignoring the wild stab of pain that rushed up my arm, I pushed Patti out of the way and fell on top of Violet, aiming to roll us both over to the shelter of the boxes. I landed hard and felt the wall of cardboard shudder.

  “You bitch!” His composure finally broken, Ethan lunged for us. But he didn’t fire. Maybe because his set-up wasn’t in place or maybe because he wanted to feel himself inflicting pain—there was no loud echoing report. No blackness. Startled, I looked up and saw the heavy weapon’s handle right above me, aimed to come down on my head.

  “Mrow!” From somewhere I heard an unearthly scream. I ducked, covering my face with my hands, but the blow never came. “Rrrow! Pssst!” I looked up. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a streak of fur and spit descended amid a hail of cardboard and papers. The cat must have been hiding on the top of the boxes, until my heavy landing had prompted it to jump—upsetting the pile. “Aslan!” Violet yelled in recognition, but the shaggy cat was too busy to acknowledge her. In an arc of fury he had landed by chance or choice on Ethan’s head. “Damn it!” He dropped the gun and clawed at the furious beast that had attached itself to his face. “Get this animal off of me!”

  “The gun! Get the gun,” I yelled and dove for it myself. As I did, I heard a loud thud. Ethan went flying. Violet stood beside him, holding the heavy oak chair that went with Lillian’s desk. She’d knocked him flat with one swing. Now she raised it over his head to deliver a killing blow.

  “No, Violet! No!” I jumped over his prone body and grabbed her, the pain in my elbow shuddering up my arm. Between me and the weight of the chair she stumbled backward. “Bastard.” She put the chair down.

  “I know, Violet, I know.” She sat back in the chair and I stood beside her, cradling my cut arm and looking around. In all the hubbub, the man I knew as Connor had sunk to a seated position against the wall, felled by the avalanche of boxes. His head hung down. Whatever Lillian had hoarded, it had given her some posthumous revenge.

  “Connor?” I asked, softly, but he didn’t look up, and so I turned away to stare at the still body beside him. Had Violet killed Ethan? No, we heard a groan. And then another, in a higher voice, from the wall by the door behind us. I turned and saw Patti sitting upright, her legs splayed out before her, one peach pump missing. Her eyes unnaturally wide with shock. In her arms she held the shabby tabby who had saved our lives. If a cat can smile, this one was grinning ear to ragged ear.

  mmm

  We must have been frozen like that for only a few minutes, but it seemed like hours before Ethan groaned again and we all started.

  “What can we tie him up with?” I looked around for the roll of duct tape. Patti was still staring, and Connor was unconscious or at least dazed. “Where’s that tape?”

  “Let me hit him again, please?” Violet stood and grabbed the back of the chair. “I’d love to smack them both.”

  “No need, Violet.” I was holding the gun where Connor could see it. Ethan, too, if either of them opened his eyes. That would serve for now. But just as I started to kick at the papers, hoping to uncover Ethan’s roll of tape, I heard another, heavier tread on the stairs.

  “Hello?” It was a man’s voice, and it sounded vaguely familiar. Bill Sherman.

  “It’s the cops.” I looked at Violet. Patti was still frozen, cat in her arms. Relief washed over me, but common sense followed quickly behind. Here I was holding a gun. None of us belonged here. What were we going to say?

  “Are you ladies okay?” Bill entered the room, and I heard his partner and the uniformed patrolman downstairs. “Bill? Bill?”

  “Up here,” the detective yelled down. We hadn’t said a word.

  “We were looking for a will.” I managed to get that out. It was a start. The pain from my elbow was making me dizzy.

  “And he thought there was treasure,” I heard Violet chip in, and knew she was using the chair to point to the prone Ethan. Bill
was already on his knees. He lifted Ethan’s head none too gently by the hair and saw a flicker of life. At that, Bill flipped him over and cuffed him, then turned his attention to Connor—or Davey as I now knew him—taking him roughly by one arm. The dark head lifted; the blue eyes blinked.

  “David Connolly, you’re under arrest for arson and embezzlement.” Bill pulled him to his feet and held him there. “And, I suspect, for other crimes to be enumerated later.”

  He proceeded to read my onetime beau and the semi-conscious Ethan their rights, and a few minutes later, an ambulance arrived to bandage me up and take Ethan away. By then, the uniformed cop I’d seen outside had cuffed Connor, that is Davey, and shuttled him down to the patrol car. The detective lingered, looking at the three of us, still frozen in place.

  “I don’t understand,” was all I could say. “Patti called you?”

  “Don’t you return phone calls?” He countered my question with his own. “But, no, she phoned the station house to report trespassers. I heard the call, and figured there was a good chance that you’d be involved. Besides, I’ve been trying to reach you since late yesterday. I wanted to tell you that we matched the pendant you found with a line of bruising that had been noted on the back of Lillian Helmhold’s neck. The necklace had been torn off her. That and one clear print that didn’t match the deceased meant we were reopening the investigation. With the cooperation of the Northurst police and some information from civilian sources, we knew something bigger than simple breaking-and-entering was going on. And then we began to uncover information about that reporter, too.” He nodded toward the spot where Ethan had fallen. A small spot of blood still marked the dust. “The Northurst cops said they’d been watching him, before he disappeared. He seemed to take a little too much relish in reporting from crime scenes. And evidence had begun disappearing when he was around, too.”

  “Jim Brett at the Eagle,” I said, and Bill nodded. “I’d been meaning to call you.” Was that only yesterday?

  “We thought Reinhardt and the missing counselor might be working together,” he continued. “But we couldn’t quite make it all fit. We’d been looking for his car, when I heard the trespassing call.”

  “We were doing fine.” Violet stepped forward. Her spirit had returned.

  “Yeah, and I got to stop you before you killed a man.”

  “Self-defense,” countered Violet.

  “Not if he was already unconscious,” noted Bill, looking at her from under those slightly shaggy eyebrows. “And what brought you ladies here today, anyway?”

  “There’s a will.” I needed to step in before these two came to blows. “Lillian Helmhold left a will. Dougie told Violet, and we’ve been looking for it. Today is the last day to save her cats, and we were hoping that there would be some provision made to keep them somewhere, keep them alive.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Theda. Besides, you should get to the hospital. The EMT said he couldn’t be sure he got all the glass out. And Violet,” he did her the courtesy of a brief nod, “will or no, you’ve got to go. I’m going to seal this house off now. And put new locks on the doors. This is a crime scene, you know.”

  “No!” Patti had been so quiet we’d almost forgotten about her. But now we turned to see her holding onto the shaggy cat. “Kitty!” The tabby was struggling, pushing against her peach sweater, and finally he hissed. She dropped him. “Kitty!” The cat bounded to the corner of the room, and Patti threw herself after him. Violet and I reached for her. We both knew you don’t grab a cat who wants to be let alone.

  But the scrawny tiger wasn’t running. With motions as deliberate as the day he had shown me Lillian’s pendant, he was sniffing at the floorboards, first one, then another, before finally settling on a spot just by the head of Lillian’s bed. He started to paw delicately at the corner and then to scratch.

  “Oh no, no kitty. Let’s go outside.” I reached for the cat before he could commit a bathroom indiscretion. But as I did, I noticed that the board he pawed at was loose. Unlike the other wide hardwood boards, it seemed to have no nails in it. It was held in place simply by warping and wear and time.

  “Bill, Violet. Someone hand me that knife.” Violet found the weapon where Connor-Davey had dropped it and before Bill could intervene put it in my good hand. Working the short, sharp blade into the space between the board and the wall molding, I managed to lift the floorboard up a bit. The cat sat by me, lashing his tail as if excited. I pushed the blade in further, using both hands and ignoring the shooting pain in my left elbow. Suddenly the whole board came loose. Violet, Patti, and Bill leaned over me as I raised it from the floor, revealing the space beneath.

  “Oh my god.” Patti’s breathless voice spoke for us all. For in what should have been the dark hollow between floors, we saw a glow. Where there should have been insulation, there was gold. Coins, chains, one large pendant of a bird that looked Russian, with eyes that could only be rubies. Violet reached in, pushing her hand into the cool, glowing treasure.

  “There’s got to be a couple of pounds of stuff here,” she said. “Could this be piled all the way to the wall?” She shifted and ran her hand through the treasure in the other direction. The sound of sliding coins marked her progress as she moved her arm beneath the floorboards, running her hands through the treasure back toward the center of the room and then toward the other wall. No wonder the ceiling below had sagged.

  “Wait, what’s this?” She ducked in a little deeper, and I could see her concentrating. “Underneath, there’s paper.” She reached in. “I’ve got it. Some of it.” The sheets she pulled out had fine, old engraving on them. Stocks, they looked like, marked with seals and phrases like “share” and “partnership.” Some had the heading bearer bonds, and I heard Patti whistle softly.

  “Wait, there’s something bigger down here. Hold on.” Violet was up to her elbow, reaching back toward the wall. What she brought out was an envelope, oversize and of good quality paper. On the front, in spidery but legible handwriting, were the words: To Whom It May Concern. Bill reached over and opened the unsealed envelope. He unfolded the single piece of paper inside.

  “It’s a will,” he said. “A holographic will.” And seated beside us, the cat began to purr.

  Epilogue

  Two weeks later, the dust hadn’t even begun to settle. Lawyers were dealing with both defendants, though it seemed likely that neither Ethan nor Connor would be free to bother us anytime soon. Appraisers and contractors were all over Lillian’s house, but they had to work with felines underfoot: the terms of the will made that clear.

  Lillian had been smart, even if unconventional in her banking techniques. All her treasure from years of touring fame and subsequent savings went to two trust funds, one for Dougie, the other for the care of the cats. The only other question came up when trustees for the funds were named. The Greenleaf House lawyers would manage Dougie’s funds, that was clear enough. But the cats—their maintenance and the establishment of the Lillian Helmhold House for Wayward Felines—were handed into the care of one Edith Hayes. That had taken us all by surprise, that morning as we sat around the old house and deciphered the spidery script.

  “Edith? Who’s Edith?” Patti had asked, slumped against the dirty wall, completely oblivious to the muck staining her suit. She was once again cradling the moth-eaten tabby in her lap and absently scratching behind his one good ear as he purred.

  “The Hayes is familiar,” I said, though I couldn’t place the name.

  “Edith Hayes,” Bill repeated, reading from the document.

  Violet cleared her throat. We all looked toward her.

  “That’s me,” she said, and even under the layers of dust and sweat I could see her blush. “My real name. It’s not Violet. I’m really Edith.”

  The rest of that day had gone smoothly. One of Lillian’s witnesses was her neighbor, Ruby, who had died of natural causes only a month before her friend. But the other was Lillian’s regular pet supplier, a friendly
shop owner who drove down from his store in New Hampshire every six weeks or so with a load of food and litter. He hadn’t heard that his long-time customer had died, but once he found out he readily agreed to make a statement about the legitimacy of the will. Bill called the shelter, which was happy to transfer the cats to a boarding facility for a few days, while he and his team collected evidence at the house. One of the other detectives was writing down Violet’s statement, and a policewoman had wrapped a blanket around Patti—and the cat—when Bill took me aside. I expected a tongue lashing.

  “Everything I did I had a reason for,” I started to say. My arm was really hurting, too. Then I noticed he was chuckling.

  “I’m sure you did, Theda. I’m sure you always do.”

  “So what are you going to yell at me for?” The aftermath of fear and pain had left me defiant, agitated, and not a little hungry.

  “You never answer the phone, woman. What am I supposed to do?” I looked up at his kind gray eyes and saw a sparkle. I couldn’t help smiling back.

  “I actually read your story today on the Central Café.” He seemed to be changing the subject. “I know it’s been a hell of a morning, but I thought you might want to go back there tonight and have dinner with me? After you get properly patched up, that is.”

  “You’re asking me out?”

  “If it’s the only way I can keep an eye on you.”

  I smiled and agreed. What the hell, a girl needed to eat.

  mmm

  By the end of May, we’d all started new lives. Dougie knew about his trust fund. It wouldn’t make a big difference in his day-to-day, but he wouldn’t have to budget for cigarettes or burgers anymore. The lawyer who was handling probate had made some cash immediately available to him, and also released sufficient funds for Violet to get started on the renovation. She’d left the coffeehouse, and I missed her, but her replacement had my order down already. Through my freelance work, I was also able to put her in touch with several contractors. It was a rather particular job, notably because you had to be willing to work with a dozen cats underfoot and neighbors bringing by new strays every day. Violet seemed to be hitting it off with one of my sources though, a restoration carpentry expert named Caroline, an extremely buff black woman who spoke of the poetry of the wood and sported a sharp fade cut, too. Not all the cats I’d met that first day went back to the Lillian house, as the neighborhood had already dubbed it. Several of the brood had ended up adopted by Lillian’s friends and neighbors after the memorial service, when it had seemed that the strays she fostered were everyone’s concern.