Cat Telling Tales

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

  “Which bridge is that?” Kathleen said.

  “The one on Valley Road, just off Highway One, just above the market where Sammie worked, where I used to work.” Her answer brought Joe Grey’s ears up. He rose, slipped down the hall where he could better watch Emmylou from the shadows.

  Ryan said, “The bridge where Hesmerra’s daughter Greta died?”

  Emmylou nodded. “That was a long time ago,” she said vaguely.

  “Four years,” Ryan said. “Billy was eight when his mother’s car went off the bridge. I heard it was a really bad storm, driving rain, heavy winds, the kind of storm where you can’t see the road at all.”

  Emmylou’s face colored, she busied herself with her bowl of apricots and the last of her soup; Joe studied her with interest. She wanted to tell them something, she was on the verge of it, was filled with an urgency that she found hard to conceal. The ghost of something hung in the room, as dark as a storm cloud, some new information, vital and unstated. Watching Emmylou, both Ryan and Kathleen tried to hide their intensity, but their curiosity was as keen as that of the gray tomcat.

  “What happened that night?” Kathleen said softly. “What happened when Greta’s car went off the bridge?”

  Emmylou rose, never taking her eyes from the detective. “I’ll come down with you now, to look at the body. Afterward, if you like, I’ll come into the station. I’ll tell you about the bridge. As soon as we . . . as soon as I’ve gotten through this, seeing . . . seeing Sammie. If that is Sammie, down there.”

  But Joe Grey’s skin rippled with suspicion. You know that’s Sammie, don’t you? You’re already certain! What do you know, Emmylou, that you haven’t told?

  28

  Kathleen Ray’s office was half the size of the chief’s, just enough room for her desk crowded between file cabinets, a console that held her little coffeemaker, and a small leather armchair. The desk faced the door, neatly stacked with papers and reports, and carefully arranged bookshelves stood behind. On the adjoining walls Kathleen had hung well-framed photographs of the rugged Molena coast, close-ups of stone escarpments and tide pools and stormy skies, fine work done half a century earlier by the region’s famous photographers. The only place to hide was beneath the minicredenza, and quickly Joe and Dulcie slipped under, into the shadows against the wall.

  By the time they’d left the crime scene, after watching Emmylou identify the body, which was indeed Sammie, after watching her turn away shaken and sick, the day was growing warmer, the snow starting to melt. The sun did its work quickly; even as they headed for the station, the rooftops and streets below were turning dark and glistening wet, and snowmelt dripped from every crevice and weighted branch.

  With a new officer behind the desk, they had padded quickly past, slipping into the empty conference room as Kathleen came in the front door ushering in Emmylou. They’d watched from beneath the conference table as Kathleen snagged half a dozen fresh doughnuts from a tray by the coffeemaker, and herded Emmylou on to her office. Silently they’d followed.

  Now, from the shadows beneath the console, they watched Kathleen make Emmylou comfortable in the small leather chair, easing her back into the rapport Kathleen had established at Alain’s table, before Emmylou went down to identify the body. Much of the identification was based on Sammie’s hair color, on her watch and little silver bracelets, on her silver locket that opened to pictures of her two black-and-white cats. Emmylou knew who Sammie’s dentist was, and Sammie’s dental records had been sent up to the lab. The CSI techs estimated the date of Sammie Miller’s death at two weeks; they would have more information once the lab had finished the autopsy. Kathleen poured two cups of coffee; Emmylou refused sugar or milk, took the cup from Kathleen along with two doughnuts on a little paper plate. The two were silent, sipping coffee.

  Both women were tall and slim, Emmylou sinewy and bony with sun-leathered skin, Kathleen pale and smooth, her shining dark hair back carelessly at the nape of her neck, the grace that had made her a good model very much apparent, even in her severe uniform. Her dark eyes studied Emmylou kindly, without a cop’s closed shield of authority, and her voice was soft.

  “What did happen, that night on the bridge, Emmylou? You told me, in the car, that Sammie’s murder could be connected to the death of Hesmerra’s daughter?”

  “Her youngest daughter,” Emmylou said. She broke her doughnut in two, concentrating on that, and said no more.

  “I have the accident report,” Kathleen said, picking up some papers from her desk. “There was heavy rain that night, a strong wind, hardly any traffic on the roads. The report shows one witness to the accident. He wouldn’t give his name, he claimed to have no address, no relatives.” She glanced at the report as she talked. “Says a car came up fast behind Greta’s car, pulled up beside her and swerved into her, forcing her off the road. The witness saw her car crash through the rail, land on its side on the concrete abutment below.” She looked up. “What do you know, Emmylou, that isn’t in the report? Was this man Sammie’s brother?”

  Emmylou nodded. “She was with him that night, they saw it all. The car came up fast on Greta’s left, started to pass, then swerved over straight into her car. He had some kind of bright spotlight in his hand, he shone it in her face, the light must have blinded her. Sammie said Greta looked startled, like a deer in your headlights. She swerved hard, lost control, and rammed into the abutment. Crashed right through, right through that corrugated rail, Sammie said, as if it was made of paper. She said the two sections, where they were joined, broke away from the post.

  “Sammie said the car rocked a moment, balanced there, then dropped straight down on the concrete and rolled. I guess Greta didn’t have her seat belt on, she was thrown around and then thrown out, and the car rolled on top of her. That’s how Sammie told me. She saw it, and Birely saw it, they were together at the foot of the bridge. Sammie called 911 while Birely ran to help her—but Greta was already dead, she was beyond help.

  “When they heard the siren coming, Birely told Sammie to run, to get away, not let anyone know she was a witness. Even then, he was afraid for her, he thought the killer must have seen her face in the spotlight, and would come after her. Birely waited for the cops, gave them a statement. They told him to stay in town, but he disappeared. Left town, vanished.”

  Joe, crouched beneath the little console, saw not only the scene Emmylou described, he saw the earlier scene as well, saw his nightmare, the driving rain sluicing against the little shack in the windy night, saw and heard the two women yelling at each other, Hesmerra and Greta. Saw the young woman race out to her car and take off into the stormy night, saw the second car, dark and sleek, skid against the hill as it raced to follow her.

  Emmylou said, “The killer saw Sammie that night. He knew there were two witnesses, not just a homeless man.”

  “But if he knew that, why . . . If he killed Sammie, why did it take him four years? It couldn’t have taken four years to find her, in his small village.”

  Emmylou shook her head. “He found her before that. Maybe a year ago. He must have been looking for her. Yes, it’s a wonder it took him that long. She was real careful, stayed away from people, shopped when the stores were busy so she could get lost in a crowd. Other times, she kept to herself, that was the way she lived anyway.

  “He found her when she was walking up in the hills, just at dawn, barely light. A car passed her, a dark two-door. It slowed, the driver did a double take, swerved into a driveway, turned around and pulled to the curb. The minute it slowed she slipped away through an overgrown yard. She watched him from there, and then ran. Through the backyards to another street, through the backstreets and then through yards where a car couldn’t follow.

  “But days later,” Emmylou said, “he tracked her down, he discovered where she lived, and he began to watch her—just to watch, and follow.

  “She thought he meant to scare her, keep her afraid so she wouldn’t talk. She thought maybe he was afraid to kill
again. Or,” Emmylou said, “that he hoped she’d lead him to the other witness. Sammie pretended to be unaware of him, she thought that was her best protection. She thought sooner or later he’d decide she wasn’t going to the law and he’d back off, would give up watching her.”

  “Why didn’t she file a report, that she was being followed? Why didn’t she tell us what this was about?”

  Emmylou shook her head. “What was she going to say? She said the cops, even with Birely’s report on file, did nothing to find the man the first time, so what were they going to do now?” Emmylou gave Detective Ray a wan smile. “Sammie wasn’t fond of cops—of the police. Maybe because of her brother. The law hassles him a lot.”

  “He has a record?”

  “Not that I know of, but he’s been picked up for loitering, and . . . the homeless get hassled, that’s the way things are. He calls himself a hobo. Travels up and down the coast, stops in the village now and then and calls her. He won’t stay at her place, though. When he shows up . . . when he showed up,” she said, “he wouldn’t stay with her. She’d bring him a meal, wherever he was, and they’d visit a while. If the weather was bad he’d stay there under that bridge with the other homeless, that’s where he was headed that night. Or he’d stay down by the river where you always see smoke rising, and in a few days he’d move on again.

  “That night, Sammie had come up to the bridge to meet him, she was working as a checker at the same market where I worked. She worked a different shift than me. She got off at nine, pulled on her slicker, left her car in the parking lot and walked up there in the rain, brought him some deli chicken, hot coffee, and a piece of apple pie in a plastic bag. They were headed under the bridge to get out of the rain when the Jaguar hit Greta’s car, she said it happened so fast, and they were just a few feet from where the car came over.”

  “Did they ever get a look at the driver? The report says Birely didn’t.”

  Emmylou shook her head. “Only that bright light in their eyes, blazing on Greta’s face, and past her onto them. But Sammie remembered the car, those sleek Jaguar lines. Birely told the police that, that should be in the report.

  Kathleen nodded. “If they couldn’t see the driver, how could she be sure, later, who was following her?”

  “She didn’t know who else would follow her, who would watch her, and watch her house. She was certain, even though he had a different car, a black Audi. Maybe he sold the Jaguar, or maybe he hid it away. There must have been damage to the right fender, though I guess he’d have had that fixed, maybe up the coast somewhere.”

  “Once he started following her, and she saw him, did she know, then, who he was?”

  Emmylou reached to the desk, took another doughnut, began to break it into little pieces on her paper plate. Beneath the console, the cats waited, glancing at each other.

  Kathleen said, “Emmylou?”

  She looked up at Kathleen. “She knew him. I know him.”

  “Do you want to tell me? Do you want to see Sammie’s killer caught?”

  Emmylou just looked at her.

  “If you know him, Emmylou, do you have any idea why he would kill Greta?”

  Emmylou said, “He was her lover. He was the father of her child.”

  Quietly, Kathleen waited.

  “Greta was sixteen when Billy was born. No one knew who the father was, except Greta herself, and Hesmerra. The father gave her money to support the child, if they’d keep quiet. But after eight years, apparently Greta wanted more. Maybe decided she wanted to live better, that he wasn’t giving her enough. She threatened him, threatened to tell his wife the truth.”

  “And his wife was?” Kathleen said softly. Only the silent tap of her toe on the little rug beneath her desk signaled her impatience.

  “Debbie Kraft,” Emmylou said. “Erik Kraft is Billy’s father. Debbie’s own husband got her little sister pregnant, not some high school boy.”

  In the shadows, the two cats were very still. Amazing where human lust could lead, the resultant twists of human deception. Kathleen said, “Hesmerra knew he killed Greta? But still she was friends with him? She accepted money from him, when she knew he’d murdered her daughter? She let him buy her whiskey, like some kind of cheap bribe?”

  “Money to support Billy,” Emmylou said, “such as it was. And, yes, to buy whiskey. Payments from the man who murdered her child, to keep her from going to the police, from telling what she knew and starting an investigation.”

  Joe could feel his claws kneading at the hard floor as the little bomb of truth pulled the various fragments together: a married couple, the husband dallying with his wife’s little sister. Impregnating the girl, paying to keep her silent. And then when Greta rebelled, he killed her. Afterward he paid the boy’s keep or paid Hesmerra blackmail money, whichever way you wanted to put it.

  And then when matters changed between him and Hesmerra, he killed her, too? When for instance he found out Hesmerra was snooping into his business affairs, into his illegal transactions, he poisoned her whiskey and set fire to her house? A grease fire, on the stove. How simple to replicate, once Hesmerra lay dying.

  Kathleen said, “Does Billy know that Erik Kraft is his father?”

  Emmylou shook her head. “I’m sure he doesn’t. If that’s the case.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Hesmerra had some suspicion it could have been Perry Fowler. Fowler was nosing around Greta for a while, about the same time Erik was seeing her. He came around the house a number of times. He said, to see if Hesmerra needed anything. She was his mother-in-law, too, and she thought he felt guilty Esther didn’t have much to do with her. Hesmerra always thanked him, but then sent him on his way. He always came just at suppertime, when he knew Greta would be home, never earlier in the day. She said sometimes there would be a look between them, that made her wonder. Later, after Billy was born, Fowler didn’t come anymore.”

  “But Fowler never gave her money, presumably to support the boy? It was always Erik? And Billy had no clue to the truth?”

  “As far as I could tell, Hesmerra managed to keep it all from him. I didn’t repeat to her anything Sammie told me, but Hesmerra figured out for herself about the bridge ‘accident,’ she was certain Erik had killed Greta, she was certain Erik was Billy’s father.

  “Billy’s aunts never came there to see her,” Emmylou said, “so Billy wouldn’t have overheard any comments from them. He thinks Erik came to see Hesmerra out of guilt because Debbie wouldn’t visit her. And because Erik seemed to be truly fond of Hesmerra.”

  “Was he?”

  “Erik’s very smooth, always so charming. I never liked him. When he came, Hesmerra would ask me over for tea, but I was never comfortable. I always felt his friendliness, and the money and whiskey were like a sales pitch, like window dressing.”

  “Did Hesmerra see that? Why did she go along with it? She could have come to us,” Kathleen said again. “We could have reopened an investigation into Greta’s death.”

  “Hesmerra had something else in mind,” Emmylou said. “Something more.”

  Kathleen waited. When Emmylou didn’t continue, she said, “You had a box of papers with real estate letterheads, and with the Kraft letterhead. Do they tie into this?”

  “Yes. They were in a metal box, under her bed. I dug it out of the burn.” She reached into her canvas tote, withdrew a thick packet of business papers and letters and laid them on the desk; she had the grace not to deny she’d lifted them. “That’s everything that was in the box. Captain Harper saw it in my car.”

  Kathleen nodded, and picked up the stack of papers. Below in the shadows, Joe was so edgy to have a look that Dulcie had to nudge him to be still. Kathleen shuffled through, pausing to read passages, her expression growing more intent as she compared a number of pages. She looked up at Emmylou. “Where did Hesmerra get these? Some of the dates are recent, business that seems still in progress. Hesmerra stole these from Erik?”

  Emmylou looked
down at her hands, then shyly up at Kathleen. “This was Hesmerra’s retribution. It took her a long time to collect these, working in his office at night, and cleaning Alain’s house, too. It took too long,” she said bitterly.

  “Those papers,” she said, “together with what Debbie has, should be enough to put Erik Kraft in prison. Erik may never serve time for Greta’s death, there may be no sure way to prove he killed her. But Hesmerra meant to see him pay.”

  “But Sammie saw him kill her, she could have come forward.”

  “Sammie was afraid. She felt she had no real proof. She was afraid she wouldn’t have enough to convict him, that he’d go to trial but then go free, and would come after her.”

  “He’d be a fool to do that, to harm someone who’d testified against him.”

  “No one said he wasn’t foolhardy, that he didn’t make stupid choices.” Emmylou frowned. “Only recently did Sammie seem bolder. I think she was getting tired of being watched and followed, tired of his sly bullying.”

  Kathleen sat looking at her. “All along, while Hesmerra was taking his money, she was working to destroy him.”

  “Yes. She made copies at night, from Erik’s personal files, then put the originals back. Evidence of fraud, real estate scams, and theft. That’s what she and Debbie were working toward, together.”

  “But Debbie—”

  “Debbie hated her mother, yes. In her opinion it was Hesmerra’s fault, that Erik was able to lure Greta into bed. Allowing Greta too much freedom, not keeping track of where she was. As if Hesmerra could have done much. Greta was never an angel, Hesmerra said she was headstrong, defied her at every turn. And Erik. I see him as sly and smooth, I think he may be totally without conscience.