by Clea Simon
***
The last of the chittering died away, and all I got were vague images of warmth and down. It was time. Quietly as I could, and stiff from the roots, I rose and approached the house. Funny, it looked bigger at night, the windows like eyes, staring down.
Somewhere back in the bushes, I heard a rustle. I froze, and thought of the switchblade in my pocket. A flash of something fat, white, and juicy made me relax. An opossum was hoping for grubs, and I was being ridiculous. Shaking my head to clear it, I walked around to the big front porch. As tempted as I was to break in, to see if my knife would slide me in the back verandah, I had no need to actually test Charles’ locks. He’d given me a key when he’d hired me. The fact that he’d always been home when I showed up didn’t change that.
I paused. He’d always been home. He worked there, with a wired-up office that housed more equipment than the rest of the Berkshires put together. Was there an alarm system I didn’t know about? Something that would start wailing or—worse—click in silently as soon I opened the door? The local cops didn’t worry me. They hadn’t even sealed the front door, and the yellow crime scene tape was easy enough to duck under. But Charles was big city. He might be wired into the state. My hand hesitated, holding the key. I was already halfway to the porch. Could I expect sirens?
Charles had expected me yesterday morning, too. Whatever alarm system he’d installed hadn’t been activated then. After all, someone else had gotten inside his house, as well.
I unlocked the door and waited. No electronic wail. No sound on the street, either, though what the response rate would be in our sleepy burg was anyone’s guess. With a shrug, I made my way in. To the left was Charles’ open-space living and work room. I remembered the pooling of blood, and turned away. In front of me, a flight of stairs led to the second floor. To the right was a kitchen-dining area done in the height of ’50s fashion, a stark contrast to the ultra-modern work area. Not a cook then. I wondered briefly how he’d found our meager take-out facilities, took a deep breath, headed up the stairs.
To the right, over the kitchen, I found two bedrooms. One held dusty furniture and a load of boxes, probably not touched since moving day. In the other, a tousled blue comforter and two misshapen pillows reminded me of the gentle man who had once slept here. Charles wasn’t my type, never had been. But nobody deserves to be left to die, bloody. Not in his own house. I let myself pause for a moment, remembering Charles, and then moved on. Past the master bath, I hit gold. Two more rooms combined into one made a home office fit for a rising entrepreneur. Unlike the spare downstairs, this one had file cabinets. A table top of white and silver, screens big enough for a movie theater with a speaker system to match, faced another picture window, a smaller version of the one downstairs. The moonlight was way too weak to see the view, though I could guess which mountain lay outside. Inside, the vista was stunning.
Not being a complete yokel, I knew enough not to handle the keyboard. A small brush and—yes—the screen came alive. Using a pencil I hit “return,” eager to move beyond the screensaver. I was rewarded with a corporate logo—a glowing green brain—and a request for a password. So he didn’t have an automatic logon, not even in his home office. I’d have been more curious, but just then something clicked in. A low whirr from deep down in the house—air conditioner? dehumidifier?—spooked me to step back from the desk, and then I heard it.
A voice, the hint of a voice. Soft as that machine whirring, but coming from somewhere much closer. A whisper. And that was it.
I lowered my flashlight to floor level and began to crawl, peeking under the table. Under the baseboard heating. The place was ridiculously clean, especially for a bachelor. With this much equipment, maybe that was necessary. Or maybe someone had gotten here before me.
That thought woke me up to why I was really here. Motive—or some threatening letters—would have been great. But Lily’s papers, they were key. Using that same pencil, I hooked the desk drawers open. I was betting on the right hand side, where we keep our personal stuff. If I was wrong, I’d hit the file cabinets. The man was neat, too neat for my taste, but I relaxed a bit. Anyone who would alphabetize his warranties might actually have done the kind of complete clean up I was witnessing. It wasn’t just warranties, either. After a folder on his refrigerator—a Kenmore—I found it: Tetris/Papers.
But just then the whirring stopped. In its place, a deep silence that spooked me more. And so I stood up and brushed some nonexistent dust from my knees, just to make myself feel better. I tucked the folder inside my jacket and was making my way out of the office when I heard it again. That voice, that hint of a voice. So soft it had to be nearby.
My footsteps sounded loud on the hardwood floor, and I fought the urge to run. I was upstairs already. Clearly trespassing. Better to act cool and keep my head. If there was someone here, so be it.
There—what was that? A little voice, young and vulnerable, and I was struck by a new thought. I was sensitive to animals. Could I also be hearing ghosts? A year ago, this would have all seemed impossible, and I’m no sucker for supernatural mumbo jumbo. Knowing what I now knew, it was all I could do to step out into the hall.
The voice was getting louder. I was closer. I could feel the sweat on my back and hear every squeak my sneakers made. I was almost at the stairwell.
“Mama?”
What? I envisioned an infantile ghost, the spirit of some child locked in a closet here a hundred years ago.
“Mama?” A baby, hidden in the wall, centuries past. I already had what I’d come for. I quickened my pace and was almost down the stairs, when it hit me.
“Mama?” Not only was I being a wimp, I was missing out on a great source of information. What was out there that could really hurt me, I mean, anymore? And besides, there was something sweet about that voice. “Mama! Help…”
I took a deep breath and went back up the stairs, reminding myself with each step that I was the badass in the room. That voice sounded—
A scratch, a scramble. Back in that top hallway stood a tall, vented linen cabinet. I saw no lock, and at my touch, the latch popped open with a click. Just then the humming started up again, and as much as I’d like to think that was coincidence, I found myself breathing faster. I opened the door and looked inside. Instead of towels, something glowed, small and green. Components. The whole damned place was probably wired. Was that what I had heard? But there was something else in that closet. Something alive.
“Mama.” Down on the bottom, pressed into the back, a tiny orange kitten was huddled, eyes shut tight. I’m not a softy, far from it. But this would’ve made steel melt. “Mama.”
“And how did you get here?” I squatted, the better to consider the kitten, and heard my knees crack. So much for country living. Then I heard it, for sure. The soft “snick” of a door closing. Someone else had come into the house; someone else with a key.
“Come on, kitten.” I scooped the fuzzy bundle up as the downstairs lights switched on. “We’re outta here.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
He’d kept me waiting. I’d known he would. Tom had taught me that. A homicide detective, Tom had given me my knife during the six months we’d been together. Got it off some street punk, he said. Switchblades aren’t legal, but he liked me having it. He had told me a lot about police procedure, as well as showing me the gritty underside of the city I’d come to consider home. In retrospect, he’d enjoyed the underbelly too much, which was why Stevie, with the hands, had seemed such a breath of fresh air.
But I loved my knife, and information is always useful, no matter what the source. And if I’d learned a bit more about the cops than an honest woman should, well, I’d paid for my education in kind. Now I had the advantage of some inside knowledge. The unwritten rules of the game. Officer Creighton, the blue-eyed wonder, was keeping me in the fancy new waiting room of Beauville’s fancy new police headquarters in order to up my anxiety level. A neat trick, but not one I wanted to play. I’d considered dro
pping in on Albert on the way. The folder I’d found did indeed have Lily’s complete veterinary history—at least since Charles had adopted her. The vaccine certificate couldn’t get Lily off, but they could save her from a grisly test, and the two offices shared the same building. But as I’d walked up to the awkwardly geometric pile of bricks—the material chosen to fit with our quaint New England image, even if the architecture didn’t—I realized that its sudden appearance might lead to a longer conversation. I needed to handle the cop first. Besides, Albert wasn’t known as an early riser.
Jim Creighton—the duty roster ID’d him as “James”—was an unknown. I’m pretty good with faces, especially one like that, with a chin from a movie poster and eyes like mountain ice. He was either younger than me or from one of the other small towns that huddle down into the Berkshire foothills like so many scared possums. I was betting on the former. He seemed to take his job seriously. If he were any good and not from our town, he’d have fled to the city by now. That had its plusses and minuses. As far as I knew, he didn’t know me, didn’t know my history, but he’d have sources. People who could tell him more about me than I’d like. And while he seemed to have more enthusiasm than experience, there was something about him that worried me. A dogged edge, something Tom had had, too. Specifically, I didn’t know what he thought about me defending Lily, but I bet he thought it odd. Most humans would, and Creighton seemed like the kind of cop who would trust that instinct and follow up on it. In retrospect, I’d let too much show for my comfort. I’d have to see what I could do to rejigger that first impression.
I paused before the double glass doors that led into the cop shop, remembering to smile just in case anyone was looking out. From here on in, presentation mattered. Creighton had taken against me. Add in that I’d spent the evening before breaking into the murder victim’s house and possibly, just possibly, been seen by another invader, a dark shadow I had slipped by on my way out a back window, and I knew I wanted to appear as cool as a cucumber, no matter how long he left me to simmer. And so I fixed my smile and pushed the door open, entering through a glass foyer that felt like an air lock. The receptionist, an old timer with dead eyes, took my name and nodded me to a seat. I picked up an outdated People and caught up on the latest Angelina Jolie news. Some things about waiting areas never changed. I couldn’t find anything about her pets, though.
Sitting in the large, open room, I wondered what she would have made of the scene at my house, last night, when I’d come home, kitten in tow. Wallis had been horrified. As soon as I’d entered the house, I could feel the tension, and when I switched the light on I got a full view of a furious tabby, complete with arched back and puffed-up tail.
“And what is that?” The fur was just for show. She was no more threatened by the tiny kitten than she’d be by a moth, and that thought made me keep the kitten in my hand.
“It’s a kitten, Wallis.” Sometimes the direct approach is best. “She’s—” I stopped. I didn’t want to say “witness.” I didn’t know what the tiny catling understood. “A guest.”
The kitten must have gotten something. She blinked up at me, blue eyes big in that orange tabby face. “Mama?”
“Christ.” Wallis turned tail and walked away before I could tell her about the folder. I knew she was heading for my favorite chair, and not to curl up for a nap. We were in for a rocky night.
***
Wallis had gotten me up before dawn, and I was paying for it. The walk with the bichon had kept me from going back to sleep, and I’d barely managed not to bite off the head of his stupid owner. Still, I’d made an effort before coming downtown, and, as I sat there waiting, I knew I looked good. September still hadn’t made up its mind, flirting with summer before leaving him for fall. I’d opted for a sweater. Seasonal, and just the right amount of cling to distract the most inquisitive sort. In this case, I was innocent. Well, if you didn’t count the break-in last night. But I wasn’t stupid—and I had a tricky role to play. I wanted Creighton and his colleagues thinking, looking beyond Lily for a human perpetrator. At the same time, I had to keep any of them from liking me for the crime. As I sat there, Angelina’s lips puffing up at me, I thought about how easy it would be to just let so-called nature take its course. Maybe Lily was one of life’s victims. There were plenty of them around these days. But something in me just didn’t like that. Maybe it was the thought that somebody had killed my best client, and I still had no idea why.
With the magazine selection limited, I had no choice but to move onto the crime report after People. Beauville is still a small town, but between the summer people and the newcomers over by Raynbourne, at least our tax base was growing. As a result, along with this fancy new building, came the trappings of some place bigger. The crime report—a weekly newsletter—is part of that. For that matter, so were most of the crimes. Vandalism was a big one, along with petty theft, and as I read I saw hard evidence of the tension between the townies and the newcomers. A “decorative mailbox,” whatever that meant, had gone missing. A picture window had been smashed, and someone had sprayed graffiti on the high school gym. When times get hard, people get stupid. Drive out the summer people—and who else would have a mailbox shaped like a cow?—and the jobs would go, too, right down the state highway toward Tanglewood and Becket.
It wasn’t until I was on my second read, wondering about the “threatening gesture” someone had made on a bicycle, that I realized the obvious. Charles’ death wasn’t in here. I checked the date. This issue had been printed up this morning, time enough to report a killer dog attack, or whatever they were calling it. Which either meant that his death had already been ruled an accident, or that someone didn’t want everyone talking about it.
Too late for that. I thought of my visit with the bichon. This morning, I’d only gotten a nasty look from that nosy Tracy Horlick when I’d come for the dog. That was fine, as long as she kept paying. But if she wasn’t getting info from me, I knew she’d be digging it up somewhere: the beauty shop or the mini-mart where she bought her off-brand smokes. Small towns have their own grapevines, and sometimes I wondered if people also picked up news telepathically, like I did from their pets. The bichon had only been focused on his own concerns during our walk, specifically the scent left by an intact German shepherd male who’d been out a bit before us. From the images in the bichon’s mind, as well as the alarmist chatter of the squirrels, I knew the shepherd was eight years his junior, in his prime, and twice the bichon’s size to boot. Worried that the little dog was dreaming of a fight, I’d kept him on his leash. I didn’t say anything as we made our rounds, though. His excitement made him move faster, and we all have a right to dream.
Maybe that explained the smile on my face when Creighton finally appeared in the open doorway and motioned for me to follow him down a short hallway. Something about him made me flash on a past experience, a summons to a similar room back when I’d been a kid, and I felt my smile evaporate. That hadn’t been for anything half so serious, just beer and boredom, and the police station had looked like one then: the linoleum and fluorescent lights making even a wild teen appear jaded. The lighting was better now, no doubt. But that casual gesture—a hand hooked, a certain look—brought it all back. If I’d been a jungle animal, I’d have chewed my own leg off to get out of here. As it was, I felt my teeth clench as I tried for a neutral expression.
“You look happy.” I didn’t believe him, but his voice let me know that even my attempt wasn’t a good thing as he led me into a small office more than filled by a desk, a file cabinet, and the smell of burnt coffee. Pushing his unbuttoned cuffs up on thick forearms, he took a seat behind the desk and pointed to a flimsy chair, all plywood and tubing, for me. I had a flash thought that it would be easy to kick out from under someone. The smile got stiffer, but I nodded as if he’d offered me a gracious invitation and sat down.
“Why shouldn’t I be happy? It’s a lovely morning.” The scent drew me to a stained mug on his desk. I forced my
eyes away. I’d had my morning dose. If his game was not to offer, I’d be damned if I’d ask.
“You want some coffee?” He’d seen me, but I tried to turn it around.
“Thank you, yes.” I worked at keeping it natural. Leaned back in the flimsy chair and crossed my legs. “Black’s fine.”
Without comment, he left the room. But before I could read any of the papers on his desk he was back, a Beauville Chamber of Commerce mug slopping over with joe that smelled as rancid as the room. I accepted it with a smile, as gracious as a duchess, and waited for him to begin. And waited. That was another of Tom’s tricks. Silence. Hold it long enough and most people start to talk. If that was this guy’s idea, he’d ruined it with the coffee. It might taste like the pot it had been burned in, but simply cradling the hot china made me as mellow as Wallis in the sun. I pretended to take a sip and smiled some more, trying to remember just which flower had that same shade of blue. Finally he broke.
“Charles Harris.” He pulled a folder out of one of the desk drawers and opened it. “You were his dog trainer?”
“In effect, yes. I’m not yet certified, but I’ve trained as an animal behaviorist, and so, yes, I was working with Charles and his dog.” Watch it, I warned myself. Keep it short and factual.
“And you were the first on the scene Wednesday morning.” I nodded. He knew all this. “Why don’t you walk me through the events of that morning.”
I tried to resist the urge to sigh. This was all in the report, already typed up in that folder on his desk. I didn’t know if he thought I’d change my story. Despite the sweater, I didn’t think he’d choose my company. So I kept it sweet and brief: Weekly routine. Doorbell, lock, greeting. My slight confusion at Lily’s barking—I wasn’t going to say her panic—and then the shock of seeing Charles, his throat torn open, in his own living room.
