Familiar Motives

by Delia James

I heard Val gulp air. “Pete and Lieutenant Blanchard just left. Anna . . . they’ve arrested Kristen for Ramona’s murder.”

  32

  “KRISTEN!” I SHOUTED. “Why Kristen?”

  “Kristen?” echoed Frank, sitting up very straight. Colonel Kitty merowed sharply, stuck her nose in the air and stalked away into the bedroom. “What’s happened to Kristen?”

  “I’m trying to find out!” I told him.

  “Where are you?” demanded Val. “Who are you talking to?” At the same time, Frank got to his feet and came to stand right behind me.

  “Who is that?”

  “Frank. Val,” I said to them both. “What . . .”

  “What are you . . .”

  “Why is she . . .”

  I yanked the phone away from my ear.

  “Be quiet, both of you!” I requested.

  Frank shut his mouth. From the silence on the other end, I assumed Val had done the same.

  Now that we were all behaving reasonably, I was able to put the phone to my ear again.

  “Valerie,” I said. “Let me be clear about what you said before Frank interrupted. Are you telling me that Kristen Summers has been arrested for the murder of Ramona Forsythe?”

  Frank’s eyebrows shot up. He opened his mouth. I glowered at him. For once it worked, and he sank back into his chair.

  “Yes,” Val answered. “Are you telling me Frank is sitting there with his notebook open?”

  “Yes,” I said. Okay, the notebook was not literally open, but that was beside the point.

  “Why did they arrest Kristen?” demanded Frank. “She wasn’t even in town when Ramona died!”

  “Say again, Val?” I pinched my free ear shut.

  “I don’t know why they did it!” wailed Val. “I couldn’t get Pete to tell me anything, and Kenisha isn’t answering her phone.”

  That meant Val had no idea that someone might have tried to frame Cheryl, or that Kristen might have had the time to set up the frame, because like Cheryl, Kristen hadn’t been at the funeral. Unfortunately, this was the kind of thing that might lead even reasonable cops like Pete and Kenisha to believe that Kristen might be the one who’d committed the murder.

  Frank was flipping notebook pages again. Colonel Kitty jumped back up on the chair arm and meowed and head butted his elbow.

  “But . . . Kristen was in Minnesota when Ramona got killed,” I said to Val, and Frank, and myself.

  Frank yanked a folder open and skimmed the pages inside. And promptly turned as white as a sheet.

  “Well, that’s the problem,” Val said softly. “Kristen didn’t go to Minnesota.”

  “What?”

  Frank was looking right at me now, and his color was not getting any better. In fact, he’d turned a little green around the gills.

  “Kristen didn’t go to Minnesota. She got on the plane, and she was supposed to catch a connecting flight at O’Hare. But she didn’t. She took a train to New York instead.”

  “New York!” I repeated.

  Frank held up his notes to me, tracing a big circle with his finger around a set of words. I grabbed the paper out of his hand and squinted at it. There were a bunch of lines of his usual illegible shorthand, but one question had been written very clearly:

  PROBLEMS WITH NEW BEST PETZ ULTRA-PREMIUM LINE??

  “This is what I was trying to tell you.” He stabbed his finger at the paper.

  “Oh, you are kidding me!”

  “It’s just a rumor. I haven’t been able to confirm anything.”

  “Anna?” said Val. “Anna, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I was talking to her, but I was looking at Frank. Frank wasn’t returning the favor. He’d pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed the screen as he headed into the bedroom and closed the door.

  “Anna!” Val demanded.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” I said. “Why did Kristen go to New York?” And why did she lie about it? And even if that’s where she went, do we know for sure she wasn’t in town when the murder happened? I closed my eyes briefly. That was a question I really wished I hadn’t thought to ask myself. “Was her mother ever in the hospital at all?”

  “Yes,” said Val in a whisper. “But her sister got there last week.”

  “So what was Kristen doing?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me!” Misery and anger bunched up together in Val’s voice. “And I would have told you before, but she asked me not to talk to you about any of it. I’m sorry, Anna,” she added. “I really am. I needed to help Kristen. She was so upset and . . . I never thought . . . I can’t believe . . .”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, trying to calm us both down. It wasn’t easy, though. This was very bad. Not only had Kristen lied about where she was going and what she was doing, but she’d tried to conceal her movements, which meant she thought someone would be watching her. Which all meant that as soon as somebody was watching her, she looked guilty of . . . something.

  “We don’t know anything for sure,” I said. “Is Kris okay? What’s going on with her now?”

  “I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me go with her. I called her lawyer, though.”

  “That’s good. Where are you?”

  “Home,” she told me.

  “Is Roger there?”

  She said he was.

  “Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can . . . but there’s something I’ve got to do first.”

  “What?”

  I looked across the apartment to the kitchen table, where Colonel Kitty was still on patrol. Should I tell Valerie about Frank’s rumor? I bit my lip. No, I decided. Not yet. Not until I knew more about it.

  “I think I know how to find Ruby,” I told her instead.

  “Oh, Anna, do you? That could solve everything!”

  Well, not everything, but it would help a whole lot. “It’s a maybe,” I told her. “A very big maybe.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “No. But I swear, I’ll be there as soon as I’ve found out anything.”

  “Please hurry.”

  “I will.”

  We said good-bye and I slid my phone back into my purse. I also curled my fingers around my wand and stood there. I wasn’t praying exactly, or even wishing. I was just hoping as hard as I could.

  It didn’t work.

  “I’m sorry, Anna,” said Frank behind me. “It’s not looking good.”

  Tell me something I don’t know. I gathered my shredded nerve and faced him. “What did you find out?”

  “Just what Val was telling you. Kristen Summers has been arrested. She lied, she concealed her movements and she had a motive.”

  “What motive could Kristen possibly have for killing Ramona?”

  Frank laced his fingers into his hair like he was trying to keep the top of his head from flying off. “There’s a possibility, but, like I said, it’s just a rumor. I can’t confirm anything yet.”

  “You say that one more time, Frank Hawthorne . . .”

  “Okay! Okay!” He took a deep breath. “Ramona Forsythe was on retainer to provide veterinary services to Abernathy & Walsh, right?”

  “Right,”

  “Which means she went along on a lot of the Best Petz photo shoots and publicity events to help make sure everything was up to ASPCA standards where Ruby and her stand-ins were concerned.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “And . . . she might have heard this rumor, and I stress—”

  “Frank!”

  “—that Best Petz new ultrapremium line of cat food was actually just a cheap brand from China that they snuck in under the radar and slapped a new label on.”

  My jaw dropped, something Frank tactfully ignored.

  “You see the problem?” he asked. “If this is true, and word gets out
, it could sink Attitude Cat.”

  Because Best Petz’s reputation would take a massive hit. Companies went under for stuff like this. And if Best Petz went under, they would take Attitude Cat down with them.

  33

  “I DON’T BELIEVE it,” I said, trying not to hear how my voice shook. “Kristen Summers is not a murderer!” Unfortunately, I knew I had to convince myself as much as Frank, and it kept getting harder.

  “She also wasn’t in Minnesota, or at the funeral,” said Frank quietly.

  “Cheryl wasn’t at the funeral either!”

  “Because she was doing an interview with Cat Channel News. That’s one of the things I was confirming in the other room.”

  I felt myself staring again. “There’s a cat channel?”

  “Twelve forty-seven on your cable listings. All cats all the time. They sponsored a film festival last year,” he added.

  Right. Okay. I pressed my hand against my mouth and tried to pull my thoughts back to what was actually important. I thought about those beads I’d found under Ramona’s bed. I thought about how Kenisha and Pete thought they might have been put there deliberately. And even though I really didn’t want to, I thought about how if I wanted to frame somebody for murder and cat-napping, Cheryl was the person I’d pick.

  I thought about how Enoch had said that when it came to the money being made by Attitude Cat, it wasn’t the actual cat that was important. It was the idea of the cat. Here, for the first time, was something that might jeopardize the idea of Attitude Cat. Nobody loved a spokesfeline that was caught advertising cheap junk under false pretenses.

  “Okay, okay.” I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to keep breathing. “I’ve got to get over to Val’s.” And there were a few things that needed to happen before I could. They were not, however, the kinds of things I was ready to tell Frank about. “I’m assuming you’re about to call in every favor you’ve got trying to confirm this Best Petz rumor?”

  “You better believe it.”

  “Will you tell me if you find out anything?”

  “If you’ll tell me if you find out anything.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, and I was fairly sure I meant it.

  Frank decided to believe me, and I gathered up my stuff and ran down the creaking stairs out to my Jeep.

  We had to find out what had happened to Ruby. We had to know if she really was stolen or if she just ran away. Because we had to know if Ramona’s murder really had anything to do with Attitude Cat and Best Petz or if it was caused by a separate set of troubles. Either way, Ruby was the key.

  And I knew who was holding that key. I just had to hope I could finally get him to talk.

  Or at least meow.

  • • •

  AS SOON AS I got home, I yanked off my coat and hat, went into the kitchen and pulled a fresh can of tuna out of the cupboard and popped the top. The smell reminded me I hadn’t eaten since that miniquiche at Ramona’s funeral. Later, I told my grumbling stomach.

  I dumped the tuna into the bowl on the floor and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  “Alistair?” I said to the empty kitchen.

  Still nothing. I muttered a few things nobody else needed to know about as I dug in my purse and pulled out my wand. I was never going to hear the end of this, but we were way past nibbles, treats, and begging.

  “Come on, cat.” I lifted my wand and tightened my focus, or at the very least my frustration. “There’s tuna and I’m calling you and you have to be here.”

  This was not an invocation Julia would have approved of, but it did work.

  “Merow.”

  Between one eyeblink and the next, Alistair was sitting beside the food bowl, lapping up tuna juice and for once not looking very happy about it.

  That made two of us. I folded my arms at him like I actually thought that was going to make a difference.

  “All right, Alistair, what is going on?”

  Alistair scooted around so his back was toward me.

  “Uh-uh, not this time, mister.” I put down my wand and picked up my cat so I could look him in the baby blues. He meowed, outraged. I ignored this. “You’ve been acting strange all week, and you’ve barely been home and you’ve got Colonel Kitty ticked off, and Miss Boots is missing you. That can mean only one thing.”

  His tail twitched and he wriggled in my hands, but I held on.

  “Who’s the new girlfriend, Alistair? Where is she? You have to show me.”

  I put him down on the counter.

  Alistair immediately jumped down to the floor and slunk around the counter. Not popped, not galumphed. Slunk. Head and tail down.

  “Alistair?”

  “Merow.” Now I could see he was headed for the basement. That was when I noticed the cellar door was open. “Merow.”

  “What the . . . ?” I didn’t even remember leaving the door open. I shivered, and this time it was from something other than a draft.

  “Merow,” said Alistair again, and started picking his way carefully down the stairs.

  Well, what’s a witch supposed to do? I sucked in a breath, snapped on the light in the stairwell and followed my cat.

  The cottage basement was old and unfinished. There was an ancient but adequate washer and dryer down here and some splintery wooden shelves from back when it was an active root cellar. I suspected I was letting down generations of thrifty New Hampshire housewives by not canning tons of peaches and blueberry jam. But since I could barely scramble an egg, attempting to preserve things had never seemed like a good idea. The oil heater was down here too—a feature of small-town life I was still getting the hang of—along with some old furniture left behind when I rented the place. There were some cardboard boxes I was accumulating as well, because when you’ve got a basement, boxes just happen to you.

  I pulled the chain on the old lightbulb and blinked as it flashed on. Alistair was sitting in a corner near one of the sets of shelves. In the shadows, something moved. Something big.

  I admit it, I took a step back.

  “Merow,” said my cat, and I swear he rolled his eyes.

  Before I could answer this bit of feline disdain, a sleek black-and-white shape emerged from the darkness.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me!”

  But there she was. Ruby. Attitude Cat. She was in my basement, crouched next to my familiar, who immediately began nuzzling her ear.

  Julia had been right. Ruby was being hidden by a witch. Or at least, by my warded house, and my stupid, fickle, magical tomcat.

  “Meep?” Ruby pressed against his side and Alistair licked the top of her head.

  “Merp,” agreed Alistair.

  Of course Alistair had found Ruby. He might even have started looking before I had to ask. After all, he’d been the one who pointed out she was missing the night we first found Ramona. Once he did find her, of course he couldn’t just leave her. He had to bring her someplace safe. Maybe she’d been in danger; maybe he was just being chivalrous. Maybe she’d followed him, because after all Ruby was a cat too, and therefore one of nature’s escape artists. Or maybe it was because Alistair was a big gray softie, not to mention willing and able to fall in love with every single lady cat who crossed his path.

  “And you acted all surprised when Colonel Kitty got mad,” I muttered.

  Alistair, Mr. Innocent, shrugged, a long ripple of silver fur, and nuzzled Ruby again.

  I stared at them both as the full magnitude of the mess I was in sank through my skin and down to my bones.

  My gallant, magical, too-clever-for-my-own-good cat had ruined any chance of us finding out anything about the murderer, or even the cat-napper. If Alistair had led me to wherever Ruby was being kept, I might just possibly have gotten Pete or Kenisha to believe that I’d gone out looking for Alistair and found Ruby instead. Or we could have
said Julia’s dachshunds had gotten away from her (never mind that this had not happened in living memory) and wriggled their way into wherever Ruby was hidden.

  But now . . . now we had no chance of even figuring out whether Ruby had actually been kidnapped or if she’d just run away.

  My knees buckled until I was sitting on the basement stairs.

  Maybe I could get the coven together and work a spell. I was a seer. I could try to see through this. We’d done something like it before. But what good would it do? Even if I could conjure a vision, I couldn’t take it to court, or even to Kenisha.

  “What about DNA?” I whispered to myself and the cats. “Wherever she was, there’d be DNA evidence, cat hairs and . . . stuff . . . and . . .”

  And so what? So what if somewhere in Portsmouth there was a room full of cat hair and shredded furniture? Even if I could find it, how could I convince anyone I’d just happened across the right place and recognized it for what it was? To get that to be at all plausible, not only would I have to find the hypothetical cat room; I’d have to put Ruby back in it.

  And then I’d have to figure out how I’d explain why she’d been in my basement, just in case anybody thought to check for similar evidence down here. And given the way the rest of this mess had gone, somebody just might.

  This was why Kenisha didn’t mix magic and law enforcement. This, right here. Our best and biggest chance at helping Kristen, and Rachael, and Julia and Kenisha, was gone, because my familiar had taken matters into his own hands. Um, paws.

  Alistair finally seemed to twig to the fact that I was really upset. He came over and circled around my ankles.

  “Merow?” he rubbed his hard, brave, chivalrous, frustrating head against my shins. “Merow?”

  I lifted my own head and took several deep breaths to try to steady myself. It almost worked.

  “Meep?” added Ruby.

  She was shivering again. That jolted me into action. There comes a time when, no matter how smart or magical your familiar is, you have to remember who is the human around here.

  “Okay. Come on, Ruby, there’s a good girl.” I scooped Ruby up and she snuggled into my arms as I carried her up the stairs to the warmer (and cleaner) kitchen. I got out a second bowl and poured in some kibble, which, unlike some cats, Ruby did not turn up her nose at. Alistair stood sentry beside her while she ate.