Familiar Motives

by Delia James

  “Pam Abernathy?” I said immediately. Abernathy & Walsh was a small agency, tightly tied to one particular star and one particular company. If the rumor about Best Petz slapping premium prices on inferior products spread, it wasn’t just Kristen and her cat who risked being left out in the cold. It was Abernathy & Walsh.

  I thought about that broken-up phone call. Then I thought about my conversation with Pam at Popovers. There was still something I didn’t like about it. Something she’d said or something she’d done, but I couldn’t figure out what.

  Despite that, I shook my head. “It can’t be Pam.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she’s got an alibi,” I said. “She was in her office, working on the Ultrapremium campaign, with both her assistants. She told the police.”

  “And they confirmed it?” asked Val.

  I eyed her. “Are you seriously asking if Kenisha and Pete forgot to check out somebody’s alibi?”

  “No, of course not.” Val sighed again. “I guess I should have known it couldn’t have been that easy. Although,” she added, “Pam was upset enough. You heard her. She said Kris deserved whatever happened to her . . .” Val’s voice faltered.

  “She just found out her biggest client not only got arrested, but she’d been lying,” I reminded Val. “You’d be upset too. Maybe she’ll change her mind when she’s had a chance to calm down.”

  Val took a swallow of coffee. “We’re forgetting about someone,” she said slowly. “Cheryl.”

  “What about her?”

  “If anybody has reason to be upset because Ruby’s career might be over, it’s Cheryl. She’s counting on being able to make a whopping great load of money off her lawsuit. If the Attitude Cat brand suddenly becomes worthless, she loses her goose and all its golden eggs.”

  She had a point. I turned the thought over in my head as I turned over a few more mozzarella chunks.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any connection between Cheryl and Pam?”

  “Not that I know of. Why?”

  “Because if there was, then Cheryl might have found out from Pam that Ramona was planning to blow the whistle. That would give Cheryl a reason to kill Ramona and steal the laptop.”

  And maybe drop a couple of her beads in the apartment in the process. “But that still wouldn’t explain why Kristen made a secret trip to New York City.”

  “If we can prove Cheryl killed Ramona, we wouldn’t need to know why Kris went to New York!”

  “Val,” I said slowly. “I want to find out who killed Ramona too, but the clock is ticking for Kristen right now. If Pam’s really not going to come forward, we’ve got to find some way to prove that Kris’s trip to New York didn’t have anything to do with the murder.”

  “Why would it?” Val shot back. “Even if she did know about the fraud rumors, Best Petz headquarters are in Boston.”

  I sighed. “Val, I know she’s your friend, but you’ve got to look at this from the outside. Kris lied. She lied to Ramona and she lied to the police. Why? What’s so important? What’s in New York?”

  Valerie nibbled a piece of penne and considered the question. “Statue of Liberty,” she said. “Empire State Building, cronuts . . .”

  And something else. Something important enough to make me set my fork down.

  “Madison Avenue,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Madison Avenue.” I gripped the edge of the counter. “New York is the center of the public relations world. Abernathy & Walsh is just a Portsmouth agency. They’re small. Maybe a bigger agency has approached Kris and made her an offer for the Attitude Cat account.”

  Val shook her head. “She’s never really shared the business details. I always got the impression she left most of it to Pam.”

  Which reminded me of something else, something from that very first meeting. “Did Kris ever say anything to you about wanting to get out of the Attitude Cat business?”

  “Huh? No. Why would you say that?”

  I shook my head. “When I talked to her, the day I met her at Ramona’s clinic, it sounded like she was tired of the business and was planning to pull out.”

  “But now you think maybe she was just tired of Abernathy & Walsh?”

  “Maybe. Maybe Kris found out something about Abernathy & Walsh that made her change her mind about who should to represent Attitude Cat.”

  “Like maybe that Pam knew about the fraud but wasn’t going to tell anybody?”

  “And how would she have found that out?” I mumbled around my mouthful of pasta.

  “Ramona!” we said together.

  “Jinx!” added Val. I ignored her.

  “Suppose Ramona told Kris there was a problem at Best Petz. Ramona decides she’s going to blow the whistle, but since she’s friends with Kris, she wants to give Kris a chance to get out before that happens. Kris decides she’s going to see if she can find alternate representation and a fresh gig for Ruby. But she doesn’t want to let Pam know she knows, so she goes to New York without telling anybody.” And takes the train, because the train station doesn’t have the number of cameras and scans and checks that an airport does.

  “That would mean Kris had nothing to do with Ramona’s murder! All she has to do is tell the police the truth!”

  “All she has to do is get them to believe the truth.” I frowned at the pasta on my fork. “After everything she’s done, and when we don’t even have any real evidence that there is a fraud, let alone that Kristen or Ramona knew about it.” I nibbled restlessly. “So, either we find the missing laptop . . .”

  “Which might be at the bottom of the Piscataqua,” Val pointed out. “That’s what I’d do with it.”

  “Or we wait for Frank to see what he can uncover.”

  Val shook her head. “Kris might not have that kind of time.”

  “Or we take the direct route.” I shoved my bowl away.

  “Anna,” said Val. “You’re making that face again.”

  “I am not,” I told her. “But I am going to talk to Rachael Forsythe. If Ramona told anyone about what she knew, it would be her daughter.”

  “Who happens to be a witch, as well as a vet,” said Val thoughtfully.

  “And who might know where her mother kept her books of shadow,” I added.

  “And her laptop?”

  “And her laptop,” I agreed, even though it did not make me happy. At all. “Although that’d be weird, wouldn’t it? Considering she didn’t mention that at all when she sent me into her mother’s apartment.”

  36

  WHEN I PULLED into the parking lot of the Piscataqua Small Animal Clinic the next morning, mine was pretty much the only car in evidence.

  I didn’t really want to be here. I’d wanted to go with Val to the police station to talk with Pete and Kenisha, but Roger—and Enoch—insisted it would be better if I stayed away until I was asked for.

  “It is possible for the police to have too much information,” said Enoch portentously. “It can lead some of them to make the occasional error in judgment.”

  I did not ask which “some of them” he was referring to, and Enoch did not tell.

  After I’d gotten home from Val’s, I tried calling Sean because I’d promised I would. I got his voice mail and left a message saying I’d try again later. I’d hung up and tried not to feel disappointed. Instead, I’d gotten ready for bed and burrowed under the covers and the two purring cats.

  I fell asleep with not one, but two cats curled up beside me. My last waking thought was that I was going to have to decide what to do about Ruby. Real soon.

  But for now, I had to talk to Rachael.

  A large, neatly written sign had been taped to the clinic door:

  DUE TO THE LOSS OF DR. RAMONA FORSYTHE, THE PISCATAQUA SMALL ANIMAL CLINIC IS CLOSED. WE WILL BE REOPENING
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. IF THIS IS A VETERINARY EMERGENCY . . .

  There was a phone number after that.

  I ignored the sign and the phone number. Instead, I made sure my shields were firmly in place, touched my wand for luck, and pressed the button beside the clinic door. I also tried to gather my nerve. I had all kinds of reasons to be here, and I didn’t like any of them. Everything that had happened the day before had shed new light on this very tangled situation. Unfortunately, that light meant that I was about to have to ask some very uncomfortable questions of a young woman who’d just lost her mother.

  Just as I was starting to wonder if I ought to call the emergency number after all, Jeannie popped out of the back. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she hurried forward anyway.

  “Hi, Anna.” She unlocked the door to let me in. “I’m sorry, but we are closed.”

  “Hi, Jeannie. I know. I was just coming by to . . . check in on Rachael. How are you holding up?”

  “It’s been pretty rough.” The ragged edge to her voice told me this was a serious understatement. “It’s hard enough losing Ramona, but . . . the police . . . they’ve been asking all kinds of questions.”

  “It’s their job.”

  “I know, I know, and I really want them to find out who did this. Who would hurt Dr. Forsythe?” She spread her blue-gloved hands. “She was the best. She hired me as soon as she found out I wanted to be a vet, and was tutoring me and . . .” She sniffed and dabbed at the corner of her eye with her wrist. “She was just the best, you know?”

  “I know.” I squeezed her shoulder sympathetically, and she smiled.

  “I don’t suppose anybody’s heard anything about Ruby?” she asked

  “Everybody’s looking,” I said, because it was true. “She can’t stay lost forever.”

  “Let’s hope not. Anyway, Rachael’s in the back.” She jerked her chin behind her. “You can find it? We’ve still got some cats we’re boarding, and I have to . . . take care of things.” She held up her gloved hands.

  I assured Jeannie I could find my way, and let her get back to the cats and their much simpler problems.

  • • •

  THE DOOR TO the clinic’s business office was open. A strong smell of fresh paint wafted out to meet me. Rachael sat behind a desk stacked with clipboards and folders. She wasn’t paying attention to them, though. She just sat in the swivel chair, staring at the wall. There’d been a poster taped there recently. I could see the torn bit of paper stuck to the wall under the strip of Scotch tape.

  I knocked on the doorframe, and Rachael jumped.

  “Anna! I’m sorry, I didn’t . . .” She started to her feet, but I gestured for her to sit back down.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “I can come back . . .”

  “No, no. I’m fine. Come on in. I was just . . .” She swallowed and gestured me to the orange plastic visitors’ chair. “I wanted to try to start getting a handle on things, but it’s hard. There’s just so much . . . Mom everywhere.” She spread her hands to take in the whole office.

  “You should give yourself time.”

  “I probably should, but we’ve got patients that need to be taken care of now, and, well, frankly, we’re going to need the money. Mom was a great vet but lousy at business.” She grimaced. “That sounds so . . . so . . .”

  “Human and normal,” I assured her. “We wish the world would stop, but it doesn’t.”

  She shot me a grateful look. “No. It doesn’t. And I don’t want you to think . . . I mean . . . The problem was that Mom cared so much. She wouldn’t turn anybody away, whether they could pay or not. It was all about the animals and the people for her.” There was a ring of pride in Rachael’s words, but regret as well. I remembered Frank talking about the student loans for Rachael as well as for Ramona. I wondered if Ramona and her daughter had butted heads over money. I wondered if Ramona and her formidable sister had.

  “You really should take it easy, at least for a while,” I said. “I know—”

  But Rachael cut me off with one shake of her head. “I’d rather keep busy. Speaking of busy . . .” She leaned across the desk. “Did you find anything in Mom’s apartment?”

  “Well, yes, actually.” I laid my hand over my purse, trying to draw some steadiness from my wand. I did not like that eager glint in Rachael’s eyes. “We found a couple of beads that look like they might have come from one of Cheryl Bell’s bracelets.”

  “I knew it!” shouted Rachael. “She’s been after Mom to take her side about Attitude Cat for the past couple of years!” Then she stopped. “Wait. You said ‘we.’ Who else was there?”

  “Kenisha Freeman.”

  “I didn’t say you could do that!” Rachael was staring at me, shocked and outraged. A sick sensation that had nothing to do with the paint fumes settled in my stomach.

  “I know,” I said. “But she’s with the police, and I needed her there in case I found anything important. Otherwise, it might not stand up in court as evidence.”

  “Oh.” Rachael slumped back in her chair. “Okay. I guess that makes sense. So.” Rachael took a deep breath. “Have they arrested Cheryl yet? I’ve been so busy here, I haven’t heard anything . . .”

  “Actually, they arrested Kristen Summers.”

  Rachael froze. “What?”

  I felt a little piece of my heart crumble. “They think the beads might have been planted by someone who wanted to frame Cheryl. They found that the balcony door was jimmied as well,” I added, but Rachael wasn’t listening.

  “But . . . how can they even tell?” shouted Rachael. “I mean, Cheryl’s . . . she’s such a raging . . . she would stop at nothing to get her hands on Ruby and the money! She must be the one who killed Mom!”

  “I understand how you feel, believe me,” I said. “I don’t like Cheryl either. But—”

  “And they’re her beads! You saw them, right? You said so! Why would they think Kristen had anything to do with them being there?”

  “The police take pictures when they search a crime scene. The beads don’t show up anywhere.”

  “They could have missed them the first time! It happens!”

  It did. And Pete had his doubts about one of the new photographers. But there was the other thing. The thing that wasn’t going to show up on any crime scene photo, no matter how good. “Rachael, the wards on your mother’s apartment were broken. Did you know that?”

  “Of course I knew!”

  “But then why haven’t you . . . I mean—”

  “Is that what this is about? Ugh!” She threw up her hands. “Aunt Wendy tried to warn me! She said Julia’s people jump to conclusions! She said they don’t trust anybody outside their own circle!”

  “It’s not that, it’s just—”

  “It’s just that I broke the wards when I came back to town,” she snapped. “It’s my job as her closest relative! I have to break any wards or other spells that might be active to ensure there’s nothing left to hold her spirit back from crossing over!” Which certainly explained all the fresh paint. Rachael was undoing her mother’s wards here. “That’s how we do things in our family,” Rachael went on. “Which you’d know if you’d bothered to ask!”

  “That’s what I’m doing now,” I said, trying to keep calm. “And now you’ve told me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  What I didn’t say was that this was the kind of thing Julia should have known. And probably should have told me.

  Rachael was glaring at me. “Something tells me you’ve got another question lurking under there someplace.”

  Because she could read my transparent, and awkward, expression. Just like everybody else. “Rachael, did your mom ever say anything to you about Best Petz? Maybe about their new Ultrapremium cat food?”

  Rachael frowned. “Where is this coming from?”

  “T
here are rumors that Best Petz was importing cheap cat food from China and slapping the exclusive label on it. I was wondering if your mom had heard anything about it.”

  “So, first you think a witch broke Mom’s wards to murder her or plant fake evidence,” snapped Rachael. “Now you think Mom got killed because of some rumor about cat food?”

  “I don’t know,” I told her honestly. “That’s why I’m asking you if she knew anything. I know Abernathy & Walsh were paying her a lot of money for her consulting work with them and Best Petz—”

  Rachael shook her head, hard. “Best Petz has nothing to do with Mom’s murder. Nothing. This is about Cheryl Bell and how badly she wants Ruby and the money.”

  “But how can you be so sure?”

  “I told you! Cheryl’s been nagging Mom for years now to say that Ruby was her cat. I told you and I told the police. Not that they listened to me either,” she added bitterly.

  “Do you have anything to prove what you’re saying about Cheryl and your mother? Recorded phone calls, e-mails, anything?”

  Rachael glared at me. “How could I? Her laptop is gone, remember?” She stressed the last word. “I bet that’s why Cheryl took it. So no one could find all the e-mails she sent.”

  “So, you think Cheryl stole the laptop and Ruby?”

  “I know she did,” said Rachael again.

  “But how do you know?”

  “I just do! I thought you would understand.”

  “I do, Rachael.” I understood that she was grieving and angry. I also understood that she was very frightened by something. So frightened in fact that she might just be trying to throw suspicion onto Cheryl Bell. “But the police are going to need proof.”

  “They have proof now! They have those beads!”

  “That’s not enough. In fact, those beads are helping convict Kristen.”

  “But I don’t see how!”

  “She wasn’t at the funeral. They think that’s because she was breaking into your mother’s apartment to plant the beads and frame Cheryl.”

  “That’s crazy! I know Kristen. She and Mom were friends. She loved Ruby! She couldn’t . . . she wouldn’t . . . I know it!”