Cat's Claw

by Susan Wittig Albert

  CAT’S CLAW

  China Bayles Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THYME OF DEATH INDIGO DYING

  WITCHES’ BANE A DILLY OF A DEATH

  HANGMAN’S ROOT DEAD MAN’S BONES

  ROSEMARY REMEMBERED BLEEDING HEARTS

  RUEFUL DEATH SPANISH DAGGER

  LOVE LIES BLEEDING NIGHTSHADE

  CHILE DEATH WORMWOOD

  LAVENDER LIES HOLLY BLUES

  MISTLETOE MAN MOURNING GLORIA

  BLOODROOT CAT’S CLAW

  AN UNTHYMELY DEATH

  CHINA BAYLES’ BOOK OF DAYS

  Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE TALE OF HILL TOP FARM

  THE TALE OF HOLLY HOW

  THE TALE OF CUCKOO BROW WOOD

  THE TALE OF HAWTHORN HOUSE

  THE TALE OF BRIAR BANK

  THE TALE OF APPLEBECK ORCHARD

  THE TALE OF OAT CAKE CRAG

  THE TALE OF CASTLE COTTAGE

  Darling Dahlias Mysteries by Susan Wittig Albert

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE CUCUMBER TREE

  THE DARLING DAHLIAS AND THE NAKED LADIES

  With her husband, Bill Albert, writing as Robin Paige

  DEATH AT BISHOP’S KEEP DEATH AT EPSOM DOWNS

  DEATH AT GALLOWS GREEN DEATH AT DARTMOOR

  DEATH AT DAISY’S FOLLY DEATH AT GLAMIS CASTLE

  DEATH AT DEVIL’S BRIDGE DEATH IN HYDE PARK

  DEATH AT ROTTINGDEAN DEATH AT BLENHEIM PALACE

  DEATH AT WHITECHAPEL DEATH ON THE LIZARD

  Nonfiction books by Susan Wittig Albert

  WRITING FROM LIFE

  WORK OF HER OWN

  SUSAN

  WITTIG ALBERT

  CAT’S CLAW

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reaction to the recipes contained in this book.

  Copyright © 2012 by Susan Wittig Albert.

  Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  FIRST EDITION: March 2012

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Albert, Susan Wittig.

  Cat’s claw / Susan Wittig Albert.

  p. cm. — (A pecan springs mystery ; 1)

  EISBN: 9781101560655

  1. Bayles, China (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Women police chiefs—Fiction.

  3. Women detectives—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3551.L2637C38 2012

  813’.54—dc23 2011044149

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Bill, always and ever

  partner, lover, husband, best friend

  A Note to the Reader

  When I began the China Bayles mysteries in 1992, I chose to write in China’s voice, in a story-telling mode in which the tale is told by one person, from a single first-person point of view. Over the intervening years (Cat’s Claw is the twentieth book in the series), I’ve found that this choice has sometimes limited the kind of stories I can tell. China Bayles is observant (by nature and because of her legal training), she knows a great deal about a great many things, and she’s always glad to tell us what she knows and what she thinks. But like the rest of us, China views events through a screen of her personal experience and preconceptions, so the story slants strongly toward her likes and dislikes (which readers occasionally confuse with my own). Her stories are necessarily about her.

  As the series has gone on, however, other interesting characters have emerged, together with tantalizing fragments of their stories. And while I like China Bayles very much, I’ve often found that some of these other stories are every bit as interesting as hers. In Wormwood, for instance, part of the mystery is set in 1912 and the characters who lived in the Shaker village during that year tell their part of the story, with the help of journal entries, letters, and newspaper clippings. In Holly Blues, Mike McQuaid tells a story that goes back to the time before he met China, when he was married to Sally, Brian’s mother. Now, in Cat’s Claw, Sheila Dawson takes center stage, and we get a glimpse into the life of Pecan Springs’ female police chief, who not only has a crime to clear and a criminal to bring to justice, but political, professional, and personal conflicts to resolve.

  But this is still China’s series and there will always be plenty of herbs in each of the books: culinary suggestions, craft ideas, history and lore, as well as medicinal information. I probably don’t need to remind you that Cat’s Claw offers fictional entertainment, not a prescription for what ails you. But I’ll say it anyway: before you attempt to treat yourself with any herb that China (or another friend) might happen to mention, do your own due diligence, consult the appropriate professionals, and use common sense. Plant medicine is not one-size-fits-all.

  As usual, I need to thank the writers whose books and articles supplied information for this book. In particular, I would like to mention Connie Fletcher’s Breaking and Entering: Women Cops Break the Code of Silence to Tell Their Stories from the Inside, and Breaking the Brass Ceiling: Women Police Chiefs and Their Path to the Top, by Dorothy Moses Schulz. Both of these books provided valuable insights into the career challenges of women police officers and helped to shape the character of Sheila Dawson and some of the dynamics in the Pecan Springs Police Department. I am also grateful to Rhonda Esakov for her recommendations about police weapons and firepower: Rhonda, you helped to fill in some serious gaps in my knowledge base!

  Thank you, too, to the herbalists and researchers who have compiled the various books and monographs I always rely on for the botanical background for this series, and to China’s many friends around the country who have shared recipes, craft ideas, and gardening information with me. I want esp
ecially to thank the International Herb Association for the Book Award they have bestowed on this series, and to Alice Le Duc for sharing her thoughtful and extensive botanical wisdom. I am also grateful to Martha Meacham, winner of a “cameo character” raffle for the benefit of the Story Circle Network. Martha agreed to appear in this book as a volunteer coordinator of the K-9 Search and Rescue Unit for the Pecan Springs Police Department—a job for which she is very well suited!

  And of course, to Bill Albert, ever and always, dearest friend.

  Susan Wittig Albert

  Bertram, Texas

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Prologue

  Four members of the Texas Star Quilting Club, armed with needles, thread, thimbles, and scissors, were seated on either side of the wooden quilting frame set up in Ethel Wauer’s dining room at 1113 Pecan Street. As usual, the ladies were discussing their friends and neighbors—in this case, Dana and Larry Kirk, who lived two doors west, at 1117 Pecan. Or rather, Larry lived there. Dana had moved out.

  “Well, I for one am sorry to hear that they’re getting a divorce,” Ethel said. The eldest of the group, she had celebrated her eighty-first birthday the month before and wasn’t above claiming the prerogatives of age. She poked her needle through the Double Wedding Ring quilt, which was one of her favorite patterns. Of course, the club could have paid Mrs. Moore, two streets over, to quilt the pieced top on her long-arm sewing machine, which would make short work of it. But while the Texas Stars didn’t agree on everything (on much of anything, as a matter of fact), they agreed that there wouldn’t be any fun in turning the job over to a one-armed mechanical wizard. So they stretched the quilt top and batting and lining over Ethel’s frame and spent several hours each week quilting it by hand.

  Luckily, they were all expert stitchers. That is, none of them put in big, sloppy stitches that had to be surreptitiously taken out after the offending stitcher had gone home. Ethel herself was proud of the fact that she could still see to stitch and that her quilting stitches were every bit as tiny and neat as Hazel Schulz’s, whose eyes were younger by twenty-five-plus years but not nearly as good as hers. The fact that Ethel wore two hearing aids didn’t slow down her stitching in the slightest.

  “The divorce wasn’t much of a surprise, though,” she added astutely. “Not after Mrs. Kirk went and got herself a boyfriend.”

  Jane Jessup peered at her over the tops of her tortoiseshell reading glasses. “I knew she’d moved out, but I had no idea she has a boyfriend. Who is he?” Jane, who was younger than Ethel by five years and three days, lived at 1115 Pecan, between Ethel and the Kirks, and had a big vegetable garden in her backyard, where she grew most of the food she put on her vegetarian table. Of all the Texas Stars, Jane had the greenest thumb—and the bluest hair, arranged in springy curls over her ears. She got it done every Wednesday at Bobby Rae’s House of Beauty, just off the square in downtown Pecan Springs.

  “His name is Glen Vance. He’s her boss at the library.” Ethel leaned across the quilt, her blue eyes sparkling. There was nothing Ethel liked better than a bit of extra-juicy gossip. “But it mustn’t go outside this room, girls. It’s extremely hush-hush. I wouldn’t know it myself, except that my niece’s daughter-in-law works at the library. Mr. Vance and Dana Kirk are plannin’ to get married as soon as she gets her divorce.” Because she was hard of hearing, Ethel spoke very loudly—loud enough to be heard on the front sidewalk, if anybody was out there listening. So much for hush-hush.

  Mildred Ewell sighed. “Well, poor Mr. Kirk is all I’ve got to say.” Mildred, who was on the pudgy side, lived at 1114 Pecan, across the street from Ethel and Jane. She was five years younger than Jane and ten years younger than Ethel, but she was already having trouble with her ankles. “He is such a nice young man, so handsome. And always has a smile.” Mildred frowned down at the fat white poodle that trotted into the room with Mr. Wauer’s well-chewed leather slipper in his mouth. (The slipper had outlived its owner by at least ten years.) “Ethel, I wish you’d put that wretched little dog in the kitchen. You know he doesn’t like me. He has never liked me.”

  As if to prove Mildred’s point, the poodle dropped the slipper, planted his feet, and growled at her.

  Ethel sighed. “I really hate to shut Oodles in the kitchen, Mildred. It makes him feel left out. He loves to be part of the party.” She leaned over, crooning at the dog. “Don’t you, my precious little boy?”

  “Poodles have a long memory, Mildred,” Hazel Schulz remarked. Hazel lived on the other side of the Kirks, at 1119. Of the four Stars gathered around the frame, she was the youngest, at fifty-five. “He remembers when you swatted him on the rear with a newspaper that time you caught him pooping in your iris bed.” She picked up a pair of scissors to clip a thread. “He’s had it in for you ever since.”

  “That’s right, Mildred,” Ethel agreed. “If you’d be nice to Oodles, he’d be nice to you.”

  “That dog doesn’t have a nice bone in his body,” Mildred said fiercely, as Oodles’ growls escalated to a barrage of high-pitched, teeth-bared yaps. “He is a menace to the neighborhood.”

  “Do something, Ethel,” Jane pleaded. “We can’t hear ourselves think with all that noise.”

  With a put-upon sigh, Ethel got up. “Come on, Oodles. You can take your slipper out to play on the front porch.” She unhooked her cane from the back of her chair and started for the door. The dog picked up the slipper and followed her out, casting a baleful glance back over his shoulder at Mildred.

  “Peace at last,” Mildred muttered under her breath. She wiped her perspiring upper lip with a lace-trimmed hanky. “I despise that dog.”

  Jane pushed her tortoiseshell reading glasses up on her nose. “It’s too bad about the Kirks,” she said thoughtfully, going back to the subject. “Mr. Kirk is really very nice. My grandson’s laptop computer got sick with a virus and he came over and disinfected it.”

  “How much did you have to pay him?” Hazel asked. “I hear it costs a lot to get those silly things fumigated, or whatever it is they do to kill the bugs. And even then you can’t be sure they’re all dead.” She paused. “Something like bedbugs, I guess.”

  “I offered to pay,” Jane replied, “but he wouldn’t take it. I know he owns that computer shop and I would’ve been glad to give him a little something for his time.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose and bent over her stitching. “But he said he was just being neighborly.”

  “Well, Larry Kirk may be nice and neighborly, but he’s got a woman friend, too,” Ethel said, coming back into the room. She hung her cane over the back of her chair and sat down at the frame. To Mildred, she added. “I hope you’re satisfied, Mildred. Oodles hates being out there by himself. He’s barking at Mr. Kennedy down the street. He’s out there trimming his hedge.”

  Jane sighed. “That poor hedge. Mr. Kennedy trims it within an inch of its life. Looks like a square green box.”

  “It’s better than being in here, barking at us,” Mildred said, plying her needle firmly. “Really, Ethel, I don’t know how you can stand to live with that constant yap-yap-yap. Such an irritating noise.”

  “It’s easy.” Ethel smiled. “I just turn down my hearing aids.”

  Hazel picked up her scissors and stared at Ethel. “Larry Kirk has a woman friend? Ethel, I don’t believe it! At least, not in the way you mean. He is such a fine, upstanding young man.”

  “What way do you me
an, Ethel?” Jane asked, arching her silvery eyebrows. “Is he sleeping with her?”

  Ethel shrugged. “Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. Whoever this woman is, she always seems to pick the wrong times to drop in. After Mr. Kirk has gone to his shop, I mean. I’ve seen her.” For emphasis, she tapped her thimble sharply against her scissors, once, twice. “Two different times.”

  Keeping track of the comings and goings of her neighbors was Ethel’s favorite hobby—next to quilting, that is. A few of the residents of Pecan Street resented her insistent, intrusive nosiness and wished she would stop. But Ruby Wilcox, who lived next door on the east at 1111, pointed out that Mrs. Wauer was a useful adjunct to the Neighborhood Watch (especially since Oodles the Poodle was on guard as well), and most agreed that Ethel was a nuisance, but well-meaning. And harmless.

  Hazel Schulz was not one of them. “You have been snooping again, Ethel,” she said reproachfully. “That’s not very nice, you know. People have a right to their privacy.”

  Ethel frowned. “Well, I have to wash my dishes, don’t I? And the window over my kitchen sink looks out onto the alley, doesn’t it? I can glance right out my window and see her, sneakin’ down the alley and goin’ through the Kirks’ back gate. In fact, I’d have to shut my eyes to keep from seeing her, Hazel, in spite of the fact that she obviously doesn’t want to be seen, which is why she’s goin’ down the alley in the first place.” She sniffed. “And I don’t know about you, but when I see a black-haired lady walkin’ in her high heels down the alley, I take notice.”

  Jane took her thimble off. “Now that you mention it, I’ve seen her, too, Ethel,” she said thoughtfully. She wiped her fingers on a tissue and put her thimble back on. “Long black hair, straight, stylish, early forties?”

  “That’s the one,” Ethel said, nodding. “A little too much makeup for my taste. And not a happy look on her face.”

  “I didn’t see her in the alley,” Jane said. “But I did see her getting into her car the other day—one of those little foreign cars, Hyundai or something like that. She was parked down at the end of the block, in front of the McNallys’. I asked Mrs. McNally who she was, but she didn’t know. She did say, though, that she’d seen her parked out there a couple of times. Just sitting in the car, like she was waiting for somebody.” Her pause was meaningful. “Now that you’ve told us about her going into Mr. Kirk’s backyard, I’m wondering if she was maybe waiting for him to come home.”