What the Cat Saw

by Carolyn Hart

  Abby spoke sharply. “She didn’t come up here. I don’t know what she did.”

  Friday afternoon?” There was a curious tone in Grace Webster’s throaty voice. Even in a plaid wool shirt and jeans and boots, she reflected high gloss, Western casual at an exorbitant price. “You’re here at Blythe’s direction? That’s interesting.” She looked past Nela, seemed to focus her gaze on the jarring sculpture with its strange components. Grace’s face had the hooded look of a woman studying her cards and not liking the hand she held.

  The silence between them seemed to stretch and expand.

  Nela said quietly, “If you saw Marian—”

  “I didn’t.” Her gaze moved from the sculpture to Nela. “I don’t think we will ever know what happened with the necklace. In any event, it’s now back. Sometimes”—and Nela wasn’t sure whether there was warning or threat in Grace’s eyes—“it’s safer not to know.”

  Pink stained Cole Hamilton’s cheeks. “Things have come to a sad state when Blythe sends an outsider to ask questions. I don’t believe any of this is true about Marian. Whoever took that necklace was just trying to make trouble for the foundation. It’s been one thing after another ever since that girl’s car was set on fire. I know what’s behind that.” His tone was sage. “She was too pretty.” He was emphatic. “Too many pretty girls always causes trouble. I knew when Louise hired that girl that there would be trouble. Not that she didn’t behave herself. But every man here, except those of us who know how to be gentlemen, couldn’t take their eyes off of her. And before we turn around, there’s another pretty girl and this one’s obviously an old friend”—there was more than a hint of innuendo in his tone—“of Hollis’s. Erik knew better than to hire pretty girls. But nothing’s been the same, not since that bumptious young man took over. Why, he’s barely thirty. As for that necklace, no one took it to sell or it wouldn’t still be around. And that pretty young woman may have the brains of a feather but even she wouldn’t be foolish enough to keep the thing in her office. It was just more troublemaking. How would Marian know anything about that? The whole idea’s nonsense. Mark my words, someone took the necklace and put it in Abby’s office to stir up more trouble. And it has, hasn’t it?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “Marian’s fall was an accident and that’s all there is to it.”

  Robbie’s young-old face congealed into a hard, tight mask. “If anyone’s asking questions, it should be me.”

  “Miss Webster said she was sure everyone would cooperate.” Nela stared at him. “Do you object to telling me if you saw Marian that Friday afternoon?”

  His green eyes shifted away, fastened on the penholder on his desk, a red ceramic frog with bulging eyes. “I caught a glimpse of her in the main rotunda that afternoon.” He frowned. “I’d been down in the library. Erik was doing some research. He often comes in the afternoons. I was on my way to the stairs. Back upstairs. Marian came in from the courtyard. She didn’t look as though her thoughts were pleasant. So I walked faster. I didn’t want to talk to her when she was in that kind of mood.”

  “Mood?”

  “I’d seen Marian in her destroyer mode before when something threatened her precious Haklo. I didn’t know what had raised her hackles, but I knew it was a good time to keep my distance.”

  Nela thought he was telling the truth. But was he describing Marian’s demeanor because he was well aware that Rosalind, too, would have seen Marian’s obvious displeasure? Maybe he was telling the truth because he felt he had no choice.

  Nela walked swiftly from Robbie’s office to the stairway. She still needed to speak with Francis Garth and Peter Owens, but she wanted to see the library first. In the library, Nela stopped in the doorway.

  Erik Judd sat at one of the writing tables, papers spread out around him. He had the look of a man whose mind is deeply engaged.

  She glanced from him to a French window opposite the doorway that opened into the courtyard. If he lifted his head, he would have a view of the central portion of the courtyard.

  “Excuse me.”

  He looked up at her, blinked, nodded in recognition. “Miss Farley. How can I help you?”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt you, but may I ask you a question?” Since he no longer worked for the foundation, he was under no compulsion to answer simply because Blythe had authorized Nela to speak to staff. “I’m trying to find out more about Marian’s last afternoon here. I will report what I learn to Blythe Webster.”

  He squinted from beneath his thick silver brows. “I see. Blythe is hoping someone might have information that will be useful to the police. Certainly, I will help if I can.”

  Erik didn’t sound worried. But the mind behind the darkness at Haklo would always keep emotion in check.

  “Mr. Judd, did you see Marian in the courtyard?”

  There was a thoughtful pause. Finally, he spoke. “I had a brief glimpse. I’d been shelving books. When I turned to go back to the table, I saw her.”

  Nela knew one question had been answered. The library door had been open and Erik had glanced outside.

  “She was hurrying up the center path toward the main hall. That’s all I saw. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

  “Hurrying?”

  “Moving with a purpose, I’d say.” He frowned. “I thought something had happened to upset her.”

  Francis Garth’s size made everything in his office seem smaller, the desk, the chairs, even the framed replica of the Seal of the Osage Nation on the wall to his right. Now he stared at Nela, elbows on the bare desktop, heavy chin resting on massive interlaced fingers. He was silent after she finished, his gaze thoughtful. He slowly eased back and the chair squeaked as he shifted his weight. “I don’t think it is wise”—his voice was as heavy as his body—“to draw too many conclusions from a single glimpse of Marian on that Friday.”

  Nela persisted. “Marian Grant came inside the rotunda from the courtyard Friday afternoon and she was visibly upset.”

  Francis stared from beneath thick black brows. “Why?”

  Nela shook her head. “I don’t know. But everyone who saw her after that moment describes her as grim or upset.”

  Francis bent his big head forward. Finally, he lifted his chin. “I don’t lie. But remember that truth can be misleading. I was checking on a matter with Louise, I think it was shortly after three o’clock. When I stepped out into the hall, Marian was coming out of Abby Andrews’s office. She was”—he chose his words carefully—“deeply in thought. She moved past me without speaking.” A pause. “I don’t think she saw me.”

  Peter pushed his horn-rimmed glasses higher on his nose. As Nela finished, he shook his head. “I didn’t see Marian Friday afternoon.” He spoke absently, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

  Nela had done enough interviews to know when some nugget of information was almost within reach. Peter might not know about Friday afternoon. He knew something and was debating whether to speak.

  “If you know anything that could help, please tell me.”

  He took off his glasses. He dangled the frames from one bony hand. “Ever since we found out that somebody killed Marian, I’ve been thinking about everything that’s happened. I don’t know anything about Marian that last Friday, but this fall she did something out of character.”

  Nela scarcely breathed as she listened.

  “It was about a week after the car fire. She knew I was a good friend of a curator at Sam Noble.” He glanced at Nela, almost smiled. “That’s the natural history museum at the University of Oklahoma. You’ll have to drive up and take a look at it one day. Anyway, Marian came in my office and closed the door. She stood in front of my desk and”—he squinted in remembrance—“as clearly as I can remember, she said, ‘Peter, I need a favor.’ I said sure. She said, ‘See if you can get Anne Nesbitt a job offer from Sam Noble. Do it. Don’t ask me why. Don’t ever tell anyone.’ She turned and walked out.” His smile was half wry, half sad. “When Marian said salute”—he slipped on the hor
n rims, lifted his right hand to his forehead—“I saluted.”

  Katie Dugan looked at Steve Flynn quizzically. “If the circumstances were different, I’d say Nela Farley’s a nice woman. She has a nice face. Of course, nice faces don’t mean much when it comes to protecting family.”

  Steve grinned, almost felt carefree. “Katie, that dog won’t hunt. I talked to Nela’s sister. I’ve interviewed everybody from narcissistic, guilt-ridden, emaciated movie stars to nuns who tend to lepers. I won’t say I can’t be fooled, but Chloe Farley is about as likely to be involved in a jewel heist as a kid running a Kool-Aid stand. Ditzy, happy, doesn’t give a damn about appearances or money or status. If you knock out protecting her sister, Nela doesn’t have a ghost of a motive. Right?”

  A small smile touched Dugan’s broad face. “Yeah. And she’s got a cloud of soft black curls and a sensitive face. Man, she’s pulled your string. Quite a change from that elegant blonde you married.”

  “Yeah.” Steve had a funny squeeze in his chest. He couldn’t even picture Gail’s face. All he saw was a finely sculpted face that reflected intelligence and character and a shadow of sadness. He met her two days ago and he’d known her forever.

  Katie reached for the thermos next to her in-box, rustled in a drawer for foam cups. When they each held a cup of strong black coffee, she raised hers in a semitoast. “Okay. Just for the sake of supposing, let’s say your girl’s home free along with ditzy sis. Where do you go from there?”

  “Haklo. What the hell’s wrong out there, Katie? I think there’s been a lot of misdirection.” He spoke slowly, thoughtfully. He had the ability to recall printed material as if he were looking at it, and this morning he’d outlined the start of trouble at the foundation. “Let’s look at what happened in order: the girl’s car set on fire, Indian baskets destroyed, office sprinklers activated, frozen pipes from water running in the courtyard fountain, stolen necklace—”

  Katie interrupted. “Everything besides the necklace is window dressing.”

  Steve spoke carefully. “Just for now, let’s keep it in the line of events, not make it the centerpiece.”

  Katie shrugged. “I get your point. I don’t think I agree, but finish your list.”

  “The necklace is stolen. Then Marian Grant dies in a fall apparently caused by a skateboard, Nela Farley disrupts a search of Marian’s apartment, Nela finds the necklace in Marian’s purse, Marian’s office is trashed, obscene letters on a Haklo letterhead are traced to Abby Andrews’s computer, Nela leaves the necklace on Blythe Webster’s desk, the necklace is missing Tuesday morning, an anonymous call”—he refused to worry now about Nela’s source and his complicity—“links Grant’s fall to a skateboard, Abby Andrews is missing a skateboard, another anonymous letter leads to the necklace hidden in Abby’s office, skateboard used on Marian’s stairs found in Abby’s cabin.” He paused to give Katie time to object but she remained silent, which he took as a tacit admission that the skateboard found in the second search at Haklo had matched the scrape on the rail of Marian’s steps.

  Katie sipped her coffee. “Hate to say been there, done that. I know all of this.”

  “What’s the constant?”

  She raised an inquiring eyebrow.

  “Trouble at Haklo.” At her impatient look, he barreled ahead. “All along, Katie, you’ve pitched on the necklace as the only thing that matters and, yeah, a quarter million dollars barks pretty loud. But think about the scenario. A lot of things happened before the necklace disappeared. You pitched on the idea that Chloe Farley set the girl’s car on fire to scare her away and, after she got the job and had been there long enough to know about Blythe’s carelessness with the necklace, Chloe decided to steal it and committed vandalism to make it appear that the necklace wasn’t the objective. But if we wash out Chloe—”

  Katie moved restively. “I’ve been a cop in this town for a long time. Haklo never had any problems ’til these new people came to town. Maybe Chloe Farley’s not the perp. Maybe Abby Andrews planned everything. Sure, she’s supposed to be sappy about the new director, but maybe she’s sappier about a quarter million dollars. Plus every time we look, we find a link to her. But maybe she’s not a dumb blonde. Maybe she figured she might be suspected so she set it up to look like she might be behind everything but there’s always an out, somebody else could have used her computer, somebody took her skateboard, somebody sent an anonymous letter tagging her with the necklace. A double game.”

  “And she’s lucky enough to go in Blythe’s office and find the necklace lying on top of the desk?”

  Katie wasn’t fazed. “Somebody found it. Somebody moved it. Top of the list, Nela Farley and Blythe Webster. Probably Louise Spear. I’ll bet she’s in and out of the trustee’s office a dozen times a day. As for Abby Andrews, if she’s behind everything that’s happened at Haklo, she’d be nervous about anybody showing up there after hours, like your girlfriend coming in the back way Monday night. Abby lives in a Haklo cabin. Maybe she saw headlights. Maybe she came out to take a look. Maybe she saw you waiting by the staff entrance and stayed to watch. She would have overheard every word. When you and Nela went inside, she followed. If she stayed out of the way, you two would never have seen her. But if she wasn’t there, didn’t take the necklace, it could have been anybody the next morning. People pop in and out of offices all the time. Somebody came to ask a question, do a tap dance, announce the end of the world. Hell, I don’t know. But it all comes back to the fact that nothing like this ever happened until these new people came to town.”

  A quicksilver thought threaded through Steve’s mind, was there for an instant, then gone…Not until the new people came to town…

  Nela wished she’d taken time to pluck Chloe’s coat from the rack in her office, but once outside in the courtyard, she shivered and kept going, looking from side to side. In spring, the courtyard would be magnificent. Flower beds bordered the walks. Benches surrounded a fountain. Even in winter it might have had an austere charm except for the back hoe and stacked copper pipe near the damaged fountain.

  Nela reached the center of the courtyard, made a slow survey. Windows in the west and east halls overlooked the yard. Marian Grant could have chosen a place anywhere here for her moment of peace and poetry. However, when she came back into the rotunda, she had turned, her face set, and moved decisively toward the west wing.

  Nela walked past the west wing windows, noting Louise’s office, then Chloe’s. Francis Garth saw Marian leaving Abby’s office. She continued another ten steps. Bare yellow fronds of a weeping willow wavered in the wind that swirled around Nela, scudded withered leaves across the paved walk. Nela reached out to touch the back of a wrought iron bench, yanked back her fingers from the cold metal. The bench was turned at a bit of an angle. Someone sitting there had a clear view into the west hallway and, through the open door, into the interior of a small office. Abby’s office. The desk faced the doorway.

  Nela shivered again, both from cold and from a touch of horror. She knew as surely as if she’d sat beside Marian Grant that she’d lifted her eyes from her book and watched as someone stepped inside Abby’s office.

  Nela took a half-dozen quick steps, peered inside the window. Her gaze fastened on Abby’s desk.

  She looked and knew what had happened. Someone known to Marian had walked into Abby’s office. Perhaps Marian had been surprised enough by the identity of the visitor to continue to watch. It seemed obvious that the visitor pulled the necklace from a pocket and placed it either in the desk or a filing cabinet. Wherever the necklace was put, Nela didn’t doubt that a shaken Marian understood what was happening. She knew the theft was intended to implicate Abby and she knew the identity of the thief. She now had it in her power to protect her beloved Haklo.

  Katie Dugan raised an eyebrow at caller ID. She lifted the receiver. “Dugan…Yeah?…Hold on.” She covered the mouthpiece. “Blythe Webster’s on speakerphone with Nela Farley. Apparently your girlfriend’s been busy. Blythe w
ants me to hear what she found out. Since Nela will give you the lowdown anyway, I’m going to turn on my speakerphone. But you aren’t here.” With that, she punched. “Okay, Miss Farley, what have you got?”

  Steve heard more than the sound of Nela’s voice. It was as if she were in Katie’s impersonal, businesslike office, looking at him with those bright, dark eyes that held depths of feeling that he wanted to understand and share. As she recounted her passage through Haklo, he gave a mental fist pump. Good going, good reporting. He made quick, cogent notes:

  Rosalind McNeil pinpointed a change in Marian Grant’s demeanor to her sojourn in the courtyard Friday afternoon. When Marian came back inside, she walked toward the west wing.

  Louise Spear, worried and upset, focused on the necklace’s discovery in Abby’s filing cabinet.

  Abby Andrews claimed she was upstairs in the laboratory and didn’t see Marian.

  Grace Webster said it might be safer not to pursue the truth about the necklace.

  Cole Hamilton dismissed the idea of murder and linked the car fire and incidents around Abby to the presence of pretty young women. He said too many pretty girls always causes trouble.

  Robbie Powell confirmed Marian’s distraught demeanor as she walked toward the west hall.

  Erik Judd claimed he caught only a glimpse of Marian.

  Francis Garth saw Marian coming out of Abby Andrews’s office.

  Peter Owens claimed he didn’t see Marian Friday. He revealed that, after the car fire, Marian asked him to arrange a job offer for Anne Nesbitt in Norman.

  He and Katie listened intently as Nela continued, “I went into the courtyard. It was a pretty day that Friday and Marian went outside with her book of poetry. Not like today.”

  Steve knew the bricked area must have been cold and deserted this afternoon. There was a memory of that cold in Nela’s voice.

  “A bench on the west side has a good view of Abby’s office. I think Marian saw someone walk into the office and hide the necklace. And then”—Nela’s voice was thin—“I think Marian came inside and went to the office and got the necklace.”