Escape Claws

by Linda Reilly

  “Should I…sleep in my old room?” Lara asked.

  “Of course. There are fresh sheets in the linen closet upstairs. If you don’t mind, I’ll let you put them on yourself.”

  Lara smiled. “Not a problem.”

  After ensuring that her aunt had made it safely to her room, Lara fetched her suitcase from her rental car.

  Right after they’d eaten dinner Lara had scooped the litter boxes, so they should be all set for the night. After checking to be sure all the lights were off, except for a night light turned on in every room, she made certain the cats had food and fresh water and that the doors were securely locked. Tomorrow she would assess what else needed to be done, and try to come up with a game plan.

  “If you leave your bedroom door open,” Aunt Fran said, “you’ll no doubt have some furry friends join you in the night.”

  Lara grinned. “If they’re feline friends, they’re more than welcome.” It’d been years since she’d slept with a cat snuggled beside her. Her mother never let her have a cat, and her landlady refused to allow an animal in the studio apartment Lara leased from her. Gabriela, immaculate to a fault, imagined cat hairs floating magically through the air vents and into the bakery, landing on all of her baked goods.

  “Maybe Blue will reappear, if that was Blue,” Lara said pensively. “More likely it was one of her descendants.”

  Aunt Fran’s brow furrowed. “Lara, I don’t have a Ragdoll cat. Are you sure that wasn’t Bootsie? She’s mostly gray fluff, but has blackish ears.”

  Lara was already shaking her head. She didn’t want to argue, but she was sure. Well, almost sure.

  “You could be right, Aunt Fran. Don’t worry about it.” She leaned over and placed a kiss on her aunt’s cheek. “I’m glad I came up here today. Thanks for letting me stay.”

  The room she used to sleep in had barely changed at all. The wallpaper, emblazoned with clusters of lilacs, was in good shape except for a few tiny spots where it had peeled. Lara wondered if she could repair those sections with small dots of glue. The fuzzy rug next to the single bed looked as thick and cozy as ever. The maple bed, which had a bookshelf-style headboard, was covered in the same ivory chenille spread she remembered.

  In the morning, she’d throw open the windows and give the room a good airing out. For tonight, she’d settle for a hot shower, after which she planned to slip under the covers and sleep like the dead.

  She located a set of sheets in the linen closet and quickly made up her bed. Then she pulled off her funky parrot earrings and dropped them onto the maple dresser. After shedding her jeans and paisley knit pullover, she took the world’s fastest shower, then wrapped herself in a terry cloth bath towel and scooted back to her room. She giggled when she saw Izzy and Pickles, the two calico sibs, curled around each other atop the bedspread. Izzy glanced up at her as if to say, “What took you so long?” She unzipped her suitcase and dug out her favorite sleep tee, the one imprinted with a repro of Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone.

  The cats stirred when she slipped under the covers. They rearranged themselves, one against her leg and one pressed to her shoulder, and revved up their engines. Their purring sound was soothing, like the calm whisper of a surf. Almost immediately Lara drifted off.

  It seemed that only minutes later Lara jerked upright. Something outside had awakened her—a searing cry, followed by the sound of raised voices. Careful not to dislodge a cat, she swiveled her legs off the bed and padded to the window. She lifted one of the blinds and peeked into the yard. The old shed was still there, hunkered at the rear of the property. In the vacant field below the hill, she thought she spied the quick flash of a light. But after an instant it disappeared, and then, only darkness.

  “I’m definitely going crazy,” Lara mumbled to the cats. They graciously allowed her back into the bed, and after that she slept.

  A short time later, a second noise awakened her. A muffled cry that seemed to come from the far edge of the meadow.

  Lara leaped out from under the covers and dashed to the window. A lone figure was standing near the shed, her outline unmistakable.

  Aunt Fran.

  Lara gulped back a lump of surprise. Should she run out and see if something was wrong? Or would that make it look as if she’d been spying?

  She hesitated, then watched her aunt move slowly along the rear walkway, aided by her four-pronged cane. Aunt Fran didn’t appear to be in any distress. She was making her way back toward the house without any difficulty, as if it were a ritual she performed every night.

  With a sigh of relief, Lara slid back under the covers. After a few minutes, more sounds floated into earshot. This time they were faint thumping noises, coming from her aunt’s room. Almost as if Aunt Fran were shifting things around.

  Those were the last sounds Lara heard. She didn’t awaken until the first trickle of daylight was squeezing through the blinds.

  A paw batting at her nose awakened Lara. She squinted at the clock—only six fifteen. Half-asleep, she grinned at the perpetrator—Izzy. The calico cat balanced on her chest while Pickles chewed on a strand of her tangled hair.

  Although she was tempted to sleep half the morning, Lara hauled herself out of bed. The room felt chilly. She gave her arms a brisk rub. After a quick trip to the bathroom, she threw on her jeans, topping them with the multicolored cowl-neck sweater she’d scored for a fiver on eBay.

  Lara headed downstairs and immediately turned up the thermostat. She felt sure her aunt wouldn’t mind, especially since the cats needed to stay warm.

  In the kitchen, furry felines danced around her legs in a parade of tails that made her grin. Twinkles, the orange-striped tiger, reached up with one adorable paw as if to say, “Feed me first!”

  “I know, I know, you’re all starving.” Lara gently peeled Izzy off her thigh, then pulled cat food cans and kibble out of the cupboard. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty for everyone.”

  She made quick work of popping open cans and pouring dry food. Callie and Luna approached the bowls with hesitation, but eventually hunger won out. They began scarfing down wet kitten food as if they hadn’t eaten in a week. Only Ballou, the feral cat who hadn’t yet made an appearance, was missing. Lara hoped he might join the others if she made herself scarce.

  After scooping the litter boxes and wrapping up the trash, Lara headed outside through the kitchen door. The sun sat slightly above the horizon, blinking with the promise of a bright day. The air was crisp with the intoxicating scent of autumn—wet leaves, smoke, and apples. She sucked in deep, cleansing breaths, expelling the lingering smells from the house.

  Lara ambled around the backyard, her feet kicking up scads of leaves from her aunt’s shedding maple. She’d missed this place. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much.

  The old shed, once white with green trim like the house, was in sore need of a paint job. Propped against the front of the shed were two bulging burlap sacks. Were those the tulip bulbs Aunt Fran had mentioned? On the side facing the vacant lot, a steel tool rack had been bolted to the shed wall. A row of garden tools hung from its hooks.

  She grinned when her gaze landed on her favorite spot. At the edge of the yard, about ten feet from the crest of the hill, sat a huge stone. About six feet tall, it was roughly shaped like a curved hand. Lara used to nestle inside that curve with her pad and pencils and sketch to her heart’s content.

  Feeling like a kid, she dropped down to the grass and pressed her back against the rock. It cupped her with its hard edges, not quite fitting the way it used to. The ground felt cold and uneven. Almost immediately, she hopped to her feet and laughed. I guess I’m getting old, she thought, smirking to herself. She brushed her posterior with her hands to get rid of any stray dirt.

  Hugging herself against the morning chill, Lara strolled toward the top of the hill and looked out over the landscape. A light wind lifted the ends of her hair. In the meadow below, behind the town park, the field grasses tilted in the breeze. How many wi
nters had she sledded on this hill, gliding down the snowy slope on her aunt’s ancient Flexible Flyer? This was the parcel of land, she realized, that Theo Barnes had been pressuring her aunt to sell.

  From where she stood, the block that housed Sherry’s coffee shop was visible. Across the street from that was the town library, a one-story red brick affair that looked as if it hadn’t changed in decades. Another old building squatted next to the library. With its dreary gray shingles and shallow front steps, it had all the trappings of an ugly apartment house.

  A sudden flurry of movement in the meadow caught Lara’s attention. It was an animal on the prowl, sleek and stealthy, and—

  Lara took in a quick breath.

  It was Blue, stalking through the field toward the base of the hill, her aquamarine eyes seemingly fixed on Lara.

  “Blue,” she called softly to the cat. “Come here, sweet kitty.”

  The cat continued moving but then shot off through the tall grass, heading in the direction of the brook.

  Lara scuttled down the hill as quickly as she could, determined to catch up with the elusive feline. The cat was trotting through the grassy field as if on a mission. Lara was so focused on keeping Blue in her line of vision that she didn’t notice the jutting rock embedded in the ground. It caught the toe of her boot. In the next instant she pitched forward, her arms flailing in a clumsy attempt to break her fall. She tumbled to the ground, skidding on her stomach, almost to the bottom of the hill.

  For a moment Lara lay there, her breath coming in sharp gasps. She rolled over and sat up, groaning as she tested her limbs. Everything worked, although the palm of her right hand was scraped and sore.

  After tossing a few colorful curses at the rock that had betrayed her, she hauled herself to her feet and began brushing dirt and grass from her hands and sweater. She slapped at her jeans to dislodge the clinging bits of dirt and grass. She hoped Aunt Fran’s washing machine was in good working condition. At the rate she was going, she’d be running a load through very soon.

  One last time, Lara glanced around for any sign of Blue, but the cat was MIA. By now Aunt Fran was probably awake and wondering where she’d disappeared to. She felt her stomach rumble. It was time she made breakfast for the two of them.

  Lara turned to start back up the hill when something caught her eye—a swatch of red, maybe thirty feet away, that she hadn’t noticed before. Whatever it was, it was lying behind the granite bench at the rear of the town’s property. Had someone left an old blanket there? Could it be something that belonged to Aunt Fran?

  She moved gingerly toward the red lump. A weird chill crept up her spine. Nothing in the meadow had ever frightened her before, but now she felt oddly afraid.

  Lara halted abruptly in her tracks.

  It wasn’t a blanket, as she’d first thought. It was a jacket—a red-and-black-checkered jacket.

  A jacket still worn by its very dead owner, Theo Barnes.

  Chapter 4

  Lara sipped from a steaming mug of mint tea, her brain still trying to delete the vision of Theo Barnes’s bloodied head.

  “I need you to focus, Ms. Caphart.” Chief Jerry Whitley’s gruff tone made her jump a little. He sat at her aunt’s kitchen table, adjacent to where Lara was hunkered in one of the padded chrome chairs. “You still haven’t explained why you touched the deceased’s body if you already knew he was dead.”

  Stay calm. Don’t get rattled, Lara told herself. “I’m sorry, Chief Whitley, but you’re wrong. I did explain it, at least three times.” She couldn’t help getting touchy, even if it did cast a shadow of suspicion on her. Why did he keep asking the same question? Was he trying to get her to change her story? Entrap her into confessing?

  “I could tell he was dead,” she said evenly, “because his head was facing sideways. I saw his eyes. They were—” She swallowed hard. They were dead eyes, she wanted to say. “They were open and staring. It didn’t look, you know, natural. And yet—in case I was wrong, I wanted to see if there was any sign of life.”

  A hand the size of a catcher’s mitt flipped to a new page in a tattered blue notebook. “So you went over to the victim and pressed a finger…?” The chief pulled off his cheaters and imitated the gesture, placing one thick finger at his own throat. “A finger to the victim’s carotid artery? Why not two fingers?”

  Lara felt like snatching up his blue notebook and drop-kicking it into the next room. First of all, she didn’t want to admit that she had a phobia about dead bodies. The one time she’d had to attend a wake, she’d stayed in the back of the room, as far from the casket as she could manage. “Listen, Chief Whitley, maybe they use two fingers on TV, but I’m not a medical professional. I didn’t want to touch him any more than I had to. What difference does it make how many fingers I used?”

  The chief regarded her for a long moment, and then, “And you’re sure you didn’t move the murder weapon? Maybe set it aside to get a closer look at the victim?”

  Okay, now he was trying to trick her. “As I’ve said several times, I did not see a murder weapon. I do not know what the murder weapon was, nor do I know how the poor man died. I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that to you professionals to determine.” She looked him straight in the eye, but he only stared right back with a granite gaze.

  “This is ridiculous, Jerry,” Aunt Fran interjected. “Lara didn’t even know Theo. I’ll thank you to stop badgering my niece right now.” Her tone was more bluster than bite, but it seemed to work its magic.

  Whitley closed his notebook with an audible snap. “That’s all I need for now, Ms. Caphart. You’ll no doubt be hearing from us again. And while I don’t have any right to detain you, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t leave town. Not without contacting us first.” He scraped back his chair and rose, shifting his attention to Aunt Fran. “The state crime scene techs will be sectioning off a big chunk of your property, Fran. No one is to cross those lines. Not for any reason.”

  Aunt Fran nodded. “We understand.”

  The sound of a vehicle turning around at the end of High Cliff Road caught Lara’s attention. Through the kitchen window, she spied the Carroll County medical examiner’s white van. It cruised slowly past the house, heading toward the main drag.

  Aunt Fran sagged in her chair after the chief left. “Oh, Lara, how did this happen? Who could have done such an awful thing?”

  Lara couldn’t help shooting a glance at her aunt’s cane, which was propped against the table between them. One of the prongs was coated in dirt—dirt that had apparently dried overnight. Why had Aunt Fran gone outside last night? Was it before or after Barnes had been killed?

  “I don’t know, Aunt Fran. The police will have to figure that out. Do you think you can swallow a little breakfast? I thought I’d make us some oatmeal.”

  “That sounds good,” she said. “There’s a package of English muffins in the freezer. You can thaw a few, if you’d like.”

  Lara went through the motions of preparing breakfast, but her appetite had taken a direct hit. Her discovery of Barnes’s body was giving her stomach a bad case of the jitters.

  Aunt Fran sat quietly, a distant look in her eyes. The worry lines etched on her face seemed even deeper this morning.

  After splitting an English muffin with her aunt and gulping back a few spoonfuls of oatmeal, Lara went to work scooping and freshening the litter boxes. She persuaded Aunt Fran to rest in her room while she vacuumed through the downstairs. Blue had yet to reappear, but Izzy and Pickles—the only cats who hadn’t fled at the sound of the vacuum—had a grand old time wrestling with the hose as it wound around the edges of the furniture. Their antics lifted Lara’s spirits a bit. When she was through, she gave them each a sound kiss on their respective snouts. She then hunted down a new vacuum-cleaner bag. She felt sure that the current one was now packed with forty or fifty pounds of cat hair.

  Lara was pulling a vacuum-cleaner bag out of the walk-in supply closet when she spied a new feline face watching her fr
om the doorway. His coat was shiny and black, and his perfectly symmetrical white mustache gave him a slightly comical look. The tip of his right ear was missing.

  Lara grinned. “I know who you are,” she said in a soft, singsong voice. “You’re Ballou, aren’t you.”

  The cat’s eyes widened. For a moment Lara thought he would bolt. When he stayed put, she very slowly reached out a hand to him. Ballou dipped his head toward her outstretched fingers, but his paws stayed rooted in place.

  A sudden noise above Lara’s head startled them both. Ballou turned and fled with the speed of a jet.

  Lara dropped everything and raced upstairs, terrified that her aunt might have fallen. She dashed toward her aunt’s room, the door to which was open. Lara rushed in and found Aunt Fran sitting on the edge of her bed, her head in her hands.

  “What’s wrong, Aunt Fran? Are you hurt?” Lara slipped an arm around her aunt’s thin shoulders.

  “No, I… I’m fine,” her aunt said, her face suddenly flushed. “I was trying to reach a box in the back of my closet, but my arm wasn’t quite long enough and the silly thing tipped over.”

  Lara glanced over at her aunt’s closet. The door was wide open. A gold-speckled box had toppled to the closet floor, spilling part of its contents. Lara went over and started to scoop up the envelopes that had fallen from the box.

  “Wait! I’ll get those,” Aunt Fran said, waving her hands urgently. “Leave them right where they are, Lara.”

  Lara stopped short at her aunt’s sharp tone, her hand inches from an envelope she was sure she’d seen her own name on. Had she detected a hint of panic in her aunt’s voice? Slowly, she got to her feet. “Um, sorry, Aunt Fran. I was only trying to help.”

  Her aunt looked pained. “I know you were, Lara. But there are some things I need to do myself.” She smiled, her green eyes glistening. “Listen, you’ve had a rough morning. Why don’t you take a break and go to the coffee shop to visit with Sherry? I know she’d love to see you.”