Escape Claws

by Linda Reilly

  Dora stuttered backward as if she’d been slapped. She quickly regained her balance and shook her head. “No, you don’t get it. I— Theo and I had always been friends. Good friends. Don’t you see? Those little comments meant nothing. He was teasing, that’s all.”

  Her mind is flip-flopping all over the place.

  Lara’s hand inched toward the Pickwick book. “Is that why you drew these horrible pictures in here? Because he teased you?”

  A single tear trailed down Dora’s cheek. She gave a childlike shake of her head. “No. That…that day, when I drew those things—it was the day I saw him kissing that witch who works at the library. They thought no one saw them, but I did. They were making out like teenagers in the periodical room.” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could see it in her mind. “I wanted to rip her face off, but I kept my cool and ran out of the building. I knew Theo didn’t care about her. He was only toying with her until we could get married.” Another tear flowed down her cheek.

  She’s delusional, Lara thought.

  And then, as if a switch had been flipped, Dora began to laugh—a sound that made Lara’s limbs turn numb.

  “You really don’t get how clever I was. That night, when I tricked Theo into meeting me, I’d already taken your aunt’s hoe from the shed and laid it under the bench. I knew that if it came to it, I’d have no problem killing him. If the police found the hoe, they’d blame it on Fran. One way or the other, I’d win. He’d either agree to marry me, or he’d die. Don’t you see, Lara? He made the choice himself.”

  Lara clutched her stomach, willing herself not to heave. Dora was insane. How had no one ever seen it?

  “Nobody won, Dora. Can’t you get that? A life was taken for nothing.”

  Dora acted as if she hadn’t heard. “When Theo started to leave that night, he laughed and said I’d been aptly named, that I was a ‘dumb Dora.’ I…I got so angry. He started to walk behind the bench to go to where he’d parked his car on the street. I— I grabbed the hoe from under the bench and slammed it on the back of his head. Bam! He went down like a rock—never knew what hit him.”

  Lara flinched.

  “Too graphic for you?” Dora taunted. “Afterward, I hung the hoe back where I’d found it in the shed. It wasn’t until the next morning I realized I’d made a mistake. I hadn’t wiped my prints off the handle.”

  “Hence the ruse about wanting to help my aunt plant her bulbs.”

  Dora laughed. “Exactly. In case the police found it, I had to come up with a reason why my prints were on that hoe. That’s why I recruited that silly girl to do some planting with me. I knew she’d jump at the chance to help Fran.”

  Lara stifled a gag. It sickened her to think of Brooke having been anywhere near Dora.

  Dora looked down at Lara as if she were a worm. “Now that I’ve got the police believing Glen was the killer, I have to get rid of you. I can’t have you hanging around to screw things up for me.”

  Glen? Oh God—not him, too.

  Dora took a step closer and kicked the Pickwick book. “You were going to turn this in to the cops, weren’t you? To show them how crazy I am.”

  In a voice that rattled, Lara said, “What happened, Dora? Did Glen see you that night?”

  Dora stared out over the park, as if reliving it in her head. “Unfortunately for him, yes. Theo had evicted him, so he was living in his car in the library parking lot. Apparently he’d gone into the park to, shall we say, use the facilities? He’d just finished when he saw me crossing through the park to get to my car.”

  And the next morning Lara had discovered Theo’s body.

  “He could put you at the scene,” Lara said tonelessly. “I’m surprised you waited as long as you did to…get rid of him.”

  “I had a private little chat with Glen the next morning. I assured him I would take care of his needs, even hinted I might let him have a room in my house if he promised to keep it clean.” She laughed. “As if.”

  Dora’s eyes took on a mad sheen. “It was almost too easy. I brought him a coffee and a sub sandwich after the downtown shops had closed. No one was around. His car was behind the library. I still had a full bottle of my sister’s meds—she died years ago from heart disease. I knew Glen took something similar for his heart, so I simply added it all to the coffee. I wore gloves, of course. It was brilliant, when you think about it. He never saw the confession I wrote on the napkin. I brought it with me and slipped it under the front seat.”

  Her limbs stiff and tingling, Lara pulled up her knees and started to rise. She couldn’t sit there any longer and allow herself to be slaughtered.

  “Don’t you dare move,” Dora hissed, waving the knife at her. “It’ll be easier to dispose of you if you’re sitting on the grass.”

  Lara shot her gaze toward the house. She didn’t dare scream. If Dora caught Aunt Fran looking out the window, she’d no doubt kill her, too. Even if her aunt called 9-1-1, they might not get there in time.

  She sat down again, her legs bent slightly at the knees. “Dora, I feel so bad about all this.” Determined to keep Dora talking, Lara shook her head with as much fake pity as she could dredge up. “I can see you’ve gone through some tough times. You didn’t deserve all the bad luck you’ve had.”

  Dora looked uncertain. “Don’t pretend you feel sorry for me. That makes me very angry.”

  An icy knob of fear settled inside Lara’s chest. “Okay, I’m sorry. But I can’t help thinking what a lousy hand you were dealt. I mean, your mom died when you were young, and then you lost your dad and your sister. I can’t imagine how devastating that must have been.”

  Dora’s lip curled into a snarl. “My sister was a self-righteous prude, always tattling on me to Daddy for every stupid thing. From the time we were kids, he loved her more than he loved me. You think I care that she’s dead?”

  Any hope Lara had for reasoning with Dora fizzled. The woman was deranged and had been for a long time. She hadn’t acted only in community theater. Her entire persona as a sweet but eccentric middle-aged woman with a debilitating injury had been a clever and convincing performance.

  Dora’s right arm twitched again, and she brandished the knife. “This time I’ll remember to wipe off my prints,” she said, a maniacal glint in her eyes. She moved toward Lara. “You have about ten seconds to say a final prayer, Lara. Better make it a—”

  A flash of fur suddenly leaped out from behind Lara. With the speed of a rocket, Blue launched herself at Dora, her claws sinking into the woman’s horrified face. Dora reeled backward, her feet scrabbling to keep purchase on the ground.

  Momentarily frozen, Lara stared in shock. Then the knife flew out of Dora’s hand, and Lara jumped up off the grass and kicked it away. From somewhere near the house, Lara thought she heard someone shouting her name.

  Dora’s screams ripped through the air, shrill enough to make Lara’s ears hurt. “Help me—something’s attacking me! Please…get it off me!” She raked her fingers over the cat as if an army of wasps were stinging her.

  Footsteps clomping across the yard echoed in Lara’s ears. In the next instant, Blue sprang off Dora and vanished into the meadow.

  In a heartbeat, Lara was on Dora, shoving her backward onto the ground. She dropped onto Dora’s abdomen with a thud, pinning her with her weight. Too spent to do more than wriggle her arms, Dora flung out a string of obscenities.

  “Lara!”

  The sound of her name made Lara whip her head around toward the house. She sagged with relief when she saw Chief Whitley and one of his officers sprinting in her direction.

  “You okay, Lara?” the chief said, his brow furrowed with concern. He dropped onto one knee next to Dora and produced a pair of handcuffs.

  The other officer placed a pair of powerful hands under Lara’s arms and lifted her firmly but gently off Dora. He set her carefully on the grass.

  “Yes, I… I think so,” she said, a sob escaping her. She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Dora tried
to kill me with a knife. She killed Theo and Glen.”

  “She lying!” Dora bellowed, her face scratched and bleeding. “She used voodoo on me. She’s a witch! She’s a killer.”

  Whitley looked at Lara and shook his head. “Stay still, Dora. Your face is all scratched and bloody. We’re gonna take you to get checked out, but then we’re arresting you. I’m going to read you your rights now, so be quiet.”

  He issued the standard Miranda warning, Dora injecting a filth-laced comment at every pause.

  “She did it!” Dora looked at Lara with pure hatred swirling in her gaze. “She played some kind of trick on me. I’m telling you, she’s a witch!”

  The truth struck Lara hard in the chest.

  Dora never saw Blue. She felt her weight and she felt her claws, but she never saw her.

  Whitley looked at Lara with an odd expression. It wasn’t hard to read his thoughts. We get it. She’s nuts.

  “Lara!”

  This time it was her aunt calling to her. Aunt Fran was hobbling across the lawn toward them, her cane smacking the ground with each hurried step.

  Lara raced to her and threw her arms around her. She squeezed her aunt harder than she had since was eleven years old.

  Aunt Fran pressed a shaky hand to Lara’s cheek. Her thin form quaked. “Thank God I saw you out here in time. I was upstairs reading when my geranium pot suddenly flew out of the alcove and shattered on the floor. I was so shocked I went to pick it up, and that’s when I looked out the window. I guess you had a guardian angel looking out for you.”

  I did, she wanted to say. A feline guardian angel.

  “It’s okay, Aunt Fran. I’m fine now.”

  And she really was.

  She was finer than she’d been in a very long time.

  Chapter 30

  “For the love of all that is holy, Fran, will you get this cat off my neck?”

  Sitting adjacent to Chief Whitley at her kitchen table, Aunt Fran gave out an amused chuckle. “Lilybee obviously likes you, Jerry. Otherwise she wouldn’t be chewing on your shirt collar.”

  With one large hand, the chief of police peeled the kitten gently off his shoulder. “Here. Go to your mom. I’ll bet she has some nice tuna fish or something she can feed you.” He handed Lilybee to Fran, who promptly set the kitten on her lap and stroked her white fur.

  Lara giggled. She’d been doing a lot of that since the pall of murder had been lifted.

  Three days had passed since the police had hauled a screaming Dora into the squad car and charged her with the murders of Theo Barnes and Glen Usher. Lara cringed every time she recalled Dora’s bloodied face.

  While it wasn’t for public consumption, the chief had confided to her and Aunt Fran that the deep scratches on Dora’s face had been self-inflicted, as evidenced by her bloody fingernails. It was one more sign in a long list of indicators that Dora had been mentally unstable.

  The chief filled them in on a few things. “That day, when you called nine-one-one, Fran, I was actually on my way up here to see you. We’d started going through the contents of Theo’s house—cleaning up loose ends and the like. The note you wrote asking him to meet you that night was tucked into one of his desk drawers.”

  Aunt Fran looked flummoxed. “But I never wrote Theo a note.”

  “We know that now. But at the time, it sure didn’t look good. I hate to admit this, but I was dragging my feet coming here to ask you about it. The last thing I wanted to do was take you down to the station for questioning.” He shot a wary look at Munster, who’d emerged from the large parlor and was ambling straight toward him. Whitley held up a large hand as a barrier.

  “Your call came in right about then,” the chief continued. “Strange timing, huh? I still can’t get over how odd it was.”

  “Strange, but very lucky,” Aunt Fran said.

  “When I got here and saw Dora raking the skin off her face—” He shook his head. “I gotta say, I’ve never seen anything like it. I know it’s late in the season, but…did you see a bee or a wasp go after her, Lara? Something that would’ve made her dig into her face like that?”

  “No, nothing like that.” Lara willed herself not to squirm in her chair. “But her mind was ricocheting all over the place. One minute she hated Theo, and then the next she wanted to marry him. What do you think’s going to happen to her, Chief?”

  “Right now, she’s undergoing a psych eval.” The lines in the chief’s forehead deepened. “My guess? She’ll be found competent to stand trial. I don’t think Dora will be seeing the light of day any time soon.”

  Lara felt her throat tighten. “It’s such a waste. She did it all to herself, that’s the sad part. She was her own worst enemy.”

  “She was a good actress, I’ll give her that,” Whitley said. “I’ll give you another little tidbit, but it’s not to leave this room. Dora has already scored fairly high on the narcissistic personality chart.”

  That didn’t surprise Lara, but her aunt was looking pale.

  “I guess I was oblivious,” Aunt Fran said. “I’d known her so long that I’d thought of her as eccentric, but not dangerous.”

  “That’s because you look for the best in everyone, Fran. You always have. It’s one of the things I—” Whitley’s face reddened, and he gave her a crooked grin. “Well, you know what I mean.” He reached over and covered her thin hand with his huge mitt.

  Lara saw a warm glow spread over her aunt’s face.

  I knew it!

  Outside, a car door slammed.

  The chief quickly withdrew his hand. “That must be Chris.”

  Moments later, Chris Newman’s face peeked through the screen door. “Morning, everyone,” he said when Lara opened the door. She let him in, but said nothing. She couldn’t help noticing that he avoided eye contact with her aunt.

  She nodded at the chair she’d dubbed the hot seat. “Coffee?”

  “No thanks, Lara. I came here to confess something, Mrs. Clarkson. Otherwise I won’t be able to live with myself. It was me who pulled up that boundary marker in your field. I tried to, anyway. Let me tell you, when the surveyors plant those things, they want them to stay put.” He attempted a chuckle, but it came out like a mangled hiccup.

  Disappointment flickered in Aunt Fran’s eyes. “Did Theo ask you to do it?”

  “He did. I won’t tell you why because I’m ashamed to talk about it, but Lara knows a little bit about it. Anyway, I’m willing to pay to have the boundary marker reset.”

  Lara was beginning to pity the man. He’d actually gone pink with embarrassment.

  “I’m not concerned with the boundary marker,” Aunt Fran said. She flicked a furtive glance at Lara and her lips formed a mysterious smile. “I understand you’ll be taking over as chief editor of the Whisker Gazette.”

  Chris smiled. “Word gets around fast.”

  “Good. Lara and I will be working on a project that might require some advertising. I assume you’ll offer us reasonable rates?”

  Lara felt her heartbeat spike. Whaaat?

  “More than reasonable,” Chris said. “Whatever you need, you got it. Just give me a jingle.”

  “Um, Aunt Fran, is there something you haven’t told me?”

  “There is,” she said, smiling. “As soon as these gentlemen leave, you and I will have a nice long chat.”

  The chief rose abruptly, his chair scraping the floor. “We’re outta here. Come on, Chris.”

  Chris followed his lead and the two moved toward the door.

  “If I hear anything new, I’ll let you both know,” Whitley said. “This’ll likely drag on for months before a trial date is set.” He paused for a long moment, and then quirked a smile at Aunt Fran. “Francine Clarkson, you’ll always be the town’s cat lady, but you’ll never be crazy.” He winked at her and followed Chris outside.

  Lara blew out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, Aunt Fran, would you please enlighten me? I feel like I stumbled into a parallel time zone. What was all that about adver
tising? What are we advertising?”

  Her aunt smiled, her eyes shining, her face looking as youthful as it had been when Lara was a girl. “If you’re still willing, I’ve decided to take you up on your offer to redecorate the back porch. I’ll pay the costs, if you’ll do the painting. I’ve got some furniture in the basement that we might be able to repurpose.”

  “You mean— You want to start a shelter? For real?” Lara felt her insides tingle with excitement, her mind spinning with ideas.

  “For real,” her aunt said.

  “But…why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  “I needed to know for certain before I got your hopes up.” She grinned at her niece. “I’ve been on the phone quite a bit these last few days. Every time you popped down to the coffee shop, I got to work.”

  “You’re a sneaky one,” Lara said with a laugh. “I only wish you’d told me so I could have helped.” She bit down on her lower lip. “Aunt Fran, are you sure about this? Is this really what you want to do?”

  “It is,” her aunt assured her. “I know it’s not practical for me to have eleven cats, especially with these terrible knees. Before I started taking in strays and rescues, I only had Munster, Dolce, and Twinkles. It’s time, now—the others deserve homes where they can be pampered and loved.”

  Lara swiped at a burgeoning tear.

  “I know you’ll be in Boston most of the time,” Aunt Fran went on, “but I’ve thought of a way to get some help—financially, at least. I don’t know why it took me this long to think of it, but I’m going to refinance my mortgage. Right now I have a small balance. I’ll take out enough equity to cover the initial costs as well as a slush fund for the shelter. Oh, and you’ll be pleased to know I’ve already had a chat with your old pal Gideon. He was thrilled that I’d called. Since the shelter will be a qualified nonprofit, he’s offered to help with the legal filings, pro bono.”

  Lara was stunned. “Pro bono. Isn’t that like, free? Wait a minute, what am I saying? I told you I wanted to use the money from the artwork I’m doing for Mr. Lefkovitz.”