"No," Cat said. "Her mother said she had evidence that Larry had been to Diamond Dick's. She had one of his signed receipts."
Anita gasped, clutching the gold cross around her neck. "It's a lie," she hissed.
"Well, the card ran in his name, Larry Price. And I don't think her mother would lie. About that, anyway. At first Wendy thought she was just trying to ruin something Wendy loved, but she realized her mother was telling the truth. There were some dancers there who said he was a regular."
Anita sighed. "I suppose Larry had his weaknesses."
"What's all this stuff with the Purity Pledge and everything if your church leadership is hanging out in strip clubs? Does the fight for chastity not apply to those women? Some of them aren't much older than we are."
"Don't get judgmental on me," Anita warned, her steely blue eyes boring into Cat's. "I'm not entirely sure about you. You ask a lot of questions for someone who's trying to find her path."
"Let's just say I have high standards," Cat sniffed. "I've been looking for a church whose leaders practice what they preach. I thought this was it."
"Larry was the weak link," Anita said, spitting out her words as if they were distasteful. "That should be evident by his suicide. Now he's gone. The dead wood has been eliminated. We're a strong, healthy forest now." Her eyes beamed.
Cat waited a beat, looking Anita straight in the eyes. "But what about Jim? You don't think he ever went to those clubs, too?"
"No!" she shot back. "That man is pure. Pure!"
"I hope he is," Cat said. "I hope he is."
Between conversations at dinner and after Bible study in the evening, when the girls convened to watch Christian-friendly movies, she surreptitiously gathered more details about Sherrie Plantation. The official cover story seemed to be that she and Jim had met at a convention of Christian leaders, which she had continued to serve after her first husband died. She was a widow with a young child and all alone when the Lord brought them together. She was from California. She married Jim and moved to Illinois, where she and her new husband could continue to serve the Lord together.
She also found out that Jim and Sherrie didn't clean their own house. That task was completed by a cleaning service run by Tina's parents, in the true church fashion of supporting each other's business—as well as spiritual—enterprises. Tina sometimes helped her parents out at work, and Cat volunteered to help Tina the next day; her parents were looking after the Plantation house in the family's absence. Tina was treating Cat like a celebrity for Christ because of her role in Wendy's mother's salvation and seemed eager to be her new best friend.
It was 10 p.m. and lights out in the girls' dorm. Cat lay in her bunk running through the events of the day. She hoped her measure of honest indignation had worked on Anita. She wanted to be as authentic with that woman as possible, especially the closer she got to the truth. It was hard not to feel as if she were headed toward a dead end, despite the juiciness of the facts she'd found out. If Larry and Jim had been lovers, then Larry's death could simply be a heartbreak suicide. Maybe he couldn't keep living the lie. But that didn't explain why Sherrie would bolt, with the kid in tow. What could have happened that would make her run off to Canada? Maybe she hadn't left her strip club past in the past. Something might have caught up with her, something so bad she had to run to get away from it. It seemed crazy to Cat that Jim had married her. Why marry a woman you don't love, whose past you have to cover up?
Then Cat remembered Jim's dream that night by the condo site, the vicious anger he felt, how crazy protective he was of their sexuality. Rescuing Sherrie could be a way for him to rescue his "Auntie" from his childhood, the imperfect angel. But would he hurt her or Ruth? Could he have killed Larry?
Cat realized her days in St. Louis were numbered. Despite the generosity of the Plantation Church, about which she felt some guilt, she couldn't live on the money from Dave and Simon forever... Oh, no. Dave and Simon! Cat hadn't had any contact with them since she got to St. Louis, and she was technically on their dime, pursuing their case. She must positively be the worst PI in the world not to have filed a single report with her own clients. And what was she doing here, anyway? This case stopped being about their condo building the minute she lost Ruthie and her mother in Seattle. Where were they now? She'd never track them down. So she had the mysterious disappearance of a midwestern religious celebrity and his family, and she had a church congregation that soldiered on for the Lord amidst an ever-growing pack of lies. No real crime had been committed here, at least not that she'd uncovered so far. Ruthie's dream hadn't led her to any molestation suspects. Her mother could be fleeing for reasons unrelated to Jim's faux lifestyle.
But it couldn't be a coincidence: Larry's death, Sherrie and Ruthie's escape, Diamond Dick's, Larry and Jim's peccadilloes. What was she missing?
Just then her cell phone buzzed. She kept it on her nightstand at night with the cord attached for the recharge. It was a text from Lee: You could have told me you went back to St. Louis. Nice knowing you, Kitty Cat.
She got up, unplugged her cell, and slipped outside. It was a full moon night, and the day had been so hot that the sidewalk was still warm under her bare feet. Cat remembered Granny Grace saying she'd run into Lee's parents. Ah, they must have mentioned to Lee that she'd gone back to St. Louis. He was back in Seattle now, and he'd jumped to the conclusion that she'd left for good.
Cat dialed his number. He answered.
"How's life in the river city?" he asked.
"It's okay," she said. "You know, I'm just visiting. I didn't move back."
There was a long pause. She heard Lee suck in his breath and let it out. Then he laughed. "My parents..." he said, laughing. "Shit."
Cat laughed, too. "I wouldn't do that to you, Sergeant Stone," she said. "I wouldn't move back here and not tell you. We're... friends."
"Friends," Lee said. "Is that what we are?"
Cat didn't know what to say, and the silence was palpable.
"I want you, Kitty Cat," he finally said. She winced at the longing in his voice. "Why the hell are you in St. Louis? Because I will fly out there right now and drag you back here for a fuck."
"Are you drinking?"
"Yes, I am. Alone. Because the woman I wanted to be with tonight isn't back here where I left her. She's a couple thousand miles away, and she still hasn't explained why."
"I'm investigating."
"You're on a case? Really. I thought you moved to Seattle to be a PI."
"I know. It's weird. I'm undercover."
"What?! You're undercover. In St. Louis."
"Well, Illinois, to be precise. At a church."
"A church! Which one?"
Cat figured it wouldn't hurt to have one more person besides Granny Grace know where she was. "Plantation Revival. Jim Plantation's church."
"I've seen that guy on the news. He's rabidly antigay. Women don't fair too well, either."
"Yeah, but there are some good people in here."
"I'm not worried about the good ones."
Just then, Cat heard someone clear her throat behind her. She spun around to find Wendy, with a look on her face that showed she'd heard Cat say she was undercover.
"Wendy," she said.
Lee on the other line laughed. "Hey, is that a new pet name?"
"You're a big fat liar," accused Wendy, her fists clenched at her sides. "You were never really my friend at all, were you? You're just using me. You're using us all."
"Wendy, you don't understand," Cat pleaded.
Lee, hearing the exchange, said, "Cat? Are you okay?"
"My cover's just been blown," Cat said. "I gotta go."
She hung up on Lee mid-protest.
"I can't believe I fell for your act," Wendy said. With that, she turned around and went back inside the dorms.
Cat sat outside for a while, thinking over what to do. She wasn't sure whether Wendy would tell the others or not. They were supposed to lead the rehab program's Bible study
the next evening, with Wendy's mother due to attend. And she couldn't miss the chance to help Tina clean the Plantation house in the morning. She was so close... She had to chance it. She crept back inside and crawled into her bunk. If Wendy's door slam had awakened any of their bunkmates, they'd gone back to sleep already. The look on Wendy's face haunted her, though, and she slept fitfully, dreaming only her own dreams, which weren't pleasant.
Tina woke her early, at 5 a.m., and the two of them hit the road to make the cleaning rounds.
Cat was no stranger to cleaning, but the equipment that Tina gave her was intimidating: a vacuum cleaner that strapped to her back and an arsenal of cleaning products most likely laden with noxious chemicals of which Granny Grace would not approve.
The first house was a behemoth two-story near a golf course. The subdivision as well as the golf course, she realized, were owned by Rev. Chambers, a.k.a. Reynolds Chambers of Reynolds Chambers Homes. The development was called "Duck Harbor," a ridiculously ironic name for a group of homes that were landlocked. The only water to be seen was the glimmer of a water trap on the tenth hole.
Cat thought she was in good shape, but vacuuming the carpeted stairwell with that thing strapped to her back nearly killed her. There were five bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, a gargantuan kitchen, a great room, and a pool, which, thankfully, fell under another company's jurisdiction to clean. The family was expressively Christian; the stairwell was decorated with framed biblical quotes rendered in flawless needlepoint, and Cat counted a Bible next to every bedside, plus one on the coffee table in the great room.
Three houses later, Cat was wiped out, but Tina, who was used to the work, was still as cheerful as ever. She was still singing the same hymn she'd started the day with, "Let the Children Come to Me." She had a high, clear soprano voice that Cat could barely hear over the whine of the vacuum cleaner. The fourth house was the Plantation house, and Cat hoped that in her exhausted state she wouldn't miss anything.
She'd got Tina into a rhythm in which the two of them were always cleaning in different rooms, in preparation for when they'd get to this house. Luckily, the place was wall-to-wall carpeting, so she'd need to clean in every room except the kitchen and bathrooms. She left the vacuum cleaner running and searched the chest of drawers and closets in the master bedroom. Their clothing collection was modest but comprised of well-made name brands, all organized neatly, the ties hanging evenly, the shoes on racks with the toes pointed outward.
But she couldn't find anything that would constitute a clue. No shoebox full of love letters, no porn stash, no secret box of drugs. They seemed like a "normal" family. If anything, they were too normal. Even Sherrie's chest of drawers held nothing that could be traced back to her former life as a stripper. Her underwear drawer was filled with white cotton bikini underwear. Good grief, Cat thought. At least they weren't oversized granny panties. Not that oversized briefs should be automatically associated with grannies. Her own granny, she had observed when they'd done laundry together, wore bikinis, with an occasional thong thrown into the mix. Yes, at her age. Sherrie's bras were equally utilitarian, the only adornment a pink flower stitched into the heart of one and a bit of lace trimming the edge of another.
She'd just closed Sherrie's underwear drawer when Tina appeared in the doorway with her hands on her hips. "You're taking longer," she said, glancing over at the vacuum cleaner Cat had left running and had ditched by the side of the bed.
Cat ran over and shut off the vacuum and then stood up and stretched her back. "Sorry," she said. "I guess I'm not used to this grueling manual labor."
Tina giggled. "I caught you looking at yourself in the mirror, didn't I?" she motioned toward the large mirror poised above Sherrie's chest of drawers.
Cat tried to look sheepish. "Yeah."
"Oh, it's okay," Tina said. "I do that sometimes, too. It's not vanity. I like to look to see what other people see when they look at me. It's odd, isn't it? Other people know your appearance better than you do."
"Yes, it is," Cat agreed. "I guess I'm done in this room anyway. What's left?"
"Well, there's the kid's room and Jim's study up here. I'm going to hit the half-bath downstairs."
"Okay." Cat strapped the vacuum cleaner back on and made her way to Jim's study. Her hopeful searching turned up nothing, however; that man was just too careful.
The only thing of any interest to Cat was a photograph on his wall, taken at Johnson's Shut-Ins, a state park in southern Missouri. The river rocks there, due to a special geological formation, had been carved out to create bowls you could sit in. In the summer people flocked there for bathing, as the bowls were like sitting in a cool, jetted spa tub. She'd been there a few times herself. In the picture, Jim posed with Larry Price, their arms flung around each other. They were really, really young but looked happy, wide smiles on both their faces. It made her want to like Jim, despite the fact that in this case, he was her suspect.
Ruthie's room was obscenely tidy for a child's room and done up in excessive amounts of pink. Cat didn't think she'd find anything here, but it didn't hurt to look. And she was glad she did. At the back of Ruthie's closet, too high for the girl herself to reach, Cat found a tiny chest. It was locked, and there was no key nearby, but Cat had seen a tiny key in Sherrie's sock drawer. She'd assumed at the time it was a stray spare, as it was mixed in with a bunch of other loose keys.
With the vacuum cleaner still strapped to her back, Cat lumbered to the master bedroom, retrieved the key, and went to open the chest.
She found a graduation tassel, the fringe in dark blue and light blue, and a gold "98" dangling from the rim. If Sherrie graduated in 1998, Cat realized, she'd be thirty-two now. That seemed right, and not at all atypical that Jim would marry a much younger woman. Underneath the tassel was a prom picture, a high-school-aged Sherrie in a strapless black dress, her hair permed curly, standing next to a tall, skinny boy in a black tuxedo. On the back of the photo, someone had scrawled, "Sherrie and Dave, True Love Forever." Next, Cat found a tightly folded nest of papers. She carefully unfolded them and smoothed them out. It was a divorce decree, and the husband's name was David Morro. "True love forever" turned out to be a lie, she thought.
She didn't have time to read through it now, so she folded it back up and stuck it in her pocket. She rifled through the rest of the chest but didn't find anything else too revealing: A pair of unused chopsticks, still sheathed in their paper wrapper. A men's class ring wound with enough string so it would presumably fit Sherrie's smaller finger. Ticket stubs from a Shania Twain concert in 1999.
At the bottom was a piece of paper that must have come with the chest. It was from Olson's Furniture in Belleville, Illinois, and explained that the chest was a gift to all of the girls in the graduating class of Belleville East High School, who could bring the coupon in and get fifteen percent off a regular-sized hope chest. Cat's mother had a hope chest; it was a large redwood chest that sat in the entryway of her parents' house. Her mother kept Cat's baby book there, along with other keepsakes—drawings Cat had made as a child, her first communion dress. It seemed sad that Sherrie had never traded in the coupon for a real hope chest, and now her entire history was relegated to this tiny box.
Cat closed the chest and put it back on the shelf. The whir of the vacuum cleaner was at this point giving her a headache. The house wasn't that dirty, so she figured she'd skimp on the floor downstairs. But as she turned to leave Ruthie's room forever, her eye fell on a small photo album, clearly the girl's own, on the nightstand. It was as pink as the room, and the cover had been decorated with glitter, which came off in Cat's hand. She flipped through the book. There were Sherrie and Ruthie at a birthday party, followed by Jim and Ruthie smiling happily. And then her eye caught the Space Needle. Underneath it were Sherrie, Ruthie, Jim, and someone else, someone she instantly recognized. She took a step back, dropping the photo album. It couldn't be. She picked it up again and flipped till the Space Needle came into view. Yes, it def
initely was.
It was Mr. M&O, from the security firm. She fished the photo out of its sleeve to look at the back. "Visiting Uncle Greg in Seattle" was written there. Greg Swenson—that was Mr. M&O's real name, she remembered.
Cat suddenly felt the same way she felt when she'd returned to the condo building in Seattle to find the mother and girl gone without a trace. Greg had been lying to her all that time, and then he fired her. But where were Sherrie and Ruthie now? Had Greg been able to rescue them from Jim? Cat kept turning it over in her mind. Maybe Jim was after Sherrie because she killed Larry. Larry Price was dead, and maybe it wasn't a suicide. Maybe someone murdered him. She needed to treat Sherrie Plantation as a suspect. Sherrie was the only person to have fled the scene. There was also the possibility that Sherrie had seen something, that she was on the run from Jim because she knew too much. And Cat couldn't rule out the other church leaders—Anita and Rev. Chambers. There was something rotten at the core of this church, that was for sure.
Cat was exhausted and sore from the day's work but had much more to do now on the case. After she and Tina returned to the dorms for showers, she drove to a public park so she could make a few phone calls without the risk of anyone eavesdropping. She'd left her phone in the dorms all morning, as Tina said they weren't allowed to have them with them when they were cleaning. As soon as she turned it on, a whole string of text messages from Lee popped up:
R U OK?
Kitty Cat, talk to me. I'm worried.
OK, Grace hasn't heard from you either. You're scaring me.
Those church freaks better not have hurt you.
He'd also left several voice mail messages most likely saying the same thing. She felt bad that she hadn't gotten in contact with him that morning, but she hadn't had time. She dialed his number but got his voice mail, so she left him a message saying she was all right and that he shouldn't worry about her.
Then she called Granny Grace. "Well, hello, my darling," her grandmother's voice rang out, and Cat felt a surprising pang of homesickness for her life in Seattle. Cat filled her in on the case.
Cat in the Flock (Dreamslippers Book 1) Page 15
