Cat Call (Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries Book 4)

by Mollie Hunt

  “Well, alright,” I conceded. “Can’t disappoint the director, can we?”

  She smiled briefly and started off toward catering.

  “Aren’t we taking the elevator?” I asked as I trailed behind her. “I sprained my ankle yesterday and Louis said not to walk on it any more than I have to. I’ve abused it way too much already.”

  “It’s not far,” she said over her shoulder. “This way.”

  We skirted the buffet tables with their yummy smells reminding me that while the cats had scarfed down two breakfasts, I hadn’t eaten anything this morning. I identified the tempting aromas of sausage, fried onions, and something fragrant like cinnamon rolls. My stomach growled, protesting my blatant neglect.

  Victoria was heading toward the far wall of the parking garage. There were no lights on that side, making our bobbing back-lit shadows long and eerie. As we neared the fringe, the shadows condensed on a narrow wooden door, as ancient as the building itself. Above it was the skeleton of an old neon sign, unlit and spider-webbed, that once in a former life had read stairway.

  Victoria pulled open the door and a blaze of sunlight reached across the cracked concrete. She held it, gesturing me to go first. “The door at the top. Only one flight. Easy peasy.”

  The staircase was steep and constricted but a long window on the floor above let in lots of light, counteracting the claustrophobic effect. As I climbed, a tangle of green rose into view—‌the courtyard. Never in a million years would I have guessed it was there.

  Two doors exited the small landing. One I assumed went back into the lobby; the other opened to the outside. I tried the knob and turned back to Victoria.

  “It’s locked.”

  “That’s okay.” She came up behind me, pulling a set of keys from her vest pocket. “They keep it locked in case anyone tries to get in this way. You can’t be too careful.”

  I thought of last night’s murder, suddenly wondering if someone had got in, someone from Jason’s private life or possibly a stranger bent on mayhem. But no, that made no sense. Victoria had just said the door remained locked, and there had been no sign of an intruder at the murder scene, no impression of a robbery gone bad or a maniacal spree. It was far more likely that whoever killed Jason Prince was someone within McCaffrey & Jack.

  Victoria had the door ajar. Again she stood aside and motioned me through. What a polite girl, I thought to myself as I waltzed out into the open air.

  The garden was badly overgrown and had probably been that way for years, maybe decades. Invasive clematis and English ivy climbed its high stone walls and cascaded in emerald waterfalls from a smattering of gnarled old chestnut trees. What must have been lawn was now knee-high with weeds. Still, underneath the wildness and abandonment, the landscaped yard lived on. Bright rhododendrons and azaleas burst forth in a profusion of pinks and mauves; huge clumps of daffodils raised proud yellow heads toward the sun; a robin was singing its heart out within the leafy cover. A Daphne bush as big as a tree was nearly through blooming but still perfumed the air with its honey scent. I closed my eyes, letting the timid spring sun warm my face.

  “This is lovely! It would be a great place for a picnic. I wish I’d known about it before—‌I would have liked to come here on breaks, maybe even brought the boys for an outing.”

  I heard the door crash shut behind me. Surprised by the violence of the slam, I glanced back at Victoria. She was standing, arms to her sides, small hands fisted, tense as a cat on the prowl. The look on her face turned my blood to water, and a jolt of adrenaline hit my system, knocking the warmth out of me like a fist in the gut.

  Gone was the sweet smile and youthful enthusiasm, replaced by a scowl of absolute loathing. It reminded me of the demon masks made by the north Canadian Haida people. The unnatural whiteness of her skin, the sunken dark of her eyes—‌what could have changed her so much in a split second?

  “No one knows about this place,” she said, her voice low and husky. “No one but me. And now you.”

  “Victoria, what is it? What’s happened?”

  Instead of answering, she reached out and snapped her fingers. “Give me the phone, Lynley.”

  “What? Okay, sure.” I dug in my pocket and retrieved the studio phone that Ray Anderson had furnished me.

  Victoria sprung forward and snatched it from my hand. Frantically she turned it on, staring at the screen as if her life depended on it. Then just as quickly, she flung it to the ground. “This isn’t it! I need the other one. Don’t play games with me. I’m desperate.”

  “The other one? What...” Then suddenly I got it. She wasn’t looking for just any phone; she was looking for the one her husband had lost in the penthouse, in the murder room. “Oh, Victoria, no.”

  “I know you have it. I overheard you telling Ray. I searched your trailer and it wasn’t there so it must be on your person.”

  “Searched... my trailer? When? The cats...!” I gasped.

  “Just now. And your cats are fine,” she said with exasperation. “But you won’t be if you don’t give it over right this minute.”

  Though she held no weapon, I found myself raising my hands as in a stick-up from an old-time western. “Look, Victoria. I don’t have Roger’s phone. Yes, I had it but... I gave it to the police.”

  “No, you didn’t. You’re a terrible liar.”

  In a swift ninja move, she closed on me. She grabbed my arm and began patting me down. Her grip loosened and she stepped out to get at my back side. That was her mistake.

  I set my feet, then twisted. Now I was holding her arm instead of the other way around. I shifted my weight and pulled, throwing her up over my shoulder. The surprised girl landed in front of me, the wind knocked out of her and a look of pure shock on her face.

  Before she could catch her breath, I bounded for the exit, praying she hadn’t locked it behind her. The knob turned. I flung the door open. I plunged through and headed down the stairs, the pain in my ankle completely forgotten. Behind me I heard footfalls. She was up and closing on me. If I could make it to the basement, I could call for help. Someone would be there, maybe a whole bunch of someones since it was nearing lunchtime. Only a few more steps to go.

  The door at the bottom of the stairs opened and a figure blocked my way. After the brightness of the courtyard, the shadows in the stairwell converged into an inky, unidentifiable mass but I didn’t care who it was as long they helped me escape the vengeful Victoria.

  “Get the police!” I cried. “I know who killed Jason Prince.”

  The shadowy man remained silent, then took a step into the light.

  “Roger!” I gasped.

  He looked at me, then his gaze slipped past to his wife on the stair above. His brow furrowed.

  “What’s going on, Vic?”

  “She’s got your phone,” the girl blurted.

  Roger hesitated, then heaved a big sigh. His eyes returned to me. “So you think you know who murdered Jason Prince?”

  * * *

  “Well it looks like we got ourselves in a pickle,” Roger said offhandedly, as if he were referring to difficult crossword puzzle instead of what to do with the witness who knew he’d committed murder.

  They had me wedged between them on a mossy wooden bench in the courtyard. The moss was slightly damp, and the uncomfortable wetness played on my already overwrought nerves. To my advantage, there was still no weapon in sight, but though I had overpowered Victoria with my cool self-defense karate move, I was sure it was only because I caught her by surprise. I doubted she would let her guard down again, and now there was Roger to contend with as well.

  “What do you want?” I mumbled. “What are you going to do with me?”

  Roger and Victoria were glaring at each other. Finally Roger said, “Well, Vic, what’s your plan?”

  “My plan?” she spat.

  “Yeah, you’re the one who brought this gal on out here. You must have had a plan.”

  “I wanted to get your phone back.”

>   “That was a good idea, sweetie, but did you have to abduct someone to do it?”

  Victoria stood abruptly, turning away from her husband. “I didn’t mean to. It wasn’t in her trailer. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You got it then?”

  “No, she doesn’t have it on her either. She won’t say where it is.”

  “So now what?”

  “Make her tell, Roger,” she said in a whine.

  “And just how am I supposed to do that?”

  Victoria gave a look I could only describe as crazy. “You’re a man,” she snapped. “Use your imagination.”

  “What? You want me to torture it out of her?”

  He was joking. Wasn’t he?

  Victoria flinched, but replied resolutely, “If that’s what it takes.”

  “And then what, sweetheart? If we let her loose, first thing, she’ll go to the police.”

  “Then we don’t let her go.”

  “How does that work? We run her out of town? We kill her?”

  “Now wait a minute,” I inserted. This conversation was getting way too personal. “I’ll give you the phone. Of course I’ll give you the phone. It is in my trailer, you just didn’t find where I stashed it. We can go get it right now and you can be on your way.”

  Victoria glared at me, eyes boring into my head. “I looked. It’s not there.”

  “I hid it really well, but I’ll hand it over, and I won’t tell the police, I promise. Just please... don’t... kill me.” My voice faltered and I stared at the ground. A late forget-me-not bloomed beside the overgrown pathway, its tiny blue flower clusters shining in the sun. A honeybee buzzed from clump to perfect clump. Funny the things one notices in the midst of a complete catastrophe.

  When I glanced up again, Victoria had moved across the yard, and I realized I should be paying more attention to my captors and less to the flora and fauna. Instantly I refocused, this time on escape.

  With Victoria out of the way, I saw my chance, a slim one, but maybe the only one I would get. I leapt up, turned fast, and stomped on Roger’s foot, then punched him straight in the face with the heel of my palm. He let out a surprised oof before his hand snaked out to grab me.

  I vaulted to the side and he missed, but in my effort, I lost my balance. Victoria was halfway back and coming fast. With a war cry, she pounced the last few feet and tackled me full force. We both went down in a tangle. I was on top, but she had hold of my arms, and this time nothing was going to make her let go.

  I began to scream when a hand came around from behind and clamped roughly over my mouth—‌Roger. I tried to bite but couldn’t get a grip. His palm tasted salty, a little like bacon grease, and I gagged, thinking I might throw up.

  His other hand latched onto my forehead and began wrenching me backward. I couldn’t fight his strength. Like a cheetah after a dash, I was pretty much done.

  To my surprise, I wasn’t the only one. Victoria had gone limp underneath me. She began to weep. Her cries became wails as she writhed from side to side.

  Roger stood me up, then sat me roughly on the bench. His nose was bleeding from where I’d hit him, making him look like a movie heavy. He let go his grasp and stuck a finger in my face. “You don’t move, you hear me?” He added a little shake to prove he was a badass, then turned to his wife.

  I thought about running again but knew I wouldn’t get far, and besides, I just didn’t have it in me. If I were going to get out of this pickle unscathed, I’d be relying on brain, not brawn.

  I studied the couple—‌pretty Victoria agonizing in the wayward grass, her young face a grimace of pain, and Roger, her Southern gentleman husband, trying to console her. It didn’t make sense. In spite of the abduction, threats, and a little bit of knocking around, they weren’t acting like killers. They were acting like ordinary people, people with a problem that was about to destroy their world.

  Roger knelt, holding his wife in his arms. “It’s going to be okay, darlin’,” he crooned softly.

  “I can’t handle it,” she sobbed. “I can’t do it anymore.”

  “I know, I know. But everything’s going to be fine. I promise.”

  Her sobs grew softer. Finally she sniffed loudly, sat up, and pulled a Kleenex from the pocket of her vest. After a quick mop up, she said in a nearly normal voice, “I can’t go on like this, Roger. I just can’t.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “But what am I going to do?” Her azure eyes were pleading.

  “Just rest. I’ll take care of everything. You know I will; I always do.”

  Roger let her go and turned to me. He stood and came forward, his hands balled into fists.

  “Are you going to kill me now?” I sputtered, cringing against the damp wood bench, now wholeheartedly wishing I’d taken my chance to get away.

  “No,” he said softly. “I’m not a killer.”

  “You murdered Jason Prince,” I countered.

  “Actually I did not.”

  For a moment I didn’t get it, then my gaze slipped to Victoria. She was pale as a Russian White. “You?”

  She swung away, curling into a fetal position. As she wept softly, Roger answered for her: “Yup.”

  He slumped down on the bench beside me. “Now, are you going to think the worst of her, or would you like to know the reason why?”

  Chapter 28

  There is something about an open door that compels a cat to go through it. The slimmer the opening, the greater the lure. Whether they’re wanting to explore the unknown or simply doing something they shouldn’t, cats can find entries and exits you didn’t even know were there.

  This was not how I’d expected things to go. Not that I was complaining; as long as Roger was talking, he wasn’t dispatching me. And like the cat lady I am, of course I was curious to hear what had driven an otherwise sweet young woman to murder. If she weren’t crazed or a sociopath, then it must have been something monumental to make her decide that killing was her only way out.

  But Roger didn’t talk and neither did the ball of dejection on the ground that was Victoria. The robin had stopped singing and only the muffled hum of the city broke the silence. I felt as if time had been put on pause; could I rise up and walk out of there, leaving my captors frozen in place?

  Finally Roger looked up, looked me in the eyes. “Have you ever been dishonored, Lynley?”

  The question caught me off guard. “Dishonored? What do you mean?”

  “Disgraced, shamed?” He paused, then almost in a whisper, said, “Violated?”

  “That’s none of your business,” I gasped.

  “You’re right, it isn’t my business. It’s just that Prince... that my wife...” He faltered.

  “Are you trying to tell me Jason Prince abused Victoria?” The thought was outrageous, cruel, obscene. If something like that were going on, it would have been obvious. People would notice. I would notice. Wouldn’t I?

  Suddenly I remembered my conversation with Grace only an hour before. She had called Prince a womanizer. She even started to tell of someone who might not have minded his death. Had that someone been Victoria?

  But I’d seen the two together, Jason and Vic. They had seemed friendly. Maybe overly friendly, I now realized as I looked at it from this new perspective. Had the camaraderie I’d perceived as mutual been more one-sided than I’d thought?

  “He wouldn’t take no for an answer.” This time it was Victoria speaking. While I was speculating, she had risen and come to stand beside her husband. Their hands were entwined.

  “Did he...?

  “No. I tried to avoid situations where I was alone with him, but he’d been getting pushier. I knew it was just a matter of time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell someone?” I bristled, livid at the thought of the archaic mindset that deems it okay for males to dominate females; it’s not okay and never will be. “You could have reported him for harassment at the very least.”

  Victoria snorted a viscous laugh. �
��What—‌me, a lowly P.A., file a report on the grand associate producer? It would be my word against his, and you know who they’d believe. They’d fire me for sure, and that would be the end of our dream, the job I was telling you about, remember? Lionsgate Studios in BC has a position open, but if Gerrold sacks me, that whole thing goes up in smoke. All our aspirations destroyed in the blink of an eye.”

  “But sexual harassment is against the law. They can’t legally dismiss you for that.”

  “Yeah, we know that’s how it’s supposed to be,” said Roger, “but television hasn’t really caught up with politically-correct America. It wasn’t so long ago that women had to sleep their way to the top if they ever wanted to get somewhere in films.”

  I knew he was right. You read about it every day in the tabloids, though according to their skewed views, it wasn’t limited to women; men, as well, did their share of bed-hopping on their hopeful road to stardom.

  “I just wanted to make it through until I negotiated out of my contract and headed up to Vancouver. I thought I could handle Jason. I was wrong.”

  “But did you have to kill him?”

  She turned to me, big eyes all innocent now. “It was an accident! I never meant to hurt anyone. Oh, Roger!” she cried. “Tell her.”

  Roger stood and put a protective arm around his wife’s shoulder. He whispered something in her ear, then he looked back at me, sad and a little crazed. “Vic was up in the penthouse doing a last minute clean on the set for today’s shoot. Apparently Jason had followed her. There was a confrontation. She was just defending herself, you’ve got to understand.”

  “I’d finished off filling the pool when he came in. He had a bottle of champagne,” Victoria said, “and a gun.”

  “The gun? Angela Moore’s gun?”

  “Yeah,” Roger said flatly. “The one Vic shot him with. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?”

  “But what was he doing with the gun? Where did he get it? Was he threatening you, Victoria?”

  “He said he’d found it in Angela’s office along with the champagne,” she answered, her voice a mere breath. “He’d been drinking. He was being careless, playing around with it. He’d point it at me and say things like Get on your knees, girl, and then stop and giggle and tell me I was the most beautiful thing in the world, which was pure BS because I was in my cleaning clothes complete with coveralls and those big green plastic gloves. He scared me to death.” She gave a pleading look.