Cat's Paw Page 8

  “Then I doubt you’ll catch rabies.”

  “If you want, I can call the medic, ma’am,” the other boy said. “Have that scratch looked at for you.”

  “If he can find it,” chuckled one of the bystanders. This evoked a short bout of nervous laughter.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” Crystal bristled. “Unless he can prescribe something for my nerves.”

  “We don’t have anything like that here. You’ll need to wait until tomorrow and take the ferry back to Anacortes.”

  She shrugged. “Then what use is he?” She turned on her heel and stalked for the door which she threw wide. Joel hustled to close it after her so the little cat couldn’t escape into the dining hall, but Oreo had no desire to quit the cover of his hiding place.

  I sank down by John and peered under the built-in where I saw two huge, luminescent eyes set in a sweet marmalade face. “It’s okay, you’re safe now. The rude woman’s gone.” I held out my hand for him to sniff. Being a cat of a forgiving disposition, he took only a few moments to come out and be friendly. First a pink nose, then an orange-striped head, then his whole tabby body which couldn’t have weighed more than six pounds total. I fumed at the thought of Crystal manhandling this tiny cat.

  “How do you think he got here?” I asked. “I’m Lynley by the way.”

  The second young man had joined us. “I’m Joel and this is my brother, John. Good to meet you, Lynley. It’s obvious you’re a cat person.”

  “Oreo was on a sleep-over,” said John. “I’m not sure how he ended up here though.”

  Oreo, who had climbed up my torso and was snuggling my neck with a voracious purr, would make a nice sleep-over cat, I thought to myself.

  “Sometimes people want to take the loaners with them when they walk around. They’re not supposed to, but especially the kids think it would be fun to bring their cat to lunch or dinner. The cat often thinks differently.”

  “I bet we find someone missing their borrowed kitty,” Joel said to John. “Unfortunately it’s going to cost them. When you lose one, you don’t get a second chance.”

  “I’d better be getting him back home,” John said, taking the cat gently from my arms. Carefully he put Oreo in the carrier and closed the gate. “Thanks for your help, Lynley.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Joel echoed. “And if you see that woman again, tell her the next time she abuses one of our animals, I’ll kick her butt so far outta here, she’s not going to need a boat to get back to the mainland.”

  “Calm down, Jo,” said his brother. “Oreo’s okay. Oreo’s one of Joel’s favorites,” he explained. “We’ll fill out a report right after we get him back to his colony so everybody knows what happened.”

  “Sorry,” Joel apologized.

  “No need,” I said. “I know exactly how you feel. In fact, I think I’ll have a word with Crystal. Right this very moment.”

  “You know her?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid I do.”

  “Well, be careful. If you ask me, she’s the one who might be rabid. Make sure you don’t let her bite.”

  I’d noted that in spite of her tantrum, Crystal was not yet drunk, but my guess was she soon would be. I had to catch her before she slugged down one of those four-ounce dry martinis that come right out of the bottle. Ducking through to the back before I lost my resolution, I headed for Crystal’s cabin.

  Chapter 13

  There is a conflict between those who believe cats should run free and those who think they should be kept inside for their own safety. Though cats need stimulation to thrive, our outdoors is fraught with dangers in the form of cars, wildlife, and unfortunately, a smattering of malicious people.

  It wasn’t exactly gladness I felt when I saw the luminescent glow from the window of Cabin Nine, but what will be, will be, and I was more than ready to get this over with.

  I knocked lightly on the door. I could see someone moving around inside, a shadow on the curtains, but no one answered my knock.

  “Crystal?” I called, rapping a little more forcefully.

  “Go away,” came the harsh reply.

  This was going to be harder than I’d thought. “Crystal, It’s Lynley. I just want to talk for a minute. Come on, open up.”

  There was the sound of something crashing to the floor, then silence.

  “Crystal, are you okay? Please let me in.”

  A droplet hit my hair and I looked up, only to get a fat splotch of rain in the eye. The storm was beginning to break.

  “It’s raining out here,” I added to my plea.

  “Frick you!” she swore as something else crashed inside the cabin, this time accompanied by the tinkle of broken glass.

  “Back at you, woman,” I returned. “I’m coming in. Don’t you dare break anything else or I’ll knock you over the head with your own vodka bottle.”

  I’m not sure where that came from, some long-sleeping rage spewing out of my own alcoholic days, but it had the desired effect. The knob turned and the door opened a crack. I waited, then saw that was all the invitation I was going to get. I pushed the door wide and stepped inside. As I turned to close it behind me, I noticed I had an audience, faces staring from the lit windows of the other cabins, looks of curiosity, annoyance, and surprise.

  “Sorry,” I waved. “All good here.” The voyeurs vanished and I turned to face my nemesis.

  She was on the bed, face in her hands, crying. I had expected ranting or yelling or even a stony refusal to speak, but I had never in a million years expected to see Crystal Holt reduced to tears.

  “Crystal?” I put out a tentative hand, then drew it back, far more wary of this woman’s reaction than I had been of little Oreo’s.

  “Watch out for glass,” she choked. “I... I...”

  I saw—and smelled—the busted tumbler of booze. Maybe that’s what had got her upset—crying over spilt liquor.

  Grabbing a kitchen towel and a small broom and dustpan combo, I squatted down to clean up the mess. “There,” I said when the shards were safely in the garbage, “but I wouldn’t walk around barefoot. Might still be some pieces I missed.”

  “Thank you,” she whimpered, much to my surprise. “I think that’s the first nice thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

  “Really?” I said stupidly. Had Crystal been replaced with one of the Pod People? Who was this new and contrite Crystal Holt?

  “Yes, Lynley,” she said, fingering her silver coin pendant as if it were a worry stone. “You may not believe this, but I don’t have many friends.”

  I bit back any comments I might have had about how that was probably a direct result of her own innate unpleasantness and said, “What about Mrs. Fox? She seems to care about you.”

  “She’s not my friend,” Crystal grumped. “Well, she is my friend, but not really. Oh, you know what I mean.”

  I didn’t, but I hadn’t come to discuss the Fox. I seated myself in the desk chair. “So Crystal, why are you here?” I sort of blurted. “You don’t seem to like animals all that much. And you’ve missed most of the art sessions. You’re obviously unhappy about something. Do you want to tell me what it is?”

  She sighed and grabbed a Kleenex box from the bedside table, then threw it down in frustration when she found it to be empty.

  “Just my luck!” she shrieked. “Wouldn’t ya know it. I just can’t catch a break.”

  “Here, I have some. Hold on.” I rummaged in my day pack and pulled out a small sachet of tissues. “There you go. Better?”

  She nodded, taking the packet and pulling out the whole lot at once to mop her face and eyes.

  “Unhappy,” she ruminated, tossing the soggy mess on the floor. “Well, that’s me in a nutshell.”

  Then she began to talk. Though my mind had touched upon a few scenarios that might have produced her black mood and toxic spirit, nothing could have prepared me for what she said next.

  * * *

  I had a lot to think about. It had been a long day, wro
ught with emotional and physical pain. During that last half-hour with Crystal Holt, she had told me things that set my teeth on edge. I was going to have to rethink my initial view of her and the reasons behind her actions. I walked around for a while, touring the sanctuary’s beautiful pathways and ignoring the intermittent rain, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was exhausted and needed to go to bed. Feed Emilio and off with my clothes. Maybe things would make more sense in the morning.

  I returned to my cabin and slung myself up the steps to the front door. Grabbing the knob, I turned it to no avail. That’s when I recalled locking up in case the over-exuberant Emilio unlatched it with his antics. Okay, no problem. All I had to do was find the key.

  I scrabbled through my pack, then repeated the action when my first search turned up empty. I pulled everything out and laid it on the little porch: sketch book, brushes sheathed in fat drinking straws, and a Tupperware tub of paints; a small purse containing lipstick, pen, a tiny pad of paper, Band-Aids, and other miscellanea I carried at all times; my camera in its case with an extra set of rechargeable batteries; a book I’d intended to read in my spare time and another couple of pens, one that I knew for a fact was out of ink.

  No key.

  Then I remembered. When I’d grabbed the pack of tissues for Crystal, I’d heard a small clink, as if something had fallen out of my bag, but I’d been too busy to bother with it at the time. Now I was absolutely certain that was the sound of my key going clunk on her floor. Which meant I had to return to Cabin Nine. Which I really didn’t want to do.

  Emilio had hopped up onto the windowsill and was me-rrowing his demands. It translated into something like, Why are you out there when you should be in here serving my dinner?

  “I’m working on it, Emilio,” I replied, touching my fingertips to the pane. “Give me a minute.”

  There was nothing for it but to go back to Crystal’s and recover my lost key. Emilio needed eats and I needed sleep, and neither of those things were going to happen without that one tiny but significant tool.

  Stuffing everything back into my bag, I retraced my steps across the circle. Knocking softly on number Nine, I said, “Crystal, it’s Lynley again. Sorry to bother you but I think I dropped my key in there. Mind if I come in and take a look?”

  No answer, and inwardly I groaned, For Pete’s sake, she couldn’t have passed out already. It was beginning to rain for real now, and I was less than interested in being drenched by a Northwest shower.

  “Okay Crystal, maybe you’re in the bathroom or something. I’m coming in. I’ll just be a moment.”

  I swung the door open which, thankfully, she hadn’t locked when I left. The booze-smell was stronger than ever and it went straight to my brain. The notion that she was well into her cups was looking more viable all the time.

  Crystal was nowhere to be seen, and the bathroom door was closed. I felt bad about violating her privacy while she was on the pot, but I figured my only other option was to stand in the rain like a wet dog until she got around to answering. Maybe if I were quick enough, I’d be done and gone before she ever knew I was there.

  In I went, feeling like a combination of criminal and voyeur and trying to assure myself I was neither—‌just a worn-out woman in need of her property.

  I moved to the little desk where I had been sitting and crouched down. Feeling around in the shadows for the touch of metal, I tried not to wonder how well it had been cleaned under there.

  My fingers found nothing but floor, so I pushed over and started underneath the bed. It seemed unlikely, but I suppose the key could have rolled or bounced. This time I thought about spiders, one of the more common pests in our dank northern climes. I had read somewhere that there were thirty-plus species in the Pacific Northwest. I cringed but kept looking. Again nothing, not even a web.

  By now, I was flat on my chest, arm extended, tapping out an arc like a one-winged snow angel. Finally at the very edge of my sweep, I touched it. How it had traveled so far, only physics could explain.

  I flopped a tad farther under the bed and grabbed onto the smooth metal. I pulled but the key jumped out of my fingers. Frowning, I found it again and gave a good yank with the same results.

  It must have been stuck on something. I felt a sudden chill. Where was Crystal? She’d been in the can an awfully long time.

  Something felt wrong.

  I fingered the metal piece and realized in sudden confusion it wasn’t a key at all. Too smooth, too perfect, more like a coin. Or a disk.

  An image rose in my mind of the silver pendant Crystal Holt always wore around her neck. Crystal must have dropped it under the bed. The chain must be caught on the under-springs.

  I pulled again. It gave a little, then stopped.

  However had it got hooked down there?

  And where the heck was Crystal?

  * * *

  All the strength drained out of me and I puddled on the floor like so much cat pee. Though my fingers still worried the silver disk, the rest of me was struck immobile. My vision had adjusted to the dim under the bed, and what I saw made me forget all about dust bunnies and spiders. Not three feet away was the jagged neck of the smashed vodka bottle. Six inches beyond that was a pair of bloodshot eyes. Open. Staring. Dead.

  Suddenly I could do nothing but move. I leapt up quicker than I thought possible. My heart was racing so fast it felt like it might burst, and at my age, that’s not a metaphor. I was breathing hard, making little puppy noises. Then the puppies grew up into dogs and I began to howl.

  It was pure instinct that drove me out of the cabin in such haste I nearly tumbled down the stairs. People had heard my cries, and a few were coming to see what the commotion was about. I ran smack into a man. He grabbed me by the shoulders and twisted me around to face him.

  “Lynley?” said Nathan Shore. “Lynley, what’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t do it!” I shouted as I pulled away from him and ran, rag-doll stupid, to my cabin. Then I remembered I still hadn’t found my key.

  I sunk onto the steps. The rain beat down on me with reckless determination. I lifted my face to it and prayed this was all a dream.

  Chapter 14

  Cats are the most popular pet in the United States, all 88 million of them!

  I didn’t pay much attention to what happened next. There was a scream and some shouting, someone yelling, “Call nine-one-one!” Someone else bawling for an ambulance. Even in my daze, I could see these for what they were, products of sheer panic, because neither emergency service was available on that Island of the Damned.

  When I began to track again, the courtyard looked like a flash mob site. I don’t know where everyone had come from; there were only twenty guest cabins in the circle, and not all of them were occupied. Maybe they were volunteers and employees who stayed in the dorm on the other side of the complex. Maybe they had winked in from the fourth dimension. Either way, it seemed like everyone was there.

  Cloverleaf had their own security in the form of a slim and lithe little girl in blue whose name I had yet to learn. I realized I was about to get that privilege. I watched as she came out of Cabin Nine with a couple I didn’t know. They seemed to know me though and made quick work of pointing the officer to where I sat. She kept them a moment more, then descended the steps and made a bee-line for me.

  “Lynley Cannon?” she asked. She may have been slight of stature but there was nothing small about her voice which she projected as officially as any cop I’d met.

  “Yes?”

  “You were seen going into and coming out of Cabin Nine.”

  I nodded. Rain trickled down my face like tears. I was shivering violently, though I don’t know when it began.

  “You were also observed arguing with someone inside that cabin.”

  “It wasn’t really an argument, more a difference of opinion.”

  “You know there’s a deceased person in there, correct?”

  “I... I saw her. Crystal Holt. On the floor. I thought sh
e might be. Deceased, that is.”

  “Why didn’t you call for security?”

  I looked up at her blankly. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t know how.”

  “People usually use the telephone. There is a button clearly marked for emergencies.”

  “I never really looked at the phone,” I admitted. “And besides, I’m locked out of my cabin. I think I dropped my key.”

  “Would it be this one?” she said, holding up a plastic evidence bag containing what was either my key or its twin.

  I signed. “Yeah. Did you find it at Crystal’s?”

  “As a matter of fact, we did.”

  “I don’t suppose you can take it out of that bag long enough to let me in? I’m drowning out here.”

  “No can do,” She studied my quaking form. “But no reason we can’t take this inside. We’re not cruel to animals here, even the human kind.”

  From her duty belt she produced a ring of keys, flipped through and found what she was looking for. “Step aside,” she ordered.

  I rose stiffly as a stick figure and stumbled out of her way. She unlocked the door and held it open for me.

  “Watch out, there’s a cat,” I warned.

  She glanced in, then picked up the big black boy as he came to welcome his tardy feeder. I noted with relief that even though she was a cop, she was very gentle and cat-savvy which made her okay in my book.

  I pulled myself inside and began to shed my soaked sweater and shoes. “Quite a storm we’re having,” I mumbled. Really? Crystal was murdered next door to me and I was going to talk about the weather? “What’s your name?” I asked the security guard.

  “Officer Jami Hockley.” She shut the door and let Emilio jump to the floor. “People usually call me Jami. I’ve been with the sanctuary for four years.”

  “I bet you don’t have to handle many major crimes around here.”

  “No, sir. This is my first one.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Jami called out the door to a big man in an expensive raincoat and boots. “Allan, can you see if Cliff’s done photographing the crime scene? If he is, we seal it up for the investigators. Send Quincy and Walt in here please while I question the suspect.”