Софи Келли - A Case Of Cat And Mouse

All the lines on his face had seemed to have gotten deeper. That was the only sign that my words had affected him at all. He cleared his throat. “I didn’t kill Kassie, Kathleen. I swear on—”

I cut him off. “Don’t go there, Elias,” I warned, hoping my voice conveyed how angry I was in that moment.

“The money was for me. Sully made it look like an investment in my company because neither one of us wanted to explain why he’d given me, personally, half a million dollars. He still has several boxers and I’m involved in several TV projects. Optics. You understand that.”

“I do.”

His face hardened. “What he didn’t tell me was that he’s being investigated for insider trading, which puts all of his business practices under a microscope.”

“Not good for you.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“So Sean Sullivan paid you five hundred thousand dollars to hire his daughter because she had aspirations of being a TV star, which wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up. And then he made that money look like an investment in your company, which also wasn’t exactly on the up-and-up.”

“Yes.”

I folded the piece of paper and put it back in my pocket. “Kassie found out.”

“She did. I was having some temporary cash flow problems. I shouldn’t have taken the money. That was stupid.”

“She must have been angry finding out her father had so little faith in her that he paid you to hire her.”

Elias gave a humorless snort of laughter. “You didn’t know Kassie. She was going to use that payment to blackmail her father. If he’d pay me half a million dollars so she could do the Baking Showdown, he could pay more than that to get her on some other show.”

I wondered what had happened to Kassie to turn her into such a self-absorbed person.

“Do what you want with the information, Kathleen,” he said. “I didn’t kill Kassie Tremayne. And this is the last time I’m going to say that.”

I nodded. Then I got up and walked out.

My hand was shaking as I signed out at the back door. I said good night to Thorsten and walked over to the truck. Some small part of me wanted to believe that Elias wasn’t a murderer. But if he hadn’t killed Kassie then who had?

Wednesday morning just after we opened, Harry Taylor and his brother, Larry, arrived at the library.

“Do you have something already?” I asked.

“Ever see any of the James Bond movies?” Harry asked.

“I’ve seen all of them.”

He inclined his head in the direction of his brother. “He’s Q.”

“It wasn’t complicated,” Larry said with a smile. He handed me a small cardboard box.

I opened the flaps and peered inside. “This is the camera?” I said. The contents looked like a tiny robot spaceman in a white spacesuit with a black-visored helmet.

Larry nodded. “Wi-Fi, night vision, motion detector, 360-degree panoramic view, SD card and it will send an alert to my smartphone if anyone is around the gazebo.” He looked at me a little uncertainly. “I hope it’s okay that the alerts go to my phone. I couldn’t have them go to Harry’s. All he has is a flip phone.”

Harry gave him a look that said this wasn’t the first time they’d had a conversation about his phone.

“You could send the alerts to my phone,” I said.

Harry shook his head. “I don’t think that it’s a good idea for you to come down here in the middle of the night to confront whoever has been pulling these stunts. I’m sorry if that seems sexist.”

I recognized the size and strength difference between the two of them and me. “No, it’s not. But I’d feel a lot better if you’d call the police when you get an alert.”

“We can do that,” Harry said.

I noticed he’d said “can” not “will.” I also knew arguing wouldn’t get me anywhere.

Harry and Larry installed the camera just under the back roof edge across from the gazebo. Unless you were looking for it you couldn’t see it from the ground or with a cursory glance at the building.

I was just walking back around the building when I caught sight of Caroline Peters coming up the sidewalk. She saw me and raised a hand in acknowledgment. I waited for her at the bottom of the steps.

“Hi,” she said as she reached me. “Ray called me after you two talked last night. I just came from the police department.”

I stuffed my hands in my sweater pockets. “I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

“I’m sorry I deceived you. I’m sorry I deceived everyone.” She played with the knotted bracelet around her left wrist. “No one knew about Ray and me. I wanted to keep it that way. When I left his apartment I was going to walk back to the café and just join everyone else. Then I met Kate.” There was a second’s pause. “She said, ‘So you got tired of working on your bread and decided to come out for a walk, too,’ and when I opened my mouth ‘Yes’ was what came out. I didn’t mean to lie. It just happened.”

“I believe you,” I said. That was the thing about lying. It was surprisingly easy.

“Thank you,” she said, and a little of the tension left her body.

I hesitated about whether to say anything else. The fact that I truly liked her won out. That and I didn’t trust Ray as far as I could throw him, as Rebecca would say. “Caroline, your life and your marriage are absolutely none of my business,” I said. “But Ray Nightingale is not someone worth blowing up your life over.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. I had no way to know if Ray had just been a reckless fling or if she had feelings for him. I hoped it was the former.

“I should go.” She looked in the direction of the sidewalk.

I nodded. “Thank you for coming. You didn’t have to.”

“Yes, I did,” she said. “I tell my kids to tell the truth all the time. I tell them when they’ve made a mistake to admit it. I need to start practicing what I preach.” She gave me a small smile and headed toward the sidewalk.

I started up the steps. I realized that Kate didn’t have an alibi anymore unless she had some kind of secret romance going on as well. It didn’t exactly seem likely, given her soft-spoken, quiet demeanor. Neither did the idea of her being a murderer. So now what?

chapter 17

The phone rang Thursday morning before I had even had my first cup of coffee. I glanced at the screen. It was Harry. I knew what that meant.

“Good morning,” I said.

“I’m not sure you’ll think so when you know where I am,” he said.

“You’re at the library.”

“Larry got an alert about half an hour ago.”

I leaned against the counter. “You didn’t catch our gazebo guy, did you?”

“No.” I imagined Harry pulling off his ball cap and smoothing down what little hair he still had. “Whoever it was disconnected the camera and took the SD card. We’ve got nothing.” I heard him exhale. “Well, almost nothing.”

“What did he do this time?”

“There’s an inflatable pool in the gazebo—pretty good size, too. It’s full of Jell-O. And two squirrels, but I think they just might be a couple of innocent bystanders.”

“What kind of Jell-O?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “It’s dark red.”

I heard someone else say something.

“Larry says it’s black raspberry.”

“I’m on my way,” I said.

“You sure?” he asked.

I pushed away from the counter. “I’m sure. Do you want coffee?”

“As long as it’s not too much trouble,” he said. “Aw hell, even if it is too much trouble.”

“It’s not,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

Owen and Hercules were fed. The litter boxes were clean. All I had to do was brush my teeth and my hair. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, put on some lip gloss and tossed a banana, a corn scone from the freezer, my travel mug and the rest of my makeup into my bag. It looked kind of lumpy.