Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

Lowell, who had started to stand, froze in place. “Price,” he said. “Her last name is Price.”

Everyone turned to look at him. He flushed. “I used to live there. A long time ago.” He gave a brief nod and hurried out.

I watched him go. A long time ago, he’d said. But Lowell was in his mid-twenties, so how long ago could it have been? And how long had Nicole been in Monroe? Though Monroe was a big city by Up North standards, it was a small town for downstate. Was there a connection between Lowell and Nicole?

It certainly seemed as if there could be.

And it was up to me to find out.

Chapter 14

Kate stared at me. “You want to do what?”

I kept my smile affixed to my face. Maybe if I kept it up, I’d look like Clella when I was in my mid-eighties, and not Doris. “I want us to make supper together. And it’ll be something that doesn’t smell much, so you won’t get a headache.”

“But you don’t cook. Not really.”

My smile became a tad rigid. “Just because I don’t, doesn’t mean I can’t.” At least in theory. “Anyone with a fifth grade education should be able to follow a recipe.” I flourished the small pile of printouts I’d made at the library during lunchtime, five cents a page into petty cash, thank you. “Pick one. Any ingredient we don’t have, we can walk over to the grocery store and buy. It’s Friday night, after all. We can make cooking our entertainment for the evening.”

“It’s not like it’s a real Friday,” Kate said, rolling her eyes. “I have to work at the toy store tomorrow morning, you know.”

I had not known. How could I have? For me to know what was going on in her life would have required that she talk to me. “Then I promise we won’t make anything that will take longer than ten hours.”

Kate sighed. “You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely,” I said brightly. Or as brightly as I could through teeth that were starting to clench tight. “It’ll be fun.”

“Fun?” Kate’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

I had no idea. But then inspiration struck. Though my niece didn’t listen to me, she did listen to pretty much everyone else. “Kristen says there’s nothing in the entire world better than cooking a good meal.”

“Yeah? She really says that?” Kate glanced at the houseboat’s kitchen-like area.

“Here.” I held out my phone. “Go ahead. Ask her.”

Kate ignored my phone and, instead, took the stack of recipes. This relieved me mightily, because what Kristen had actually said was, “There’s nothing better than coming up with a new recipe that my peeps are willing to shell out thirty bucks a pop to eat.” She might have given me a pass on the translation, but now I had a chance to prep her for the question. And if I told her approval would result in Minnie Hamilton cooking a full dinner from start to finish, she would probably have paid admission to attend.

“Some of these don’t look too horrible,” Kate said. “Can I pick?”

“Absolutely,” I said rashly, which was why we ended up in the grocery store, filling a cart with a multitude of items to make shrimp pad Thai, a recipe that happened to be on the same page as the far simpler shrimp stir fry, the dish I’d had my eye on when I’d hit the Print button.

After I’d handed over my credit card for an amount that was more expensive than going out would have been and we’d hauled everything back to the houseboat, we read over the recipe and I divvied up tasks. Kate on the sauce, me on the slicing and dicing.

But after she’d watched me almost slice my fingertips off, she forced a switch.

“Have you ever used a knife in your life?” she demanded.

“Sure,” I said, carefully dividing oil into two tiny dishes usually reserved for Eddie’s morning milk. “It’s just that I’m often thinking about something else, and that something else is almost always a lot more interesting than cutting pretty much anything.”

“I can’t believe you have a master’s,” she muttered.

Clearly she had not yet learned that advanced degrees were an inaccurate indicator of life success, but that was something she’d have to figure out for herself.

When I was in the middle of spooning out rice vinegar, I felt Kate shoot me a quick glance. “Have you talked to Deputy Wolverson about what I was saying the other day?”

“About . . . ?” Since my thoughts had been focused on what Rafe had been murmuring into my ear the previous evening, I blinked at her question.

She paused, mid-chop. “You’ve forgotten about it, haven’t you?”

“Of course not,” I said automatically as I tried to remember what she was so sure I couldn’t remember. A bit wildly, I looked around for a clue. Eddie, who was trying to wedge himself into the tiny crack between the dining bench and the wall, was no help. “It’s just I, um, haven’t had time.”

“Really?” The knife dropped onto the counter and she put her hands on her hips. “It was days ago you said you’d talk to Deputy Wolverson about my theory, that maybe Mrs. Price’s husband and Mr. Stuhler’s wife were having an affair, and they killed their spouses so they could be together without paying for a divorce.”

Ah. That. “Yes, but—”

“But what?” She was almost yelling now. “You were never going to tell him, were you? You don’t take me seriously. You never have and you never will.” She lurched away from my outstretched hand. “Leave me alone, okay? Just leave me alone.” She ran out the door, bobbing the houseboat as she jumped off.

I hurried after her, keeping her in sight as she ran down the length of the dock and took a hard right, and then another right a few yards later.

Sighing, I slowed. She was headed to Louisa and Ted Axford’s. I watched as she climbed aboard the sleek boat and lingered until I heard Louisa’s calm and reassuring voice.

“Now what?” I asked Eddie as I returned to the houseboat.

“Mrr,” he said. And he said it in a very critical way. Before I’d taken up residence with a cat, I hadn’t understood how judgmental they could be.

“Thanks so much.” I sighed. “I know I screwed up. You don’t have to beat me over the head with it.” I flopped on top of Kate’s sleeping bag. Then squirmed around a bit. “You know what? This is actually very comfortable. No wonder she likes sleeping on this.”

“Mrr.”

“Well, sure, you knew that a long time ago, didn’t you? And you were just waiting for me to acknowledge the combined wisdom of an Eddie and a seventeen-year-old.” The yellow eyes swiveled my way and I quickly added, “Sorry, that came out a little snarky, didn’t it? I apologize. I should never doubt your capabilities.”

His little kitty shoulders went up and down in a sigh, looking for all the world like an aggrieved parent who knew their offspring was lying through their teeth.

In the name of distraction, I said, “But you never answered my question. What do I do now? Is she going to talk to me anytime soon? And by ‘soon,’ what I mean is within the next decade?”

Eddie, who had been sitting on the dashboard, jumped to the floor and stalked past me.

“Okay, you’re right. What I should do is what I told her I’d do: talk to Ash about her theory that Fawn Stuhler and Dominic Price had a thing going and killed their spouses to clear the way for mutual eternal bliss. After their reception of my one-killer theory, I doubt they’ll welcome anything like that.” But I’d have to talk to them eventually, since I’d promised.

Sliding down, getting close to horizontal, I tried to consider Kate’s theory as realistic. I’d never met Fawn, but Rex had been in his late forties, so odds were reasonably good that Fawn was roughly the same age. Nicole had turned forty last winter—I remembered her talking about the surprise party her husband had given her—so Dominic was probably about that, too.