Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

“Like the one he arranged for Charlie Vane and Neil Garret,” Sunny said.

“Nobody got their kneecaps broken.”

“But somebody ended up dead in a fish freezer.” When Sunny saw Shadow stop eating to stare at her, she lowered her voice. “Could Garret have been such a threat to Sweeney’s business—to his control over the market—that he had to be taken out?”

Mike was silent for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “But I don’t know the market, or the man, well enough to be sure.”

They finished their sandwiches in silence. Then Sunny rose, knelt to give Shadow a head scratch, and told him to be good.

“Right,” Mike said as he got up from his seat.

Sunny had a moment of worry as she opened the door, but at that moment a gust of wind blew in like a spike of freezing-cold air. Shadow actually retreated. Sunny closed the door with the cat on the right side, got in her Wrangler, and headed back to work.

Traffic wasn’t a problem, but parking was. Sunny actually had to walk a couple of blocks to get to the office. She passed Neil Garret’s fish market and noticed several customers.

That looks like a good sign, she thought.

No sooner did she come through the door than she noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. “It’s Ollie,” the familiar voice of her boss came from the speaker. “Just checking in on the rent situation with Neil Garret.”

Sighing, Sunny pulled her parka back on and went next door. “Got a call from Ollie,” she said to Neil as he turned to her after helping a customer.

He nodded. “Tell him I’ll definitely be in tonight,” he promised.

Sunny returned to the office to call Ollie’s cell phone and pass along the good news.

“Fine,” Ollie replied. “I’ll be there.”

Sunny worked through the rest of the day wondering which was worse—Ollie turning up unannounced, or waiting it out until Ollie arrived? She discovered that Shadow had left a memento from his visit. Somehow he’d managed to sneak into the bathroom and unspool half the roll of toilet paper. In the end, she tossed the evidence and replaced the roll, hoping that Ollie wasn’t monitoring TP use as an office expense.

She was dealing with a flurry of late-in-the-day e-mail traffic when Ollie finally turned up. He nodded to her as she talked on the phone with a B and B provider, collected a file from the locked cabinets in the rear of the office, and spread papers on a desk to peruse.

It was dead dark outside when Neil Garret appeared at the office door. Ollie looked up from his reading as Neil came in and shamefacedly approached his desk. He carried a plastic bag printed with the logo of his store which he placed in front of Ollie. “Figured you might as well have it in cash,” Neil said.

“Better than trying to pay me in fish.” Ollie reached into the bag, removed a sheaf of bills, and began counting them out. “You know, I could charge you a late fee.”

Neil winced as if he’d taken a body blow.

“But I’ll let it slide—this month.” He finished counting, nodded, and said, “All there. Sunny, can you make out a receipt?”

It took longer than she liked, checking through desk drawers to find the printed pad. With so much of the business online, she rarely had to deal with cash anymore. Sunny filled in the appropriate spaces and handed the receipt to Neil, comparing the smiling guy who’d fooled with Shadow earlier in the day with the tense, silent man who took the slip of paper.

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Neil.” Ollie’s eyes went back to his papers. “Let’s hope we don’t have these kinds of problems next month.”

“Yes.” Neil unbent a little as he headed for the door. “Good evening, Sunny.”

As he went out, a swirl of wind came in the open door. Ollie darted out a hand to hold down the pile of bills on his desk.

“Should I get the cash box for those?” Sunny asked.

Ollie shook his head. “I think I’ll make a bank run—” He broke off, grabbing for the money as the door opened again. This time Will and Val Overton entered.

“Damn, we are definitely in the wrong business, Will,” the federal marshal said, pointing to the cash under Ollie’s fingers.

“Neil Garret’s rent.” Ollie fumbled the money back into the bag Neil had left. “I’m going to deposit it in the bank.”

“We’ll come with,” Val offered. “You’ll feel safer with two armed officers on either side. Although with a windfall like that, maybe you ought to take us out and treat us.”

Will glanced at his boisterous companion. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out.” He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice. “To make up for that lunch. Val offered to come along.”

“Ollie, you should come, too,” Val said with her gleaming smile. “We’ll make it a double date.”

Ollie tried to back out, but Val wouldn’t hear of it. “Come on. You can go to the bank, and then we’ll head over to the Brickhouse.”

“That’s the Redbrick,” Will said.

“Why not?” Ollie said, trying to accept defeat gracefully. Sunny shut down the computer, she and Ollie got their coats, and they left the office.

Sunny shivered as a blast of wind caught her in the face. “Damn. It’s gotten even colder.”

Ollie just hunched down, clutching the bag of cash. They caught the bank just before it closed, Ollie hurriedly filling out the deposit slip.

Guess they’ll be a little later getting out tonight, counting all of that, Sunny thought. A problem I don’t encounter these days. She took the opportunity to take out her cell phone and call her dad. “Will asked me out for the evening,” she reported. “Will you be okay for supper?”

“So you’ll get to see him after all. That’s good,” Mike said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got soup and lots of that healthy glop to make a sandwich. And your friend won’t miss you. At last report, he was asleep on the couch.”

Sunny laughed. “Okay, Dad. I won’t be too late. It’s a school night, after all.”

“Not to be a party pooper, but early would be better,” Mike told her. “I’ve been watching the news, and they’re talking about a storm blowing in later.”

“The wind’s getting stronger even now.” Outside the bank, Sunny watched a woman vainly clutch for the hood of her parka as a stiff breeze flipped it back. Sunny said good-bye to her father and then turned to Will and Val. “Dad says the weather is going to take a turn for the worse. So if we do this, we should keep it short.”

Val Overton watched Ollie come back from the teller’s counter. “Just have to make the most of our time.” She grabbed his arm and wrapped it in hers. “Lead on, you gorgeous man.”

Her outrageous flirting kept Ollie flustered all the way to the Redbrick and through the first round of beers. By the second round, his face was pinker, but he’d loosened up. Val asked him about local business conditions, and he gave his opinions freely while she seemed to hang on to his every word.

Sunny glanced at Will, who gave her a crooked smile and a shrug. Well, this is turning into a real hot date for a cold night, she thought. I could have had a better time if I’d stayed in the office and worked.

Then Val steered the conversation to the fishing business, and Sunny realized that Will and the Fed actually were working.

“Sportfishing, as a tourist attraction, still holds up,” Ollie said. “But the thing there is the excursion, the experience, rather than the catch.”

“My dad says a lot of people go on those jaunts for the beer rather than the fish,” Sunny remarked. “If they catch anything, they leave it to spoil.”