Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

No being nice, he reminded himself. She went and left me.

It turned out that getting off the stairs was a good thing, because the Old One mumbled something and began climbing up to the hall above. Sunny and her He went into the room with the picture box. They didn’t turn it on, though, sitting on the big chair together and talking. Sunny was doing most of the speaking. Shadow couldn’t understand it, but her tone sounded nervous.

Maybe you’re blaming the wrong one, the cat thought. What if Sunny’s He came here and made them go away? He seemed to turn up more and more lately, taking Sunny away at all sorts of odd times.

The problem was, how could Shadow show his displeasure? Sunny’s He was even bigger than she was, and dumber about a lot of cat things. If I just ignore him, he’d probably like that, Shadow thought. He’d get to be with Sunny instead of me.

This was very bad, and Shadow couldn’t solve it by charging in with a war cry and his claws out.

Maybe I can sneak up and bite him on the ankle when he tries to rub faces with Sunny. Shadow started skulking forward.

I just hope he’s not wearing those high foot-covers he sometimes uses, Shadow thought. Don’t think I could bite through those.

*

Sunny gave Willan uncertain look as they settled on the couch. Mike, as he often did, had made his excuses and headed upstairs, leaving the living room to them.

But I don’t think there’ll be much smooching involved, Sunny thought. She sat on the edge of the couch. “Well, you dug just about as deeply as you could into Abby Martinson without announcing it,” she said.

Will blinked at her tone. “You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No, I could see what you were doing. That doesn’t mean I won’t be glad when she takes off back to California this weekend.” Sunny paused for a second. “Did you get what you wanted?”

“Not sure.” Will backed that up with a shrug. “Mainly I was just trying to get a read on her when she wasn’t biting my head off or cleaning my tie. I had hoped to gauge her reaction to a couple of things, but it wasn’t easy. Abby’s a trained actress. She can hide things.” He glanced at her. “It’s like your pal Neil Garret. Do you know the marshals actually train people in WitSec on how to evade giving answers?”

“He’s not my friend.” Sunny took a deep breath. “And he did talk to me after I called him Nicky. The problem is sorting out anything useful from the stream of good old BS.”

“Did he say anything about Val Overton?” Will asked.

“Neil seems to like and respect her,” Sunny replied. “Although I don’t think he’s above trying to use her if he had to. He might have asked her to squash Phil Treibholz, but he was holding that as a last resort.” She explained about Neil’s “buzz off” money. “He’d lose all that if Val decided it was too dangerous to let him stay around here.”

Will scowled. “So now we’ve got Garret protecting his life and his money—a strong, double-header motive. And his pal Vane had a house full of guns. That could cover means. And he has no alibi—”

“Actually, Neil does,” Sunny responded. “He just didn’t want Val to hear it, because he’d get in trouble.”

Will stared. “Worse trouble than a murder charge hanging over his head?”

“Trouble that might get him bounced out of witness protection—or hauled out of town without his money.” She explained Neil’s quest for alternate funding to pay off Treibholz. “He wound up trying to deal with a couple of guys we know, over in Portsmouth,” she continued, but Will cut her off.

“Shostak and Lipko,” he said, peering at her. “And you went and talked to them, didn’t you?”

“They confirmed that Neil Garret was trying to hit them up for a bridge loan to keep his store going. Dani wasn’t interested in his business. He figured it was going to fail, anyway. The thing is, though, that Neil was trying to convince them he was a good prospect through the estimated time of death. So, unless the medical examiner was way off, Neil has an alibi for both murders.”

“Yeah, nice work, Sunny, but what were you thinking, talking to those guys alone? Maybe they seem like a charming foreign comedy act, but they’re dangerous. Lipko especially.”

“He saw me back to my car,” Sunny told him.

That didn’t make Will feel any better. “Sunny, you can’t make a joke out of this.” His voice grew sharp and he leaned toward her.

With a sound more like a throaty growl than a hiss, Shadow suddenly came leaping out from behind one of the chairs, attacking Will’s ankle. Unfortunately, Will was wearing heavy boots, and the cat couldn’t get his teeth set. He spat in disgust, then rocketed up, trying to attack the tie dangling from Will’s neck. Shadow’s hiss of triumph turned into a cry of dismay when one of his claws got caught in the heavy embroidered silk.

He dangled for a moment, then Sunny knelt to take his weight in her hands. “Now you’ve done it,” she said.

“Are you talking to the cat, or to me?” Will asked.

“Both,” Sunny answered, trying to work the claw free without leaving a big pull in the middle of the tie. “You for making him think he had to protect me, and him for almost destroying your Christmas present.”

Having gotten Shadow loose, she got back onto the couch, keeping the cat in her lap. Sunny gently ran her fingers over Shadow’s fur. “No problem here, Shadow. You take it easy, now.”

She looked at Will. “I’m not going to make a joke or argue about it. You know how skittish Dani gets when he sees a badge. But he talked to me, and he confirmed Neil’s alibi.”

“I doubt if that would hold up in court,” Will grumped.

Sunny laid a restraining hand on Shadow’s shoulder. “I’m not talking about the DA. I’m talking about you.”

“Yeah, I believe him. Dani wouldn’t want the trouble.” Will thought for a moment. “Did you get any kind of a feeling about things between Val and Neil?”

“I got the impression Neil is keeping a lot more secrets from her than about her,” Sunny said. “He respects her—and the power she has over him. And while he’s playing her to an extent—going to loan sharks, for instance—I don’t think there’s anything romantic involved. Neil showed more feeling over Abby Martinson.” Remembering Will’s quiet interrogation earlier, she asked, “Have you turned up something to make you suspicious of her?”

“Frankly, I wanted to see how she’d react when I mentioned guns.” Will frowned. “I spent most of the day going over Charlie Vane’s financials, which were, to put it mildly, a mess. But I stumbled across an ATM receipt that was pretty interesting. It was for the maximum amount, and it was drawn in a town called Vincentville, almost an hour’s drive north of Augusta.”

“What makes it so interesting?” Sunny asked.

“The date,” Will replied. “According to Vane, on the day in question he was supposed to be out in the Gulf of Maine.”

“Could it be a case of identity theft?” Sunny suggested.

“It’s long enough ago that Vane would have gotten a statement—and should have noticed that there was a hole where that money should be. Just to be sure, I checked to see if the bank has anything on its security cameras. I also checked to see what was going on in Vincentville that would drag Vane so far inland. Went over the local newspapers and such and did find one item.”

Will smiled. “On that date, Vincentville had a gun show.”

16

Sunny stopped pettingShadow. “You think that’s where the guns in Charlie Vane’s house came from?”