Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

For a wild moment, he’d hoped that maybe Sunny had gotten into the go-fast thing to go home. But she wasn’t carrying anything, and she’d taken a lot of things with her when she’d left her place where the Old One lived.

Shadow gathered himself for a leap and landed on the front of the go-fast thing. Sunny and her He both jumped as he landed to confront them. Shadow sat very still, staring at them while his tail lashed around. He was angry at Sunny—for leaving, for pretending not to know him when she saw him before, for raising his hopes now when she obviously wasn’t actually coming home.

It wasn’t the kind of thing he could settle with hisses and claws. But he could show Sunny how he felt. She’s not the only one who can go away, he thought.

“That cat is worse than your dad,” Will burst out. “He shows up whenever we’re alone in the dark. But how did he manage to do it a half hour’s drive from your house?”

“He followed me here,” Sunny explained, stretching out a hand to the windshield. But Shadow didn’t respond with his usual paw against the glass. “Or rather, he stowed away in my bag. Shadow was pretty upset when I left. And he caused a pretty big stir today.” She explained about Augustus de Kruk’s reaction to seeing Shadow and the ensuing pursuit.

“Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled to see him turn up here.” Will took a long, deep breath. “What are you—we—planning to do about this?”

“I don’t know,” Sunny admitted. “After all that happened, I can understand him being skittish. But now he’s Public Enemy Number One on Neal’s Neck. I’m afraid he’s going to get hurt. And even if they only catch him, what am I going to do? Say, ‘Oh, that’s my cat,’ and take him away? I don’t think that will cut much ice with the de Kruks, Trehearne, or the Kingsburys, for that matter.”

She stared at the cat still sitting on the hood, and gave him the evil eye. “Problem is, I don’t think Shadow’s just going to go back home quietly.”

“I suppose we should try to catch him,” Will said. “Try and get your hand on the door handle without letting him see it.”

Sunny groped over, keeping her eyes on Shadow. “Got it,” she reported.

“And I’ve got mine,” Will said. “We’ll go for a count of three. I’ll take the left side, you take the right, and with luck we’ll have him surrounded. One, two . . .”

When Will yelled “Three!” Sunny flung her door open, jumped out, and went for the hood. She saw a wild-eyed Will on the opposite side—but no cat.

“He must have ducked under when he saw us coming out.” Will returned to the pickup, coming back out with a flashlight. “I’ll see if I can spot him—”

“There!” Sunny pointed as Shadow streaked out from under the pickup and disappeared into a stretch of roadside underbrush. The circle of light from Will’s flashlight was about a second behind him.

“It’s hopeless to try and find him in that jungle.” Will gave Sunny a sidewise glance. “He must be pretty peeved with you.”

“He must be.” Sunny couldn’t keep the forlorn tone out of her voice. “One of the members of the wedding party gave him something to eat today. But heaven knows how he’s getting along.”

“Knowing Shadow, he’ll manage to land on his feet.” Will changed the subject. “Tell me more about this knife.”

“Seems it belonged to Priscilla Kingsbury’s father, Lem,” Sunny said. “He was quite a fisherman before that landslide caught his campaign bus. Anyway, there was a big chase scene where Lee Trehearne and his security people tried to run Shadow down. One of the guys was carrying a fisherman’s landing net, and your friend Hank Riker saw it. Lieutenant Wainwright came with a search warrant to look at the late Lem’s tackle box and came down saying that the gear had all been disarranged and the knife was gone.”

Will frowned in thought. “So what does this tell us?”

“Going by MOM, Beau Bellingham is still a possible candidate for the first murder,” Sunny said. “He had a nasty fight with Eliza Stoughton—motive. She was strangled, and he’s a big guy—means. And he has no alibi other than sleeping alone, which leaves him open on opportunity. None of it’s a slam dunk, but he’s the likeliest suspect.”

“But now there’s been another murder, and Beau had no known beef with Sheriff Nesbit—no motive.” Will took up the line of reasoning. “Unless I suppose Nesbit found out something about him that the rest of us haven’t. He left your beer pong tournament early, which again leaves him open on opportunity. But means . . .” His voice trailed off, then came back. “You’d need a very sharp knife to slit someone’s throat like that, and a knife used to gut fish would be ideal. And if it had been sitting around in a tackle box for years, that knife probably wouldn’t be missed, unlike grabbing something from a kitchen.”

“The question is, how would Beau even know about the knife?” Sunny argued. “It’s his first visit to Neal’s Neck.”

“It is hard to explain. He’d have had to pump Priscilla or somebody else in the family pretty thoroughly to get this information. On the other hand, the drinks were flowing pretty freely the day before Eliza got killed. Priscilla or one of the others may have mentioned something in passing. Did Beau spend much time with Caleb Kingsbury? He’d probably be a font of information about the quirks of the property—and the folks who lived here.”

“Not that I saw,” Sunny said.

“The use of Lem’s knife does suggest someone familiar with the house and property. What about your friend Caleb?”

“I think everything bad in his life has already been spread out for media inspection,” Sunny replied. “Since Sheriff Nesbit died, I’ve had to reconsider Randall’s theory. Maybe we’re looking for a person with a secret so dirty, they’re killing to keep even the suggestion of blackmail away from their name. That sounds like somebody with a very public profile.”

“Like a governor, maybe,” Will suggested. “Governor Lem and his lovely wife have been bunking in his father’s old room. Lem—the young Lem—boy, this is getting confusing. Anyway, the Lem who’s still alive—did say he knew Nesbit in that blog post you put out today.”

“You read that?” Sunny said in surprise.

“Of course. I wanted to see how you were doing.” Then Will shrugged, his face twisting in annoyance. “And thanks to Ingersoll, you’re practically my only source for information out of Neal’s Neck these days. But forget about that.” He quickly shook his head. “We’ve got to use your position as an inside person to learn more. Ask about family history, without going into specifics about things like Lem Senior’s fishing. And the property itself—any oddball things there? Did Caleb or Priscilla ever sneak out of the compound? Could they have mentioned how they managed to pull that off to someone else?”

“Oh sure,” Sunny said glumly. “That sounds easy enough to slip into a casual conversation.”

She and Will spent a few more minutes searching the shrubbery for Shadow, then Sunny told him she’d better head back. She walked past the roadblock, skirting the trooper, and into the guesthouse. As Sunny opened the door to her room, she half expected to find Shadow curled up on her bed, but there was no sign of him.

Just as well, I suppose, she thought as she got ready for bed, but she had an uneasy feeling that she’d be paying for her current relief in other ways soon enough.

*

By the nextmorning, there were other things to talk about. All of the guests were awakened at the crack of dawn by Priscilla’s brothers, who requested them to come to the big house. Once there, the whole family sat together watching one of the Sunday morning news shows. The comedy highlight for the day was the video footage of the Keystone Kops chase scene across the lawn yesterday. Augustus de Kruk stayed in the dining room for the whole scene. Apparently, he couldn’t even bear to see a cat on television.