Клер Донелли - The Big Kitty

“I guess both patients could be better,” she told Jane. “Shadow is walking around a little lopsided, and my dad is bent out of shape because there’s a cat in the house.”

Jane laughed. “I’ve seen that syndrome before.” Then she got serious. “On the other hand, there are some studies that show having a pet around can help a sick person’s recovery.”

“Let’s hope so,” Sunny said, “because up to now all Shadow has done is raise Dad’s blood pressure.” She shook her head. “That’s not altogether true. Dad did promise to keep an eye on Shadow while I’m at work. Although he did ask what the difference was between Shadow resting and the cat’s normal day.”

“Recovering cats rest by night as well as by day. So if your father has to get up at some ungodly hour to go to the bathroom, he won’t bump into Shadow wandering around on midnight patrol.” Jane smiled. “Shadow’s a healthy, resilient little guy. If he’s walking around, even a little lopsided as you say, that’s a good sign. I expect he should recover quickly. But it’s good to have someone keeping an eye on him, just in case.”

She paused for a moment, then said a little too casually, “It was great seeing Will Price last night. Has he been helping you with the investigative story?”

Several possible answers flitted through Sunny’s mind. No, he’s actually my helpless love slave sounded a little too silly (not to mention untrue), while Yes, and we’re also playing detectives in our spare time was perhaps too much information.

She decided on the literal but uninformative truth. “He was the one who first responded to my 911 call when I found Ada dead, so he has an interest in the case.”

“Ah.” Jane raised a hand to brush her blond hair behind her shoulder. “You don’t know if he’s … seeing anyone, do you?”

Sunny put on her best helpful expression. “He hasn’t mentioned anything like that.”

Jane nodded. “Just wondering. Well, keep me posted on how Shadow is doing. I called this morning to get his records back. It was good seeing you guys last night. We returnees ought to stick together.”

Right, Sunny thought as she watched Jane walk out of the office. Maybe we can get together and form the Busted Lives Club.

She threw herself back into work, trying to squelch that dismal thought.

Will Price’s call a little while later didn’t help much on the cheering front, either.

“I had a friend in the Portsmouth crime lab take a look at the gunk in the bottom of your wineglass.” He sounded even grimmer than his usual cop voice.

“Oh,” Sunny said. With all the other excitement later in the night, she’d almost forgotten about their abortive undercover operation. “What were they? Some kind of knockout drugs?” She made a face. “That date rape stuff?”

“Not unless Gordie was into necrophilia,” Will told her. “It was a mixed bag of sleeping pills. Addicts often carry them to come down from a long meth jag. That many pills, though, would have put you to sleep permanently. Gordie must have had a handful of them, and his sweaty palms glued them all together. It’s beginning to look like a Wile E. Coyote adventure,” he said wryly.

“Who?” Sunny asked in confusion.

“You know, the coyote from the Road Runner cartoons? The one who’s always coming up with a clever plan, which then falls apart, usually biting him on the butt.” He gave a dry chuckle, but Sunny just rolled her eyes.

“It didn’t have to be Gordie,” she said, running back over the sequence of events again. “Somebody came up behind me when the fight got serious. At the time, I thought they were running to help separate the two guys.”

“They?” Will repeated. “Not he or she?”

“Come on, there was a bar fight going on, which kind of distracted my attention. I never really got a look at the person behind me,” Sunny confessed. “But whoever it was, they were close enough to drop something in my drink.”

“Be that as it may, I’m very eager to have a chat with Gordie Spruance,” Will said. “He lives out in the country—outside the town’s jurisdiction. I can’t get Nesbit’s people to help on this, but Ben Semple and the guys in the department are stopping by to check around Ada’s house and keep an eye out for Gordie and his pickup.”

“And what are you going to do if you get him?” Lurid images of blackjacks and waterboarding flashed through Sunny’s mind.

“I’m going to show him the glob of pills in your glass and the other stuff that was used to try to get at you,” Will replied. “If he is involved, I ought to get some kind of twitch out of him. If he’s not involved, as you seem to believe—well, maybe all that stuff will shock him into talking about his criminal associates.”

“And then maybe you’ll have something to take to the district attorney?”

“Yeah.” Will sounded as tired as she felt. “Maybe, maybe, maybe.”

After Will said good-bye, Sunny tried to occupy herself with the lowest kind of grunt work—the stuff she usually put off because it was so tedious. Unfortunately, that left her mind free to keep jumping around in very unsettling ways.

She almost welcomed the interruption when the phone rang again.

It was Ollie Barnstable at his most charming. “Sunny, I need you to go into my files,” he said. “Get the folder marked ‘Investment Opportunities’ and bring it to the Captain’s Table. I’m having a business lunch.”

And apparently you want to impress whoever is eating with you by having a flunky appear, she thought.

“So get to it.” With that encouragement, he hung up. Sighing, Sunny opened the cash box for a special set of keys. The back wall of the office held a row of file cabinets with Ollie’s personal files. They were supposed to be kept locked and never opened unless he asked for something.

Sunny suspected that half the cabinets were empty or held old tax papers. Some of the drawers had pretty cryptic inscriptions.

One of these days, preferably while Ollie is away on vacation, I’ll have a look into some of those, she promised herself. For now, though, she went to the first of the alphabetized cabinets, unlocked it, and searched under the Is.

There it was—Investment Opportunities. Sunny slipped the file into a large envelope and headed for the front door, stopping to lock it on her way out.

*

The Captain’s Tableoffered the best dining in Kittery Harbor—not to mention the best views. The owners of the restaurant had renovated a warehouse in the old waterfront district, with outdoor dining on the old pier. Between the quaint buildings surrounding them and the vista of the cove that had served as an anchorage, the Captain’s Table would have drawn crowds of diners even if the food hadn’t been fantastic—which it was.

“Just the place to go to impress some rich out-of-towner,” Sunny muttered as she set off down the sidewalk. Any trip downtown was like a journey into the past, especially the past of narrow streets. She could reach the waterfront district faster on foot than taking her dad’s truck.

Main Street lost a couple of lanes at the Redbrick Tavern, another high-end restaurant and one of the few historic buildings not constructed of hemlock and spruce. Just as she reached the corner across from the landmark, Sunny stopped and stared as Gordie Spruance came out the front door of the tavern, rubbing the back of his hand against his mouth. He was wearing ripped jeans and a paint-stained gray hoodie, clothes more suited to O’Dowd’s than a nice place like the Redbrick. And, she noticed, he had the hood up—as if that could hide his beaky nose and the flaming acne across his cheeks.