Миранда Джеймс - Claws For Concern

“This is ridiculous,” she said. “I was nowhere near Athena that day. You can’t prove any of this.”

“And what day would that be?” Jack asked.

She realized her slip but tried to bluster. “Whatever day you’re talking about, I wasn’t in Athena. I haven’t been in Athena in a long time.”

“Not even to visit your best friend, Leann Finch?” Jack asked.

Elizabeth Barber—I couldn’t think of her by any other name—backed up against her SUV and glanced wildly back and forth between Jack and me.

“You might be disappointed to hear that you didn’t kill Bill Delaney, though you did put him in the hospital,” I said. “That was a pretty dirty trick, you know. Going to see him that day, getting him drunk, and then trying to run him down.”

Her eyes widened again, and I took grim satisfaction in the fact that my hunch had proved true. She had been in Bill’s apartment that morning. The lipstick Diesel had found on the floor belonged to her, I was sure of it.

“Too bad you lost your lipstick while you were there,” I said. “My cat found it, but I left it there. I’m sure the police in Athena will be happy to test it for fingerprints. What do you want to bet they’ll match yours?”

All at once her legs seemed to give way, and she slid down the side of the SUV until she was sitting on the pavement. Tears started streaming down her face.

Jack and I exchanged startled glances. I hadn’t expected this. I thought she would continue to brazen it out. A cynical thought flashed through my mind, however. She might be trying this tactic in order to garner sympathy. Best not to be taken in by it. I glanced at Jack again, and I could see by his expression of disbelief that he’d had the same thought.

“Why did you do it, Elizabeth?” I asked, my tone gentler than she probably deserved. “Did you really want to kill him?”

THIRTY-THREE

While Jack and I waited for a response to my question, I could hear Diesel in the car meowing loudly and scratching at the window. Elizabeth Barber, her hands now over her face, continued to cry.

Since Diesel sounded more frantic as the seconds ticked by, I opened the door and let him out. He meowed again and climbed onto Elizabeth’s legs and butted his head against her hands. Obviously startled by the sudden weight on her legs and the pressure against her hands, she let her arms fall. Diesel butted his head against her chin. Elizabeth wrapped her arms around my cat and buried her face in the side of his neck.

Jack and I watched as the cat’s ministrations proved effective in calming the distressed woman. We waited as the sobs diminished in volume and Elizabeth’s breathing appeared to be normal again.

An unfamiliar voice from behind me startled me. “What’s going on here? Liz, honey, are you all right?”

A small woman, no more than five feet tall and whippet thin, pushed by me to get closer to Elizabeth. “Is something wrong with the cat? I got worried when you didn’t come back.”

“I’m okay, Louann.” Elizabeth raised her head from Diesel’s neck. Her reddened eyes and tear-stained appearance apparently did little to reassure her coworker, however. Louann glared at Jack and me in turn.

“What did y’all do to her car? The damage must be really bad for her to carry on like this.”

“My car is fine,” Elizabeth said. “They brought me some bad news, that’s all.”

“Judging by the way you look, honey, it must be pretty dang bad news. Who’s that cat belong to?”

“He’s mine,” I said. “Come on, Diesel, let the lady get up now.”

Diesel warbled as if in protest. Elizabeth offered a watery smile as she stroked his head.

“It’s okay, Diesel,” she said softly. “I’m okay.”

The cat meowed and climbed off her legs. He moved next to me, and I stroked his head. Elizabeth slowly raised herself off the pavement. Jack extended a hand to help her, but she ignored it.

“You come on back in the clinic,” Louann said. “Wash your face and have something to drink. Your makeup’s all streaky.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” Elizabeth said. “You go on back, Louann, and I’ll be there in a minute. Go on now, I mean it.”

Louann shot hard glances at Jack and me before she moved away, but she headed back to the clinic after one more plea to Elizabeth to come back inside. Elizabeth ignored her.

“You said Bill Delaney is in the hospital,” she said, addressing me. “How is he?”

“Not good,” I said. “His health was already bad, and that’s going to make it more difficult for him to recover from this. He’s in the ICU now.”

“I’m sorry he was hurt,” Elizabeth said.

She still hadn’t admitted that she was responsible. I thought we had shaken her enough that she would confess to it, but she was evidently made of sterner stuff than I expected.

“I’m sorry he’s in the hospital,” she said. “I hope he’s okay. There’s nothing I can do to help him. I really have to get back to work.” She made as if to push past me, but I didn’t budge.

“You do realize that we are going to have to tell the police that we have identified your SUV as the one that ran Bill Delaney down,” I said. “Don’t you have anything to say about that?”

“I’ll talk to the police if I have to,” Elizabeth said. “I don’t see that it’s any business of yours. I told you already that I wasn’t in Athena.”

“There were witnesses,” I said, “who saw the whole thing.”

That startled her. The mask of defiance slipped for a bare second but then was back.

“It’s nothing to do with me,” she said. “Whoever they saw that day, no one can prove it was me.”

“I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” Jack said. “Several of the businesses around the square have security cameras, and some of them run twenty-four hours a day. I’d be willing to bet one of them caught the whole thing. Including the license plate of the SUV in question.”

I did my best to hide my surprise at Jack’s statement about the video cameras. As far as I knew, there were no such cameras around the square.

Jack’s bluff shook her. Her body stiffened at his words, but she didn’t reply to him. Instead, she pushed me out of the way and hurried back into the clinic.

“That was some performance,” Jack said. “Those tears may have fooled your cat, but they didn’t fool me. That woman is stone cold.”

“Maybe.” I wasn’t completely convinced that Elizabeth Barber’s display of emotion was totally calculated. Diesel responded to genuine emotion, not put-on feelings. He had seen Laura acting out tragic scenes from her favorite Shakespeare plays in my living room, and even as Juliet lay dying on my sofa, he didn’t budge an inch. At least some of what we saw Elizabeth Barber doing was genuine. Whether it was remorse, sympathy, or fear, I didn’t know. Perhaps it was a combination of all three.

“What now?” I asked.

Jack shrugged. “I think it’s time to go back to Elmer Lee and tell him everything we’ve heard. And especially about this SUV.” Jack tapped his knuckles against it. “I’m going to record the license plate.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

Diesel and I stood aside and let him get by to the rear of the SUV. He took a couple of pictures of the license plate. “Let’s have a look at the front. Which side hit Bill Delaney?”

“It would have been the passenger side.” I moved to the front of the SUV, and Diesel and Jack followed me. I bent to examine the front more closely. I couldn’t really see anything that indicated the vehicle had hit anyone. I moved aside to let Jack have a look.

He took my place and squatted to put himself at eye level with the bumper and the lights. I envied his knees the ability to do that without making noise. Mine creaked anytime I had to squat or get down on my hands and knees. Getting back up was also not pleasant.