Миранда Джеймс - No Cats Allowed

Melba gave me a sweet smile. “I love you dearly, too, Charlie Harris, but I’ve been taking care of myself and my tiny rump just fine for many a year. You and Diesel go on home, and don’t worry about me.”

When Melba was in an obstinate mood, there was not much anyone could do to dissuade her from whatever she meant to do. Evidently Ford knew her well enough to understand that the way I did.

“All right,” he said. “But you call us if you need anything.” He nodded at each of us in turn before he left.

“Scoot,” Melba said. “Don’t you even think about hanging around here. Take your poor boy home where it’s nice and quiet. He’s probably been terrified with all this ruckus going on.”

I was already squatting to coax Diesel out from under the desk. He meowed pitifully, and I felt remorse. I should have removed him from the scene earlier, but I got so caught up in everything going on I simply forgot him.

I spoke in a soft, soothing tone. “Come on, boy, let’s go home, okay?”

He meowed again, then appeared to consider my words. He wiggled out, stretched, and butted his head against my chin a couple of times. I scratched his head, and he chirped.

“He’ll be okay.” I stood. “We’ll go home now, but you be careful. Promise me.”

“I will. You really don’t need to worry,” she replied. “By the time Penny and his boss in financial affairs get through with Reilly this afternoon, he’ll be afraid to squawk at anybody.”

“I sure hope so.” I gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Come on, Diesel, we’re heading home.”

On the sidewalk I checked my watch, and found to my surprise that we had been there not much more than an hour. It had seemed a lot longer.

Diesel trotted happily along, and I was glad to stretch my legs. We reached home a few minutes later, and I released the cat from his harness and leash. As he almost always did, he went straight to the utility room.

I went to the den to retrieve my laptop and brought it back to the kitchen. I could hear the sound of the vacuum in the upstairs hall. Azalea sang as she worked, and I could hear snatches of a gospel song mingled with the wheezing of the machine.

With a glass of Azalea’s freshly made iced tea to sustain me, I opened the computer and turned it on. While I waited for it to boot up completely, I thought about what it was I hoped to dig up on the Internet about Oscar.

I decided that I would see what I could find out about Porter Stanley. What was the connection between the two men?

Less than five minutes after I started searching, I discovered that connection, and it was a shocking one.

ELEVEN

I hadn’t expected to find any dirt on Porter Stanley and Oscar Reilly right away, and the fact that I did made me wonder how carefully the college HR department had run a background check on Oscar. I really thought I would have to dig deep to find anything juicy or helpful. Front-page headlines in a suburban Massachusetts newspaper, however, weren’t that hard to miss. I decided I should mention this to Penny Sisson. She needed to know that her staff hadn’t done a thorough enough job.

The Oscar Reilly who stared out at me from the newspaper photograph sported a black eye. His hands were behind his back, and I suspected from the context of the scene that they were in handcuffs. A uniformed policeman had a hand on Oscar’s shoulder. Not more than three feet away, Porter Stanley, also escorted by a man in uniform, looked disheveled and disgruntled but otherwise unmarked. His hands, tightly clenched, were visible, and his expression as he regarded Oscar chilled me.

After absorbing the details of the visual, I read the article. The Stanleys were a wealthy, influential clan in Massachusetts, according to the paper. Otherwise I doubted this story would have received as much space in the paper. Porter Stanley’s sister, Eleanor, was Mrs. Oscar Reilly. Eleanor was reportedly in a nursing facility, having gone there after suffering from the strain of a bitterly contested divorce. I did not collapse from surprise when I read that Eleanor Reilly was divorcing her husband on the grounds of extreme mental cruelty, abuse, and neglect.

The situation in the photograph came about when Porter Stanley and Oscar met at Mrs. Reilly’s lawyer’s office. After a rancorous discussion during the meeting between the two sides, the dispute continued on the street when the men left the building. Allegedly Oscar, who had to be at least eight inches shorter and a good hundred pounds lighter than his brother-in-law, was the aggressor. The men tussled, and Oscar ended up with a black eye. Witnesses at the scene verified that Oscar threw the first punch.

I checked the date on the news story, and the events it recounted took place seven months ago. I checked for follow-ups to this story and found another article from the same paper. Eleanor Reilly received her divorce, and the prenuptial agreement Oscar agreed to when they married seven years earlier was nullified. The agreement apparently had a clause that made it void if there was evidence of cruelty or neglect.

What a stellar character we had to deal with, I thought. What kind of pathology was at work here? Oscar, at least in my opinion, was a disturbed man. And not safe to be around .

On that alarming thought I called Melba immediately. Even armed with her can of air freshener, she might still be in danger of physical harm.

To my relief she answered her office phone after only two rings. “Are you okay?” I tried not to sound panicky. “Where is Oscar?”

“I’m fine,” she replied. “He’s gone. Got called over to the president’s office for a meeting. Why?”

I gave her a quick précis of the news articles. When I finished, she said, “What a scumbag.”

“Yes, and apparently one who can be violent,” I said. “I really think you should follow Chief Ford’s advice and go home. If Oscar comes back to the office, I don’t imagine he’s going to be in a good mood.”

“He’s not going to pull any crap with me,” Melba retorted. “I’ll spray him in the face, and then kick him where it hurts the most if he gets out of line.”

Diesel had been quiet, but now he could sense my tension. He meowed and rubbed his head against my leg. I patted him to try to reassure him, but my attention was focused on Melba.

I had to admire my old friend’s gutsiness, but I feared she was overconfident. I told her so.

She didn’t answer right away. After a few long moments, she said, “I guess you’re probably right. If you poke a hornet’s nest often enough, you’re going to get stung. I’ll be out of here in a few minutes.”

“Good.”

“Look, gotta go, the other line is ringing. I’d better see who it is before I leave.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

Thankful that she hadn’t been stubborn, I put down the phone. I stared at the laptop screen for a moment before I went back to the first article I found. I gazed at the picture of the two men. Why had Porter Stanley sought out his former brother-in-law after the divorce became final? Did Stanley have retribution in mind? I wondered how his poor sister fared after the divorce. I hoped she had recovered well.

There was no mention of children in the articles, so I supposed that meant there were none. The thought of Oscar as a father chilled me.

I shut down the computer and put it aside. Diesel still appeared unsettled, and I devoted a few minutes to reassuring him that everything was fine.

Once the cat settled down again, I found my thoughts reverting back to the subject of Oscar. I could only hope that the meeting he had been called to in the president’s office meant that the college was going to take action. If not to fire him outright, at least to remove him from the position as interim director of the library. Given the turmoil that surrounded his brief tenure, Oscar obviously was not the person for the job. Surely the president could see that.