Рита Браун - Pawing Through The Past

"Indeed . . . but Boom has sense underneath all that fluff. She's not going to willingly jeopardize you."

"Fair calls every half hour. He's driven by four times. I'm sure his patients are thrilled."

Coop laughed. "Fortunately, they can't complain."

"No, but their owners can." Harry tied up the bag, setting it by the back door. "Any sign of Dennis Rablan?"

"Not a hair. We've checked plane departures, the train, the bus. His van hasn't turned up either."

"Coop, he could be dead."

"That thought has occurred to me." Cynthia sat down at the table, licked her forefinger, and picked up crumbs.

"You eat like a bird." Harry opened the small refrigerator, bringing out two buttermilk biscuits that were left. "Here. Miranda's concoction for today."

Just then Mrs. H. walked through the front door; the large brown bag in her arms testified to the fact that she had bought more than a container of half-and-half. "Cynthia, how are you?"

"Frustrated."

"And hungry. She's been picking the crumbs up off the table."

"I can take care of that." Miranda lifted a huge sandwich from the bag. "You girls can share. I got a salad for me, but if you prefer that, Cynthia, I can divide it." Cynthia said she'd like half of Harry's sandwich. Miranda cut the turkey, bacon, lettuce, and provolone on whole wheat in half.

"I'm glad you're here." Harry smiled at Cynthia. "You're saving me from making a pig of myself."

Chris Sharpton pulled up, stuck her head in the front door. "Did you go to the doctor?"

"Miranda took me," Harry lied.

"And?"

"Laryngitis. He said the red mark isn't anything to worry about. I bruised myself but I can't remember how."

"You take care." Chris waved to the others, shut the door, and drove off.

As Cynthia gratefully ate, Miranda put a steaming cup of coffee before her, half coffee, half cream, with a twist of tiny orange rind, a favorite drink.

"If you have any leftovers, I'd be glad to eat them." Tucker wagged her nonexistent tail.

"Pig," was all Mrs. Murphy said. Her worry soured her usually buoyant spirits.

Pewter had eaten two biscuits earlier. She was full as a tick. "Murphy, would it do us any good to walk up to the high school? Maybe we've missed something."

"The only thing we've missed is the boiler room and the janitor's been in there today. Besides, all the kids are back in school. No scent. I'm at a loss, Pewter. I have not one good plan of action. I don't even know where to start."

Tucker, hearing this dispiriting talk, said, "We can read Harry's yearbook tonight. Maybe that will guide us."

"I'll try anything." Murphy flopped down on her side, putting her head on her outstretched arm. She felt so bad it made her tired.

"Dennis?" was all Mrs. Hogendobber asked Cynthia.

"Vanished. I was telling Harry. His landlord opened the office and lab. We crawled all over it. We took a locksmith to his house. Nothing has been disturbed and he hasn't been back. Luckily, he doesn't have pets but his plants are wilting. His neighbors haven't seen him. The state police haven't seen him on the highway."

Cynthia sipped her coffee. "You think it was Dennis?"

"He's the only one left standing," Miranda replied.

"Hank Bittner," Harry reminded her. "Lucky him. He's back in New York."

"The killer had no opportunities to nail Hank," Cynthia said. "At least, I don't think he did."

Harry poured herself a cup of tea, putting a small orange rind in it, too. She couldn't drink coffee. Made her too jumpy. "Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. Rex Harnett was killed in the bathroom. He wasn't dragged there. I wasn't keeping track of when the men went to the loo but our killer was probably in there or saw Rex in there and followed him. He worked fast. How he got out without anyone seeing him makes me think he crawled through the window. After all, the bathroom is on the first floor. And he was prepared for any opportunity. It's frightening how clever and fearless he is."

"You're right about him crawling through the bathroom window." Cynthia confirmed Harry's thesis.

"You could have told us." Mrs. Murphy was miffed.

As if in reply to the cat, Cynthia said, "We can't tell you everything. Well, Boss worries more than I do. I know neither of you did it. Anyway, yes, he dropped on the other side, maybe a six-foot drop. The grass wasn't torn up, no clear prints, obviously, but the ground was slightly indented. He dropped over, brushed himself off, hid the gun somewhere, and strolled back into the gym."

"Wish we knew if he came back in before or after Dennis found Rex."

"Harry, Dennis could have done it, walked around, gone into the bathroom, and discovered the body. It would throw people off." Miranda tapped the end of her knife on the table, a counterpoint to her words.

"Why didn't you arrest him?" Harry asked Cynthia.

"Not enough proof. But Harry, go back to Hank Bittner. You said the killer didn't have an opportunity to kill Hank if he was an intended victim."

"Remember when Hank asked you if he could go to the bathroom?"

"Yes. I made him wait."

"And he did. If the killer hadn't been in the gym with us, if he'd been upstairs, or outside or in the basement, he might have known Hank was alone. Well, probably not in the basement. But from upstairs he could have listened to the sounds coming up from the hall." She held up her hand. "A long shot. Still, he might have known. If he was in the gym with us, he couldn't follow anyone anywhere. You had us all pinned down. You had secured the bathroom where Rex was killed. Your men were out in the parking lot. You'd checked out the building and the grounds while we were penned up, right? I mean, that's why you wouldn't let Hank go to the bathroom. Not until your guys were done."

"You know, Harry, you're smart. Sometimes, I forget that."

"The killer knew what was going on while we sat there. And he's smarter than we are. Now it's possible he could have run away after killing Rex and come back later. But I don't think so. You would have known. You had that school covered."

"Yes, we did."

"All right. Later we had our dinner. Dennis makes a perfect ass of himself and leaves. You knew that, too. And I'm thinking Dennis's behavior was part of a plan."

"You're right. We had a man on the roof of the grade school across the street and we had a man in the parking lot in Tracy Raz's car. We had another officer tail him, although he lost him."

"So he could have come back. He could have snuck up behind the school."

"It's possible," she agreed. "But your cats and dog ran out the back of the school. The dog barked and that alerted our man in Tracy's car. Unfortunately, he didn't put two and two together fast enough, but then he doesn't really know your animals as I do. By the time he roused himself, all he knew was that someone had run across the lawn."

"Dennis could have come back." Miranda stuck to her guns.

"It is possible but when we sent cars out to look for his van, it was nowhere to be found on any of the roads around here."