Donally, Claire - Cat Nap (A SUNNY & SHADOW MYSTERY)

Sunny sat, looking at the address, until the mail carrier finally arrived. She almost snatched the thin sheaf of letters from the surprised woman’s hand, and then said, “Sorry. I was, um, expecting something.”

At least it wasn’t Andy, the regular guy. He’d have wanted to shoot the breeze for a few minutes. This fill-in carrier merely shrugged her shoulders and continued on her daily round.

Probably happy to get away from the crazy lady, Sunny thought.

Sorting quickly through the few envelopes, Sunny made sure that there was nothing urgent, nothing that couldn’t be handled after lunch.

Especially the long lunch she was planning. She locked up the office and got into her Wrangler, heading for the bridge to Portsmouth.

It wasn’t hard to find Portsmouth Tobacconists. They had a large black sign with gold letters, and a window display that even included a couple of hookahs.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see those down in the East Village back in New York, Sunny thought. But do people in this neck of the woods really go in for that kind of stuff?

An old-fashioned bell jingled as she opened the door and stepped into a long, narrow room furnished with all sorts of smoking paraphernalia and memorabilia. Old cigarette ads, a poster of Humphrey Bogart with his trademark cigarette hanging off his lips, cigarette cases, pipes . . .

“How may I help you?” a voice came from the rear of the store.

Sunny tore her eyes from the wild display to look at the young man behind the counter. He was tall and skinny, wearing a black turtleneck that only accentuated his pale skin. Watery blue eyes peered at her through a pair of wire-framed glasses, and the forelock of his long, dark hair dangled down past his eyebrows. He brushed it back with a practiced gesture, smiling at Sunny. “It’s a little much, I know. My dad started this place, and it’s as much his collection as our sales stock.”

“You sell foreign cigarettes?” Sunny asked.

The skinny young man nodded, dropping his forelock into his eyes again. “We have a wide selection, and if need be, we can order almost any brand for you.”

Sunny dug out the crumpled cigarette butt she’d kept in a small plastic bag. “Do you have any of these?”

The young man’s face lit up with an enthusiast’s excitement. “A papirosa !” he exclaimed.

“A whoosy-whatsa?” Sunny asked.

“It’s an old variety of cigarette that pretty much went out of style after World War Two, except in the Soviet Union. They didn’t have filters, and you used the cardboard tube as a sort of cigarette holder, pinching it together here for your fingers . . .”

He held up the butt between his thumb and forefinger and the end of the tube near the tobacco. “And then you pressed it together here for your mouth.” With his other hand, he squeezed the cardboard perpendicular to his first hold, creating a sort of mouthpiece. He let go that end of the tube and, grinning, gestured with the cigarette, his fingers making a sort of “okay” gesture with the palm facing him and the remains of the tobacco facing her. “You can almost see this in an old movie. ‘Ve haff vays of makink you talk.’”

“Do you have the brand?” she asked.

The young man looked at the Cyrillic letters on the side of the tube. “Oh, Belmorkanal. Sure. Named to commemorate a triumph of Soviet engineering—they cut a canal from the Baltic Sea—”

“Does that mean you have it?” Sunny interrupted. Geez, this guy doesn’t know when to stop talking.

The clerk turned to a floor-to-ceiling pigeonhole arrangement behind the counter, featuring a huge array of cigarette packs, from American brands that Sunny was familiar with to gaudily colored packets with words and even alphabets she didn’t understand.

“I’m sorry, we’re out.” The skinny young guy glanced back at Sunny over his shoulder. “Are you sure you want that brand? It’s awfully strong.”

“It’s not for me, it’s for a friend—an acquaintance, actually,” Sunny quickly amended. “We met at a concert, and I never really got his name. But he left that cigarette at my apartment, and I wondered if he might buy them here.”

Let’s see if the old Cinderella story gets me anywhere, she thought.

The young clerk frowned dubiously. “We do have one customer who gets Belmorkanals. I’d say he was an Eastern European gentleman, on the older side, but sort of big and burly—”

“That’s the guy,” Sunny said. Then she let her lips droop in disappointment. “Don’t tell me he came in and cleared you out?”

The young man shook his head, forcing him to sweep his hair back again. “He always calls in advance to make sure he can get a full carton.”

“Then maybe you can do me a favor.” Sunny dug out a business card for MAX and scribbled her cell phone number on the back. Then, trying not to wince, she pulled a twenty from her pocket—a big chunk of her weekly expense money. She slid the card and the bill across the counter to the young man. “When he gives you a call, can you give me a call?”

The clerk stared at Sunny’s offering as if it might bite him. “This really isn’t about cigarettes, is it?”

Sunny tried to look like a girl in love. “I just want to see him again, that’s all.” She gave him a bright smile, “Hey, if it works out, you’ll have a great story for your customers.”

Sighing, the young man took Sunny’s card and the twenty. “I can’t promise when he’ll come,” he warned.

“Then I’ll just have to hope,” Sunny told him. She left the store feeling a bit poorer but with a little thrill in her belly—the way she used to feel when she started pulling on the end of a string that could lead to a big story. Maybe, with luck, she’d get a look at the mystery man who had been staking out Martin Rigsdale—not to mention his possible killer. Whoa! Slow down, Sunny told herself. But as usual, when it came to a fight between that reporter’s rush and her good sense, the rush won.

She got into her Wrangler and continued down the street instead of turning around for the bridge. A few minutes’ drive brought her to Martin’s office. In the daylight, the neighborhood wasn’t very mysterious. The houses were a little bigger than on Wild Goose Drive, with more space and landscaping between them. The house where Martin had set up his practice still had the look of a work in progress—fine at first glance, but it looked shabbier in the sunshine. Trumbull and the Portsmouth cops hadn’t festooned the area with crime scene tape. The only difference Sunny could see was that there was some sort of notice or seal stuck on the office door.

Well, I’m not going in, she told herself. I just wanted to stop by for a look.

Sunny pulled out her cell phone, dialed the office, and input a code when she got the answering machine. She sighed in relief. No new messages.

I’ll pick up something to eat on this side of the river and go straight back to the office, she decided.

She swung her SUV back the way she’d come, pulling into the parking lot of a diner she’d passed. Stepping inside, she asked the waitress if they did takeout orders.

The older woman looked distracted. Sunny turned around to find Martin Rigsdale’s face on the TV set installed up by the ceiling.

“Huh,” the waitress said. “Him.”

8

Sunny swung backto the waitress. The woman had about ten years on her, but she still had a good figure, a broad, pleasant face, and a sassy smile.

I’ll bet she makes out pretty well on tips, Sunny thought. “You know the guy up there?” she asked, trying not to go too far overboard or get too loud.