Cat Telling Tales

14

Slipping into the conference room, Joe watched Juana and the chief escort their loud, pushy female visitor back to Max’s office, both officers trying to hold their tempers. She was a big, square woman, solidly constructed, her skin tanned and coarsened from the sun as if she might be an avid golfer, her sun-streaked hair hanging limp to just below her jaw, her scowl lines deeply embedded. Where Debbie cultivated a helpless demeanor, her older sister, Esther, exuded an overriding bad temper, her dark brown eyes flat and cold, a woman Joe would prefer not to tangle with.

Following behind the chief, slipping inside his office and quickly beneath the credenza, he watched Esther settle heavily into the leather couch facing Max’s desk. Juana sat tentatively on the arm of the leather chair to Esther’s right, easing her sore knee, her black uniform stark against the tan leather. Max stepped to the credenza, reached for the coffeepot that smelled of the usual overcooked brew, turned to Esther and offered her a cup.

“No,” she said defiantly, with no touch of a graceful refusal. “Why did you call me here? Is this about my mother? What’s she done now? I just got back in town, I haven’t even unpacked. Whatever kind of trouble she’s gotten into, I’m not responsible for her, and I don’t appreciate your messages. My husband uses that answering machine for business.”

“Your husband is with Kraft Realty?” Max asked, knowing perfectly well that Perry Fowler owned half the business. She nodded curtly. He said, “I was at your house twice, Mrs. Fowler. I left messages on the door, and then two e-mails asking you to come in.”

“I’m here now. What do you want?”

“I asked you in here with bad news. To tell you that your mother died yesterday morning.”

The woman’s eyes widened, her mouth pursed tight, but Joe couldn’t read her expression. Was it pain? Remorse? Some sort of distaste? “What did she die of?” she said. “Did she drink that much, to go into some kind of alcoholic seizure?”

“Why do you say that?”

“That’s the first thing you think of, with a drunk. Or did her heart give out, from abuse?”

“There was a fire,” Max said. “Her house burned, there was little left, just blackened timbers and ashes.” Put off by the woman, was he goading her to see what she might reveal? For sure, he was taking a cop’s keen pleasure in seeing her squirm. He didn’t trust this woman, and the tomcat felt completely in tune with the chief’s sentiments.

Esther sat pressing one hand to her mouth, her other hand fisted so tight her knuckles had whitened. Max said, more gently, “She was dead before the fire broke out.”

This seemed to ease her, help her regain her composure. “Who have you notified?”

“Your sister, Debbie. She preferred that we notify you.”

“If Mother died before the fire, how did she die?”

“She was poisoned.”

“Poisoned? What did she get hold of? Or, what was she taking?” she said suspiciously. “Was she on some kind of pills?”

He didn’t answer.

She was quiet for some time. “You’re not saying she . . . that someone gave her poison? Oh, you must be mistaken. You’re not saying she was murdered? Why would someone do that? Who would take the trouble? Not for money. She had nothing, whatever money she earned, she drank away.”

“She could have drunk the poison by accident,” Max said, “though it doesn’t seem likely.”

“I can’t believe someone would do that. Are you saying they burned her house, too?”

“We’re not sure yet whether it was arson.”

“I can certainly imagine her setting the house on fire by accident, you know how they are when they drink. She was never careful, she’d leave the electric heater too close to the bed, leave something on the stove with the burner on high, dash over when she saw flames, smother them with a wet towel.”

She didn’t ask how Debbie was taking their mother’s death, she didn’t ask if Debbie was on her way down from Oregon. She showed little sign of pain or loss, no pity. Nor did she ask about Billy. Didn’t she care that her sister’s little boy might have died in the fire or been badly burned? Max glanced at Davis, whose stern face was ungiving, then turned back to Esther. “When did you last see your mother?”

Esther hesitated as if thinking back. “This last Christmas. She was in jail overnight for drunk driving. I had to come down here Christmas morning to bail her out, so you can understand why I dislike this place. Check your records, you’ll see. Seven o’clock Christmas morning, I have to bail my mother out of jail.”

“She spent Christmas with you, then?”

“No. I dropped her off at her place. We were having people in. She . . . doesn’t mix well with our friends. As it was, I had to leave all the preparations to the housekeeper.”

No wonder that old woman drank, Joe thought, knowing she’d raised a daughter like that. Except, he thought, which came first? Did Hesmerra drink because of her two sour daughters? Or did Esther turn mean-spirited, and Debbie self-centered and manipulative, because of their mother’s drinking? Who was the cause and who was the victim?

But now Hesmerra was the final victim, the prey of someone spiking her drinks, offering an embellishment she hadn’t even tasted in her early morning toddy. Max said, “Before you saw her at Christmas, how long since you’d last seen her?”

Esther shrugged. “Maybe a year.”

“What was the problem between you?”

“The drink,” Esther said shortly. “And other things. Family matters, from the past.”

“Such as?”

“Captain Harper, that is private business, that has nothing to do with her death. I still can’t believe you think she was murdered.”

“It’s always possible she took her own life,” Max said. She didn’t answer to that. He said, “Are you not concerned about your nephew? You might like to know that he wasn’t hurt in the fire.”

She looked at him coldly. “I’m not taking the boy in, if that’s what you’re thinking. Is that why you summoned me here? I’ll make this plain, Captain Harper. I want nothing to do with that boy, I’m perfectly content to see Child Welfare take him.”

Max and Juana simply looked at the woman. He turned away only when the phone buzzed, the dispatcher ringing through though he knew Max was interviewing. Through the intercom, the young rookie’s voice sounded tinny and uncertain. “Captain, you might want to take this one.” The way he said “this one,” Joe felt his heart quicken. Everyone in the department knew that certain, informative calls were to go directly to the chief. As Max picked up the phone, switching off the speaker, Joe bellied closer beneath the credenza. With his ears sharply forward, he could barely make out the higher tones of a female voice, though he couldn’t tell what she was saying, couldn’t even tell whether it was Dulcie or Kit. He watched Max hesitate, his gaze returning to Esther. “Hold on a minute.” Then, to Esther, “Detective Davis will take you up to the front for fingerprinting. Thank you for coming in.”

Esther rose, glaring at him. “I don’t appreciate that you demand I come in, and then dismiss me just as rudely. I don’t appreciate that you order me to submit to fingerprinting, like some common criminal.”

Juana Davis put a hand on Esther’s elbow, guiding her to the door. “Mrs. Fowler, this is standard procedure, we need the prints of all family members, to eliminate them from other prints we might lift at the scene.”

Esther said, “If the house burned to the ground, how could you find any fingerprints at all?”

Max waited until Davis had removed the woman and had pulled the door closed behind them. Leaning back in his swivel chair, he flipped on the speaker—testimony, Joe thought, to the comfortable way the chief now related to these anonymous calls. Years ago, when Joe and Dulcie first began using the phone to pass on information, every call from the unnamed snitch had made the chief edgy, as nervous, himself, as his four-legged informants. But now a rapport had developed, a trust and ease as if between old friends that made the tomcat smile.

“Sorry,” Max said into the phone, “someone was in my office.”

Now, with the speaker on, Joe smiled at his tabby lady’s voice, innocent but businesslike, a savvy young female quite in charge of the situation: “You wanted to talk with Emmylou Warren?” And now, with Esther Fowler gone and the door shut, Joe strolled out from beneath the credenza, yawned and stretched, looked idly at the desk, leaped, and curled up in Max’s overflowing in-box, yawning in the chief’s face.

“Yes, we’d like to talk with her,” Max was saying. Joe closed his eyes and tucked his nose under as if concerned only with a soothing nap.

“She’s up near where you raided that meth house,” Dulcie said. “I’m watching her as we speak, she’s going from door to door, asking about some lost cat. I think she’s living in her car, an old green Chevy, full of blankets, household stuff, clothes. It’s parked at the corner above Clyde and Ryan’s place, she just . . . Gotta go!” she said with alarm. Joe could almost hear her hiss of fear. There was a click, and the phone went dead. Involuntarily, Joe’s claws raked into a Department of Justice report. What had happened? Had she been caught using someone’s phone? Had she slipped into someone’s house, near where Emmylou was working the neighborhood, and the householder caught her? But Ryan and Clyde were there, why hadn’t she used one of their phones? Or had she, and Debbie walked in on her? Or Vinnie? The very thought made him shiver. And, what was Emmylou doing, looking for a lost cat, when her own cats were safe with John Firetti?

Beside him, Max sat frowning, looking irritated and impatient, then he buzzed the dispatcher and sent a patrol car to pick up Emmylou. He looked up when Davis returned, and he filled her in. Davis said, “What’s she doing in that neighborhood? Well, hell. Is that old woman part of the action up there?”

“Could she be looking for a place to rent?” Max said. “Half those houses are empty, maybe she thinks she can find a cheap room.” Then, “Didn’t one of the Kraft Realtors live just above that neighborhood? Alain Bent? Three or four blocks above the meth house, that white brick with the big front patio? Wasn’t she Erik Kraft’s sales partner, until she moved away?”

Davis nodded. “I understand she kept the house, waiting for the market to pick up.”

Sprawled across the in-box, Joe lay trying to put it together. Alain Bent had lived just above the active foreclosure area, with its suspicious occupants and a busy meth operation. Alain’s partner was the husband of Debbie Kraft, Hesmerra’s middle daughter; the wives of both Kraft partners were her daughters. Hesmerra held cleaning jobs that gave her access to Alain Bent’s house and to the Kraft offices. What the hell did all this add up to? No good telling himself this was a matter of coincidence; it wasn’t. It was simply a tangle of knots neither he nor the department had yet sorted out. He was burning to race out and find Dulcie, find out what else she’d seen, make sure she was all right after that aborted phone call. But he didn’t want to miss anything. Max said, “Why exactly did Alain leave town? She had a successful following, I heard she did very well.”

“Left about six months ago. The story I got, a client complained to the real estate board that she was trading down. I’m not sure this is illegal, but it’s right next door. She takes a buyer and seller into escrow, buyer deposits a check for the down payment, at the agreed price. Then, while the sellers are distracted packing up their moving boxes, she brings in a second appraiser, tells the sellers this is common practice. When the house is appraised for less, she tells them they’ll have to lower the price—and they’re already in escrow, or supposed to be.

“The way I heard it, she pulled this on old people who might be a little confused, often naïve about real estate transactions, old couples anxious to sell out and get moved into assisted living quarters, people with no adult children to look out for their interests. An old couple, maybe one of them sick, both of them worn out sorting through their household goods and packing up. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to get them to agree to the lower price, anything to close the sale—and all the time, they’re supposed to be already in escrow.

“Of course the loan officer’s in on the scam. If the sellers get edgy and make a fuss, loan officer claims the check for the down payment was never actually deposited into escrow, that it’s still waiting in the file for the final price resolution.” Davis smiled. “What happened this time, the sellers weren’t having any, they went to the real estate board.” Her square face, so often too solemn, lit with pleasure. “Everything hit the fan. Loan officer and mortgage officer were fired. Mortgage company made good to the seller. I’m guessing either Kraft Realty sent her packing, or she left before they could fire her.”

The two officers were silent, their satisfied looks matching closely the tomcat’s own hidden smile as the three enjoyed a rare moment of justice.

Max said, “Alain Bent and Erik Kraft were partners, they worked most of their sales together. Makes you wonder if he was in on the scam.”

Davis nodded. “Apparently Fowler wants nothing more to do with Alain. Their latest ads, he’s removed her picture. As to Esther Fowler—what will happen to Billy? I’m sure he wouldn’t choose to live with her, even if she did want him.”

Max shook his head. “For all intents and purposes, the kid’s an orphan. I don’t want to bring in Children’s Services. Right now, he’s staying up at our place. He has a permit to work part of the school day; I talked with the principal this morning, and that’s all in order. I didn’t say much, just that he was doing some work for me, didn’t mention where he’s living and, interestingly, he didn’t ask.”

Joe hoped Max could keep it that way. Maybe, one way or another, Erik Kraft had used some pull to stifle questions about Billy. When Davis left, the tomcat slipped up the hall and out through the glass door, on the heels of an unhappy young woman who had just paid a stout traffic ticket. Scrambling up the oak tree, he headed fast for the hills and the neighborhood where Dulcie’s phone call had so abruptly ended. It was always touchy to break into a house and use a stranger’s phone and not be overheard, to get out again fast, before you were discovered.

Even the matter of using their own phones, at home, was stressful. Clyde’s and Ryan’s, and Wilma’s phones all had caller ID blocking, but you never knew when it would fail. After the Damens’ phones had done that twice, Clyde did a daily check on the house phones, to be safe. Wilma had researched the possibility of falsifying their numbers, but such a call had to be made through a computer, and that was more than a cat in a hurry could deal with.

No, there had to be a better way. He hadn’t really addressed the problem fully, but one idea had promise—he should have checked it out when he had the chance, before he woke to see flames licking at the sky, before all hell broke loose. Annoyed at himself for his procrastination, he headed fast up the hills. Leaping from oak limb to roof and across the chasms of narrow alleys, he could only pray his lady hadn’t, while making that call, stepped with all four paws into a tangle of trouble.