Catch As Cat Can

10

So this is what it feels like to be a prison warden, Sunny thought, looking up from her desk to see what Shadow had gotten into now. She’d chatted with Neil Garret while he tossed bits of fish to Shadow, who started catching them on the fly. When she thought her cat had eaten enough, she picked him up and brought him to her office, figuring he’d curl up someplace warm and take a nap.

He hadn’t.

Instead, Shadow prowled around the office, looking at Sunny and then the door, constantly going to rest his forepaws against the window as if to make sure it was still solid, craning his head as if he were trying to get a look at the fish shop next door. The prisoner didn’t just check possible routes of escape, however. He also did his best to sabotage the administration of the prison. Sunny had to keep a sharp eye peeled as Shadow nosed around papers, pawed at the wastebasket, and stared all too fixedly at Sunny’s cup of coffee until she finally drained it and tossed the empty container in the trash.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Shadow climbed onto her lap to watch her work. But that relief was short-lived as he eeled his way up onto the desk and across Sunny’s keyboard.

And when the computer goes down, they’re going to find cat fur in there and void the warranty, she sourly thought while trying to remove a suddenly boneless cat from her work space.

Someone appeared at the entrance to the office, and Shadow suddenly streaked from the desk to the door, with Sunny in hot pursuit. The only glitch in a near perfect escape came when the door didn’t open. Will Price stood outside, looking down at Shadow, who faltered, staring up at him.

Sunny managed to swoop down and gather the cat in her arms as Will entered. “Didn’t know it was Take Your Cat to Work Day,” he said.

“I think Shadow decided it was Take Your Cat to Town Day and stowed away on Dad’s pickup.” Sunny wanted to tuck back an errant curl that had fallen on her face, but her hands were too taken up with a squirming cat to do the job. Will took care of it, smiling down at her. “That’s right. Your dad went along for your meeting with Charlie Vane. So how was your interview with the pirate?”

“Not as many ‘Ahhhhrrrs’ as I expected, although it looks as though he almost wound up with an eyepatch.” Sunny frowned. “I don’t think I’d go so far as to call him a pirate. He says he’s a businessman, but he’s got a whole set speech to justify anything he does to screw over people he deals with. Somehow, I don’t see him getting good citizenship awards anytime soon.”

Will nodded. “Think I should bring him in and tighten the screws?”

“I think he’d just batten down his hatches, if you’ll excuse the term, at the sight of a cop. The only reason he talked to me is that he didn’t take me seriously. A lot of what he had to say started out with ‘tell your boyfriend.’”

“He don’t know you very well . . . do he?” Will said in his best Bugs Bunny impersonation.

“He knows enough to trot out an alibi,” Sunny told him. “According to Vane he was out to sea, fishing with two witnesses.”

Will lost some of his good humor. “Anyway, if he had a problem with Garret, why would he kill Treibholz by mistake?”

“Unless someone else was doing the job,” Sunny suggested. “Somebody who didn’t know Garret by sight.” She frowned. “But it would have to be someone he really trusted. His son and son-in-law were on the boat as his alibi witnesses. And from the way he complains about money, I don’t think that Vane could afford to hire a pro.”

“We’ll look into Vane’s associates and finances,” Will said. “But I still think the root of this whole situation can be found next door—or rather, that it comes from California, like Treibholz.”

“I was just next door, and Neil Garret was fooling around with Shadow, tossing scraps of fish for him to catch. Can you kill a person one day and do that the next?”

Will shrugged. “Distraction, maybe.”

“And everything that happened, discovering the body, what was that? An act? Was Neil ready to throw that little production for whoever walked in first thing that morning? He knows you and I are going out, so was it aimed at me?”

“Well, you are next door, a perfect witness, and he is behind on what he owes for the month. Maybe he kinda expected you to come by—or rather, that Ollie would send you over to dun him for the rent.” Will shrugged. “Or maybe he just panicked when you walked in.”

“Right,” Sunny scoffed. “The guy’s a mobster, and he just panics.”

“Nick Gatto was just a money-shuffler for the mob, not a made man.” Will frowned impatiently. “Or maybe he killed Treibholz and staged that whole rigmarole to confuse the issue. Amateur killers—first-timers—have been known to do that.”

Sunny remembered the way Neil Garret had frozen in the doorway to the freezer, staring at the dead body on the floor. “Well, if he’s an amateur killer, he’s a professional actor. I’d swear that he didn’t expect to find Treibholz when he opened the freezer door.”

“Back in California, the guy was little better than a swindler,” Will said. “That involves some acting ability.”

“Yeah, but there’s a difference between convincing a grandmother to invest her life savings and reacting to a dead body,” Sunny argued. “I know how I felt and acted when I stumbled over poor Ada Spruance. I remember it. Sometimes I dream about it. Neil didn’t look as though he was faking when he saw that body.”

“Didn’t look.” Will emphasized the word. “When I look at this case, I see motive sticking out a mile high. Phil Treibholz was a mortal danger to Neil Garret. He recognized him as Nick Gatto and could have hit men turning up here to cash in on the contract Jimmy the Chopper decided to put out on him. As for opportunity, Garret still says he was home reading when Treibholz got whacked.”

Sunny stared. “You mean he doesn’t have an alibi at all? He didn’t say anything more?”

“Poor planning on his part,” Will said. “Or maybe no planning at all. Maybe he didn’t expect to need an alibi. It might have started off as a meeting that took a sudden, dangerous turn. Val Overton has been working some federal sources to get the story on Treibholz. He didn’t just dig up information, he used it. Word is that he had a thriving side business in blackmail. Maybe he made a demand and things went downhill fast.”

“And Neil just happened to shoot him?” Sunny didn’t hesitate to put a pin in that notion. “I thought Neil came here after serving a term in prison. How would he get hold of a gun?”

Will laughed—sourly. “In the home of the brave and the land of the second amendment? Maine isn’t the strictest state when it comes to gun laws. You can get a piece, especially if you’re not a law-abiding type.”

“So Neil rates high on the MOM chart—motive, opportunity, and means,” Sunny had to admit. “But—”

“But you’ve got a feeling about our strongest suspect,” Will finished.

“He’s not the only one,” Sunny argued.

“The only one who doesn’t need to be seriously near-sighted, taking Phil Treibholz for Neil Garret,” Will replied.

“We haven’t really mentioned that Deke Sweeney guy yet.” Sunny frowned. “Charlie Vane threw out a theory that Sweeney might have sent someone to lean on Neil.”

“Another case of mistaken identity getting Treibholz shot?” Will sat in silence for a moment. “I talked to some old buddies from the Portsmouth PD. Sweeney doesn’t have a criminal record—exactly. Years ago, though, one of the guys in the fish market accused him of pulling a gun and threatening him.”

“And that didn’t turn into a criminal record?”

Will shrugged. “Charges never got pressed, and the fish merchant left town.”

“No part of that story makes Sweeney look very good,” Sunny pointed out.

“We’ll have to talk to him. And by ‘we,’ I mean the sheriff’s department.” Will didn’t look happy. “There’ll probably be all sorts of jurisdictional hoops to jump through.”

“It may be worth it, though,” Sunny said. “I’m convinced whoever killed Treibholz wasn’t familiar with this area. Otherwise, why leave the body?”

“As a warning—or a message?” Will suggested. “Like the way Treibholz tried to string up your little buddy here.” He gestured toward Shadow, who regarded him with unblinking eyes.

“If there’s a killer still around here, then why isn’t Neil dead?” Sunny wanted to know.

“Maybe he—or she—had orders to make Garret worry. Or suffer.”

Sunny didn’t like the sound of that. If the killer knew about Abby Martinson, she could wind up at the top of the hit parade. Another reason to keep her secret safely buried, she thought. “Well, I think we’ve talked ourselves into circles long enough.” Will glanced at the wall clock. “How do you feel about lunch?”

“I’d love to grab a bite. But”—Sunny pointed toward Shadow—“I’m afraid my lunch hour is going to be spent getting this little guy home. Dad should be done with his walk and his errands. I’m going to give him a call and get Shadow back where he belongs.”

As if anticipating that the humans were finishing their business and that Will would leave, Shadow had already started edging toward the door.

“Oh, no.” Sunny sprang from her chair and managed to grab Shadow before he could dodge. She caught hold of him by the fur at the scruff of his neck and brought him up. That was the handle that mama cats used to move their kittens around. Sunny had read that holding a cat that way could trigger old kitten instincts.

It seemed to work. Shadow calmed down and drew in his paws for easier carrying. Sunny took some of his weight in her other hand and said, “Wouldn’t you like to go home where it’s warm and you have your own food? You didn’t like it last night when we went out at a strange time. You’re doing the same thing now. Let’s go home.”

Will gave her a skeptical look. “How much of that do you think he understands?

“More than we probably think.” Still holding Shadow, she dug out her keys and gave them to Will. “I’ll have to depend on you to lock the door and open the car,” she told him. “Holding onto Shadow may be a two-handed job.”

Sunny put him gently down on the desk and got her coat. Shadow sat watching her. When she came toward him again, he didn’t run away but submitted to being picked up by his scruff. Sunny wrapped her free arm around and under him, supporting his weight while still maintaining her scruff hold.

“Hang on,” Will said, moving ahead and opening the door. Sunny exited and walked to her truck while Will locked the office door. Then he hurried on ahead to unlock the Wrangler. Sunny took her seat, bringing Shadow down onto her lap as Will inserted the key into the ignition.

“I’m surprised you made it this far,” he said as he closed the door. He leaned close to the window, his voice muffled as he said, “Good luck getting him out.”

Sunny gently petted the cat in her lap before getting out her cell phone. After a quick phone chat with her father, she started the engine. “One thing at a time,” she said. “One thing at a time.”

*

Shadow rested his head on his paws as he lay across Sunny’s lap. It was cold, even inside the go-fast thing, and she was warm. Sunny’s other place could be interesting. It certainly had some odd smells. But he looked forward to the familiar scents of home. It would be good to come back to his bowl of water and food. He stirred a little. And his litter box. He was going to need that soon enough, after the fish the Generous One had given him.

He settled down again as Sunny’s hand gently stroked his fur. They were going home. He didn’t have to look out the windows to see that.

*

Midday traffic was fairly thin. Sunny managed the drive out to Wild Goose Lane without any trouble. After parking in the driveway, she gathered Shadow up in her arms and headed for the front door.

Mike must have been watching for her, because the door swung open. “No blood spilled. And I didn’t see you engaged in a spirited game of Catch the Cat after you parked. What’s the matter, furball?” he asked Shadow. “You feeling tired?”

Sunny carried Shadow into the kitchen and set him down. The cat walked over to his bowls and lapped up a quick slurp of water. Then with a quick glance over his shoulder, he headed away—toward his litter box, Sunny realized.

“Well, Dad, I think we avoided a cat-tastrophe,” she told Mike. “I guess I should be glad Will stopped by the office. I don’t know how I’d have gotten Shadow outside and into the Wrangler without him.”

“It’s a shame you’re wasting your lunch delivering the furball instead of spending time with Will,” Mike said. “I know which I’d prefer you to be doing.”

“Oh?” Sunny asked. “And were you going to come to town and collect the dreaded cat?”

Mike’s startlingly blue eyes twinkled. “Do you want the fatherly answer or the honest answer?”

“The honest one,” Sunny told him, laughing.

“I wouldn’t touch that job without a cat carrier, a dart gun, and reinforcements,” Mike said. “I’ve seen what that animal can be like when he decides to be uncooperative.”

Shadow returned, took a slow spin around their ankles, and turned to his food bowl.

“There’s a good idea,” Mike said. “I could make you a sandwich before you head back. We’re well stocked with all that healthy stuff you insist on feeding me.”

He quickly whipped up a low-sodium turkey and low-fat cheese sandwich on grainy bread with a shot of honey dijon mustard. It went down pretty well with a glass of seltzer. Mike joined her at the kitchen table with the same lunch. “I still think you’d have a better time with Will,” Mike insisted after chewing a bite.

“He came by for work,” Sunny told him. “Wanted to hear what Charlie Vane had to tell me.”

“He was pretty forthcoming, I thought.” Mike took a sip of seltzer and grinned. “Didn’t have to bring out the rubber hose or anything.”

“Yeah, but most of it was covering his you-know-what.” Sunny frowned in thought. “He did take a swipe at Deke Sweeney, though. What do you know about the guy?”

Mike prided himself on his near encyclopedic knowledge of people and things around Kittery Harbor. Portsmouth, though, was a little out of his orbit, as he himself admitted.

“That is across the river,” Mike said. “Most of what I know about Sweeney I get from my fishing buddies. He’s the boogeyman of the Portsmouth fish market. Buying or selling, his word is pretty much the law.”

“Who died and left him boss?” Sunny wanted to know. “Was he a fisherman or a fish merchant?”

“He was—muscle, I guess,” Mike replied. “Back in the day, the Portsmouth market was a pretty rough place. Different factions of merchants were competing to run the place, getting in one another’s way, and fighting. That was bad for business. Several of the bigger merchants brought Sweeney in to impose some order. But by the time the dust settled, they weren’t giving the orders, he was.”

“Will told me a story about him pulling a gun on someone.”

Mike nodded. “I heard that story, too. It happened shortly after he came into the market. One of the merchants ran his mouth and made the mistake of picking up a fileting knife. I guess in that case, gun trumped knife. Usually, though, Sweeney was more indirect. Troublemakers had accidents, or suffered business disasters.”

“Like the one he arranged for Charlie Vane and Neil Garret,” Sunny said.

“Nobody got their kneecaps broken.”

“But somebody ended up dead in a fish freezer.” When Sunny saw Shadow stop eating to stare at her, she lowered her voice. “Could Garret have been such a threat to Sweeney’s business—to his control over the market—that he had to be taken out?”

Mike was silent for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “But I don’t know the market, or the man, well enough to be sure.”

They finished their sandwiches in silence. Then Sunny rose, knelt to give Shadow a head scratch, and told him to be good.

“Right,” Mike said as he got up from his seat.

Sunny had a moment of worry as she opened the door, but at that moment a gust of wind blew in like a spike of freezing-cold air. Shadow actually retreated. Sunny closed the door with the cat on the right side, got in her Wrangler, and headed back to work.

Traffic wasn’t a problem, but parking was. Sunny actually had to walk a couple of blocks to get to the office. She passed Neil Garret’s fish market and noticed several customers.

That looks like a good sign, she thought.

No sooner did she come through the door than she noticed the blinking light on the answering machine. “It’s Ollie,” the familiar voice of her boss came from the speaker. “Just checking in on the rent situation with Neil Garret.”

Sighing, Sunny pulled her parka back on and went next door. “Got a call from Ollie,” she said to Neil as he turned to her after helping a customer.

He nodded. “Tell him I’ll definitely be in tonight,” he promised.

Sunny returned to the office to call Ollie’s cell phone and pass along the good news.

“Fine,” Ollie replied. “I’ll be there.”

Sunny worked through the rest of the day wondering which was worse—Ollie turning up unannounced, or waiting it out until Ollie arrived? She discovered that Shadow had left a memento from his visit. Somehow he’d managed to sneak into the bathroom and unspool half the roll of toilet paper. In the end, she tossed the evidence and replaced the roll, hoping that Ollie wasn’t monitoring TP use as an office expense.

She was dealing with a flurry of late-in-the-day e-mail traffic when Ollie finally turned up. He nodded to her as she talked on the phone with a B and B provider, collected a file from the locked cabinets in the rear of the office, and spread papers on a desk to peruse.

It was dead dark outside when Neil Garret appeared at the office door. Ollie looked up from his reading as Neil came in and shamefacedly approached his desk. He carried a plastic bag printed with the logo of his store which he placed in front of Ollie. “Figured you might as well have it in cash,” Neil said.

“Better than trying to pay me in fish.” Ollie reached into the bag, removed a sheaf of bills, and began counting them out. “You know, I could charge you a late fee.”

Neil winced as if he’d taken a body blow.

“But I’ll let it slide—this month.” He finished counting, nodded, and said, “All there. Sunny, can you make out a receipt?”

It took longer than she liked, checking through desk drawers to find the printed pad. With so much of the business online, she rarely had to deal with cash anymore. Sunny filled in the appropriate spaces and handed the receipt to Neil, comparing the smiling guy who’d fooled with Shadow earlier in the day with the tense, silent man who took the slip of paper.

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Neil.” Ollie’s eyes went back to his papers. “Let’s hope we don’t have these kinds of problems next month.”

“Yes.” Neil unbent a little as he headed for the door. “Good evening, Sunny.”

As he went out, a swirl of wind came in the open door. Ollie darted out a hand to hold down the pile of bills on his desk.

“Should I get the cash box for those?” Sunny asked.

Ollie shook his head. “I think I’ll make a bank run—” He broke off, grabbing for the money as the door opened again. This time Will and Val Overton entered.

“Damn, we are definitely in the wrong business, Will,” the federal marshal said, pointing to the cash under Ollie’s fingers.

“Neil Garret’s rent.” Ollie fumbled the money back into the bag Neil had left. “I’m going to deposit it in the bank.”

“We’ll come with,” Val offered. “You’ll feel safer with two armed officers on either side. Although with a windfall like that, maybe you ought to take us out and treat us.”

Will glanced at his boisterous companion. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out.” He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice. “To make up for that lunch. Val offered to come along.”

“Ollie, you should come, too,” Val said with her gleaming smile. “We’ll make it a double date.”

Ollie tried to back out, but Val wouldn’t hear of it. “Come on. You can go to the bank, and then we’ll head over to the Brickhouse.”

“That’s the Redbrick,” Will said.

“Why not?” Ollie said, trying to accept defeat gracefully. Sunny shut down the computer, she and Ollie got their coats, and they left the office.

Sunny shivered as a blast of wind caught her in the face. “Damn. It’s gotten even colder.”

Ollie just hunched down, clutching the bag of cash. They caught the bank just before it closed, Ollie hurriedly filling out the deposit slip.

Guess they’ll be a little later getting out tonight, counting all of that, Sunny thought. A problem I don’t encounter these days. She took the opportunity to take out her cell phone and call her dad. “Will asked me out for the evening,” she reported. “Will you be okay for supper?”

“So you’ll get to see him after all. That’s good,” Mike said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve got soup and lots of that healthy glop to make a sandwich. And your friend won’t miss you. At last report, he was asleep on the couch.”

Sunny laughed. “Okay, Dad. I won’t be too late. It’s a school night, after all.”

“Not to be a party pooper, but early would be better,” Mike told her. “I’ve been watching the news, and they’re talking about a storm blowing in later.”

“The wind’s getting stronger even now.” Outside the bank, Sunny watched a woman vainly clutch for the hood of her parka as a stiff breeze flipped it back. Sunny said good-bye to her father and then turned to Will and Val. “Dad says the weather is going to take a turn for the worse. So if we do this, we should keep it short.”

Val Overton watched Ollie come back from the teller’s counter. “Just have to make the most of our time.” She grabbed his arm and wrapped it in hers. “Lead on, you gorgeous man.”

Her outrageous flirting kept Ollie flustered all the way to the Redbrick and through the first round of beers. By the second round, his face was pinker, but he’d loosened up. Val asked him about local business conditions, and he gave his opinions freely while she seemed to hang on to his every word.

Sunny glanced at Will, who gave her a crooked smile and a shrug. Well, this is turning into a real hot date for a cold night, she thought. I could have had a better time if I’d stayed in the office and worked.

Then Val steered the conversation to the fishing business, and Sunny realized that Will and the Fed actually were working.

“Sportfishing, as a tourist attraction, still holds up,” Ollie said. “But the thing there is the excursion, the experience, rather than the catch.”

“My dad says a lot of people go on those jaunts for the beer rather than the fish,” Sunny remarked. “If they catch anything, they leave it to spoil.”

“Just as I was saying.” Ollie nodded. “Commercial fishing, people who have to depend on what they catch, that’s something I’d never touch.” He went on to give a pretty detailed and thoughtful history of local fishing and its problems—especially with government control.

“With the government cutting down the fishing season for some types and reducing maximum catches, I don’t see any way the local fishermen are going to get back to the good old days they’re always talking about,” he said. “Seems to me like a very expensive way to go out of business.”

“How about business when the fish finally get to land?” Val asked.

Ollie looked as if someone had mixed vinegar in his beer. “Frankly, it’s not as good as I had thought. As you know, I rented a property to a fellow opening a fish store, and I got taken in by statistics showing that American households were trying to get more fish in their diets.”

“That’s what everybody says,” Will said.

“Yeah, but around here, how do you expect that to happen when a pound of fish can cost as much or more than a pound of prime steak?” Ollie gave his beer a rueful look. “That pile of cash you were kidding me about was late rent on that store. I’m not at all sure Neil will be able to come up with next month’s payment.”

“So is it a retail problem, or a wholesale problem?” Val asked.

“Both,” Ollie replied. “The local wholesale fish market is in Portsmouth. It doesn’t do the business of big markets like New York or Boston, or even Gloucester, where there are still some processing plants. They’re caught between a declining number of fishing boats servicing them, subpar catches, and rising prices. Like I said, not a business I’d want to put money into.”

Sunny exchanged a glance with Will. If business is getting bad at the market, maybe Deke Sweeney isn’t sitting as pretty as Charlie Vane thinks he is.

Their burgers arrived, and the conversation went into other channels. Sunny kept an eye on the time, and even though Val Orton pouted, the party broke up pretty early. The marshal did plant a big smooch on Ollie, which turned him bright red and left Sunny wondering how far Val was taking this joke.

The weather had gotten even worse when they emerged from the Redbrick, continuous blustery winds and a very fine sleet that left exposed skin feeling as if it had been sandblasted. Val was staying at a national chain motel. “It’s on a main road, so it shouldn’t be a problem,” she said.

Will turned to Ollie. “Can you follow her in your Land Rover? This has all the signs of turning into an ice storm.”

“I can handle it,” Val insisted.

Will shook his head. “That’s what people think until the weather really turns on them. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got to get Sunny home.”

For a second, Sunny was tempted to argue, but the memory of her mother’s accident shut her up. Let’s not tempt fate, she thought.

From the look Ollie was giving her, he must have remembered what had happened to her mom, too. “I’ll be your wing man up to the motel,” he told Val in a gruff voice. “Bad weather in these parts is nothing to fool around with.” His Land Rover was actually parked the nearest to the tavern, so he gave them lifts to their various vehicles. Sunny stayed in her Wrangler, warming it up, until Will’s pickup truck pulled up beside her.

The ride to Wild Goose Drive wasn’t all that bad. They kept a careful speed, and except for a couple of times when the wind did its best to rock the boxy SUV, nothing exciting really happened. Sunny parked her Wrangler and then climbed into the cab of Will’s truck to say good night. “So did Ollie have anything to add to your case?” she asked as Will put an arm around her.

“Just more reason to have a chat with Deke Sweeney—as soon as the weather permits.” He turned to look at Sunny. “I’m sorry that this turned into a fact-finding mission instead of a date date. But Val was kind of insistent.”

“On information, or going out with Ollie?” Sunny asked. “She played it for laughs before, but now she’s got me wondering if she’s got a thing for older guys.”

“Is that a problem?” Will asked, looking puzzled.

“In case you didn’t notice, Neil Garret is a good-looking older guy,” Sunny pointed out.

And Val Orton is a lonely gal who doesn’t have much of a social life—and incidentally carries a gun, she silently added. Could she have more going on with Neil Garret than a witness and protector relationship? And could she have used that gun if Phil Treibholz threatened Neil?