Out Оf Circulation

TWENTY-TWO

I hesitated as I stopped the car near the front door. Perhaps I should come back another time. Things could be awkward if Sissy was really here.

Diesel chirped at me, no doubt wondering why we still sat in the car. That decided me. Forge ahead.

“Come on, boy.” I grabbed the bag with the plaque and held the door open for the cat.

I clanged the ornate door knocker three times and waited. Diesel sat at my feet and stared up at me. This was a new place, and he was curious.

No response. I knocked again, three times.

Moments later the door opened, and an unshaven, tired-looking Morty Cassity stared out at me. He wore a rumpled suit jacket with a pair of ragged gym shorts. He looked like I’d gotten him out of bed and he’d thrown on the first thing he could find.

“Good morning, Mr. Cassity. I’m Charlie Harris. We met last night,” I said with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry to intrude on you at a time like this, but I have something for you.”

He glanced down at the shopping bag, then at Diesel. I expected him to reach out for the bag and slam the door in my face, but for whatever reason, he stood aside and motioned me to enter.

“I’ve heard about your cat,” he said once the door shut behind us. He held out a hand to Diesel, and the cat sniffed it, then butted his head against it. “I’ve always liked cats, but Vera didn’t. Wouldn’t have one in the house.”

Good thing I’d brought Diesel with me; otherwise he might really have slammed the door in my face.

“This is Diesel. He’s a Maine Coon.”

“He’s a big, beautiful boy,” Cassity said. His face looked less drawn as he continued petting the cat. He straightened. “No point standing around here in the hall. Come on into my study.”

He strode away to a door halfway down the hall. I glanced about as Diesel and I followed him. The hallway at Ranelagh wasn’t that different from the one at River Hill. Beautiful Oriental rugs, antique furniture, and paintings adorned the space. The effect was gracious and elegant.

The study was more of a library, I thought, as I gazed at a couple of book-lined walls. A large desk occupied one quadrant of the room, but a leather sofa and two chairs sat before a fireplace. Morty Cassity motioned for me to have a seat on the sofa while he took one of the chairs. I expected Diesel to sit with me, but he took up position beside our host’s chair instead. Morty seemed pleased with the attention. Thank goodness for a smart cat, I thought.

“Again, my apologies for intruding, Mr. Cassity,” I began.

“Morty, please. Charlie, right?” He didn’t pause in his attentions to the cat.

“Right. Well, Morty, I’m really sorry about the loss of your wife. She was, um, she did a lot for the community.” I winced inwardly at the awkwardness of that, but I couldn’t bring myself to heap fulsome praise on the dead woman.

Morty cast me a sharp glance. “Vera was a giant pain in the ass to everybody, me included. She spent a lot of money trying to get people to like her and think she was a Somebody with a capital S.” He grimaced. “I’m not saying that the money didn’t do good. Of course it did, but she didn’t do it out of the generosity of her heart.”

I wasn’t prepared for such bitterness, even though I knew he hadn’t been happy with his marriage. I couldn’t think of any way to respond to him that wouldn’t sound hypocritical or idiotic. No point in trying to defend Vera, even if I had wanted to.

My host left off his attentions to Diesel and leaned back in his chair, arms across his chest. “Sorry if I’m shocking you, but I’m too tired right now to give a horse’s patoot what anybody thinks.”

“I understand,” I said. “It was all a great shock.”

He snorted. “Only that it didn’t happen years ago. Vera made enemies the way rabbits reproduce. Somebody’d finally had enough, I guess. It wasn’t me that knocked her down the stairs, though.”

“Glad to hear it,” I said, though it sounded fatuous to me.

“What have you got in the bag?”

I extracted the plaque and stood to hand it to him. “The award that the mayor presented last night. The Ducotes’ housekeeper found it this morning.”

Morty accepted the plaque and stared at it for a moment. Then he reached and stuck it on the seat of the other chair near him. “Vera was livid. You have to give it to those two old busybodies, though. They figured out a way to get Vera off their backs publicly.”

Someone else figured out how to do it permanently, I added to myself. Was it you, Morty?

I didn’t quite buy this let-it-all-hang-out routine. Was he really this careless and uncaring, to talk this way to someone he’d met once? Or was it calculated? How could he know I was investigating Vera’s death?

He could have seen my name in the local paper in connection with the previous murders. In the past six months or so I’d been approached twice by people who thought I was some kind of private detective. Morty Cassity could suspect me of ulterior motives, then.

“Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce ought to be running a major corporation,” I said. “They definitely know how to get people to do what they want.”

Morty’s expression hardened as he spoke. “They’re completely ruthless when it comes to getting what they want. They’re also devious enough to double-bluff their way out of murder.”

That second statement shocked me. “What do you mean? Are you accusing them of murdering Vera?”

He shrugged. “I’m just saying it’s entirely possible. First they stage this elaborate public display, which on the surface of it looks all nice and wonderful. But that’s only a cover-up so nobody would ever think they’d put Vera out of the way permanently.”

I had to admit—but only to myself—that the Ducote sisters probably were devious enough to think of a scheme like that. But did they despise Vera enough to go to such lengths?

I put the question to the widower.

He gazed at me through slitted eyelids. “Vera hated those two old biddies with a passion. I never could figure out why and couldn’t have cared less. But the past couple of weeks she seemed more intent than ever on digging up something to humiliate them. She couldn’t stand how high-and-mighty they were.”

I debated whether to mention Vera’s letter and her phone message. Perhaps Morty would know something about that.

I quickly decided against it, however. I didn’t want to tip my hand in any way with him. I would probe indirectly instead.

“The Ducotes are a proud family,” I said. “With a pretty distinguished history in this town, too. They probably have a few skeletons in the family closet, like everybody else, but I can’t see them wanting to kill anybody.”

“Maybe they didn’t.” Morty shrugged again. “Just saying. All I know is, it wasn’t me.” He checked his watch. “Sorry, but I’ve got to hit the shower. Places to go, people to see, you know how it is.”

I took the hint and rose. “Of course. Thank you for your time. Come on, Diesel, time to go.”

Diesel meowed as he left Morty’s side.

“He sure is beautiful,” Morty said as he followed the cat and me to the front door. “What did you say he is again? I might get one now.”

“Maine Coon. They’re wonderful companions.”

Morty nodded and opened the front door. I was about to step out when I realized a man stood there, hand raised to knock. I moved back. “Excuse me.”

“Gerry. Come on in.” Morty extended a hand to Sheriff Tidwell.

“Sorry to bother you, Morty, but you know how it is.” Tidwell’s gaze swept Diesel and me. “Afternoon, Mr. Harris. Didn’t expect to see you here. And with your pet mountain lion. I’ve heard plenty about it.” He guffawed. He held a hand out to Diesel, but the cat moved away, his ears laid back. Tidwell shrugged.

“I was delivering something to Mr. Cassity,” I said coolly. “At the request of Miss An’gel Ducote. Diesel and I will get out of your way, Sheriff. Good to see you. Good-bye, Morty.”

Tidwell mumbled something, and Morty snickered before the door closed behind us. “Jerk,” I muttered. As usual, Diesel was an excellent judge of character. I would certainly be voting for Kanesha when she decided to run against that oaf.

As we drove away, I wondered how official the sheriff’s call on Morty Cassity was intended to be. He came alone, and I found that odd, if he planned to question Morty about the previous night.

This kind of speculation wouldn’t get me anywhere, I realized. I would mention it to Kanesha, though, to get her take on it. She knew Tidwell far better than I ever would, or wanted to.

Diesel chirped away from his spot in the backseat of the car. I remembered that he seemed quite taken with Morty Cassity, and that was a good sign. Especially contrasted with his reaction to the sheriff. I wasn’t going to exculpate Morty in his wife’s death simply because my cat liked him, of course, but it was a definite mark in Morty’s favor.

I pondered my next move as we neared my house. What would Hercule Poirot or Miss Jane Marple do?

If Azalea was in the house, I would talk to her. After that, I wasn’t sure.

No signs of life as Diesel and I entered the kitchen. I checked the laundry room. No Azalea. I looked in the fridge, and it was fuller than it was at lunchtime, so she had at least come back from grocery shopping.

I went to the bottom of the stairs and called out her name.

No response.

Up to the second-floor landing, then, Diesel right alongside me. I called out again.

“What you need, Mr. Charlie?”

I glanced up to see Azalea’s head sticking over the railing on the third-floor landing.

“I need to talk to you for a minute. I’ll come up there,” I said.

“I done finished up here. Be right down.” Azalea brought the vacuum cleaner with her, puffing slightly from the weight of it.

I knew better than to try to take it from her, however. I’d made that mistake a couple of times before, right after I moved back to Athena, and my housekeeper had let me know in no uncertain terms that she didn’t need any help from me.

Perhaps today I should have risked it. Her face looked gray from tiredness, and she moved more slowly than usual. I remembered her saying how poorly she’d slept last night.

She stowed the vacuum cleaner in the closet where she kept extra cleaning supplies and then finally joined Diesel and me on the landing. “Yes, sir?”

“Just a quick question,” I said in a reassuring tone. “I forgot something when we talked this morning.”

Her lips tightened, but she nodded.

“I wanted to check. Did you tell the sheriff everything you told me? When he questioned you last night?”

“Yes, sir, I told that fool what he wanted to know.”

I noticed that she didn’t answer the exact question I’d posed, but I decided not to press her on it. Then I remembered there was something else I wanted to ask her.

“Sorry, Azalea, I just thought of one more thing. Do you know anything about the Hobson family? In particular Essie Mae Hobson? She was Vera Cassity’s mother.”

“No-account white trash,” Azalea sniffed. “Miss Essie Mae was a nice lady, but she sure married into a bad group of folks.”

“Do you know anything more about Essie Mae? Like who her people were, anything like that?”

Again, that fleeting second of hesitation before she responded. “No, sir, I sure don’t. Now, I got to get supper started.” She headed down the stairs.