Probable Claws

11

January 4, 2017

Wednesday

“One missing.” Coop crossed her arms over her chest.

Harry, walking along the row of file boxes, nodded. “1984. The year he moved here.”

The two, in Gary’s office, had placed the file boxes back on the shelf. All the contents had been examined, the boxes fingerprinted, scanned. The little rubber dinosaur toys, some tins, wooden boxes were replaced, not being considered important. He kept odd little things: animal teeth, old feathers, cat’s-eye marbles. Given the shock of the public death, Sheriff Shaw called other law enforcement people in for a few days’ help. The work flew along gratifyingly fast. But no fingerprints on the boxes other than Gary’s and few at that. He must have rarely consulted these papers. Whoever lifted the materials wore gloves. Given the cold surely they’d wear gloves outside but the books had been inside. Forethought.

The bad weather kept most businesses closed. The two women observed no foot traffic, not much car traffic, either. The silence was unusual.

Cooper stood scanning the inviting work space. “Nothing else was touched. The ceramic bowl on his flat work desk contained forty-five dollars in neatly folded bills. Still there. His bathroom, no medication. Of course, that could have been stolen.”

Harry responded, “The only pill I ever saw him take, ibuprofen. He hated medication. He’d always tell me if I ever had another operation the drugs could be worse than the disease. I argued back but then again, when my breast cancer was discovered, it was a small tumor. Not advanced. No radiation or chemo. I was lucky. Five years, clean.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry. This is about Gary, not me.”

Cooper waved the apology away. “Your operation affected him enough that he worried about you. And doctors push drugs. Maybe he had past experience.”

“I don’t think so but perhaps his ex-wife did.” Harry offered that thought.

“I guess I’ll drop in on the ex–Mrs. Gardner, now Hulme. Never hurts to do that anyway.” Cooper sat down in the desk chair while Harry sat on the stool in front of the impressive antique drafting table.

The dog and two cats sniffed at the back door.

“Faint. Grease. A hint of grease.” Tucker lifted her nose.

Mrs. Murphy checked out the faint line just inside the door. “Car grease or motor oil, you think?”

“Gary parked his car in the back. Could have been on his boots.” Tucker sat down. “Nothing on the door. Sometimes a door will brush against a person and you know where they were last, like, at the supermarket. Supermarkets always smell the same.”

“They use the same cleaners.” Mrs. Murphy looked at the doorknob. “If the person came in the back door, the person who removed the files, they had to leave their scent. It’s been too long. Nothing. Just nothing.”

“They knew how to open locks or had a key.” Tucker listened to the two women talking in the workroom. The back door opened onto a small entrance, a coatrack and bench against the wall. Just a small square space, a bathroom there, and then the door into the workroom.

Pewter, uninterested in their door examination, batted at the floor along the wall. “A major spider!”

The ground spider, not a web spinner, lifted its front legs, ready to fight. Pewter took a step back. The other two came over to look at the spider.

“That is a biggie,” Tucker agreed.

Pewter batted at the eight-legged creature again. It moved with speed to the back door before she could catch it. Although she didn’t really want to catch it, she did want to chase it. A small chip in the baseboard gave the spider safety. She ducked in.

“Bet she has a nest in there,” Mrs. Murphy said.

“How could Gary work here and not know he was keeping a big spider?” Pewter questioned.

“The spider could hear him walking. The floor would tremble, right? So she could always hide.” Tucker was right about that.

Pewter watched the little chip in the baseboard, tapped it, then moved a few feet to the bottom of the door.

“Here’s another little space.” Pewter flattened, squinted, fished at the small space with an extended claw. “A dime.”

Disappointed, she dropped the dime, wasn’t exciting. The three walked into the workroom. The door between the small back entrance and the workroom was kept closed to conserve heat. Harry and Coop had parked in the back, entered through the back, and left the door to the workroom slightly ajar.

Harry looked at her friends, who walked in to sit at her feet.

“Spider patrol,” Pewter announced.

Harry smiled at the gray cat as she pulled out pencils from a jar clamped on the right side of the drafting table.

“Clever. This way he didn’t have to get up and down for pencils. The drafting board is on a slant. He was always coming up with ideas.” She read the inscription on the pencil. “Sanford Design Ebony Jet Extra Smooth 14420. All the same.” She lifted each one out. One was worn down a bit. The others sharp. “This must have been the one he was using that day. He sharpened them every morning.” She carefully replaced the pencils. “Makes me sick. Just sick. And it makes me mad.”

“That’s understandable but emotion clouds judgment.”

“Does,” Harry agreed with Cooper. “It can also be a motivator.”

“Can, but you’d better not be too motivated. I asked you here because you knew his office and this work space. You can’t whizz off and try to find his murderer.”

“Coop, I have no idea. I have no place to whiz off.” She threw up her hands. “Stymied.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Pewter saw the spider emerge, race across the little space, go under the bathroom door. She took off into the small back room. The others followed.

“It’s in the bathroom.”

“Pewter, don’t disturb it. Maybe it has to go,” Tucker teased the frustrated cat.

Pewter, pupils large, dashed over to the baseboard from which the spider had emerged. She couldn’t reach in with her entire paw but she could extend two claws. She hooked a tiny metal triangle.

“Ha.”

Mrs. Murphy got up, examined Pewter’s find.

“Look. This spider’s like Simon, a hoarder.”

The possum in the barn didn’t hoard, but he kept treasures.

Mrs. Murphy cocked her head. “Looks like a little spike from a dog collar.”

Hearing “dog collar,” Tucker peered into the space. “Could be.”

“Or it could be a stud from a motorcycle jacket.” Mrs. Murphy remembered the black leather jacket on the killer. They barked and meowed until Harry, irritated, came to them. She knelt down with the three to stare at this small shiny object.

Harry, picking up the stud, said, “Coop.”

The deputy walked in as Harry dropped the little stud in her hand. “The animals had this on the floor. Don’t know where they found it.”

“I know our team went over this place with a fine-tooth comb.” Cooper was frustrated by the breaking into Gary’s office.

“I’m sure they did but this might be easy to miss depending on where it was.”

“A spider had it,” Pewter announced.

“You don’t know that,” Tucker grumbled.

“Well, you could open the bathroom door and ask her,” Mrs. Murphy ever so helpfully suggested.

Neither woman said anything about the small stud. Cooper reached into her pocket, pulled out her clean handkerchief, and folded it inside.

“I found it.” Pewter stood on her hind legs to bat at the handkerchief in Cooper’s hand.

Harry reached down to push the gray cat back a little. “Could be anything.”

“Could, but just to be sure I’ll take it to the lab. Could be off a dress, one with stud patterns, could be from a dog collar. Old Gringo makes a boot with a kind of swirling stud pattern over the toe. I’d love to buy that pair of boots. Too expensive.”

“Or it could have come off a motorcycle jacket.” Harry exhaled through her nose loudly.

“Could, but it would be a stupid killer to come back here wearing the same jacket.”

Harry turned to go back into the workroom. “Noisy, obvious, and how could he carry the file boxes? That’s the only thing that was missing from here.”

“1984. I’d better start digging into 1984.” Cooper had no idea how literal that would be.