Six Cats A Slayin'

TWENTY

“That’s really strange,” I said. “She has a driver’s license, though.”

“Yes, but I don’t quite know how she got one,” Kanesha replied. “You have to have your birth certificate, two proofs of residence, and your Social Security card.”

“Have you found a Social Security card or a birth certificate among her effects?” I asked.

“Not so far,” Kanesha said. “If she has them, they’re well hidden. They might be in a safe deposit box at a bank.”

“Did you find any kind of legal documents?” I asked.

Kanesha shook her head. “We’re still searching the house. I think something’s surely bound to turn up before too much longer.”

“Unless she paid cash for that house and the three others she bought, wouldn’t there be some kind of bank trail?”

“Another angle we’re looking into,” Kanesha said. “This could be a tough one to crack, I have to say. No emergency contact information that I could find, other than that assistant of hers, Jincy Bruce.”

“Does she know anything?” I asked.

“If she does, she’s hiding it well,” Kanesha said. “I’m going to be questioning her again, though. She must know something, even if she doesn’t think it’s important.”

“For your sake, I hope so,” I said. “You said you had some questions for me when you texted earlier.”

“Right.” Kanesha consulted her notebook. “First, have you remembered anything else about last night, some detail you might have overlooked?”

I hesitated. This was the point when I needed to tell her about the argument I had witnessed between Gerry and Billy Albritton—plus the fact that I thought I saw him leaving her house last night.

“There are two things,” I replied. “First, there was an argument I overheard between Gerry and Councilman Albritton.” I gave the few details I had to share, and she frowned.

“I wasn’t aware that he knew her,” Kanesha said.

“Melba talked to him about Gerry, and he swore up and down that he didn’t know who she was,” I said. “If he wasn’t lying about that, then what was he doing having an argument with her? It wasn’t too smart of him to let the neighbors see him with her if he’s trying to deny that he knows her.”

Kanesha snorted. “He’s got a short fuse. In my experience, he usually acts before he thinks about the consequences. If he was really angry with her about something, he probably didn’t stop to think about it.”

“I don’t know much about him,” I said. “He doesn’t represent this area.”

“Count yourself lucky,” Kanesha said. “You mentioned two things. What’s the other one?”

“I think he—Billy, that is—might have been in the house last night during the party.”

Kanesha’s eyes narrowed. “When did you see him?”

“I saw him not too long before Gerry collapsed,” I said. “Stewart and Haskell were ready to leave. I was standing in the hall with Stewart, and I looked over his shoulder to see Haskell coming toward us. Behind him, going out the front door, was a man I thought was Billy Albritton.”

“Are you sure it was Billy?” Kanesha asked.

“No,” I said with some reluctance. “I’m not prepared to swear to it. It was only a quick glimpse, and I don’t really know him. I simply thought the man looked like him.”

“Okay, let’s think about this. Earlier during the party, did you ever see a man you thought looked like him?”

I thought about that, and I could tell that Kanesha was getting restless by the time I replied. “No, I can’t say that I did. I mean, I circulated a fair bit, I suppose, and saw a lot of people, but no man who looked like that.”

“Then it’s possible you really did see Billy Albritton,” Kanesha said. “And you saw him leave not too long before Gerry Albritton collapsed and died.”

“Yes,” I said. Now I was concerned that she was going to fasten on the councilman as her chief suspect. I had to admit that she had grounds for her suspicions, but she would have to have more evidence to go on than what I had provided.

“Haskell didn’t mention seeing him,” Kanesha said, “though it sounds like he could have, if Billy had to pass by him to go out the door.”

“I couldn’t say,” I replied. “You’ll have to go into that with Haskell. He was ready to go home, and he may not have been paying attention. He was concentrating on finding Stewart, I think.”

“Melba didn’t mention him, either, when I questioned her,” Kanesha said. “Are they friends?”

I shrugged. “Friendly, at least. I don’t know that they’re particularly good friends. You know Melba, she seems to know everyone. You’re not thinking she could be protecting him by not telling you he was there, are you?”

Kanesha responded with a question of her own. “Did she know about the argument you overheard?”

“Yes,” I said. “I told her about it earlier, during the party. That was my first opportunity to talk to her about it in person.”

“Did she seem upset by it?”

“No, not at all,” I said. “Simply curious, like me. She told me she would talk to him again, though, and try to worm the truth out of him.”

A faint smile creased Kanesha’s lips. “If anyone can, Melba can. It’s a good thing she never went to law school. I wouldn’t want to face her in court.”

I had to laugh at that. “I wouldn’t, either, and she’s one of my closest friends.”

“I’ll have to talk to him,” Kanesha said. “Even if you can’t swear to it, it’s a possibility I have to explore. If he was there, he had the opportunity to poison her drink.”

Kanesha seemed to be in a cooperative mood, and as long as it lasted, I would try to find out what I could. “Did your deputies or the police ever find that snifter?” I asked.

“No. Whoever picked it up—and it had to be the killer, I think—managed to get it out of there without anyone noticing.”

“Do you think the killer left the party then?” I asked. “Surely he wouldn’t hang around.”

“It would have been the smart thing to do,” Kanesha replied. “I gathered from Ms. Bruce that guests were coming and going pretty steadily.”

“Unless,” I said slowly, “it would have looked odd if he was gone when the police arrived.”

“How do you mean?” Kanesha asked.

I thought about that briefly. “Okay, here’s a scenario. The killer has poisoned Gerry’s brandy. He could have left right after he managed to do it, but he might have wanted to stay and watch. Have the satisfaction of seeing her die.” Horrible thought. So cold-blooded. “If he did stay, he might have been having a conversation with a person or several people, and if he disappeared when Gerry collapsed, they might remember that and tell the police. It would look suspicious, wouldn’t it?”

“To me it would,” Kanesha said. “Good points. I’m going to be questioning a number of the guests for a second time, and I’m going to work that in. It might spark a memory.”

“I have to confess that I have done my best not to think about last night,” I said. “I wasn’t totally successful, of course, but I didn’t run through the events in my mind. I’ll do that, though, and if I come up with anything else that might be pertinent, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you,” Kanesha replied. After scanning a couple of pages in her notebook, she stood. “I think that’s all for now. You’ve given me a promising new lead, and I’m going to follow that up.”

“Anything to help,” I said as I saw her to the front door. I called to Diesel once the door was shut. “She’s gone now, boy.”

Diesel emerged from the living room and trilled. He followed me into the kitchen, where I checked the clock. Enough time had passed since Azalea left, I decided. The roast should be ready by now.

Diesel watched me closely while I ate. I knew he wanted bites of the roast beef, but he couldn’t have any because of the onions Azalea put in the pot with the beef. Instead, I gave him an occasional green bean, and he made do with those. I really needed to stop feeding him from the table, but it was difficult to break the habit. Besides, he could put on the most pitiful look when he wanted something, and I felt powerless to resist.

After I cleaned up the kitchen and put away the leftovers, I thought about calling Melba to tell her about my conversation with Kanesha. Then I realized that Kanesha probably would not want me to do that. She might have already talked to Melba, but I figured if she had, Melba might have called me by now. I wished I could talk to Helen Louise, but this was one of her nights to close down the bistro. I wouldn’t be able to talk to her until around ten or ten thirty.

I decided to spend time with the kittens. They needed more interaction with people, and I probably hadn’t been giving them enough of that. I couldn’t let all of them out at once because I might be up all night long trying to find them once they got loose. Instead I settled on bringing two of them at a time out of the cage and playing with them. Two I could manage, and Diesel played with them, too.

Two hours passed before I was aware of it, and I was ready to turn out the lights and head upstairs. I left the hall light on for Haskell and Stewart. The latter had come back in with Dante and then had gone out again while I was talking to Kanesha. Diesel, after a visit to his litter box, came upstairs and joined me on the bed.

I picked up my current book and settled down to read. I had chosen an old favorite by Margery Allingham, The Tiger in the Smoke. I had read it at least twice already, but I’ve always thought that my favorites were worth rereading, and more than once. In a way, I considered it spending time with a good friend. By doing this on a regular basis, I knew I was missing opportunities to read new books and perhaps discover new favorites, but the pull of old friends was irresistible.

I drifted off at some point. When my cell phone rang, my book lay atop my chest and my neck felt a little stiff. I grabbed the cell phone, vaguely noticing that the time read a few minutes past ten.

To my surprise, the voice on the other end was not the one I expected. Sean said, “Dad, sorry if I woke you, but I need to talk to you.”

“What’s wrong?” I came fully awake, terrified that something had happened to Alex and baby Rosie.

“There’s no emergency,” Sean said. “Only this is the first time today I’ve had time to myself long enough to call you.”

I could hear the exhaustion and stress in his tone. “Alex isn’t doing any better?”

“No,” he replied. “I’ve been trying to talk to her about a nanny, but she says she won’t listen and starts crying and saying I think she’s a terrible mother. I just don’t know what to do. I’m not sleeping, I’m up to my eyeballs in work with no end in sight, and I can’t deal with Alex anymore. What should I do to help her? We can’t go on like this much longer.”

I had feared that the situation might come to a crisis point like this. Alex desperately needed help, but the poor child was so wrapped up in misery she was pushing away any attempt to help her. Always a high-achiever in everything she did, she couldn’t cope with a situation she wasn’t able to control. Her loved ones were going to have to intervene to solve the problem.

The question was, how?