The Big Kitty

7

Sunny didn’t know how long she just stood there, staring with her mouth hanging open. The sound of a car pulling up behind her finally snapped her out of her trance.

She whirled around to see a midnight blue patrol car, the words “Kittery Harbor Police” in gold on the front doors. No flashing lights on top. And behind the wheel, grim faced as usual, was Constable Will Price.

“Why should I not be surprised to find you?” he said, getting out of the car. “Zack Judson called from his store, reporting a gunshot. Dispatch thought it was probably a backfire, but they sent me by to check things out.”

Will’s stern demeanor melted a little as he looked at her more closely. “Hey—Sunny? Are you all right?”

Sunny wordlessly pointed at the inside of her car and the windshield.

The constable did a double take when he spotted the bullet hole. But then he was back to business as usual.

He took Sunny’s arm, almost dragging her over to Judson’s Market two stores away. At the same time, he spoke rapidly into the microphone attached to his blue uniform, radioing for backup.

The next few minutes got pretty exciting as another blue town patrol car and two white cruisers from the sheriff’s department came flying up, sirens blaring. The area filled with uniformed officers, redirecting traffic away from Sunny’s car and trying to shoo away the onlookers who began to congregate.

Will had already pulled his car away from Sunny’s. Now he pointed to her Mustang, talking to one of the deputies who seemed to be in charge. “Looks like something went off in there. The angle’s all wrong for a bullet fired from the outside.”

“Some kind of booby trap?” The deputy, a tall, lanky guy in a forest green uniform, frowned unhappily.

“Yeah—and we don’t know what else might be in there.” Will took the lead, approaching Sunny’s car with a large flashlight. “There’s something down by the gas pedal.”

Sunny held her breath as he craned his neck, trying for a better look. “I think the panel is off the fuse box, and there’s some kind of gizmo attached. I see wires—”

“You going in?” The lanky deputy swallowed audibly. Sunny saw his prominent Adam’s apple bob up and down.

Will’s hand went for the door handle, then hesitated. “I dunno, Fred. Maybe we should leave this for the professionals.”

The deputy stood staring at him. “You mean the bomb squad?”

Will began backing away. “Unless you want to go poking around in there yourself.”

Retreating to Judson’s Market, the deputy began talking into his own radio.

Perhaps five minutes passed. Then another sheriff’s department car came roaring up. It screeched to a stop, the door opened, and a red-faced Frank Nesbit emerged, dressed in a tuxedo.

Either he’s going for the James Bond look this evening or he has some political dinner to attend, that irreverent voice inside Sunny’s head suggested.

The sheriff took in the whole scene—the blocked road, the growing crowd—and flashed a baleful glance around the assembled lawmen. “What lamebrain’s trying to call in the state police bomb squad?”

The lanky deputy suddenly took a giant step away from Will Price.

His movement caught Nesbit’s attention. Now his generalized glare had a focus: Will.

“I should have known,” Nesbit growled.

“There’s some sort of device in there,” the constable tried to report. “Apparently it set off a shot.”

Nesbit stomped over to Sunny’s Mustang, grabbed the door handle, and heaved on it. The door opened with its usual unearthly screech.

The law officers and the crowd of civilian rubberneckers that had gathered all cringed back. But the awful noise was all that happened.

Nesbit put out his hand, calling, “Flashlight!” When he got one, he bent forward, peering at the floor in front of the driver’s-side seat. Then the sheriff straightened up. “Looks like somebody wired in a circuit board with a bullet attached to it.” He threw another aggravated look at Will. “A single shot. Nothing else.”

“There’s an urban legend like that,” one of the deputies said. “From back in the old days, when cars used those cylindrical fuses. They were the same size as a .22 shell, so some goober who was short on fuses used a bullet to replace a burned-out fuse. Worked okay until an electric charge finally set the damned thing off. Caught him right in the—”

The guy suddenly paused when he realized the whole crowd on the street was listening. “Er—groin region,” he finished lamely.

Nesbit in the meantime was looking fixedly at the Mustang, his lips set in a frown beneath his silver mustache. “This car looks familiar,” he said. “Whose is it?”

Sheepishly, Sunny raised her hand. If the sheriff had been angry before, a picture of his face now could be used in the dictionary to illustrate the phrase “if looks could kill.”

“You!” Nesbit visibly tried to restrain himself, but even so, his voice was overly loud when he spoke again. “Young lady, if you’ve—”

He broke off, looking over Sunny’s shoulder. She turned to see that Ken Howell had appeared, scribbling frantically in a notebook.

He’d love for the sheriff to say something stupid on the record, Sunny realized.

“All right.” Nesbit brought the volume down when he spoke this time. “We’re not sure what happened with this car, so we’re impounding it for investigation. If, at the end of our review, we discover that this was in fact some sort of misguided publicity stunt, criminal charges will be filed.” He glared at Sunny. “Count on it. It is a crime to waste police time.”

He jerked a hand at the Mustang, and several of his deputies jumped to start securing the car. The other town constable quickly pulled his car away.

Sunny tried to speak, cleared her throat, and finally succeeded. “Excuse me,” she said.

When nobody responded, she raised her voice. “Excuse me!”

Nesbit was getting back into his car. He stopped, giving her a hostile look. “Yes, Ms. Coolidge?”

“If you’re taking my car away, how am I supposed to get home?”

The sheriff directed a poisonous look at Will Price. “The motto of our force is ‘To Serve and Protect Elmet County.’ Since Constable Price is no longer busy trying to protect us from imaginary bombs, perhaps he wouldn’t mind serving as your cab driver.”

“Yes, sir,” Will said, his face carefully blank. Sunny could only imagine what was going on behind that facade.

Nesbit jumped into his car and escaped before Ken Howell could ask any embarrassing questions. The sheriff’s official vehicle roared off, followed by most of the deputies in theirs. Without the draw of the flashing lights, the small crowd quickly dispersed. The show was over.

Will and one of the deputies stayed until a tow truck came to collect Sunny’s Mustang. Then the constable led the way to his patrol car. He surprised Sunny by opening the front passenger door for her.

“Trust me, you wouldn’t want to try sitting in the rear seat. We do our best to clean things up, but there’ve been too many drunks back there—and you really don’t want to know what they’ve been up to.”

Sunny peered in at the seat he was offering.

“What? Did you expect it to be covered in hamburger wrappers or doughnut frosting?” Will asked.

“Okay, okay.” Sunny got inside.

Will closed the door, entered on the driver’s side, and picked up the radio microphone. “This is 243; 1000 has me on a 10-76 to—” He glanced over at Sunny. “What’s your address?”

“Wild Goose Drive, number 23.”

The constable relayed the address, put down the mike, and started the car.

“So this is Car 243?” Sunny asked. “I thought they used things like ‘1-Adam-12.’”

“You’ve been watching too many TV reruns,” Will told her, but then he unbent a little. “It depends on the force. In this case, 243 refers to, well, me. All patrol officers get a number in the two hundreds.”

“And the sheriff?”

“I mentioned him in that message—he’s 1000.” Will glanced over at her. “And before you ask, 10-76 means we’re en route to your address.”

Sunny was a little surprised that he was acting so human, explaining the police call signs.

“I guess I should apologize, Will,” she said.

“Apologize? For what?” he asked, his eyes still on the road.

“I’m sorry you were the one who had to come and get involved with that whole brouhaha and listen to Sheriff Nesbit—”

“If there were any justice in the world, he’d have pulled that door open and blown himself up,” Will replied with a lopsided grin. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for—unless, of course, you really did place that dingus as a misguided attempt to get some publicity.”

“I didn’t—” Sunny’s voice choked off, and her whole body began to quiver.

Will Price glanced over and then pulled his patrol car to the side of the road. “Hey, are you okay?” He took her hand. She could feel the warmth of his palm against her suddenly ice-cold fingers.

“Guess it finally caught up with me.” The words came out in a queer, wobbly tone. “Somebody tried to kill me tonight.”

“I forget that you’re a civilian,” Will said in a low, soothing voice. “It’s like the first time someone shot at me. I was so angry, and yeah, scared, and determined to get the guy, so focused on the situation that a few milliseconds felt like an hour, and when it was all over, the whole thing sort of piled on top of me.”

“And how did you feel then?”

Will shrugged. “Mostly, I felt afraid that I was going to throw up in front of the other guys,” he confessed.

That shocked a laugh out of her.

“It didn’t turn out to be all that dramatic in the final analysis. The shooter emptied his gun and forgot to bring more bullets. So I guess I didn’t have a full-fledged case of PTSD—post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said when he saw the question in her eyes.

“At least it wasn’t PMS,” Sunny joked weakly.

His left hand came over, giving a bracing rub to loosen the white-knuckled grip she’d maintained on his right. “So, come on, relax. As murder attempts go, this was pretty much a half-assed affair. With the trajectory the bullet took, it ended up killing your steering column and your windshield instead.”

“So—what?” Sunny asked, trying to follow his line of reasoning. “This was meant as a warning?”

He looked at her face for a moment before answering. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “Peeking in through the window, I couldn’t get a good view of the device, but it looked as if it had twisted around on its wires. Maybe the force of the bullet going off dislodged the base and made the shot fly wild.” Will shrugged. “I’d give whoever designed the dingus top grades for conception, but a failing mark for execution.”

Sunny fought to hold still as an involuntary shudder ran through her. “Don’t use that word.”

“Come on, Sunny, don’t take it so hard. In a weird way, this whole crazy incident actually justifies us looking into the Spruance case.”

“So it’s a case now, instead of an accident?” Sunny said.

Will Price nodded. “Looks to me like someone’s sure going to pretty extreme lengths to stop you from asking questions about Ada.”

“But who even knows—” She stopped, remembering the nasty comments earlier in the day from Ollie the Barnacle.

“Probably half the county.” Will flexed his right hand as Sunny finally released it. “Hell, even Nesbit knew. He was just about to call you on it before he realized there were witnesses all around.”

Sunny nodded. “Ken Howell was behind me.”

“So he had to content himself with that crack about publicity stunts.” Will leaned back in his seat. “So, are you feeling better enough for us to go on?”

When Sunny nodded, he started the car.

“The only person I talked with who might have gotten suspicious was Veronica Yarborough,” Sunny said as they passed a stand of maples, their shadows turning the evening dimness into solid black for a moment.

“Ah, yes, I can see the evil homeowners’ association president sneaking off to her secret lair and getting out her floral chintz soldering gun so she could assemble an infernal device to do you in.” Will laughed.

“And, of course, we spoke to Gordie Spruance,” Sunny continued, deciding to ignore his mockery. “Did you hear anything about him from your friends in Portsmouth?”

He shook his head. “It’s not just a simple case of peeking into a couple of files. They need to ask around among the guys on the squad and find out what hasn’t gone down on paper.”

“Is it worth looking into the other people Gordie told us about?”

Will shrugged. “Considering the way folks gossip around here, we pretty much have to expect that any of our suspects could have heard that you were asking around about Ada. So that’s a possible motive. Wouldn’t hurt to check on means, see if they have any guns registered. Then if the lab identifies the type of bullet in that booby trap, we can try for a match.”

“Aha, the MOM theory—motive, opportunity, and means,” Sunny said. “I’ve seen that turn up so many times on TV shows, I almost didn’t expect to hear that from a real, live cop.”

“If it actually happens in real life, can it still be a cliché?” Will asked with a grin. “Motive, opportunity, and means are actually part of the job. If you wanted to, you could cobble up a case against almost anybody. Take your boss, for instance. Gordie had some nasty things to say about Barnstable.”

“Gordie and about half the town,” Sunny scoffed.

“Yeah, but let’s look at him through the eyes of an overzealous TV investigator,” Will said. “Why was he hanging around Ada Spruance? I think we can dismiss a romantic motive.”

“Ada herself told me he was trying to help with her financial troubles,” Sunny said slowly.

“So he’s taking up charity work?”

She shook her head. “Ollie Barnstable doesn’t have a charitable bone in his body—well, maybe one. He did give me a job, after all.”

“So why was he hanging around Ada?” Will pressed.

“It has to be the house,” Sunny decided. “He offered Ada money for it, and after she died, Gordie said he cut back to half of what he’d offered before.”

“So he’s being a businessman. Or …” Will drew out the word, coming up with a new inspiration. “Maybe he’s got money troubles. So he’s working on the cheap, hoping to get the house at a rock-bottom price and then flip it. Or even better, he heard about the lottery ticket and hoped to get his hands on it.”

“However short he may be on personality, Ollie has lots of money,” Sunny said, shaking her head. “Not to mention fingers in more pies around here than we could count.”

“Maybe that’s it, though,” Will suggested. “He’s overextended and short of cash. Even after taxes, six to eight million would give him a lot of liquidity.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll give you motive,” Sunny admitted, laughing. “How about opportunity?”

Will shrugged behind the wheel. “Barnstable doesn’t keep regular office hours, does he? I bet he comes and goes as he pleases.”

Sunny considered Ollie the Barnacle’s occasional office visits. “True,” she granted.

“So how would he usually spend Saturday morning?”

“I’m not that close with the guy,” Sunny protested, but then she shrugged. “Probably he’d be adorning his bed. He always talks about Saturdays as his ‘me’ time.”

“In other words his schedule could be open for anything, up to and including murder.” Will brought his voice down into the bass register to make the last words sound as threatening as possible.

Sunny laughed again. “You’re making me afraid to go in to work tomorrow,” she kidded. “I can hardly wait to see what you’re going to do with means.”

“That’s the easiest,” Will told her. “Ollie’s a pretty big guy—”

“Mainly fat,” Sunny put in.

But Will shook his head. “Most people don’t realize that you need a fair amount of muscle to move that fat,” he said, “so don’t rule him out on that account.”

He paused for a second. “I’ll rephrase the comment. He’s a pretty solid guy. If he tried to block Ada from running out of the pantry and she just bounced off him, the force could have been enough to send her through that door.”

“No way!” Sunny laughed. They spent the rest of the ride arguing about the physics of murder.

When they reached Wild Goose Drive, Will coasted to a stop in front of Sunny’s house. “Figured I’d try a discreet approach,” he explained. “Some people get kind of upset seeing family members come home in a police car.”

Sunny agreed. “Dad doesn’t need a spike in his blood pressure right now.”

“So what’s your plan?”

Sunny patted the cash box in her lap. “First, I’m going to lock this away. We got a big advance from a client today. For the rest of the evening”—she pulled out the envelope full of printouts from her pocket—“I’m going to read through the Crier articles about Ada’s local feuds again.” She grimaced. “And I guess I’ll have to figure out some sort of way to get in to work.”

“Doesn’t your dad have a car?” Will asked.

“His truck’s been sitting in the garage since his heart attack. Dad’s been afraid to drive, even though the doctor says he’s okay,” Sunny said. “I don’t even know if the battery has held a charge after all this time.”

“Even if he was worried about using it, you’d think he’d let you take it out every once in a while just to keep it going.” Will paused for a moment, then added slyly, “On second thought, remembering how your driver’s-side door looked …”

“Wow, thanks for the compliment, that makes me feel a whole lot better.” But Sunny found herself smiling as she stepped out of the car.

She turned to wave, but Will Price was already on the radio, telling Dispatch that he was back on patrol.

Yeah, romance is in the air. I guess he’ll be calling for a date real soon, Sunny’s inner voice predicted sarcastically. The first time I’ve hung out with a guy in I don’t know how long, and I freak out and then spend most of the ride arguing with him.

Of course, she reminded herself, this was business. They’d joined forces—or been joined by her dad and a bunch of would-be local politicos—to solve Ada Spruance’s mysterious death. It wasn’t supposed to be a social occasion.

Still, she couldn’t help thinking, it was nice when he held my hand.

The police cruiser pulled away, and Sunny headed up the walk to her front door. She barely got it open before a gray streak, almost impossible to see in the dim hallway, rocketed out of the kitchen and came straight at her.

“What the—?” Sunny burst out.

*

Shadow watched the strange car pull up, but a familiar figure got out. He gave himself some running room and raced for the door before he even thought about it. But just as he was about to fling himself around her ankles, he leaped back.

Sunny didn’t carry any new smells. All he breathed in was the same old scents from the place where she spent her days.

So why, under all that, should he catch a whiff of the poisonous reek that came off the Stinky One?