The Big Kitty

9

The day finally ended. Sunny wheeled her bike out of the office and locked up. There was a little traffic on the street now. She may have beaten Kittery Harbor’s rush hour that morning, but she couldn’t wait it out now—she had that appointment with the Towles.

As she nosed into the stream of traffic, Sunny heard a heavy engine start up, like a giant clearing his throat. She shot a glance over her shoulder—her dad had been very careful with bike safety when he taught her to ride, showing her how to look in all directions without wobbling on her course. A metallic blue SUV with tinted windows, a Ford Explorer, rolled along behind her, its rumbling engine throttled down.

Maybe I should pull aside and let them pass, she thought.

But when she tried to, the big blue vehicle just slowed down.

Sunny shrugged. The SUV had New Hampshire plates. Maybe they were tourists looking for a place to park. She pedaled on for about a block until she saw an arm waving at her from a black pickup truck. As she rolled to a stop, Will Price stuck his head out the window, grinning.

“I’d gotten reports of this spectacle, but I had to see it with my own eyes,” he said.

She took in the fact that he was in his own pickup and out of uniform. “Is this traffic stop official police business, Constable Price?” she teased.

His voice took on a professional pitch. “In point of fact, Maine highway safety regulations state that protective helmets must be worn by all cyclists—”

“Oh, come on,” Sunny muttered.

“—under the age of sixteen,” he finished, letting his stern cop facade melt under another grin.

“I don’t know whether I should be flattered or worried for your eyesight,” she told him.

“Look, I’ve got a little time before my shift starts,” he said. “Why don’t you stick that bike in the back and I’ll give you a ride home?”

As she swung the mountain bike into the truck bed, Sunny glanced around, looking for that big Ford that had seemed to be following her. No trace—it must have turned off in search of a parking spot.

Guess I was just imagining things, Sunny thought, shaking her head. Can’t let that half-assed stunt with the bullet get to me.

She went around to the passenger side of Will’s truck, put her foot on the running board, and boosted herself into the seat. “I guess I should thank you,” she said. “I’m supposed to be seeing the Towles, and I’d have to pedal pretty fast to make it in time.”

“Sticking on the job, huh?” He laughed. “Well, you’ll be glad to hear that they won’t meet you at the door with a gun—at least I didn’t find one registered.”

“No,” Sunny said, “all they have is a killer dog.”

“My research shows that Veronica Yarborough doesn’t have a gun, either.”

“No doubt she considers them too lower class.” Sunny smiled. “If she had a problem with someone, she’d probably beat them to death with her moneybags. What about those farmers, the Ellsworths?”

“Now, they apparently did buy a rifle after they began having predator problems,” Will reported. “Nate Ellsworth got a .308 caliber—a little heavy for your traditional varmint gun.”

He paused for a second. “Of course, the bullet that messed up your car exited through the windshield—and nobody broke their necks looking for it. But we still have the bullet casing from that little dingus inside the car, and it’s a .308—imagine that.”

“I’ll save thinking about that for after my visit with the Towles.” Sunny rolled her window down. They were climbing up the hill, heading out of town. “Looks like you did your homework. Did your friends in Portsmouth come through with any information about Gordie Spruance?”

“They’re aware of him,” Will said. “His license plate got taken down because his car turned up in some not-so-nice parts of town, and he’s been spotted with some seriously dirty people.”

“You mean he’s been buying drugs?” Sunny’s voice went flat. She hated to hear Will’s suspicions verified.

“Maybe more than that.” Will’s face got grim. “I want to show you something.”

He pulled the truck off the road and opened the console on the seat between them. “Gordie’s been hanging out with a guy named Ron Shays, a.ka. Rob O’Shea. He’s a meth dealer with an interesting history.”

Will pulled out a grainy photo printed on plain paper. “They e-mailed me this picture.”

The image was obviously a mug shot, showing a guy with long, unkempt hair and a beard down to his chest. Actually, it wasn’t so much a face as a set of pinched features poking through a wall of shaggy fur. Sunny got an impression of angry eyes set close together above a sharp nose. What really caught her attention was the man’s mouth, set in a snarl that revealed several stained and snaggled teeth.

“Looks like a charmer.” She shuddered.

“What amazes me is that he’s found people to do business with him all over New England,” Will said. “His business model is to find a virgin territory and open a lab using local contacts. They go in big, make some money, and then the partnership goes to hell—usually with the local partner ending up dead. And then Shays moves on to greener pastures.”

“Better and better.” Sunny gave the picture back. “And nobody’s caught him yet?”

“He’s been pretty smart so far, and he’s kept moving out of jurisdictions before local law enforcement can pin him down. Lately he’s been seen around Portsmouth, looking into business opportunities in the area.”

And what would be better than Elmet County? Convenient to Portsmouth, a good-sized city right across the river, and guarded by a sheriff who seemed to think he could keep crime down by wishing it away.

“This doesn’t sound good,” Sunny said.

“Yeah. You could imagine what might happen if Gordie bragged about his mom’s lottery ticket to this guy.”

“Tell him you had money?” Sunny burst out. “I wouldn’t want that character to know I owned a wallet.”

“So if Shays put the squeeze on Gordie, and Gordie tried to steal that ticket …” Will didn’t even have to finish.

But Sunny remembered the lost, frightened look in Gordie’s eyes when he talked about his mother. “It looks bad,” she admitted. “But I still want to get a look at the other people feuding with Ada Spruance.”

Will shrugged. “Suit yourself. You’re the one writing the story.”

“Besides,” Sunny went on, “how much of this stuff you’re telling me could I use with attribution?”

Will sat silent for a moment. “None of it,” he finally admitted. “If I had any kind of a solid case, I’d’ve already taken a chance and brought it to the district attorney.”

“So instead, what you’re doing is turning to me to stir the pot and see what floats up.” Sunny shook her head. “This is supposed to be a news story. I can’t just make unsubstantiated accusations about drug dealers hiding in the woodwork.”

Will started the truck in glum silence and drove her home. As he pulled up on Wild Goose Drive, he said, “Guess it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”

Sunny looked at him. “For what?”

“For getting you involved in this,” Will said. “At first glance, I thought this would be a way to yank Frank Nesbit’s chain about ignoring a possible suspicious death. But it’s gotten a lot worse than I imagined.”

“Let’s say ‘more complicated’ instead of ‘worse.’” Sunny shrugged. “And I’m the one who insisted the death was suspicious in the first place.” She sighed. “I just wish I had some solid facts instead of rumor and conjecture and maybes.”

“So you’re staying with it?”

Sunny nodded. “I’m going to check on my dad, and then off to the Towles’.”

She went into the house and stepped into the living room, stopping dead when she caught the scene on the sofa. Her father and Mrs. Martinson sat bolt upright, their hands stiffly at their sides. At least Sunny’s dad didn’t have powdered sugar all over his sweater. But Mrs. Martinson wasn’t her usual self.

The normally imperturbable widow looked a little wild-eyed. Her hair was slightly mussed, her makeup smeared—

Oh, God, Sunny thought, what have I walked into now?

Whatever they’d been doing, Mike and his lady friend weren’t doing it anymore. They hadn’t even noticed Sunny entering the room, their gazes frozen on the floor, a bit to the left of the coffee table …

Where Shadow sat, his hindquarters down but his forelegs straight, his ears erect, the picture of interested attention.

Sunny couldn’t help it. “What’s going on, folks?”

That broke the spell. Helena Martinson patted desperately at her hair, stumbling over her words. “We—I—when I looked over, I saw him watching us.”

Mike, on the other hand, silently worked his way from astonishment to embarrassment to fury. Thanks to Shadow, whatever Mike had hoped would happen wasn’t going to. And that went double now that Sunny had turned up.

The glare he directed at Shadow should have left a charred ring on the rug where the cat used to be.

“Um. I’m just passing through. Only stopping off to get some stuff. Then I’ll be heading out for a while.” Sunny got out of there before she completely started babbling.

Shadow came over to give Sunny’s shins a sniff, but he was obviously more interested in the couple on the couch.

Sunny headed up to her room to get her notebook, stopping for a second to check out her reflection in the mirror. Maybe this isn’t the time to ask Mrs. Martinson about hairdressers, she decided.

She hadn’t put her BU sweatshirt back on for cycling home, intending to change before going to the Towles’. Thanks to the lift from Will, she didn’t have to do that.

“I’ll just walk over there, take a nice, leisurely stroll,” she told herself.

Right now, the sooner she got out of the house, the better.

*

The Towle house was newer than the Coolidge family home and definitely more upscale—though not as luxurious as Veronica Yarborough’s mansion upgrade. Although the front lawn was open to the street, a head-high white fence—wood, not plastic—flanked the house and apparently ran the perimeter of the backyard. Sunny spotted a gate beside the garage.

When she came up to the front door and rang the bell, she heard deep woofing from around in back.

Probably the dog in question, she thought.

The door opened, and Sunny found herself looking at Leah Towle—looking up at Leah Towle.

At five feet, six inches, Sunny usually considered herself on the tall side for a woman. But Leah had to be up around six feet, easily. She had a face that was more pleasant than pretty, perhaps a little too broad—like her shoulders and her hips.

Leah tried to smile politely, asking, “Sunny?” But her face showed signs of sleeplessness and strain. “Thank you for coming.” She led the way to a family room with a leather couch and armchairs. Good stuff, but not over-the-top.

Leah headed for the hallway, as if to call her husband, but then Chuck Towle came into the room. Leah might be tall, but Chuck still topped her by several inches. He had the look of a college jock running to seed—a bit of stomach straining over his belt, extra flesh softening the line of his chin. Apparently he was losing his hair, because he kept his head shaved—not the best look for him. His incipient jowls made his face bottom-heavy, tapering up to a sort of bullet-headed dome.

Chuck shook Sunny’s hand in one of his big paws as Leah did the introductions.

“First of all, we both want to say how terrible it is that Mrs. Spruance died,” he said. “I can’t say we liked her—or her cats—but we certainly never wished her any harm.”

“We can’t say the same about her and Festus,” Leah burst out.

“Festus?” Sunny asked.

“Our dog. He’s a good dog, Sunny, but that woman said she hoped the judge would order him p-put to sleep.” Leah’s eyes filled with tears and her voice grew hoarse.

“Mrs. Spruance swore out a civil complaint that Festus was a dangerous dog,” Chuck explained. “She also wanted to sue us.”

“Everyone said how horrible he was.” Anger crept into Leah’s voice. “But they never took our side of the story seriously.”

“How did the—um—incident happen?” Sunny asked cautiously.

Chuck nodded. “When we’re at work, we keep Festus in the backyard, on a lead. There’s shade from the trees if it gets too warm, and a doghouse for shelter.”

“And we leave dry food and water for him,” Leah added. “But then those cats began coming over.”

“Teasing him,” Chuck said.

“Terrorizing him,” Leah corrected. “They’d hide until he was ready to do his business—then they’d pounce on him! I’ve actually seen them do it!” She quivered with indignation. “How would you react if someone kept jumping out at you every time you had to use the bathroom?”

Sunny could only shake her head, remembering how Shadow tried to trip up Gordie, and the cat’s mania for knocking things over. All I can say is, cats have a pretty strange sense of humor, she thought.

“Finally this one cat, Patachou, or whatever she called him, ran across our yard and jumped up on the gate,” Chuck said. “I guess poor Festus had had enough. He broke his leash and went right through the gate. I was just getting home and heard it all. I followed them as Festus chased the cat. Dunno how he managed to catch him, but he did, right outside the Spruance place.”

His heavy shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I tried to get him off, but by then it was too late.”

Leah blinked away more tears. “She let those cats go wandering around the neighborhood, getting into any dangerous things they pleased, but she blamed us! It’s just not fair!”

Chuck tried to pat her shoulder, looking helpless. “We put up a bigger fence, and we’ve got special trainers coming to work with Festus. But he may end up muzzled, or confined to the house”—he broke off for a moment—“or we may have to give him away.”

“He’s a good dog,” Leah insisted. “Let me show you.”

She left the room, to return a few moments later with a large black and brown dog on a leash. He trotted in, spotted the new person, and approached.

But when he was just a couple of yards away, he stopped, sniffed, and began to growl.

Leah was mortified. “Bad Festus! What are you doing?”

The dog’s tail went down and he looked around, whining.

Sunny had an awful suspicion. She twisted on the couch so that the rays of the setting sun fell on the front of her sweater. Yes, there they were, shining in the light—fine strands of grayish fur against the blue fabric. She thought back to when she’d been getting ready for work that morning. Shadow had jumped up on her bed, examining the stuff she placed there, including her T-shirt and sweater. She’d left him alone while she got her bag out of the closet. He’d probably taken the opportunity to roll on the soft cotton.

And Festus had caught a whiff of Shadow’s scent.

That damned cat’s trying to get me killed, she thought.

“I’m sorry, I think there must be something on this sweater,” Sunny said, carefully rising to her feet. “Maybe I’d better be going.”

“But you understand this is a terrible accident? That Festus wouldn’t normally do anything like this?” Poor Leah Towle looked as confused and upset as her dog.

“I’ll try to explain things the way you explained them to me,” Sunny promised gently.

She felt sorry for the Towles and their dog.

But …

Like Festus, both Chuck and Leah were large and strong—and their feelings obviously ran high.

Either could have sent a little woman like Ada Spruance flying down the stairs … with one hand tied behind his or her back.