The Big Kitty

16

For the briefest of moments after Ken Howell spoke up, the crowd of media people stood silent.

Then they all burst out in a frenzy of shouted questions to the sheriff.

Sunny certainly had no reason to like Frank Nesbit. But watching him standing at bay with the phone in his hand, she couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for him.

He’s been on with the fire chief for maybe a minute, Sunny thought. What in-depth information do they think he could suddenly tell them?

Turning to the collection of news gatherers slavering for the merest sound bite, she had to wonder, More to the point, why would he want to tell them anything?

After a moment of pandemonium, Sheriff Nesbit showed his years of experience in news management. Gesturing for silence, he said, “There’s a preliminary report of a suspicious fire at the site. I’m heading over there immediately for a personal inspection. After I’ve ascertained the facts—”

Translation: When he comes up with a good spin on all this, the snarky voice in Sunny’s head suggested.

“—I’ll be glad to share them with you.” Nesbit told the fire chief he’d be there as soon as possible and escaped from the room, followed by a ravening horde of newspeople.

Sunny watched them go, feeling a little embarrassed for her chosen profession.

“I’d say that went well enough.” Will Price appeared beside her, now wearing his uniform. “At least no one got trampled in the mad stampede.”

“Are you going out to the fire?” Sunny asked.

Will shook his head, wearing his most expressionless cop face. “I have another important assignment—seeing you home.”

“Are you sure you’ve got the okay to do that?”

“Hey, it came from the sheriff himself,” Will told her with a lopsided grin. “Local law enforcement wouldn’t look too good if we allowed something to happen to you after that awfully public near hit-and-run. And it doesn’t hurt that it’ll keep me out of Nesbit’s hair. Not only did he show concern for your safety, he actually expressed worry over my own health.”

Sunny gave him a doubtful look. “He did? Really?”

“Oh, yeah. He said, and I quote, ‘No more of this extracurricular fooling around.’ At least it was something like ‘fooling’—had the same first letter. ‘You were up to something last night, and you were in here worrying about that girl when you should have been sleeping. I don’t need some blinking zombie patrolling on the swing shift.’” Will grinned. “Trust me, that’s pretty much verbatim, with some of the more colorful language toned down a little.”

“So, you were worried about me?” Sunny asked, feeling her face get a little warm.

Will’s expression got more serious. “Worried as hell,” he admitted. “That’s another reason why I don’t mind making sure you get home in one piece.”

Remembering Gordie’s fate put a chill on whatever warmth Sunny had been feeling. “Guess we’d better get started, then,” she said.

Will gave her a lift in his patrol car back to the New Stores, since she’d walked downtown. He got out himself and ran a quick check on Mike’s pickup truck.

“No nasty surprises,” he reported. “Did you see what I did?”

“It was pretty hard to miss when you dropped to the sidewalk,” Sunny told him.

“I was looking to see if anything had been left under your truck,” Will replied, deadly serious. “It wouldn’t be the worst idea if you did the same thing before you climbed aboard in the future.”

Sunny couldn’t come up with a snappy answer to that. So she walked in silence over to the pickup, got in, inserted the key, and started the engine.

The journey to Wild Goose Drive was pretty tame. No attack helicopters swooped down, no wild SUVs came barreling out of nowhere at her.

Will beckoned Sunny over after she pulled up in her driveway.

As she walked to his car, he rolled down his window. “I know you probably think it’s overreaction,” he said in a quiet voice, “but a little prevention and forethought results in nice, boring trips like these.” He smiled, lightening the mood. “I’ll try to give you some sort of report on the excitement we missed at the fire scene. Later, okay?”

Sunny nodded. When she turned in the doorway to wave good-bye, she noticed that he stayed in place until he was sure she was safely inside.

“Hey, Dad,” she called as she came into the living room, “did the people on TV completely blow things out of proportion?” She’d done her best to minimize things in her phone call to him, but God only knew how the newspeople had decided to spin the story.

“They say some idiots nearly killed you—again,” Mike replied. “How close does that sound?”

He was trying to put a good face on it, but he sounded worried. “I don’t like this, Sunny,” he finally admitted.

“Neither do I,” she said. “At least the sheriff’s finally started to take things seriously.”

“If he took things seriously, he’d resign and let someone who actually knows about crime prevention take over.”

Mike might had continued in his tirade, but the phone rang. Sunny picked up the receiver.

“Ollie Barnstable,” the voice on the other end announced, as if Sunny would have trouble identifying those accusing tones. “The office was closed for hours today because you were off talking to the police and getting yourself on television.”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Sunny protested. “It was a murder case, and they needed a statement.”

“Well here’s a choice for you,” Ollie snarled. “Make up the four hours you owe me tomorrow, or have them docked from your pay.”

What a public-spirited prince you are, Ollie, Sunny thought. But aloud she said, “Okay. I’ll come in for the morning.”

When she told her father what the call was about, Mike had some choice comments to make about Ollie the Barnacle. Then he broke off, looking over to the doorway. “I must have woken up your friend. He spent most of the day sleeping in that expensive bed you bought him—and shedding hair on my good coat lining.”

Sunny watched Shadow come into the living room. Even on less than a day’s rest, he seemed to be moving with a lot more of his usual grace.

“How’s his breathing?” she asked.

“Well, he didn’t snore.”

Sunny shot a look at Mike. “Did he eat?”

“Not when I was around,” Mike told her. “But whenever I look in the kitchen, his bowl is always miraculously empty.”

Shadow wound himself around her ankles with more interest than usual.

Well, Sunny thought, even if I wasn’t in a cell, I was in the jail. Guess I must have picked up some interesting smells while I was there.

She dropped to one knee and went to scratch Shadow behind the ears, half expecting him to pull away now that he was obviously feeling better. Instead, he pushed his head against her fingers. Sunny gently ran her hands along his furry sides. Shadow was fine with that, except for a little squeak when she passed his left ribs.

“I’d be afraid to lose a couple of fingers doing that,” Mike told her.

“After what you pulled on him, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sunny responded with a shake of her head. “Tipping him out a window into the cold like that.” She was still annoyed about her dad’s little trick, but the words came out in a sort of crooning tone as she petted Shadow.

“He seems to be okay,” she said, looking up from the cat. “No swelling, and not that much pain, as far as I can tell. Looks as if he’s getting back to his normal self.”

“Great,” Mike grunted. “Should I start nailing the lamps to the tables?”

Sunny ignored him, finally rising to her feet. “I’ll start making supper.”

“Wash your hands first,” Mike called after her as she headed for the kitchen.

*

Shadow felt much better. He had appreciated the safe, warm place to rest, but now that Sunny was home, he couldn’t keep himself away from her as she worked in the kitchen. As the room filled with the smell of cooking, he twined around her legs, even though she’d been thoroughly marked.

She talked to him and even put a bit more food in his bowl. He ate a little, just to be polite, and then kept following her.

When she and the Old One sat down to eat, Shadow positioned himself under the table, butting against her shins every once in a while. He stayed away from the Old One, even though he’d been careful and kind today. From harsh experience, Shadow knew that two-legged males might well kick when they thought no one was watching.

When the meal finished, Shadow accompanied Sunny back and forth to the kitchen as she cleared the table. The Old One took up his usual place, looking at the picture box.

Sunny came out and sat down, and Shadow sat at her feet. After a little while, though, she got up and went back to the kitchen. But she didn’t go for food. For a moment or two she rummaged in a drawer. Then she came out with a ball of string.

Shadow ran circles around her as she returned to the other room, but then she sat on the floor instead of back in her chair. Were they going to play with the string? He remembered chasing and rolling with the stuff, but he hadn’t played those games since he was a kitten! Trailing the end of the string along the rug, Sunny brought it to the corner of the chair. Just before it passed out of his sight, Shadow pounced on it.

Sunny flicked out the end of the string, and again began pulling it out of sight. Again Shadow pounced just before it would have escaped.

Shadow crouched low to the carpet, hoping she’d flick out the string again. She did.

They played the string game for a while, and Shadow managed to get a claw into the string itself. He pulled the ball to him and lay back, playing with it. The ball got smaller and smaller as loops of string piled up around him.

Sunny made happy noises, and even the Old One joined in, showing his teeth in that peculiar way the two-legs had.

At last there was no ball left. Sunny stayed on the floor, rolling it up again. Shadow lay beside her, resting against the side of her leg.

He was almost surprised at the contented sound suddenly welling up from within him.

*

Sunny gently petted the warm, furry body beside her.

“Are you purring?” she asked Shadow.

Mike used the remote to push up the volume on the show.

Then the phone rang.

“Who can that be at this time of night?” Mike grumped. He picked up the receiver and a moment later held it out to Sunny. “It’s Will.”

“I’m on meal break,” he said when she got on the phone. “If you don’t mind the occasional sound of me eating pizza as I talk, I’ll bring you up to date on what I heard happened out at Gordie’s place.”

“Okay,” Sunny said. “So what’s the story?”

“They finally got the fire put out and started investigating the cause. More or less as we, or at least I, suspected, it looks like Gordie was apparently trying to synthesize crystal meth.”

Sunny passed that information along to Mike.

“How do they do that, anyhow?” he asked.

Will must have heard him over the phone. “To put it very simply, you add certain kinds of cold medication to a solvent to strip away some of the active ingredients you want,” he said. “Gordie had a pretty bare-bones setup. For a solvent, he’d managed to get his hands on some ether. For the rest, he had a bunch of different cold pills. Either he was buying them in different stores or taking them with a five-finger discount. More likely the second, since he had no money.”

“Maybe that explains why he went into the meth production business in the first place,” Sunny suggested. “He might have been desperate to raise money. Think about it. If he told Shays that there’d be cash to fund a serious meth operation and then there wasn’t, Gordie would have found himself in a real bind.”

“That does make sense,” Will said. “Anyway, it looks as if Gordie had laid everything out for a trial run before he went into town. But he didn’t close up the ether container tightly enough. The stuff must have begun to leak out. Since it’s heavier than air, the ether just filled the house out there on the edge of town until finally it reached the pilot light on the stove and—kaboom.”

Sunny relayed Will’s explanation to Mike, who nodded.

“That’s how some of our demolition guys used to take out tunnel complexes back in ’Nam. All they needed for the job was a can of ether and a candle.”

“Well, it certainly blew the hell out of that old farmhouse—and did a pretty good job on Frank Nesbit’s PR, too.” Will reported. “Those camera crews followed him out to the fire. His whole ‘Keep Elmet Safe’ campaign sounded a little hollow when a meth lab turned up under his nose. He’s been trying to spin it, saying that this was the work of evil outsiders, but Gordie was a local boy.”

Mike cackled when Sunny told him that.

“Another interesting point,” Will went on. “Gordie was paying week to week to stay at this old farmhouse—a distressed property picked up by none other than your beloved boss, Oliver Barnstable.” He paused. “With luck Ollie will be lying low for a while.”

“Now, that would be good news,” Sunny said.

“There’s one more thing.” Will sounded more tentative now. “I’ll be switching to the day shift come Monday, which means I’ll actually have both days of this weekend off.”

Sunny had stopped passing along Will’s conversation to her dad, sensing this was going to be more personal.

It was.

“Look, um, would you like to have dinner on Saturday to discuss the case—or whatever?”

“Sure,” Sunny said aloud.

Especially whatever, she added with a silent smile.