The Big Kitty

20

“Shadow, come on now.” Sunny tried to sound stern, but even she noticed the desperate note creeping into her voice. “We’ve got to go.”

“Dumb cat,” Will muttered. “This is the way we came in, and he was fine.”

That was the problem. They’d entered the house through the open cellar doors and up the stairs into the pantry. That was their only route out, but Shadow pitched a fit every time Sunny tried to go through the door leading down to the basement.

“How are we going to do this?” she asked, watching the cat get more and more upset.

Will frowned, studying the situation. “I think we’ll have to be ungentlemanly,” he finally said.

“What do you mean?”

He grinned. “Ladies last.”

When Will headed down the narrow pantry, Shadow didn’t have a problem at all.

“Apparently, it’s only seeing you come down here first that sets him off.” Will gave one good shove, and the door stiffly swung open, the accompanying shriek piercing Sunny’s eardrums.

He went down a couple of steps, then turned back. “C’mon, Shadow.”

Shadow trotted to the open door and climbed down into the cellar. Will turned to block the stairway while still holding the door open, and Sunny hurried through.

Holding tightly onto the banister—she didn’t want to follow Ada’s unfortunate example—Sunny quickly made her way downstairs, then up and out the cellar doors.

“We don’t have much to show for an afternoon,” she said as she joined Will out in the backyard.

“Potential fingerprints on that living room table,” he pointed out.

“And piles of clothes with pockets to go through,” she added with a laugh.

“I don’t know if Nesbit would authorize overtime to do that,” Will deadpanned. “We may have to shoehorn the job into our copious spare time.”

“There’s not much of that—time in general, I mean.” Sunny frowned. “The eligibility cutoff for that ticket is just a couple of days away.”

“And what?” Will said, “you don’t want to lose your chance of winning millions?”

“I think it may screw up our chances of finding the people who killed Gordie,” Sunny told him. “As for Ada, I’m not so sure. It might not even be the same killer. We still have folks who had fights with Ada. You eliminated the Ellsworths, but not the Towles.” Although she liked them, she had to admit they had a motive. “Or Veronica Yarborough,” she added.

Will looked at her. “So you’re suggesting two different murderers, with completely different motives? That’s kind of messy.”

“Sort of like life,” Sunny replied. “Sometimes it doesn’t tie up in a nice, neat way.” She frowned. “The problem is, we’ve been playing defense since everything started happening around me, watching out for crazy drug dealers. The other suspects have sort of faded into the background. That’s the other thing about the ticket. It messes up all the motives.”

“So when it expires, that will go away,” Will said.

“And so will the drug dealers,” Sunny said gloomily. “The hope of cashing that in is the only thing that’s keeping them around.”

They were both silent, lost in their own unpleasant thoughts, all the way home. At the last minute, Sunny offered Will a lunch of leftover stew, only to be politely declined. He dropped her and Shadow off—Shadow following Sunny out of the pickup without any fuss—and drove away.

“Hey, Dad,” Sunny called as she came inside, Shadow charging ahead. “What do you think of leftovers for lunch?”

She stopped at the entrance to the living room, afraid that Mike was in cardiac distress again. Then she realized her father was pale with anger, not illness, as he sat clutching a piece of paper. “Call that jackass Barnstable—he should still be at the office.”

“What’s the problem, Dad?”

“He accused you of stealing!” Mike burst out. “The idiot wanted your cell number—apparently he couldn’t find it. I told him to go to hell!”

Sunny began to get worried. Ollie the Barnacle had not been happy with some of the stuff she’d done in the last week. Frankly, her job didn’t look all that secure right now, and Mike’s lack of diplomacy wasn’t helping Sunny’s cause.

She dialed the office number. Ollie picked up on the second ring. “Who is this?”

Before Sunny even got her whole name out, he growled, “Where’s the goddamn cash box?”

Sunny blinked. This was his big problem? “I took it home for the weekend. Mr. Richer gave me a large cash deposit—you can check with him. I didn’t think it was safe—”

“I don’t care what you think!” her boss interrupted. “You bring that box back here right now! And if there’s anything missing, even a penny, you’ll be looking for a new job.”

He slammed the phone down. Sunny was tempted to do the same.

Well, he’ll look pretty stupid when he finds out we’re several hundred bucks to the good, she thought. Had Ollie been drinking? God knew he didn’t always wear his wealth gracefully. He could act like a spoiled child if he didn’t get his way. She frowned, remembering the conversation with Will about the possibility of Ollie being a suspect in Ada’s murder. For someone who’s supposed to be rich, he sure sounded awfully worried about the cash box.

Sunny bit her lip. If he’d learned that Richer wasn’t going to invest in any of his schemes, that disappointment, coupled with the embarrassment of discovering that one of his properties housed a meth lab and burned to the ground, might make his temper even more uncertain than usual. And I get to be the one he takes it out on, Sunny silently complained.

“It’s just a misunderstanding, Dad,” she told Mike. “But I’ve got to go into the office and straighten things out. Be back as soon as I can.”

Sunny went upstairs, got the cash box, and climbed into her dad’s truck. She’d gone about half a mile before she remembered her promise to call Will if she was going out alone.

Just as she reached for her cell phone, an SUV came roaring up behind her. Sunny pulled aside to let the maniac driver pass. But as the SUV came abreast of her, the passengerside window rolled down. A guy leaned out, his mullet streaming in the breeze.

Sunny immediately recognized Fatso from the brawl at O’Dowd’s. The shotgun in his hands needed no introduction.

Oh, my God! A quick tromp on the gas pedal, and Sunny’s pickup shot ahead before Fatso could get a shot off.

She heard confused shouting behind her, quickly drowned out by engine noise as the SUV accelerated after her. It grew larger and larger in Sunny’s rearview mirror as she zigzagged from lane to lane, trying to keep them from pulling beside her again.

The SUV got right behind her and rammed her rear bumper, sending her fishtailing along the road. Sunny had to grip the wheel with both hands, her phone dropping into the well beneath her feet.

Wonderful, she thought. I can’t outrun them, and I can’t call for help.

All she could do was hang on and hope she could control the speeding truck. If those guys made her spin out, that would be the end. She’d seen the look in Fatso’s eyes. He fully intended to use that shotgun on her.

A second smack on her bumper jarred her, but she was prepared now. Sunny’s hopes rose as the SUV shrank in her mirror briefly, but then it came at her again—the driver had just pulled back for a little more running room.

Then, up ahead, she saw her only chance: an old shortcut. Sunny hadn’t taken that rutted, disused road since she was in high school. It wasn’t even much of a shortcut, but bouncing along between the ruts was about the closest thing local teenagers had had to an amusement park ride.

The shortcut angled off from the road, and Sunny hit it at full throttle. Despite the fact that her dad had always dinned into her the importance of using her turn signals, for once Sunny was willing to be a bad driver if it didn’t give those goons behind her any warning about what she planned. The pickup bounded into the air and landed with a shock strong enough to shake her fillings loose.

If I make it through this, I guess I’m going to owe Dad for a new wheel alignment, she thought.

The truck jounced over the ruts, flinging her against her seat belt until she was sure she’d have bruises. Sunny braked, forced to lose speed if she wanted to keep control. She grimaced as the front wheel dropped suddenly with a head-rattling bang. Maybe I’ll have to throw in new shocks, too.

Her mirror had been knocked askew, so she didn’t get a full view of the pursuing SUV. But she saw it take that same punishing dip that she’d just gone through.

Besides the rattling bang of protesting car parts clashing together, she also heard a lower, sharper boom! ring through the air.

Behind her, she saw the SUV slew erratically back and forth, finally jouncing to a stop. Sunny continued on her wild ride, content to see her attackers diminishing in the mirror.

She finally hooked up with a county road about a half mile away, well out of Fatso’s shooting range, and brought her truck to a stop. Her whole body shook as she groped around under the seat for her phone.

Sunny finally got her fingers around it, got it open, and called Will. As soon as he answered, she spewed out, all in a rush: “I had to go in to the office—urgent call—and two guys came up and tried to shoot me—”

“Sunny!” he interrupted. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the southern end of the old shortcut.” It used to have a name—what was it? “Ridge Road—that’s what we used to call it. Do you remember it?” she said into her phone. “Look, I really have to get to the office. Barnstable is going to fire me if I don’t turn up. The SUV that chased me looks to be stuck out there. They had a shotgun, and I think it went off—”

“Sunny, are you okay? You sound—”

“No, I’m not okay,” she answered, cutting him off. “Somebody tried to shoot me with a shotgun.” Sunny wasn’t sure she could deal with that right now. What she could deal with was reaching the office and saving her job.

“You can’t just drive off, Sunny.” Will sounded every inch a cop now. “And you’ve got to call 911.”

“No, I’ve got to get in to work. You call 911.” Getting angry did one thing—it steadied Sunny’s nerves and hands. She started up the truck and drove down into town and the MAX office.

*

She arrived to find Oliver Barnstable sitting behind her desk like a judge ready to pass sentence. “About time,” he said, ostentatiously looking at his watch.

Sunny put the box in front of him and handed him the key.

Ollie the Barnacle unlocked and flipped open the lid, then gawked. Bouncing around in the cab of the truck had left bills, change, and receipts scattered all over the box. But he could still see the sheaf of hundreds at the top of the pile.

“Er—ah,” he said.

“Maybe I lived in New York too long, but the bank had closed, and that seemed like too much money to leave in an office that’s this open to the street. That’s what I did with the last big cash infusion.” Sunny tried hard to keep her voice calm. “I keep a running tally of income and outgo, so it should be easy enough to check.”

“Um.” Ollie’s round, florid face was even redder than usual. “I can see that’s probably not necessary. It’s just—finding it gone after a rather difficult week—”

Excuses, but not an apology, she thought. You really are a prince among men, Ollie.

The opening door interrupted Barnstable’s self-serving speech. “We’re closed,” he called, without even looking at the visitor.

Sunny turned around to recognize one of the constables she’d seen driving past the office in the last few days.

“Ms. Coolidge, I have to take you to headquarters,” the cop said.

That got Ollie’s attention. He goggled when he saw the uniform. “Oh, now what the hell is this?”

The constable ignored Barnstable, concentrating on Sunny as he spoke. “We have a report that you left the scene of a crime. The sheriff would like to question you.”

“What crime?” Ollie’s question almost came out as a moan.

“Attempted murder,” Sunny told him.

The constable spoke at the same time, but his answer was shorter.

“Murder.”