Cat's Claw (8 page)

Ruby Wilcox’s sister? Ramona Donahue? That was a surprise. Sheila was about to speak, but Green Trousers beat her to it.

“Hate to think stuff like this can happen in our neighborhood,” he said.

“What’re you talkin’ about, Joe?” another woman demanded. “This kinda stuff happens everywhere. Why, somebody lifted my mother’s wristwatch right out of the drawer beside her bed. In the nursing home!” She slanted a look at Sheila and added accusingly, “Cops never did find out who did it.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Sheila said. She wanted to add,
Tell your mother not to put her valuables where somebody on the staff can be tempted
. But she only said, in a regretful tone, “We do the best we can, but we can’t clear every theft.”

“Betcha
CSI
would’ve solved it,” the woman muttered.

“We don’t have a
CSI
budget,” Sheila replied smoothly. It was another one of her practiced phrases. “You might speak to the city council about that.” She turned to the next-door neighbor. “Mr. Kirk fixed your grandson’s computer?” she asked. “Is he by any chance the owner of Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service?”

“That’s him,” the woman said. “But he wouldn’t take any money when I offered to pay. Said he was just being a good neighbor, which I appreciated. A very nice young man.” She pulled down her mouth. “So sad.”

The green-trousered man was clearly turning something over in his mind. “O’course, people do go a little crazy sometimes.” He squinted at Sheila and lowered his voice. “Don’t mean to tell tales outta school, Chief, but you might oughtta have a little heart-to-heart with Sam Schulz, at 1119.” He pointed to the house just west of the Kirks’. “He’s bore a grudge against Mr. Kirk ever since him and his wife moved in there. About the property line, you know.”

“The property line?” Sheila asked. She took out her notebook. Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service was the business that George Timms had broken into. A coincidence—or something else?

“That’s Schulz with no
t
,” Green Trousers said, pleased to see that she was writing in her notebook. “It’s the line between their places, y’see. The Kirks’ garage is two feet over on Sam’s property. Happened by accident, back, oh, forty, fifty years ago, when John Jenson built the place. Kirk wanted to buy two feet on that side to make it right, but ol’ Schulzie, he won’t sell. Stubborn as all git-out.”

“Thank you,” Sheila said, writing down
Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service
. She added
Garage, Schulz, property line dispute
. “And your name, sir?” She’d pass it along to Bartlett.

“Al Peters,” the man said, and gave her his address and phone number. He jerked his thumb at the woman who wanted
CSI
to investigate the theft of her mother’s watch. “I live next door to Mrs. Howard here. At 1118 Pecan.”

“And yours, ma’am?” she asked the blue-haired neighbor.

“Jane Jessup. I’m at 1115. But Mr. Schulz didn’t have anything to do with it, Chief. Ruby Wilcox’s sister told me Mr. Kirk definitely killed himself. With a gun.” She shook her head in utter disbelief, tears welling up in her eyes. “Such a nice man. Clever, too. Why would he go and do something awful like that? I just don’t understand it.”

“Maybe it had to do with the divorce, Jane,” another woman said, dropping her voice. She was pudgy, with thick ankles. She was wearing an apron, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of cooking supper.

Jane Jessup’s eyes got big. “You don’t suppose he killed himself over
that
?” she asked. “Oh, that would be terrible!”

“Divorce?” Sheila said.

“The Kirks,” the woman with thick ankles replied. “I just found out about it myself, yesterday morning at our quilting club. Texas Stars. That’s
our name. After the pattern, you know.” She scowled. “Seems the wife has a boyfriend.” The scowl deepend. “The monkey business these young people get up to.”

“Mildred,” Jane said in a warning tone. “It’s not good to gossip.”

“Your name?” Sheila asked the woman who had mentioned the divorce, and wrote
Divorce, wife’s boyfriend
.

“Mildred Ewell. I’m 1114.”

Sheila wrote it down. “Thank you, Ms. Ewell. And Ms. Jessup, too. If we need any additional information, we’ll get in touch.”

“That’s
Mrs
. Ewell,” the woman said sharply. To Jane, she added, “If anything gets my dander up, Jane, it’s this
Ms
. business. Sounds like bees buzzin’.”

A couple of kids had come along and were peering into one of the patrol units. The girl looked up and her eyes widened. “Hey, you’re the chief! I saw you on TV the other night.” Her companion wolf-whistled, low, then blushed bright red and ducked his head.

Sheila put her notebook and pen into her shirt pocket. “It’s okay,” she said to the whistler. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” She lifted her hand to the group, adding, “Thank you all very much. One of our officers will probably be talking with you. If you think of anything else, please mention it.” She was sure Bartlett would assign an officer to conduct a neighborhood canvass, given the identity of the dead man.

“Don’t forget what I said about ol’ Schulzie,” Green Trousers cautioned. “I’d hate to see that fella get away with murder.”

Jane Jessup gasped. “Murder! You don’t mean that, Al!”

“You damn betcha I do,” Green Trousers said grimly.

Sheila turned away to cross the street. Crime scenes were chaotic. The first person on the scene, even trained first responders, sometimes
got the facts wrong. She had seen cases where the dead man turned out to be a dead woman. A gunshot death might be reported as an accident or suicide, but investigation proved it to be a homicide. A crime scene—and a suicide scene was a crime scene—was always a work in progress, and the investigators were constantly revising, building new theories as new information came in.

So was Kirk’s death a suicide or something else? Was there a connection between what happened here and the break-in at his business? In spite of herself, she could feel the excitement that always ran like an electrical current through the first phases of any investigation, could feel the adrenaline surging, the questions—already, a great many questions—pushing, nudging, shoving, demanding answers. She checked her watch. By now, George Timms should have showed up at the station to surrender and be booked, but she still hadn’t gotten the word. Why the delay? What was going on here?

“Chief Dawson! Hi!”

Sheila looked up. Ruby Wilcox was standing in front of the yellow plastic police tape strung across the driveway. She was wearing one of her outrageous outfits, some sort of gauzy striped top that made her look like a butterfly with wilted wings. China Bayles was with her, dressed in her familiar working clothes: a green Thyme and Seasons T-shirt, jeans, sandals.

And Ruby’s sister, Ramona Donahue, the woman who—according to the next-door neighbor—had discovered Kirk’s body. Sheila had met Ramona the week before at a picnic that she and Blackie had attended in Ruby’s backyard. She had Ruby’s frizzy red hair and freckles, although the resemblance ended there. She was short and as round as a dumpling, where Ruby was tall and string-bean slender. She was wearing a white
short-sleeved blouse with a silky purple scarf and gray pants. But one knee of her pants was shredded, her face was tear-stained and blotchy, and she was gulping back sobs.

“Everybody okay?” Sheila asked, glancing at Ramona but directing her question to China. “What happened here, China?”

China, a former criminal attorney, was the logical one to ask. Not that Sheila had any love for defense lawyers—cops didn’t, generally speaking. The justice system was adversarial, with law enforcement on one side, defense lawyers on the other, and a big empty field in between where the facts were always in dispute, like a soccer ball kicked back and forth by two competing teams. China Bayles, however, was not your average defense lawyer. She was smart and observant and quick-witted, but she was also sympathetic to cops. She was married to one—a former cop, anyway—and she understood how they worked. Sheila knew that she’d get a more organized story from China than Ramona.

China answered the question tersely. “This is the Kirks’ house. Larry Kirk and his wife Dana. Ramona found Larry dead in the kitchen, about an hour ago. Gunshot wound. She phoned the shop. Ruby and I told her to call nine-one-one and wait here until somebody came.”

“I see.” Sheila glanced at Ramona. “Hello, Ramona. Has somebody taken your statement yet?”

“Yes,” Ruby answered for her sister. She lifted her butterfly arms and let them fall with a whoosh. “China and I were right here when she did it. Took the statement, I mean.”

“It was a policewoman,” Ramona said. “Sergeant Clarke.”

“A police officer,” Ruby corrected her. “They’re not called policewomen these days.”

“Whatever,” Ramona said testily. “She wrote everything down, just
the way I said it. I’m supposed to go to the station to sign the statement tomorrow.” She whimpered. “My knee hurts. I fell down the back steps.”

“I’m sorry,” Sheila said. “Would you like one of the medics to take a look at it?”

Ramona shook her head. “It’ll be all right,” she muttered. “But thanks.”

“Tell her how you happened to find the body,” Ruby said, nudging her sister.

Ramona sucked in a deep breath. “I… I was on my way to an appointment. I stopped to return a dish that Larry left at Ruby’s house the night of the picnic. I was thinking I’d just put it on the back steps, where he would see it when he got home from work. But then I noticed the kitchen door standing open, so I decided I’d just go in and put the dish on the counter. That’s when I saw him. On the kitchen floor. I never imagined—” She closed her eyes and swallowed whatever she was about to say.

Sheila understood and sympathized. People saw death in the movies and on television all the time, but that was remote, staged, unreal. Up close, death—easy death or violent death, accident, suicide, homicide—was something else altogether. It was final, absolute, unconditional. Nobody, not even the most experienced cop, could be completely blasé about it.

“Did you notice anything else?” she asked. “A gun, a note? Did you touch anything?”

“There’s a gun in his hand.” Ramona opened her eyes. “There’s blood and beer all over the floor. I think he’d been sitting at the table. The chair had fallen over. There’s a laptop on the table. If there was a note, I didn’t see it—but I didn’t look. I touched the door knob, I guess, to push the
door open wider.” With another little whimper, she retreated to the comfort of her sister’s shoulder. “I just don’t understand how a person could do that to himself.”

“Thanks, Ramona,” Sheila said. “We appreciate your help. You’ll be around if we have any more questions?”

“Yes,” Ramona said, her voice muffled. “I’m staying with Ruby for a while longer.”

“For another week,” Ruby put in. “Maybe two.” She added, “Ramona has started looking for her own apartment. And a business opportunity.” She smoothed her sister’s hair. “It’s taking longer than she thought to get over… well, things. But she’ll be back on her feet in no time.”

“I’m sure she will,” Sheila said, although she thought a week or two was optimistic. Ramona looked like a whipped puppy, and Ruby was a comforting, reliable refuge. Too comfortable, maybe. “Thanks again.” She lifted the yellow plastic tape to duck under it.

“Chief, wait, please.” China took several steps forward, then spoke in a lower voice. “There’s something you should know, Sheila. Larry Kirk installed some inventory software for me about a year ago. He also helped me remodel the Thyme and Seasons website so people could order online. I liked working with him, and we got to be email buddies, sort of. I know him—knew him—pretty well.”

Sheila wasn’t surprised by this. Pecan Springs was a small town, and China had been in business here for eight or nine years. She knew a lot of people—customers, fellow merchants and businesspeople, members of the gardening community. It was understandable that she should know the dead man.

Sheila gave China a closer look. “There’s something else?” she asked, knowing that there was.

“Yeah.” China looked down. “Last Friday, Larry emailed me that he
was being hassled.
Stalked
was the word he used. He didn’t go into detail, but I got the idea that this was something that had been going on for a while. He wanted to know what his options were, legally. I told him that if he knew the stalker, he should go to the courthouse and file a restraining order. If he didn’t, and if he felt seriously harassed, he should go to the police.” She looked up, and Sheila saw a grimace of pain and guilt cross her face. “I really feel bad about this, Sheila. His email got buried in my inbox. I didn’t answer it until today. Until just a little while ago, in fact.” Her voice dropped. “By that time, he was probably dead.”

A stalker
. Sheila felt that jolt again, that electricity. Something going on here, something important. She took out her notebook and pen. “Did he identify the stalker? Describe the stalking? Give you any details?”

China shook her head. “It was pretty bare-bones. No name, no where-when-how, just the bottom line. I can get you a copy of the exchange. You’ll probably also find it in his email, with my answer.” She paused, then sighed. “Something else you might want to know, Chief. Larry and his wife Dana are—were—in the process of getting a divorce. It’s been messy.”

“Ah.” The divorce again. Sheila was making notes. “Messy how?”

“Judging from what Larry told me over the past couple of months, there were both property and personal issues. He seemed pretty much okay about it, though. He didn’t like what was happening, but he was dealing with it.” She put her head to one side, studying Sheila, anticipating the next question. “I doubt if the stalking and the divorce are related—Dana doesn’t strike me as the vindictive type. And Larry didn’t seem overwhelmingly distraught. Certainly not suicidal. Just irritated about the divorce.”

“You said there were both property
and
personal issues,” Sheila prompted.

“He was thinking he might have to sell part of the business, since it was Dana’s money that originally capitalized it. He was hoping to find somebody who would buy out her interest and give him an option to buy it back when he could scramble the money together.” She nodded toward the house. “And there’s this place, as well. He and Dana bought it five or six years ago, at the top of the market. She wants her share. He was concerned that the way things are these days, it might be hard to sell for what they’ve got in it.”