Dying to Read (22 page)

The letters could be initials of names. O. M. didn’t mean anything to Cate, but K. L. jumped out at her. Krystal Lorister? T. R. She didn’t know the last name, but T. could be Texie. F. M.—Fiona Maxwell! Cate dug back in a labeled file of Whodunit ladies and checked names. Several crossed-out names corresponded to initials on this much more cryptic list. And if you put a dollar sign in front of the figures after the names . . .

And the initials with the largest dollar amount? D. M. Doris McClelland.

Cate sat back on her heels. Krystal was right. Amelia had been getting kickbacks on what her friends invested, and this was a record of them. Undoubtedly not a record she offered to her tax accountant. Something she kept hidden, and perhaps not dropped into this unlikely file at random. Krystal had played down the amount she’d lost, but what Amelia had received from Krystal’s investment was not insignificant. Although Doris’s amount, and a couple of the others, was much higher.

Perhaps, if the investment had turned out well, none of them would have cared about Amelia making money for herself with a kickback. They might even have thought she deserved it for getting them into such a good deal. But to realize Amelia had raked in payoffs while they were losing every dime . . . Any one of them could have been angry enough to shove her down the stairs.

Whodunit ladies en masse now scuffled for top place on Cate’s suspect list. But what should she do with this information? Take it to the police? She studied the cryptic scribbles again. She saw proof of the kickback scheme here, definite motive for murder, but there was nothing to prove to anyone else what this was about. She heard Willow coming up the stairs, nothing tippy-toey about her steps now, and she hastily stuck the notebook pages in a pocket of her jeans. She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t think sharing this with Willow was a good idea.

Willow’s chicken tacos were excellent, the salsa homemade with fresh tomatoes, and Cate took a couple home to eat for breakfast. Rebecca would be appalled, of course, but Cate considered cold tacos right up there with cold pizza as an excellent breakfast item.

 16 

Cate worked on her assignment for the next two days, visited Uncle Joe, took Octavia in for a vet checkup, and thought a lot about that list of initials and dollars, and what she should do with it, if anything. She even considered calling Mitch to see what he thought. He might be annoying, but he was sharp and knowledgeable, and he could do things with a computer that would never occur to her. But she was stopped by two thoughts: if she called on him for help, it would look as if she needed rescue again. The other was that he might think she was feeling desperate because the reunion with Kyle hadn’t worked out, and she was trying to jump-start some romantic relationship with him.

About mid-morning, Willow called again. Cate was beginning to think, without Amelia there at the house to keep her busy, Willow had way too much time on her hands.

“Why don’t you come over and have lunch with me?” Willow asked. “Cheryl isn’t around. She said she has a house to stage today. She’s been doing that, working with some real estate outfit, since her decorating business is on the skids. Though she’d never admit her business is on the skids, of course.”

“I need to go visit Uncle Joe—”

“Oh, c’mon,” Willow wheedled. “All these cupboards are full of stuff that’s been here since before Amelia hired me. It ought to be used up. Sometimes I think she was poor as a kid and vowed when she was rich she’d never run out of food again. And some of it’s really fancy. We can have smoked oysters! Pickled asparagus! Those fancy truffle mushrooms. There are even jars of caviar.”

“Cheryl will probably want them. Does she know the stuff is there?”

“She went through the cupboards, but all she said was, ‘Toss the cat food.’”

Which said what about Cheryl’s scheme to get Octavia back? Apparently she didn’t think it was going to happen. Maybe the lawyer had told her he could squeeze some ridiculous price out of Cate for the animal, which would add to the value of the estate.

“She can donate everything to a homeless shelter or rescue mission, then,” Cate said.

Willow giggled delightedly. “Wouldn’t they be surprised? Caviar for the homeless! But okay, I can fix something else.”

“I’m kind of busy—”

“You can pick up this sack of cat food for Octavia too. You know how much she likes it.”

True. The Furry Gourmet. “The cat food actually belongs to Cheryl now. You can’t just give it to me.”

“Sure I can. I told you, she told me to toss it. And I’m just tossing it to you. You don’t want it to go to waste, do you?”

“Well . . . okay.” Cate was about to add that she’d drop by for a few minutes after lunch, but Willow was already dancing ahead.

“We’ll eat outside. I was poking around in the garage looking for a little step stool that used to be here in the kitchen, and I found this cute patio set. Table and chairs and umbrella. I can’t imagine Amelia ever using it, but I’ve already got it all set up out back.”

So, at 11:30, Cate was on her way over to the house. She hoped Willow wouldn’t come up with some strange pickled asparagus and smoked oyster casserole for lunch. Even though Willow could probably make even that taste good.

Cate sniffed a wonderful scent when Willow opened the door to let her in. Spicy. Tomatoey and garlicky. “What
is
that?”

“You didn’t sound enthusiastic about the gourmet goodies, so I made spaghetti. One of Beverly’s favorites. Grandma told me this secret about putting in just a sprinkle of cinnamon.”

“You need to rush right down to Grandma’s and open that café.”

“Soon,” Willow said.

“Still waiting for that money?” Okay, she was curious.

Willow didn’t fall for her subtle fish for information. “It won’t be much longer. Hey, I’ll set out that cat food so you’ll be sure to get it this time.”

Cate followed Willow to the kitchen, where Willow pulled what looked like at least a twenty-pound sack of cat food out of a lower cabinet and set it in the doorway between kitchen and dining room. Octavia would be in kitty paradise. She’d eat anything, but that particular cat food generated the loudest purrs.

Today Willow had both the dining room drapes and windows open, and the table gleamed with fresh polish. The light from outside brightened the gloom of the dark room considerably. Although with the drapes open, that rickety stairway was much too visible.

“The spaghetti sauce needs to simmer a little longer. Let’s go out in the backyard. I made lemonade.” Willow was in a pink halter top and hip-hugger denim shorts ragged at the bottom.

She filled two glasses, and they went outside. The unkempt grass needed Mitch and a lawnmower, although Willow had trampled a space for the patio set. She’d also tilted the umbrella and arranged the table and chairs so they wouldn’t be looking at the scene of Amelia’s demise.

Willow moved a chair into the sun and stretched out her legs. “I think I’ll ask Cheryl if we can get someone in to clean up the backyard. They’ll need to do it so they can sell the place anyway.”

“Maybe they could tear down that old stairway too.”

“Good idea.” Willow closed her eyes.

Cate sat in the other chair, but even with her back to the stairs, no way could she be unaware of their existence. Visions skulked in her head. Amelia at the top of the stairs . . . talking with someone she trusted . . . the surprise of a ruthless shove. She couldn’t identify the shadowy shape behind Amelia in her vision. It could be Cheryl, Radford, or one of the Whodunit ladies. And, even though she’d almost discarded the possibility, maybe Willow herself. Or perhaps someone totally unknown to Cate.

Cate tried to distract herself with a different thought. “Don’t you get a zillion more freckles if you sit in the sun like that? I do.”

“Yeah, but I don’t mind.” Willow laughed. “Coop used to like to count them on my back. He said each one was a little gold star of approval from the sun.”

Again that hint of nostalgic affection for Coop. Another subject that disturbed Cate.

“Hey, what about your old boyfriend. Or fiancé, wasn’t he? Did you see him over the weekend?” Willow asked.

“No, I called and talked to him. We’re off, for good.”

“Are you brokenhearted?”

“No.”

“What about that other guy, the one Beverly thought was so great?”

“He’s just an acquaintance.” Actually, Cate realized, she’d rather talk about Amelia and murder than this. “The police have never talked to you about Amelia’s fall?”

“Actually, they did. Didn’t I tell you? They were here the day after I moved back in. It wasn’t any big deal. They just wanted to know more about how often Amelia took sleeping pills and did she ever sleepwalk, and I told them, oh yeah, she took a lot of pills. And the last time she sleepwalked I found her in the turret room with a window open. It looks out on that steep drop-off to the road down below. She could have leaned out and fallen head over heels right then.”

“Did they ask why you moved out that morning?”

“I told them Amelia fired me. I didn’t want to, you know, confuse the issue by saying I had seen her body before I left.”

The fact that Willow hadn’t told the police the truth disturbed Cate. She looked at her watch and stood up. “Hey, you know what? Maybe I shouldn’t stay for lunch. It’s getting late.”

“Oh, c’mon. The spaghetti sauce should be ready by now. You mad at me or something?”

“No. I just sometimes think you know more about Amelia’s fall than you’re letting on. That maybe you know something that might look bad for Cheryl. And she hired you back as kind of a bribe so you wouldn’t tell.”

Willow jumped up. “Cate, you’re overdoing the PI stuff. Looking for bad guys and killers where there aren’t any. You’ve got suspects and motives and opportunities all running around in your head like so many scrambled eggs.”

Could be, Cate admitted reluctantly. Although what she said was, “Scrambled eggs don’t run.”

“C’mon, let’s go eat.”

They went back to the kitchen. Willow was just dishing up the spaghetti when the doorbell rang. “Get that, would you?” Willow asked.

Cate went to the door. She would have instantly slammed it shut, except a booted foot jammed inside stopped her. With a big smile and a strong hand on the door, he pushed it open.

“Ah, we meet again,” he said. “The lovely but uncooperative PI from Belmont Investigations.”

“Who is it?” Willow called.

“Nobody,” Cate said.

“Me,” Coop corrected.

Willow apparently recognized the voice. She came through the dining room, spoon dripping spaghetti sauce in hand, a strange look on her face.

“Coop,” she said.

“Willow,” he said.

Cate did not like the sound of that. Too much like star-crossed lovers calling to each other across some gap of time and space.

“How did you find me?” Willow asked.

Coop walked up to her and held out his arm, fist closed around something in his hand. She held out her hand, and he dropped something into her palm. Cate moved closer for a look. The object was black, flattish, smaller than Willow’s palm. Innocuous looking, but it skittered a shiver up Cate’s spine.

“What’s this?” Willow held up the object to inspect it.

“I just took it off the underside of your friend Cate’s car.”

Willow gave Cate a questioning glance. Cate blinked, blank. She’d never seen that thing before. Had he done something to disable her car, removing some essential part she didn’t even know existed? But why . . .

Then she knew. She’d read about it in one of Uncle Joe’s books. “It’s a tracking device. You used it to track me here!”

Coop grinned. “Give the PI a gold star.” He tapped a finger on Cate’s forehead, as if he were planting the gold star there. Then he reached over and retrieved the object from Willow’s hand.

“You did this?” Willow gasped. “You put this thing on Cate’s car so you could follow her here to me?”

Cate also didn’t like the sound of the accusation. Because it came out more admiring than angry or frightened.

“It’s illegal to track someone without their knowing it,” Cate accused. She wasn’t sure of that, but if it wasn’t illegal, she figured it should be.

“Anyone can buy one of these gadgets over the internet,” Coop scoffed, unperturbed about legality. “Fifty-nine ninety-nine. Plus shipping, of course. Runs twenty hours on a built-in battery. You put it on a vehicle, then take it off and plug it into your computer. It shows you everywhere the car’s been, complete with map. Not as handy as the kind where you can follow a vehicle’s movements in progress, but that system costs big bucks, and you have to sit there and monitor it.”

“It looks as if you made this one work pretty well.” Again Willow sounded admiring.

“I had to put it on and take it off several times to check it on the computer.” Coop smiled at Cate. If a snake could smile, she figured that’s what it would look like. “And you were always considerate enough to leave your car out where I could get to it. Though it took me a while to connect with this place. I lost time looking up addresses where you’d been before I figured out this was the place. And I didn’t realize you’d be here when I arrived.”

Willow suddenly seemed to have second thoughts about admiring his stalking technique. She backed up a step. “You wanted to find me to get your money back?”

“You did take money that belonged to him?” Cate asked in dismay. Willow had denied this.

No one paid any attention to her.

“I don’t want any money back. I just wanted to find you. I miss you. I never did know why you left.”

“You don’t remember what a cheapskate you were about getting a new car? Or how many times I asked you not to leave your dirty clothes scattered all over the floor? Or our big argument about that woman who kept calling you?” Willow demanded.

A woman? Willow had never mentioned a woman. Had their big breakup been not about abuse and fear, but jealousy? And dirty clothes?

“She was nothing,” Coop said. “Nobody. I tried to tell you that.”

“I thought you’d try to find me.”

“I did try to find you. I hired this detective agency, didn’t I?” He waved a hand at Cate. “And I’m here now.”

“It took you long enough!”

To Cate’s dismay, they smiled at each other.

“Don’t I smell some of that awesome spaghetti you used to make?”