Never Tease a Siamese: A Leigh Koslow Mystery (6 page)

Leigh bit her lip. She could either risk a scene with Adith when the lawyer arrived, or have a public one on the street right now. Procrastination ruled. "All right," she said with defeat, heading toward the house. "But behave yourself, please? Don't go snooping around or anything."

Adith nodded and fell in step. "Fine. I'll just distract the housekeeper for you."

Leigh reeled. "You'll do no such thing! I'm only here to find out about the will. For my father."

The older woman grinned. "Uh huh. You want to know what it is that cat ate that's so danged important to somebody, and so do I. Now, let's do it."

No response came to Leigh's mind as they followed the meandering walk up to the mansion's carved oak doors. She had to admit that getting Ricky Rhodis out of jail was no longer her only motivation. Someone was trying to intimidate her father—or someone else at the clinic—and though that whole situation could very well have nothing to do with Number One Son, the timing could not be overlooked. And Nikki Loomis, despite her insistence on not knowing what the cat might have swallowed, was clearly the person to talk to. Leigh pressed the doorbell.

"Yeah? Um, what time is it?" The startled personal assistant, wearing exactly the same jeans and T-shirt she had had on at the clinic earlier, greeted the odd twosome curtly.

"It's not time for me to be here yet, I know," Leigh explained quickly, cursing herself for being intimidated by a woman who weighed less than a Saint Bernard. "I'm sorry. But I didn't get a chance to talk to you again after the police came, and I need to. It's important."

Nikki looked up at her skeptically, but her gaze was not unfriendly, and Leigh found herself wondering just how old the woman was. She appeared to be somewhere in her mid twenties, yet somehow she seemed wise beyond her years. "All right," she answered, swinging the large door wide. "But you'll have to talk while I get ready."

Adith chortled with delight, brushing past Leigh's shoulder and scuttling inside.

Leigh threw her hostess an embarrassed smile. "Um, this is my friend Adith," she explained weakly as she followed. "I was—well—obliged to bring her." Perhaps the aunt story would have made more sense, but Leigh had enough batty aunts already. Nikki threw the older woman a brief but critical look, then, much to Leigh's relief, simply shrugged her shoulders.

The spacious tiled foyer, which was dominated by a splendidly carved wooden balustrade, looked elegant—and fairly normal. But when Leigh glanced at the library and parlor to either side, she couldn't help but feel as if she had walked into an industrial cleanroom. The hardwood furniture and flooring were rich and beautiful, but without a single rug on the floor or curtain on the windows, it all looked disturbingly stark.

Adding to the bizarre milieu was the tremendous cacophony that rattled from every direction—a mixture of howls, mews, and cries that put one in mind of a medieval torture chamber. Leigh suppressed a shudder as the kitten-eating nightmares tried to fight their way back into her consciousness.

Nikki looked back at the other women's faces and laughed out loud. "Yeah, I know," she chuckled. "Weird, isn't it? They're not always this loud, but I had to shut up the free-rangers in the bedrooms. You should hear them when the exterminator comes and they all have to go in the kennels with the toms. That
really
ticks them off."

Leigh smiled self-consciously, aware that there was no good reason a big old house full of Siamese cats should cause the hair on the back of her neck to stand at attention. Nevertheless, Hitchcock could have made a fortune off the place.

Nikki pressed back toward the large kitchen where she began pulling glass tumblers out of a cabinet and onto the gleaming black-marble countertop. The floor, too, was of marble tile, though its gleam was somewhat compromised by a thin coating of white fuzz. As Adith began buzzing about, peering into cabinets unabashedly, Leigh attempted to hold her hostess's attention.

"I need to talk to you about whatever it was that Number One Son swallowed," she began somewhat nervously. She had only met Nikki a few hours before and had no good reason to consider her an ally, but given that the woman already had access to Mrs. Murchison's cats 24/7, it hardly seemed likely she would involve herself in an elaborate plot to steal one from the vet clinic.

"Okay," Nikki answered, struggling to flip open the safety latch on a large, shallow drawer of dish towels.

Leigh halted, impressed. "I can't believe how much trouble Mrs. Murchison has gone to to keep that cat away from cloth," she remarked.

"Oh, Number One Son's not the only one," Nikki responded. "Auntie Em has a taste for it too, though she hasn't swallowed anything so far. Ms. Murchison fixed up the house a long time ago for some cat named Abbott. He's dead now, but she always has at least one wool sucker to watch out for."

A light dawned. "They're named after characters from old movies," Leigh realized aloud.

"Yep," Nikki answered distractedly, "Radio and television too. Ms. Murchison named a few that way when she first started out, and it bugged the other breeders, so she kept it up."

"So," Leigh mused. "Number One Son isn’t a direct knock on this Dean guy."

Nikki’s eyes narrowed immediately. "No—it's from the Charlie Chan movies. But there is a kind of justice to it, if you ask me."

Anxious to strike before the mood soured further, Leigh pressed on. "There are some things I think you should know," she began lightly. "You said earlier that you couldn't think of a reason why anyone would want to steal one of Mrs. Murchison's cats, but I think I can. I think they wanted whatever it is that Number One Son swallowed."

Nikki showed no response. Leigh went on to explain about the cat carrier and litter bag Jared had found, and when she had finished, Nikki stood still for a moment and looked at her.

"Maybe," she said flatly. "But I still don't know what it could be."

"A broach?" Leigh suggested. "A key to a jewelry box or a safe?" She wasn’t sure what she expected from Nikki, but a little enthusiasm would have been nice. Had their positions been reversed, Leigh would at this point have been scouring every inch of the mansion on her hands and knees, scouting for tiny keyholes. Perhaps having a pathological lack of curiosity was a prerequisite for Team Murchison.

"Look," Nikki said impatiently, cutting her off. "Ms. Lilah does have some valuable pieces of jewelry, but they pretty much stay in her bank vault. The stuff she keeps in her bedroom is only costume jewelry. So forget it."

A muffled crash made them both turn their heads toward the walk-in pantry, which Adith was exiting rapidly. "Cans came unstacked," she offered sweetly.

Leigh feared an explosion from Nikki, but none occurred. The personal assistant did look exasperated, but her focus was not on Adith so much as the glasses on the countertop. "I don't know anything about this entertaining crap," she said suddenly. "I just pay the bills, make appointments, and tell charities to go to hell. Do either of you chicks know what to put out at a will reading?"

Since there was probably no one on the planet less qualified to answer that question, Leigh had to laugh. "If it were me, I'd break out pop and pass the cheese curls."

"White wine," Adith suggested eagerly. "With caviar."

Nikki looked from one to the other, then retrieved a couple of two liters from the pantry and slammed them on the counter next to the tumblers. "
Self-serve
. Now, come with me into the parlor," she ordered, "The others should be here any minute."

She walked ahead of them out of the kitchen, and Leigh caught Adith's eye and motioned for her to follow. She couldn’t give up now; her time was limited. "Nikki," she called out as she walked, "could Number One Son have swallowed something that belonged to somebody else? A visitor in the house, perhaps?"

The younger woman reached the parlor, then turned. "Look, Koslow junior. In case you haven’t noticed, Ms. Lilah wasn’t the Avon Lady. Hardly anybody ever comes in this house except staff, and there aren’t many of them. Nobody’s going to want anything that cat ate, believe me." She stooped over to fluff a pillow, which in her case meant beating it squarely with a fist. Her eyes turned suddenly hostile. "Nobody'd better smoke."

Leigh clenched her teeth, not the least bit swayed by her hostess's pragmatism. She was sure that Ricky Rhodis had been after the cat. "Are you sure that
no one
else has been here?"

The personal assistant’s eyes widened, and she stopped in mid fluff, her face darkening. "Why, that—" The list of foul adjectives that followed was interrupted by the sound of a ringing doorbell, and Leigh, who had been standing by in rapt anticipation of an upcoming noun, let out an anguished groan as Nikki jumped to answer it.

"Mr. Sheridan," Nikki said roughly, struggling to make her tone sound polite again. "I'm glad you're here first. Is there anything I'm supposed to do for this, other than point to chairs?"

William Sheridan, an impeccably groomed, dour man in his late forties, answered without a smile. "No, just a place to sit is fine, thank you. But I do need to talk to you privately for a moment." He turned to Leigh. "If you'll excuse us?"

"Oh," she replied awkwardly. "Of course. We'll just go—" She looked over her shoulder, but Adith was nowhere in sight. "Get a drink," she finished sheepishly, stepping backwards.

"More news about the crash?" Nikki was asking the lawyer as Leigh retreated. She couldn’t hear his answer, but she wanted to. She also wanted to know who Nikki had remembered had been in the house. But first she had to figure out where the heck Adith had gotten to.

She walked back through the hallway to the kitchen, and was disturbed to find it empty. She was even more disturbed to find the family room and the library empty as well. Because, since Adith couldn't possibly have strolled through the parlor or dining room without running into Nikki and the lawyer, that pretty much ruled out the whole ground floor. She returned to the foyer and looked nervously up the stairs. Adith wouldn't just start prowling around the bedrooms, would she?

Her rhetorical question was answered by a small triangular head, which poked its way through the stair railing and peered at her with twinkling blue eyes. Another suddenly appeared on top of the newel post at the landing, its angular jaw dropping with a resentful cry. Leigh's spirits plummeted. Not only was Adith upstairs, she was accidentally letting the cats out.

The doorbell rang again, and Leigh headed up the steps in haste. She certainly hoped there was a back way to the kitchen—or she and her accomplice were busted for sure. Scooping up one cat under each arm, she headed off down the upstairs hallway. "Adith!" she whispered harshly, unable to hear even herself over the loud mews of the remaining prisoners. "Where are you?"

She couldn’t help noting the original works of art she was passing by on either side of the corridor—all of which were dark, dreary renditions of hunting expeditions. The late Albert’s taste, she hoped. No self-respecting cat-lover would approve of cruelty to foxes. Unless….

Stop that!
She shook the hideous images from her head again and  paused at each closed door to listen, but heard only mewling and a few ineffectual scratches. She was about to begin opening doors randomly—and taking chances on additional escapees—when Adith popped out of a second stairwell in front of her.

"Three floors!" the older woman announced proudly. "I found old Albert's office, too. Did you know he met President Eisenhower?"

"We've got to get back to the kitchen. Now," Leigh ordered. She held up her arms to display her feline passengers, which were no longer enjoying the ride. "Where did these two come from? We've got to put them back."

Adith looked at the Siamese with a wrinkled nose. "Evil-looking things, if you ask me. Too skinny. Now, my Pansy—"

"Mrs. Rhodis," Leigh interrupted intently, "Which door did they come out of? Quick!"

"Her bedroom," the older woman answered with a sly smile. "It's this way. Nice, but could use some curtains. Never been into mauve, myself."

After a complicated maneuver involving six human limbs and a pocketbook, the cats were finally returned to their prison, and Leigh and Adith were able to slip safely back into the kitchen through the rear staircase. They had not been there twenty seconds when Nikki appeared.

"Welcome back," she said coarsely, picking up the two liters. "Would you mind grabbing some glasses and bringing them into the dining room? Mr. Sheridan's getting ready to start."

Chapter 5

Leigh and Adith were obliged to sit on a stiff-backed settee at the back of the parlor, which was fine by both. Not only did it offer an excellent view of the beneficiaries, but its proximity to Mrs. Murchison's antique roll-top desk allowed Adith to examine the latter's cubby holes with impunity.

"I cannot state emphatically enough," the attorney began, casting a stern glance over the assembly, "that the will I am about to read is
not
yet being probated. No action will be taken with regard to the deceased's estate until a certificate of death has been issued. Is that clear?"

He looked directly at a young woman on the couch to his right, who had been twittering noisily into the ear of the young man beside her. She was wearing tight jeans and an even tighter Lynyrd Skynyrd tank top, but it was her algae-green lipstick that demanded the most attention. "Oh, right. Whatever," she said with a plastic smile.