Schooled In Lies (27 page)

Instead of trying to coax her down (she could stay up there forever as far as I was concerned), I went into the kitchen and rummaged around the cabinets looking for cat food. I located a half-filled bag of Meow Mix in the pantry and filled her monogrammed food bowl. I also filled her matching water dish to the brim and started to scoop out her fake jewel encrusted litter box but was happy to find it didn’t need cleaning. When I went back to the pantry to put the cat food away, I happened upon a flat blue case sitting on the counter. I’m too nosy to resist such temptation and didn’t try. I opened it.

Inside was a collection of leather cat collars, one for every day of the week, and each with a different charm hanging from it that read: My name is Mahalia Carson. On the back was Mrs. Carson’s address and phone number. I’d never paid enough attention to the little monster to notice she had a whole wardrobe of collars. No wonder Mahalia was such a diva. She was spoiled rotten. I heard loud purring that sounded like a busted carburetor coming from down below and looked to see Mahalia sitting at my feet. She looked up at me and started hissing as if to say, “
Stay out of my shit
.”

“Don’t hiss at me you ungrateful fur ball. I’m the only one between you and starvation.” I closed the blue case. Mahalia ignored me and started grooming herself.

By now, my wrist had swelled to twice its size. I needed to get to the emergency room. I switched off the lights and headed out the front door, looking back briefly to see the glow of a pair of indignant blue eyes staring at me from the top of the television.

Three hours later I was back at home with a tightly bandaged wrist, an ample supply of ibuprofen, and some gel filled ice packs. Thankfully, my wrist wasn’t broken, just badly sprained. I popped two more ibuprofen and slept on my couch so I could keep my wrist elevated by resting it on the back of the couch. I dreamt I was lying curled up on the hearth of a fireplace. I was cold and stiff. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. I was frozen. All I could see of my surroundings was the inside of the fireplace I was lying next to and a stiff dog tail. I soon realized I was the dog. The tail was mine. And I wasn’t just any dog, either. I was Clair Easton’s dead dog, Jeeves. I tried to make a sound but couldn’t. I heard a voice coming closer. It was Clair Easton’s voice.

“Here you go, Jeeves. Here’s a nice playmate for you.” She bent down near my tail and set something next to me on the hearth.

I could see enough of Clair to see she had a pair of hedge clippers sticking out of the side of her neck. Every time she spoke, blood poured from her mouth. But I couldn’t turn away.

“Meet your new little friend.” She turned me around and I was almost cold nose to cold nose with a black and white cat. It was Ms. Flack’s missing cat, Tamsin. The cat had been stuffed as well. Its mouth was pulled back over its sharp little teeth in a permanent hiss. But unlike me, the cat could still yowl which it did loudly in my ear.

I woke up with a start and found myself lying on the floor between my couch and the trunk that served as my coffee table. The sound of my alarm clock buzzed loudly from my bedroom. It wasn’t until I’d showered and was on my way to work that I realized the significance of dreaming about the pets of two dead women.

It was the one thing that Clair Easton and Ivy Flack had had in common. Both women had been very fond of their pets. Now both Clair Easton and her dog were dead, and Ms. Flack was dead and her cat was missing. It finally hit me that the cat hadn’t run away. Ms. Flack’s killer must have killed her cat as well. The cat must have attacked the killer and been killed because of it. But the killer couldn’t leave a dead cat behind because then everyone would know that Ms. Flack’s death hadn’t been an accidental electrocution.

But what I couldn’t figure out was why in the world was poor Jeeves killed? He died almost a week before his master. The only reason for Jeeves dying first that I could possibly think of would be that whoever killed Clair Easton must have planned her death at least a week in advance and didn’t want her dog attacking them or barking and alerting Clair, or her neighbors, to their presence in her house or on her property. Maybe the killer learned their lesson after being attacked by Ms. Flack’s cat and didn’t want to take any chances the second time around.

Of course I could be completely wrong about all of this, which was probably the case. I knew why Ms. Flack had most likely been killed. But since Gerald hadn’t really stolen her money, why would someone kill Clair Easton? Plus, hadn’t Emma Kirby claimed that Jeeves had gotten into some rat poison in Clair Easton’s garden shed. Not that it wouldn’t be easy enough for someone to feed a dog something that had been poisoned. I guess the bigger question was why I cared so much. I really didn’t need this added stress. Carl was coming over after work that night and I needed to decide what I was going to tell him. That’s what I needed to be worrying about. Not two dead women and their dead pets. I decided then and there that I was going to put it completely out of my mind. After all, it had nothing to do with me. Ah, if it were only that simple.

Fridays are half days at the literacy center. Fridays are also pretty sparsely attended. Today’s attendance was worse than usual. It was just me, my coworker and fellow teacher, Rhonda Hammond, and exactly two students. I blamed it on the weather. It was gorgeous outside and for once not too hot. I wanted to be someplace else as well. The county fair had just started and thoughts of funnel cake, cotton candy, and corn dogs on a stick filled my brain. I wanted to leave. Instead, Rhonda and I graded papers and watched the clock. We didn’t even talk much. Rhonda wasn’t in the best of moods.

“Are you trying to grade that quiz or kill it?” I asked, after watching her stab at the paper with a red marker. Rhonda gave me an annoyed look.

“Why are men so damned stupid?” she asked loudly to no one in particular. One of our two students, thankfully both of them were female, glanced up at us and laughed and nodded in agreement.

“What’d he do this time?” I knew she was talking about her husband, Kevin. Lately, he couldn’t do anything right.

“For the last two nights people have been prank calling our house. We answer the phone and someone will ask us what kind of poopies we have. How many poopies do we have? Or what color are our poopies? Are they big poopies or little poopies? I was about to call the police until I saw this.” She pulled a copy of the
Willow News-Gazette
out of her desk drawer and tossed it at me. I picked it up and looked. The paper had been turned to the classified section and was folded in half. I couldn’t tell what I was supposed to be looking at.

“Okay. Help me out here.”

“It’s right here.” She pointed to an ad in the center of the page.

I read it and almost wet myself. It said:
Beautiful Mixed Breed Poopies. Free to a good home. Poopies are eight weeks old and have had shots.
I could tell she was highly pissed. I laughed anyway.

“It’s not funny! Kevin put that ad in the paper. I asked him to make sure to have the person at the paper read it back to him to make sure it was correct. He swore he did. He couldn’t have or we wouldn’t have idiots calling our house asking about our poopies. We got into the biggest argument last night.”

I laughed even harder.

“Whatever. I’m glad you find my misery so funny. I need a damned cigarette.” She rubbed the fingertips of her right hand together. Something she always did when she was craving nicotine. She pulled her cigarette case and lighter from her purse and stalked out of the room.

I started reading the rest of the newspaper. One story in particular caught my eye: “Murder Witness Breaks 30 year Silence.”

The story was about an 82-year-old Urbana woman named Sybil Myers. Thirty years ago, Sybil Myers had been out late walking her dog and witnessed Maurice Groves’s brutal murder at the hands of the Righteous Whites. The article went on to say that despite what she had seen, she’d never spoken about that night to anyone besides the police. There were more details about what Ms. Myers had witnessed, but I’d stopped reading. Not because I couldn’t stomach the gory details, but because I’d finally figured out why Clair Easton and Jeeves may have been killed.

Sybil Myers had been out late one night walking her dog and had seen something she wasn’t supposed to see. According to Dennis, Clair Easton also had a habit of walking Jeeves at all hours. What if when she was out walking him and saw something? Something that got her killed. I remembered my visit to her house. She’d never mentioned anything about her dog having been poisoned by someone. She was a paranoid woman, but she never mentioned seeing anybody or anything that was a threat to her life. She’d only been interested in getting her money back. Could she have seen something that she didn’t even realize she’d seen? Was there something weird going on in her neighborhood late at night? If so, how was Ivy Flack involved? But, again, it wasn’t my problem. I needed to be thinking about what I was going to tell Carl that night.

Later that evening, Carl and I sat across the kitchen table from each other eating the Chinese takeout he’d brought over. He was still wearing the suit he’d worn to work and was quiet and subdued. So far he hadn’t even mentioned his marriage proposal, which should have made me happy but didn’t. I was in the middle of telling him all about how I almost clobbered Mrs. Carson’s son, Stevie, with a baseball bat. I was trying to get him to laugh and not having much success, when he made a startling announcement.

“I’m moving to Atlanta.”

“Huh?”

“I applied for a job with a law firm in Atlanta a year ago, right after Vanessa left me, before I even met you. I obviously didn’t get the job but they were impressed enough with me that when the person they hired quit, they gave me a call this morning and offered me the job.”

“I do. But I need a change. This law firm takes on a lot of high profile criminal cases. I’d still be involved in criminal law, only from the other side. And the money is almost three times what I’m making at the prosecutor’s office. How could I turn it down?” I sat staring at him, my eyes rapidly filling with tears.

“I know you’ll miss your grandmother, but she can come visit us anytime she wants. She can even have her own room,” he said when I didn’t say anything.

“What are you talking about?” I wiped my eyes with my napkin. He looked as confused as I did.

“You know, after we get married.” He was staring at me and all I could do was look down at my half-empty takeout container.

“Sorry. I need to do this the right way, don’t I?” He pulled a small black ring box out of his suit pocket and laid it on the table between us.

I reluctantly picked it up and opened it. Inside was a half carat marquis cut diamond engagement ring. Carl reached over and took the ring from the box and got out of his chair, bending down on one knee. He took my left hand and slid the ring onto my ring finger.

“Kendra Clayton, will you marry me?”

I felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. I was lightheaded. He continued to stare at me expectantly, hope shining in his eyes. I didn’t know what to say. I did love Carl and the thought of him moving to Atlanta, and away from me, made me sad. But I didn’t know if I was ready to get married, either.

“I’m not mad,” he snapped, then, hearing how his words came out he grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “I just thought we were on the same page. I thought you wanted this, too.”

“It’s just all happening so fast. Getting married is a huge step and now moving away to a big city where I won’t know anybody but you.”

“Damn! I’m getting really tired of this small-town mentality of yours. I guess it was asking too much for you to be happy and excited. This could be a whole new beginning for us, a new life. Why are you so hell-bent on staying in this town? It’s dead. Nothing’s going on here. You don’t even have a fulltime job. Don’t you want more than this?”

“My small town mentality?” I snatched my hand out of his and took a step back. “Do you hear yourself? You sound just like your uppity mother,” I said, referring to the fact that Carl’s mother, Martha Brumfield, didn’t think too highly of me because I worked two part-time jobs, one of them as a lowly restaurant hostess, thus giving me yet another reason not to want to rush down the aisle with her son.

“Leave my mother out of this!”

“Okay, let me get this straight. So, because I’m not jumping for joy because you’re leaving and didn’t so much as ask
me
, the woman you claim to love and want to marry, how I feel about you taking a job out of state, I’m un-ambitious? I’m supposed to just blindly follow you wherever you go without question and be damned happy for the invitation? I can’t believe you. Here—” I pulled the ring off my finger and shoved it into his hand. “I hope you’re very happy in Atlanta.” I shoved him out the door and slammed it behind him. I could hear him cursing and pacing angrily in front of my door for a few minutes before giving the door a savage kick and leaving. It appeared my decision had been made for me.

Chapter Twenty-One