The Whole Cat and Caboodle: Second Chance Cat Mystery (14 page)

“Of course,” she said. She looked at Rose. “I’ll be right back.”

I linked my arm through Charlotte’s as we walked back to the front of the building. “Mr. P. likes Rose,” I said.

She smiled. “You noticed.”

“It’s kind of hard not to. He’s like a love-struck teenager.”

“Alfred is a nice man,” Charlotte said, glancing back over her shoulder. “That whole incident over at Legacy Place aside. He’s very popular with the ladies.”

I leaned my head against her. “You know that if he hurts Rose in any way I’ll have to have a serious talk with him.”

“I know,” she said. She reached over and laid a hand against my cheek. “And speaking of talks, thank you for whatever you said to Nicolas.”

“I didn’t have to say much,” I said. “Nick loves you.”

“I know.” She shook her head. “He also thinks I’m a hundred and two and should be home, in a rocking chair, with a shawl around my shoulders.”

I laughed. “C’mon, Charlotte. He’s not that bad.”

She smiled. “All right. He’s not. But he doesn’t understand why we need to help Maddie. I’m glad you do. I’m glad you’re on our side.”

As far back as I could remember, Charlotte and Rose and Liz had been in my life. They were a cross between Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother and Mother Teresa. I’d never for a moment doubted how much they loved me.

I laid my head on her shoulder for a moment. “I’m always, always on your side,” I said.

Mac took me out to the workshop to show me his choices for the table stain. “That one,” I said immediately, pointing to the darkest of the four choices.

“That was my choice, too,” he said.

We talked about paint colors for the table legs and then I headed back to the shop.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Mac called after me.

I lifted a hand in the air to show I’d heard him.

Liz was waiting for me by the door to the sunporch. She handed me two cardboard takeout containers.

“Thank you,” I said. “What do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” she said. She glanced over her shoulder. Mr. P. was showing Rose something on his computer screen.

Rose looked up from the computer then and beckoned to me. I handed the food containers back to Liz and walked over to her.

“Alfred needs the—” She looked at Mr. P.

“Password for the Wi-Fi,” he said.

“Are you going to be doing anything illegal?” I joked, smiling so he’d know I was kidding.

“Not that could be traced back here,” he said. His expression was completely serious and for a moment I wondered if he was, too.

I gestured at the keyboard. “May I?” I asked.

Mr. P. nodded and I leaned over and typed in the long combination of letters and symbols that made up the password. “There you go,” I said.

Rose smiled. “Thank you, Sarah.” She caught my hand and gave it a squeeze.

I retrieved lunch from Liz just as Mac came in the back door. “I’ll be out front if you need me,” I told her.

I sent Charlotte back to eat with the others. Mac pulled out the low stool we kept behind the counter and I sat in the tub chair.

“We should make another one of those,” Mac said, gesturing at my seat with his chopsticks. “How many times has someone wanted to buy that one?”

“At least half a dozen,” I said, taking the lid off my container of Chinese chicken salad. Second Chance wasn’t usually busy at lunchtime. Today wasn’t any different. Mac and I ate our lunch and talked about when we could pick up the furniture from Mabel Harrington’s house.

“It’s awfully quiet back there,” I said, as he collected our containers to be rinsed and recycled.

“Go see what they’re doing,” Mac said. “You know you want to.”

I stood up and stretched my arms up over my head. “I do,” I said. “I’m just kind of afraid of what I might find them doing. What if Mr. P. has hacked into the police-department computer?”

Mac smiled. “Then you’d better hope he’s as good as he says he is.”

“You’re not helpful,” I said over my shoulder as I headed for the back of the building.

I could hear him laughing behind me. “I wasn’t trying to be,” he said.

In the sunroom Mr. P. was still working on his laptop. I decided that if I didn’t look at what he was doing I had plausible deniability if I needed it. Liz, Charlotte and Rose were sitting by the windows, talking.

I stuck my head around the doorframe. “Hi. Do you need anything before I head up to my office?”

Rose looked up. “Sarah, do you still have Tuesday’s newspaper?” she asked.

“I think it’s in the recycling bin.”

“It’s all right,” Mr. P. piped up. “I already retrieved it from their Web site.”

Rose smiled and Mr. P. glowed. “I guess we don’t need anything, then,” she said. She looked at her watch. “Is there anything special you’d like me to do this afternoon?”

“Would you unpack the last of those quilts?” I asked. “They seem to be popular with the leaf peepers.”

“I will. Would you like me to put out more of the Depression-glass plates, as well?”

I nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

Avery blew in the back door then, her cranberry-hued hair windblown and her gray-and-black jacket hanging open. She stood in the doorway, held up a piece of paper and grinned from ear to ear. “I am a mathematical genius!” she proclaimed.

I leaned over to look at her math test—that was what she was holding up. Then I grinned back at her. “Avery! That’s a ninety-two. Wonderful!”

“Yes, it is,” she said, squaring her shoulders with pride. She held up her hand and I high-fived her.

Charlotte and Rose were both smiling. Rose clapped.

Liz got out of her seat and came over to Avery. “Good work,” she said. “I’m proud of you.”

“Really?” Avery asked.

“Really,” Liz said, wrapping her in a hug. She turned her head to look over her shoulder at Rose. “Rose, we’re going to need a cake.”

“Well, yes,” Rose said. She leaned forward in her chair and looked at Avery. “What kind of cake would you like?”

“Chocolate with that topping stuff that has brown sugar and coconut,” Avery said, as Liz let go of her and took the test from her hand.

“German chocolate,” Rose said.

Avery nodded enthusiastically. “That’s it.” Then, like a little kid, she added, “Please and thank you.” She noticed Alfred Peterson then. “Hey, Mr. P.,” she said.

He looked up from the keyboard. “Hello, Avery,” he said. “Good job on the math test.”

She grinned again. “Thanks. I bet you were good at math because you’re good with computers.”

How did she know that? I’d found out about his alleged computer skills only about an hour ago.

Mr. Peterson smoothed a veiny hand back over the top of his mostly smooth head. “I’m afraid not,” he said. “I was a bit of a bad boy in my high school days.”

Liz suddenly had a coughing fit. I thumped her on the back. “Avery, get your grandmother’s tea,” I said. “It’s dry in here.” I’d caught a glimpse of Liz’s face and I knew her sudden coughing spell had nothing to do with dry air and everything to do with Alfred Peterson’s declaration that he’d been a bad boy back in his high school days.

Liz took a sip of her probably cold tea and sat down again. I noticed she avoided looking me in the eye—just as well because I was a bit afraid that if she did I’d be the one having a sudden coughing jag.

“What are you all doing out here, anyway?” Avery asked.

“It’s our office,” Rose said.

“You mean for helping Mrs. H.”

Charlotte nodded. “Mr. Peterson is helping us.”

“Very cool, Mr. P.,” Avery said. She held up her hand and the old man high-fived her, which made me like him just a little bit more. “Hey, Nonna, you know what you are?” Avery asked.

“The world’s best grandmother?” Liz said.

Avery rolled her eyes. “You’re so funny,” she said. “You guys are Charlie’s Angels.” She looked at Charlotte. “You’re Lucy Liu. Nonna is Cameron Diaz and Rose is Drew Barrymore.”

Liz looked over at me. “Not a word, Sarah,” she warned, but her eyes were sparkling with amusement.

I mimicked zipping my mouth, locking it and putting the key in my shirt pocket.

“Does that mean I’m Bernie Mac?” Mr. P. asked.

“Uh, yeah,” Avery said, as though that was obvious.

“I’d like to be Farrah,” Liz said, patting her blond hair.

Avery shook her head. “Well, whoever that is, she’s not one of Charlie’s Angels, so you can’t.”

Charlotte smiled. “Farrah Fawcett was one of the original Charlie’s Angels,” she said. “On TV.”

“Are you serious?” Avery asked. She glanced over at me.

I nodded.

“I have to see that. Can we download it?” she said to Liz.

“When your homework is done,” Liz said, reaching for her tea and frowning at the empty cup.

“You should be Jaclyn Smith,” Rose said to Liz.

“Why?” Liz asked.

“She had the nicest clothes.”

“So that would make you Farrah.”

Rose nodded. “I know. I have the best hair so I should be Farrah.” She tossed her gray curls.

“Maybe I should be Farrah,” Charlotte said.

Rose and Liz both turned to look at her.

“You’re Kate Jackson,” Liz said.

Rose nodded her agreement. “No doubt about it. You’re the smartest of all of us.”

I waved a hand at them. “What about me?” I asked. “Who am I?”

“Napthathion,” Mr. P. said.

I looked at him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” he said. “That’s the name of the poison that killed Arthur Fenety.”

“Naptha what?” Liz asked.

“Napthathion. It’s a pesticide. It was banned just over two years ago.”

“This helps, doesn’t it?” Rose said. “How on earth could Maddie have gotten her hands on a chemical that was banned two years ago? What was it used for?”

Mr. P. glanced at the computer screen again. “Before it was banned it was used to control—”

“Earwigs,” Charlotte said, slowly. “Not slugs. Earwigs.” All the color had drained from her face.

“How did you know that?” I asked. This was the second time I’d seen Charlotte react to a conversation about what had killed Arthur Fenety.

She had to swallow a couple of times before she answered me. “I have a bottle of it in my garage,” she said.

“I thought you cleaned everything out of the garage last year,” Rose said.

“I did,” Charlotte said. “All I kept was the napthathion and something to get rid of the ants. But Maddie didn’t know I had it. Nobody knew.”

I turned to Avery. “Go help Mac, please. Now.”

“You don’t want me to hear stuff,” she said.

“No, I don’t.”

She nodded, her expression serious. “Okay.” She leaned down and gave Liz a hug and then left.

I looked at Mr. P. and gestured toward his laptop. “What can you tell me about napthathion?”

His fingers moved over the keyboard. “It was on a long list of herbicides and pesticides that the state banned two years ago,” Mr. P. said after a moment. He scrolled down the screen. “Where is that?” he muttered.

I waited.

“Here it is,” he said. He looked up at me. “Sarah, it wasn’t until napthathion was taken off the shelves that anyone figured out that it had any effect on people. It messes up electrical signals in the heart, but only in someone who already has some kind of heart problem and who’s taking a couple of different medications.”

“The perfect storm,” I said, softly.

Mr. P. nodded. “Exactly.”

“Whoever poisoned Arthur would have to have known that,” Liz said. “And they would have to have known that he had a heart condition and what drugs he was taking.”

“Maddie didn’t know,” Charlotte said. Her color was better now. “She told me that she liked the fact that he didn’t talk about his ailments, and then she said because he was so healthy he didn’t actually have any.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” Rose said.

“It’s not bad,” I said.

“But that pesticide in my garage is.” Charlotte fiddled with her teacup.

I nodded. “Yes, it is. The police will say Maddie had motive. They’ll say she found out that Arthur was scamming her.”

“But she said that she hadn’t given him any money,” Rose said. “So she doesn’t have a motive after all.”

Liz shook her head. “Even if she can prove that, it doesn’t mean Maddie didn’t have a motive. The man had what? Four wives and at least that many girlfriends. That kind of humiliation is a pretty good motive.”

“So, who could have known that Arthur Fenety had a heart condition and also known what medications he was taking?”

“It sounds like the kind of things a wife would know,” Mr. P. said.

“Alfred’s right,” Liz said. “It’s a lot harder to hide something like that when you’re living in the same house.”

“I’ll see what I can dig up on Fenety’s wives.” Mr. P.’s fingers were already moving over the keyboard.

I nodded. I didn’t want to know how he planned to do that so I didn’t ask. Just the way I hadn’t asked how he’d gotten the name of the pesticide that had killed Arthur Fenety. I was beginning to suspect Mr. P. had a little more of the bad boy in him than I’d thought.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Liz asked.

“Do you have a phone?” Mr. P. said.

“Yes.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.

“Can you sound like an old lady?” he asked.

“What? You’ll have to speak up,” Liz said. Her voice was shaky and pitched a little higher. She sounded a good ten years older.

Mr. P. smiled approvingly. “You can help,” he said.

Rose looked at her watch. “I need to get to work.” She got to her feet.

“And I should go home and see how Maddie’s doing,” Charlotte said.

Rose laid a hand on Mr. Peterson’s shoulder as she passed behind him. “Thank you so much for your help, Alfred,” she said. “I don’t know how to thank you. Could I at least get you another cup of tea?”

He smiled broadly. “Maybe in a little while,” he said.

I remembered the woman Jess and I had seen at The Black Bear the same day that Arthur Fenety died. I raked my fingers back through my hair. “Start with Grace MacIntyre,” I said. “Jess and I saw a woman who looked just like her photograph at Sam’s on Monday night.”

“One of Arthur’s wives was in town?” Rose paused in the doorway.

“Maybe.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find her,” Mr. P. said.

“I’ll talk to you later,” Liz said to Charlotte. She pulled her chair a little closer to Mr. P. “So, where do we start?” I heard her ask him.

I walked out to the front of the store with Charlotte. “Can I ask you something?” I said.

She smiled. “I don’t know. Can you?” she said.

It was an old joke between us and I was glad to see it could still make her smile.

“Do you think Maddie killed Arthur Fenety?”

She looked at me like I’d suddenly sprouted an apple tree on the top of my head. “Why on earth would you ask that? Of course I don’t.”

“Then don’t beat yourself up because you have an old bottle of bug killer in your garage.”

Charlotte smoothed the front of her yellow shirt. “Maddie thought I’d gotten rid of all those chemicals. She’d been after me for years about using them.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “But what if the person who actually did kill Arthur used the napthathion in my garage?”

I looked at her. “Seriously?”

She looked back at me a bit sheepishly. “It sounds silly, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe a little,” I said.

She reached over and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You remind me of your grandmother.”

I smiled. “Thank you. I take that as a compliment.”

“It’s meant as one.”

Mac had carried in a large box with the rest of the quilts that Jess had repaired and I’d managed to remove the musty smell from with vinegar and Woolite. I’d made a display stand out of an old folding clothes rack and painted it creamy white. Rose was sorting the quilts by color. She clearly had everything under control, and I left her to it.

“I’m going to do those dishes before I go,” Charlotte said. “I just remembered that Maddie had another meeting with Josh so she isn’t home right now.”

“Thanks,” I said.

She smiled. “Liz and Alfred Peterson are out in the sunporch, trying to find Arthur Fenety’s wives. I think I’m the one who should be thanking you.”

I shrugged. “I like Mr. P., especially when he has his clothes on.”

Charlotte laughed and headed for the steps. Mac walked over to me, carrying a couple of message slips. He handed me the pieces of paper. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“There’s a geriatric computer hacker using my Wi-Fi and doing things I don’t want to think about, but, otherwise, things are fine.”

“I’ve got things covered here,” he said. “Rose and I can handle the shop. Avery’s outside, washing those plastic chairs you wanted to put in the window. Why don’t you go up to your office to take a break?”

I pulled a hand over my neck and looked at the messages Mac had given me. “I suppose I could return these,” I said.

“Or you could put your feet up and let the world turn without you for five minutes.”

“Okay, that too,” I said.

As I started up the steps Elvis came from the small storage area underneath the stairs. There was a dust ball stuck to one of his ears and a bit of tape on his front left paw.

“What were you doing down there?” I said as he came level with me.

He seemed to shrug and then moved past me on up the steps.

“You’d better not have been poking around in any boxes,” I warned.

He flicked his tail at me. I was pretty sure I knew what that meant.

I unlocked my office door, sank onto my chair and propped my feet on the edge of the desk. Elvis jumped onto my lap and nuzzled my cheek. I reached over and scratched underneath his chin.

“I wish Gram was here,” I said.

My cell phone rang. I reached for it, smiling when I saw who was calling. “Hi, Mom,” I said.

I leaned back, shifting Elvis on my lap.

“Hi, sweetheart,” she said. “How’s everything?”

“You talked to Gram,” I said. I pictured her smiling and nodding.

“I did. I can’t believe Maddie Hamilton was arrested. She wouldn’t kill anyone.”

Elvis had stretched out in my lap and was lazily washing his face with a paw.

“Do you remember Josh Evans, Mom?” I asked.

“Was he the little guy in the purple cape who could argue your ear off?”

I laughed. “That’s Josh. The purple cape is gone, and he’s a lawyer now. He’s representing Maddie.”

“Good,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“There might be,” I said. Elvis took one last swipe at his face, then laid his head on my leg and closed his eyes. “Does Dad still have any contacts at the paper?”

My stepfather had been a journalist for many years. Now he taught journalism and writing at Keating State College in New Hampshire.

“He does,” Mom said. “A bunch of them got together a few weeks ago to talk about their glory days.”

“I bet that was fun.”

She laughed. I pictured her sitting out on the patio overlooking the backyard, watching the squirrels defeat Dad’s latest contraption to keep them out of the bird feeder. “Actually it was,” she said. “I finally got the real story about how he got that little scar on his forehead.”

“I have a feeling I’m going to like it,” I said.

She laughed again. “I know you are.” I heard her shift in her seat, probably reaching for a cup of tea.

“So, what do you need to know?” she asked. “I’m assuming that’s why you asked about the paper.”

“Yeah,” I said, picking a clump of black cat hair off my shirt and dropping it onto the floor. Elvis didn’t stir. “It’s a little complicated. Rose and Charlotte and Liz are kind of investigating.”

“You mean the murder?” Mom said.

I sighed. “Yes.”

“I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“I know,” I said. “Try convincing them of that. I’m just trying to keep them from getting in too much trouble.”

“What do you need to know?”

I shifted in my seat again and this time Elvis lifted his head and glared at me. I stroked his fur and after a moment he put his head down again.

“Arthur Fenety spent some time in New Hampshire,” I said. “At least one of his wives is there. Anything about Fenety’s background might be useful. And I’ll pass everything on to Josh.”

“I’ll ask your dad when he gets home,” Mom said.

“Tell him thank you,” I said.

“I will,” she said. “I’ll let you get back to work. I love you, pretty girl.”

“Love you, too,” I said.

I ended the call and set the phone next to me on the loveseat. Someone knocked softly on my door.

“Come in,” I called.

Mac stuck his head around the door. “You’re not on the phone,” he said. “That’s good.”

I smiled. “I was, but I was talking to my mom.”

“I brought you a cup of coffee,” he said, coming into the room. He had a cup in each hand.

I took the mug he held out. “Thank you,” I said. “I could use a little kick start of caffeine.”

He leaned against my desk, folding his hands around his own cup.

“Have Charlie’s Angels come up with anything yet?” I asked. I took a long drink from my coffee. It was hot and strong, just the way I liked it.

“Charlie’s Angels?” Mac said, narrowing his gaze at me.

I nodded. “Yeah. Avery kind of gave them the name.”

“New Charlie’s Angels or classic?” he asked.

Elvis sat up and shook himself.

“That’s still up for debate. Although Rose sees herself as Farrah Fawcett.”

“Because?” Mac prompted.

“She has the best hair.”

He laughed. “So that must mean Mr. Peterson is Bosley?”

“He is.”

“And what about you?”

Elvis sniffed the air; then he jumped down and went out into the hallway.

I picked more cat fur off my lap. “I think I’m Charlie.”

He nodded. “I can see that.”

“This isn’t exactly what I envisioned when I hired Rose and Charlotte, you know,” I said.

“I seem to remember you telling me nothing ever happened around here,” he said, raising an eyebrow.

“Mac, do you ever wish you were back in your old life?” I asked, leaning back in my chair.

“What? And give up all this?”

“I’m serious,” I said.

He smiled. “So am I.” He set his coffee on the edge of the desk, tenting his fingers over the top of the cup. “I can sail for close to half the year. I get to work with my hands. And, c’mon, it’s never boring around here.”

I laughed.

“I don’t want to wear a suit and a tie. And I don’t want to sell stocks and bonds. I want to sell things I can touch. I don’t want to worry about what the Dow is doing. I’d rather see what Rose or Avery are doing.” He made a face. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to give a speech.” He pushed away from the desk and straightened up. “I’d better go see how Avery
is
doing.”

I held up my mug. “Thank you for the coffee,” I said.

Mac smiled. “Anytime,” he said.

I stretched my legs out in front of me. Then I reached for the phone. I really did need to return those messages.

Charlotte came out of the staff room just as I was about to head back downstairs. “Would you like more coffee?” she asked.

I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m good.”

We walked downstairs together. “I talked to my mom,” I said. “Dad’s going to use his contacts to see if he can get any information about Arthur Fenety.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I just know his death has to be connected to all the women he scammed. Nothing else makes any sense.”

Mac was standing in the middle of the store, talking to two women. When he caught sight of me he beckoned me over. “Sarah, these women are looking for a rectangular table that folds for storage,” he said.

“The only thing we have is the Big Bird table,” I said, referring to the long canary yellow table that we’d had lunch at the day before. “And that hasn’t been restored yet.”

“Could I see it?” the younger of the two women said. She was dressed casually in jeans, boots and a fisherman-knit sweater. She looked enough like the older woman that I guessed they were mother and daughter.

“Of course,” I said. “It’s in the storage room. Come have a look.”

I took them into the back room and showed them the table. It really did seem to glow even under the bright overhead lights.

“That’s what I want,” the woman in the fisherman-knit sweater said. “Can you refinish it for me?”