Depawsit Slip (Vanessa Abbot Cat Protection League Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  “If that’s true,” Wheeler asked, “why would anybody want to kill him?”

  “Maybe he knew too much,” Vanessa suggested. “Maybe he knew about money being laundered that someone didn’t want him to know about. Maybe he took bets from someone he shouldn’t have taken them from. Or maybe he just said the wrong thing to the wrong person. You play dirty, you’re going to get dirty. That’s what my mother always said.”

  He looked up, and their eyes met. “What about you? Did you have any reason to hate him?”

  “Hate him?” she asked. “I didn’t hate him. I didn’t like him, but I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” he told her.

  “I know what you mean,” she replied. “You want to know if I had any motive to kill him. I don’t. I kept as far away from Alfred and his dealings as I could.”

  “Tell me what you’re doing in the bank,” he told her. “You said you were in a hurry to get home.”

  She blushed. “I’m depositing some money. I run a business, and I’m making my evening deposit before I go home.”

  “What’s your business?” he asked.

  “I’m President of the Cat Protection League,” she told him. “We run that Opportunity Shop on the corner just down the street. I mean, I run it. I also take care of abandoned and mistreated cats that come to us for help. I have to get home to feed them.”

  He glanced down the street. “You take care of them at home?”

  She nodded.

  He buried his smile in his notebook. “A cat lady. Well, it sounds like you’re clear on this one. What can you tell me about the other people who were in the bank with you? Do you know if any of them had a beef with the deceased?”

  Vanessa frowned. “Well, there’s Penny. I can’t think of whether she ever had anything to do with Alfred. Then again, you couldn’t spend any time in this town without running afoul of that man. I really don’t know about Penny. Then there’s Walter.”

  “The doctor?” he asked.

  She nodded again. “If I had to guess which of them had the most to do with Alfred, I would say it’s him. Walter knows everyone in town, and Alfred would have gone to Walter for treatment.”

  “Treatment for what?” Wheeler asked.

  “For his condition, of course,” she exclaimed. “Oh, I forgot. You don’t know. Alfred had a bout of meningitis when he was a child. It affected his brain somehow. I’m not sure on all the medical details, but some people say that’s why he was such a heartless menace. They say it killed the part of his brain that allowed him to relate to people normally.”

  “Do you believe that?” he asked.

  Vanessa shrugged. “I don’t know. All I know is that Alfred had to go to Walter on a regular basis for check-ups and MRIs and all that sort of thing.”

  “They wouldn’t be doing MRIs here in Caspar Crossing, though, would they?” he asked.

  “No,” she agreed. “Walter would refer him to specialists in the city when he needed something. But that’s another thing you might want to think about. Alfred had to go through Walter every time he needed or wanted something.”

  Wheeler shot her a grin. “You sound like a real detective.”

  Vanessa blushed again. “I’m just talking here.”

  “There’s just one thing,” he went on. “You’ve given me a reason why the barber would want to get rid of the doctor, not the other way around.”

  “Like I said,” she replied. “I’m just talking here. I don’t know who killed Alfred, and I don’t pretend to have the brains to figure it out.”

  “Oh, you’ve got the brains, all right,” he told her. “How would you like to help me solve this crime?”

  Her eyes widened. “I couldn’t do that. I’m just a lonely old cat lady.”

  He smiled again and put his notebook away. “Have it your way. Now tell me about the plumber.”

  “Ollie?” she asked. “I don’t think Ollie ever went in for all that gambling and betting, but you never know. He could have been in debt to Alfred, or Alfred could have crossed him in some other way. I really don’t know.”

  “What do you know about that plumber?” he asked. “You seem to know all about everybody in this town.”

  “I told you,” she replied. “You can’t live in Caspar Crossing without knowing everything about everybody. We’re one big happy family here.”

  “The plumber,” he prompted. “I don’t suppose your boy went to school with him, too.”

  “He’s too young,” Vanessa replied. “Ollie’s seven years younger than Tom. But I know his mother and his aunt and his sister. And I know his wife’s family.”

  “Wife?” Wheeler asked.

  Vanessa nodded. “He’s married with three children. His mother lives in that house right over there, and his sister lives around the corner with her husband and two children. They come into the Shop all the time. Ollie's children are wonderful. They read a lot of books, and they love Henry.”

  “Who’s Henry?” he asked.

  Vanessa laughed. “Oh, sorry. I forgot. He’s one of my cats, and he likes to sleep on top of the books. He likes romances best. Ollie’s kids come into the shop just to pet him.”

  Wheeler smiled. “Ollie doesn’t sound like the gambling type, but as you say, you never know. Did he have any financial trouble?”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “Most of the time, when a family is in trouble, it shows. Don’t you agree? A man with a gambling problem can’t keep his family happy, and Ollie runs a successful business doing plumbing work in this town.”

  “You might be right,” Wheeler agreed. “On the other hand, a man with his own business can keep financial indiscretions secret better than others. His wife and family might never find out about it, at least until he dies and they start looking through his books.”

  “Maybe that’s what happened to Alfred,” Vanessa suggested.

  “Except that none of his family were in the bank,” he countered.

  “That’s true,” she admitted.

  He slid his notebook into his pocket and turned toward the door. “You’ve been very helpful. You’re free to go.”

  Vanessa picked up her handbag. “Thank you. I hope you find out who did it.”

  “I will,” he replied. “I would offer to walk you home, but I have to interview the other suspects. I hope you don’t mind.”

  She stopped at the door and smiled up at him. “I don’t mind.” He sure was handsome, and nice, too.

  He held the door open for her. “Have a good evening.”

  “You, too,” she returned. “Have a good evening, Detective Wheeler.”

  “Call me Pete,” he told her. “Everybody does—everybody, except murder suspects, that is.”

  She laughed. “All right, Pete. I’ll see you around. If you need to talk to someone about the case or get any more local information, just come by the Opportunity Shop. The Shop is open six days a week, but I live just upstairs from it. You can find me there whenever you want.”

  “Thank you,” he exclaimed. “That would be very helpful.”

  Chapter 3

  Vanessa put another log on the fire and crossed the room to her chair. Three or four cats lounged on every chair in the room. When she got to her own chair, she scooped up an armful of cats, sat down, and then rearranged the cats on her lap. They settled down and went back to dozing in the heat of the fire.

  Vanessa closed her eyes and stretched her legs out in front of her. “What a day! I’m not sorry to get home at last. Who would believe someone would stab Alfred Botchweather in the back in the middle of the bank? I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  Tapioca lifted her head and Vanessa rubbed the side of her neck.

  “I know. I was terribly late getting you your dinner,” Vanessa told her. “I promise I’ll never let it happen again. But it was an emergency, you see. It’s not every day a man drops dead in front of God and everybody.”

&n
bsp; Tapioca closed her eyes and leaned into Vanessa’s hand.

  “I wouldn’t let you go hungry for all the tea in China,” she went on. “You know you’re the most important thing in the world to me.”

  Bronwyn jumped up onto the side table at her elbow and almost knocked over the lamp.

  “Yes, yes,” Vanessa crooned. “You’re much more important to me than that handsome detective. You don’t need to worry about him, my lovely.”

  The heat from the fire weighed Vanessa’s eyelids down. She would go to bed soon and put this murder as far out of her mind as she could. All at once, a loud knock rapped on the door. Vanessa started, but she couldn’t get up very fast with three cats on her lap. She tried to inch them off, but they hooked their claws into her pant legs and held on. Even when she stood all the way up, they clung to her until their claws ripped the fabric of her pants. They jumped back up into the warm place she left on the chair as soon as she left it.

  She waded through acres of cats to get to the door. She peeked out and gave a cry. “Penny! What are you doing here?”

  “Can I come in, Vanessa?” Penny barged in without waiting to hear the answer. “I need to talk to you.”

  Vanessa stood in the open door and stared after her. “Well, I was just about to go to bed.”

  “Do you know what that rotten detective said to me?” Penny stormed. “He said I couldn’t leave town while I was under suspicion for Alfred’s death.”

  Vanessa closed the door and sighed. “Well, that only makes sense. Don’t you think? He doesn’t want the killer running off to escape justice.”

  Penny gasped in exasperation and waved her arm. “I gotta sit down.”

  She strode over to the nearest chair in front of the fire. With one sweep of her hand, she scraped all the cats off the chair. They scattered in all directions with a chorus of yowls. Penny plopped down into the chair and gasped again.

  Ambrosia stopped a few paces away and looked back over her shoulder at Penny. Foxle ran all the way to the bedroom, crawled under the mattress, and didn’t come out for a week. BettyLou ran in a complete circle around the living room and ended up next to Vanessa’s chair. She considered the options. Then she jumped up and settled down in the nest with the others.

  Vanessa stared at Penny. Penny looked around the room. She noticed the painted lampshade on the table at her elbow. She gazed into the flames in the fireplace. She brushed a speck of lint from the leg of her pants. She saw everything in the room but the cats.

  Vanessa waited until the hubbub died down.

  Penny cleared her throat. “I don’t know what’s going on in this town anymore. Who is this Detective Sargent Wheeler, anyway? Who does he think he is, sticking his nose into our business?”

  Vanessa humphed. You couldn't make a person understand, no matter how hard you tried. “Investigating Alfred’s death is his business. He’s a police detective, and Alfred was murdered. It’s his job to find out who did it.”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Penny shot back. “He has no reason to question me.”

  “How would he know you didn’t do it?” Vanessa asked. “It had to be one of us that was standing next to Alfred at the bank. It could only be you, me, Walter, or Ollie Fleetwood. Of course he wants to question us.”

  “He didn’t question you,” Penny remarked.

  “Oh, yes, he did,” Vanessa replied. “He questioned me very thoroughly. You were there. You saw him talking to me. Fortunately for me, he decided I wasn’t as suspicious as the rest of you, so he let me go.”

  “Why did he decide that?” Penny asked. “You had as much reason to hate Alfred as the rest of us.”

  Vanessa shrugged. “You’ll have to ask him that. I told him the truth, that I never had any dealings with Alfred or his backroom business. Maybe he thought you and the others had more opportunity to get mixed up with Alfred's seedy side.”

  “But I didn’t,” Penny insisted. “I barely ever said a word to him in all the years I lived in this town, and I certainly never got my hair cut at his barbershop.”

  Vanessa went back to her chair. She collected the cats from the seat and sat down with them on her lap. They didn’t settle down again the way they did before. BettyLou pranced around in a circle for a minute, but then she jumped down and left the room. Amber and Porcupine got into a scrap over Vanessa’s lap and wound up tumbling to the floor. Amber ran away, and Porcupine sat in the middle of the hearthrug to lick his fur and glare at everyone.

  Vanessa sighed again. When would Penny leave? She only came to complain about Detective Wheeler’s investigation. “I really don’t know what Detective Wheeler has in mind for investigating Alfred’s murder, and frankly, I don’t really care. He’s a police officer. It’s his job to look into these things. I leave it in his hands. I told him to ask Captain Jameson for Alfred’s file. The police must have a file three feet thick on Alfred’s activities. I’m sure they can get all the information they need from that.”

  “You’re a very trusting soul, Vanessa,” Penny remarked. “I suppose that’s what comes of spending all your time with cats.”

  Vanessa stiffened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You don’t have to deal with real people,” Penny explained. “You don’t have to deal with their failings and their indiscretions and their foibles. Take me, for instance. My job requires me to deal with people at their worst on a constant basis. People are always on their last nerve when they plan a wedding, and they take it out on their wedding planner.”

  Vanessa sat up. She couldn’t relax anymore with Penny around. “If you don’t like your job, Penny, why don’t you do something else? I spend my time with cats because I love cats and I want to take care of them. I want to give cats a good life. That’s what I do for a living. If you want a job you enjoy, then do it. No one told you to be a wedding planner. I can’t imagine you get much work in Caspar Crossing, anyway.”

  Penny groaned. “If you only knew.”

  “So tell me,” Vanessa replied. “You came here to talk, so talk. What is so bad about being a wedding planner in Caspar Crossing?”

  “Do you really want to know?” Penny asked. “All right. I’ll tell you. One of my clients wanted to ride to the church in a horse-drawn carriage. She had a nervous breakdown when I told her she would have to order one from the city, since no one in town does that sort of thing. Then I had a client, a man, who wanted a flock of white doves released in front of the church. One of the doves poo-ed on the shoulder of his tuxedo, and he wanted me to pay for it.”

  Vanessa giggled under her breath.

  Penny scowled at her. “It’s not funny.”

  “Oh, yes, it is,” Vanessa returned. “It’s hilarious. Keep going. I haven’t heard anything this funny in a long time.”

  “You think that’s funny?” Penny snapped. “One couple wanted to get married on top of Mount Patterson. I arranged the whole thing, but when the day came, some of the older guests couldn’t walk up the mountain. It was too steep for them. The couple demanded a refund. And then there's the bride whose brother was some sort of big-shot mafioso who wanted to make all the decisions on his sister’s wedding.”

  The smile evaporated from Vanessa’s face. “What are you telling me, Penny?”

  Penny stared into the fire. “No one could make a move without his approval.”

  Vanessa kept perfectly still. “If you know something about this case, Penny, you should tell Detective Wheeler, not me.”

  “And make myself more of a suspect than I already am?” Penny shot back. “No thanks.”

  “Then we really don’t have anything more to talk about, do we?” Vanessa asked.

  Penny muttered something Vanessa didn’t catch. She pushed herself out of her chair and went to the door. The toe of her high-heeled boot clipped Ambrosia on the back leg and the cat let out a yelp, but Penny didn’t even notice.

  “I...I guess I’ll see you around, Vanessa,” Penny muttered.

  “If you want to tal
k anymore....about anything,” Vanessa replied, “you can always find me in the Shop.”

  Penny nodded and left.

  Vanessa closed the door behind her with another heavy sigh. This time, she secured the deadbolt, and the chain, and the stainless steel barricade before she went back to her chair. None of the cats would come near her now. A cold empty place in her lap ached for its familiar feline company.

  Only Henry examined her from his usual place in the chimney corner.

  “Do you really think so?” Vanessa asked. “I thought she might be referring to someone else. You meet all kinds of people in her line of work.”

  Henry turned back to the fire and closed his eyes.

  “I don’t really know,” Vanessa told him. “You’re right about that. But you would think she’d meet a lot more different people as a wedding planner than I do as President of the Cat Protection League. I never met a mafioso in my life.”

  Henry laid his head on his paws and curled his tail around him.

  “You don’t have to be rude, Henry,” Vanessa told him. “I know it as well as you do. Still, she could have been talking about somebody else. She could have been talking about anybody. She didn’t have to be talking about Alfred, just because she’s a suspect in his murder. Besides, Alfred was not a mafioso.”

  Henry’s breathing deepened into sleep. Only one ear twitched to show he still heard her.

  “No one really knows, do they?” she asked. “No one knows all that he was doing in back room of his barbershop. Anyway, it doesn’t concern us. Even if she had dealings with Alfred during his sister’s wedding doesn’t mean she killed him.”

  Chapter 4

  Vanessa glanced up when she heard the door bells jingling. The blood mounted to her cheeks when she spotted Detective Wheeler coming through the door.

  He smiled at her and looked around the Shop. Then he closed the door behind him. “So this is it.” He strolled through the aisles and eyed the merchandise.

  AngelPie strutted along a shelf and mewed down at him. He scratched her between the ears and down her neck to her shoulders. She purred and jumped down to a table in front of him. Flossy stood up from her bed among the glassware and stretched. When Pete approached, she tiptoed across her table to meet him. He ran his hand down her back and gave her tail a flick. Teddy slipped out from behind the trashcan and rubbed his side against the cuff of Pete Wheeler’s jeans. The detective bent down and scratched him along the back, too.