“What’s she doing?” Laurel asked her older sister.
“She’s got something.” Harriet craned to look. But by then Kathy was washing her hands and had stepped back into the bedroom. “Something shiny...”
Standing on her hind legs, Harriet knocked the roll off its perch—and as the paper unfurled, something clattered to the tile floor. Clara gasped as it glittered and rolled, making a wide arc that stopped at her front paws. Clear as water, with a silver clasp at one end—it was Suzanne’s crystal teardrop. The one she’d been wearing the last time she’d been here.
“Hello?” Kathy was still in the bedroom. Clara’s ear flicked back to catch what she was saying. “Cambridge police? I can’t talk for long, but I think Rebecca Colwin is involved in the murder of Suzanne Liddle. I just found something that belonged to the victim in her apartment, and I’m now in fear for my life.”
Chapter 39
The three cats glared at each other. This was exactly what Laurel had warned them about. What Clara had feared, without understanding how it could come to be. An anonymous tip, and in the living room, Kathy was now urging Ande to leave. Larissa could be heard clunking down the stairwell, giving Trent directions as she led him out to the street.
“Let’s let poor Becca be,” Kathy was saying as she ushered Ande toward the door.
“What can we do?” Clara looked at her sisters.
“I have to make her wonder about Kathy…” Laurel began to concentrate, a furrow appearing in her café au lait brow. Ande, meanwhile, was calling out her farewell. Clearly, Becca was not seeing her friends out.
“She’s getting away.” Clara was panicking. “The police are going to find that thing. And Becca is just sitting there.”
“Not on my watch,” said Harriet, and with that she nosed the crystal teardrop and with one quick dab of her tongue, slurped it up.
“Harriet!” Clara bounced back in surprise. “What did you do?”
“No evidence, no worries, right?” The fluffy marmalade licked her chops.
“But—are you going to be all right?”
“I think so.” Harriet hiccupped, lifting one paw as if to cover her mouth. In the hall, they could hear Ande asking Kathy to wait.
“Becca, you okay?” Ande called to their hostess.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Becca roused herself and headed toward the door, where Kathy was visibly fidgeting.
“Poor guy.” Ande was chuckling a bit as Clara emerged from the bedroom. “I told you, you never know what’s going on in anyone else’s relationship.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Becca gave the taller woman a quick peck on the cheek. “I hope Marcia doesn’t give up on the rest of us. I mean, she’s the only one—sorry.” That was for Kathy, who was staring at the closed door as if she, too, were a cat.
Ande reached for the knob. “I hope you feel better,” she said. “Get some sleep.”
“Kathy, do you have a moment?” Becca stopped the redhead as she would have followed. “I just…I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”
“Well, I—” Visibly torn, the other woman stepped back into the apartment. “Sure.”
“I was hoping you could clear something up.” Becca looked puzzled as she wandered back toward the kitchen, picking up the stacked plates on her way, Clara in tow. Harriet, of course, came trotting along too. Her older sister really had earned her treats tonight.
But first the dishes. As all three cats lined up to watch, Becca fussed with a sponge.
“What’s up?” Kathy was fidgeting. “’Cause I should be off too. And you really should get some rest.”
Becca squirted soap on the dish pile and stared at the translucent bubbles that formed as if they held the key to everything. “I was wondering about something,” she said. “You knew that Suzanne was working for Reynolds—for Larissa’s ex.”
“I did?” A shrug. Beneath her freckles, the redhead’s cheeks had gone pale.
“Yes.” Becca nodded as she reviewed some internal script. “I’m sure of it. You said something about me ‘stepping into Suzanne’s shoes’ when I went to interview with Reynolds.”
Another shrug as Kathy eyed the door.
“But you denied knowing her outside of the coven just now.”
Kathy’s mouth went wide. “I was—you had a headache—and—”
Without waiting for her to finish, Becca kept talking. “And what’s going on with you and Ande?”
“Me and…Ande?” Kathy swallowed hard.
“Yeah, you seem really down on her.” She raised her voice to be heard as she ran the water. “You were the one who first told me she went out with Trent, but recently you’ve been talking about her setting him up. It almost sounds like you want me to suspect her—and now you’re all friendly again. Did you two have a falling out?”
“No.” The younger woman barked the word with scorn. “It’s Marcia who’s got the problem. I mean, lashing out at Trent like that?”
Becca turned and regarded her curiously, then started on the mugs.
“I kind of think Marcia had a point.” She sounded thoughtful as she squeezed out her sponge. “And, well, I guess this means you were wrong about her wanting to go out with Trent.”
“Well, I picked up that she had something against him,” Kathy blustered. “I was right about that!”
Becca didn’t respond. Instead, she kept talking as she added more soap. “Come to think of it, Marcia was the one who told me that Suzanne wanted to do a casting out—that there was a problem in the coven. When I brought that up, you pointed out that Suzanne was going to blow the whistle about the coven finances.” She could have been talking to the dishes, but Clara’s ears pricked forward. “You said that Ande had told her someone was embezzling, but Ande didn’t say that. She knew the numbers were off by a few grand, but she assumed Larissa had been sloppy.”
Kathy forced out a laugh that sounded a lot harsher than her usual giggle and stepped closer to the counter, where the loaf pan sat.
“Ande thought a few grand would be small change to Larissa, and when Larissa didn’t say anything about malfeasance, she figured she was right. But, of course, Larissa wouldn’t have complained. She was protecting Trent.” Becca was shaking her head. “And Suzanne never got a chance to tell me what—or who—she suspected. I’ve been trying to figure it out, and it seems that the only person who you haven’t cast aspersions on is the one person who probably did make off with some of the coven money: Trent.”
As Clara looked on in horror, Kathy reached toward the pan—and past it, for the bread knife that Marcia had used to cut the sweet loaf.
“Do something!” The cry came out as high and plaintive mew.
“Hang on, kitties.” Becca was up to her elbows in suds. “You’ll get your treats. Kathy, can you grab that little canister?”
“Yeah, sure.” But the other woman was holding the knife, not the cat treats, as she took a step closer.
“Until tonight, I kind of thought Larissa might have, well, done something.” Becca turned on the tap to rinse her hands. “Only—”
Clara opened her mouth to howl again, but stopped herself. If Becca turned now, without knowing what was going on…
A sudden pounding on the door did the trick. Both women turned. “Police!” A male voice, deep and insistent. “Open up!”
“Coming!” Becca reached for a dish towel as Kathy stepped back, sliding the knife back onto the counter. But even as Becca turned away from the sink, she stopped in horror. Harriet, front paws spread, was huffing, as if short of breath. Her stout body jerked once, twice, and then with a sound reminiscent of a stopped drain opening, she urped up the crystal teardrop.