Six Cats A Slayin'

The other boys, Fred and George, emulated Ramses and started climbing. The girls appeared to have no interest in climbing. They took the opportunity, while the boys were otherwise engaged, to head to the food bowls and have a snack.

I stayed and watched them for a good ten minutes. Diesel went up to the cage three times and batted at the boys’ front paws, trying to encourage them to get down, I figured. Fred and George gave up, but Ramses hung there until I thought I was going to have to go inside the cage to get him down. Finally, however, he must have tired of the contest of wills, because he turned and jumped off.

I had to admire the kitten’s force of will. Whoever ended up with him would have a battle royal on his or her hands. The name I had given him suited him all too well.

“I’ll be back a little later,” I said, “when it’s dinnertime. Come on, Diesel.” He followed me out of the room and back to the den.

I checked the time. Almost ten minutes after four. I decided to call Frank to ask about the video setup.

He answered promptly, and after we exchanged the usual pleasantries—and information on the status of the world’s most wonderful grandson—I explained what I wanted to do.

“I can rig that up for you,” Frank said. “Won’t take me long. I can probably do it first thing tomorrow morning, since I’ve finished grading finals. Is that soon enough?”

“Yes,” I said, “but will I be able to find the equipment you’ll need by then?”

Frank chuckled. “You don’t need to buy anything. I think I can manage with what I have. If you decide at some later point that you want a permanent camera on the front door, then you can look into buying what you need.”

“I really appreciate this.” I knew better than to offer to pay him for his time and effort. Instead I would buy a couple of bottles of the wine he and Laura liked. They rarely bought it for themselves because of the expense. The bottles could be part of the Christmas presents I had already found for them.

“You know I don’t ever mind helping you out,” Frank said. “I’ll be there before you leave for the library in the morning.”

I thanked him again and ended the call. With that camera installed—if it did the job properly—I might soon have an answer to the question of the child’s identity.

One thought did strike me, however. The child had lurked around the living room windows, probably more than once, to see how the kittens were faring. I had to hope she wouldn’t be doing that tomorrow morning while Frank was here. I thought she was probably smart enough to figure out what he was doing, and that might scare her away.

Feeling better now that I had a plan to solve this one riddle, I found my mind irresistibly drawn toward another one. Who was Gerry Albritton? I would have accepted her at face value had it not been for Melba’s dogged insistence that Gerry was not really a part of the extended Albritton clan. According to Melba, it was a large clan, and I suspected there could be offshoots that Melba knew little about. Gerry could have belonged to one of those.

For some reason I suddenly thought of property records. They were public, available through the tax collector’s office. Even better, they were online, and I could easily search them to see whose name was on the deed to Gerry Albritton’s house. If Albritton was not her legal name, only an assumed one, then her legal one would be on the deed.

I grabbed my laptop and turned it on. Diesel stretched out on the sofa beside me, and I stroked him while I waited for the computer to boot up fully.

I typed in the URL for the county website and followed the links to the property database. Options for searching included the owner’s name, street address, and lot number. I used the street address. I certainly had no idea what the lot number was, and I didn’t know what name was on the deed.

The record popped up on the screen, and I scanned it quickly. My eyes focused on the name of the owner.

Well, looks like Melba was right after all.

The owner’s name was listed as Ronni Halliburton.

NINETEEN

I wondered if Melba knew any Halliburtons in the Athena area. I would ask her later. At the moment I was wondering what to do with this information. Should I communicate with Kanesha and tell her what I had discovered? Or was this something she would have checked on herself?

Let’s take it a step or two further.

I opened a genealogy database and searched for Ronni Halliburton. I found many, many more results than I had expected, and I started going through the list. There were variant spellings for the surname: Haliburton and Halyburton. I found Janes, Janas, and even Johns. The exact matches on the name Ronni Halliburton didn’t jibe with what I knew of Gerry Albritton’s age.