Six Cats A Slayin'

Kanesha nodded. “Yes. Someone else supplied the money and stayed in the background, while Ms. Albritton made the deals.”

“Exactly,” I replied. “I’ve had an idea about who that could be. Did Melba tell you what she overheard Jared Carter say to Gerry at the party?”

“When Ms. Albritton pulled him aside?” Kanesha said. “She did, but I’d have to dig out my notebook to see exactly what she told me. Right now I’m drawing a blank.”

“It’s not much to go on,” I said, now feeling uncertain about my hunch. It was really nothing more than that.

“That’s okay,” Kanesha said. “In the past your not much to go on has usually turned out to be on the mark.”

“All right. Melba heard Jared say, Sure thing, Ronni. Now, Melba heard the word as honey, but the room was full of people talking pretty loud. I think Jared must have said Ronni, as in

Ronni Halliburton, the name on those deeds. If he knew that name, maybe he knows a lot more about the real estate transactions.”

“I think you’re on to something,” Kanesha said. “At least it’s a potential lead. One more than I had before.”

My cell phone chose that moment to ping, startling me and causing Kanesha to frown.

“What was that?” she asked.

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and held it up for her to see. “That noise is a signal that I have a new video from the surveillance cameras Frank installed at my house.”

“Surveillance cameras?” Kanesha said, obviously puzzled. “Why do you need to surveil anything?”

“The kittens,” I said, busy locating the app on my phone. Once I found it and opened it, I pulled up the video and played it.

“You’re recording the kittens?” Kanesha asked, beginning to sound irritated.

“No, not the kittens themselves,” I said as I watched the video. “Cameras are set up on the front door and in the shrubs under the living room windows.”

“Trying to get video of the kid who left the kittens, in other words,” Kanesha said. “That makes more sense.”

The video showed the same dark hood pulled close around the child’s face. Her head came up out of the shrubbery so she could see the kittens in their cage through the window. She stayed in that position for nearly a minute, according to the video timer. Then the head disappeared briefly. It reappeared in front of the door. I was excited. Maybe now I could see the child’s face.

The face inside the hood was that of a horrible gremlin.

TWENTY-SEVEN

I must have groaned. Kanesha asked, “What’s the matter?”

The leering face of the gremlin moved upward as the child reached for the envelope. Then the child darted back into the shrubs. The video continued for another thirty seconds, but the child did not reappear.

Kanesha repeated her question, and this time I responded.

“That child is a lot cleverer than I expected.” I told Kanesha what I had seen. “I thought the whole idea of the video cameras was clever, but this child is smarter than I am. Or more devious, perhaps.”

“No clues at all?” Kanesha asked.

“See for yourself.” I handed her my phone and told her how to start the video.

She watched it all the way through. It was about three minutes long. Then she watched it again before she returned the phone. “Frustrating,” was her only comment.

“I didn’t see anything that I could use to identify her.”

“You think the kid’s a girl?” Kanesha said.

“Yes. Gut feeling, more than anything, though I think the handwriting in her notes looks like a girl’s,” I said. “It reminds me of Laura’s handwriting at that age.”

“I wish you good luck in finding out who the kid is,” Kanesha said. “I’ll be in touch if I dig up anything more.”

That was my cue to leave. “And if I come up with any potentially helpful information, I’ll let you know.” I nodded, turned, and left her office.

On the way to the car, I realized I had been gone a good half hour longer than I had intended. I should have texted Stewart to let him know I was going to be late. I texted him then, saying I’d been delayed but was on the way home. He responded less than a minute later: No problem.

I drove home and pulled into the garage. I opened the trunk and hauled out the two large bags of books. I had to set one down to unlock the door. But when I tried to open the door, it wouldn’t budge. That was odd. This door did sometimes stick when we had a lot of rain, but we hadn’t had rain for more than a week. I tried to open it several more times, then knocked on the door to attract someone’s attention.

That didn’t work, either, and by this time I was getting pretty peeved. Something definitely wasn’t right. I picked up the bags and carried them out of the garage and around to the front door. I unlocked it and was relieved when it opened easily. I picked up my bags and pushed the door open. The hall was darker than usual, and for a moment I felt a frisson of fear. Had someone broken in to the house and was now lying in wait?

Then suddenly the hall came alight with a dazzling effect, and I heard Stewart say, “Surprise!”