Six Cats A Slayin'

The times I had seen her during the party, she had been at the door. That didn’t mean, however, she couldn’t have slipped away long enough to add the poison to Gerry’s brandy. There were so many people milling around, not many would have noticed her absence from the front door or her presence as she moved through the rooms in search of Gerry and her snifter.

One potential sticking point, when I considered any suspect, was the poison itself. Did Jincy have any kind of access to poisonous substances? It would be a whopping coincidence if she, like Tammy, had the knowledge and skill to distill it for herself. Maybe she and Tammy were working together, I thought for just a moment. But that was a little too far out to take seriously. Identification of the poison that killed Gerry should help narrow down the suspects to only those who had access to it.

For now, I thought, Tammy—despite the alibi she claimed to have—and Jincy were strong candidates for the role of murderer. But I was forgetting someone, I realized. Deirdre Thompson. The conversation Helen Louise and I had heard had been ugly. The women obviously despised each other. What I gathered from Gerry’s part of the conversation was that she had something she could hold over Deirdre’s head in order to force Deirdre to do whatever it was she wanted from the doyenne of Athena society.

I couldn’t recall ever hearing a breath of scandal about Deirdre Thompson. She had the reputation of pinching pennies, despite her rumored wealth, but that wasn’t anything to encourage blackmail. I hadn’t discussed Deirdre with Kanesha, although Helen Louise and I had certainly related what we overheard to the deputy. Had Kanesha ruled Deirdre out somehow? I would have thought she had as much opportunity as anyone to poison Gerry’s brandy. The murder had to be premeditated, because who carries poison on them as a regular thing? Deirdre could have brought it and seized the chance when she saw that snifter.

Even if I didn’t recall ever having heard about any scandals involving Deirdre Thompson, I knew two people who might have. One of them was working in the kitchen; the other might be upstairs on the third floor. I headed for the kitchen, texting Stewart on the way. I asked him to join us in the kitchen if he was still at home.

Diesel scrambled off the sofa when he saw me head for the door. He meowed loudly a couple of times, as if to ask me where I was going in such a hurry. “Going to talk to Azalea,” I told him.

Azalea wasn’t in the kitchen when Diesel and I first walked in, and I started to call out for her. She appeared behind me carrying an empty laundry basket. Startled, I turned when I heard her footsteps.

“Were you looking for me?” she inquired.

“Yes, I wanted to talk to you,” I said. My cell phone buzzed, and I checked it. Stewart had responded to my text. Down in a few.

“What about?” Azalea set the empty basket on the table and regarded me calmly.

I knew I had to approach this in the right way, because Azalea, as a rule, did not hold with gossiping about anyone. In the past, however, she had occasionally given me useful information about people.

“Why don’t we sit down for a minute?” I suggested.

Azalea pulled out a chair and sat. I did, too, and Diesel stretched out on the floor by me.

“It’s about the murder that took place at the party the other night,” I said. “Kanesha is investigating it, of course, and I’m helping her in my own way.”

Azalea nodded.

“One problem is that no one seems to know who Gerry Albritton really was. The other is the motives anyone might have had for wanting her dead.”

“I can’t help you with that first part,” Azalea replied. “I don’t know who she was, either. Don’t recall ever knowing anybody with that name. Same with the second part, since I didn’t know her.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “I think you probably can help with the second part, though. In the past you have shared information about people you used to work for, or that friends or relatives might have known or worked for. I’m hoping you might have information in this case about one person in particular.”

Azalea’s tone was not encouraging. “Who might that be?”

“Deirdre Thompson,” I said.

“Why do you want to talk about that dreary old biddy?” Stewart asked as he entered the kitchen. “Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing. Is that why you wanted to talk to me?”

“Yes, I thought that you and Azalea might be able to answer my questions about her.”

Stewart pulled out a chair and sat. “What questions?”

I glanced at Azalea, and she nodded.

“Are there any scandals or rumors of scandals in her past that would embarrass her badly if they became known now? Especially if someone could prove the rumors true?”

Azalea and Stewart looked at each other. Slowly, they nodded, almost in unison.

“Rumors, certainly,” Stewart said. Azalea nodded in agreement.

“Rumors about what?” I asked. Surely they weren’t going to turn coy now.

“There have been several over the years,” Stewart said.

“Murder,” Azalea said at the same time.

THIRTY