Cat's Claw (10 page)

“He’s a miniature white poodle,” Ruby volunteered. “I know, because Ethel Wauer lives next door to me. Between me and the squash lady.”

“Oh, really?” Jessica was scribbling. “So it’s you, Mrs. Wauer and Oodles, Mrs. Jessup and her squash, and the Kirks, in that order. Right?” Ruby nodded and Jessica paused, looking back at her notes. “Mrs. Wauer said she thought at first that the noise was a car backfiring or maybe a
door slamming, so she didn’t think anything of it. But Oodles began to bark like crazy and—”

“Oodles barks like crazy at everything,” Ruby said. “Oodles barks at cars, skateboards, airplanes, lawnmowers, and the garbage truck. I’m sure there are people on this block who wish somebody would shoot
him
. That’s off the record, Jessica,” she added hastily.

“Oh, pooh,” Jessica pouted. “But I’ll leave it out if you insist, Ruby.” She turned back to Ramona. “Now then, Ms. Donahue. How did you happen to go to the Kirks’ house this afternoon?”

I intervened. “That’s enough, Jessica. Why don’t you give Ms. Donahue your card? She can call you when this conversation is appropriate.”

“China, you are such a spoilsport.” With a disappointed sigh, Jessica took out a card and handed it over.

“Thank you, Ms. Nelson.” Ramona flipped an icy look in my direction. “I’ll be glad to talk to you whenever. You can bring a photographer, too.” She touched her hair. “Just be sure to give me a little notice.”

“Thanks, Ms. Donahue,” Jessica said with a grin. “I really appreciate it.” She turned to me. “China—”

“And that information about Mrs. Wauer and the gunshot—you need to be sure it gets to the police before it gets to the front page of the
Enterprise
. There might be nothing to it, or it might help establish the time of death. Okay?”

“Okay.” Jessica raised her hand in a wave, turned, and jogged off in pursuit of more human interest.

The little knots of onlookers had begun to disperse as the neighbors found better things to do than hang around gawking at a flock of police and emergency vehicles that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Ramona, Ruby, and I began to walk back toward Ruby’s house.

Ruby was musing over the information Jessica had given us. “Mrs. Wauer says she heard the gunshot at two o’clock. Ramona, what were you doing at two? Did you hear it?”

Ramona shook her head. “I was having a nap,” she said guiltily. “I had an appointment to talk to somebody about a business opportunity, but I thought I’d lie down first. Just for a few minutes—but I fell asleep. When I finally woke up, I had to hurry and get dressed, so I wouldn’t be late. And then I went to the Kirks’ to take back the dish and then—”

Ruby looked at me over Ramona’s head and rolled her eyes.

“And to think that while I was napping,” Ramona went on in a dramatic voice, “poor Mr. Kirk was—” She stopped, shivering. “What if I had walked in on him just as he was deciding to do it? Maybe I could have stopped him. Maybe—”

“Hush, Ramona,” Ruby said. “You didn’t and you couldn’t, so don’t go making out that you’re responsible. Larry Kirk was a grown-up. He was going to do whatever he was going to do.”

Ruby wasn’t talking to me, but I was listening, and I appreciated her advice. She was right. Even if I had answered Larry’s email when I got it, likely the outcome would have been the same—which didn’t make me feel any better, of course.

Ruby turned to me. “I couldn’t help overhearing. It sounds like Sheila is planning to take this case herself. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it, China?”

“Clint Hardin went fishing,” I replied, “so she’s stepping in for him.” I meant what I said to Sheila about getting out from behind the desk. She has done a lot for the police department since she became chief, but she has a tendency to stay in the office, almost as if she’s hiding out. That’s just my opinion, of course, but McQuaid shares it, I know. He’d mentioned to me that Sheila should get out on the street more often.

“That police chief,” Ramona remarked thoughtfully. “She is certainly a beautiful woman. And young.”

“Sheila isn’t as young as she looks,” I replied. “She’s nearly forty.”

Ruby linked her arm into her sister’s. “Didn’t you meet her at the picnic last week, Ramona?”

“I did. Met that hunky husband of hers, too. The one who used to be a sheriff.” Curiously, she looked from Ruby to me. “How did you guys get to know her?”

“Well, let’s see,” I said. “Ruby and I first met Smart Cookie when she—”

“Smart Cookie?” Ramona interrupted, surprised.

“That’s what China and I call her,” Ruby replied. “But don’t say it where her officers can hear. They wouldn’t understand.”

“We met her when she was the chief of the security service at CTSU,” I went on. “Before that, she was deputy chief of security at the University of Texas campus in Arlington.”

“No kidding.” Ramona sounded impressed. “Chief of security.”

“And before Arlington,” I added, “she was a detective with the Dallas Police Department. She moved into campus security after she got shot for the second time. Can’t say I blame her.”

“Eek,” Ramona said faintly. “You mean, really shot? Like, with a gun?”

We were approaching Mrs. Wauer’s house. Oodles was out on the front porch, bouncing up and down behind the folding baby gate that keeps him from running out and biting passing pedestrians on the ankle. He was yapping at the top of his lungs, telling us exactly what he was going to do if we had the nerve to come within reach of his killer teeth and claws.

“Really shot,” I replied, “with a gun. She doesn’t like to talk about
it, but I know that she almost died. She’s had a long career in law enforcement—although it hasn’t been an easy one. There are more women in policing than there used to be, but it’s still a man’s world. A woman has to be plenty tough to move into a command position in a paramilitary organization dominated by men, especially in a small town like Pecan Springs. A small
Texas
town.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’re a big fan of the police,” Ramona remarked wryly.

“China used to be a defense attorney,” Ruby said with a laugh. “Defense attorneys hate cops.”

“Defense attorneys don’t hate cops,” I protested, as we turned up the walk to Ruby’s front porch. “They’re fine with the police when the cops do what they’re supposed to do, obey the law, and behave themselves. Which they don’t always do, you know. There are plenty of examples of cops acting
outside
the law.”

Like most other residences in the neighborhood, Ruby’s two-story frame house sits in the middle of a large, shady yard. But while the other houses are traditional Victorians—which is to say that they look like dowdy old ladies on their way to a friend’s funeral—Ruby’s Painted Lady is nothing short of dazzling. Ruby has radically rejuvenated the old house by painting the siding, shutters, porches, and gingerbread trim with wonderfully wild color combinations: spring green, smoke gray, fuschia, and plum. The wicker furniture on the front porch is daffodil yellow, the cushions are covered in a bright red-and-green tropical print, and green-painted buckets of red geraniums march up the steps. Ruby says she knows why her house makes its next-door neighbors uncomfortable. “It’s as if your grandmother painted her nails passion purple,” she says, “put on fire-engine-red lipstick and mauve eye shadow,
and went out dancing with a man half her age. The other houses are all jealous.”

“I guess that’s what I don’t understand,” Ramona said thoughtfully. “Chief Dawson really
is
an exception, isn’t she? I mean, this is Texas, which has to have more macho males per square mile than anywhere else in the world. And she could be a fashion model. How in the world did she ever get the job?”

“Right time, right place,” I replied, as Ruby opened the door and we followed her inside.

“I want to hear about it,” Ramona said, heading for the stairs. “But first I have to get out of these pants. They’re ruined. Excuse me.”

Ruby and I went down the hall toward the kitchen. When she moved in, the house was in terrible shape, outside and in. It took months to restore the golden oak woodwork and floors. And then, being Ruby, she papered the walls in bright orange, yellow, even red, electrified with black-and-white stripes and checks and zigzags and polka-dots, like a Mary Englebreit painting.
Bam. Pow. Kazaam
.

But for all this sizzling color and pattern, it’s still a comfortable house, with Ruby’s quilts and weavings hung on the walls, baskets and sculpture and bowls and books arranged on the shelves, with a star map painted on the dark blue living room ceiling. And the kitchen—well, a couple of years ago, Ruby grasped the decorating possibilities inherent in watermelons. She put up red-and-white striped kitchen wallpaper, added a watermelon border, and painted the table red and the four chairs green and red, with little black seeds painted on the seats. A watermelon rug, watermelon place mats, and red and green dishes. It’s a picnic.

Ramona came back downstairs in jeans and a white sleeveless top and the three of us collaborated on supper. Ruby sliced peaches for
shortcake, I made a simple salad with greens from Ruby’s garden, and Ramona took the lid off the slow cooker to stir the soup. While we worked, Ruby and I filled Ramona in on Sheila’s back story. Actually, I was glad to be able to talk about this and get my mind off Larry’s situation, which loomed like a somber cloud at the back of my mind.

“It began with a bad situation in the police department,” I said, “which at the time was all male. A woman named Dolly Patterson applied for an opening as a patrol officer. She had completed three years of college, graduated from the police academy, and had four years’ street patrol experience in El Paso, with excellent evaluations from her field officers. Bubba Harris—he was the chief at the time—passed her over in favor of a guy with no college, no academy, and no experience, who just happened to be the nephew of the city attorney. Ms. Patterson filed a discrimination suit and won, as anybody with a lick of sense could have predicted. Especially the city attorney.”

Ramona put the lid back on the slow cooker. “But I still don’t see what that has to do with—”

“At the time,” Ruby said as she sliced peaches, “Sheila was serving as chief of security on the campus. She had been there only a couple of years, but during that time, she completely reorganized and upgraded the department. She started a training program, purchased new equipment, hired more people—including women and blacks—and earned a couple of national law enforcement awards.”

“Do you have any fresh dill, Ruby?” I asked. “It would be nice for the salad.”

“There’s dill and basil in pots outside the door,” Ruby said. She paused, frowning. “Do we want hot bread? I can open a can of refrigerated crescent rolls and spread them with parsley butter before I roll them up. That would be quick.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said. “Chives with the parsley, too, maybe? And you could grate some cheese into the butter, as well.”

“Make it Parmesan,” Ramona put in. “There’s some in the fridge. And add a squirt of lemon.”

“Parsley, chives, Parmesan, a squirt of lemon,” Ruby said, counting on her fingers. “And butter.”

“Go for it, Ruby,” I said.

“No, you go, Ramona,” Ruby instructed, getting out the can of crescent rolls and turning on the oven to preheat it. “You can bring in the herbs while I lay out the rolls. And don’t forget the dill and basil for the salad.”

A few moments later, Ramona was back in the kitchen with snips of herbs. “So this miracle worker—Chief Dawson, that is—earned a couple of national awards for her work at the university,” she said. “Then what?”

I took up the story. “Dolly Patterson’s discrimination lawsuit resulted in a U.S. Department of Justice consent decree mandating that the department hire women, Hispanics, and African Americans.” I grinned. “The decree came down about the time Smart Cookie was making headlines at CTSU.”

“Ah,” Ramona said, in a knowing tone.

“You got it, Ramona,” Ruby put in, as she mixed the herbs and cheese into the butter. “The time was ripe for a change.”

“Very ripe.” I began tearing basil leaves into the salad. “As it happened, the federal mandate coincided with the election of a pair of women activists to the Pecan Springs city council. They decided that now was the time to turn the department into something that wouldn’t be a permanent legal and social liability and would stop costing mucho dinero in discrimination settlements. They persuaded the council—with
a little help from the new city attorney—that it was time to look for another chief. Bubba Harris resigned, and McQuaid filled in as acting chief for a while. Six months or so, maybe.”

“Some of the council wanted Mike McQuaid to stay on as chief.” Ruby slid me a glance. “But China wouldn’t let him.”

“I couldn’t have stopped him if he’d really wanted to do it,” I replied. “McQuaid hates politics, and the chief’s job is super political. It’s a desk job and he hates that, too.”

Ramona frowned. “I’ve never understood why you call your husband by his last name, China. It seems a little, well, strange.”

“He wasn’t always my husband,” I said. “He was a homicide detective when I met him, and I was a defense attorney. We started off as McQuaid and Bayles. He’s still McQuaid, far as I’m concerned.”

“Anyway,” Ruby put in, “when McQuaid pulled out, he left the field open to Sheila.”

“There were several others in the running,” I said, setting the salad bowl on the table with a pair of salad tongs. “A female sheriff from one of the Valley counties, if I remember right, and another woman who was chief in a little West Texas town. There was a guy from Beaumont, and Clint Hardin, from inside the department. Sheila wasn’t even going to apply—she was starting to get serious about Blackie, who at the time was the Adams County sheriff.”

Ruby had finished buttering the dough triangles and was now rolling them up, wide end first, placing them on a baking sheet. “But Blackie kept encouraging her,” she said “And when the search committee compared years of training and experience, awards, recognitions, that kind of thing, it was clear that Sheila was the top candidate.”

“Her biggest competition,” I added, “came from Clint Hardin. He
was Bubba Harris’ handpicked favorite. And of course, he had the support of the police department. To a man.”