Catwalk (15 page)

thirty-one

The fragrance of warm
yeast enveloped me when Goldie opened her door, and I thought I might swoon. Goldie had taken Leo to
her house the night before, as she often did if I stayed at Tom's after
doggy school, and I was there to pick him up. I had thought I'd just pop in, grab my cat, and go right home, but who can resist fresh,
homemade sweet rolls? So at nine thirty Tuesday morning, I was sitting in my best friend's kitchen sipping a breakfast blend from Charleston Tea Plantation and nibbling my second sweet roll. Leo purred like thunder on the chair beside me, and Goldie told me about her newest project.

“I think I'll give it a try,” she said. “I need a new project for the winter, and I do have a lot of odd recipes.”

“Creative, not odd,” I said, although she was right, some of her concoctions were nothing short of odd. White chocolate and lavender cookies. Chicken licorice soup. Pasta with pine nuts and violas. “If you need photos, let me know. I've always wanted to take photos for a cookbook.”

“So did you ask him?” Goldie has been my biggest cheerleader in the game of love ever since I met Tom, even when I'm not sure what a “win” might look like.

I shook my head, and Goldie's shoulders sagged. I said, “I was just about to, but Hutchinson showed up, and then I called Alberta to see if she was okay. Tom made me a second Irish coffee, and by the time I finished that, I couldn't keep my eyes open.”

Goldie rolled her eyes and got up from the table, our mugs in her
hands.

“I'm going to talk to him today. It's better, really, in the cold light of day.” I wasn't sure whether I was talking to Goldie or myself. “Not
so hormonal, you know?”

Goldie peered out the window as she poured more tea. “Looks cold out there.”

“Miserable. The radio said it's thirty-eight degrees, and it's trying to rain. But it
is
November.” I closed my eyes as another bite of sweet roll worked its magic on my taste buds, then said, “We lucked out for the agility trial.”

“Not everyone,” said Goldie.

“No, not everyone,” I said. “I meant the weather. And I'm not sure
luck had anything to do with Rasmussen's demise.”

“And the police questioned you?”

I thought about the two humorless cops who had come to my house the previous day. “I spent about ninety minutes with them. I'd forgotten how terrifying that is,” I said. “I guess Jo Stevens and Hutchinson scared me like that at first.” Stevens had been Hutchinson's partner when a series of murders rocked the obedience community earlier in the year. We had ended up becoming friends, but I had definitely been on her person-of-interest radar at first.

“Oh, yes, my dear. You were a mess,” said Goldie, stirring a spoon
ful of honey into her tea. “So what did they ask?”

“A lot of questions about where I was all day, and what I was doing.
They knew that Rasmussen's father-in-law was my mother's, umm, friend. They knew Rasmussen had threatened to have me arrested for trespassing last week.” I felt a little woozy and stopped to take a couple of deep breaths. “I think I'm basically off the hook. I mean, Tom vouched for my whereabouts,” I giggled at the sound of that, “and I vouched for his. I'm quite sure our stories matched up, since we both told the truth.”

“Almost always a good idea,” said Goldie.

“So then they asked what I knew about other people's feelings
about Rasmussen. I hated that,” I said. “And besides, I have no idea where
anyone else was when Rasmussen was killed. Tom and I left long be
fore that.”

“But you have your suspicions. Who do you think it was?” Goldie's
eyes sparkled.

“You have a very nosy streak, you know that?” I said.

“Like you don't.”

“No idea. Alberta hated his guts, of course.” Goldie already knew about Rasmussen's attempts to develop the wetlands and woods next to Alberta's house, but she didn't know about their conflict
over the cats. I told her about his campaign against Alberta's trap-neuter-release efforts in their neighborhood. “He wasn't alone, of course, but I guess he was the most vocal and the most threatening.” I pictured him bullying his wife in her studio and at the agility trial. “And he had a violent streak.”

“But why did he care if she fed a bunch of poor, homeless cats?” asked Goldie. “Why would anyone object to kindness?”

“Some people say that feral cats kill too many birds and other animals,” I said. “And that is a problem in some places. It has been in some environments, like islands, where any kind of predator can be a problem for ground-nesting birds, or any endangered species.”

Goldie snorted. “I think there are a lot of bigger dangers to creatures of all kinds in that neighborhood. Like the chemicals they use on the golf course and on their perfect lawns and manicured gardens.” Goldie has a stunning organic backyard filled with flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruit three seasons of the year. Four, really, since she plants shrubs that have winter berries for the birds.

I put down the sweet roll I was nibbling. Talk about ecological violence
always hits me with a cocktail of fury, sorrow, and despair. “I know. Every time I see ducks and geese on the pond by the entrance, I think about the chemicals swimming there with them.”

“So Alberta has been angry at Rasmussen for a long time, right? Why would she kill him now, and why do it at the trial?”

“Well, she was pretty angry about what how he treated his wife, and she probably knew that he tried to move his father-in-law out of Shadetree because his so-called morals were offended,” I said, thinking I'd better go check on my mother when I finished with Goldie.

“Did something push her over the edge, you think?”

Rasmussen's face as he spewed venom at Alberta came back to me. “He said he had ‘taken care of' the cats and rats. We all assumed he had set poison out. Alberta was in a complete panic, of course.”

“That's terrible!” Goldie chopped her sweet roll in half with the butter knife. “He killed the cats?”

“No, Louise made a call and people went out looking for any sign of poison, and they picked up the food that was out, but there was no sign that he had actually done anything.”

Goldie clucked and shook her head. “Emotional violence.”

“And of course his wife
…
widow
…
Louise. Her anger had been building for years, but apparently the way Rasmussen treated he father put her over the edge.” I knew that Goldie's next question would be ‘why Saturday, why there,' so I said, “He yelled at her father, Anthony Marconi, in front of everyone, and shoved him.”

“So Marconi had motive, too, then.”

“Yes. But I just don't think he could have done it.”

“Maybe Rasmussen didn't see it coming,” said Goldie. “Marconi could have clocked him from behind, right?”

I nodded, and went on with my list. “Remember Giselle Swann? She hated Rasmussen, too. And she told me she had sort of blown a gasket at the trial, she was so angry.”

“What did she do?”

I didn't feel comfortable repeating Giselle's story about swinging the pooper-scooper, so I ignored the question. “And Jorge, the handyman at Dog Dayz, hated Rasmussen, too. But I don't know, Jorge is small, shorter than I am and skinny. And that kid, Rudy Sweetwater. But I saw him leave with his mother and he's only fifteen, so he couldn't have driven back.”

“Maybe it's like
Murder on the Orient Express
,” said Goldie.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe they all did it.”

thirty-two

As usual, the parking
lot at the university was packed. Waves of rain and dry leaves whirled in short, raw blasts of wind. As I drove around looking for a space, I spotted Giselle getting out of her car in the far end of the lot. Her wool poncho billowed around her as she hugged a backpack to her body and wrestled with the wind for possession of her umbrella. A sudden gust spun rain and leaves in the air and shook my van. I pulled up beside Giselle just as her umbrella flipped inside out and half the fabric tore loose.

“Get in,” I shouted.

Giselle didn't need a second invitation. “Oh man,” she said. “You're like an angel. Thank you.”

“Ha! I haven't been called that in a while,” I said. “Where are you headed?”

“I have biology class?” Giselle often spoke in the interrogatory when she was stressed.

“No, I mean where? Which building?”

“Oh.” She pulled a tissue from her backpack and blew her nose. “Right here?”

We were approaching the row of visitors' spaces right in front of the doors when a pair of tail lights flashed and a car started to back out. “Looks like you're my good luck for the day,” I said. “I drove by here about five times before I picked you up.”

“Yay,” said Giselle, although her tone belied the usual excitement of the word.

“Are you okay, Giselle?”

“Oh, sure? You know, just busy and everything?” She started to open the door, then sat back and stared at my glove compartment door. “I'm tired of talking to the police, that's all.” Sniff. “And I kind of hope they don't even catch whoever killed that horrible man.” There was no question at all in her tone.

We parted in the lobby. I started down the hall to Tom's office but caught a glimpse of my hair in a glass trophy case and backtracked across the lounge to the restroom for some repair work. I couldn't do much about my fiery cheeks, gift of the sharp November wind, but if I could find a comb, I could at least make it look less like I was wearing a fright wig. I fished around in my tote bag. “Oh, that's where you are,” I said, pulling my missing dog-nail clippers out from under my wallet and a small sample of cat treats I'd forgotten about. I had a nail file and a jaw clip, but no brush or comb, not even Jay's.

“Must be windy out there.” It was Tracy, the secretary from Tom's department. As always, she appeared to have just come from a fashion shoot, which she may have, since she does some part-time modeling.

“Cold, windy, and wet,” I said. I bent over and used my fingers to comb my hair, then stood up, gathered the curly mess, and closed the clip over it. I looked in the mirror and then at Tracy. She shook her head slightly.

“Right,” I said, removing the clip and shaking out the curls.

Tracy smiled and left me searching for my lip balm. I was smearing it on when two young women came in. They both wore jeans, hiking boots, and loose ponytails, and they both seemed to be speaking at once while they scrubbed their hands.

“Couldn't happen to a more odious man,” said the tall one in the cable-knit sweater.

“I know,” said the short one in the turtleneck and sweatshirt. “I hope they never catch the guy who did it.”

“How do you know it was a guy?”

Sweatshirt pivoted toward her friend and, by default, me, her eyes wide. “You're right. It could have been a woman.” She lowered her voice and said, “I heard he beat his wife.” She glanced at me, and as I returned the look, I read the writing on her sweatshirt.
See the Future with ESP
, it said, and below that,
IPFW Environmental Studies Program.

The two women exchanged a look and stopped talking while they dried their hands. They resumed as they went out the door, and the last thing I head was, “Do you think this will stop the development?”

They must have been talking about Rasmussen. Hadn't Tom mentioned a protest from some of the environmental studies students who didn't want the university to accept scholarship funding from him? I couldn't remember the details, but Tom would know.

I shifted my thoughts to the reason for my current visit to the university. I gazed into the reflection of my own eyes for a moment and took three deep breaths. In one-two-three, out one-two-three-four. Then I marched myself out the door and across the lobby, rehearsing what I planned to say. We could combine households, maybe rent the house we aren't living in for a while until we decide, or
…
Really?
asked my companion voices.
You're going with the oh-so-practical appeal for cohabitation?
I decided to stop rehearsing. My guardian angel whispered,
Just say what you feel.

As I approached Tom's office, I heard his voice. He sounded like he was on the phone. “Okay
…
Yes
…
Any other titers besides rabies?
…
How long in advance?”

I stopped outside his door.

“Yes, just a year.” Silence. “And no quarantine, correct?”

My knees went wobbly and my mind raced. Although I had always known that Tom had a sabbatical coming, it had never occurred to me that he might be planning to go abroad. But if he was checking on quarantines and any other antibody titers besides rabies, he had to be thinking of taking Drake out of the country. My mind raced to remember the possible research projects he had told me about. Something in Mexico? I thought so. And some tiny island in the Caribbean, if memory served. Something caught in my chest and I leaned into the wall.

Tom was still speaking, but all I really heard was “
…
list of local veterinarians” and his email address, all wrapped up with, “Okay, thank you very much
…
Goodbye.”

I pulled myself upright and debated what to do. I didn't want him to know I'd been listening in. On the other hand, his door
was
wide open. I decided to leave. I didn't get far.

“Janet?”

I turned and tried to smile, but my mouth didn't want to cooperate and I was afraid I might start to cry.
Stupid hormones
.

Tom said, “I'll be back,” and pulled the door shut. “Where are you going?” Tom caught up to me and kissed my cheek. “I just finished my mountain of papers. Why didn't you come in?”

“Oh, I, uh, was just going to the restroom.”

“I was just going to grab a cup of coffee. Come on.” He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and I let myself be steered toward the cafeteria. Tom stopped outside the women's restroom and said, “I'll wait here.”

For a moment I had no idea what he meant, then remembered what I had said. I went into a stall and leaned against the wall, and told myself it wasn't the end of the world, or even our relationship.
Then why do I feel like I might barf ?
I splashed cold water on my face and patted it dry.

“Are you okay?” Tom asked when I returned.

“Sure. Why?”

“You were in there a long time.” He studied my face, started to speak, and then stopped. “Let's get that coffee.”

We found a table near a window that looked out across an expanse
of grass along the Saint Joseph River. Rain slanted into the glass and
a bank of indigo clouds hung low over the trees to the northwest.

“What's up?” asked Tom.

“No, nothing,” I said. I tried to smile at him, but my mouth felt lopsided.

“What are you doing here on such a rotten day?” He grinned at me.

“Just, you know, running some errands and thought I'd stop and say hi,” I said, marveling at the dopiness of it all. I wanted to ask about what I had heard from outside his office, but I was afraid I'd embarrass myself if he said he was leaving for a year.

Tom gave me the look that said he knew there was more, but he let it go for the time being. “The forecast is a bit better for Thursday. That's good, because I'm not driving to Indianapolis in freezing rain.”

“So you're still planning to go?”
How could he get a puppy if he was also planning to go abroad for a year?
I wondered.

“Of course,” said Tom. “Why wouldn't I?”

I started to feel angry, although I wasn't sure whether it was for my own inability to ask straight out what was happening, or at Tom for not telling me. But I didn't want to get into it in a public place, especially not where Tom worked, so I changed the subject. Again.

“I saw Giselle on my way in,” I said. “She …”

Tom was staring over my head and pointing at something. I was about to turn around when an image on the television across the room caught my eye. A “Breaking News” banner in the upper corner of the screen where a reporter spoke in front of a bevy of emergency vehicles with their lights flashing. A news crawler moved across the bottom, and I caught “
…
bomb squad called to home in southeast Fort Wayne.” Two men were visible behind the reporter. One was Homer Hutchinson. I whipped my head around and saw that the same scenario was playing on another TV behind me. The whole thing was unfolding in front of a house I knew.