Ill-Gotten Panes (A Stained-Glass Mystery) (18 page)

Having had the same experience all day, I was unsurprised when again no one answered Scott’s phone. But I was determined to speak with him, and I was in possession of his address and a GPS application on my phone. For the moment, that was all I needed.

I washed my face and hands and pulled my hair into a loose ponytail. Friday didn’t put up a struggle when I moved her from the workroom into the safety of my bedroom. She had a litter box and enough food and water there to keep her satisfied, and I closed the door to keep her from getting into unsupervised mischief.

Grabbing my phone, my purse, and the keys to Grandy’s Jeep, I tugged open the front door.

Diana Davis stood on the porch, finger pointed at the doorbell.

“Diana?” I asked, by which I meant more “What the devil are you doing here?” than “Is that your name?”

Dressed in street clothes of jeans and a plain red T-shirt, she ducked her head, hid her hands behind her back. She looked like any woman you’d meet on the street, not someone tough enough to survive the police academy.

Apparently, I had to be more precise in my questioning. “What are you doing here?” And then it hit me: What if calling the station and hanging up was illegal?

“Look, I . . .” She sighed, a defeated sound that lowered her shoulders and softened her spine. Her gaze met mine. “I came by to apologize.”

I stepped onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind me. “Apologize? To me?”

She brought her hands forward, one on her hip, one a little lower, where the butt of her gun would be were she still in uniform. “Why do you sound shocked? You don’t believe I—” Stopping herself midsentence, she held a hand up, pressed her lips tight. “I, um, I have a little problem misreading people and, you know, jumping to conclusions.”

My brow wrinkled. “Isn’t that kind of a problem in your line of work?”

She huffed and nodded. “Hence the desk assignment.”

I bit back a grin.

“And the other day when you came in, I just . . . assumed you knew all about how my life turned out and were, you know, trying to hide your glee.”

Shaking my head, I said, “I don’t know anything about your life.”

“I know that now.” She stepped backward, keeping her eyes on me, and perched on the porch rail. “I just figured Aunt Grace had told you everything. She said you were in the luncheonette.”

“I was hoping for a blueberry muffin,” I said, then shook my head again and waved a dismissive hand. “At the luncheonette, I mean. Grace didn’t say anything about you except that you help out waiting tables sometimes when the restaurant’s crowded.”

“Yeah, well, I thought you knew everything.”

I chuckled ruefully. “You’d be surprised how much I don’t know.”

“It’s just . . . I had big plans, you know? Yeah, cheering professionally might sound lame, but c’mon. It would have gotten me out of Pace County.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Really. I shouldn’t have laughed. I didn’t give it enough thought.”

But she held up a hand again to forestall me. “I realize that. I do. I just never realize it in the moment. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize. So.” She stood away from the railing. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” I said, because it seemed to be important to her.

She turned to face the steps, looked back over her shoulder at me. “And hey, next time you call the station house and I answer, say something, okay? You don’t have to hang up.”

My cheeks tingled, warning me of an impending blush. “I won’t, thanks.”

She was down the steps before I thought to call her back.

“Hey, Diana, can I ask you a question?”

She turned back to me, eyes narrowed, lips pursed.

I flinched backward. “Never mind. It’s nothing.” I deeply wanted to retreat into the house, but that would look really weak. Better to linger on the porch until she was gone.

Again she held up a hand, palm out. Closed her eyes and visibly took a deep breath before returning her gaze to me. “Sorry,” she said. “I promise, I’m working through my aggression issues. I am. What’s the question?”

I slid to my right, putting the porch railing between me and her, just in case. “What, uh, what kind of crime is it to abandon an animal? Like, say, a kitten?”

“That’s cruelty to animals.”

“And that’s a crime, right?”

“Misdemeanor.” Her eyes narrowed again. “Why?”

The question popped out of my mouth before I could think better of it. “You wanna take a ride?”

W
e took the Jeep. No offense to Diana. I’m sure she was a fine, though aggressive, driver. But I would be no good to Grandy, or Friday, if I landed in the hospital following a motor vehicle accident. Besides, Diana had been on her way home when she stopped by to apologize, so it wasn’t like she had a nice, intimidating, steel-reinforced patrol car in which to roll up to Scott Corrigan’s house.

On the drive over, with the anonymous voice on the GPS calling out the turns, I explained to Diana about finding Friday, about putting up the flyers, and finally hearing from Scott’s girlfriend.

“Could just be this girl wants to make her ex-boyfriend sweat,” she said. “He may have nothing to do with the discarded cat.”

“Will you stop calling her that? Her name is Friday.” I turned right as commanded by the disembodied voice. “Besides, the girlfriend described the kitten.”

“She may have discarded the cat with plans to blame it on the boyfriend.”

“Beans. I never thought of that.”

“You got her name? Her number?”

“No. She called me. So her number will be in my phone.”

Diana flicked down the visor, blocking the sun streaking through the windshield following our last change of direction. “If she called from her phone.”

It was my turn to sigh. “Okay. Let’s start with the boyfriend and go from there.”

I glanced at the GPS display, unconvinced the voice was giving the right directions.

“By the way,” Diana said, “your granddad . . .”

My stomach instantly knotted. “Yeah?”

“He’s doing okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s, you know, not happy. But he’s doing all right. I got a friend over in county keeping an eye on him. Says Pete spent most of the day working on the crossword and conning the guard into bringing him tea.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate you telling me.” I had to smile. The image of Grandy spending his morning much the same as he would have at home comforted me—right up until I mentally drew in the bare mattress and steel bars. “Do you know if his lawyer spoke with Detective Nolan?”

“If he did, the call didn’t come to the station. Chip’s off today.”

Chip. Detective Nolan. It was strange trying to envision the same official-looking man who’d questioned me and arrested Grandy as the sort of man who had a nickname, probably a family, maybe a dog.

I made a mental note to give Drew another call and stored it in my mind conveniently ahead of the mental note to call Mom. If I could avoid calling and explaining to her the entirety of the situation and begging for help coming up with bail money, I would, without question. Making the final turn to Scott’s house, I was still holding out hope the police would uncover a new lead in Andy Edgers’s office. A scary, cartoonish loan shark would be ideal.

The voice on the GPS advised me I’d reached my destination, but the voice didn’t see the cars lining the road in front of the house. I hung a U-turn and parked the car across the street from the faded blue in-line ranch.

Diana was out of the Jeep before I pulled the key from the ignition. “Let me ask the questions, okay?”

“Why you? It’s my cat. I mean, it’s my problem.”

She offered a grim smile and whipped a badge out of her back pocket. “We’ll get to the truth a lot faster if he knows he’s talking to the police.”

“Fair enough.” I mean really, what was I going to do? Flash my library card?

At least Diana let me ring the bell. We stood side by side on the plain cement step, waiting for someone to answer the bell.

As I reached to ring again, the door opened inward, revealing a cheery, heavyset woman with short hair and an impressive array of freckles. “Can I help you ladies?” she asked, squinting a bit, as if she was trying to place our faces.

“We’re here to see Scott. Is he home?” Diana kept her badge concealed, kind of like a secret weapon.

“Big Scott or little Scott?”

Diana looked to me. I shrugged. “Little Scott, I guess.”

Nodding, the woman turned away. She called for Scott, telling him someone was at the door for him.

While we waited, I admired a basket of fuchsia hanging beside the door. In the light of the lowering sun, the pinks and purples of the blossoms shined like gems. If I could find glass to replicate those colors, the leaves and flowers of the fuchsia plant would make a lovely night table lamp. Maybe online—

“What’s up?” A string bean of a teen sporting red hair and freckles clearly inherited from his mother’s side lounged inside the door.

“Scott Corrigan, we need to ask you a couple of questions.” Diana flashed her badge.

Scott’s eyes popped wide. The relaxed lounging posture vanished. He stood straight, tense. “What? I . . .”

“Where were you last Tuesday night?”

Scott looked from Diana to me and back again. “I, um . . .”

“Tuesday night. Wasn’t that long ago.”

“Yeah. I—”

And then he turned his back on us and bolted.

“Where’s he going?” I asked Diana.

“Back door.” She dashed down the steps and disappeared around the side of the house before I recovered sufficiently to consider following her. But what if it was a trick? What if the kid planned to backtrack and escape out the front?

One thing was clear: This was our culprit in the discarded cat case.

When a door in the near distance screeched open, followed by a loud
oof
, I figured Diana had been right. I double-timed it down the steps and jogged around the side of the house.

Diana had Scott pressed up against the aluminum siding, one hand pulled up behind his back in a classic half nelson. “Now we can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way,” she snarled.

Uh-oh. Aggression issues. “Wait, wait, wait!” I called.

Scott’s mom burst through the side door, all her cheer gone. “What’s going on out here?”

Keeping a grip on the kid, Diana looked to his mother. “We need some information from your son.”

“Let go of him.” Mrs. Corrigan said. “Who are you?”

“Pace County Police.” Diana released her grip on Scott but remained close enough to grab him again if he tried to run.

Mrs. Corrigan’s look of surprise shifted to one of anger. She narrowed her eyes at her son. “Scott, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Scott said. “Nothing, I swear. I didn’t see anything.”

If we weren’t standing on soft ground, we could have heard a pin drop. If someone were in possession of pins.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Scott said.

His mom folded her arms and glared. “Scott.”

Scott clenched his jaw, lifted his chin in a show of defiance. But his eyes shifted from face to face to house to ground, and he held himself too still to be anything but afraid.

“Maybe we can start at the beginning,” I suggested. With no one objecting, I continued. “Did you leave a white kitten in the parking lot behind Edgers Hardware last Tuesday night?”

“Yes. No.” He glanced between me and Diana again, avoiding his mother’s glare entirely. That part I could relate to.

“Which is it?” I asked.

Diana pulled a face. “You’re supposed to let me ask the questions.” She looked to Scott. “Well?”

“I, uh, I lost the kitten. She got out.” Sweat gathered on his brow, glistened across his freckled nose. “And I tried to catch her but she went behind the stores and I lost her.”

“Last Monday night,” Diana said.

“Yes. It was Tuesday night. Definitely Tuesday.”

Mrs. Corrigan planted her fists on her wide hips. “Scott Michael Corrigan Junior, don’t you dare lie to these police officers.”

“Oh, no. Not me,” I said. “I’m not an officer. I’m just the one who found the kitten.” I glared at Scott. “On Wednesday morning. In a box.”

“Scott,” his mother said in that warning voice moms do so well. “You were home all day Tuesday playing that cod game.”

“All right fine.” Scott put his hands on either side of his head. “It was Monday. And it’s C-O-D, Mom, not cod.”

Moving her hands to her back pockets, Diana skewered Scott with the kind of suspicious glare all police officers learn to master. “Why lie about the day?” she asked.

“I didn’t lie.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “I just lost track of the days.”

“Scott,” his mother warned.

“What is it you saw when you discarded the kitten in the parking lot Monday night?” Diana asked.

“I told you. The kitten got away. I was just chasing her, trying to get her back.”

I folded my arms. “And yet, in all the time I spent putting up found kitten flyers, I never came across a single notice for a lost kitten.”

Diana held up a hand to hush me, then shook her head and changed the full-stop motion to a single-fingered
give me a minute
. “Scott, are you aware that intentionally setting loose a domestic pet is considered animal cruelty?”

“N-No?”

“Are you aware that animal cruelty is a crime punishable by up to a year in jail?”

Scott looked at his mother. “Mom?”

Mrs. Corrigan sprang into action. “Inside, everyone. Inside.” She waved to the side door. “No need to put on a show for the neighbors.”

We filed into the house, the side door entrance leading directly into the kitchen. I caught the edge of Diana’s sleeve, slowing her sufficiently so I could say, “I just want to know if I can keep the kitten, really. Is all of this necessary?”

“There’s something more going on here,” she murmured.

Scott’s mother settled us around a kitchen table with an artificial African violet plant at its center. Scott slumped into a chair, hands folded loosely in front of him.

“I want to know what you saw,” Diana said to Scott.

“I didn’t see anything.”

Resting her forearms on the table, she leaned forward. The aggression she was reputedly dealing with held her spine rigid. “I can arrest you right now, Scott, and have you brought into the station on charges of animal cruelty.”

“I didn’t—”

“Or you can tell me what you saw that night and we can let my friend here keep the kitten and you can get back to
Call of Duty
instead of having your fingerprints and mug shot taken.” She glanced up as Mrs. Corrigan set a glass of iced tea in front of her. “Thank you.”

On her way to her chair, Mrs. Corrigan smacked the back of her son’s head. “Tell the officer what she needs to know.”

I lifted the glass of tea Mrs. Corrigan had given me and took a long drink. The motion gave me something to do with my hands, some way to distract myself from an uncomfortable situation.

“But if I tell you what I saw,” Scott said, “you’re going to arrest me anyway.”

Mrs. Corrigan gasped. “What are you saying? What did you do?”

Both Diana and Scott ignored her. Scott stared unwaveringly at his hands; Diana stared at Scott. “Why do you think I would do that?” she asked.

“I dunno, like, obstruction of justice or something,” Scott mumbled.

“You tell me what you saw, and I promise
I
won’t arrest you.”

He looked at his mother, whose slight nod conveyed support and encouragement. “When I was . . .” He paused, sighed, and began again. “I liked the kitten, okay? But every time I looked at it, it reminded me of Phoebe.”

“Who’s Phoebe?” I asked Mrs. Corrigan in a whisper.

The distasteful turn of her lips spoke volumes. “The ex-girlfriend.”

“So you let the cat loose?” Diana suggested.

“I brought her out to Griffin Park. I wanted to drop her in the lot behind the stores, but I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I went through Griffin, over to the back fence.” He shrugged halfheartedly. “I just kinda dropped her over the fence.”

I clenched my teeth, held my jaw tight to keep from calling him a careless jerk. The look on his mother’s face told me he’d be getting in enough trouble for that later.

“Right away I felt bad. It was a stupid thing to do. I was just so mad at Phoebe.” He removed his hands from the table. “I figured the best thing to do was climb over the fence and get her back. And that’s when I . . . saw . . .”

Though the room was nicely air-conditioned, Scott’s tone seemed to pull the air from the room. I don’t believe any of us breathed while we waited for him to finish his thought.

“I saw Bill Harper coming out the back door of the hardware store.”

My voice rang with disbelief. “Bill Harper? The grocer?”

Scott nodded. His mother gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

“And?” Diana prompted Scott gently.

“And he was carrying a brick. And his pants were . . . they were messed up, like he’d spilled something on them, you know?”

“Spilled coffee maybe?” his mother asked.

He turned to face her, his tough teen exterior slipping away and leaving a little boy behind. “No, Ma. I think it was blood.”

*   *   *

A
fraid of calling attention to himself, Scott had left the kitten where she was and scampered. His guilt over abandoning the kitten paled in comparison over his fear for his life.

Back in the Jeep, Diana called Detective Nolan at home while I reset the GPS to direct us to downtown Wenwood. It wouldn’t have done to allow me to remain at the Corrigan house, where I was furious at Scott both for dropping a kitten over a fence and for withholding information from the police that might have kept my grandfather out of police custody. I might have channeled some of Diana’s aggression issues.

Behind the grocery store, I headed for my usual parking spot beneath the walnut tree.

“What are you doing?” Diana asked.

“Parking the car. And beginning to see why you’re not a detective yet.”

She shook her head. “Nope. You’re dropping me here and heading home. This is police business.”

I shifted the Jeep into park and pulled the key from the ignition. “This is about my grandfather. I’m not leaving.”

“You are. This could get dangerous.”

“You’re not going to say something clichéd like, ‘We already have one murder on our hands,’ are you?”

Diana sighed. “Not saying it doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Well, I’m not leaving. If what Scott said is true and Bill Harper came back here after . . . visiting Andy”—I let out a breath—“then there’s evidence in there that could lead to my grandfather’s release. I’m going to be here when it’s found.”