Meow or Never (Vanessa Abbot Cat Protection League Cat Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) (4 page)

They drove out of town and along a
deserted country back road. Trees and wooded hills stood on either side of the
road, and the vehicle passed over bubbling streams and through shady glades.
Vanessa took a deep breath of the breeze coming through the window. “It’s very
nice out here. You don’t realize what you’re missing until you get out of
town.”

“Just wait until we get to the
property,” Julie replied. “It’s the most tranquil setting you can imagine. It
will be perfect for your cats.”

“And for me, too, I hope,” Vanessa
added.

“Of course, of course,” Julie
exclaimed.

Vanessa gazed out the window and went
into a happy dream. What would her life be like if she could look out at trees,
fields and sky all the time instead of a dingy city street? What would her cats
lives be like if they weren’t shut up in that cold apartment all the time?

The property Julie took her to see
consisted of a wooden frame farmhouse situated on thirty acres of forest. A few
meager lawns surrounded the house, but quickly turned to forest just beyond
where the lawn mower stopped cutting them.

Julie parked her SUV on the road
outside the gate. Vanessa got out on the passenger side with her crate in one
hand.

“What is that place over there?”
Vanessa pointed across the road.

“That’s the Jorgensen farm,” Julie told
her. “But that barn hasn’t been used in nearly sixty years. Look, the roof is
half caved in, and most of the siding boards have rotted off. There’s no one
there to look at you. You can be sure of that.”

“Why don’t they tear it down?” Vanessa
asked.

“The Jorgensen family went to court to
try to get permission to replace it with a barn they could actually use,” Julie
told her. “Their request was denied. The city council ruled that if they tore
this barn down, they couldn’t replace it with anything. They had to leave the
land bare, except for farming.”

“That’s a bit silly, isn’t it?” Vanessa
asked.

Julie shrugged. “That’s local politics
for you. The Jorgensens don’t want to tear it down now. They think they might
try again to get permission later, in a few years or so.”

Vanessa nodded. “I see.”

“Are you ready to go inside?” Julie
asked.

Julie unlocked the gate and they walked
toward the house. Vanessa stopped in front of the porch and set the crate on
the ground. She flicked the latch, and the door fell open.

Julie gasped. “You’re sure it won’t run
away?”

Vanessa smiled up at her. “You just
watch.” She took a step away from the crate.

Nothing happened for a long minute. The
two women stared down at the crate. Every so slowly, a speckled cat stuck his
nose through the door and sniffed the air. Then he sneezed and his head
emerged.  He took the first tentative
step onto the grass.

Julie watched in rapt attention. The
cat stepped lightly onto the lawn. “How will you know if it’s all right?”

Vanessa didn’t answer. The cat crept
forward with every whisker alert. He twitched his nose one-way and then
another. Then he trotted forward and hopped up on the porch. He sat down in the
sunshine and started cleaning his coat.

Vanessa smiled at Julie. “We can go in
now.”

Julie’s eyes flew open. “Just like
that?”

Vanessa nodded. “Henry knows his
business. You can trust him.”

“How do you know your other cats will
like it just as much?” Julie asked.

“Henry knows,” Vanessa replied. “If he
likes it, the others will like it, too. He wouldn’t say it’s okay if it
wasn’t.”

“When did he say it was okay?” Julie
asked.

Vanessa dropped her eyes. “Just now.
Now can we go inside? I want to have a look around.”

Julie showed her the house. Then they
took a walk around the grounds. After an hour or so of giving the place a
thorough inspection, Vanessa put Henry in the crate and took him back to
Julie’s car.

“What did you think?” Julie asked. “Do
you think you might go for it?”

“It’s very nice,” Vanessa asked. “I
think my cats and I would be very happy here.”

“Then would you like to make an offer?”
she asked.

Vanessa blushed and turned toward the
car. “I’ll have to discuss that with the bank. But I will tell you that I would
love to buy it.”

Julie smiled, and Vanessa picked up
Henry’s crate to put it in the car. At that moment, the cat let out a yowl that
set Vanessa’s hair on end. He screeched and scratched and fought to get out of
the crate.

“What is wrong with you, Henry?”
Vanessa asked. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“He didn’t act that way on the trip out
here,” Julie pointed out. “Something set him off.”

“He never acts like this—ever,” Vanessa
replied. “That’s why I brought him. He’s the most even-tempered cat in the
world.”

“Well, he’s not being very
even-tempered now, is he?” Julie remarked. “Do you want to take him out and see
if he settles down?”

Vanessa shook her head and slid the
crate into her seat. “Let’s just go. Maybe he’ll settle down when we get on the
road.”

Julie nodded and got into the driver’s
seat. Vanessa took one last look around, and at that moment the sun reflected
off something over in the dilapidated barn across the road. At first, she
discounted it as a reflection on the broken glass in the old windowpanes. But
then she looked again and realized the bright light blinked back and forth. The
reflective surface was moving.

Vanessa peered closer at the building
and saw the moving reflection in one of the broken windows. A shape rose up
over the windowsill, and a human head appeared behind the shining light.
Vanessa could just make out the sandy brown hair swept sideways, the mustache
above the upper lip, and the square cut of the jaw.

Vanessa caught her breath, and her
heart nearly burst out of her chest. She blinked, but she couldn’t deny the
evidence of her own senses. The person over in the barn window, watching her
through binoculars, was none other than Walter Connelly!

As she watched, Walter bent down and
picked up something from the floor at his feet. He brought it out and rested it
on the windowsill. Vanessa strained her eyes to see what it was. Then the sun
reflected on something else, but it wasn’t anything as shiny as the round glass
of binoculars. This was something black and thin, and Walter held it up to his
face and squinted at her from behind it.

The first thought of what it was
flickered through Vanessa’s mind, but it was too late. The first gunshot ripped
through the tranquil countryside. The bullet sang over her head and over the
SUV behind her. In the back of her mind, Vanessa heard Henry screeching in his
crate. Good old Henry. He always knew when something like this was about to
happen, and he always tried to warn her. Thank Heaven she brought him with her.

Vanessa ducked her head as the second
shot thumped into the side of the SUV.

“What in the name of all that’s holy is
going on?” Julie bellowed.

The third gunshot blasted through the
air, and the window next to Vanessa shattered into a cloud of powder. She covered
her head with her hands and spun around to protect her face from the gunshots.

She dove into the passenger seat.
“Drive!” she screamed to Julie. “Drive!”

“What is going on?” Julie cried again.

“Can’t you see?” Vanessa shouted.
“Someone’s shooting at us. Now get this car started and get us out of here.
He’ll kill us if we stay here.”

Julie turned the key in the ignition,
but another bullet hit the front windshield and it crumpled in a curtain of
tiny shards. Julie screamed and let go of the ignition key. She clutched the
sides of her head and screamed through the gaping hole where the windshield
used to be.

Vanessa started to yell at her again,
but changed her mind. She seized the key and turned it over herself. The engine
roared to life. She grabbed the gearshift and threw the SUV into drive. She
slammed her hand down on Julie’s knee and pushed her foot down hard on the gas
pedal.

The SUV shot forward and almost ran
into a clump of trees by the side of the road. The car in motion snapped Julie
out of her terror. She grabbed the steering wheel and turned the vehicle out of
the way just in time.

Julie kept her foot jammed down on the
gas pedal when Vanessa let her go, and the SUV tore down the road away from the
property, away from Walter, and away from the shooting. A cloud of dust
separated them from the danger.

After a while, the two women calmed
down and Julie drove at a regular speed again. They reached the main highway
back to Caspar Crossing, and they sighed with relief.

All at once, Julie screeched off the
pavement and braked the SUV to a stop on the side of the road. “What is going
on? Who was that shooting at us?”

Vanessa took a deep breath and turned
to Julie “Who knew you were coming out here to show me this property?”

Julie gasped in surprise. “Just the
other people in my office, my secretary, the other agents, and our general
manager. I always tell them where I’m going, and I have to make a record of
viewings for the owners so they know how much traffic they’re getting in
potential buyers. Why do you ask?”

Vanessa closed her eyes and shook her
head. “Never mind.” Then her eyes snapped open. “No, wait a minute. I want you
to give me a list of all their names.”

“What for?” Julie cried.

Vanessa let out a shaking breath. “I
know it’s not something you normally do, but this is part of a murder
investigation. A man just tried to shoot us, and someone in your office must
have told him where we were going. I have to have those names.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Julie
replied. “If it’s part of a murder investigation, shouldn’t the police be
asking for those names?”

Vanessa drooped and nodded. “You’re
right. I’ll tell Detective Wheeler to get in touch with your office.”

Julie gasped. “Is it really all that
important?”

Vanessa settled back in her seat. “It’s
a matter of life and death.”

Vanessa strode into the police station
and approached the front desk. “Where’s Detective Wheeler?”

“I’m right over here,” he called out.

Vanessa caught sight of Penny
Cartwright and Alan Braitwaite standing next to Pete’s desk. “Walter Connelly
is here in town.”

His eyes flew open. “What?”

Vanessa nodded. “I saw him watching me
through binoculars, and then he shot at me.”

Pete rose to his feet. A black cloud
darkened his face. “Where?”

“That’s just the thing,” she told him.
“He was in an old abandoned barn across the road from the property I just went
to look at. Someone from the real estate agent’s office must have found out I
was there and tipped him off.”

“You should have found out who works in
the office,” he replied. “We could have compared their criminal records to see
if any of them have any past or present connection to Walter.”

“I tried to,” Vanessa told him. “The
agent wouldn’t give me that information. She said if it really is part of a
murder investigation, she should be talking to the police.”

Pete nodded and sat down in his chair
again. “Fair enough. At least we have somewhere to look.”

“How do you explain him being here in
town?” Vanessa asked. “He’s supposed to be under house arrest in Washington.”

Pete shrugged. “Who knows what lurks in
the minds of the federal government? Maybe their idea of house arrest is not
going out for pizza. I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is how
we’re going to deal with him now that he’s here.”

“Can’t you just drive out there and
arrest him?” she asked.

“He’ll be long gone by now,” Pete
replied. “Besides, now that we know he’s here, he’ll be a lot easier to spot
than trying to find some mystery stranger. We all know what Walter looks like.
We don’t have to try to find out who’s doing his dirty work for him.”

“He could still be using agents,”
Vanessa pointed out. “He wouldn’t be going around blowing up aluminum plants
and cutting brake lines himself. That would be beneath him.”

“You would think,” Pete replied, “that
sneaking around abandoned barns and spying on people with binoculars would be
beneath him, too. You would think he would send someone else to shoot at you.
That way, if you happened to catch sight of them, you wouldn’t recognize the
person. But he didn’t. He wanted to see you for himself. He might feel the same
way about cutting my brake lines and blowing up the plant. He might not trust
an agent to do the job right.”

Vanessa waved a finger at him. “You
can’t tell me that Walter Connelly—
Doctor
Walter Connelly—criminal
mastermind and underworld kingpin, snuck into that plant, climbed up that
scaffold, and drilled a hole in a copper gas line just to silence a potential
witness. You’re taking this whole thing too far. Besides, as you said, someone
would recognize him, especially there at the plant, since he wasn’t a regular
employee.”