To Catch a Leaf (21 page)

“It'll go much easier on you if you do,” Junior added.

“I smelled perfume!” she blurted, then covered her mouth, as though she couldn't believe she'd let it out.

“Where?” Reilly asked, taking notes.

She shook her head.

“Mrs. Dunbar,” Reilly said with a frown, “where?”

“Right here,” she said. “When I came out of my room, I smelled perfume right here.”

“Whose perfume?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said, and began wiping the counter again, her motions extremely agitated. “I didn't want to know. It wasn't my place.”

“You don't have to protect anyone now, Mrs. Dunbar,” Reilly said. “Your loyalty was to your employer. You don't owe these people anything.”

“I can't,” she cried, scrubbing viciously.

I took Reilly's arm and led him out of earshot. “Go easy on her,” I whispered. “She wants to keep her job.”

“She can't withhold information,” he whispered back.

“Then let me handle her.” I walked back to where she was now cleaning the stainless-steel sink with a scouring pad. “I understand your dilemma, Mrs. D., so let me make this easy. I know whose perfume you smelled.”

Her head jerked around and she stared at me openmouthed.

“It was Juanita's,” I said.

“I never said I smelled her perfume,” she cried.

“You didn't have to. I was just with Juanita and Virginia, and I couldn't detect any perfume on Virginia, but I caught a whiff of Juanita's from the opposite end of the hall—”

I stopped.

If Juanita had been in the sitting room, I would have smelled that strong musky scent when I crossed the room to get to the French doors. But there was no perfume in the air. So the mystery whisperer must have been Virginia. Or . . . Mrs. Dunbar?

It couldn't have been the housekeeper. She wouldn't have mentioned hearing beeps if she'd been the one to open the door. Plus, I didn't get any negative vibes from anything she'd said, only nervousness.

I did a mental head scratch, trying to sort out the information. If Virginia was talking to her accomplice on the phone, then she must have been the one to give him access to the house. Yet Mrs. Dunbar had smelled Juanita's distinctive perfume after hearing the beeps, so either Juanita was in on the theft with Virginia, or she was merely sneaking out to meet her lover.

Given Juanita's flirtatious behavior with Marco, my choice was obvious. She had a lover. It would also explain why Virginia hadn't seemed alarmed. However, it would make perfect sense that Constance Newport would be furious. Her daughter-in-law was cheating on her son.

Had Constance threatened to tell Burnsy? Had the two women argued a third time, after Mrs. Dunbar had gone to the garden, and it had ended with Constance's death?

“Is Abby right?” Reilly was saying to the distraught housekeeper when I tuned back in. “Did you smell Juanita's perfume?”

Mrs. Dunbar shrugged three times, sniffling loudly as she reached for a tissue from the box on top of the refrigerator.

“Answer yes or no,” the junior partner said, trying to sound official.

She hesitated, then finally whispered, “Yes.”

“Did you smell Juanita's perfume on the morning of the murder, too?” Reilly asked.

After blowing her nose, Mrs. Dunbar nodded again.

“Will you sign a statement to that effect?” Junior asked.

“A statement?” she cried. “Oh, I couldn't! Please don't tell them I said anything. I don't want to lose my job. I need my job.” Pushing past us, she fled the kitchen, sobbing.

“Now look what you did,” I said to both cops. “I was handling it just fine until you butted in.”

“What
we
did?” Reilly sputtered. “Who's handling this investigation anyway? Wait. Where are you going?”

“To find Marco so I can get back to Bloomers. I've been away too long.” I walked to the back door and opened it, pausing when I spotted the keypad. It was tan, the same color as the wall. How had Marco noticed it?

I walked through the courtyard and had to resist the temptation to check out the rosebushes, which were starting to bud. Okay, where had Lolita taken my man?

To my left was the long, long garage; to my right, a grape arbor; and at the far back of the property, the hedge that surrounded the garden. I saw no sign of Marco and Juanita, but I did see Guy Luce. He'd finished loading his truck and was about to close it.

Hmm
. Just what I needed, a potential eyewitness to all the sneaking going on. “Hey, Guy,” I called, trotting toward him.

He pulled the metal rolling door down with a loud
thunk.
“Yeah?”

“Did you hear the news about Mrs. Newport's art collection?”

“No,” he said, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Something happen to it?”

“Some of her paintings were stolen and copies put in their places.”

His eyes widened in surprise. “Are you sure? Because I don't understand how that could have happened. Someone is always here during the day, and the alarm is set at night.”

“It did happen, Guy. The appraiser discovered the theft just now, and Mrs. Dunbar said that on a number of mornings this past month, she heard beeps, as though the system was being disarmed; then she heard the sound of the back door opening.”

Guy pondered that for a moment. “So someone in the house must have disarmed the security system.”

“That's what it looks like.”

He put one foot on the bumper. “Wow. That'd be awful if one of Mrs. Constance's kids stole her art. Really awful.” He shook his head. “You know, when the lawyer read that part in the will about Mrs. Constance wanting everything appraised right away, I was surprised, because it made it seem like she didn't trust her family. I guess she might have been right.”

Gorgeous Guy had a brain after all. “Can you think of anyone in this family that Mrs. Constance didn't trust?”

He rolled up his shirt cuffs. “All I know is that she trusted me.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Sure did. She said, ‘You're probably the only one around here I can trust, Luce.'”

“When was that?”

“Couple of weeks back.”

“Set the stage for me.”

“Set the stage?”

Okay, maybe I'd been too hasty on the brain judgment. “What were you doing when Mrs. Constance told you that?”

“Driving her to see her lawyer.”

Now I was getting somewhere. “What was the appointment for?”

“I'm just her driver. I don't ask questions.”

“I thought maybe she offered.”

“Nope.”

“Okay, think back to Monday morning. When Mrs. Constance came out to tell you she didn't need you, did she go straight back to her house?”

He scratched his ear. I was beginning to suspect ear mites. “Seems like I remember her going to the far end of the garage.”

“To do what?”

“Probably to see Mr. Griffin. I wasn't really paying attention. I just went back to working on my Harley.”

I was hitting a dead end with that line of questioning. “It would be really helpful to know if you've noticed any unusual activity in the past month, like unfamiliar cars or vans parked in the driveway, strange sounds during the night—that sort of thing.”

He put his foot down and placed the other one on the bumper. “Can't say that I have, but I'm a pretty heavy sleeper.”

My cell phone chirped, and as much as I wanted to ignore it, I was afraid it might be Lottie or Grace with news about her case. I opened the phone and saw a text message from Jillian:
If u want 2 find the cat brglar look 4 the person who's nrvus as a cat. LIKE THE MOVIE. It wrkd 4 Cary Grant. It can work 4 u.

I texted back:
Putting phone on silent works even better
. I changed the settings, stowed the cell, and looked up at Guy. “Has anyone taken a car out early in the morning?”

He used his sleeve to wipe his forehead again. “Like I said, I'm a heavy sleeper.”

“But living over the garage, even a heavy sleeper would be able to hear a garage-door motor grinding as the door rolled up, right?”

“I guess.”

My gut told me he was telling the truth, yet something felt wrong. I looked around for inspiration and spotted Juanita's red Porsche in the third bay, which would be directly below Guy's apartment. “Are you positive you didn't hear Juanita take her car out early on any mornings in the past two weeks?”

He started to reach for his ear, then seemed to catch himself and stuffed his hand in his pocket. “Positive.”

I was stumped. Could Mrs. Dunbar be wrong? Had she smelled Juanita's perfume because Juanita let someone
into
the house? Like the art thief? Would a professional thief risk moving art around that close to dawn?

“I need to get going,” Guy said.

“Okay. Sorry for holding you up.”

I noticed suddenly that both of Guy's ears were bright red. What would cause that? Not an itch certainly, because I'd only seen him scratch the right one. So unless he really did have ear mites, I was guessing that I had said something to cause that embarrassment. I went back over our conversation but couldn't come up with a reason.

Nervous as a cat?

Then a thought popped into my head. Guy was quite a hunk—no comparison with my hunk, of course, but definitely someone who would attract women. Was Juanita having an affair with
him?

“Guy . . .” I began.

“You know,” he said, “now that I think back on it, I do remember seeing something unusual. There were muddy shoeprints running along the driveway here going straight up to the back door.”

Way to change the topic, Guy
.

I heard a door close and turned to see Marco striding across the courtyard toward us.

“Hey, what's up?” he said to me, giving Guy a nod.

“Guy was just telling me about some muddy shoeprints he saw on the driveway heading toward the house.” I took out my notepad and pen and turned back to Guy. “Can you give me a time frame?”

“Seems like I started seeing them about a month ago.”

“When was the last time you saw them?” I asked.

He went to scratch his ear and I nearly grabbed his hand. “Maybe last week.”

“Was there something unusual about the prints that made you notice them?” Marco asked.

“Yeah. They just seemed to start in the middle of the driveway, like someone drove halfway up to the garage, parked, then got out of the car and walked up to the back door. In muddy shoes. And this mud was caked, man. Like clay. Took a shovel to get rid of them.”

“Do you think the prints came from someone living here?” Marco asked.

“Are you joking? People in this family drive straight into the garage. They don't leave their cars parked outside. And they wouldn't be caught dead with mud on their shoes.”

“How many times have you seen the prints?” I asked.

“Like nine or ten times.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It just seemed kind of strange that someone would get out of a car with mud on his shoes. Where had he been, you know?”

“Was there just one set of prints?” Marco asked Guy.

“One set.”

“Man-sized or woman-sized?” Marco asked.

“Big man-sized.” Guy raised one leg so I could see his yellow work boot. “Bigger than my shoes would make.”

“Where did the prints start?” Marco asked.

Guy led us down the driveway about twenty yards. “Right around here.”

What professional art thief would come to steal a painting with mud-caked shoes? It made no sense. I glanced at the surroundings. “The evergreens bordering the east side of the driveway are mulched,” I said to Marco. “No mud there. And there's only grass on the other side.”

“The only place we have dirt is in the garden,” Guy said, “but that's all black loam. I'm telling you, the guy drove here with mud on his shoes.”

“Were they going in just one direction?” Marco asked.

“Yep. From right here up the driveway and around to the back door.”

“Wouldn't someone have seen those same prints inside the house?” I asked Marco.

“He probably removed his shoes,” Marco said. Then to Guy, “Did you mention the shoe prints to anyone in the house?”

“Sure did. I told Mr. Griffin about them.”

“How long ago?” Marco asked.

“Maybe a week ago.”

“Did he seem concerned?”

“All he did was ask me to clean them up.”

I could feel my cell phone vibrating against my hip. Did I dare not check?

After another round of vibrations, I answered quickly. “Hello?”

“Second tip,” Jillian said. “You have to catch the cat burglar before he knows you're after him. That's from the movie, too.”

My blood did a fast boil. “Listen to me, Jillian. If you bother me one more time, you'd better pray I don't catch you!” I ended the call and turned to see Marco and Guy staring at me.

“Sorry,” I said. “Where were we?”

“I was just leaving.” Guy started up the driveway, calling back, “Nice talking with you both.”

“Ready to go?” Marco asked me.

“There's something else I wanted to ask Guy, but Jillian interrupted me and now I can't remember what it was.”

“You can think on the way to town. I need to get back to the bar.”