Independence Day in Cherry Hills Read online

  Regrettably, she didn’t think a pillow would help with the noise inside her head. Her brain was buzzing from everything she’d learned about Mitch Townsend, Eunice Berkowitz, and Niles Quayle, any one of whom might be a killer. When Kat did finally drift off, images of firearms and murder suspects and victims with gunshot wounds to their backs rotated through her dreams like a disturbing slideshow.

  The fireworks ceased sometime during the night, and Kat awoke in the morning to find Tom on her pillow, his tail wrapped around her head. Kat didn’t know where Matty had slept, but the tortoiseshell was currently sitting on her chest, her nose almost touching Kat’s. As soon as Kat’s eyes opened Matty meowed right in her face.

  Even a zombie apocalypse wouldn’t dampen Matty’s appetite, Kat thought ruefully as she gently pushed the tortoiseshell aside. One of these days her fantasy of sleeping in would come true, but today was not that day.

  Kat didn’t feel like cooking, so after serving Matty and Tom their breakfast she pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and headed to Jessie’s Diner. Last night’s manicotti at Taste of Tuscany had been delicious, but right now she could go for a good old-fashioned American breakfast of biscuits and eggs. Tomorrow was the country’s birthday, after all.

  Her mouth started watering as soon as she walked into the restaurant and got a whiff of all the wonderful aromas wafting through the air. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to cook this Sunday morning. Almost every seat in the place was occupied, and several families hovered by the door as they waited for a table to open up. Lucky for Kat, she was here alone and there was one unoccupied stool available in the middle of the counter.

  She weaved through the crowd and slid onto the empty seat. The bearded man to her right gave her a look that made it clear he didn’t appreciate her presence. Unfortunately for him, she didn’t plan on moving. It wasn’t as if he needed the counter space. All he had in front of him was a cup of coffee.

  She was all set to ignore him when her gaze landed on the back of his left hand. Three long, red, scabbed-over scratches extended from his knuckles all the way to his wrist.

  A jolt of awareness shot through her. Hadn’t Ani Bedrossian told her that Bonnie had injured her ex-husband in such a fashion? And if Ani’s foster cat was responsible for those marks, that meant this man was Mitch Townsend—one of the prime suspects in Jay LaPierre’s murder.

  Apparently the universe really wanted her to be investigating Jay’s death.

  Her heart pounded as her eyes moved from Mitch’s hand to his face. With his menacing scowl and the thick, dark beard that reminded her of Charles Manson, he certainly looked like a person capable of murder.

  “What are you looking at?” he said, an unmistakable challenge in his voice.

  “I’m pretty sure I recognize you.” She thought fast, needing to come up with a story that didn’t involve Ani or her foster charges. “Didn’t we run into each other at a bar on Friday?” Ani had said Mitch had come over drunk that night.

  He took a sip of his coffee. “I wasn’t at any bar on Friday.”

  “Then I must have seen you at the liquor store.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “If you say so.”

  She hoped he hadn’t been too intoxicated to remember exactly what he’d done Friday night. She’d just have to go with it and hope he hadn’t been so far gone that he wouldn’t recall shooting a man.

  “You’re Mitch, right?” Kat said.

  “That’s right.” Mitch eyed her over the rim of his mug. “And you were . . . ?”

  “Kat.”

  “Kat.” He snickered. “Hope you’re up to date on your rabies shot.”

  Kat could tell from his tone he intended the jab to be mean-spirited. She was starting to see for herself what Ani had alluded to. Mitch was a bully.

  Kat plastered a bright smile on her face, refusing to react the way he undoubtedly wanted her to. Instead she would give him perky with a frustrating dose of ignorance, figuring that would be the most effective combination to counter his aggression.

  “So what brings you here this beautiful morning?” she chirped.

  “What’s beautiful about it? I’ve got bills up the wazoo, my apartment is a dump, and my ex is living like a queen on the money that should have been mine.”

  “You’ve still got your health,” Kat said.

  Mitch set down his mug and stared at her as if she didn’t have a functioning brain cell in her head. “My health isn’t going to pay the rent.”

  Kat laughed as if he’d cracked a joke. “Well, if you can eat out you must be managing okay.”

  Mitch slammed his fist on the counter, startling the smile right off of Kat’s face. A flicker of fear licked through her insides. Both Clarissa and Ani had told her he had a temper, and now she was witnessing it in person.

  The waitress behind the counter had been about to approach them, but Mitch’s outburst froze her in her tracks. With wide eyes she did an about-face and scurried back the way she’d come.

  “My life isn’t a joke, got that?” Mitch’s tone dripped with venom. “So while I might treat myself to a good meal every once in a blue moon, don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that witch Ani didn’t cheat me. She did. And you wait and see. One of these days she’s going to get hers.”

  Kat dropped the friendly facade and leaned back to put some distance between them. “You mean like how Jay LaPierre got his?”

  Mitch’s eyes darkened. “It doesn’t surprise me somebody shot that skunk. He helped Ani cheat me, and charged me heartily for the privilege. And I can’t be the only person he scammed.” He scoffed. “Clean ’Em Out King, my foot. I bet he made up that nickname himself so he could charge those exorbitant fees of his.”

  “You have to admit, it is catchy.”

  “Yeah, well, tell me this. If Mr. La-Di-Da really thought he could ‘clean ’em out,’ why didn’t he get a divorce himself?” Mitch wagged one finger in Kat’s face. “Never trust a lawyer that won’t use his own services.”

  Kat resisted the temptation to slap his hand away. “Or maybe he loved his wife,” she proposed. “Maybe that’s why he never divorced her.”

  Mitch sneered. “You don’t have a clue, do you? That woman was playing him for a fool.”

  “How so?”

  “How so?” he mimicked. He rolled his eyes. “By boinking the neighbor, of course.”

  Kat’s ears rang. “Clarissa is having an affair with her neighbor? You mean Floyd?”

  Mitch snapped his fingers. “That’s his name. I caught them myself once, when I stopped by the house with some legal papers. There was good old Floyd, looking right at home in her kitchen.”

  “How do you know he wasn’t just visiting like any good neighbor?”

  Mitch stared at her as if she must be the densest person in Cherry Hills. “You let any of your neighbors lounge around your kitchen with their shirts half untucked?”

  Kat played through the scene at the LaPierres’ house Friday night. At the time she’d been too focused on Jay’s death to give much thought to Clarissa and Floyd’s behavior toward each other, but now little things were setting off alarms in her head. The way they had been standing close enough for their shoulders to touch before Floyd had stepped away. The way Clarissa had corrected him when he’d said he had come out of the house instead of over to the house when he’d first heard the gunshot.

  “When the Jay-bird’s away, the neighbors will play.” Mitch chuckled as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “La-Di-Da’s old lady probably got tired of entertaining her neighbor man on the sly and shot the snake herself.”

  Kat thought about Clarissa’s startling lack of emotion after her husband had been shot and killed Friday night. She had thought perhaps the new widow was in shock, but what if that wasn’t the case at all? What if it was exactly as Mitch surmised, and Clarissa was secretly thrilled to finally have her husband out of her life for good?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Kat was sti
ll dwelling over a potential affair between Clarissa LaPierre and Floyd when she left Jessie’s Diner. Although Mitch could have made up that story to deflect suspicion off of himself, the more she thought about it the more sense it made. Floyd had seemed awfully comfortable on the LaPierres’ porch.

  And if Clarissa had wanted a way out of her marriage, she might very well have considered murder to be her only option. She couldn’t have expected to fare well in a divorce against the Clean ’Em Out King, not if she believed everything she’d told Andrew about Jay’s shady practices. A sudden death—even one administered by gunshot—was bound to be less messy.

  All these thoughts were swirling through Kat’s head as she drove away from the restaurant. She didn’t even realize she had turned down Clarissa LaPierre’s street until she was almost at her house.

  She slowed the car, surveying the homes she passed. She wondered which one was Floyd’s—assuming he really was a neighbor. For all Kat knew, that could have been a story the couple had made up to explain the frequency of his visits.

  She didn’t spot Floyd, but she did spy Clarissa as she neared the LaPierre residence. Clarissa was sitting in the same Adirondack chair Floyd had occupied on Friday night. With a glass of lemonade in one hand and a brownish tabby cat on her lap, she looked as relaxed as a woman on vacation. She certainly wasn’t the stereotypical picture of a grieving widow.

  Before she could think about what she was doing, Kat turned into the driveway, got out of her car, and started across the stone pathway leading to the porch. At the sight of her, the tabby lifted his head and began thumping his tail against the side of the chair. Clarissa, on the other hand, stayed as still as a statue. If it weren’t for her eyes following Kat’s approach, Kat would be left to wonder if she’d even noticed her.

  Kat climbed the porch steps but didn’t go any farther. “Hello again,” she said, offering Clarissa a smile.

  “Hello.”

  Clarissa’s voice was flat, but Kat was just happy she wasn’t kicking her off the property.

  “I was wondering if I could talk to you about a few things,” Kat said.

  Clarissa lifted one shoulder as if it didn’t make any difference to her. With his ears rotated in her direction and his eyes wide with curiosity, the tabby seemed more interested in what Kat wanted than his human.

  Kat pressed on anyway. “I’d like to ask—”

  “What was your name again?” Clarissa interrupted. “I apologize, but I don’t believe I caught it on Friday, what with everything else going on.”

  “I understand. And my name is Kat.”

  Clarissa ran one hand down the tabby’s back. “Like the animal?”

  “Spelled with a k, but yes. Speaking of which, I don’t remember seeing him on Friday.” Kat nodded at the tabby.

  Clarissa set her lemonade on the porch floor and slid the cat off of her lap before standing up. “That’s because he was inside the house. I often let him out, but not when he’s liable to run into the street because he got spooked by a firecracker.”

  Kat thought about the orange tabby in Eunice Berkowitz’s care. “Good thinking.”

  Clarissa scratched the cat’s ears. “His name is Habby.”

  “Tabby?”

  “Habby. Short for Habeas Corpus, the legal term. Jay named him.”

  Habby stretched out across the chair seat and hooked his paws over the side. He watched Kat the whole time, as if to deter any thoughts she might have about stealing his spot.

  “Where’s Floyd today?” Kat asked.

  “He’s at his house.”

  “You two looked pretty close the other night.”

  A muscle in Clarissa’s cheek twitched. “What of it?”

  “I’m curious about the nature of your relationship.”

  “We’re neighbors.” Clarissa’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “But I don’t believe that’s what you’re asking.”

  Kat shook her head. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Then to answer your question, yes, Floyd and I are an item. And yes, I was married when we first became involved.”

  Clarissa lifted her chin up, as though daring Kat to pass judgment. But Kat wasn’t here to take a moral stand. Her only interest in their affair was with how it might relate to Jay LaPierre’s murder.

  “You didn’t mention you two were involved when Andrew—Detective Milhone—was here on Friday,” Kat said.

  “I didn’t think it was any of his business.”

  “He’s investigating your husband’s murder, and now it turns out Floyd has a huge motive. How is that not his business?”

  Clarissa walked closer, stopping a few feet away from Kat. She leaned against the porch railing and folded her arms over her chest. “Floyd didn’t kill Jay. He was here, with me.”

  “And Jay was shot here,” Kat pointed out.

  “I can assure you, Floyd didn’t kill Jay.”

  “So you can swear he never left your sight ever? You knew Jay was on his way home, so it seems to me Floyd might have been preparing to sneak away around the time that gunshot went off. Are you positive he never excused himself to supposedly check his appearance one last time in the bathroom mirror, or that he never claimed to be off tracking down a lost sock or something while you were in another part of the house?”

  Clarissa hesitated, a pause just long enough for Kat to deduce her theory wasn’t too far off the mark. And killing Jay wouldn’t have required much time. Either one of them could have sneaked outside when they heard Niles drive up, fired that shot, then raced back into the house in under a minute.

  Which brought up another question. “Do you or Jay own a gun?” Kat asked.

  “No.”

  “Does Floyd have a gun?”

  Clarissa straightened away from the railing, her hands falling to her sides. “Why don’t you ask him that yourself.” She jutted her chin at something past Kat’s shoulder.

  Kat turned around. Sure enough, there was Floyd making his way across the lawn. He slowed when he spotted her, then sped up a moment later as though to compensate.

  “Hello again,” he said. The smile on his face was too wide to be genuine.

  “Hello,” Kat said, mustering up her own semblance of a smile.

  Floyd joined them on the porch. Kat expected him to stand by Clarissa, but instead he chose a spot closer to the house, one that put him at a respectable distance from the woman he was supposedly just neighbors with.

  Habby, however, didn’t have any qualms about anyone figuring out the nature of his relationship with Floyd. He jumped off the chair and jogged over to greet their visitor with a series of enthusiastic meows and some robust ankle rubs.

  In the cat’s haste, he knocked something off the chair. Kat craned her neck, trying to see what had clattered to the porch floor. She spied an orange prescription bottle swaying gently from side to side. Unfortunately, she was too far away to read the label.

  Floyd looked between Kat and Clarissa as he picked up Habby. “What are you two discussing?”

  “Our affair,” Clarissa replied.

  Floyd blanched, and his mouth dropped open. He dipped his head toward Habby, making a big show of adjusting the cat in his arms. Clearly he wasn’t as unruffled about making their relationship public as Clarissa seemed to be.

  “Kat here also wants to know if you own a gun,” Clarissa said.

  Oddly enough, Floyd seemed much more comfortable with that topic. Some of the color returned to his face as he finally dared to tear his eyes away from Habby. “A pistol, you mean?” he asked Kat.

  She shrugged. “Any type of gun.”

  “I have several hunting rifles.”

  Kat wished she knew enough about firearms to determine whether a hunting rifle could have caused the wound Jay had sustained.

  “Jay wasn’t shot with a hunting rifle,” Floyd said, as if reading her mind. “At least, not one like mine. I could see that all the way from here.”

  Habby squirmed in Floyd’s arms. Floyd started
to put him down, but Habby jumped before he could finish. The end result was an ungainly leap that caused the cat to land half on his side. He darted furtive glances at the humans to gauge whether they’d noticed. When he spotted Kat looking at him, he averted his eyes and began licking one paw as though to communicate that his little stumble had been intentional.

  Nobody else seemed to notice the feline’s embarrassment. Clarissa and Floyd had their eyes on each other.

  “Before you arrived I told Kat you had nothing to do with Jay’s death,” Clarissa said to Floyd. “But she insisted on asking about your guns anyway.”

  “She’s only doing her job,” Floyd replied. “The police have to investigate every angle.”

  Clarissa sighed. “Yes. I know.”

  Kat shifted her feet. Apparently her arrival with Andrew yesterday had left them both with the impression she was also a member of the Cherry Hills Police Department. She knew she should set them straight, but somehow it seemed pointless to say anything now. She’d already gotten all the information she’d come for.

  A soft rustling sounded from somewhere nearby. Kat looked around for the source of the noise.

  “It’s Habby,” Floyd said, doing that mind-reading thing again. “He’s in the bushes over there.”

  Kat eyed the row of tall bushes planted between the LaPierres’ property and the neighbor’s. Sure enough, she could see some of the leaves moving.

  “He was rummaging around there Friday night too,” Floyd added.

  “Friday night?” Kat echoed.

  Floyd nodded. “He’s a curious thing, always into something.”

  Kat twisted toward Clarissa. “I thought you said Habby was inside the house Friday night.”

  She shrugged, looking unconcerned by the inconsistency. “I must have been mistaken.”

  Either that or one of them was lying, Kat thought—perhaps about more than just the cat.