competition.'
'And?'
'When I was a kid, nobody wanted to talk about them much. I can't even picture the father really. All I remember is he always talks in a whisper.'
'What about the son?'
'I only met Ramsey once, when I was maybe eight years old, but he gave me the serious creeps. I don't think he touched me exactly, but I remember my parents pulling me away fast. They never stopped smiling though. Wouldn't do to offend the Chandlers. Right through my teens, those smiles showed up in all my worst nightmares.'
Something thumped in the other room.
'Just the cat,' she assured him.
The sudden tension in his body eased. 'I thought cats were supposed to be sneaky?'
'It may not actually be a cat, more like some kind of mutant raccoon, and anyhow it's not mine. I found it hurt and...'
'You make a habit of that?'
'But I can stop whenever I want.' She peered into the kitchen.
'So this Ramsey guy, how old...?'
'He looked very grown up to me then. What?'
'So he'd be late middle-aged now?'
'Maybe not. You know how kids see things. He could have been a teenager. He just looked big to me.'
'What happened to him?'
Grinning, she played her trump card. 'A couple of years after my family moved away, he killed his mother with a carving knife. Worst thing that ever happened in this town. Absolutely the worst. Very few people really talk about it though, even now. Just shows you how much clout the Chandlers had. Of course, it's all different these days.'
'How different?'
'The father has been a recluse for years. Since the killing really, I suppose. Retired from business. Retired from society.'
'And the son?'
'For the past twelve years, he's been a patient in a private psychiatric facility.'
'Tell me the rest of it, before you burst.'
'He ran away.' She exhaled, finally. 'A month ago. Killed some doctor getting out. And no one knows where he is.' She watched a cord quaver in his neck. 'Except for us.'
'No, doesn't make sense.' Tension knotted his features. 'This is the first place they'd look. Good Lord, is that your cat?'
'I told you it was ugly.'
'Has it got too many toes or something?'
She leaned closer. 'Nobody would look for Ramsey if they thought he was dead.'
He held out his unsteady hand to stroke the cat, but the animal flinched away and jumped onto her chair.
'That's strange. It won't usually come near me.' The cat tried to squeeze behind her. 'Just follows me from room to room.' Suddenly, the cat planted itself and raised its back in a jerky undulation. 'Would you look at this? Making a liar out of me.' She stroked it tentatively, and then her fingers explored the scabbed area on its rib cage.
'What the hell made those?'
'Fight, I guess.'
'With a lion?'
'I managed to get some antiseptic cream on them that first night.'
The cat's ears flattened, and it gave a throaty growl, digging into the arm of the chair as it tried to launch itself at the floor.
'Hold still.' She tightened her grip. 'Healing pretty good.'
'Tell me the rest,' he said.
'They found his body a week after he escaped.' Hissing, the cat struck at her. 'Shit.' She pulled her hand away as the beast jumped down with a wobbling movement and glided behind the sofa. 'One more scratch and I'll need transfusions,' she muttered. 'Apparently, he'd been sleeping under a highway overpass and somehow rolled under a truck.'
'How'd they ID him?'
'Hospital clothes.'
'Yeah?'
'Do you actually buy any of that?' she asked.
'I take it you don't.'
'You are quick, aren't you?'
'Hey, whatever your name is...Kit...I don't want to fight. I got my brains half beat in tonight and I'm probably sick on top of it.' His voice trailed off. 'Okay, you've got a theory. Let's hear it.'
'I think he met someone, maybe someone with the same general build and coloring. I think he killed this guy and switched clothes with him, then pushed the body...'
'I get the picture.' Sipping the tea, he grimaced.
'He's here, isn't he?' She jerked to her feet again. 'You tangled with him tonight. You saw him, right?'
From behind the Franklin stove now, the cat watched them. Its tail twitched once, curling around its front paws.
'There must be more,' he said. 'What are you holding back?'
'A few things. Somebody killed a dog last month. A hundred-and-five-pound rottweiler. Broke its neck, ripped its belly open. An obscene mess. Like that woman in the bay.'
The cat's eyes pressed shut then opened wider, glinting like emeralds, like green flames, flickering toward the slightest movements of her hands.
'Just last week a store on the inlet got broken into, but all they took was one jogging suit and one pair of sneakers. Then the drugstore window got smashed. Place has been closed for years. Who would steal old bandages, iodine, stuff like that?'
'Regular crime wave. You have documentation for all this? When can I see it?'
'You haven't told me anything. Not a thing.'
Weariness seemed to engulf his voice. 'Where do you stand here?'
'I don't get you.'
'Don't be dense. With the case. Officially.'
'An investigative team from the state police is pursuing a theory about a mob hit that...'
'And you don't like that, do you?' His exhaustion, even the gray tint of his flesh, conveyed an odd authority to his words. 'It's a real slap in the face, isn't it?'
She frowned. 'Don't be so sure you can manipulate me so easy.'
'It does make you mad, doesn't it? Being treated like some little nothing? You want to do something about it, show them how wrong they are? Isn't that why I'm here?'
'You're good at this.'
'I've had to be.' A twitch of something like sorrow flickered across his face; then he focused on her again. 'How many on the force here?'
She hesitated. 'A few. All right,' she sighed, 'don't give me that look. I'm it, just about, except for the chief. He's sixty-three with a heart condition. And one part-timer. He'll go to full-time in the summer. Probably. Maybe.'
'Except you don't think so.'
She picked up her cup. 'The town owes me six weeks back pay as it is.'
He nodded thoughtfully. 'So you won't be going to anybody else about this in a hurry.'
'Don't be so...'
