A Tiger's Tale (A Call of the Wilde Mystery) (11 page)

“Perfect.” I gave the cat another pat and glanced around. I’d been expecting to have to go into the backyard again. Standing out in the open on the front porch seemed a bit too exposed for a one-on-one with the cat. Before I could decide my next step, the cat’s attention was snared by something at the edge of the property. I followed the cat’s gaze and heard a rustling sound coming from where a cluster of azaleas loosely ringed a large sweet gum tree.

A thrasher bird was noisily sifting through the fallen leaves in search of a snack.

Brooke’s cat was thinking about having a snack, too. It slinked over the grass toward the sound. I followed it into the side yard. Better to chat with the great white hunter around the side of the house than out front.

“You have no chance,” I told the cat. “That bird has you on its radar.”

The cat flicked its tail, and I got the message loud and clear.

Quiet. Hunting!

Suit yourself. I’m just saying—

Hunting!

I could take a hint so I followed without another word or thought until the bird finally cast the cat a cockeyed glare and flew away.

“See?”

Ignoring me, the cat swiveled its head to follow the bird’s escape, and when I came into its line of sight I said, “Shall we?” and motioned toward the area close to the side gate.

I led the way past the wooden screen that hid the trash cans, stopping at the privacy fence. It was a good spot to talk. Shady, and not too visible.

I called the cat and it blinked at me for a long moment before finally walking toward me.

“First things first. I’m Grace, and you are?”

The cat didn’t answer. There were a few ways to discover an animal’s name when straightforward didn’t work. I tried another method.

I scratched the cat under the chin and asked . . .
like?
Leaving a nice blank spot before the question.

Yes, Felix like.

“Man, I’m good.”

I conjured the image of Brooke in my mind and projected it to the cat.
Okay, Felix, let’s talk about Brooke.

Brooke nice.
He purred and kneaded the ground as he thought of her.
Stupid bitch nice, too.

My fingers stilled, causing the cat to urge me on by meowing and rubbing his face in my hand.

Stupid bitch?
Though the question had been to myself, Felix answered. An image flashed before me. A woman’s legs, then a few stuttering snapshots of the same woman, bent to pour food into Felix’s bowl.

Brooke’s mother, Anne.

I lifted my hand from the cat so I could focus more on my own thoughts. I was reminded of an old Bill Cosby routine, though there was nothing funny about it. Someone had called Anne Ligner a stupid bitch enough times that the cat thought it was her name. Who? Brooke or Mr. Ligner? I was betting I knew the answer.

When I placed my hand back on the cat, I became aware of something I hadn’t noticed before—hunger.

The reason Felix was being so nice was because he hadn’t been fed since I’d seen him the morning before.

I’d get him a snack from Bluebell before I left, but first . . .

Can you tell me about
—I drew an image in my mind of Mr. Ligner.

Felix’s purring ceased instantly. He lowered into a crouch.

Smokeman bad.
The thought was accompanied by a flash of Ligner, scowling as he drew on a cigarette.

I didn’t have to ask for much more clarification than that, but I wanted to know more. Before I could urge the cat to continue, a scene began to play in my mind. Like a stop-motion film, the perspective was at ground level. It took me a second to realize Felix was looking out from under a table. At first, all I could see was a pair of legs, but I could hear Ligner screaming at his wife. She came into view, collapsing against the wall.

Weeping. Pleading. Saying she was sorry.

Ligner grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the wall. Cracks splintered out from the point of impact on the drywall.

A jolt of emotion hit me—a mix of my own outrage and Felix’s residual fear. Having seen more than enough, I gently coaxed the cat to let go of the memory.

Okay, you’re okay.
I tried to reassure him. But Felix wasn’t buying it. He’d actually grown more tense. His pupils had expanded so that his eyes appeared almost black.

A shiver of fear surged through me.

Felix let out a spitting hiss, and I turned to look over my shoulder. A dark shadow loomed over me.

Bob Ligner.

Crap.

In one hand Ligner held a fast-food drink cup. The other was by his side, balled into a fist.

“Miss Wilde? What are you doing here? Is everything all right?”

The false concern in his voice set my teeth on edge. I’d known men like Ligner. My sister had married one. They masked their cruelty with charm and false sincerity.

The cat remained crouched, motionless, but I knew if Ligner made the slightest move Felix would bolt.

I had something different in mind.

“What did you do to Brooke?”

His eyes narrowed, and I caught a glimpse of the darkness inside him.

“My stepdaughter is a little tramp. Whatever happened to her, she deserved it.”

A spike of cold rage shot through me.

“I guess your wife deserves it too, right?” My hands clenched into fists. The memory of my sister’s battered face as she clung to life in a hospital spurred me to take a step forward. “You like hitting women, don’t you?”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“On the contrary. I know everything about you. You like to drink. And you like to beat your wife because it makes you feel powerful. And that makes you pathetic.”

“I don’t know who the hell you think you are—”

“I’ll tell you who I’m not. I’m not your wife. And I’m not your stepdaughter. That means I’m not afraid of you.” Like most men who batter women, Ligner was a coward. He wasn’t going to touch me, at least not out in the open where someone could see.

His eyes bulged. Color crept up his neck into his face. His nostrils flared. He looked like an angry bull, mindless in his need to charge.

But unlike an animal that was driven by the need to survive, this man was motivated by something far darker.

“Get off my property.”

“Or what?” I asked softly as I leaned toward him. “What will you do? Call the cops? Go ahead. I’ll just tell them how you slammed your wife against the wall hard enough to break the Sheetrock.”

His eyes widened, twitching at the comment.

“You have a very vivid imagination,” he said stiffly.

I took a step closer to him, getting in his space. It might not have been the smartest move—the guy was at least six-two. But I was feeling all Dirty Harry from my aikido test and, in that moment, I was almost hoping he’d do something.

Make my day, asshole.

When he didn’t move, I locked my gaze on his and said, “I want you to listen, because I’m only going to say this once. If you did something to Brooke, I’m going to find out. And if I ever hear that you’ve hurt your wife again, you’ll get to see how creative my imagination can be.”

I brushed past him and said over my shoulder, “Oh—and feed your cat.”

Though I strolled to Bluebell with complete nonchalance, by the time I pulled myself behind the wheel I was beginning to shake. Whether from fear or anger, I wasn’t sure.

I started Bluebell and made a beeline for the Krispy Kreme. Nothing like a cup of afternoon coffee and a half a dozen glazed to calm the nerves, right?

I pulled through the drive-through and parked in the shade of a large oak tree. My mind was in overdrive. Why had Ligner come home in the middle of the day? Had he done something to Brooke? What about Anne Ligner? The cat hadn’t been fed in over twenty-four hours—what had happened to Anne? What could I do about any of it?

Despite my threat, I wasn’t sure I could do much of anything to Bob Ligner, no matter how much he deserved it.

After polishing off my second doughnut, I decided the best thing to do was to call Kai.

The call went straight to his voice mail, which meant he was probably in the middle of some geeky crime lab thing.

I thought about calling Jake, but what would I tell him? Jake Nocera was not a member of Grace’s Wacky Roundtable. He had no clue I could communicate with animals and would want to know how I knew Bob Ligner beat his wife.

I was wondering if I should make a list of potential inductees to my “in the know” group and come up with a plan to indoctrinate them, when I saw Bob Ligner’s Lexus drive past.

Maybe I’d spooked him. On impulse and with hopes of discovering something useful, I cranked Bluebell’s engine, roared through the parking lot onto the street, and followed the Lexus. Thankfully, there was enough traffic that I could blend in.

Okay, who was I kidding? I was in a Skyline Blue 1975 Suburban with lots of chrome and an engine loud enough to rattle coconuts out of a palm tree.

I hung back as far as I could anyway. As it turned out, all my efforts at stealth were wasted. Ligner pulled into a small parking lot next to a building. The sign by the door read
LIGNER AND HERSH ACCOUNTING
.

“Dang.” I’d gotten worked up and the creep was just going to his office?

I huffed out a breath as I rolled past the building and decided I’d stake him out anyway. Aside from trying to track down Stefan, I didn’t have anything else to do until my appointment later that evening and I had to wait for Kai to call me back.

I did a U-turn, no small feat in Bluebell, and pulled into the parking area adjacent to Ligner’s business. A row of cherry laurels divided the parking lots. I pulled as close to the bushy trees as I could and stopped alongside them. Cutting the engine, I slid across my bench seat to crank down the passenger-side window.

I didn’t expect to overhear anything, and my tree-filtered view of the office was spotty at best, but at least with the window down I could hear if anyone came or went.

I sat back and waited for something to happen. I took a sip of coffee and grabbed a third doughnut.

At least I had the right supplies. I almost felt like a real cop.

I glanced at the clock, took another sip of coffee, and squinted through the leaves.

After what seemed like an hour, I checked the clock, saw it had only been fifteen minutes, and decided stakeouts sucked.

Another fifteen minutes crawled by. I was considering calling in a bomb threat to Ligner and Hersh’s just to get something to happen when a sleek new silver Mercedes parked in front of the office. A familiar figure emerged from the luxury coupe.

“Yard Guy, what are you up to?” I murmured to myself.

Just because he drove an expensive car didn’t mean anything. But I had a feeling something was off. I remembered how he ignored my question about the catnip and evaded my questions the longer I asked about Brooke.

But if he wasn’t a real yard guy, who was he? Why go to the trouble of making a shirt and sign for a fake business?

I had a better view of the Mercedes than the building so I rummaged through my purse for a pen and wrote the license plate number on the top of the Krispy Kreme box.

With that, I had exhausted all my sleuthing ideas, which left my imagination free to conjure up several crazy scenarios.

Dozens of possibilities started zipping through my head. What if Brooke was buried in the backyard, under all that new mulch?

“You’re getting way ahead of yourself, Grace,” I muttered.

I had no idea why Ligner and Yard Guy were meeting. And I had no way to know what they were talking about in there.

An idea struck. Maybe I could find out.

I slid out of Bluebell and eased the door shut. Creeping silently to the end of the tree line, I peered around at the business.

The office building was small and looked like it had been built in the 1950s. There were plenty of windows, which meant I might be able to find Ligner’s office and overhear something of value.

I crouched, ready to dart to a spot between an azalea bush and an air-conditioning unit when my phone screamed the beginning of “Crazy Train.” I jerked it out of my pocket and sprinted back to Bluebell.

“Grace?” My sister’s voice sounded overly loud as I scrambled back behind the wheel.

“Hang on,” I hissed.

“Why are you whispering?”

“Shhhhh. Just—hang on.” I scooted across the front seat and rolled up the passenger window. “Okay. Sorry, I’m on a stakeout.”

“You’re on a what?”

“I think Brooke’s stepdad might have done something to her.”

“Why?”

I didn’t want to go into a lengthy explanation about Bob Ligner beating his wife—plus I was hoping my sister would validate my gut feeling about something else.

“Remember the yard guy who caught me trying to talk to the Ligners’ cat? Well, now, he’s driving a sporty little Mercedes SLS.” I squinted at the car through the trees and let out a low whistle when I spotted a second logo above the bumper. Both Emma and I had learned about cars growing up—it was inevitable when your father lived and breathed all things auto. My interest was in vintage models. Emma knew luxury. “It’s an AMG. What do they go for?”

“New? A hundred grand, at least,” Emma said, then added, “Not the car of a poor landscaper whose boss makes him work on Sunday.”

“Exactly!”

Emma started to say something else, but Yard Guy emerged from the office building and got into his car.

“Crap! Yard Guy is leaving. What do I do? Stay at the office to watch Ligner or follow Yard Guy?”

“Yard Guy. But hang back or he’ll spot you in that blue monstrosity.”

“I’ll call you back.” I tried to be discreet, but I was too busy hoping he’d lead me to a clue—or maybe even Brooke herself—to worry much about how unsuited Bluebell was to being a surveillance vehicle.

“Hot Blooded” began to play from my phone, which had slid all the way to the passenger seat. Kai was returning my call. I tried to keep one eye on the Mercedes, but by the time I managed to retrieve the phone and answer, the sports car was out of sight.

“Dammit!”

“Grace?”

“Sorry. I just lost Yard Guy.”

“You what?”

“Yard Guy. I was staking out Ligner and he showed up—” I stopped, realizing I hadn’t told Kai about meeting the mystery landscaper at the Ligners’ the day before. I’d omitted that detail, knowing how Kai would feel if he knew I’d been trespassing.

“Grace—what’s going on?”

I winced at the thought of telling the truth but knew I had to if I wanted his help. “You remember I told you about going to see Brooke’s parents yesterday? Well I sort of went into the backyard to try to talk to their cat. And their yard guy caught me. Only he isn’t who he says he is.”

“Wait a second, back up. You went onto their property without permission?”

“Yes.”

“Grace, please tell me you didn’t try to break in.”

“I didn’t. All I did was stick my head through the cat door. The cat ignored me, by the way—but that’s not important. Listen, I went back to the Ligners’ house today and I think Bob Ligner might have had something to do with Brooke’s disappearance. He beats his wife, Kai. And there’s something shady going on with the yard guy. He didn’t know what variety of catnip is the most effective and he’s driving a hundred-thousand-dollar Mercedes.”

“Hang on, Grace. Just slow down.”

“Sorry. I’m just a little worked up.” I took a breath and tried to clarify while I drove back to Ligner’s office.

“Did the cat say anything about Ligner hurting Brooke?”

I had to smile at the question—not because the subject was funny, but because there was no hesitation in Kai’s voice in asking.

“No. The cat only showed me the one incident. But that was enough. Bob Ligner is a big man, Kai. If he hit Brooke, he could have killed her.”

“I believe you. But we’re going to need more to go on.”

“I got the make, model, and license plate number of the car Yard Guy was driving.”

“That’s a start. Give me the info and we’ll know more in a minute.”

I read the number off the box and as we waited for the information to run through the system I asked, “Do you think Ligner could have hired Yard Guy to cover up something he did to Brooke? I mean, hit men are pretty wealthy, right? The good ones?”

“In theory. But what would motivate Ligner to have his own stepdaughter kidnapped or killed? It’s one thing for him to have hit her during one of his rages. But hiring someone to take her? Why?”

“I don’t know. There has to be more going on here, right?”

“Maybe not.” I could hear computer keys being tapped in the background. “The car is registered to a company named IntraCorp. So, in theory, Yard Guy could really be just that—a landscaper.”

“Driving a Mercedes AMG?”

“Which isn’t his.”

I huffed out a sigh. “What’s going on here, Kai? Am I the only one who sees the dots but can’t connect them?”

“We can’t connect the dots until we have them all.”

“So I should be trying to
collect
the dots instead of connecting them?”

“Bingo.”

• • •

I had to put my dot-collecting efforts on hold and focus on my next appointment, which proved more challenging than I’d anticipated.

My evaluation of the cats was simple. Explaining the issue to their owner would not be. It wasn’t that the problem between Baby Face and Fancy Pants was especially uncommon or complex, but Mrs. Wiggins seemed to be a little on the neurotic side.

She’d thrown open her door when I’d arrived and exclaimed, “Thank heavens! This has been the worst week of my life!”

As I’d worked, she’d paced, intermittently twisting her fingers together, biting her nails, and brushing away tears.