Death of a Dapper Snowman (9 page)

Her voice came again, “I really don’t want to say one more word about what happened next door.”

“You know they’re trying to pin this on my father?”

“Your father did threaten the man.”

I stopped and stood still in the kitchen. The cat carrier was getting surprisingly heavy. Jeffrey meowed softly for me to let him out, but I was too angry at her words to move.

Did Pam actually think my father hurt Mr. Michaels? Where was she hiding? She was smart to hide from me, if she was going to say things like that.

“Stormy, I know your father didn’t do it,” she called out, as though she’d read my mind. “They’ve got nothing on him. He’s innocent… of that crime.”

“Of course he’s innocent. They’re being ridiculous.” I looked around the kitchen, at the mess of a partially prepared dinner. “Where are you?”

“Let’s not talk about the awfulness next door, okay?”

“Sure. We’ll talk about something else.” Jeffrey meowed with a conversation topic suggestion.

Someone sniffled in the dark dining room. We usually ate in the kitchen, at the casual table, so the dining room didn’t get much use. Now Pam was in there, sitting in the dark.

Looking carefully, I could see the shadow of her form. She was probably shaken up from the discovery of the body, plus my father wasn’t in town to calm her down. It was up to me to be supportive in her time of crisis, which I could be. Probably.

“Want to hear something interesting?” I asked. “Your little Russian Blue cat is not a girl. He’s a boy, and now he has a proper name.”

Pam’s shadow didn’t move, but she did sniffle again.

“Pam? Don’t you want to see your cat? He was very brave at the vet’s office, and he hasn’t touched his stitches.”

She sniffled again, then answered, “I don’t feel well. I’m having a migraine. You can bring the cat in, but please don’t switch on the lights.”

I walked slowly into the dining room and set the carrier on the table. My aching arm and shoulder thanked me.

Pam didn’t even lean over to look at her cat. She seemed really upset, or in pain. She didn’t typically get migraines, as far as I knew, but a traumatic event like having your neighbor murdered could certainly trigger one.

Pets are a wonderful antidote for stress, though.

I opened the pet carrier door and gently lifted Jeffrey out. When I brought him to my chest, he snuggled against me, like he didn’t want to be set down. I cuddled him in my arms and swayed with him in the dark dining room.

Keeping my voice gentle, I said, “Other than the thing we’re not going to talk about, how was the rest of your day? Did you have any work today on store display windows?”

“That poor man,” she said. “One day, he’s minding his own business, and the next day, some awful killer has made him into a snowman.”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about this. Are you feeling okay? Can I get you something for your headache?”

I took a seat across the table from her and cuddled Jeffrey to my chest. He squirmed a bit, probably thinking about his food dish in the other room, but he let me hold him. My eyes were adjusting to the weak light, but I couldn’t quite see Pam’s face.

“Pam? Are you crying?”

“I don’t think you can help me. It’s all just dreadful. I don’t feel safe at all.” She took a gasping breath. “What if this serial killer comes for me next? What if he’s going house by house?”

“Wait a minute. Serial killer? What are you talking about? Are there other bodies?”

“How should I know?” she snapped. “I’m not the expert. I don’t even watch those TV shows about the serial killers. Your father watches all of them, of course. He loves to get his thrills. I can’t even go into the room when he’s watching such things. Too much sex and violence.”

“Pam, when did the police talk to you? Did they ask you about Dad having arguments with Mr. Michaels?”

What I wanted to know was if Pam was the witness Tony had been referring to in our conversation. If it was just her rambling about nonsense, then it was, as I suspected, nothing to worry about.

“Of course I told them everything,” she said with impatience. “They’re just being thorough. It certainly doesn’t mean your father strangled that poor man. I didn’t say he did. Exactly what are you accusing him of?”

“Calm down!” I said, which made Jeffrey squirm in my arms. Softer, I said, “Take it easy, Pam. Nobody’s accusing anybody of anything. I’m sure they’ll have this figured out before Dad even hears about it.”

“He will not be pleased,” she said with a snort.

“I just told those crime scene investigators to look into a rumor about a daughter. It seems suspicious to me that this daughter shows up in his life right before he gets himself killed.”

“Daughter? You must be mistaken. He didn’t have any children.”

“That’s not what I heard today.” I went on to explain what I’d learned at the veterinarian’s that afternoon, finishing with, “But it might not be true at all. Plenty of gossip flies around this town, and people are always getting the facts mixed up.”

Pam got very quiet, then abruptly pushed her chair back and stood up. “I’m going to bed.”

“But it’s barely dinner time. And don’t you want to see your cat? He’s very happy to be back home again.”

“Actually, I’m not going to bed, but I am going. I can’t sleep in this house tonight. I’m a very light sleeper, and even the slightest noise will wake me up. I’ll pack a bag and go to my sister’s.”

“Were you planning to take Jeffrey with you? He won’t like getting jostled around again in the pet carrier. He probably wants to recover here in his own house.”

“Why do you keep calling her Jeffrey?”

“I told you, Pam. She’s a he.”

She snorted. “Sounds to me like you two have quite the bond.” She came around the table and reached for him, but he gave her a sleepy-sounding hiss that made her step back.

“Sorry,” I said on his behalf. “Maybe if you turn the light on, he’ll feel more comfortable.”

She turned on her heel and left the room, muttering under her breath about the ungratefulness of cats.

Once she was gone, Jeffrey stoked up his purr engine to high gear.

I rubbed his chin and whispered, “She’s going through a tough time today. Be patient with her. She’s not always like that. We shared a bottle of wine at the paint-your-ceramics place once, and we had quite a nice evening.” I kissed his shining, dark nose. “Try giving her some wine. Everyone’s more tolerable after a glass or two. You can have catnip. Do you like catnip?”

Five minutes later, I was still petting Jeffrey in the dark dining room and saying increasingly ridiculous things about catnip parties and such.

He startled in my arms, hearing her before I did. Pam came thumping down the hallway with a wheeled suitcase and stopped at the arched doorway, an imposing shadowy figure.

“I’ll be at my sister’s for the night,” she said, and then she was gone.

“I know,” I said softly to Jeffrey. “She’s always so dramatic. Everything’s life or death with Pam. Heaven forbid you get a haircut without checking in with her. You know, she’s probably mad at you because you changed into a boy without her permission.”

I snickered at my joke, and Jeffrey kept on purring.

The refrigerator in the adjoining kitchen clicked off, and the house echoed with emptiness around me.

Something creaked.

I jumped up to make sure Pam had locked the back door. It was locked, but it wouldn’t take much to kick down a door like that if someone big wanted in.

I nuzzled my chin against Jeffrey’s head as I walked through the house, checking all the doors and windows. When I got to the front room’s window, I peered out into the wintery darkness. The two investigators were loading up their evidence finds. I squinted, but couldn’t distinguish anything interesting.

They started up their engines, washing the snow with a red glow from their tail lights. I watched as the unmarked crime scene investigation vehicles pulled away.

Now it was just me, Jeffrey, the regular neighbors, and the terrifying serial killer from Pam’s overactive imagination.

Chapter 12
 

Alone in my
father’s empty house, I tried not to imagine a crazed killer coming from house to house.

Jeffrey meowed to let me know he might be interested in dinner. I took him to the kitchen, put out a can of soft food for him, then foraged in the fridge for something human. I couldn’t tell what Pam had been making for dinner, besides a mess. I settled on a roast beef sandwich.

I sat at the table in the kitchen, facing the back door to keep a lookout for serial killers, and took out my phone to check for messages.

There was a new text from one of my friends. She was an older friend, from Misty Falls. I didn’t usually chat with her much, so there were months-long gaps between our messages.

She wanted me to go for drinks with her and some of the other girls we used to hang out with, back in high school.

Short of getting a root canal, I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do less.

I turned to the Russian Blue cat and said, “Jeffrey, you need me to stay with you, right?”

He finished his food and came over on wobbly legs to investigate my roast beef. He was recovering well from the day’s surgery, and would be fine, but I saw what I wanted to see: the little guy was too weak to be left alone, fending off the neighborhood’s serial killer with nothing more than his wits and claws.

I lifted him up into my lap, where he sat politely as I dug through my sandwich for a small chunk of beef that didn’t have any mustard on it. He licked his glossy black lips in anticipation before I gave it to him.

“The vet did say someone should keep an eye on you tonight. So, since Pam has gone to her sister’s, I suppose I’ll
have
to stay over with you tonight. What do you say to a sleepover party? We can watch old movies in the guest room.”

He looked up at me with his beautiful green eyes and blinked twice to tell me yes. Then he looked at my roast beef sandwich and smacked his lips.

I gave him another small treat, then sent a message back to my friend:
I have to look after my father’s cat tonight. He’s a little shaken up.

She wrote back:
Oh, Stormy, you are my most hilarious and best friend! You are so funny! I heard about everything. Please tell the cat I’m very sorry for his loss, but maybe the new neighbor will be nicer to him!

I started to write back explaining that Jeffrey was shaken up from having his kitty-manhood surgically altered, and probably didn’t give a whisker about Mr. Michaels, but I simplified things considerably by texting back:
LOL.

The cat and I finished our roast beef sandwich, then retired to the guest room to watch television.

I turned the TV volume down and put in a call to my father’s cell phone. It went to voice mail, and the mailbox was full. Either he forgot to bring his charger on the trip, or he was avoiding someone. He probably didn’t want to talk to Pam, because of whatever thing she was upset about.

I looked up the number for the hospital in the city. The call rang and rang, and then finally someone answered.

“May I have the room for Finnegan Day, please?” I asked.

The girl on the phone spat back, “Room? Ma’am, this is not a hotel.”

At the sound of her snippy tone, I felt a strange emotion: anger at some people’s big city attitudes. In Misty Falls, no employee would speak so rudely to a caller, because chances were the person calling was someone you knew.

I breathed down the stormy emotions I was feeling and tersely replied, “May I have the
floor
for Finnegan Day?”

“Who shall I say is calling?”

“The pope.”

I waited, enjoying the receptionist’s silence and waiting for her to hang up on me. She didn’t.

“Uh… I didn’t catch that,” she said.

“This is Stormy Day.”

She snorted. “If you don’t want to say who it is, that’s fine.”

“Honestly,” I said gently. “I know it’s an unusual name, but I really am Stormy Day, and I’m calling for my father, Finnegan Day.
Please.
”

She muttered something, and the line clicked as she put me on hold.

Mellow hold music played while I imagined the receptionist warning the floor nurse about me. Finally, the music switched to ringing.

A woman answered, “Hello, dear. This is Dora. You’re calling to check on Finn?”

“Yes. I’m checking on Mr. Day, though I would imagine he’s doing just fine if you nurses are all on a first-name basis with him. Has he been telling you big stories about his glory days?”

Her giggle let me know that he had been.

“How did the surgery go?” I asked.

“Oh, he’ll be as right as rain in no time. It’s not a complex procedure. You’ll have to make sure he takes it easy and doesn’t strain himself.”

“I’ll try.” Yes, I would try to make sure he wasn’t strained by being accused of a murder. “May I speak to him?”

“I’m afraid he’s sleeping, dear. And hospitals are such noisy places that we hate to wake someone when they’re resting, because you don’t know when they’ll be able to sleep again.”

“Hmm.” I looked up at the TV screen in the guest room. The channel was showing an old movie, and there was a logo in the lower corner showing it was the mystery channel. Sure enough, the woman on the screen, who was a nurse, glanced around nervously and then jabbed a syringe into a hospital patient’s arm. The patient, who was an older man, fluttered his eyelashes, then slumped his head to the side. He was gone. Murdered by the evil nurse.