Detective James Whittaker had thought there was no smell worse than the stench of a dead body, especially one that had been lying in a room for days. He’d been wrong. “I’m never drinking sauvignon blanc again.”
“Sauvignon blanc?” asked Arthur Freeman, Whittaker’s squad mate in the Baltimore City Homicide Department.
“You’ve never noticed? Sauvignon blanc smells like ammonia, although some claim it smells like herbs or asparagus. But I say ammonia. Or used cat litter.” He gestured at half a dozen cat boxes scattered around the apartment, boxes that obviously hadn’t been cleaned in a while. Not that he was blaming the cats’ owner—Mrs. Felicity Johnson—since she was lying dead on the couch.
“I’ll stick with beer, thank you,” Freeman said. “And I’m not letting Jada get a cat, no matter how much she begs.”
“First of all, you’ve never been able to tell your daughter no. And second, cats aren’t that bad. I get along with Donner,” Whittaker said, referring to his girlfriend’s cat. “Cassie cleans the litter frequently, so I don’t notice a smell. But I think quantity is the issue here. Cassie’s got only one cat.” Whittaker turned to the medical examiner, who was standing next to Johnson’s body. “Dr. Amaya, how many cats did you say Animal Control picked up?”
“The first time? Or the second?” Amaya asked, a wicked grin crossing her pretty face. “The brave agents picked up four, but once they saw the body, they scrambled out of here, missing one. Animal Control had to send out completely new agents. The new ones didn’t stay long either.” She looked down at the elderly woman. “I don’t know why they freaked out. What’s so bad about dead bodies?”
Whittaker shrugged. “They don’t bother me. It bothers me more how they got that way. How do you think Mrs. Johnson got to be a dead body?”
“Badly,” interjected one of the crime-scene techs, coming forward to take a few pictures.
While he was more interested in the medical examiner’s opinion, Whittaker couldn’t disagree with the tech. The poor woman was lying in a pile of vomit and unpleasant-looking liquids. Her upper body lay across the sofa, her legs askew under the coffee table. The robe she wore had ridden up, exposing bony knees and skin almost as dark as Freeman’s. Whittaker figured she weighed barely ninety pounds, if that.
“I suspect poisoning,” Dr. Amaya said. “You noticed that she voided herself before death, I’m sure. Based on the shattered pieces of porcelain littering the floor, she convulsed violently as well.”
“I deduce that the shattered porcelain came from cat figurines,” Freeman said.
Whittaker rolled his eyes. “I see that you’re putting your years of detective training to good use.” The entire apartment was full of cat figurines and other cat objects. There were cat pillows, cat toys. Paintings of cats decorated the walls. There was even an elaborate five-story cat tower in the corner. He made a note to look into buying one of those for Donner.
Dr. Amaya smiled. “I concur with your deductions, Detective Freeman. But I noticed something else more important: that glass.” She pointed to a drinking glass lying on its side on the coffee table, in close proximity to the body.
“There’s still some liquid in there,” Whittaker said, noting the yellowish color. “Lemonade?” A crime-scene tech pushed past him to tag the glass while another took photos.
“It smells more toxic than lemonade. That’s why I had Officer Collins call you again.” She nodded toward the front door, where a police officer—the first responding officer—stood, securing the apartment.
Whittaker had spoken to Officer Collins earlier that day, when the uniformed police officer had phoned in to state he had discovered a dead body while responding to a well-being check. At first, Whittaker had assumed the death had been due to natural causes—the deceased had been eighty-seven years old, after all—but her family had insisted Mrs. Johnson was as healthy as a horse, the officer said, and she’d just gotten a clean bill of health from her doctor. So Whittaker went ahead and requested a medical examiner, just in case. It had been a good call.
Whittaker stepped back to make room for the crime-scene photographer. He was tempted to give some suggestions for photo angles, but advising only seemed to get on photographers’ nerves, he’d found. Instead, Whittaker waited until the techs finished documenting the room and went into the kitchen, at which point he whipped out his iPhone and snuck in some quick photos of the body from the angles he thought particularly useful. Obviously, he couldn’t use his own photos for evidence, but he’d found it helpful to take pictures for personal reference. Dr. Amaya pretended not to notice.
Freeman continued to examine the body. “Not a good way to die. Alone and all that.”
“No. Not at all,” Whittaker agreed.
“When I die,” Freeman began, a twinkle in his brown eyes, “I want to die like my grandfather.”
“I know, I know,” Whittaker said. “Quietly, in your sleep, not screaming and crying like the passengers on his bus.” He turned to Amaya, “Esa broma es casi tan vieja como él es.” Amaya blinked in surprise. People were always surprised when a white guy spoke a foreign language.
“What did you say?” Freeman asked. “You know I don’t know much Spanish.”
“I said that joke is almost as old as you are.”
Freeman snorted. “Some day you’ll respect your elders.”
Shaking his head, Whittaker turned back to the medical examiner. “How long do you think Mrs. Johnson has been dead?”
“I estimate five or six days. Obviously, I’ll know more after the autopsy. It’s more than three, since rigor mortis has already left the body, but based on the bloating and swelling, less than a week. Added to that, per Officer Collins, the daughter said she’d talked to her mother before leaving for her vacation exactly a week ago.”
“Daughter is the one who called for the well-being check?” Whittaker asked.
From his position at the door, Officer Collins nodded.
“So five or six days?” Whittaker turned back to the body again. He didn’t know if it was death or old age that gave the ashy pallor to the woman’s skin. And the skin was unmarred. “So why aren’t there any bite marks? Cassie told me cats wait only a day or two before eating their owner.”
“Your girlfriend is weird, Whittaker,” Freeman said. “Be glad I know she’s a mystery author or I might send the FBI to investigate her.”
Amaya leaned over and lifted the deceased’s arm with her gloved hands, pivoting it gently. “You’re right, I hadn’t noticed that. I’ve seen bodies with postmortem predation. Don’t believe the hype that dogs will wait longer. One lady had been dead less than three hours and her Chihuahua had already taken a sample or two.”
“I’ve never trusted Chihuahuas,” one of the crime-scene techs called from the kitchen. “Found the lemonade. It definitely doesn’t smell like anything I’d like to drink.”
Whittaker strode into the small, galley-style kitchen. Avoiding the jungle of water bowls and automatic cat feeders, he noticed that Crime Scene had tagged the pitcher of lemonade inside the open refrigerator. Careful not to touch anything, he waved his hand over the mouth of the pitcher, wafting the odor toward his nose. “Smells like lemonade. And something much stronger.”
He backed away, took a few photos of the kitchen while the techs’ backs were turned, and returned to the living room where the body was being bagged.
“They missed one,” called a voice from the bedroom.
Whittaker turned to see one of the techs carrying a fluffy gray cat. “Where was he hiding?” He reached out a testing hand. The cat immediately ducked underneath his palm and started purring.
“She,” the tech corrected. “Under a dresser. I already called Animal Control—again—to come back. Here, you take her so she doesn’t disturb my crime scene.” She shoved the cat at him.
“It’s my crime scene,” Whittaker complained. After the tech left the room, he and the cat exchanged looks. “What am I supposed to do with you?”
“Pet her,” Freeman said, stepping into the room from the balcony. “I thought you were the one who liked cats. Bring her out here. You need to see this.”
As Whittaker made his way toward the balcony, he adjusted his grip on the cat—he didn’t want her taking a dive—and followed Freeman into the heat of the summer afternoon. Within the door frame he halted in his tracks. “Today is a day for strong odors, I guess. Is that smell coming from the flowers?”
“Yup.”
The entire balcony was covered in window boxes and hanging baskets overflowing with flowers. It stood in stark contrast to the other balconies on that side of the building, since none of Johnson’s neighbors seemed to have gone in for gardening. “What kind are they?”
“Stinky ones,” Freeman said. “But that’s not what I wanted to show you. Look down.” He gestured toward the right balcony rail. “I’ll take the cat.”
Whittaker carefully handed over the cat before leaning over the balcony and looking at the grass three floors below. “What, the dead spot on the lawn?”
“Right. Doesn’t that seem odd? The rest of the lawn is green and lush, even between other balconies, but there’s that brown patch on the ground directly below the area between this balcony and the one next to it. And the flowers up here, right along the edge of this flower pot, they’re dead and brown, too. Just strikes me as odd.”
Whittaker trusted Freeman’s instincts. The man had been a homicide detective for years, almost as many years as Whittaker had been alive. “I’ll tell Crime Scene to document it. They should get a sample of the dirt here and down on the ground. Then we’ll talk to the neighbors.”
They walked back inside. There was a sudden clicking, and then several subsequent pops coming from the direction of the kitchen. “What’s that noise?” Whittaker asked.
“Hey, stop struggling,” Freeman said to the cat, who was squirming in his arms.
Whittaker hurried into the kitchen and noticed that the automatic cat feeders had snapped open, their rectangular lids yawning wide instead of standing guard over the food contained within. The cat in Freeman’s arms meowed pitifully.
A black furball streaked past to get to the food. “Missed another one!” called a tech from the living room.
* * * *
After getting all the cats removed from the apartment—another had been hiding in the space between the kitchen cabinets—Whittaker and Freeman started interviewing the neighbors.
“They shed a lot, don’t they?” Freeman said as he brushed gray fur off his brown suit. “Wait, how come you don’t have any on you?”
Whittaker examined his gray suit—the one Cassie always said matched his eyes—and saw no evidence of cat fur. “Mine isn’t a contrasting color. They shed more when they realize you’re wearing a contrasting color.”
Freeman snorted. They stepped out of Johnson’s apartment, number 3A. Like many apartment buildings, each floor had four apartments, two on each side of the landing. “Officer Collins said he’d tried talking to the neighbors on this level,” Whittaker said. “But no one answered their door. He managed to talk to a few other residents, but he didn’t get any buzz from anyone and no one seemed to have relevant information.”
“Well, now that it’s after five p.m., more neighbors might be back from work,” Freeman observed. “Although in this neighborhood, you might have people who work nights.”
Whittaker knocked on the door of Apartment 3B. “This guy shares a wall with our victim, so I wonder if he heard anything.”
The door opened, only as wide as the chain would allow. “I don’t want anything you’re selling.”
Freeman showed his badge. “Police. May we talk to you about your neighbor?”
The man closed the door before unhooking the chain and opening it wide. Now that he could see more than just a slice of the guy, Whittaker thought he bore a striking resemblance to Steve Harvey—dark skin, bald head, even the mustache.
“She called the cops on me? Hell, I know she’s called the cops on the neighbors across the hall, but she’s calling them on me? I never did a thing to her damn plants. She has no proof.”
Whittaker stepped back to let Freeman take the lead. He hated doing so, but they had discovered that in a city full of racial tension, people were more comfortable talking to someone of their own race. He wished people would stop seeing race altogether. Still, if it meant people were more open and honest, he’d take whatever advantage he could.
“This isn’t about Mrs. Johnson’s plants, Mr.…?” Freeman paused.
“Price. Errol Price.”
“May we come in, Mr. Price?” Freeman asked.
Price looked reluctant, but he finally stepped back from the door. “I guess.”
Once in, Freeman continued to ask the questions. “So, what’s going on with Mrs. Johnson’s plants?”
Price picked up a cigarette and a lighter from the kitchen counter. “She’s got too damn many of them. Have you smelled them? She claims she planted them because she can’t stand the smell of my smoke, but it’s outside, isn’t it? I have as much right to the outside as she does. Wanda won’t let me smoke in my own house, but no one’s gonna tell me I can’t even smoke outdoors. And at least I only smoke cigarettes.”
“I can see why that would make you angry. Did you have any other issues with Mrs. Johnson?”
Price glanced to the right, then focused on Freeman again. “No. Why would I? What’s she been telling you?”
“She’s not able to tell us anything. She’s dead. Has been for a few days.”
Whittaker watched closely to gauge the man’s reaction. While Price’s statement that he had no other issues felt like a lie, his shocked reaction to the news of his neighbor’s death seemed genuine. His jaw dropped and the cigarette fell from his fingers.
“What? I—we—but.” He stopped and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry to hear that. Wanda’s going to be shocked. Wanda’s my wife. She’s been gone for a few weeks, visiting our daughter in college out west. She’s a smart girl, studying finance. We’ll need to tell her, too. She’s known Felicity her whole life. They’ll be shocked. I’m shocked. She was old, I know, but she was in good shape, one of those old broads you think will last forever. Wait a minute!” He paused, eyes narrowing. “Felicity’s old, but you wouldn’t be here talking to me if you thought she’d just died in her sleep. Did someone kill her?”
“Do you think someone had a reason to kill her?”
Whittaker admired Freeman’s technique of never actually answering questions. He had modeled his own technique on the older man’s.
“Talk to the Baileys across the hall. Hell, talk to the Jacobsens. A lot of us—a lot of them had issues with her. She was a busybody, stuck her nose in other people’s business.”
“Like your smoking,” Freeman prompted, scribbling in his notebook.
“Like my—no, not like my smoking. That’s minor.” He swiped a hand over his ebony head. “Felicity liked to call the cops on the Jacobsen kid. He stayed out too long, was disrespectful to her even before she started siccing the cops on him. Then she accused the kid of taking drugs. Might be true.”
“And what problem did the Baileys have with her?” Freeman asked.
“I’m not sure, actually,” Price said, snagging an empty pizza box from the counter and throwing it in the trash. “I mean, Susanna—that’s the woman—seemed to get along with her okay, although I think she preferred Felicity’s cats. But Bobby barely talked to her.”
While Freeman asked questions, Whittaker took the time to inspect the apartment. It was a mirror image of his neighbor’s, minus the cat paraphernalia. It was cluttered and messy, probably due to the wife being gone. An empty wine bottle and wine glasses were on the coffee table, a few beer bottles littered the kitchen counter, and a spray bottle sat by the balcony door.
Surprisingly, Price himself didn’t seem to be taking advantage of his wife’s absence. He was clean-shaven, smartly dressed in blue slacks and a silk shirt, and Whittaker even detected the smell of cologne, thankfully not as strong as the balcony flowers.
“Had you noticed that Mrs. Johnson hadn’t been around recently?” Freeman asked.
Price shook his head. “Not really. I wouldn’t think much of it if I had. She goes off to visit her children and grandchildren for a few days at a time.”
“Who takes care of the cats?” Whittaker had to ask. He couldn’t imagine packing eight cats into carriers. They’d be burdensome to carry, and they’d make one heck of a racket. Donner was loud enough on his own whenever he was put in a cat carrier.
“We all have, at one time or another. She’s a busybody, but we’re neighbors. We take care of each other on this floor. Besides, Felicity sure can bake, and she always paid us back in cookies and pies.”
“Does that mean you have a key to her apartment?” Freeman asked.
“Yeah, all of us on this floor exchanged keys, especially after my wife locked herself out of the apartment a few times. Like I said, we help each other.” Price reached for a bowl on the counter, then paused. “But I didn’t use the key recently. Like I said, go talk to Bobby and Susanna.”
* * * *
“Well, let’s talk to Bobby and Susanna,” Whittaker said, raising his hand to knock on the door of 3C. It opened before he could do so.
“Hey honey, do you have dinner? Oh. Sorry. Thought you were my husband.” The woman stared at them curiously. She had dreadlocks pulled back and covered with a bandana. Whittaker could never decide if he liked dreads on white women.
“Mrs. Bailey?” Whittaker asked, once more showing his badge.
“That would be my mother-in-law. Call me Susanna. What’s up?” She checked behind her once, then opened the door. “Sorry about the mess in here.”
“Not a problem,” Freeman said.
“You’ve probably seen worse,” Susanna said.
Whittaker had seen worse. To him, the apartment was more cluttered than his own, or even Cassie’s, but it wasn’t horrible. But it definitely smelled. Not quite as bad as Johnson’s apartment, although there was the slight odor of pet urine. And on top of that a smell of…rotten eggs?
Next to him, Freeman wrinkled his nose. He’d obviously noticed it, too. “The cages?” he said, pointing toward a corner.
One seemed to contain a ferret, but Whittaker wasn’t certain what the animals in the other cage were. Out of curiosity, he stepped closer.
“Oh, you like my rats?” Susanna retrieved the two animals and brought them over.
“You keep rats as pets?” Freeman asked, backing up. “Why? You can see them for free in any alley in this city.”
“I saved Jenner and Sullivan from a pet store,” Susanna said. “They were being sold as feeder animals, but I couldn’t let such handsome rats be used as food for snakes. Aren’t you a handsome little rat, Jenner?” She lifted the rat and kissed its nose.
To each their own, Whittaker thought, then tried for a casual opening. “They probably didn’t get along too well with Mrs. Johnson’s cats though.”
As if it had heard, one of the rats squealed. “Let me put them back.” Susanna deposited them back in their cage, then answered the question. “I think they would’ve liked each other if we had tried. Jenner and Sullivan like everybody.”
Whittaker raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? How about you?”
“Of course they like me.”
“No, do you like everybody?” Whittaker asked.
She shrugged and scratched at an acne scar. “I’m not sure I’d say that. Humans are hard to like sometimes. It’s much easier to get along with animals. But in general, I’d say I get along with most people. And I try not to bother anyone. Except my husband, of course. That’s a wife’s job. In fact…” At the sound of the key in the lock, she moved to the front door and opened it. “Hi, honey.” She leaned up for a kiss, standing on tiptoe since her husband was much taller, then leaned back suddenly. “You’ve been eating McDonald’s!” she accused. “I can smell it on your breath. You know I hate it when you do that.”
Bobby glanced at Whittaker and Freeman, then back at his wife. “I was hungry. Here’s your dinner though. Spring rolls and tofu chow mein.” He handed over the bag. “Who are these guys?”
“They’re the police. They came over to—actually, you never said why you were here.”
“Unfortunately, we’re asking questions about your neighbor Mrs. Johnson. She passed away earlier this week.”
“Oh no,” Susanna said. “That’s horrible. She was a good neighbor. What’s going to happen to her cats?”
“That hasn’t been determined yet,” Whittaker said.
“When did she die?” Bobby asked. He stepped closer.
Too close, Whittaker mused. He wasn’t sure he could smell McDonald’s on Bobby’s breath, but the man’s halitosis knocked him back a few paces.
“That also hasn’t been determined. When did you see her last?”
After looking at her husband, Susanna pursed her lips. “Um, I’d say it was sometime last week. It’s been a while. That’s not all that unusual, since she’s often out of town.”
“What happened the last time you saw her?”
Susanna eased into the kitchen and dropped the bag on the counter. “We talked about the neighbors. Miss Felicity was upset at the behavior of Tyler, the Jacobsens’ son. Evidently he’s been staying out all night. And Miss Felicity swears she saw him involved in a drug deal, too.”
“Buying or selling?”
“Buying, I believe,” she answered, after a quick confirming glance at Bobby. “Do you think she was murdered? That Tyler killed her? He’s a troubled kid, but I don’t think he’s capable of that.”
“We don’t think anything right now, Mrs. Bailey. Is there anyone you think would be capable of that?”
Both Bobby and Susanna pointedly turned their heads toward the outside wall. “Errol Price could have done it,” Susanna drawled. “He and Miss Felicity had a feud going over their balconies. She couldn’t stand the smell of his cigarettes, so she planted all those flowers. Then he hated the flowers so much, he actually tried to kill them. Oh, he denied it, but you could see the evidence of the weed killer on the ground below. They got into a screaming match on their balconies one time. We could even hear it in here.”
“Anyone else in the building have any issues with Miss Felicity?”
Bobby shook his head. “Not that we seen.”
“Did you have a problem with her?” Whittaker asked, ignoring the bad grammar.
Bobby shook his head even more emphatically this time. “Nope. I didn’t talk to her much, but Susanna would take care of her cats sometimes. She’d make food to thank us.”
“So you have a key to her apartment?” Whittaker asked.
Both of them froze. Susanna recovered faster.
“I guess we do. It’s somewhere around here. Look, can I eat? I’m starving.” She picked up the bag of Chinese food for emphasis.
“Of course.” Whittaker handed them his business card. “Please contact me if you think of anything else.”
* * * *
Out in the hallway, Whittaker shook his head. “Why would anyone eat tofu chow mein?” He headed over to the remaining door on that floor and knocked. “Mrs. Jacobsen?” When she opened the door, he flashed his badge. “May we come in?”
She pressed a hand to her heart. “Tyler?”
“It’s not about your son,” Whittaker said. “It’s about Mrs. Johnson.”
The woman’s face hardened. “What about her? Did she call you again? We’re trying to do something. We haven’t been able to find where he’s getting the stuff. I told her that.”
“It’s not about Tyler, Mrs. Jacobsen. Mrs. Johnson passed away earlier this week. She was just discovered this morning.”
She covered her mouth with her hand and inhaled sharply. When she lowered her hand, it was shaking. “Oh, that’s horrible. I’m so sorry to hear that.”
Whittaker was forever fascinated by how someone’s opinion of another person altered once death was mentioned. It was like death bestowed sainthood upon a previously unlikable individual.
“Joan? Is someone at the door?” called a voice from the back hallway. “Did Tyler come home?” An older man wandered into the living room. He was probably in his late forties, but exhaustion made him look much older. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“Hello, Mr. Jacobsen. I’m Detective Whittaker. This is my partner, Detective Freeman.”
Joan grabbed her husband’s arm. “It’s not about Tyler, Dave. It’s about Felicity. She’s dead.”
Unlike his wife, Dave didn’t show shock or sadness. He barely reacted at all. “That’s too bad.”
“Had you seen her lately?” Whittaker asked.
“Not since she called the cops on our boy. That was what, last week?” He turned to his wife for confirmation. “They almost arrested him, you know that? Don’t you all have better things to do than to harass a confused teenager?”
“Where is your son now?” Whittaker asked, following a hunch.
He shrugged. “Gone. He’s probably afraid to come home, afraid you people will come and—”
“Be quiet for a minute,” Joan scolded her husband, then turned to Whittaker. “What happened to Felicity?”
Dave interrupted. “She was old, Joan. What do you think happened to her?”
“Be quiet,” she said again, gripping his arm. “The cops wouldn’t be talking to us if she died just because she was old.”
“We’re not sure at this point how she died,” Whittaker said. “But we’re interviewing her neighbors, trying to piece together a picture of her last moments.”
“That’s bullshit police talk. You think we killed her.” Dave wrenched his arm away. “They think we did it, Joan. Why the hell would we kill her? Because she caught our kid doing drugs? It’s just pot. Harmless. That’s not the worst thing happening in these apartments. Maybe you should talk to the Baileys. Or talk to Errol. Felicity had info on him, too. You know, when the cat’s away.”
“We’ve spoken to them previously. We’re not accusing anyone of anything.”
“Settle down, Dave,” Joan said. “Why don’t we go sit in the living room?”
The furniture was old but well kept. That description could apply to the Jacobsens as well, Whittaker thought as he sat down. It was exhaustion that made them look old. Still, they were presentable with nice enough, if not expensive, clothes.
“I feel so bad,” Joan said. “I should have checked on her! Susanna had even commented on how she hadn’t seen Felicity for a while. We have a key to the apartment,” she offered. “I could have looked in at any time.”
Dave flinched at that. “We aren’t the only ones to have her key.”
“No. She gave a key to everyone who helped with her cats. And she’s managed to recruit lots of us to do that. Here let me get it.” Joan stood up and headed toward a key rack by the door. “Wait, what…”
Whittaker stood up. “What’s wrong?”
Joan turned around, her face paler, as she stared at her husband. “The key is missing.” Her eyes welled with tears. “Tyler’s missing. The key is missing. What’s going on?”
Whittaker asked them more questions about their son’s potential whereabouts, but they continued to insist that they didn’t know. After a while, he didn’t have the heart to continue questioning. They really did look exhausted. “Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate your help. If you’d like to report your son as missing, I can help you with that process.”
Joan shook her head emphatically. “No. He’s done this before. He’ll come home.”
Whittaker stood and headed for the door, passing a photograph in a silver frame propped up on the hall table. “Is this Tyler?” he asked, lifting the frame.
Dave nodded, a look of half pride, half dismay on his face.
Whittaker studied the photo. The boy was handsome, with dark hair like his mother. But the pock marks on his face indicated either a bad case of acne, or that the drugs the kid was taking were far from harmless. “Good-looking kid.” He set the photo down and headed for the door. Freeman remained behind. Whittaker watched his partner slip something into Joan’s hand.
“What did you give them?” he asked Freeman once they were back in the privacy of the hallway.
“Gave them a card for a drug treatment program in the city that worked for my cousin’s kid. Maybe it’ll help. If he comes home.”
“That’s a big if,” Whittaker said. “Especially if he’s the one who poisoned the old lady. The timing’s about right.”
“Could be,” Freeman said. “For the mother’s sake, I hope not. She was kind.”
“Father was a hothead.”
“He was worried, Whittaker. Worried about his son. Worried for his son. I think they feared he had done something to the old lady. And terrified that’s why we were there. I think that’s what really set the father off.”
Outside the building, Whittaker wandered over to the dead grass below Johnson’s balcony. He stared at it for a moment, then whipped out his smartphone and swiped it on.
“What are you looking up now?” Freeman asked, rolling his eyes.
“Symptoms of weed-killer poisoning. Following a hunch.” He read quietly for a few moments. “Vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions. Coma that can lead to death, especially if you’re a little old lady living by yourself. Well, other than eight cats. Why don’t we try and speed up the testing of that lemonade? And we should probably get that spray bottle of Roundup that was in Price’s apartment.”
“You think Price poisoned the old lady?” Freeman asked.
“I think he had a motive, and it had nothing to do with the flowers. I suspect the old lady had figured out that Errol was cheating on his wife.”
“Ah, you noticed the extra wine glass, too.”
“That and Dave’s strong hint about ‘when the cat’s away.’ But I don’t know, he’s not the only one with a motive. Or means and opportunity, considering they all had access to her apartment. And Tyler has some bad scabs on his face. I’m guessing he’s taking more than just marijuana.”
“Yeah, that was my take as well.” Freeman sighed. “That’s why I gave them the card. I’ve seen lots of meth addicts with those scab marks. I don’t get why people take that stuff. Messes you up. Still, you think he took the key and killed the old lady?”
Whittaker shrugged as they walked toward the car. “Maybe. Again, I think they all had motives of one sort or another. Not sure what she had on the Baileys, but she seemed to be nosy enough. Maybe she caught them doing something wrong.”
“Keeping rats in your apartment is wrong.”
Whittaker laughed as he opened the door to the car and slid in to the driver’s seat.
“But you may be right,” Freeman continued as Whittaker pulled into traffic. “I was thinking—”
Whittaker’s phone rang, and he answered using his car’s Bluetooth connection. “Hello, Cassie,” he said. “Watch what you’re saying, because Freeman can hear every word.”
“You busy?” his girlfriend asked.
“We are, unfortunately. What’s up?”
“I was going to invite you for dinner tonight since you had the early shift. But I assume this means you’re on a case.” She sounded more curious than annoyed.
“I am.” He smiled when he heard Donner meowing in the background. “Involving someone with eight cats.”
“Eight! That’s a lot of cats. I can barely keep up with one. He’s demanding food again. No, Donner.” Cassie’s voice faded as she spoke to the cat. “You still have a whole two hours before your magical food dish provides you with dinner.”
Whittaker chuckled again. He had bought the “magical food dish.” Since Cassie often got distracted by her writing, an automatic food dispenser was a great gift for her…and the cat. It was the first gift he had bought her, before they had even started dating. He then paused as a thought occurred to him. “Say, Cassie, for how long can you set the timer on your automatic dispenser?”
“On the one you bought me, I can program it to dispense for however long I’d like. You sprang for a top-of-the-line model. Re-member? I’ve got it set to dispense every five hours until it runs out of food, which could last for over a week since I’ve got the high-capacity tank.”
“How about the cheap plastic-looking ones that simply pop open?”
“The ones with the spring timer that flips the lid up? I had one of those, but Donner figured out how to use his teeth to advance the timer.”
Normally, he’d be amused at Donner’s skill at acquiring food, but he had a more pressing need. “So how long can you program those for?”
“The one I had was only for eight hours at a time, but…” She paused a moment; he heard typing. That was one thing he loved about her. He never told her much about his cases, but she was often able to connect the dots herself. “The longest time I can find online is forty-eight hours in advance. What brand would you, perchance, be curious about?”
Whittaker pulled into an empty parking space and took out his phone. He scrolled through his pictures, then zoomed in on one from the kitchen. “The Auto-Meow-Tic 2000.”
After a short burst of typing, Cassie answered. “That one, you can only set twenty-four hours in advance.”
The wheels in Whittaker’s head spun. “Thanks, Cassie. Talk to you later.” He smacked the steering wheel. “She was dead for more than twenty-four hours.”
“By far,” said Freeman. “And her ghost didn’t fill up those food dispensers.”
Whittaker put the car in gear and made a U-turn back to the apartment complex. “I think it’s time for us to have another talk with the animal-loving Susanna Bailey. This time we’re bringing her and her husband to our house. Reserve us an interview room.”
Freeman made the necessary phone calls.
“What was their motive?” Whittaker asked. “You think Johnson found out something about them?”
“Well, they are definitely doing drugs,” Freeman said as he closed his flip phone. Whittaker had been trying for years to get the old man to upgrade.
“What? Oh, the scars on her face. Bobby’s bad breath.”
“That and the smell,” Freeman added. “I kept thinking I smelled meth.”
“How did you smell anything but rat and ferret?”
“One of the cases I caught while you were on your cruise was a murder/suicide in a meth lab,” Freeman said. “Smells like a combination of rotten eggs and cat urine. Plenty of that going around today. At first, I wondered if it was just residual from Johnson’s apartment. Then I thought, nah, maybe those rats. It’s been a rough day with smells. I didn’t quite trust my nose. But looking back, I’m thinking it was meth.”
“You think they’re manufacturing?” Whittaker asked.
“Not manufacturing, no. That smell would have been even more obvious. And in that small space, it would have been toxic to anyone who stepped into the apartment. It would leach through walls. But they’re using. Might explain why she thinks owning rats is a good idea.”
* * * *
Back at the station, Whittaker finished up the paperwork at his desk while waiting for Freeman to get off the phone. It had been, by far, one of the easiest confessions he’d ever gotten out of someone. Whittaker hadn’t even been 100 percent certain the Baileys had committed the murder; hell, there hadn’t even been time to get results back from the medical examiner or crime lab proving that a murder had been committed. Whittaker simply claimed there was forensic evidence that the couple had killed Johnson. First Susanna and then Bobby had confessed to everything wrong they had ever done in their lives.
Freeman hung up the phone. “It’s taking you longer to finish that paperwork than it did to get them to confess to the murder. What idiots.”
“Agreed. Using your own products. Always a bad idea.”
“Yeah, but a lot of dealers do. I have pity for addicts, as you know, but not for dealers, especially when they get young teenagers like Tyler hooked. He came home, by the way. His mother just called.” He shook his head. “I simply can’t stand how little drug dealers value life. Killing an old lady ’cause she witnessed them committing a crime…” His voice trailed off.
It had been simple, really. The detectives separated the husband and wife, told them that their fingerprints had been found on the lemonade pitcher and on the weed killer bottle, and they immediately folded.
They told him how Felicity Johnson had threatened to call the cops after seeing Tyler purchase drugs from them. How she had suspected it for a while, but now had proof. She’d even taken pictures. So Susanna snuck into Errol’s apartment while he was at work and borrowed his weed killer. Then Bobby went into Johnson’s place when she was out shopping for cat food and poisoned her lemonade.
Then they waited. When Johnson failed to emerge from her apartment the following day, Susanna went over to check that the deed was done. It was, but her animal-loving bleeding heart couldn’t let the cats go hungry, so she fed them. And kept feeding them every day as she waited for someone to miss the old lady and figure out that Johnson was dead. She even tried to convince Joan to go and check on her.
“And Narcotics is excited to nab their supplier as well,” Freeman said. “I can’t believe the Baileys were willing to blow the whistle on their source. It won’t cut them any slack on the homicide charge.”
“Were you just on the phone with Narcotics?” Whittaker asked. He was surprised when Freeman looked embarrassed at the question.
“No. That was, well, um… Animal Control.” Freeman rearranged some papers on his desk.
“Animal Control?”
“Turns out the Johnson family doesn’t want to adopt all those cats.” Freeman scowled as Whittaker started laughing. “Look, I liked the gray one, okay? And Jada’s been asking and everything. Jordan even thought it was a good idea.”
Whittaker grinned. “Just make sure you don’t end up with all eight.”
Cathy Wiley is happiest when plotting stories in her head or on the computer, or when she’s delving into research. In 2015, she was nominated for a Derringer Award for her short story “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” which appeared in Chesapeake Crimes: Homicidal Holidays. She lives outside of Baltimore, Maryland, with one spoiled cat and an equally spoiled husband. Visit her website at www.cathywileyauthor.com.