“So she just sits on the windowsill for hours at a time?” Lucy asked Kat, regarding Matty across the living room.
“Yup. I don’t know what she’s watching. Birds, I guess.” Kat certainly hoped the feline wasn’t looking for more dead bodies.
“Huh.”
Kat studied Lucy’s profile. As neighbors they chatted occasionally, but Kat didn’t consider them to be friends per se. Still, she usually enjoyed their interactions.
At the moment though, Kat felt more tense than anything. Andrew’s words from yesterday niggled at her, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Lucy was the person Jeff Parr had been visiting those times when Mr. Peterson had seen him in the building. Lucy was the only other person currently living on the third floor.
“Think she’s looking for him?” Lucy asked, breaking into Kat’s thoughts.
“Looking for who?”
“Jeff Parr.” Lucy twisted sideways on the couch, tucking one of her legs underneath her. “You said Matty saw his body, right? Do cats understand death? Maybe she thinks he’s still out there.”
Kat glanced at Matty, her stomach tightening. She certainly hoped the tortoiseshell wasn’t dwelling on the dead body the dachshund had led them to the day before.
Lucy rested one arm along the back of the couch. “I remember when my uncle died a few years ago. He wasn’t even a close uncle, but he kept popping into my head for weeks after the funeral. Once I even thought I saw him in the grocery store. It’s like he was haunting me. Maybe it’s the same for cats.”
“What about Jeff?” Kat asked. “Has he been haunting you too?”
“No.”
Kat didn’t miss the way Lucy’s lips had puckered, as if she’d bitten into a lemon. “I gather you didn’t like him.”
“I know it’s bad form to speak ill of the dead, but no, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“He was always trying to take advantage.” Lucy twirled a strand of her red hair around one finger. “Like, well, there was this one time in high school when he kept badgering me to let him copy my algebra homework.”
“You guys were in the same grade?” Kat didn’t know exactly how old Lucy was but figured she was in her early twenties.
“Yeah. And Jeff was a terrible student. He was always looking for ways to get by without doing any work.”
“Did you guys keep in touch after school?”
“Not really. I mean obviously I saw him around. Cherry Hills is a small town.”
“But he never sought you out on purpose?” Kat asked, studying Lucy for a reaction.
Lucy swayed backward. “No way. He knew I couldn’t stand him.”
“That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have a reason to talk to you. Maybe he’s been thinking about high school and wanted to apologize for trying to steal your answers.”
Lucy snorted. “You’re giving Jeff too much credit. He hadn’t changed much from when we were teenagers. Honestly, I’m not sure why his parents never kicked him out of the house and made him get a real job. They couldn’t have liked him mooching off of them.”
Kat took a deep breath, fortifying herself for the next question she needed to ask. “Lucy, did you tell Andrew Jeff had been stopping over to visit me?”
“Not like that, no. But when he asked me about Jeff seeing somebody on the third floor here I knew it wasn’t me. That left you.”
Kat pondered that. “I wonder how Mr. Peterson formed the impression he was involved with one of us.”
“Who knows?”
Who knew indeed, Kat thought. She wondered if Mr. Peterson had lied about seeing Jeff in the building. Remembering the scowl on his face when Matty had been in the lobby, she wouldn’t put it past him to try to get her convicted of Jeff’s murder just so he would no longer have to see her cats.
The thought made her blood boil.
“Maybe Jeff came to see that new girl who moved in last week,” Lucy said.
“There’s a new girl on our floor?” Kat wondered how she’d missed that.
“Not on our floor. She lives on the second.” Lucy tapped her finger against her lips. “But Mr. Peterson wouldn’t necessarily know what floor Jeff was going to, right? I mean, he would have seen him getting off on the second floor if they rode up together, but if they crossed paths in the lobby Mr. Peterson wouldn’t know where he was headed. He could have just assumed Jeff was going to the third floor.”
That was true, Kat had to concede, some of her anger fading away. “What’s the new person’s name?”
“Janice Something-or-other.”
Kat stilled. “Janice? Does she happen to be African American and own a dog? An Irish setter?”
Lucy’s face brightened. “So you have met her.”
“Briefly.”
Kat replayed their conversation at Cherry Hills Veterinary. When she had mentioned Jeff being killed, Janice hadn’t behaved as if she knew him. Had that been an act?
“How long can she sit there for?” Lucy asked.
“Janice?”
Lucy pointed to the window. “Matty.”
Kat shifted her thoughts to the tortoiseshell, who was still in the same spot, looking out at a place she couldn’t be. Kat’s heart ached for the little feline. She had hoped her obsession with the outside would have faded away overnight, but after breakfast she’d jumped right back on the windowsill. Kat had the sinking sensation she would sit there until Lucy left, when she’d have another shot at escaping.
“I don’t know what to do about her,” Kat admitted, turning to Lucy. “This might sound crazy, but I think being inside actually depresses her now. It’s like she caught a glimpse of this whole new world, and now that she knows it exists she’ll never be happy confined to her old world.”
“Funny how we become attuned to their thoughts, huh? I’m getting to the point where I can read Tabitha’s just from the look on her face. She has different meows for different moods too. Like, her voice changes depending on whether she’s hungry or wants attention. And when I come home she has this routine she goes through to greet me. She follows me around, pacing her meows as if to tell me what she did all day.”
Kat grinned. “Tom and Matty have different inflections too.”
“Sometimes I swear Tabitha and I can communicate just like we’re speaking the same language.”
Kat bit her lip as her gaze slid over to Matty. “What do you think she’s trying to tell me now?”
“She wants to go back outside,” Lucy said. “Obviously she liked what she saw out there.”
Kat frowned, envisioning the dog leash wrapped around Jeff’s neck.
Lucy pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “I should get going. I need to pick up my dry cleaning before work.”
“Okay.” Kat relaxed against the couch, glad she had cleared the air about Jeff’s building visits. “I’ll see you later.”
Lucy stood up and walked over to the windowsill. She rubbed Matty between the ears. “Matilda Harper, you keep an eye on things while I’m gone, okay?”
The cat peered at her for a moment before turning her forlorn gaze back toward the window.
An ache bloomed in Kat’s chest. She didn’t know what she was going to do about Matty, but she was pretty sure she couldn’t go on watching her drown in her own misery for much longer.