Spotted Cats Read online

  As far as I knew, Jeff Newton had no interest in fly fishing.

  I stared at the phone bill. Then I went to the kitchen phone and pecked out the West Yellowstone number. It rang four times before a man’s voice said, ‘The Totem.’

  ‘Who is this, please?’

  ‘Gleason. Buddy Gleason. Can I do somethin’ for you?’

  I hesitated. ‘I’m calling from Massachusetts. I’m a friend of Jeff Newton?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jeff Newton. You don’t know him?’

  ‘I don’t think so. What’s up?’

  ‘Somebody there called him collect. My name is Coyne, and I’m Mr Newton’s lawyer. I’m checking, his phone bill for him, and he’s got several collect calls on it from this number.’

  The guy called Gleason chuckled. ‘This is a bar, Mr Coyne. The Totem Café? This here is our pay phone. All sorts of people use it.’

  ‘The Totem,’ I said. ‘I’ve been there. A guy named Fred used to tend bar there.’

  ‘Fred took a job up to Great Falls sometime last summer. Nice fella, Fred.’

  ‘Any idea who might’ve called Jeff Newton here in Massachusetts?’

  ‘Nope. Coulda been anybody.’

  ‘These calls were on May 20, 21, 22 and 23. One call each day. Evening, actually. All were around eight in the evening.’

  ‘Shit, that was two months ago. Sorry I can’t help you.’

  ‘Well, I appreciate it, anyway. Next time I’m out there I’ll drop in.’

  ‘Do that. Be nice to see you.’

  I hung up. All Westerners were friendly. That had been my experience.

  I found another Grolsch in the refrigerator and went back into the living-room. I finished stacking the papers on the desk. I moved the furniture back to where it belonged. I didn’t touch the glass cases.

  After I got the place cleaned up, I took my Grolsch into the kitchen. I sat at the table and lit a cigarette. Then I picked up the phone and tried the Wellesley number again.

  Gloria answered on the second ring. ‘Yes? Hello?’

  Oh, oh. I could read volumes in the way Gloria answered the phone. Or at least I imagined I could. Today she was busy, distracted, unsettled. ‘Hi, hon,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, Brady.’ Pause. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At Jeff Newton’s in Orleans. Everything OK?’

  ‘Sure. Fine.’

  Everything was not fine, she meant.

  ‘Well, uh, Joey called me yesterday. I’m returning his call. Is he around?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Oh. Well, um…’

  ‘Your son is gone for the weekend. Where? I don’t know. With whom? None of my business.’ She laughed quickly. ‘Sorry. Joseph and I have had a few issues recently, that’s all.’

  ‘What kind of issues?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Brady. Not your problem.’

  ‘Is that why he called? These issues?’

  ‘I don’t know why he called. We’re not, um, communicating very well lately.’

  ‘Gloria,’ I said, ‘what’s going on?’

  ‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘you’ve got a right to know. I just—hell, Brady. He’s not doing his part. It’s as if I was his servant. He’s got a few chores, you know? Things that need to be done. No reason he can’t help out. But will he go to the dump, like I ask him to? Hell, no. Not without a big scene. Does he pick up the Coke cans and empty potato chip bags from the TV room after he and that little Debbie finish watching movies and making out in there? Shit, no.’ I heard her take a deep breath and let it out. Its accusation hissed into the telephone. ‘I’m sorry. You asked.’

  ‘Look’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this. He and I will work it out. Listen, if you want to talk to him, I assume he’ll wander back tomorrow night sometime. Want me to tell him you called?’

  ‘Sure. Thanks.’ I hesitated. ‘I’ll try to talk to him, hon.’

  ‘Don’t bother. This is our problem. I can handle it.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him. He’s got to contribute.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Yeah, well maybe you could. Because I don’t seem to be getting very far. Billy was never like this.’

  ‘Billy was himself. This is Joey.’

  ‘Hey, wow. Thanks for the philosophy. Brady, you’re always so damned good at analysing other people’s problems. We clients really appreciate all your wisdom.’

  I tried to ignore her sudden burst of sarcasm. ‘He’s my son, too,’ I said. ‘That makes it my problem.’

  She snorted a short, ironic laugh. ‘Hardly.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him,’ I repeated.

  ‘That should be interesting,’ she said. ‘You should have great perspective on it.’

  Which meant that Joey, in Gloria’s mind, was becoming just like me. This did not bode well for either of them.

  ‘I’ve gotta go,’ I said, after taking in and letting out a deep breath. ‘Have a nice weekend, Gloria. I’ll try Joey again.’

  ‘OK. ’Bye.’

  I hung up the phone gently. I sat there for a minute while I finished my cigarette. Perspective was the word Gloria had used. I never had perspective when it came to my family. And even though Gloria and I had been divorced for more than a decade, which was almost as long as we’d been married, I still couldn’t stop thinking of her as my family.

  Nothing I could do about it now, I told myself.

  Which didn’t make me feel any better about it.

  I wandered back into the living-room and snapped on the television. Red Sox versus Kansas City, fourth inning. We were losing, five to two.

  An inning later I went back into the kitchen for another Grolsch.

  The place seemed to echo. It was empty. Before Lily had left, it hadn’t seemed that way. I settled on to the sofa with my beer and my Red Sox.

  Sometime later the phone rang. I had been dozing.

  I went to the kitchen and picked it up. ‘Yes?’

  ‘This Mr Coyne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This is Officer Maroney. Is Miz Robbins there?’

  ‘No. She went to the hospital to see how Jeff’s doing.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, as if he already knew it. ‘Can you come to the station?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If I wanted to talk about it on the phone, I wouldn’t’ve asked you to come to the station, Mr Coyne.’

  ‘Sure. How stupid of me.’

  ‘Know where it is?’

  ‘I’ve seen it.’

  ‘OK. You’ll be here, then?’

  ‘Give me half an hour.’

  I went back into the living-room in time to hear the announcers award the Star of the Game to Bo Jackson. I deduced that Kansas City had won. I snapped off the set.

  Before I climbed into my car, I showered and changed. It didn’t help much. The beers and the interrupted nap, combined with a less than restful night’s sleep and the trapped heat in my car and the poison of fear that still lingered in my gut, all made me feel sluggish and queasy, and I drove the back roads to the police station slowly. Just about the time I pulled into the parking area alongside the square brick building, the cranky air-conditioning in my BMW kicked in, so I sat there for a few minutes to savour it.

  I entered into a narrow corridor. The police station was air-conditioned, too. On the right was a glass window, shoulder-high, and behind it, like a ticket seller at a movie theatre, sat a uniformed cop. His amplified and distorted voice came through a little metal vent at the bottom of the window. ‘Help you, sir?’

  ‘Maroney,’ I said. ‘He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘Coyne. Brady Coyne.’

  ‘Just a moment, please.’

  I waited while he spoke into a little microphone, and then the door behind me buzzed. ‘Go ahead in,’ he said.

  I tried the knob on the d
oor and pushed it open. I entered into a small sitting area, not unlike a doctor’s waiting room except for the heavy wire mesh that covered the windows. I took a contoured plastic chair. The chair’s contour did not match mine.

  I looked for a No Smoking sign, but all I saw were a half dozen ashtrays on pedestals, all overflowing with butts. I lit a Winston.

  I was halfway through it when Maroney opened a door and beckoned me with a jerk of his head. ‘Come on in here, Mr Coyne,’ he said.

  I stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray, igniting the filter of an old butt in the process, and followed him. He led me to a glass-partitioned cubicle and gestured to one of the two chairs. The other was behind a littered desk. Maroney sat in that one. He picked up a pencil and began to tap his front teeth with the eraser end. He pretended to study me. His intention, I guessed, was to make me feel uncomfortable.

  After a minute or two of this game, I said, ‘Well?’

  He smiled without humour. ‘I’ve talked to the hospital. Mr Newton’s out of surgery. He’s still alive.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘They don’t know if he’ll be able to tell us anything.’

  I nodded.

  ‘They’re not sure how much damage was done. Whether he’ll regain consciousness.’

  ‘I see.’ I found myself nodding. ‘Thank you.’

  He let his pencil fall on to the papers on his desk. ‘What do you know about Lillian Robbins?’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘What do I know about her? Nothing, really. Why?’

  ‘How long has she worked for Newton?’

  ‘Twelve, fourteen years, I’d say. Look, do you—?’

  ‘Can I ask the questions, please?’

  I shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  He narrowed his eyes for an instant. ‘You had nothing to do with Newton hiring her, then.’

  ‘No.’ I fished out a cigarette and lit it.

  ‘I thought maybe the guy’s lawyer would’ve checked her out.’

  ‘You think Lily…?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s a thought.’ He cocked his head at me. ‘I understand you killed a man a few years ago.’

  ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘I had to report this thing to the state cops. Ended up talking with a detective named Horowitz. He recognized your name.’

  ‘I killed a man in self-defence,’ I said. ‘With a properly registered handgun. I was never arrested or indicted for a crime. I assume Horowitz told you that. Maybe you could tell me—’

  ‘This is a pretty serious crime here, Mr Coyne.’

  ‘It’s not at all clear what you’re asking me.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Here’s what I’m asking.’ He leaned towards me on his forearms. ‘I’m asking if you and the lady set up the theft last night. I’m asking if you and her got up, went outside and killed the dogs, and started piling the jaguars into one of your cars, thinking Mr Newton was dead to the world, loaded up with sleeping pills, in his back bedroom. And when he came out and surprised you, you slugged him on the head. And then you took the jaguars somewhere for safekeeping. I’m asking if when you got back you went to bed and she taped you up and cut you a little and whacked you alongside the head, to make it look good, and then went to bed herself.’

  ‘You’re asking me this?’

  He nodded.

  I shrugged. ‘No. We didn’t.’

  He smiled without showing his teeth. ‘Somehow, I thought you’d say that.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You thought I would protest my innocence loudly. You thought I would be angry. You thought I would be self-righteous, remind you that I’m an officer of the court and a respected Boston lawyer. Because you thought maybe Lily and I did it, and if we did, you thought that would be my guilty reaction. Listen. If I did it, I would’ve said the same thing the same way. OK?’

  He held up both hands, a gesture of surrender. ‘OK. Fine. No offence intended.’ He cocked his head. ‘Odd, though, that it would just happen to occur while you were visiting.’

  ‘Sure. Just the way I’d do it. Make sure I was there so it’d go down right. Good way to allay suspicion, being there. It’d really call attention to myself if I was in Boston at the time, or in Idaho fly fishing, or something. Hell, I’d be the first one you’d think of if I was in Idaho.’

  ‘You couldn’t’ve done it if you were in Idaho, Mr Coyne.’

  ‘Right. Best way is to spend the night. Jesus!’

  He shrugged. ‘I just said it was odd.’

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ I said.

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘This is why you asked me to come down here?’

  ‘You gotta admit,’ he said, grinning, ‘it’s an interesting scenario.’

  I denied him the satisfaction of a reply.

  Maroney laced his fingers together behind his neck and arched his back. He groaned softly. ‘You wouldn’t believe the paperwork on something like this,’ he mumbled. He leaned forward. ‘Let me level with you, Mr Coyne.’

  ‘I wish you would.’

  ‘I think the lady’s involved.’

  ‘Why?’

  He shrugged. ‘Think about it. If what you tell me is true—’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Sure. If it’s true, she could’ve gone down to unlock that gate, let the bad guys in, right?’

  He was right, of course. Lily could have purposefully left the gate unlocked when she let Dr Sauerman out. But I didn’t believe it.

  ‘She knew about the jaguars,’ continued Maroney. ‘She knew about the dogs. Hell, Mr Coyne. She’s a big, strong lady. She could’ve hit Mr Newton herself.’

  ‘It wasn’t Lily who came into my room,’ I said. ‘It was two men.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. He cocked his head and looked at me. ‘This thing absolutely stinks of an inside job.’

  ‘I didn’t know cops really talked like that.’

  ‘What, inside job?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sure we do. We watch TV just like anybody else.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think Lily had anything to do with it.’

  ‘How well do you know her?’

  ‘Not that well, really.’

  ‘So give me a hand.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The man was your client. I assume you care about him. And you got yourself scraped up a bit. Anyhow, there’s a question of justice here. You’re a lawyer. It’s your duty.’ He grinned broadly.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  Maroney picked up his pencil. This time he rolled it in his fingers. ‘I don’t know, exactly. Watch her. See what she says, where she goes. See what you can get out of her.’

  ‘Right now she’s at the hospital checking on Jeff. Does that help?’

  ‘Sure. You already told me that. OK? Will you do it?’

  ‘I’m leaving soon. Tomorrow, probably. Monday, the latest, depending on Jeff. I’ve got business in Boston.’

  ‘So that gives you a little time. I tried to check up on her, too.’

  ‘What’d you learn?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’ He peered at me.

  ‘You think I have better sources than you?’

  ‘Lawyers are supposed to be resourceful. You probably know Mr Newton’s business better than anybody. That’s a place to start.’

  ‘Oh, we are resourceful as hell.’ I thought of those collect calls from the Totem Café in West Yellowstone. I wondered if tracking down that number qualified me as being resourceful. I studied the ceiling for a minute. I remembered how Jeff looked, crumpled there on the path, a sickening bloody dent above his ear. I remembered the red smiles on the throats of Tondo and Ngwenya. I remembered the metallic taste of fear in my mouth when I thought I was going to die.

  I remembered that of all of us who were there, dogs and people, only Lily had been untouched.

  I looked up at him and nodded. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  He returned my nod, one quick jerk of his chin. ‘G
ood.’

  ‘I hope you’re not laying your whole wad on her. Or me.’

  ‘I’ve already put out the word on the jaguars. But you and I know that they’re not likely to turn up on the Cape. New York, maybe. Or L.A. Hell, it’s basically a theft with assault. Not like it was a homicide. Not yet.’

  ‘You’re saying that this gets treated like any other house-break, unless…’

  ‘Oh, it’s a heavy felony, Mr Coyne, and the state cops will be involved for sure. Burglary, grand larceny, assault. If Mr Newton dies, sure, it’ll be heavier. But you’ve got to remember. There’s lots of things happening on Cape Cod in the summer. We have to hire a bunch of auxiliaries just to direct traffic, patrol the parking lots, check out the nightspots. Million things. Fights, fires on the beaches, underage kids buying booze, head-ons on 6A, drownings, shoplifting. Not to mention your routine cocaine busts, bales of marijuana coming on pleasure boats into any one of two hundred Cape Cod harbours, several of which are right here in sleepy little Orleans.’

  ‘Road pizzas,’ I added. ‘Don’t forget road pizzas.’

  He shrugged. ‘Hell, you look at it one way, this is like any other housebreak. Only difference is, what they got is worth more than most of ’em and somebody was injured.’

  ‘Injured badly.’

  ‘Injured is injured.’

  ‘And what they got is worth a lot more, probably.’

  He nodded. ‘No doubt.’

  ‘And they killed two dogs.’

  He shrugged. ‘That’s probably some kind of crime, too. Cruelty to animals or something. We don’t exactly call it murder.’

  ‘And you need all the help you can get.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Good. Thanks.’ He stood up and reached his hand across his desk to shake mine. I took it.

  I moved towards the door. ‘Oh, Mr Coyne. One other thing.’

  I stopped and turned. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The dogs?’