Six Cats a Slayin' Read online

  Diesel did not meet me at the kitchen door when I came in from the garage. I greeted Azalea, and she informed me that Mr. Cat, as she called him, was in the living room watching over the kittens.

  “I’ll go say hello,” I said.

  “Before you go you might want to take a look at what I found on the front door this morning.” Azalea pointed toward a grubby-looking envelope on the table.

  “What is it?” I went to the table and picked it up. I saw my name written in childish block capitals: MR. HARRIS. The envelope contained something with a little weight to it. I suspected coins.

  “Went out to sweep the doorstep,” Azalea said. “It was pinned to the door.”

  “You didn’t see any sign of whoever left it there, I guess.”

  “No, I didn’t. It was around ten when I went to sweep.”

  The envelope had seen better days. To judge by the outside, it had been dropped in dirt, perhaps more than once—although the child who left it had made some efforts to reduce the staining. I turned it over and saw that it was sealed.

  I took care as I opened it not to let the contents spill. I extracted a small piece of paper, along with a five-dollar bill, a quarter, a dime, and two pennies. In the same block capitals, the child had written: FOR THEIR FOOD. I showed the note and the money to Azalea.

  “That child at least has a notion of what responsibility is,” she said.

  “Yes, this isn’t something I expected. I suppose she had to wait for her allowance.” The gesture touched me, and I felt sad that the poor girl had had to give up the kittens she obviously loved. I had to find her and figure out a way for her to keep them, if that’s what she wanted.

  I put the money and the note back into the envelope and took it to the den, where I placed it in a desk drawer. I had no intention of spending the money. I hoped I would be able to return it soon. If I could only figure out how to find the child. That was proving difficult.

  Then I remembered Melba’s idea about setting up a camera to record activity at the front door. I doubted that today’s note would be the last time I would hear from the child, so there should be opportunities to get her on video. I resolved to talk to Frank this evening, if he had time, to solicit his advice and find out what equipment I would need and how much it might cost.

  I headed for the living room to check on Diesel and the kittens. Diesel would have heard me when I came home and was probably wondering where I was. When I walked into the room he looked up at me and meowed loudly. I greeted him and scratched his head, and he meowed again, but this time he sounded happier.

  The kittens were quiet when I first entered the room, all napping in the back corner. But the sound of my voice woke them. They yawned and stretched, then scampered over toward me, mewing and making noises similar to Diesel’s trilling. Ramses was the loudest, as usual. He seemed to be demanding to be released from prison.

  “No, you little miscreant,” I said firmly, pointing a finger at him. “I’m not going to let you loose in the house. Heaven only knows what you would get into if I did.”

  Ramses paid no attention to me or my admonitory finger. Instead he started trying to climb the side of the cage. Probably to put himself on eye level with me, I thought, the little hardhead. He managed to climb about three feet before his determination seemed to falter, and he hung there, continuing to meow.

  The other boys, Fred and George, emulated Ramses and started climbing. The girls appeared to have no interest in climbing. They took the opportunity, while the boys were otherwise engaged, to head to the food bowls and have a snack.

  I stayed and watched them for a good ten minutes. Diesel went up to the cage three times and batted at the boys’ front paws, trying to encourage them to get down, I figured. Fred and George gave up, but Ramses hung there until I thought I was going to have to go inside the cage to get him down. Finally, however, he must have tired of the contest of wills, because he turned and jumped off.

  I had to admire the kitten’s force of will. Whoever ended up with him would have a battle royal on his or her hands. The name I had given him suited him all too well.

  “I’ll be back a little later,” I said, “when it’s dinnertime. Come on, Diesel.” He followed me out of the room and back to the den.

  I checked the time. Almost ten minutes after four. I decided to call Frank to ask about the video setup.

  He answered promptly, and after we exchanged the usual pleasantries—and information on the status of the world’s most wonderful grandson—I explained what I wanted to do.

  “I can rig that up for you,” Frank said. “Won’t take me long. I can probably do it first thing tomorrow morning, since I’ve finished grading finals. Is that soon enough?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but will I be able to find the equipment you’ll need by then?”

  Frank chuckled. “You don’t need to buy anything. I think I can manage with what I have. If you decide at some later point that you want a permanent camera on the front door, then you can look into buying what you need.”

  “I really appreciate this.” I knew better than to offer to pay him for his time and effort. Instead I would buy a couple of bottles of the wine he and Laura liked. They rarely bought it for themselves because of the expense. The bottles could be part of the Christmas presents I had already found for them.

  “You know I don’t ever mind helping you out,” Frank said. “I’ll be there before you leave for the library in the morning.”

  I thanked him again and ended the call. With that camera installed—if it did the job properly—I might soon have an answer to the question of the child’s identity.

  One thought did strike me, however. The child had lurked around the living room windows, probably more than once, to see how the kittens were faring. I had to hope she wouldn’t be doing that tomorrow morning while Frank was here. I thought she was probably smart enough to figure out what he was doing, and that might scare her away.

  Feeling better now that I had a plan to solve this one riddle, I found my mind irresistibly drawn toward another one. Who was Gerry Albritton? I would have accepted her at face value had it not been for Melba’s dogged insistence that Gerry was not really a part of the extended Albritton clan. According to Melba, it was a large clan, and I suspected there could be offshoots that Melba knew little about. Gerry could have belonged to one of those.

  For some reason I suddenly thought of property records. They were public, available through the tax collector’s office. Even better, they were online, and I could easily search them to see whose name was on the deed to Gerry Albritton’s house. If Albritton was not her legal name, only an assumed one, then her legal one would be on the deed.

  I grabbed my laptop and turned it on. Diesel stretched out on the sofa beside me, and I stroked him while I waited for the computer to boot up fully.

  I typed in the URL for the county website and followed the links to the property database. Options for searching included the owner’s name, street address, and lot number. I used the street address. I certainly had no idea what the lot number was, and I didn’t know what name was on the deed.

  The record popped up on the screen, and I scanned it quickly. My eyes focused on the name of the owner.

  Well, looks like Melba was right after all.

  The owner’s name was listed as Ronni Halliburton.

  NINETEEN

  I wondered if Melba knew any Halliburtons in the Athena area. I would ask her later. At the moment I was wondering what to do with this information. Should I communicate with Kanesha and tell her what I had discovered? Or was this something she would have checked on herself?

  Let’s take it a step or two further.

  I opened a genealogy database and searched for Ronni Halliburton. I found many, many more results than I had expected, and I started going through the list. There were variant spellings for the surname: Hal
iburton and Halyburton. I found Janes, Janas, and even Johns. The exact matches on the name Ronni Halliburton didn’t jibe with what I knew of Gerry Albritton’s age.

  That was not an encouraging start. Next, I searched for Geraldine Albritton, and once I narrowed down the results to search for the exact name, I was left with only a few from which to choose. Again, none of the birth dates worked for the woman I had known. She would have had to have been in her seventies or eighties to match these entries, and even if she’d had extensive plastic surgery, as had been suggested, I didn’t think any surgery could take twenty to thirty years off someone’s age.

  Who was Ronni Halliburton then?

  Was there a third, as-yet-undiscovered name for this woman?

  Kanesha could get fingerprints and use those, I supposed, to find out whether the dead woman had a police record. That might yield her real name, but that was information I doubted Kanesha would share readily.

  Next, I searched the name Halliburton on the Internet in conjunction with Athena. Turned out there was a Halliburton or two in the county, but not anyone I knew. Melba might know them, of course.

  Recalling Gerry’s interest in buying houses in my neighborhood, I went back to the county property site and did a search using Ronni Halliburton as the owner. This search yielded four results: the house across the street, two other houses in my neighborhood, and a house in another part of town.

  I set the laptop aside and got up to retrieve a pen and a notebook from my desk. I jotted down the addresses, and when I had done so, I stared at the page. Now that I had this information, what was I going to do with it? I had adjured myself last night to stay out of this investigation, but I had allowed my curiosity to pull me in, at least this far. I revisited the question of whether I should share with Kanesha the information I’d found.

  Another possibility occurred to me. What if Ronni Halliburton and Geraldine Albritton were two different people? Maybe Halliburton had the money and Albritton did the buying. That was certainly possible—not the first time the money person chose to stay in the background.

  If they were two different people, though, it was odd that I couldn’t find either of them, with any certainty, in the genealogical database. Surely there was a birth certificate—or two—somewhere. Not all birth and death records in Mississippi had yet been digitized. I knew because I had searched for my own online and came up with nothing. The records existed, no doubt. They simply weren’t available online. I had no legal authority to obtain copies from the state Department of Health office. Kanesha could do that, I imagined, and would if necessary.

  As if she knew I was thinking about her, I received a text from the chief deputy. She had more questions for me, the text said, and wanted to know when I was available to meet with her. I responded to let her know that I was at her disposal, and she answered that she would come to my house within the next half hour.

  I checked the time. Nearly five o’clock. Azalea would be leaving soon, and that was just as well. Mother and daughter strongly disagreed over Azalea’s continuing to work for me, particularly since Azalea could retire whenever she wanted. She didn’t appear to want to, and that was fine with me. Considering the fact that they were almost exactly alike when it came to temperament and stubbornness, I didn’t think this was a battle either would ever win. I didn’t enjoy being caught in the middle. I certainly wasn’t going to fire Azalea to make Kanesha happy, and I wasn’t going to ask Azalea to tell Kanesha to back off. As long as they managed to maintain a truce, I would be happy.

  “Come on, boy,” I said to Diesel. “Let’s go see if Azalea is still here. Then we need to give the little monsters their dinner.”

  Azalea was about to walk out the back door when we strolled into the kitchen. “Roast in the Crock-Pot,” she said. “It’s been cooking since first thing this morning. Give it another hour, and it should be ready.” She nodded in the direction of the stove. “Mashed potatoes, green beans, and cornbread ready to be warmed up.”

  “Thank you,” I told her. Azalea’s pot roast was always a treat. “Have a good evening.”

  Azalea nodded. “See you in the morning. Bye, Mr. Cat.” She headed out the door.

  Diesel supervised while I prepared dinner for the kittens. He continued his supervision while I went into and out of the cage to exchange dirty dishes for clean ones filled with food, and then to freshen their water. The five of them ate like they hadn’t had food in three days, though their round little bellies belied that.

  We watched them eat for a couple of minutes. “Okay, Diesel, your turn,” I said. He followed me back to the kitchen and into the utility room, watching closely, rubbing against my legs a few times, while I prepared his dinner and refreshed his water bowl. There were always stray hairs in the water when I refreshed it. I wished I could keep them out, but unless I changed the water every couple of hours, that was a useless wish.

  Stewart entered through the back door from the garage and called out, “Hello, Charlie, where are you?”

  “Right here.” I stepped out of the utility room. Diesel remained there to scarf down his dinner.

  “Have you figured out who murdered Gerry Albritton yet?” Stewart opened the refrigerator and rummaged in it until he brought out a can of diet cola.

  “Very funny,” I said. “I don’t even know for sure yet that she was murdered. It could have been natural causes.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Stewart popped the top on his can and took a long draught of soda.

  “Well, no,” I said. “I don’t think it was natural, but I’m trying not to let myself get too involved in it.”

  “And how is that working for you?” Stewart cocked an eyebrow, and his lips twitched.

  “Not well,” I admitted. “So you can let up on the ragging. I can’t help but be curious about what happened.” I glanced at the clock. Kanesha would be here in a few minutes. I shared that news with Stewart.

  He grimaced. “Unless she specifically wants to talk to me, I’d just as soon stay out of her way. I’m not in the mood to feel like a butterfly pinned on a board tonight. I’d better get upstairs anyway and get Dante ready for his walk. See you later.”

  He hurried out of the kitchen, and moments later I heard him running up the stairs. I looked down at Diesel, who had joined me in the kitchen. “Guess we’ll have to talk to Kanesha alone.” The cat warbled. He and Kanesha had warmed toward each other a little, but Kanesha still wasn’t a big fan. Neither was the cat, although he didn’t disdain her presence as he did with some people he didn’t like.

  I poured myself a glass of sweet tea from the fridge and settled down in my usual spot at the table to await Kanesha’s arrival. The front doorbell rang about five minutes later, and Diesel accompanied me to let her in.

  “Would you like something to drink?” I asked on the way back to the kitchen. “Sweet tea? Diet cola? Or I can make some coffee. Won’t take long.”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine.” Kanesha took the chair to my right. Diesel trotted off to the living room, evidently preferring the kittens’ company.

  “If you change your mind, let me know,” I said. “Now, I know you said you have questions for me, but I also have some information for you that could be potentially useful.” I watched her intently for signs of her reaction.

  Other than a slight quirk of her left eyebrow, she gave no other overt sign of irritation. “What kind of information?” She pulled out her notebook and pen and flipped through the pages.

  “Melba Gilley no doubt told you last night that she was suspicious from the get-go about Geraldine Albritton not being who she claimed. Melba knows the Albrittons, and she insists there isn’t a Geraldine among them.”

  Kanesha nodded. “Yes, she told me. Go on.”

  “Gerry put out flyers around the neighborhood, telling the owners that she was ready to buy their houses if they wanted to sell. I was curiou
s about that. I was also curious to find out whether Geraldine Albritton was her real name.”

  “Let me guess,” Kanesha said, a slight edge to her tone. “You searched the county property records and came across the name Ronni Halliburton.”

  I nodded. “I figured you already had the information, but in case you hadn’t, I wanted to share it.”

  “I appreciate your interest,” Kanesha replied, “but you don’t have to feel compelled to help, you know.”

  “I know,” I said, “but I’m fascinated by the question of who Gerry really was. If Albritton wasn’t her name, was it Ronni Halliburton? I searched both names in a genealogical database and couldn’t come up with a match for either. At least not a match to the right age.”

  “According to her driver’s license—in the Albritton name—she was fifty-nine back in April,” Kanesha said.

  “If that’s the case, then none of the records I found would fit her,” I replied. “Who do you think she was?”

  “For now I’m working on the assumption that she was Geraldine Albritton,” Kanesha said, “unless and until I find evidence that the name was an alias.”

  “She told me she had lived in Athena all her life, but Melba is sure she was lying about that. I don’t remember her, either, from when I grew up here. She was about four to five years older, so she was probably out of high school before I got there.” Talking about high school gave me another idea. The public library had copies of the high school yearbook going back decades, certainly well before the time that Geraldine Albritton would have graduated. I would look through the appropriate years to see if I could find her under either name.

  “You’re going to check the old yearbooks at the public library,” Kanesha said. “Aren’t you?”

  Was I that readable? I wondered. It was uncanny the way her mind and mine were synching. “Yes,” I said.

  “Don’t bother. I’d really like to find some trace of her as soon as possible, so I’ll put a deputy on it,” Kanesha said.