The Cat Collector Page 3

  Claudia chewed her lip for a moment, wondering how much she should say. Sometimes she was too honest for her own good. But she knew being truthful was always best when dealing with the police. And he might find her input helpful.

  “No. He was misusing church funds and lying to people. He’s been here six months, and some of us think he came with a hidden agenda. He was extremely conservative.” She explained how he’d put the kibosh on the Trialogue. “But he has . . . did have loyal followers like Sue Ember. They thought he was wonderful.”

  O’Rourke looked at her directly, his brown eyes unblinking. “Where were you before you came here to talk to him? Home?”

  “At work. The clinic opens at seven on Wednesday.”

  “Clinic?”

  “The Briarwood Cat Clinic on Main Street. I’m a licensed veterinary technician.”

  He eyed her clothes. “That’s why you’re wearing this outfit with cartoon cats, I suppose.”

  Claudia looked down at the tunic top she wore over white pants, one of several cheerfully printed scrubs she owned. Her face felt a bit warm as she figured this no-nonsense police detective probably thought it looked childish.

  “Were you alone at the clinic?” he asked.

  “No, everyone was there. The veterinarian, the receptionist, the groomer and the woman who runs the office.”

  “So they can vouch for your whereabouts.”

  Claudia straightened her back against the metal chair. “You mean, do I have an alibi?” She felt affronted. “Yes, everyone saw me at work this morning.” She paused. “I don’t know what time McGrath died. I live alone and no one can attest that I was at home before I left for work.”

  “His body is still warm,” O’Rourke said. “Probably dead less than an hour. But I have to ask these questions.”

  She bowed her head and nodded that she understood, nevertheless feeling horrified that he had thought she might be capable of murder.

  “You have any reason to think McGrath might have killed himself?”

  Claudia blinked at the idea. “He was too much of a narcissist.” Her tone grew a bit sarcastic. “Besides, suicide is a sin and he wouldn’t have wanted to meet his Maker that way.” Immediately she wondered if she should have blurted that out.

  O’Rourke smiled slightly as he wrote something more on his notepad. “I’ll need your address and phone. May have further questions for you.”

  She gave him her information. As he wrote it down, he said without looking up, “You live alone. You’re single?”

  “A widow. My husband died several years ago.”

  He folded up his notepad and turned off the digital recorder. “Thank you. You can go now.” He pulled a card out of his suit jacket. “Call me if you think of anything that might be pertinent,” he said, looking up as he gave it to her.

  Claudia’s hand was still shaking as she took the card. She felt a little strange and lost as she met his steady gaze.

  O’Rourke’s eyes softened. “Finding a dead body is a shock. But you seem like a strong person.” He rose from his chair. “You’ll be okay,” he added, reassurance in his voice.

  They walked out together. Destiny was still sitting in the courtyard and he called her in to be interviewed next.

  Feeling numb, Claudia was anxious to get back to the clinic and her normal life. But she wanted to check on Verna. She was relieved to see Verna standing outside the church office, thanking the paramedics who were leaving. Verna’s color was good and she seemed to have recovered.

  “Are you alright?” Claudia asked, walking up to her.

  “I’m fine. Nice to have handsome young men fussing over me,” she said. “I suppose that detective will want to interview me, too. What a morning! Who would have thought this would happen?”

  “What a morning,” Claudia agreed. “At least you won’t have to worry about your job anymore.” As she walked to her car, Claudia wondered if saving her job could have been motivation enough for Verna . . . .

  How can you even think such a thing? Claudia got in her Prius and slammed the door.

  Verna was no murderer. Nor was Destiny, even though she despised McGrath. Claudia hoped Detective O’Rourke wouldn’t suspect them if they couldn’t vouch for their whereabouts. Verna lived by herself. Destiny lived with her mother, but often joked how she sometimes stayed out all night with friends. They both had keys to the church. And access to McGrath’s coffee maker, if his cup of coffee really was what killed him.

  But Claudia could never believe anyone connected with the church who disliked McGrath would ever think of murdering him. Which left the question, who did kill him? Was it suicide?

  Before going in to work, Claudia sat in her car in the cat clinic’s parking lot and called Amy on her cell phone.

  “You’re joking, right?” Amy chuckled at what Claudia told her.

  “No. McGrath was sprawled out on the fancy rug, next to a coffee spill. The paramedics called the police. I wonder if his coffee was poisoned.”

  “He’s really dead?” Amy exclaimed.

  “The detective asked if I thought McGrath might have killed himself, but I said I didn’t think so.”

  “No,” Amy agreed. “Was he murdered?”

  “I don’t know, but the detective asked me if I had an alibi! Fortunately my coworkers saw me at work at seven.”

  “Wow,” Amy said. “What a lovely day you’re having. I won’t miss McGrath, but people at church will be upset whether they liked him or not. I wonder who could have killed him?”

  “Can’t imagine. I’m afraid this detective might suspect Verna or Destiny,” Claudia said.

  “What’s the detective like?”

  “Sort of a just-the-facts guy. Polite. At the end he tried to reassure me.”

  “How old?”

  “Oh, maybe a few years older than me. Graying a little. Kind of nice looking.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Steve O’Rourke.”

  “Irish, like you,” Amy said.

  “So was McGrath,” Claudia reminded her.

  Amy didn’t seem to hear. “Did he wear a wedding ring?”

  Claudia had to laugh. “Never occurred to me to look. Bye, Amy. Have to get back to work.”

  She was glad Amy had made her chuckle. It helped release the nervous energy still coursing through her.

  Late in the morning the results for Sue’s cat came in positive for a urinary tract infection, so Claudia had the sample sent to a lab to be cultured. She called Sue to tell her.

  “The culture takes a few days, and then Dr. Chandler will give you the right medication.”

  “Hope it’s not a pill,” Sue said, sounding distressed. “Poor Knickerbocker.”

  “You live so close to me, I can always stop by your house and give him the pill.”

  “Oh, that’s a relief,” Sue said. “Thanks a mil, Claudia.”

  “No problem.” Claudia hesitated. “So . . . did you hear about Reverend McGrath?”

  “What about him?” Sue replied.

  “He was found dead in his office this morning.”

  “He was?” Sue’s breathing sounded uneven. “Oh, no. It can’t be true.”

  “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I know you thought highly of him.”

  “Yes, I did,” Sue said, her voice breaking. “I . . . I need to hang up. I’m so shocked.”

  “I understand. I’ll phone when Knickerbocker’s medication is ready.” As she ended the call, Claudia felt some empathy for Sue, knowing McGrath’s blind-faith followers would certainly miss him. She wondered if their church could recover from such a trauma.

  CHAPTER four

  Losing Objectivity

  The next day, Thursday, Claudia was assisting Dr. Chandler as he extracted a cat’s bad tooth, when Mary Anne, the receptionist, hurried in.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but there’s a detective here.” Her wide blue eyes fixed on Claudia. “He’s asking about you. I slipped away to tell you.”

&nb
sp; Dr. Chandler looked up from the anesthetized cat. “I’m almost finished,” he told Claudia. “You can go.”

  Worried, Claudia took off her face mask and latex exam gloves before going out to the front office. There she saw Detective Steve O’Rourke talking to Trudy Avery, the clinic’s manager, a middle-aged blonde.

  “Thanks,” he was saying. “Just had to verify she was here from seven to nine, that’s all.”

  He had to check my alibi? Claudia stepped up to him, wondering why he was still suspicious of her. “Satisfied?”

  He seemed slightly taken aback. “Somewhere we can talk? I have more questions.”

  “The second exam room,” Trudy said. “We put Sassafras in there for a little exercise, but you can talk there.”

  “This way.” Claudia felt unsettled as she led him into the exam room. “Careful of the cat,” she said, opening the glass door. She stooped to pick up Sassafras, a fluffy calico Persian, before the cat could scoot out, then closed the door after the detective. She put Sassafras back on the floor. “She’s being boarded while her family is on vacation. We let her in here when we can so she’s not confined all the time.”

  “Okay,” O’Rourke said matter-of-factly, though he looked a little mystified. “I’m not used to cats. Had a dog once, but . . . .”

  “Your dog died?” she said, motioning him to sit on the built-in bench near the exam table. She pulled out a three-legged stool from beneath the computer shelf and sat down.

  He nodded, his expression somber. “In a bad car accident years ago. My wife was driving. She died, too.”

  “How awful,” Claudia replied, stunned. “I’m so sorry. It’s a terrible loss, isn’t it? My husband died of leukemia.”

  “You told me you were a widow. You have kids?”

  “No. We wanted to, but . . . .” She shrugged.

  “I have a son. Away at college, studying law.” He drew in a breath. “So then, down to business. In our investigation of McGrath’s death, we found that one of the used pods collected from inside the coffee machine had evidence of cyanide. Question is, how did the pod get tampered with? There were no fingerprints on it. We figure someone wearing gloves may have used a syringe to inject the cyanide into the top of the pod. That hole got obliterated when the machine’s plunger went into it to brew the coffee.”

  “So it was murder?” Claudia sighed with dismay.

  “Well, if he was going to kill himself, why go to all that trouble? Cyanide isn’t a painless way to die, and even if he didn’t care about that, he could have just mixed it into his cup. Why hide the poison in a coffee pod? Also, no suicide note. His wife told me he had big plans. Wanted to use your church as a stepping stone to a mega church, maybe even be a televangelist.”

  “He didn’t have the charisma,” Claudia said, puzzled that McGrath could have had such aspirations.

  “So,” O’Rourke went on, “the reason I needed to verify your whereabouts was because I knew you have access to needles here. You give animals shots, don’t you?”

  Claudia’s mouth dropped open. “I do. I’m a suspect?”

  “Your co-workers affirmed you were here when he must have ingested the cyanide. I found I was losing my objectivity, so I went back to the basic police work of officially confirming what you told me. Though we don’t know when the pod was tampered with. It might have been planted in McGrath’s box of coffee. But then the perpetrator wouldn’t know if McGrath would select that particular pod, or even offer coffee to someone else. I’m going on the theory that the murderer made his coffee for him.”

  She wondered what the detective meant by losing his objectivity, but just then Sassafras jumped up onto the exam table between them. In the next moment, the cat pounced onto O’Rourke’s lap. The detective’s eyes widened in astonishment.

  Claudia rose from her seat. “So sorry. I’ll take her—”

  “That’s okay.” He tentatively petted the cat’s head.

  “You’ll have cat fur all over your suit,” Claudia warned.

  “There are worse things,” he said. “She’s purring.”

  Claudia grinned. “That’s a compliment. Cats don’t take to just anyone.”

  He chuckled. “I’m flattered.” Pulling out his notebook and a pen from his jacket as the cat loudly purred, he said, “Whom do you know at the church who might have access to syringes? And cyanide.”

  Sitting down again, Claudia lifted her shoulders. “I have no idea where anyone would get cyanide. As for needles, well . . . .”

  “What about Verna or Destiny?”

  She was about to say no, but then she remembered. “Destiny’s brother is in rehab for heroin addiction. I suppose there could still be needles at their home.”

  O’Rourke made a note. “Verna?”

  “No,” Claudia said.

  “She have diabetes maybe?”

  “Not that I know of. She’s pretty healthy for seventy-two. Although,” Claudia added with a sigh, “she has a cat that has failing kidneys. Dr. Chandler has her give the cat subcutaneous fluids. It’s not done with a syringe, but a thicker type of needle that is attached to a bag of fluids and injected into the scruff of the neck. Maybe that could be rigged up somehow to inject something into a coffee pod. But Verna couldn’t murder anyone. Neither could Destiny.”

  He lifted an ominous eyebrow. “People have killed for less than their job being threatened. Anyone else you can think of who might have a motive?”

  Claudia bit her lip as she pictured names and faces. “No. He had followers like Sue who thought he was on God’s holy wavelength. They even thought he had a sense of humor, and that he was good at making hospital and home visits. None of them wanted him dead.”

  “Sue Ember?” O’Rourke nodded. “I interviewed her. A true believer alright.”

  “There are others like me,” Claudia went on, “who didn’t like him and thought he’d wind up splitting the church. But there are legal ways in the Presbyterian hierarchy to get a minister booted out. No need to murder him.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Claudia.” He folded up his notebook. “Can you provide me with one of those needles used to administer fluids?”

  She rose. “Sure. I’d better take Sassafras back. They’ll be needing this room soon.” He looked up as she bent over him to lift the cat off his lap. Their eyes met and she was aware of his quiet but penetrating gaze, as though he wanted to know everything about her. Not as a detective, but as a man. Her heartbeat jumped into a new rhythm. She began to understand what he’d meant about losing his objectivity.

  Claudia broke the eye contact by looking down at Sassafras as she picked up the feline. “Meet you out front, okay?”

  In a few minutes, she handed him the needle he’d asked for as he stood in the waiting room.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Need it back?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll keep in touch,” he told her, back to his matter-of-fact demeanor. “If you think of anything that might be useful, call me. Still have my card?”

  She smiled. “Yes, I do, Steve.”

  His eyes brightened to a soft glow as she called him by his first name. And then he left.

  CHAPTER five

  The Bride’s Room

  On Saturday afternoon, McGrath’s funeral was held at the church. His closed casket was at the front. A minister had been sent from the Chicago Presbytery to preside. Claudia walked into the church sanctuary and sat next to Amy and Larry.

  “Jo Louise looks all glamorous in her black suit and wide-brimmed black hat with that long feather,” Amy commented, surreptitiously pointing to the minister’s wife in the front pew. “As Sue said, it’s like she’s from central casting.”

  They watched Jo Louise greet some people who walked up to her. Claudia commented, “She does look stricken and tearful. Her eyes are red.”

  “She looks angry, too, don’t you think?” Amy said.

  Claudia pondered the slim, petite woman’s expression. “You may be right. She’s grieving, but
brimming with pent up energy. Have you seen Sue?”

  “Not so far. Verna and Destiny are over there toward the back.”

  The pews were filling up fast, Claudia noticed, turning to look around.

  “Oh, Steve O’Rourke just came in,” Claudia whispered to Amy with surprise. “Keeping his eye out for suspects?”

  “Where?” Amy said with great interest.

  “He’s standing at the back of the far side aisle. Tall, blue suit.”

  Amy turned in a low-key manner to look. “That’s your detective?” She shifted her keen gaze to Claudia. “He’s hot!”

  “He’s not my detective,” Claudia said, knowing Amy might already be visualizing a wedding. “He’s investigating the case.”

  Amy looked over her shoulder again. “No ring on his left hand.”

  “His wife died in a car accident. He has a grown son.”

  “He’s widowed, just like you,” Amy said with eager interest.

  “Yes, well, that’s not exactly something to celebrate,” Claudia quietly stated.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “I know.” Claudia began to feel antsy. “I drank too much iced tea at lunch. Better hit the ladies’ room.”

  Amy checked her watch. “Ten minutes before the service starts. Why don’t you use the little bathroom in the bride’s room? It’s closer. Ladies’ room might be full.”

  “Good idea.”

  Claudia found her way to the bride’s room which was rather hidden at one side of the front of the sanctuary. Not everyone knew about it. She entered the small, carpeted room, sweetly decorated with flowered wallpaper, a velvet loveseat and a long mirror. A second door led outside. At the back was a closet-sized bathroom with a toilet and a little sink. She closed and locked the door.

  It was after she’d finished washing her hands and was about to leave that she suddenly heard female voices on the other side of the closed door. Two women had apparently entered the bride’s room.

  “You have a lot of nerve showing up here! You seduce my husband and then you have the gall to come to his funeral?”