Fool's Moon, page 25
“So do you think Mrs. Givens asked her to do the auditing? Do you think she was worried that someone was stealing from her accounts?” Ruby ventured.
But even as she asked it, the question sparked a memory of her conversation with the housekeeper. A couple of times during the Tarot reading, Luciana had mentioned something about “papers.” Maybe she had been referring to bank statements. But if the old woman had requested the audit, why would Luciana have to hide her work?
Unless there was someone else on the estate who knew about possible irregularities because they were responsible for them.
Maybe someone like Mrs. Givens’s son, Terrence?
Before Ruby could offer that theory, Zuki let loose with a series of warning barks from her vantage point in the pickup. A moment later, they heard an automobile transmission grinding as headlights momentarily flared in the guest house’s front window.
“That doesn’t sound like Givens’s car,” Luis said, tone suspicious even as he winced at the painful sound. “I wonder who else has an access code?”
“Maybe it’s one of the day staff coming back to help with the packing?”
“If it is, you’d think Givens would have mentioned it. Quick, give me those papers.”
But squaring them up and getting them all back into the narrow bag took a little more doing. Luis had barely dropped the bag back in the cereal box and tucked the flaps back in when the guest house door burst open. A young woman dressed in a sleeveless pink sheath dress and with dark hair pinned in a messy up-do came flying in.
“Oh, Luis, my poor darling!”
Ignoring Ruby, she rushed to the man and flung thin white arms around his neck. “It was terrible, just terrible,” she cried. “I told Luciana I would stay with her at the clinic, but she insisted I leave her there alone. You know how proud she was. I think she was embarrassed for anyone to see her in pain like that. I never should have let her send me away. If I’d stayed, maybe … ”
She paused and buried her head in his chest. Then she took a sobbing breath and finished. “I—I only hope you can forgive me.”
Looking pained himself, Luis took her by both arms and gently but deliberately moved the woman away from him. “No one’s blaming you, Joan.”
Joan?
Ruby had been staring at the newcomer, watching her display of remorse in slightly horrified fascination, while at the same time certain that she somehow knew this person. Hearing her name, Ruby abruptly realized how. It was the same woman that she’d seen in those society photos standing with Terrence Givens. And, the girlfriend of Givens who’d taken Luciana on that ill-fated drive to the clinic.
In person, she looked even thinner, and not quite so pretty. Maybe it was because without the benefit of a little digital retouching, her features appeared harder, almost unhealthy. But what struck Ruby most was the way she had clung to Luis.
Where she came from, Ruby thought with an inner snort, that kind of hugging was way too familiar for someone supposedly dating another man.
More interesting was the question, how was it that Luis and Joan apparently knew each other so … intimately? Chances were that Luis didn’t attend many Palm Beach soirees, and she doubted Joan had ever set foot in a pawn shop. To be sure, it made sense that they might have a nodding acquaintance because his aunt had worked for the mother of the man Joan supposedly was dating. But it was obvious the pair had some sort of history beyond that. She’d have to question Luis about that later.
Luis, meanwhile, was saying, “I know you feel bad about this, but it’s not your fault. You had no way of knowing what was going to happen when you dropped off Aunt Lu. As long as you told the cops everything you remember about that night, you’ve done all you can do.”
“But I still feel so guilty, darling,” she exclaimed and marched past him to the kitchen sink.
Tearing off a paper towel, she dampened the sheet under the faucet and patted her face with it before reaching into the gold purse she wore cross-body style. She pulled out a compact and did a bit of quick repair work; then, turning back around, she seemed to notice Ruby for the first time.
“Oh, hello,” she said in a composed voice.
Tossing the used paper towel onto the countertop, she walked out of the small kitchen, pale hand extended toward Ruby. “I’m Joan Ratzen. Friend of the family … both families, actually. And you are … ?”
“Ruby Sparks,” she replied, momentarily taking the woman’s hand. Bony, cold. “I knew Luciana, so I’m helping Luis with packing her things.”
“Well, isn’t that kind of you.” Joan tilted her head to one side, surveying her with the faintest of smiles. “That little streak of blue in your hair is simply adorable. I never could get away with something so bohemian.”
Then, sliding her hand free, Joan gestured toward the boxes of clothes. “I supposed you noticed some of Luciana’s possessions were already packed. That was me. I told Terry I’d get things started, just so poor Luis didn’t have to sort through his auntie’s things alone. And when Terry said that Luis was going to be here tonight, I hurried on back to finish helping. I didn’t realize he’d be bringing someone with him.”
“Well, I did,” Luis broke in. “Look, Joan, Ruby and I have things under control, so why don’t you go back to the house and wait for Givens to get back.”
“No, really, I insist.” She grabbed an empty box from the dwindling stack of packing supplies and marched over to the kitchen counter. Eying the cash, she picked up the stack with her free hand and, setting down the box, gave the bills a quick riffle.
“Auntie had a tidy little stash,” she commented before returning the money to its spot and reaching for a bag of pasta.
Ruby frowned a little at the dismissive tone. Joan’s too-familiar way of calling Luciana “auntie” somehow rang false, though she wasn’t sure if it was a deliberate diss of the dead woman or simply meant to tweak Luis. Whatever history there was between the pair, she was pretty sure now that it wasn’t romantic.
“I’m sure you don’t need this food, darling,” Joan went on, tossing the noodles into her box and reaching for the next container. “I’ll take it all up to the main house and give the box to one of the maids tomorrow. One less thing for you to worry about doing, and a nice charitable gesture.”
“Well, actually, I kind of … ”
Luis trailed off and exchanged an uneasy glance with Ruby as Joan reached for the cereal box with its secret cache of papers and added it to the rest. Ruby winced. The box was almost full now, and any attempt to rescue a particular item from it would likely draw suspicion. Then Luis gave her a fleeting nod, and she knew he was going to make the effort, anyhow.
“Seriously, Joan, I planned on taking some of it home with me.
I could use the cereal, and maybe the rice, too.”
“Nonsense.” Seemingly oblivious to any dismay she was causing, the woman added, “If you’re that hungry, darling, use your auntie’s cash to buy what you need. You know Terry pays awful wages. I’m sure one of the girls will be grateful for a little something extra to put in her pantry. Your aunt would approve, too, I’m sure.”
She hefted the box with surprising ease, given her slight build. With another cool smile—this one for Luis—she turned to Ruby and said, “Be a dear, will you, and get the door for me?”
Not waiting for a response, she marched on past Ruby, who shot Luis a panicked look. What do I do? He spread his hands in a beats me, gesture. And so, with no other option, Ruby was a dear and got it.
Once the door had closed behind the woman, however, Ruby swung about again. “Now what? She’s walking off with any proof Luciana had against Terrence Givens.”
“She’s only taking the box as far as the main house. The day staff won’t be back until around seven tomorrow morning, so she’ll probably stick it somewhere in the kitchen for safekeeping. Give it a minute, and we’ll find an excuse to go up there and see if we can’t steal those papers back.” Luis grabbed another box and filled it with the rest of the nonperishable food. “Here we go. Another contribution to the maids’ fund.”
For good measure, he picked up the cash and counted out two thousand dollars of it, which he stuck in the box, and then folded the remainder and put into his pocket. “A grand each for the maids,” he explained. “I think Aunt Lu would want them to have a little something, too. C’mon, let’s go get that cereal box back.”
Twenty-Three
“Car coming,” Zuki barked, raising the alarm from her spot in Luis’s picking up truck. “Car, car, car!”
Ophelia and Brandon stopped in mid-chase around the swimming pool and scampered over to the tall iron gate where they’d squeezed in earlier. Through the heavy twisted bars, they could see beyond the driveway to the street. There, they spied headlights shining through the main wide gate at the driveway’s end—the gate that barred entry from the street. A faint squeal sounded as it began to open.
Ophelia frowned. Surely this wasn’t the son, back again already!
They’d seen him drive off a few minutes earlier, leaving Ruby and Luis alone in Luciana’s little house. The human obviously had been in a hurry, since he hadn’t even bothered to close the two big glass doors—the ones that led from the main house to the paved courtyard where the pool was.
Before Ophelia could say anything aloud, however, they heard an awful crunch of metal that made her ears flicker in sympathetic reaction.
“It’s the Joan car,” she exclaimed.
Sure enough, a squat red car came rushing up the drive and parked close to Luciana’s place, just pawsteps from where she and Brandon were watching.
“Why do you think she’s back, without the son being here?” Brandon wanted to know. Pressing his nose as far as he could through the bars, he added, “Maybe she came to help pack.”
Ophelia would have agreed … except that the Joan human didn’t go immediately to the door. Instead, once she’d turned off the car’s headlights and climbed out, she sneaked quiet as a mouse to Luciana’s window and peered inside.
Peering like a rat, Ophelia thought in sudden suspicion.
“Quick,” she whispered to her brother. “Let’s see what she’s looking at.”
They slipped out of the gate again and silently padded their way into the bushes outside Luciana’s window. The Joan woman had managed despite her lack of feline dexterity to climb through the foliage. Now she was crouched to one side of the glass, her thin nose all but pressed to it. Careful not to rustle any leaves, the two cats climbed as high as they could in the branches to see just what it was she was watching.
Boring stuff, Ophelia promptly decided.
A glance at her yawning brother confirmed her conclusion. On the other side of the glass, Ruby was looking anxiously over her shoulder toward the door. Luis, meanwhile, was hurriedly stuffing a stack of pages into a bag. Then, even stranger, he stuck the now-full bag inside a box that should have held human breakfast food … this, according to the colorful picture of a bowl and spoon drawn on it.
Apparently, the Joan woman found the sight equally boring, for she abruptly straightened. While Brandon and Ophelia froze in place, pretending to be part of the leaves, she scrambled out from behind the bushes. Going right past the two cats without noticing them—of course, her human eyes weren’t equipped to distinguish much in the dark—she walked to Luciana’s door and let herself in.
They watched through the windows awhile longer. After a dramatic demonstration of overwrought human emotion on the Joan woman’s part—for too many moments, she was hanging onto Luis like a puppy tugging a rope—they saw nothing other than Joan packing a box while everyone talked. The conversation was quiet enough that neither cat could make out much in the way of words, though it appeared that Ruby didn’t care much for the Joan human.
And then, for some reason, Joan picked up the box and marched over to the door … which Ruby, with a funny look on her face, opened for her.
“What’s going on?” Brandon whispered as the woman walked back to the main house with the box firmly gripped to her chest.
Ophelia shook her head. “I don’t know—but Ruby doesn’t look happy. I think we should sneak inside and spy on the Joan. Remember, the glass doors are still open.”
“What about Zuki? Should we tell her what we’re doing?”
“She’ll figure it out,” Ophelia replied, earning a soft distant bark of agreement from the pit bull … who, of course, had heard the felines’ conversation. “Quick, before Joan remembers and closes the pool doors.”
Running for the courtyard yet again, they squeezed back through the gate and swiftly bounded through the opened glass doors. The entry led directly into the main living area where once the two felines had slept and played. But it wasn’t the same room that it used to be.
I don’t like it here now, Ophelia told herself, looking about to see what had changed since they’d last been there.
It was colder and quieter than it had been when the old woman was alive. True, the two matching black leather sofas with their bright fabric pillows—just the right roughness for sharpening one’s claws when no human was watching—were still there. But someone had taken away the fluffy white rugs that used to blanket much of the shiny gray tile on the floor.
Marble, the old woman had called it as she complained about it hurting her feet. But the fluffy rugs made her feel better. Sometimes, she’d take off her shoes and walk on them, barefooted like a cat, when the son wasn’t looking. She’d laugh and wiggle her toes, telling Brandon and Ophelia that it felt like walking on a fuzzy cloud. The son had argued about the rugs, saying they looked ridiculous, but the old woman had been stubborn about it.
But now that she was gone, there was no need to worry about the marble hurting her feet anymore.
Ophelia suppressed a hiss. Even the old woman’s pictures that had always hung on the wall—the ones with bright colored houses and sunny beaches and prancing animals—were gone now. They’d been replaced by big white squares covered with ugly slashes of black and blue that didn’t look like anything at all! It was as if the son was trying to pretend that the old woman had never even lived there.
They didn’t have time for further exploration, however. She and Brandon barely had time to crouch behind a big silver pot with an even bigger green palm tree growing out of it when Joan made her way through the front door.
She was juggling the box with Luciana’s food and muttering bad human words. For a moment, she stood there in the long open hallway just inside the doorway that the old woman had called the foyer. It wasn’t its own room, but was separated from the living area by a series of tall white columns that once had been fun to chase around.
Ophelia doubted that Joan or the son ever ran circles around them like she and Brandon had. But now that she had a box of things, maybe …
Maybe she’ll set it down and play with it right there, Ophelia hopefully thought, wondering if there was anything inside the container for a feline to snack on. But instead—high-heeled shoes clicking against the cold marble—Joan turned and carried the box through the open foyer toward the kitchen.
They remained in their hiding place and watched her go, both knowing there was no point in following her. While the kitchen was a fine place for leftovers from the humans’ meals, it was all granite and mirror-like metal and open shelves with fancy dishes on them. There was no place in that broad expanse of stone and steel for a feline to conceal herself.
“We’ll wait and see what she does next,” Ophelia murmured, earning a nod of agreement from her brother.
A moment later, Joan returned, minus the box but carrying the same clear bag filled with papers that Luis had earlier stuck inside the cereal container. She was smiling now, like a mouse with cheese. She took off the gold flat box—a purse—that she’d been wearing over her chest and put it on the sleek black leather sofa. Then she sat down beside the small gold box and opened up Luis’s bag that she’d carried in.
“What’s so important about the papers?” Ophelia whispered as Joan spread the papers on the glass table before her. “Should we try to get closer and look?”
“Yes,” Brandon whispered back. “If Ruby let Luis hide them, they mean something. We’d better find out what.”
Ophelia gave an uncertain nod.
Unfortunately, unlike at the Botanica, there were no convenient shelves to duck behind while trying to go from point A to point B. Which meant there was no way to get from their current hiding place to the sofa without Joan readily spying them. They’d have to wait her out … which also meant risking Luis and Ruby leaving without them should Zuki not sound a warning bark soon enough.
That, or worse … the son might return and shut the doors, accidentally locking them in. But their problem was solved a moment later when a familiar chiming sounded.
“The doorbell,” Brandon explained unnecessarily, adding, “It must be Luis or Ruby. The son wouldn’t ring to walk inside, and no one else can come in without a code to the front gate.”
Surely Joan must have realized the same thing, yet she looked upset, Ophelia saw. Maybe because she didn’t get a chance to finish looking at her papers?
And, indeed, Joan scrambled to her feet. But rather than immediately heading for the door, she took care first to grab up all the papers she’d spread about and stuff them back in the bag. Then, as the doorbell sounded again, she hid the bag behind one of the sofa pillows.
Why doesn’t she want anyone to know that she has the papers, Ophelia fleetingly wondered.
