“What... what are you talking about?”
The cat seemed to stare right through him. The cat. The witness. Could they somehow know this cat had witnessed the murder? The goddamn thing couldn’t have told them. He was a cat!
March was saying, “Your wife’s eyes...”
The cat’s eyes...
“...had severe hemorrhaging.”
Pierce began sniffling. “Uh... uh, what do you mean?”
Anderson, sitting back, arms folded, said, “Clotting. The whites of your wife’s eyes were so clotted with burst vessels they were damn near completely red.”
From the nearby desktop, Clarence, the cat, stared at Pierce, whose eyes had begun to burn. I saw what you did, he seemed to say.
“A person suffering suffocation tries so hard to breathe,” March said, “the blood vessels burst, in the eyes.”
Eyes.
Cat’s eyes...
His own eyes, burning, burning...
“We’ve been doing a background search on you, Mr. Hartwell,” Anderson said. “You met your wife on a cruise ship, isn’t that correct?”
“How could you know?” Pierce blurted.
“Very simple,” Anderson said.
Pierce lurched forward in his chair. “You found it outside in the cold, didn’t you? What did you do, go into my house and find that poisoned food? Did you have a warrant? Perhaps I should call my attorney.”
The two detectives glanced at each other; but the cat was looking right at Pierce — and the animal seemed to shake its head, no...
“He couldn’t have told you anything,” Pierce said, and laughed as he nodded toward Clarence. “A goddamn cat can’t talk.”
Anderson started to say something, but March waved a hand and the younger detective fell mute.
“Go on, Mr. Hartwell,” March said.
“You’re very clever, lieutenant. How did you do it? How could you know that that cat witnessed what I did?”
“What did you do, Mr. Hartwell?”
“You know damn good and well.” Water was running from his eyes — not tears, just that burning goddamn allergy kicking in. “You just said so yourself. I smothered her — with a pillow. But she didn’t suffer. I would never have done that. Never.”
Nodding slowly, March got on the phone and called for a uniformed cop. Pierce just sat there, avoiding the gaze of the purring cat on the detective’s desk. The damn thing seemed to be smiling, a Cheshire cat, now.
“If you’ll go with this gentleman,” March said, standing, gesturing past the animal to the police officer who was now standing in the doorway, “he’ll escort you to a room where you can make your full statement. We’ll be with you momentarily.”
Pierce could only nod. He needed help to get to his feet and the police officer gave it to him.
“How did you know?” Pierce asked from the doorway, eyes watering, nose running. “How in God’s name could you know about the cat?”
The two detectives said nothing.
Then Pierce was gone, and Anderson said, “That’s one for the books. We could never have made our case on those clotted eyes alone. His gigolo background woulda helped, but...”
“Maybe he had a conscience.”
“That guy?” Anderson snorted and waved at the air. “No way in hell.”
Shrugging, March got on the phone and arranged for a technician to meet them at the interrogation room.
Then, hanging up, March shook his head and asked Anderson, “What do you suppose he was going on about?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know — that business about a cat?”
The two men widened their eyes, shrugged at each other and left the empty office, to take the confession.
Reunion Queen
Her mood darker than the night — and the night was very dark — the striking blonde tooled the candy-apple Jaguar into the Marriot lot. She climbed out, pausing by the car, standing there like a modern-day gunfighter, red-nailed fingers slowly opening and closing.
With a smile bordering on a smirk, she walked toward the hotel, ground fog swirling up around her legs, red stiletto heels clicking on the asphalt, punctuating the thunder growling in the distance.
At the entrance of the modern, sterile building, she stopped and looked up.
Above the double glass doors hung a homemade banner — WELCOME CLASS OF 1978 — their fifteenth reunion; it flapped crazily in the breeze, as if trying to escape the imminent storm.
Her smile vanished, blue eyes clouded, as she gazed at the sign; the wind whipped long blonde strands of hair around her face.
Lightning split the sky, and the world went white, then black. Big drops of rain began to pelt her, and the banner, its painted letters starting to bleed and run.
Her smile returned, and grew broader until she threw back her head, laughing, her throaty voice mingling with the thunder that followed.
She reached up and ripped the banner down, letting the wind take it.
Then she straightened her red lace dress, and adjusted each copious breast in the push-up bra, opened the glass doors and walked inside.
Heather sat at a table with Linda just outside the hotel ballroom on the second floor. They were collecting money for the banquet tickets and handing out I.D. badges, which displayed each classmate’s name above their old high school yearbook photo.
Heather leaned toward Linda, touching the other woman’s arm intimately as if the two of them were best of friends, and giggled as if she were having a great time... but inside Heather was seething.
How did I get stuck on the goddamn door? she fumed. I’m the fucking class President!
Heather smiled sweetly at Linda, who was reciting recent bowling scores, like it was somehow important. She studied her classmate’s face and concluded that no amount of plastic surgery could help. If she were Linda, she’d kill herself.
“Would you like to go bowling sometime?” Linda asked, under the deranged impression that spending the past hour with Heather made her a close friend — or a friend at all, for that matter.
“That sounds very entertaining,” Heather answered. As in slicing and dicing a finger in the Cuisinart.
At the end of the carpeted corridor, three men burst out of the men’s bathroom, laughing loudly, punching each other’s arms. What was it about class reunions that regressed even a thirty-something hunk like her husband into a nerdy teenager?
“Rick!” Heather called out disgustedly.
He ignored her.
So she hollered louder. “Rick! Come here!”
Her husband, tall, handsome, so perfect in his Armani suit, shrugged at his other two friends — a fat farmer and balding banker — and sauntered toward her.
Heather felt her face flush; how dare he be having a good time when she was so miserable!
“Where’s Jennifer?” she snapped at him. “She was supposed to take my place fifteen minutes ago!”
He looked at her stupidly. “Haven’t seen her, hon.”
“Well, find her, damnit! I’m sick of sitting here!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Heather could see Linda shifting uncomfortably in her chair; Heather didn’t want to alienate the woman — not just yet — she might need her vote.
Heather gave Linda a patronizing, little smile. “It’s just that, as president, I have other things to attend to,” she explained.
Linda nodded and looked away.
Heather turned back to Rick. “Go... find... Jennifer, dear.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, gesturing in a calm-down manner with both hands, “I’ll go find her.”
He winked at Linda.
Linda beamed.