“Well, now. What do we have here?” Hurley bends over and makes a half-assed attempt to shoo the kitten away. But Rubbish thinks Hurley’s hand is a fun new toy and he leaps toward it, giving it a smack with one of his paws. Hurley snatches his hand back and moves away. I seize the moment by giving the mulch a quick flick with my foot, sending it under the bed.
“Just some stuff I tracked in,” I say quickly. “All those leaves outside tend to stick to your shoes.”
“Damn it, Mattie. That was no leaf,” Hurley grumbles. He watches the kitten chase its tail for a few seconds and then says, “Pick that thing up, would you?”
I do so, letting forth with a hefty sigh of annoyance to let him know how put out I am by his request. Then I watch as he drops to his hands and knees next to my bed, exposing the long V-shaped line of his muscular back to me.
Giddy-up.
Two seconds later he rises to his feet, the piece of mulch in his hand. With it are two others, each one a pine-scented nail in my coffin.
Hurley sniffs his findings. “Hmm…looks and smells like pine bark mulch. The same stuff that I found in and around that tipped wheelbarrow I was talking about. I wonder how it could have gotten in here. In your bedroom. Under your bed.”
I know the jig is up. “Fine,” I say. “You got me. I used the wheelbarrow to climb up and look in the window.”
“Last night?”
“Yes, last night.”
“And?”
“And what?”
He shoots me a look that suggests he might shove bamboo shoots under my nails if I continue to dodge his questions.
“And I saw David.” I hesitate, hoping I might be able to stop at a partial truth, but Hurley’s eyes narrow down to icy slits that make me feel oddly heated. “With Karen Owenby. They were talking and then she left. That’s it.”
“What time was this?”
“Between nine and ten, I think.”
“And did David leave the house after Ms. Owenby did?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not stalking him, or running a stakeout,” I tell him, offended. “I’ve never done it before and I certainly won’t do it again. I heard that a woman was visiting him and I wanted to know who it was. That’s all.”
Surprisingly, Hurley’s expression softens. He stares at me until I feel compelled to turn away.
“He really hurt you, didn’t he?” he says gently.
Tears burn behind my eyes. Hurley’s brief moment of tenderness leaves me feeling dumb, labile, and dangerously hormone-ridden. Crying is a solitary, private thing for me. I hate doing it in front of anyone and I’ll be damned if I’m going do it in front of this man. So I use Rubbish as a stalling tactic once again, bending down slowly and setting him on the floor, hiding my water-rimmed eyes as I try to collect myself. I scramble for an image of something utterly distracting, something that will reverse my emotional poles, and a second later, the kitten—bless his wicked little claws—gives it to me. With one Herculean leap he launches himself upward and sinks his claws deep into Hurley’s jeans, landing mere inches from the Hurley family jewels.
Hurley freezes, his baby blues bugging out of his head.
“Get this…thing off me,” he hisses, barely moving his lips. He looks utterly ridiculous standing there with a pound or so of fur hanging between his legs and an expression of utter terror on his face. I am consumed by an overwhelming urge to laugh, but I manage to swallow it down. Instead, I walk over and kneel in front of Hurley.
“Easy! Eeeaaaassssy!” he hisses as I wrap one hand around Rubbish. All the color has drained from Hurley’s face and I wonder if he might pass out…and if he does, what it would be like to give him mouth-to-mouth. I think of his lips and briefly imagine my own pressed against them.
I give the kitten a few gentle tugs and, when that doesn’t work, I start prying his claws loose one at a time. When I am finished, I look up and see that Hurley now has some color back, most of it a brilliant, blazing red.
I rise, a sly smile on my face. “You okay?” I ask, holding Rubbish close to my chest.
Hurley clears his throat nervously. His hand hovers in front of his crotch, where an unmistakable bulge is beginning to strain the denim. “Fine,” he mutters. “I’m fine. I just…I don’t like cats.”
“So you say, but isn’t that a cat toy in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?”
Hurley scowls and the red grows deeper. “It’s an automatic response to a physical stimulus,” he grumbles. “To that…that…creature.”
“Rubbish.”
“It is not,” he snarls. “It’s a simple physical reaction. It means nothing. You should know that if you’re a nurse.”
“No, I mean the cat’s name is Rubbish. He’s not ‘that creature.’ His name is Rubbish.” I grin stupidly at him, relishing my upper hand. But my glee is short-lived. Hurley knows how to sober up a conversation real fast.
“Your husband lied to me about seeing Karen Owenby the night she was killed. Any idea why?”
“Maybe he doesn’t think it’s that important.”
“You don’t think being with a murder victim mere hours before she’s killed is important?”
“I didn’t say I don’t think it’s important. I said he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t. Oh, hell, I don’t know. But regardless, I don’t think he killed her.”
“You seem awfully defensive,” Hurley says. “You still got feelings for this creep?”
“I was married to him for seven years, you know. And he isn’t a creep,” I say angrily.
Hurley holds his hands up to ward me off. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to hit a nerve. Just sounds to me like you’re not being totally objective here.”
“Of course I’m not. I know things about the man that you couldn’t possibly know. I’ve watched him hold a sick child in his arms. I’ve seen him cry over the death of a ninety-eight-year-old man. I’ve lain at his side when he dragged his weary ass out of bed at three in the morning to go perform emergency surgery after spending a twelve-hour day in the OR. I’m sorry, but it’s hard for me to reconcile that man with one who’s a cold-blooded killer.”
Hurley looks momentarily stricken, but he recovers quickly enough. “Would your opinion change any if I told you that we have an eyewitness who saw your ex-husband leave Karen Owenby’s house around the time she was killed?”
“An eyewitness?” I echo. If Hurley is hoping to catch me off guard, he has succeeded admirably. He nods; his eyes look cold. “Well,” I say, turning away from the intensity of his gaze and feeling horribly depressed all of a sudden. “That does put things in a different perspective. I guess I better hurry up and get those divorce papers filed.”
Chapter 11
Izzy and Dom invite me over for dinner and I gladly accept. For one thing, I’m not too keen on being alone. My thoughts are a tangled mess and I need someone to help me sort through all the strings. I also want to find out from Izzy if the autopsy on Karen turned up anything of interest. But the main reason I accept the dinner invite is because Dom is an outstanding cook. And while my personal relationship with food is downright cozy, my personal relationship with a kitchen is totally adversarial. Despite an odd fetish for kitchen gadgets, which has the drawers, cupboards, and countertops in my old home overflowing with such items, whenever I try my hand at cooking, the potential for disaster is even odds.
One of the things Dom does best is Italian and tonight he has made one of my favorites—lasagna, layered with crumbled Italian sausage, tons of rich ricotta, and a mouthwatering combination of herbs and spices that is to die for. Every time I eat it I swear to show restraint but I always fail, leaving the table sated, stuffed, and feeling like a great white whale.