Cat With a Fiddle (9781101578902) by Lydia Adamson Read Free Book Online

who’d caused the accident? I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I hadn’t been able to find any trace of it. Why not? Trying not to disturb Lulu too much, I propped myself up against the bed pillows. I was trying to remember that moment just before the crash. Roz had screamed out a warning. “
A dog, Ben!
” she had said. Then I saw that brown blur. I hadn’t questioned that it was a dog. But where were its tracks on the muddy road?
    The cat rose up and stretched expansively. “Well, kiddo?” I flicked at her ears. “Answer me that. What happened to his tracks? Was he hurt or not? Was he there or not?” Lulu climbed off the quilt and thumped out of the room. I chuckled to myself. “What a useless creature,” I said aloud. “No mice, no answers.”
    I reclined again and stared out of the window. Almost full night now. The trees were beginning to appear threatening.
    I finally got myself out of bed and walked over to the old dresser, regarding myself in the mirror. I was a mess. After washing up in Roz and Ben’s little bathroom, I borrowed a barrette for my hair and then used a cotton ball to apply what I took to be Roz’s facial toner. I looked at the label on it and saw that it had come from Kiehl’s, a venerable Lower East Side institution that custom-makes cosmetics and perfumes for its customers.
    The scent of the cologne in the little bottle I’d opened was transporting. I stood there sniffing it, thinking. I had been foolish to put those questions to little Lulu. But the really important question, I hadn’t even asked: why was I obsessed with the brown dog?
    I guess I already knew why, though. Knew it kind of fearfully. It was because the accident might not have been an accident at all. It might have been all too deliberate. Someone, perhaps the same person who had murdered Will Gryder, might have wanted to kill me. Or either of the Polikoffs. Or all three of us. I put the cologne away.
    Clues? Motives? Possible scenarios? I had none to back up my belief, but the belief was there just the same. That’s just how I felt. It was an informed guess, based no doubt on the timing of things—the coincidence of both events. Gryder is murdered about eight o’clock in the evening by person or persons unknown. Sixteen hours later three suspects in the killing—and I knew that Ford Donaldson more or less had to consider us all suspects—are almost killed in an accident.
    I’d done as much repair work on my appearance as I could, but I went on regarding my face in the mirror.
    Mirror mirror on the wall,
    Why get involved in this case at all?
    My image grimaced, then said to me: “And if you
wanted
to get involved in this case . . . where would you start? You know nothing except what Lieutenant Donaldson told you.”
    â€œNot true,” I told her, smiling. I knew something that Donaldson himself didn’t know. I knew that Beth and Will had made love in a shed on the premises, and then fought violently. Miranda had told me so. And now I believed her. And I knew that the first thing I should do was take a look at the shed. All this because of a dog who was supposed to be there but wasn’t—not even his paw prints.
    I was overwhelmingly thirsty now. I went down to get a drink and join that glowing house party of the imagination.

Chapter 6
    Around six thirty the following morning I tiptoed slowly down the stairs, being careful not to wake the others. I wanted to get out of the house without anyone noticing. I didn’t quite know why I was being so secretive—there was really nothing to hide.
    At any rate, all that stealth turned out to be futile, for the kitchen was ablaze with light and Mrs. Wallace was busily at her morning’s work. I was suddenly aware of those universal good-food smells.
    â€œAren’t you the little early bird this morning?” she said from the stove, not even turning to