Cat Laughing Last by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Joe’s attention remained on Charlie. They played three more hands of stud before Clyde mentioned the break-in at Susan Brittain’s. “Have you found the guy yet? Or found his body?”
    â€œNothing,” Harper said. “One set of prints isn’t on record.”
    â€œThat’s unusual.”
    â€œVery,” Garza said. “Information on the other set hasn’t come back yet.”
    Clyde sipped his beer, setting the can on a folded paper napkin. “How did Susan handle the break-in? Was she pretty shaken?”
    â€œNot at all,” Garza said. “In fact, very cool. She seems a straightforward woman. She thinks she might know the man. She saw only his back, but when she thought about it awhile, she was certain he looked familiar.” He paused, waiting for Clyde to bet. Charlie raised Clyde, and Garza and Davis folded. Harper raised Charlie, winning the pot with three jacks, giving her a superior look that made her laugh.
    â€œSo who is he?” Clyde said.
    â€œShe thinks he might be an early morning dog walker she’s run into, a newcomer to the village, a Lenny Wells. Young man who just moved down from San Francisco. About thirty, six feet, maybe a hundred and seventy, she thought. Light brown hair. She stopped for coffee with him a couple of times when they were walking the dogs, said she told him a little about the village to help him get settled.”
    Juana Davis dealt the next hand, upping the ante on seven card stud. Clyde showed a pair of aces, but when the hand was finished Davis raked in the pot on threeeights. Their poker was never high-powered, with the keen attention and subtleties of a serious professional game, just a friendly excuse to get together. The conversation turned to the remodeling of the police station and how soon the contractor would be finished. “An equation,” Harper said, “arrived at by squaring the original four months to completion time.”
    Joe thought about Susan’s break-in, and about the grungy white box that Richard Casselrod had snatched from Cora Lee French. He saw again the shocked, angry look on Cora Lee’s face when Casselrod swung the box and hit her, saw her dark eyes blazing with hurt surprise.
    He wanted a look at that box, he wanted to know what made it so valuable.
    Richard Casselrod’s antique shop was in a tight building, not easy to get into, after hours, even for an expert at break-and-enter. But there was one high, attic window that Joe meant to check out.
    He’d as soon not slip in during the day and hide until they closed up. There was something about Richard Casselrod that did not invite close proximity among closed doors and solid walls.
    He came to attention when Charlie raised on a pair of sixes, though Juana had three jacks showing. Was Charlie bluffing? Did she have two sixes in the hole? Or was she merely preoccupied? Wake up, Charlie. Pay attention. What are you thinking about?
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    Charlie saw her mistake and watched Juana rake in the pot, her mind uncomfortably on Elliott Traynor. How strange that Garza’s niece should know Traynor. And how interesting that the Traynors had so recently beenin San Francisco. Maybe that explained the envelopes with San Francisco postmarks that she’d found in Traynor’s wastebasket.
    When you’re cleaning for such interesting tenants, and when they’re gone most mornings, it’s hard not to snoop. At least it was hard for Charlie, when the snooping involved an author whose work she so greatly admired. The Traynors had been in the village for over two weeks. She cleaned their cottage each morning, did the shopping and the laundry, put the dinner and breakfast dishes in the dishwasher, and sometimes started lunch or something for dinner with Vivi’s written instructions. She was at the cottage from eight until twelve, quite often alone because Traynor wrote at night, and they went to the theater some mornings, or