Read Online Cat's Claw by Susan Wittig Albert - Free Book Online Page A

stuff happens everywhere. Why, somebody lifted my mother’s wristwatch right out of the drawer beside her bed. In the nursing home!” She slanted a look at Sheila and added accusingly, “Cops never did find out who did it.”
    “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Sheila said. She wanted to add,
Tell your mother not to put her valuables where somebody on the staff can be tempted
. But she only said, in a regretful tone, “We do the best we can, but we can’t clear every theft.”
    “Betcha
CSI
would’ve solved it,” the woman muttered.
    “We don’t have a
CSI
budget,” Sheila replied smoothly. It was another one of her practiced phrases. “You might speak to the city council about that.” She turned to the next-door neighbor. “Mr. Kirk fixed your grandson’s computer?” she asked. “Is he by any chance the owner of Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service?”
    “That’s him,” the woman said. “But he wouldn’t take any money when I offered to pay. Said he was just being a good neighbor, which I appreciated. A very nice young man.” She pulled down her mouth. “So sad.”
    The green-trousered man was clearly turning something over in his mind. “O’course, people do go a little crazy sometimes.” He squinted at Sheila and lowered his voice. “Don’t mean to tell tales outta school, Chief, but you might oughtta have a little heart-to-heart with Sam Schulz, at 1119.” He pointed to the house just west of the Kirks’. “He’s bore a grudge against Mr. Kirk ever since him and his wife moved in there. About the property line, you know.”
    “The property line?” Sheila asked. She took out her notebook. Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service was the business that George Timms had broken into. A coincidence—or something else?
    “That’s Schulz with no
t
,” Green Trousers said, pleased to see that she was writing in her notebook. “It’s the line between their places, y’see. The Kirks’ garage is two feet over on Sam’s property. Happened by accident, back, oh, forty, fifty years ago, when John Jenson built the place. Kirk wanted to buy two feet on that side to make it right, but ol’ Schulzie, he won’t sell. Stubborn as all git-out.”
    “Thank you,” Sheila said, writing down
Kirk’s Computer Sales and Service
. She added
Garage, Schulz, property line dispute
. “And your name, sir?” She’d pass it along to Bartlett.
    “Al Peters,” the man said, and gave her his address and phone number. He jerked his thumb at the woman who wanted
CSI
to investigate the theft of her mother’s watch. “I live next door to Mrs. Howard here. At 1118 Pecan.”
    “And yours, ma’am?” she asked the blue-haired neighbor.
    “Jane Jessup. I’m at 1115. But Mr. Schulz didn’t have anything to do with it, Chief. Ruby Wilcox’s sister told me Mr. Kirk definitely killed himself. With a gun.” She shook her head in utter disbelief, tears welling up in her eyes. “Such a nice man. Clever, too. Why would he go and do something awful like that? I just don’t understand it.”
    “Maybe it had to do with the divorce, Jane,” another woman said, dropping her voice. She was pudgy, with thick ankles. She was wearing an apron, as if she had been interrupted in the middle of cooking supper.
    Jane Jessup’s eyes got big. “You don’t suppose he killed himself over
that
?” she asked. “Oh, that would be terrible!”
    “Divorce?” Sheila said.
    “The Kirks,” the woman with thick ankles replied. “I just found out about it myself, yesterday morning at our quilting club. Texas Stars. That’sour name. After the pattern, you know.” She scowled. “Seems the wife has a boyfriend.” The scowl deepend. “The monkey business these young people get up to.”
    “Mildred,” Jane said in a warning tone. “It’s not good to gossip.”
    “Your name?” Sheila asked the woman who had mentioned the divorce, and wrote
Divorce, wife’s boyfriend
.
    “Mildred Ewell. I’m 1114.”
    Sheila wrote it down. “Thank