“You were kind. It doesn’t take much to make a child love.”
“You were a brave girl.” Brave . . . and extraordinary. She’d said the strangest things. And she’d had the most uncanny ability. It was his turn to feel weak-kneed, and he sank to the bed.
“I’m tired, Miss Flanagan. Forgive me.” He ran a hand over his face.
“Yes . . . I can see that you are.” She searched his eyes and looked away at last. “I hope . . . I haven’t upset you. Maybe we can talk more in the days to come. I would like that.”
“Of course.” He couldn’t imagine what they would say, but he nodded agreeably.
“We will eat at seven. Please join us. It would be good if we all got to know each other a little. I’m afraid my aunts are very old fashioned, and the circumstances in Cleveland right now have made everyone a bit skittish. You have heard that we seem to have a . . . mad butcher . . . on the loose?”
He nodded, and with that she slipped out, closing the door behind her.
3
Malone didn’t want to join the women for dinner, but he was famished, and the thought of going out into the wintry darkness to forage in unfamiliar surroundings was even more unappealing than a dinner with strangers. Better to break the ice anyway. If he was going to live in this house, even briefly, he’d best get past any awkwardness as soon as possible.
It took him two trips to empty out the trunk and park the car behind the house under the cover of the stable-like structure. The funeral home next door had removed whatever outbuildings had once existed on its property in favor of the wrap-around drive and the unloading ramp. The house beyond that, the one used as a medical practice, had a stable much like the Koses, though a wall between the two yards made it hard to see anything other than the roofline. The three houses were probably all built around the same time, so similar were their exteriors and style.
As he opened the back door on his last trip, the box of files in his arms, an orange cat shot past him and ran into the house. It startled him, and he danced sideways to avoid it, stepping on its tail. The cat shrieked in pain and raced into Malone’s new quarters, disappearing under the bed to lick his wounds.
“Is that you, Charlie?” Malone asked, putting the files on the desk. He crouched down beside the bed and lifted up the spread to peer underneath it. A rumbling death rattle sounded from the feline form. Oh yeah. It was Charlie.
“You don’t remember me, but I remember you,” Malone muttered. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be living in Chicago and not hiding under this nice bed.”
The cat hissed, staring back at Malone with odd-eyed outrage, and the memory of their first encounter surfaced like it was yesterday and not fifteen years ago.
The day after the Flanagan murders and two hours before his shift started, Malone went to O’Brien’s Books, a mere block from the Flanagan residence and right next door to Schofield’s Flower Shop. He and everyone else knew the flower shop was owned by the notorious Dean O’Banion, leader of the Irish gang that ran the whole area. But Malone didn’t go to ask questions or pursue leads. He went to fetch the kitten Dani had talked about.
Connor O’Brien, the owner of the bookstore, had heard about the Flanagans, and when Malone told him who the cat was for, the man gave him an old birdcage Dani could transport him in.
“It’ll do to get her wherever she’s going,” O’Brien said when the cat was settled. “I hear Aneta has family who will take the girl.”
The little orange cat with his furry face and mismatched gaze would not fit in the birdcage for long, and he stared through the thin bars, unamused.
“George didn’t kill her, did he?” O’Brien asked Malone as he turned to go. “They’re saying he did. But I don’t believe it. George Flanagan was a rascal, but he wasn’t a killer. He worshipped the ground Aneta walked on. And right he should. She was too good for him by half. I just don’t believe it.”
Malone only nodded and thanked the man again. He didn’t know George Flanagan, but he didn’t need to. The whole thing was a rotting, stinking shame.
O’Brien clamped his lips shut like he’d said too much, but he had one more question. “What will happen to little Dani?”
“I don’t know,” Malone said, but it was her birthday, and he was going to make sure she had her cat.
He brought it to Mrs. Thurston’s house and knocked on the door, dreading a slew of questions from the woman, but it was Dani who answered, almost like she’d seen him coming. She didn’t look like she’d slept, poor thing. Her eyes were ringed with purple and the shocked glaze had not abated. When the glaze left, the grief would set in.