Wilmington, NC 05 - Murder On The ICW

room. Don't worry, Ashley, we'll find him."
    The take out dinner from the Bridge Tender Restaurant filled two white shopping bags on the kitchen counter where I sat the car carrier. The food had been sitting out for over five hours and I suspected it had spoiled. I dumped the contents -- styrofoam boxes and plastic containers -- into a plastic garbage bag, sealed it, and stuffed it into the trash can.
    I used the shopping bags to load up with Spunky's Fancy Feast cans, his water bowl, his favorite food bowl, his play mouse. When that was done, I walked down the hall to find Jon.
    The trails and footprints of blood on the carpeting had dried to rust-like brown streaks. He had dragged Mickey back here, Melanie too, I thought, as I stepped into the master bedroom. He had staged the entire scene. The carpet here was wet where Mickey had lain and bled to death.
    A fine black dust residue coated the furniture surfaces; crime scene technicians had dusted for fingerprints.
    Cam stuck his head in the door and let out a groan. "This is dreadful, worse than I remember. I was only focused on Melanie before. Well, Spunky's not anywhere in the front rooms. I'm going to take a walk around outside. He knows me. I think he'll come if I call."
    "Okay," I said. "I'll search here." I lifted the bed skirt, got down on my hands and knees and looked under the bed. "Here, Spunky, come out, kitty," I called.
    I opened Melanie's closet door and looked inside. No sign of the cat. I got down Melanie's luggage from the top shelf and started packing. Her clothes, her makeup and toiletries from the adjoining bathroom. No sign of Spunky there. I emptied her dresser drawers -- slips, underwear, tee shirts -- and filled three suitcases. I was taking everything. I did not want her coming back here. I hoped the police were through, that they were not coming back, and that they'd never know we had trespassed at a crime scene.
    Jon came in, stepping carefully, skirting the patches of blood-soaked carpeting. "Let's not forget her computer," I told him.
    I paused with a nightgown in my hands, about to fold it into the suitcase on the bed. Something was bothering me. "How did he get in?" I asked Jon.
    "Which one?" Jon asked me.
    "Well, both. How did Mickey get in? I made him give me Melanie's house key. Did he break in? Melanie wasn't here to let him in. She came later. Mickey and the killer were already here inside the house when she got home. Mickey may have been dead at that point."
    I stopped to consider. "She said she came in through the garage. She always closes the garage door behind her with the remote. She came directly from the garage into the kitchen. Jon, go into the garage and take a look around. See if someone broke a window in the garage or the side door."
    While he was gone, I looked under furniture and scoured the rooms Jon had already searched. When I went back into Melanie's bedroom, Spunky was curled up on Melanie's nightgown in the top of her suitcase.
    The sound of our voices had brought him out from his hiding place. "Oh, Spunky, you really gave us a scare."
    I lifted him and stroked him, reassuring him with my voice. He meowed at me, plaintively, pitifully. "You saw it all," I said to him. "What did you see?"
    I carried him out to the kitchen and put him into his cat carrier on the kitchen counter. He must have felt safe in it because he did now howl, but curled up comfortably and watched us.
    The fruit bowl on the counter caught my eye just as Jon came in from the garage and Cam came in through the front door.
    "No sign of him out there . . . oh, you found him. Thank goodness."
    Jon said, "The window and the door were securely closed and locked. And I checked the sliding glass doors earlier. No signs of a forced entry. Yet somehow one of them got in and probably let the other in."
    I reached into the fruit bowl.
    "What are . . . ?"
    "Just a minute," I said. The bowl was filled with fresh fruit, replacements for the fruit that had been there last weekend. But the key was still at the bottom of the bowl where I'd dropped it, hidden under the fruit.
    I held it up. "This is the key I took from Mickey Ballantine. I asked him for Melanie's house key and he gave it to me."
    I left the kitchen, crossed the foyer, opened the front door and inserted the key in the lock. "Son of a gun! It doesn't fit. He scammed me."
    Jon and Cam had followed me into the foyer. "So," Jon said, "he still had Melanie's house key. And he used it to let himself in