“Why not?” I asked in a small voice.
“I’d also like to know why you don’t want me to see inside this room,” DS Wilson fixed Heathcliff with a suspicious stare.
“Come back with a warrant, and I’ll happily let you sniff around my underthings. Until then, no one goes into this room.” To emphasize his point, Heathcliff grabbed an old-fashioned key from his pocket and turned it in the lock until we all heard a loud, metallicclick.
“Heathcliff, please—” Tears spilled over, running down my cheeks. I shook his arm, but he was as immovable as a statue. He wrenched his head away, not even looking at me.
“I think I’ve seen enough.” DS Wilson scribbled on her pad. “There’s no evidence of a break-in. The thief was either inside the house or had a key to get in. They took the tree and dragged it outside. Since you and Mr. Moriarty vouch for each other, and your other flatmate is away, it has to be Heathcliff – the one person in this room with a motive to destroy the tree.”
I balled my hands into fists, fighting to gain control over my rising panic. “Heathcliff didn’t do it. He’d never—”
DS Wilson flipped her pad shut and shoved it into her pocket. “Mina, because you’ve helped us out with a couple of cases over the last few months, and also because Inspector Drudge hates being bothered with paperwork over the holidays, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to keep this quiet for forty-eight hours. Convince your boyfriend to return the tree and presents intact, or in two days’ time I’ll be pressing formal charges.”
Chapter Four
“Ididn’t do this.” Heathcliff barely held himself together. His whole body trembled with rage. He planted both hands on his desk and loomed over it, looking every bit the terrifying fiend he’d been described as inWuthering Heights. Needles dropped from his coat like tiny snowflakes of incrimination.
He faced off against Morrie, Quoth, and I. Between his hands was the scrap of ribbon and the broken baubles, along with the intact one I’d found in the hallway this morning. The one with tufts of his coat sticking out of it.
The only other sound in the room was Grimalkin’s ecstatic mews as she rolled about in the catnip stain.
“Just admit it.” Quoth’s eyes blazed. “Give the tree and the presents back and we can all pretend you’re not a villain.”
“I can’t give the bloody tree back, because I don’t know where it is!”
Quoth turned his head away. “You’re horrible. You don’t care who you hurt, as long as you get your way.”
I wrapped my arm around Quoth’s shoulders, but he shrugged me off and slunk into the shadows. A moment later, a black raven swooped up to perch on the chandelier and frown down at Heathcliff.
“You going to sit up there and judge me all bloody day,” Heathcliff shook his fist at the bird. “So that’s what friendship means to a grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore.”
“Croak!” Quoth’s eyes blazed with ire.
“Hey, don’t get personal.” I glared at Heathcliff, lest he broke into another line of Quoth’s least-favorite poem. “Quoth has a right to be upset.”
“Yeah. The birdie’s not the only one reeling.” Morrie stuck out his lower lip. “I’m hurt, too. You committed a high-stakes theft and didn’t even tell me! I’m the Napoleon of Crime, in case you’ve forgotten. If you’d employed my help I wouldn’t have allowed you to make so many stupid mistakes.”
“I didn’t make any stupid mistakes, because I didn’t steal the bloody tree!” Heathcliff bellowed.
I struggled to keep my breathing even as I leaned over and placed my hands on top of his. Beneath my fingers, he trembled. “Heathcliff, if you tell me you didn’t take the tree, then I believe you. But is there any possibility that in your inebriated state you might have done something to it? Thrown it somewhere on the street, or cut it up? Maybe if we—”
“I didn’t do it. I crashed into the bloody thing when I came home, but that was it. I came upstairs and went to bed.”
“Then why didn’t you want DS Wilson to look in your room?”
“None of your business.” He jerked his hands from under mine, making the whole desk shake.
“Fine.” I closed my eyes for a moment, blinking back the tears that threatened to fall. “I stand by what I said. Even though you’re being a complete wanker, I believe you. But convincing DS Wilson and the rest of the village is another matter – the four of us have to tackle this the way we settle all the other mysteries that cross our path. We’ve got two days to figure out who took the tree and presents and make them return it.”
Morrie and Quoth looked at each other. Quoth fluttered to the ground and transformed back into his human form. Naked, he stared at the floor, his long hair curtaining his face so I couldn’t see the pain in his eyes.
“I’d love to help, Mina. But I’ve got to head over to the animal shelter. They’ve got a fresh litter of rescued kittens coming in today. And now that they’re not going to get all the supplies from under the tree, they need all the help…” his words faded into a shudder.
“But, Quoth—”
Quoth had already scooped up his clothes and padded away into the shadows.
I glared at Heathcliff. “You should go after him.”
