by Cate Conte
“This one’s a bit more pointed,” I warned him.
He inclined his head in a go ahead motion.
“I was wondering why you were at Virgil Proust’s funeral?”
Leopard Man regarded me seriously, those piercing eyes on mine, his whimsy falling away. “Because he was a friend,” he said finally. “And I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.”
“Richard the Second,” I said, snapping my fingers.
He smiled. “Very good.”
My Shakespeare skills aside, this seemed weird. “But no, seriously. You were friends?”
“Yes. For many years.” He motioned for me to come sit. I dropped into the comfy chair across from him.
“Why?” I asked finally. “He didn’t like the cats. And they tried to stop us from helping them.”
Leopard Man shook his head firmly. “No, Madalyn. That was not Virgil.”
“Then it was his wife. And I know she was sick, but still. He went along with it.” I crossed my arms stubbornly. “I thought that would be a deal breaker for you.”
“It surely would’ve been. But that wasn’t him. He did not go along with anything that would have endangered a cat.”
“You were really that good of friends? Does Grandpa know?”
Leopard Man nodded. “Yes, we were friendly. Not best friends, but friendly. Your grandfather knew.”
But had never mentioned it to me. Not that it really mattered, but still. “How did you know him?”
“He had an office near where I parked my trailer years ago. One day, we started talking. He liked my tail,” Leopard Man remembered with a wistful smile. Leopard Man’s tail was famous around the island. He wore it on days when he was in an especially good mood. “After a while, we began meeting at least once a week for coffee and conversation.”
That caught my attention. “An office? For what?”
Leopard Man looked at me strangely. “For his work.”
“Yes, but what kind of work?” I asked impatiently.
“I believe it was multipurpose,” he said.
“Like a studio? I learned he was an artist.”
“Why, yes he was.” Leopard Man looked pleased that I knew that.
“Did he still have it? Like recently?”
He nodded. “Virgil owned it.”
“And he went there a lot, even recently?”
“I imagine so. It’s where he did most of his work.”
“Did he really do that much painting? I googled him and didn’t find anything about him. Do you know if he used it for … anything else?”
Leopard Man studied me again. He did that a lot during serious conversations and I always felt he was looking right into my brain.
“Maybe you should see for yourself,” he said finally, then offered me his arm. “Care to take a drive?”
Chapter 42
Saturday, January 2: eleven days after the murder
Noon
Since Leopard Man didn’t drive his ancient truck around unless he was moving his horse trailer/house, we got into my car and headed west. He didn’t tell me where we were going, just offered step-by-step directions. Finally we ended up on Ocean Boulevard, the winding road that ran parallel to the ocean and spanned each town. It appeared we were heading to Fisherman’s Cove, the town at the westernmost tip of the island.
Finally Leopard Man pointed to a turn. I glanced at the street sign as I took the sharp left: Bluff Point Drive.
Why did that sound familiar? I mulled it over as I cruised down the street and ultimately found myself in a little village of cottages. Beyond them, the ocean sparkled in the winter sunlight. I followed his pointing finger to the end of the little street and parked, then looked questioningly at him. “You used to live out here?”
He smiled. “As much as I’ve lived anywhere on the island, yes.” He pointed to an area of beach a little ways away from the small houses. “I parked over there. It’s probably the longest I stayed anywhere. It’s lovely here. Quiet.”
I surveyed the cottages. They looked empty. Which made sense, given that it was winter. People probably didn’t stay out here year-round.
Leopard Man got out of the car. I followed him to the last cottage, nearest his old parking spot. The door was turquoise blue with swirls of color splashed through it.
Leopard Man pulled a key out of his pocket. I watched, fascinated, as he unlocked the door. “Do you have a key to the whole island?” I asked, only half joking.
He smiled. “It was a safety measure for Virgil all those years ago. In case he forgot his key. But since we remained friends, I just kept it.” He motioned me inside. “Go on.”
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I stepped inside—something akin to a cheap motel room, perhaps—but whatever it was, it wasn’t this. The room was one giant art studio. Each wall was a different mural, each depicting an animal of some sort—a wolf, a dog, a cat, an elephant. Even the ceiling was painted. Easels stood around the room, each one holding a painting. Some looked finished, others were in progress. Paints, brushes, and other paraphernalia covered a long table. The room smelled of paint and incense, fading now, but captured since the windows and doors had been shut tight.
I turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. The cottage was really only two rooms, plus another door I assumed led to a bathroom. But mostly what I noticed were that these paintings weren’t like the ones on his wall at home. I had seen paintings like these before. I stepped over to one of the paintings on the easel and studied it. It was a pit bull with the most soulful eyes I’d ever seen looking right into mine, set against a background of pinks and purples. The details were amazing, down to the different-color fur around each eye. It almost reminded me of …
Holy crap. It couldn’t be.
I glanced behind me at Leopard Man, who watched me intently. “This is Virgil’s studio?” I confirmed.
He nodded.
“And Virgil didn’t use his own name when he painted,” I said. I was getting a tingly feeling all over that I couldn’t ignore.
Leopard Man said nothing.
I moved from painting to painting, but wasn’t finding what I wanted to see. It wasn’t until I moved to the murals and crouched down on the floor that I found what I was looking for. At the very bottom of each was the signature: Salvato.
I sat back on my heels, my head spinning. “Salvato? Virgil Proust is Salvato? How? Why? How did I not know this?”
Leopard Man came and sat on the floor next to me, running his fingers lightly over a painting of a cat tumbling in the grass, butterfly over his head. “He was only Salvato near certain people,” he said. “Very few, actually. It was difficult, with his wife.”
I frowned. “What did she have to do with his work?”
He regarded me with a touch of amusement. “She didn’t like animals. You said so yourself,” he pointed out. “It had become a phobia of sorts. And she was never quite supportive of his love for the arts anyway. She much preferred his professor persona. So he developed an alter ego as he got more invested in this line of work, and kept a small studio at home where he painted seascapes and other nature-related things. And then his career got bigger and bigger, especially once Best Friends discovered him. By then he’d kept it from her for so long that it made no sense to reveal it. She’d already begun showing signs of early-onset dementia.”
I had no idea what to say. I was overcome with sadness at this news, because it meant the great Salvato was gone and the animals had lost an ally. And it also showed me I’d been completely, utterly wrong about Virgil Proust, and I felt awful about it. And about his death.
“There’s more,” Leopard Man said after a moment. He rose and pulled me to my feet, steering me toward the little door that I thought led to a bathroom. But when he pulled it open, I saw it was a whole other room.
I’d thought I’d had all the surprises I could take for the day, but when I stepped into the smaller studio, there were at least te
n finished paintings positioned around. There was also cat paraphernalia. Litter boxes. Giant crates. Food bowls. I stepped over to the paintings, zeroing in on a painting of a fluffy black cat with a tipped ear. I’d recognize that face anywhere. It was Toby, from the Sea Spray colony. I moved to the next one and recognized the giant tiger cat I’d started calling Gus. The one I hadn’t seen for a few days and been so worried about.
“What is this? He was painting the cats from his neighborhood? But how did he…”
“Virgil was helping Katrina,” Leopard Man said. “He notified her about the colony and was supplying funds for her to care for the cats. The funds you thought I was supplying,” he said with a wink. “And he was trying to keep June from interfering. Then when Katrina needed more space to house the cats while they were getting fixed, he let her keep them here while they recovered from the surgeries. He actually helped trap a few of them. While they were here, he decided to paint them for a new collection.”
“A new collection? Of the ferals?” I moved to each of the paintings, tracing each detail. His depiction of them was brilliant—you would never guess they weren’t house cats posing for their favorite human. “And he trapped them? Again, how did I not know any of this?”
Leopard Man nodded. He looked sad too. “He really felt for them. And the whole dynamic was terribly hard for him.”
“He tipped off Katrina about the poison petition,” I said. “When it was raised at the meeting. That’s how she knew.”
Leopard Man nodded, and I could see his jaw tightening. “He told me about that. It’s a disturbed mind that would suggest that option.”
I agreed. I stared at the pictures a little longer, then suddenly realized where I’d seen this street name before. I pulled out my phone and checked my notes, where I’d copied down the address I’d found in Katrina’s calendar. “What number is this house?”
“Five twenty-five.”
Bingo. So Katrina’s relationship with Virgil had been innocent. And I was a jerk. I turned to Leopard Man. “Who else knew about this?”
Leopard Man shrugged. “Not many. Me, because he trusted me. Dr. Kelly. They were friends also.”
I remembered Dr. Kelly’s reaction when I’d gone to his office asking about Virgil. Now I knew why. He hadn’t wanted to be put in a position to reveal his friend’s secret either.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” But as soon as I asked the question, I knew what he was going to say.
“It wasn’t my story to tell,” he said simply. “But since people may have the wrong idea about his relationship with Katrina, it’s not the time to keep more secrets. Hopefully we can find the real killer and get him the justice he deserves.”
Chapter 43
Saturday, January 2: eleven days after the murder
4 p.m.
My head was spinning when I dropped Leopard Man back off at the library. I still wasn’t sure if everything I’d just learned had anything to do with Virgil’s murder—unless someone had killed him because they knew he was fighting for the cats instead of against. Which would’ve pointed me right back to June, but I knew now it couldn’t have been her.
But it did make me think of Whitney and her boyfriend—Paul the art agent, aka Dominick the Donkey. This knowledge of Virgil’s real career changed things. While Virgil may have been donating his profits to animal causes, Paul still had to be getting a good payout from representing him. Which would give him no reason to kill him … unless something had happened to jeopardize that relationship. What if they’d had a falling out recently? Or Virgil had fired Paul? Had Whitney caused a problem because of the whole June thing? Without Virgil as a client, Paul could stand to lose a lot of money. I had no idea how I would find that out, but I knew I had to start with Whitney.
At least I could now offer up a half-dozen good reasons why it wouldn’t have been Katrina, instead of my current Because I know she would never do that. It also meant I’d been way out of line accusing her of having an affair with him, and I needed to figure out what to do to fix that.
So I wasn’t really in the mood to be accosted by Val and Ethan when I walked in the front door. They were waiting for me, and they looked serious enough that I got nervous.
“Maddie. Sit. We need to talk.”
My heart sped up. “What’s wrong? Is Grandpa okay?”
“He’s fine. We just need to talk to you.”
I sank into a chair, searching first her face, then Ethan’s, for a clue to what this was about. I couldn’t take any more bad news, and I tried to keep my mind from wandering there on its own. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t mean to butt in like this,” Val said. “But I can’t watch this any longer. You’re cranky all the time and it’s driving me crazy, for one thing. For another, well, I can’t sit back and watch you throw this away.”
“Throw what away?” I asked, exasperated. I turned to Ethan. “Can you translate please? And get to the point a little faster?”
“It’s Lucas,” Ethan said. Leave it to him to cut to the chase.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. Who had time for this right now? I had a murder to solve. “Forget it.” I started to get up, but Val blocked me from standing. “Jeez. Are you planning to tie me to the chair next?” I asked. I couldn’t help but be annoyed with her. I knew I was conveniently forgetting how I’d forced her to leave her house and come stay with Grandpa and me when everything went to crap with Cole, but that was different.
“If I have to. Look. Lucas called me and asked if we could talk.”
“He what?” I glared at her. “You went?”
“We both did.” Val stuck her chin up defiantly.
“You too?” I looked at Ethan in disbelief.
He shrugged. “Val asked me to go. And I’m glad I did, Maddie. You need to cut the guy some slack. Seriously.”
“What is with you two? And what is it with him? This isn’t okay to broadcast around the whole island.” I was getting angrier by the minute. He had no business involving all these people to try to get me to talk to him again. Not even just people. Family. Where were his carrier pigeons during his Houdini act, when no messages were being sent?
“We’re not the whole island. We’re your family,” Val said pointedly. “And we care about you. Of course we wouldn’t push you to talk to him if we thought he was playing us, or if it was bad for you. I really think this whole thing was just a bad misunderstanding and he would like the opportunity to explain.”
“Yeah. You’re absolutely right. You’re my family. So you’ll forgive me if this seems odd.”
“He thought that if we were open to listening—” Ethan cleared his throat and fell silent when I shot him a look.
“So he told you what happened. Or at least what he said happened.”
Val nodded. “The high-level version.”
“So?” I spread my arms. “What happened?”
She shook her head. “Not our story to tell.”
“Second time I’ve heard that today,” I muttered. “Right. Well, that’s convenient.” I shoved back my chair and rose. “I have things to do, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Maddie. Can you stop being so stubborn?” Val asked, exasperated. “I wouldn’t bother if I thought he was lying, or if he had an ulterior motive. He misses you. He knows things got crazy, and he wants to explain. That’s all.”
I still wasn’t convinced. I so didn’t want to be that girl. The one who got treated poorly but eagerly went back for more if there was a good explanation to go along with it. Especially since I’d been that girl too many times to count already.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Anything else?”
Val and Ethan exchanged a glance.
“No,” Val said. “Nothing else.”
“Great.” I turned to go, then looked back. “Thanks for trying. Really. And I will think about it.”
“I hope so,” Val said.
I left the room and went upstairs, blinking the tears back. I so wanted to cal
l Lucas right then and hear his story. I so wanted his story to be a good one. But what if it wasn’t? What if I ended up not being able to trust him again … ever? That would be a crappy restart to a relationship.
It was all so complicated. And I had bigger fish to fry at the moment.
Chapter 44
Saturday, January 2: eleven days after the murder
7 p.m.
I had to go feed the cats and check the traps Adele had put out a few hours ago anyway—she’d left me a message while I’d been with Leopard Man—so I used that as my excuse to go to Whitney’s house that night. It was also an excuse to not be home with Val staring at me waiting to see if I’d called Lucas yet. I did call Grandpa, but he usually went to play cards with his friends on Saturday and his phone was off. I left him a message about where I was going just in case, then headed out in Grandma’s car.
When I got to the neighborhood, it was quiet. We’d had a little more snow last night and the woods were white and virtually undisturbed. I filled the bowls and put out some wet food in the shelters. I spotted a few pairs of cat eyes watching from behind some trees, but no one was in the traps. I closed them up and headed back out to the street.
Lights were on at Whitney’s. I went out and took care of the cat stuff in the shed before I went to the door, adding water to the heated bowl and leaving extra food out. While I was there, I took a casual sweep around with my flashlight. I’d been in here many times, but never paid much attention to what she had stored in here.
There wasn’t much. A lawn mower and a weed whacker. Some gardening tools. No creepy matching gnomes.
I turned and left, leaving the door cracked so the cats could get in and out, and went to the front door. I wasn’t sure if this was the smartest plan, but I was fresh out of plans. And if Paul had represented Virgil, Whitney had to know the truth about Virgil’s real feelings about the cats. Unless she’d been upset with him for not doing anything about June. I really was having trouble sorting out what any of that meant, but I knew I had to talk to her.