A Night's Tail

by Sofie Kelly

  Micah gave me the same unblinking look Owen liked to use when he was ignoring me.

  I gave her one last scratch behind her right ear and Marcus set her back on the seat again. He wrapped both arms around me and kissed me again. And then again. I could have stood there all night. I wasn’t the slightest bit cold.

  Marcus rested his chin on the top of my head and groaned. “I have to stop doing this or I’m never going to get out of here and Eddie is going to string me up.”

  I broke out of his embrace and took two steps backward, folding my hands neatly in front of me.

  “That doesn’t help at all,” he said.

  I gave him a teasing smile. “What? I’m just standing here minding my manners.”

  “More like taking my breath away.” He shook his head. “I’m going now. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He slid onto the seat, started the SUV and backed out of the driveway.

  I gave a little wave and he was gone. All of a sudden I was cold. I wrapped my coat around me and hurried around the side of the house.

  When I stepped into the kitchen I found Owen sitting in Marcus’s seat.

  “You seem to have forgotten that the chairs are for people,” I said.

  He gave a pointed look at the door and then shifted his gaze to me again, giving a sharp, insistent meow as though he somehow knew what had just occurred out in the driveway. For all I knew, he did.

  I put a hand on my hip. “What was I supposed to do? Say ‘Yes, you actually did see Micah disappear because, oh, I forgot to mention she can do that kind of thing’?”

  Being a cat of few words, he just continued to silently eye me. It was very disconcerting.

  I reached down, picked Owen up and took his seat, setting him on my lap. I remembered when I’d first begun to suspect Owen and his brother had some unexplainable abilities. In Owen’s case the idea had begun to take form after he’d ended up at the library and had launched himself onto someone’s head. The someone was conductor Gregor Easton, who’d had no sense of humor about that sort of thing.

  I remembered how Susan had laughed once the pompous conductor had been placated and Owen had been corralled in my office.

  “Suddenly, there he was on the maestro’s head,” she’d said, shoulders shaking with laughter. “It was almost like one second he was invisible and the next he wasn’t.”

  Luckily the phone had started to ring then, which had ended the conversation. I’d wondered what Susan would have said if I had told her that I thought it was possible the cat actually had vanished for a moment.

  That incident wasn’t the first time I thought I’d seen Owen disappear. That had happened six weeks prior. I’d been in the swing in the backyard with Owen on the grass at my feet watching the birds. And then he wasn’t. I looked for him, certain he’d darted away to stalk some unsuspecting robin. Then he appeared again, about ten feet away in midair, in midleap over a tiny black-and-yellow finch.

  “Owen!” I’d yelled. The bird flew away, I lost my balance and tumbled onto the lawn, and the cat landed on the grass, legs splayed, looking very undignified. As I settled on the swing again I’d decided I hadn’t really seen Owen disappear and then reappear. The sun had been in my eyes. My mind had been wandering. And then he did it again.

  Was I having a breakdown, I’d wondered, or maybe a very bizarre hallucination?

  I’d gotten up, walked across the grass and sat down next to the cat. “Owen, do that again,” I’d said.

  He’d stared at me.

  “C’mon. Disappear.” I’m not sure what I had been expecting, maybe some sort of slow fade-out, the way Alice in Wonderland’s Cheshire cat had disappeared, until only its smile was left. Owen looked at me like I’d lost my mind. And then he disappeared. Except this time he’d only disappeared behind the red chokeberry bush.

  I’d learned about Hercules’s abilities at the library as well, back when it was being renovated. I was shutting things down for the night when the little tuxedo cat decided to explore one of the partially finished meeting rooms. When I bent to scoop him up he darted away.

  “Hercules, come back here right now,” I’d said sharply. In return all I’d gotten was a low, rumbly meow. He had walked out of my reach, through the closed panel door in front of us, and disappeared.

  I remembered how my knees had started to shake. I sat down hard on the floor. Hercules had vanished. He hadn’t darted past me. He’d walked through a solid wooden door just as though it wasn’t there and it was almost as though there was a faint “pop” as the end of his tail had disappeared. I’d felt all over the door looking for some kind of hidden panel but the door was thick and unyielding.

  I’d sat back on my heels, wondering if I was crazy. I’d remembered a psych prof in freshman year telling the class that if you could ask the question then you weren’t. Of course, three-quarters of the time he came to class in his pajama bottoms.

  I’d pressed my head to my knees and made myself take several shaky breaths. No climbing on the crazy bus, I’d told myself. I was tired. I needed glasses. There was a rational explanation for all of this.

  Maybe five minutes went by, although it had seemed a lot longer. Then I had felt . . . something I couldn’t define. It was as though the air around the door suddenly thickened and pushed against me the way water pushes against your hand if you try to press it over the end of a hose. And Hercules had walked through the door as though there wasn’t any door there at all.

  It defied the laws of physics. It couldn’t have happened.

  Except it had.

  I didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t tell the truth—not that I was even sure what the truth was. And so I’d kept the secret for three years. I’d kept it from Roma and Maggie and Rebecca. From my mother and Ethan.

  I’d kept it from Marcus. I knew I couldn’t do that much longer.

  chapter 7

  The next few days were uneventful. On Tuesday, Ethan, Derek and Milo went to see the luthier in Red Wing. I knew that a luthier was someone who repaired and built guitars, but Milo explained, over a bowl of oatmeal and applesauce, that they did a lot more than that.

  “They don’t just work on guitars, they work on all sorts of stringed wooden instruments—guitars, violins, violas, cellos, double basses,” he said. “And they build instruments, too.”

  The three of them came back from Red Wing enthused about the woman and her workshop. They had left Milo’s old guitar with her and she had promised it would be ready by the time they had to leave.

  Maggie had invited the guys to join our tai chi class. Derek had turned down the offer to do more work on his song. Ethan, of course, had accepted. To my surprise Milo had decided to join us, too.

  The three of us squeezed into my truck and drove down the hill.

  “How long have you been doing tai chi?” Milo asked.

  “About three years,” I said. “Rebecca invited me to try a class and I liked it. I’ve been going ever since. My balance is better. I’m more aware of how my body moves. When we do the form at the end of the class it’s very much like meditating.”

  “The form?” Ethan said.

  I nodded. “Maggie teaches Wu style tai chi chuan. There are one hundred and eight movements. Those movements make up the form. You’ll see once we get started.”

  I stopped to let two people and a shaggy sheep dog cross the street.

  “You said Maggie teaches Wu style,” Milo said. “So does that mean there are other styles?”

  “There are five major styles,” I said. “Chen, Yang, Wu Hao, Wu and Sun. Chen style dates all the way back to the sixteenth century. There are other hybrids and offshoots now, but those are the main ones.”

  “So you’ve learned all one hundred and whatever of the movements?” Ethan said.

  I nodded. “Uh-huh.” I remembered when that had seemed impossible.

 
“Then why do you keep going?”

  “Because there’re always parts of the form that can be improved.” I thought of my nemesis, Cloud Hands. “Because I like the people. Because there are new things to learn.” I smiled. “Because it’s fun. You’ll see.”

  I found a parking spot close to the studio and the guys followed me up the stairs to the studio. We hung up our jackets and I sat down to change my shoes. Something about the door seemed to have caught Milo’s attention.

  “Is there something wrong with that door?” I asked.

  “Not the door, the lockset,” he said. The door was original to the old building, I knew, and had round brass doorknobs that I assumed were also original.

  Maggie had seen the three of us and walked over. “Hi,” she said. “Is there a problem?”

  “You know this door isn’t very secure, right?” Milo said.

  Her green eyes narrowed. “No, what’s wrong with it?”

  Milo held up a finger. “Watch this.” He closed the door and set the lock. Then he took out his wallet and pulled out a card. It was thin enough to slide between the door and the frame. I watched him maneuver it for a moment and the door swung open. He grinned and held up the plastic rectangle. “And you thought this was just a library card.”

  “How did you do that?” Maggie asked.

  Milo closed and locked the door again and handed his library card to Maggie. With his coaching she got the door open. It took her a little more time than it had taken him. But not much.

  I had noticed similar setups in other older buildings in town, including at one time, the library. I reminded myself to thank Harry Junior for insisting on replacing all of the old locksets at the library.

  “How did you know this?” I asked.

  “He’s a Dateline fanatic,” Ethan said. “We watch it quite a lot between sets when we’re playing somewhere.”

  “You’d be surprised what you can learn from that show,” Milo added.

  Ethan looked at Maggie. “We can put a deadbolt on that door for you. I mean, if you want one.”

  Maggie nodded. “I do.”

  The three of them headed for the tea table, talking about what would be the best choice for the old door.

  After class we headed down to Eric’s for chocolate pudding cake. Maggie shared the story of the time we’d found what we thought was a dead rat floating in the co-op store’s flooded basement and how I’d fished it out and tossed what I thought was a rodent corpse into the street and instead launched a very alive rat at Ruby. Ethan laughed so hard coffee came out his nose.

  * * *

  Melanie Davis and I managed to squeeze in a quick meeting Wednesday afternoon to go over the last few details we had to coordinate for the quilt show.

  Her office was small and cramped and didn’t even have a window. There was a desk, a locked credenza for files, a couple of chairs and a small lamp. A woven scarlet-and-gray blanket was draped over the arm of one of the chairs. There was a calendar on the wall along with a beautiful photo of the Riverwalk that I recognized as Ruby’s work and a tiny plaque with the words “Valor, Truth, Honor.”

  “Sorry for the cramped surroundings,” Melanie said. “This is just a temporary space for me.” She pointed over her head. “The offices and two washrooms upstairs are being renovated, so for now, I’m here.”

  I found the room a little claustrophobic and wondered if maybe Melanie did, too, and that was why her door wasn’t just wide open, it was being held that way by a wooden wedge.

  “This room was originally the bottom of a ventilation shaft,” she said.

  I looked around. “That explains why there are no windows.”

  She pointed to the ornate brass grill covering a large opening on the wall. It was the most striking feature in the room. “It’s not original, it’s a replica, but the heating and air-conditioning vents will all have grates like that in the new offices. It’s a way to keep a little history of the building.”

  Melanie indicated the open door. “All the stone and concrete in here interfere with my cell phone. I have to keep the door open to get any signal. Sometimes I’m hanging over the front of the desk with the phone, trying to make a call.” She shook her head. “And Murphy’s Law in action I guess, the phone company is running new lines in this part of the building so some days I have a landline and some I don’t. In other words, if you need to get in touch with me, I suggest carrier pigeon.”

  “I was thinking I could tie a note to Owen’s leg and send him over,” I said.

  Melanie smiled. “That would work, too.” She glanced at her cell phone. “Seriously, if you can’t get me on my cell you can leave a message at the front desk.”

  “I will,” I said. I looked around the small room. “What will happen to this space?”

  “It’ll most likely be used for storage,” Melanie said. She gestured at the opening in the wall. “And that will be bricked off.”

  I felt an involuntary shiver like a cold finger trailing up my spine. I didn’t do well in small spaces.

  It didn’t take long for us to go over the last few details for the quilt show. I was glad to be able to cross that off of my to-do list.

  “Thanks for fitting me into your schedule, Kathleen,” Melanie said as she walked me back out to the front desk from her office after we finished. She was wearing a deep green blouse and a slim chocolate skirt and she looked like an early promise of spring. “Patricia’s called me three times in the last two days.”

  “She’s a very detail-oriented person,” I said.

  Melanie smiled. “And you’re very diplomatic.”

  We passed the hallway that led to the meeting room where we’d found Lewis Wallace’s body.

  “We got both rooms back yesterday,” Melanie said. “I admit I felt a little . . . unsettled walking into that meeting room.”

  “That’s understandable,” I said.

  “It wasn’t technically my first dead body,” she continued. “I worked in a hotel in Vermont and we had a guest pass away in his sleep, but in that case he was a hundred and two and it just didn’t seem as . . .” She paused. “It was sad, of course, but not as much of a shock as finding the body of someone you”—she cleared her throat—“someone you used to know, someone you didn’t expect to see dead.”

  I nodded. “I know what you mean.” We passed a waiter pushing a wheeled food cart. He smiled at both of us. “Did Lewis Wallace have any family?” I asked.

  Melanie shook her head. “He was an only child and his parents died when he was just in college.” She bent down to pick up a crumpled gum wrapper from the carpet. “I remember hearing something about a brief marriage when he was playing football in Canada but I don’t know if that was even true. He supposedly made a bunch of money up there.”

  We stepped out into the lobby. “Is what happened still affecting business here?” I asked.

  Melanie shook her head. “Umm, no. After those first few early checkouts and cancellations things went back to normal. I guess people have short memories.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” I said. “If there’s anything else you need, please let me know.”

  She thanked me again and I headed back to the library.

  Ruby had convinced all three guys to come talk to the Reading Buddies kids about music and songwriting after school on Wednesday. We set up a couple of big whiteboards and to my surprise they actually managed to write an entire song with the kids’ help. Hearing the guitar music ring through the library—which Ethan said had very good acoustics—when I stepped back inside the building after my meeting made me feel a little homesick remembering all the times over the years that I’d heard Ethan playing at home.

  Thursday morning I had a meeting with Patricia Queen and Oren Kenyon to finalize all the details for the displays planned for the library during the quilt show. Oren Kenyon was a jack-of-all-tr
ades. He’d worked on the library renovation and the repairs to the Stratton Theatre. If you could explain what you wanted to Oren he could build it. He was also a very talented musician.

  Our meeting was scheduled for ten thirty and Patricia walked into the building at exactly twenty-five minutes after. Oren had already arrived and was standing in the computer area looking up at the ceiling at the system of fine wires and pulleys we had used in the past to display everything from artwork to old photographs to flying ghosts at Halloween.

  Patricia had drawn a sketch of the main floor of the library as well as a detailed floor plan to scale. There were quilts to display—new and vintage—as well as books and magazines on the subject and a collection of photos of the group taken over the years. A tiny color-coded key on the side of her floor plan showed where everything should go. She handed the drawing to Oren and he studied it for a moment, nodding slowly as a hint of a smile spread across his face. “This is excellent, Patricia,” he said. He looked at me. “Kathleen, what do you think?”

  I pointed at one tiny blue square. “Will this”—I squinted at the key—“quilt be too close to the heating vent?”

  Patricia’s head came up and her eyes darted from side to side. “That’s one of our vintage quilts,” she said. “It’s over a hundred years old.” She reminded me of a groundhog coming out of its burrow, looking around trying to decide if we were getting six more weeks of winter.

  “I’ll show you the vent Kathleen is talking about,” Oren said. He gestured in the direction of the magazines section and gave me a small smile as he passed in front of me. It occurred to me that if anyone was diplomatic, it was Oren.

  Much like his son, Oren’s father, Karl, had been good with his hands. But what he had really wanted to be was an artist. He had created some incredible sculptures. The moment I’d seen them in Oren’s workshop I’d known they deserved to be seen and appreciated. I’d convinced Oren to let me display some of his father’s pieces here at the library. That had been the beginning of several shows and Karl Kenyon had finally gotten the acclaim he should have gotten when he was alive. It had cemented the friendship between Oren and me.