A Night's Tail

by Sofie Kelly

  He continued to stare at me without a meow or a murp or a grumble as though the reason should be obvious. I knew that if he hadn’t snuck into the truck and the hotel and then into Melanie’s office I might not have made the connection that Melanie and Lewis Wallace likely knew each other better than she was letting on. Or at least it would have taken a lot longer. I could have done with not having to climb my way up that narrow brick shaft, though that was on me, not the cat.

  It seemed Owen knew that, too. I got out a can of sardines and gave him part of one without comment.

  He was just finishing eating it when Ethan came in.

  “How far did you walk?” I asked.

  He swept a hand over his hair. “I didn’t exactly walk very far. I’ve been over talking to Rebecca.”

  That and eating pie, I suspected. His teeth looked a little blue.

  He yawned and stretched both arms over his head. “So what were you doing? Did you just come from somewhere?”

  My keys were on the table.

  “I had to deal with a cookie emergency,” I said.

  “As in we don’t have any?”

  “No. As in I need about a hundred and fifty for the quilt festival at the library.”

  He opened the fridge door and peered inside. “No offense, but just about everything they do in this town has food associated with it.”

  I laughed. “You’re right. It’s the unofficial town motto: We have cookies.”

  I left Ethan making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a small, furry supervisor. I went into the living room and called Susan, explaining the cookie problem.

  “Do you think Eric would be able to make his new maple cookies for the opening of the festival?”

  “Crappy timing, Kathleen,” she said. “He’s catering the regional tourism coalition’s breakfast that day. There’s no way he could get all those cookies made and they won’t have the right texture if he makes them in advance and freezes them.”

  I exhaled loudly. So much for my solution to the cookie problem.

  “Hang on, though,” Susan continued. “I think there’s a chance he would be willing to share his recipe for the cookies with the chef at the St. James. All of Eric’s recipes can stand up to being doubled or tripled.”

  “That would work, as long as Eric feels comfortable with someone else using his recipe. Please tell him he doesn’t have to say yes.”

  “I’ll tell him,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure he will say yes. I’ll let you know in the morning.”

  I thanked her and said good night.

  It wasn’t that late but there wasn’t anything else I could do about the cookies or Melanie or talking to Marcus about the cats.

  I poked my head around the kitchen doorway. “I’m going to take a bath,” I said to Ethan. Owen had disappeared. Not literally, I hoped.

  “You mind if I play a bit?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Go ahead. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I filled the tub with hot water and one of Maggie’s herbal bath remedies for achy muscles. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to lift my arms over my head in the morning.

  The sound of Ethan’s guitar playing floated up from downstairs. It had been a long time since I’d listened to him play like this, without having to share the music with anyone else.

  Hercules was stretched out on the bath mat. “I hate that he’s going home in a few days,” I said.

  The cat gave a soft murp of sympathy.

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I was going to do a Scarlett O’Hara and think about that—and everything else—tomorrow.

  * * *

  Susan arrived for her shift in the morning with a copy of the cookie recipe. “Eric said—and this is a direct quote—‘Tell Kathleen I have worked with Patricia Queen before. Here is the recipe, with my sympathy.’”

  “Thank you and Eric,” I said, giving her a hug. “And for the record, Patricia isn’t really that difficult.”

  Susan nudged her cat’s-eye glasses up her nose. “Kathleen, she reminded you to clean the screens of all of our computers the week of the festival so there would be no unsightly fingerprints.” She said the last few words in perfect mimicry of Patricia. “The only reason that wasn’t a problem is because you would have done that anyway!”

  I felt my face get red as Susan laughed.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I owe both of you. How about I babysit the boys so you and Eric can go out?”

  Susan regarded me with a fair amount of skepticism, one hand on her hip. “Are you insane? Not that I’m not taking you up on the offer.”

  I assured her about my mental health and the genuineness of my offer to watch the boys. She headed up to get coffee.

  Just before lunch I called Melanie and explained about the maple cookies and how I had Eric’s recipe for the St. James chef to use with Eric’s permission. “The cookies are traditional enough for Patricia, with enough of a different twist for people to remark on them—and I’ve already cleared the change with Patricia.”

  Melanie thanked me profusely. “I owe you,” she said. “A kidney, help moving, I’m your woman.”

  I wondered what she’d say if I just asked her for the truth about Lewis Wallace.

  Marcus stopped by with lunch about quarter after twelve. “How did you know I forgot mine?” I asked.

  “I talked to your brother.” He handed me a brown paper bag. “Meatloaf sandwich from Fern’s with a chopped apple and carrot salad on the side.”

  My stomach growled in appreciation. “Where did you see Ethan?” I asked.

  “He was at the co-op store. He and his friends are putting a couple of new locks on the doors.”

  Ethan was still trying to make points with Maggie. Hearing about the door reminded me that I needed to tell Marcus what I’d figured out about Melanie. I left out the part about crawling up the ventilation shaft. My shoulders still ached.

  Marcus made a face. “Why would she lie about something like that? She admitted she knew the man. Why not just say they knew each other in college?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Wallace played football. A lot of people would have known who he was. And I think if she’d wanted to kill the man she wouldn’t have done it in her own hotel. So why keep that secret?”

  “People have done a lot stupider things than that,” he said.

  “Wallace struggled with the person who killed him.” I gestured with the bag holding my lunch. “It couldn’t have been Melanie. He must have had a hundred and fifty pounds on her.”

  “Not so fast,” Marcus said. “Wallace was bigger, but he was more fat than muscle and he had asthma. Plus, he was having a reaction to the peanut butter. Melanie Davis is in much better shape. She runs and she boxes. In theory she could have killed him.”

  The question was, had she?

  * * *

  When I got to class that evening Maggie and Roma were standing by the tea table talking. Maggie was smiling and gesturing with one hand. Whatever the topic of conversation was it seemed to be making her happy.

  I walked over to join them. “Hi,” I said.

  Roma smiled. “Hi,” she said. “I’m supposed to tell you volume nine. Sydney said that would mean something to you.”

  I nodded. “It does. We’re both reading a young adult fantasy series that has fourteen books. Syd is now officially ahead of me.” I smiled. “We’ve been imagining the books turned into a movie and e-mailing each other our picks for the cast.”

  “Thank you for encouraging her,” Roma said.

  “First of all, she’s a great kid. And second, I’m happy to have someone to talk about the books with. No one else I know has been reading them.”

  Maggie took a sip of her tea, which smelled like cranberries and honey, and set her mug on the table. “Roma suggested w
e all go out to Wisteria Hill Friday night. I know Ethan is leaving on Saturday. Do you have anything planned?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t. And Ethan didn’t mention any plans to me.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Maggie said. “I’ll make pizza.”

  I looked at Roma. “Then I’ll do the dishes.” I gave her a hug. “Thank you,” I said. “I’m looking forward to it.” It would be good not to think about Lewis Wallace for a change.

  * * *

  I was changing my shoes after class when Rebecca came and sat next to me.

  “Are you having any luck figuring out who might have killed Mr. Wallace?” she asked.

  “Not really,” I said.

  Her expression softened. “I’m going to share a little secret with you, Kathleen. I’m not anywhere close to being as skilled as you are at using a computer to find things out, but I’ve met a lot of people in my life. That happens when you’re a hairdresser.” She smiled. “So I have my own way of learning things.”

  I knew that was true. Rebecca was genuinely interested in people.

  “And Everett does business with a lot of different people, which means I’ve had the opportunity to get to know many people’s staff members, the people who know where the bodies are buried, so to speak. After you came over, I wanted to learn a little bit more about Lewis Wallace. I’d heard a lot of negative things. I wanted to know if anyone had anything positive to say.”

  “Did they?” I asked. She answered my question with a question of her own.

  “Did you know that Lewis Wallace lost both of his parents when he was barely an adult?”

  I nodded. “I did.” I pulled on my left boot and started to tighten the laces.

  “Did you know his mother died from a very aggressive brain tumor?”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. I couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy for Wallace. What had it been like to watch his mother die that way?

  Rebecca folded her hands in her lap. “Two months ago, Mr. Wallace made a substantial donation to a group that’s doing research into brain cancer, into the type of brain cancer that killed his mother. No fanfare, Kathleen. No public acknowledgment. Just money to fund research that someday might save someone else’s mother.”

  It was the last thing I’d expected her to tell me.

  Rebecca patted my arm. “Most people are not all one thing,” she said. “You might want to keep that in mind.”

  “I will,” I said.

  She smiled then. “I had a lovely visit with your brother yesterday. He showed me some delightful pictures of you.” Her eyes twinkled.

  “I’m going to kill him,” I said matter-of-factly, gesturing with the boot I was holding. “No. Marcus is too good a detective. He’ll figure it out. I’m going to wait until Ethan’s asleep and shave his head.”

  For Ethan that would be a fate worse than death.

  Rebecca put her shoes in her canvas bag. “Don’t give your brother a hard time, now. I’m the one who asked if he had any photos of you when you were a child.” She gave me a sideways glance. “I didn’t know you knew how to twirl a baton.”

  I sent her a daggers look. “That settles it. I’m not going to just shave his head. I’m going to shave every part of his body.”

  Rebecca stood up and pulled on her jacket. “You were adorable.”

  “I almost burned down my elementary school. Who thought it was a good idea to let an eight-year-old twirl a baton that was on fire?” I laughed in spite of myself. “My mother had to draw on my eyebrows for the next two months.”

  She reached down and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “I still think you were adorable. With or without eyebrows.” She started down the stairs. “If you shave Ethan’s head make sure you stroke the razor in the direction of the hair growth,” she said over her shoulder. “You wouldn’t want him to end up with a rash.”

  I pulled on my other boot, stuffed my towel and shoes into my backpack and grabbed my jacket. I’d found a parking space right out front. I slid behind the wheel and looked down the street in the direction of the hotel. I could just walk down there, see if Melanie was still around and ask her what her connection to Lewis Wallace was. I sat there for a minute or so, trying to come up with a good reason not to. But I couldn’t.

  Melanie was in her office. She put in a lot of long days. Once again, the desk clerk directed me across the lobby and down the hall. The office door was wide open as before, and I knocked on the jamb. She looked up in surprise. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Did we have a meeting I forgot about?”

  “No,” I said. I hesitated. My mother had an expression; in for a penny, in for a pound. She’d learned it from a British wardrobe mistress and could quote the words using the woman’s precise British accent. I could hear her voice in my head now.

  I gestured at the woven blanket still tossed over the arm of the leather chair. “I know you went to Saint Edwin University. You and Lewis Wallace were friends in college.”

  The color drained from Melanie’s face. She swallowed. “No, we weren’t.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just looked at her.

  Her mouth worked. Her eyes slipped away from mine. “I should have guessed you’d come to see me. Detective Gordon was here earlier today.” She cleared her throat. “Lew and I weren’t friends. I was his tutor for a couple of his classes. He was failing pretty much everything, mostly because he was lazy and entitled. On the field he was fast and strong, the proverbial immovable object. He didn’t see the point in studying. He thought the rule that he had to maintain a minimum grade point average was stupid. He knew how much the team needed him. He thought it was going to be his ticket to the big time. Turned out he was wrong.”

  “He was accused of cheating.”

  Melanie stared at me for a moment. “Yes, but he was cleared of all that. Like I said, Lew was mostly lazy—at least off of the football field.”

  “How did you end up working together?” I asked.

  “That was just chance. I didn’t stay at the job very long. I could see that the company was only headed down.”

  “He wanted your support for the deal he was pitching to the town.” It was a guess but a good one it turns out.

  She smoothed her hair with one hand. “I told him I couldn’t get involved because I worked for the hotel and they had a policy about that sort of thing.”

  “Is that true?”

  Melanie shook her head. “Not specifically, no. I didn’t want to get involved because I wasn’t sure the deal was going to work. I know what kind of a student he was and that his first business failed.”

  “You didn’t think that he’d changed,” I said.

  “I just wasn’t convinced he had what it took to run a successful business.” She looked away again.

  “You admitted you knew Wallace. Why wouldn’t you say the two of you went to college together?”

  “Lew asked me to keep that quiet. He said most people didn’t care if you had a business that went under. It happens all the time. But he said that anytime someone found out that he’d been suspected of cheating back in college they got antsy, even though he was cleared. Two other students were expelled; one for using the stolen answers and one for stealing them.” She sighed softly. “I agreed, partly because all those years ago, with that cheating business, I was questioned, too. I had nothing to do with any of it and no one ever said I did, but I want to move up in this company. Maybe I was overreacting, but I know how people think: Where there’s smoke there’s fire. So I said yes.”

  I believed her.

  She got to her feet. “For what it’s worth, I know it was stupid of me in the first place to keep the fact that Lew and I knew each other in college a secret. And I just made things worse when I didn’t say anything after he was killed.” Her gaze slid away from mine again.

  I believed her as far as
her explanation went but I also knew she wasn’t telling me everything. That much was clear from the way she had trouble keeping eye contact. But the conversation seemed to have gone as far as it was going to for the moment. I thanked her for talking to me and headed back toward the lobby.

  * * *

  I was almost to the front entrance when I remembered that I had downloaded a photo of Zach Redmond onto my phone because I’d intended to ask Melanie if any of the staff might have seen him the night Lewis Wallace died. Should I go back to her office? Before I could decide I bumped into someone. My phone landed on the floor. “I’m sorry,” the young man said. Then he smiled. “Hey, Ms. Paulson.”

  I smiled back. “Hi, Levi.” Levi Ericson worked part-time as a waiter at the St. James. He was a voracious reader, at the library at least once and often twice a week.

  Levi bent down and picked up my phone, automatically glancing at the screen as he did. “Hey, is this guy a friend of yours?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” I said as he handed my cell back to me.

  “That is so great. See, the thing is, he was in here last week wearing a 1987 Guns N’ Roses T-shirt for their Appetite for Destruction European tour. That shirt is a collector’s item worth more than a thousand dollars. I’d kinda like to know where he got it.”

  “He was here?” I pointed at my phone screen. “This man? You’re sure?”

  Levi nodded. “Oh yeah. Like I said, collectors would spend a lot for that shirt.”

  “Do you remember what day it was?” Mentally I crossed my fingers.

  “Well, it could only be last Saturday night because that’s the only time I worked last week.”

  Last Saturday night. The night of the murder.

  I realized Levi was looking at me, a frown knotting between his eyebrows. “He’s a . . . a friend of a friend,” I said. “But I’ll ask about the shirt if I get the chance.”

  Levi thanked me and headed for the back of the hotel.

  I still had more questions than answers. I did think Melanie had told me the truth. I just didn’t think she’d told me all of it. And now I knew that Zach had been at the hotel the night of the murder. I’d gone from no suspects to possibly two. Now what?