Final Catcall

by Sofie Kelly

  “I’m going to have a shower.” I put the shower curtain inside the claw-foot tub. “You can stay if you want to.”

  I figured Hercules would leave as soon as the water started, but he was perched in the same place when I got out. Looking at him sitting there, I remembered Ruby’s invitation to see his portrait. “Ruby finished your picture,” I said. “She’s going to show it to me on Monday.”

  He jumped down, making a wide circuit around any possible damp spots on the floor, sat in front of me—albeit far enough away that no stray drops of water would get on him—and meowed loudly.

  “Do you want to go with me?”

  He looked over his shoulder at the door.

  “You’ll have to spend the morning at the library.”

  He licked his lips.

  “No,” I said firmly, shaking my head for emphasis. “I’m not buying you a breakfast sandwich from Eric’s.”

  His shoulders sagged and he hung his head. He was the picture of cat dejection, except that I’d witnessed this little act before. Plus I could see one green eye watching me.

  “It’s not working,” I said, pushing past him to go back into the bedroom.

  After a moment he followed, rubbing against my leg as I put on my favorite purple sweater. Since the woebegone-kitty approach hadn’t worked, he’d decided to try sucking up. He hadn’t considered the body lotion Maggie had made for my dry skin. The rich cream was infused with lavender.

  Hercules screwed up his face as he got a noseful of the scent. He sneezed and jumped because he always scared himself when he did that. He sneezed three more times in rapid succession, starting at the sound each time.

  I made a shooing motion with one hand. “Go downstairs and get a drink.”

  He glared at me and stalked out of the room. I heard him sneeze one more time on his way down the stairs.

  When I went down to the kitchen, he was sitting by the refrigerator, washing his face with more vigor than usual.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said. “I won’t be late.”

  No acknowledgment. I’d been put on Ignore.

  I found Owen on the porch bench, looking out into the backyard. I sat down beside him. “I’m leaving,” I said. “Time to go inside.”

  He climbed onto my lap and nuzzled my neck.

  “I love you, too,” I said, scratching the top of his head. “But I need to get going. Maggie’s waiting.” The moment the words came out I realized what a mistake I’d just made. Owen jumped down from my lap and went to sit by the back door.

  I stood up and brushed a clump of gray cat fur off my sweater. “You’re not coming with me,” I said.

  He didn’t even twitch a whisker. I knew what was coming next. I swooped down and scooped him up before he could wink out of sight. He yowled and tried to wriggle out of my arms.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I set him just inside the kitchen door and closed it in his face. He yowled again in angry protest.

  I went out to the truck. Now all the men in my life were mad at me.

  “C’mon up,” Maggie called when I knocked on her apartment door. The aroma of sausage and onions floated down the stairs to meet me. She was at the counter, tearing a ball of mozzarella into small pieces. And Roma was sitting on the sofa.

  “I was hoping you’d be here,” I said, dropping down next to her on the couch.

  “I bribed her,” Maggie said. There was a blob of sauce on the end of her nose and a dusting of flour in her hair. And there wasn’t a bare bit of counter space for me to put the brownies down. I set the square plastic container on the chair next to the sofa.

  Roma smiled. “She did. She promised me half a pizza to take home.”

  “You get the other half,” Maggie said to me.

  “Good.” I took off my heavy blue cable knit sweater and tossed it over the back of the chair. “I can use it to bribe my way back into Owen’s good graces.”

  Maggie frowned. “What did you do to Owen?”

  “I didn’t do anything. He wanted to come with me and I said no.” I kicked off my shoes, pulled a foot up underneath me and settled in one corner of the couch.

  “You could have brought him,” she said. She frowned and looked around the cluttered kitchen.

  “No, I could not have brought him. It would have set a precedent and I swear to you Owen would know that.”

  “Please tell me you’re not really going to feed Owen pizza,” Roma said. “He’s a cat. He’s not supposed to eat people food.”

  “You tell him that,” I said.

  “I have.”

  “So that explains why the cats don’t like you,” Maggie said with a grin, bending down to peer into the oven.

  “I won’t give Owen any pizza,” I said. “I promise.”

  Roma smiled. “Thank you.”

  I’d been guilty in the past of letting the cats eat all kinds of people food. Roma had been horrified when she found out. Owen and Hercules weren’t typical cats by any standards and I didn’t think they had a typical cat’s digestive system, but I was still trying to stick to cat food and not people food.

  Neither Owen nor Hercules was very happy about the change in their eating habits. If they’d known that Roma was behind it they would have had even more reason to be cool to her. Roma wasn’t one of their favorite people, probably because whenever they saw her at the clinic they were invariably on the business end of a needle and she was the one doing the poking.

  “How’s Eddie?” I asked.

  Roma’s boyfriend, Eddie Sweeney, played for the Minnesota Wild in the NHL. Plus he could cook, and he handled a hammer about as well as he did a hockey stick. And he was as gorgeous as a GQ cover model.

  She fingered the antique rose gold locket Eddie had given her and the smile got a little wider. “He’s great. They have a preseason game tonight in St. Louis.” Her expression grew serious. “Maggie told me about you and Andrew finding that director, Hugh Davis. You all right?”

  I nodded. “I’m okay, thanks. It was worse for Andrew, I think.” I gave her a wry smile. “It wasn’t my first dead body.”

  She leaned back against the sofa cushions. “Did you see Marcus?”

  “I did.”

  She reached across the back of the sofa and patted my arm. “I’m sorry things turned out the way they did.”

  “You and me both,” I said.

  Maggie was scraping dishes and loading them into the dishwasher.

  Roma leaned sideways to see what she was doing. “Could we help?” she asked.

  “You could set the table,” Maggie said. “Place mats are in the second drawer.” She gestured with one elbow.

  “What could I do?” I asked.

  “Come scratch my nose. Please.”

  I got up and went over to her. She tipped her head to one side and I scratched the bridge of her nose.

  “Up a little bit more,” she urged. She sighed when I hit the itchy spot. “Ahh, that’s better. Thank you.”

  “You sound like Hercules,” I said. I stuck the plug in the sink and started running some hot water so I could wipe the counter.

  “That reminds me,” Maggie said, waving a plate at me. “I forgot to tell you. Ruby showed me the painting she did of him last night. It’s fantastic.”

  “Good,” I said. “She’s going to show it to me Monday morning.”

  “I thought you had a planning meeting for Winterfest last night,” Roma said as she folded napkins to put at each place.

  Maggie was on the organizing committee for the Mayville Heights winter festival.

  “It was canceled because of the water-main break down in front of the James—excuse me—the St. James Hotel.” Maggie made a face. “I’m never going to get used to the new name.”

  The St. James Hotel, formerly the James Hotel, had undergone a major refurbishment in the late spring and early summer, and the owners had decided to go back to the name the hotel originally had when it opened in 1902: the St. James. Most people in town still called it th
e James. It had to be confusing for tourists.

  “Andrew and I had to go the long way around to get to the marina.” I added soap to the water in the sink.

  “So did I,” Maggie said, putting two large bowls in the dishwasher. “I mean, to get to my studio. They even had the sidewalk closed. I was carrying one of those big rolls of bubble wrap and the darn thing kept unrolling.” She held out her arms like she was going to hug me. “I ended up having to carry it like this and peer around the side of it.”

  “Oh, Mags, I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish I’d seen you. I would have given you a ride.”

  She smiled. “It wasn’t that far.” She peeked at the pizza through the oven window and seemed to be happy with what she saw. “Did Abigail go out to the marina with you and Andrew?” she asked as she straightened up.

  “No.” I rinsed a cloth and started wiping the counter to the left of the sink. “Why?”

  “I saw her when I was walking. She came from that direction and she was driving Burtis’s old truck.”

  “Abigail was driving Burtis Chapman’s truck?” Roma said. She frowned at the place mat she’d put in the middle of the table and turned it a hundred and eighty degrees.

  Maggie nodded. “Uh-huh. I cut across Jefferson because it was faster. It’s a one-way street now and Abigail was actually going the wrong way. Of course, so was Marcus’s sister. When you said you and Andrew had gone out to the marina I just assumed Abigail had gone to help you.”

  I scrubbed at a bit of dried dough stuck to the granite countertop. “What do you mean, so was Marcus’s sister?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual.

  “I mean she was going the wrong way, too,” Maggie said, peering at the pizza again.

  She was almost as obsessive about her pizza as she was about her artwork. That was probably why they were both so good.

  “I was just about to head down the hill when I saw her. At first I thought it was Marcus, because it was his car and I thought Why is he going the wrong way? and then I saw that it was Hannah. She probably didn’t even realize she was on a one-way street. I think Abigail was just in a hurry and wasn’t really paying attention.”

  I kept my head down over the counter. Maggie had seen Hannah, which meant it definitely had been her that Andrew had noticed driving past the marina when we were unloading the staging. Hannah was lying when she’d said she was in Red Wing all evening. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d been hoping it was someone else—anyone else—that Andrew had seen.

  So why had she lied? I didn’t want to think about the obvious reason. There had to be another explanation. But right now wasn’t the time to figure it out.

  Mags squinted through the glass and reached for her oven mitts. “I think they’re done,” she said. She flapped a hand at me. “Kath, would you get the plates, please?”

  The pizza was wonderful—sausage, caramelized onions and long strings of chewy mozzarella on a crisp, fragrant crust. The promise I’d made to myself to have just one slice evaporated.

  We moved into the living room for dessert.

  “I think I have chocolate overload.” Roma groaned, licking icing off her thumb after her second brownie.

  “There’s no such thing,” Maggie countered, stretching her long legs onto the footstool. She looked at Roma. “Did I hear you say you’re going to see Eddie next weekend?”

  “I am,” Roma said, a huge smile lighting up her face. It happened every time Eddie’s name came up.

  Maggie folded her hands over her stomach. “Does he have any cute hockey player friends? They don’t have to be Eddie cute, just, you know, ordinary-human-being cute.”

  “What happened to Liam?” I asked. Maggie had been casually dating the bartender-slash–grad student for a couple of months.

  She sighed. “After everything that happened with Legacy and the tour proposal, he decided to go back to Minneapolis and work on his thesis this term.”

  Liam had been part of a group pitching Mayville Heights as a fall tourist destination to Legacy Tours from Chicago. The proposal had fallen apart when Mike Glazer, one of the three partners in the tour company, had been found dead down on the Riverwalk.

  “I’d just like to go out with someone who’s fun,” she said. “No drama, no dead bodies.”

  I leaned against the back of the sofa and tucked both feet underneath me. “That sounds good,” I said. “Could you see if Eddie has two friends?”

  “You really can’t work things out with Marcus?” Roma asked. She liked Marcus. He’d been her first recruit when she’d decided to put together a group of volunteers to care for the feral cat colony at Wisteria Hill.

  “No. We keep . . .” I took a deep breath. “It’s like running into a stone wall. We have different ideas about loyalty and friendship.”

  I stopped to swallow down the lump that had suddenly settled in my throat. “It’s not going to work.”

  Maggie flashed me a look of sympathy.

  Roma reached over and gave my arm a squeeze.

  “Too much negative energy,” Maggie said, shifting upright a little in her chair. “Let’s talk about something else.” She turned to Roma. “Tell us what’s happening at Wisteria Hill.”

  Roma had bought the old Henderson estate a few weeks before.

  “Is Oren going to do the work for you?” I asked.

  Roma held up a finger. “I just need to call and check on a patient and then I’ll you what we’ve figured out.” She smiled at me. “And yes, Oren’s going to do the work.” She got up from the couch and took her cell phone out of her pocket.

  I leaned forward toward Maggie. “Mags, are you sure it was Hannah you saw last night?”

  She frowned. “You mean going the wrong way on Jefferson? Yes, I’m sure. It wasn’t Marcus, if that’s what you were wondering.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  Maggie continued to study my face, her eyes narrowed with curiosity. “Why do you ask?”

  I played with the knotted fringe on one of the pillows. “It’s complicated.”

  “It has something to do with Marcus, doesn’t it?”

  I nodded. “I’ll tell you about it—I promise. I need to figure a couple of things out first.”

  “Okay,” she said. “If you need someone who isn’t furry and four-legged to bounce anything off of, I’m here.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Roma came back over to us.

  “How’s your patient?” Maggie asked.

  “Alive and barking,” she said with a grin, wiggling her eyebrows at us.

  Maggie threw her head back and groaned. I patted the sofa cushion beside me. “Now that you’ve dazzled us with your wit, dazzle us with your ideas for Wisteria Hill.”

  We spent the next hour talking about the work Roma had planned for the old farmhouse and the grounds. It was impossible not to get caught up in her enthusiasm.

  Finally she looked at her watch. “It’s getting late, and as much as I like you two, I’m tired.” She stretched. “I have to drive to Minneapolis to consult on a surgery with a guy I went to veterinary school with and it’s my morning to feed the cats.”

  “Couldn’t whoever you’re on the schedule with go without you for one morning?” Maggie asked.

  Roma shook her head. “I’m on the schedule with Harry and he’s still out of town.”

  “Roma, I’ll go,” I said. “I have food and a couple of water jugs at home.”

  “Are you sure?” she said. “It really would help if I didn’t have to go out there first thing.”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  She leaned over to hug me. “Thanks,” she said.

  Maggie had half of the second pizza wrapped up for Roma to take with her and I gave her half of the remaining brownies. “I’ll talk to you both soon,” she said before she disappeared down the stairs.

  I stretched my arms up over my head. “I should go, too,” I said to Maggie. “But I’ll help you clean up first.”

  She shook her head. �
�No, you won’t. All I have to do is put the rest of the dishes in the dishwasher. Don’t forget your pizza.”

  “There’s no chance of that happening,” I said. “That’s lunch tomorrow.”

  “Not breakfast?” Maggie teased as I pulled on my long blue sweater.

  “I’m having breakfast with Andrew.”

  Her eyebrows went up, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You had breakfast with him,” I said.

  “He’s not trying to woo me away to Boston with him,” she said. “At least as far as I know.”

  I smiled at her. “He can woo all he wants. We’re not getting back together.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “I’ve told him enough times in the last week,” I said, taking the container of pizza she handed me.

  “As long as you don’t tell him you’ll go back to Boston,” she said.

  I hugged her. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

  “Seems to me you can’t get rid of Marcus that easily, either,” she said, smiling at me. “Maybe the universe is trying to tell you something.”

  I thought about that as I drove home. If the universe is trying to send me a message about Marcus, what the heck is it?

  13

  Early Sunday morning, I was bouncing my way up the rutted driveway at Wisteria Hill just as the sun was coming over the horizon. It felt strange to be feeding the cats without Marcus along.

  I carried the two water jugs around to the side door of the carriage house and then walked back to the truck to get the clean dishes and the day’s supply of cat food. Roma had a new wet food that the cats seemed to like a lot. Luckily it came in flip-top cans.

  I slammed the truck door with my hip and as I turned around I heard the sound of tires crunching their way up the driveway. It occurred to me that I was all alone, it was early in the morning, and if I screamed only the cats would hear me.

  I tightened up on the handle of the canvas tote bag that held the cans of cat food. If I didn’t know the person easing up the driveway, I’d swing the bag like I was a contestant in a Scottish hammer throw and ask questions later.

  The car came around the turn at the top of the driveway and my stomach flip-flopped. It was Marcus. I realized I was smiling and I couldn’t seem to make my face stop even though I tried.