by Sofie Kelly
He shook his head.
“Ten. Ten cats that people left to fend for themselves. Eleven, if you count Micah.”
His jaw tightened and anger flashed in his blue eyes. “I had no idea.”
“I don’t like thinking about how many she didn’t find,” I said as we started walking again. “If it’s busy out here, if there’s more activity, more traffic, those cats will be dumped somewhere else.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Marcus said as we reached the truck. “I’ll talk to Roma. Either way, no matter what happens with the development, we need to do something about so many cats just being dumped.”
I leaned against his shoulder for a moment and smiled up at him. Marcus had a kind heart underneath his play-by-the-rules-detective exterior.
I unlocked the truck and slid behind the wheel, checking my watch as I did so. “Do you have time for breakfast at Eric’s?” I asked. “My treat.”
He leaned in the open passenger door and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Are you trying to make amends for laughing at me with coffee and one of Eric’s breakfast sandwiches?”
“Yes,” I said.
He did smile then. “Well, lucky for you that will work.”
I leaned across the seat and kissed him.
“That works, too.” He caught my shoulder with one hand and kissed me again.
For a moment I forgot what I was going to do next. His kisses still had that effect on me. He had that effect on me.
I pulled back, very reluctantly. “Um, okay, so Eric’s. For breakfast.”
Marcus pulled a hand over his chin. He cleared his throat. “Right.”
Since it was early I had no trouble finding a parking place on the street just down from Eric’s Place.
“Do you think it’s too early to call Thorsten?” Marcus asked as we started along the sidewalk.
“No,” I said, stopping to scrape a clump of mud off my boot. “You could have called him at six a.m. You know the saying, the early bird gets the worm?”
“I get it. Thorsten is the early bird.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
I shook my head. “Uh-uh. He’s the guy who wakes up the early bird.”
Marcus laughed. “That has to have come from Mary.”
I grinned. “Good guess.”
Mary Lowe worked for me at the library. She looked like everyone’s favorite grandmother with her sensible shoes and decorated sweaters for every occasion. She was also state kickboxing champion for her age and weight class.
“And I think the comment comes from first hand knowledge. Back before Mary was a responsible, married grandmother I think she and Thorsten may have had a thing.”
Marcus raised an eyebrow. “What kind of a thing? He’s younger than she is.”
“I know he is,” I said, “which is why I didn’t ask any questions. I was afraid she might tell me. I know he’s seen her dance.”
“Kathleen, a lot of people have seen Mary dance—including you.”
I winced. “Don’t remind me. It took me about two weeks until I could look her directly in the eye.”
I had discovered—very much by accident—that Mary danced on amateur night complete with lacy corset and a feathered fan at a bar up on the highway that featured exotic dancing. I tipped my head in the direction of the café’s door. “Try Thorsten and I’ll go get us a table.”
Eric’s was quiet, even for a Friday morning. There were two men at the counter who I knew worked at the marina and a woman and two other men I didn’t recognize at a table at the far end of the room.
Eric himself was at the counter. He raised a hand in hello. “Sit anywhere, Kathleen,” he called. “Claire will be right out.”
“Thanks,” I said, heading for my favorite table in the front window. I could see Marcus on the sidewalk. I was guessing he’d reached Thorsten. He was holding his phone to his ear with one hand and gesturing with the other.
I hung my purse over the back of the chair and pulled off my hoodie, looking up to see Claire approaching with coffee.
“Good morning,” she said, as she began to fill the mugs on the table. She didn’t ask if we wanted coffee. She knew both of us well enough to know the answer by now.
“Would you like a menu?” Claire asked. “Or do you know what you’d like?
“Two breakfast sandwiches, please.” I looked around. “It’s awfully quiet this morning.”
She nodded. “There’s a breakfast meeting about the proposal for Long Lake over at the community center. We catered it for them. Nic is working over there. Eric just came back.”
“I thought that was tomorrow,” I said, reaching for the small pitcher of cream Claire had set in the middle of the table.
She shot a quick glance over her shoulder to see if anyone needed anything from her. One of the men at the table pointed at his cup. Claire nodded before she turned back to me. “It was,” she said. “They changed the date at the last minute. Some environmental group is getting involved.” She turned toward the other table. “Your sandwiches won’t be very long.”
I had just taken the first sip of my coffee when Marcus came though the door of the café. He looked around for me, and then, as his gaze slid by the three people at the nearby table he just stopped, staring at them without moving, as though he’d forgotten about me, forgotten why he was there.
I got to my feet but the woman at the table was faster. She pushed her chair back and stood up, surprise clear in her wide-eyed expression. “Marcus?” she said.
The two men with her turned toward the door when she spoke. They both looked as surprised as she did. Her astonishment had already been replaced with a delighted smile. She made her way across the café, maneuvering quickly around chairs and tables and threw her arms around Marcus. One of the men was already on his feet, a smile stretching across his face. Marcus was smiling, too. And hugging the woman.
I stood at my table feeling lost and confused. I had no idea who the people were.
2
The man who had just stood up joined Marcus and the woman. He was easily six feet tall with wavy blond hair that looked a little overdue for a haircut, and a rangy build. He and Marcus shook hands and then hugged in the quick way that men do with slaps on the back.
Marcus looked around for me then. I could tell from the half smile he gave me that he was uncomfortable. I felt certain of his feelings for me but even so, I was still learning about him, about his life. There was still a lot I didn’t know. Whoever these people were, they were important to him.
The second man walked over to join the little group. He was maybe an inch or two less than six feet, with the wide shoulders and muscled build of an athlete. His dark hair was cropped short and he wore black-framed glasses. He eyed Marcus with curiosity and at the same time seemed to be sizing him up. Nothing in his face or his body language said that he was as happy to see Marcus as his friends clearly were.
He offered his hand. “Marcus, it’s been a long time.”
“Hello, Travis,” Marcus said. I noticed neither man had said “It’s good to see you” or anything of the kind.
Marcus saw me approaching and his shoulders seemed to relax, just a little. When I reached his side he took my hand. I was a little surprised. He wasn’t one for public demonstrations of his feelings. I gave it a squeeze and smiled at his friends, because obviously that’s who they were.
“Kathleen,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Danielle, John and Travis. We went to college together.”
Danielle immediately held out her hand. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Call me Dani.” She had long, slender fingers and I felt calluses on her palm. She was beautiful, tall and slender with high cheekbones and green eyes. Her blond hair was pulled back in a messy bun.
The tall, shaggy-haired man was John. He smiled and shook my hand as well. I
watched Travis out of the corner of my eye. He was watching me and not trying to be subtle about it.
“Hello, Travis,” I said turning toward him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“You too,” he said. He looked over at their table. “Why don’t you two join us? We can catch up and get to know you a little.” He looked at Marcus and to me it looked like a challenge in his dark eyes.
I gave him my best librarian-in-charge look. “Thanks, that would be great,” I said. I caught Claire’s attention and very quickly two tables were pushed together.
They seemed to be good friends, but why had Marcus never mentioned them to me before?
“So what are you doing here?” John asked, turning sideways in his chair and leaning one arm across its back.
“I live here,” Marcus said.
“You’re still a police officer?”
Marcus nodded. “Detective, yes.”
“What are the three of you doing in town?” I asked.
“You know there’s a development proposed for Long Lake?” Dani said, propping her elbows on the table.
I nodded over my coffee cup.
“We work for a coalition of environmental groups. We’re here to look at the land and see if there’s any reason to stop the project.” She hesitated. “I’m a geologist, Travis is an environmental engineer—”
“And John’s a biologist,” I finished.
Marcus covered his surprise at my seemingly psychic abilities very well. Actually, I’d just made a guess based on the Wildflowers of Minnesota Field Guide and the copy of Bird Feathers that were sticking out of the top of the messenger bag hanging from the back of John’s chair.
Dani nodded. “My job is to look at the land to see if there’s anything about the soil or the topography that precludes the developers’ plans for the site.” She gestured at Travis. “Travis will look at what the environmental impact will be on the area.”
“Possible air and water pollution, soil contamination, etcetera, etcetera,” Travis added.
“And my job is to determine whether there are any rare or endangered plants on the site,” John said. “Which reminds me, I heard Mayville Heights has a really extensive herbarium.”
“Yes, we do,” I said. The library had inherited the herbarium—which was a collection of dried, preserved plants—years before when a government plant research station had consolidated its work in St. Paul.
“Do you have any idea who I’d talk to about looking through the collection?” John pulled a small, hardbound book from his shirt pocket.
“You should talk to the head librarian,” Marcus said, turning to smile at me. “Which happens to be Kathleen.”
“That’s great,” John said. He gave me an inquiring look. “So could I?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I can get you set up this morning if you’d like.”
“I would. Thank you.”
“Kathleen, you’re not from here, are you?” Travis asked. He waved a finger by his ear. “I can hear a little of the East Coast in your voice.”
I folded both hands around my cup and turned toward him. “You have a very good ear,” I said. “And no, I’m not originally from here. I am from back east, all up and down the coast actually, but most recently Boston.”
“How did the two of you meet?” Dani asked. She glanced at Marcus and gave him a smile.
“The library had a connection to a case I was working on,” he said. Under the table his hand brushed my leg for a moment.
“And he won you over with his charm,” Travis commented, a fine edge of sarcasm in his tone.
I nodded, keeping my gaze locked on Marcus. “Yes, he did.”
I knew it was wrong to make up my mind about someone I’d just met, but Travis rubbed me the wrong way. I thought of what my mother would say in this circumstance: You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.
“So did he tell you how we all met?” Travis continued. It was almost as though he knew Marcus hadn’t told me about them and wanted to out him on that.
“I don’t think I ever asked,” I said. Which was true. “So how did a future police detective end up being friends with three environmentalists?”
Dani was sitting next to Marcus. She bumped his arm with her shoulder. “First year bio lab, remember?”
“Biology?” I said. Marcus’s undergraduate degree was in criminology with a minor in computer science.
He shrugged. “I was taking the course as an elective because it fit my schedule. The four of us ended up at the same lab bench.”
“And?” I nudged, knowing from the sound of his voice that there was more to the story. His face reddened. I raised an eyebrow at him à la Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.
“We were staining slides. We had to use a Bunsen burner for one of them . . . and then a fire extinguisher.”
“So the four of you bonded when you started a fire in the biology lab and then had to put it out with a fire extinguisher?”
Dani shook her head. “No, it wasn’t like that,” she said, laughter sparkling in her green eyes. “And technically it was the sprinkler system that put the fire out.” She held up a hand before I could say anything. “And it wasn’t our fault that the sprinkler system activated in the first place. That was because of Dr. Martindale’s hair.”
“You’ve lost me,” I said. “Who’s Dr. Martindale?”
“Bio prof,” John said, frowning as though the answer should have been obvious.
“And it was his hair that set off the sprinklers?” I was still lost.
He nodded.
“Because he was wearing a tiki-torch hat?”
“Very funny,” he said, “but no. When Travis set his slide on fire with the Bunsen burner he dropped it in the sink. The problem was whoever had been in the lab before us had dumped alcohol down that sink.”
“Which was not my fault,” Travis interjected.
“I think I get the picture,” I said. “But I still don’t understand how the professor’s hair set off the sprinklers.”
“It wasn’t exactly his hair, if you get what I mean,” Dani said with a Cheshire-cat grin.
I nodded. “I’m starting to.”
“Dr. Martindale was an excitable kind of guy.” Travis looked toward the front of the restaurant. When he caught Claire’s attention he pointed at his cup the same way I’d seen him do earlier.
“Flaming hair will do that to you, I’m guessing,” I said.
Claire arrived at the table with the coffeepot then. As she filled my cup I met her gaze and held up one finger. She nodded almost imperceptibly and I felt confident that she knew I intended to take care of the bill.
“Okay, Dr. Martindale’s alleged hair was on fire,” I said as I doctored my coffee. “Then what happened?” It was impossible to keep my smile contained.
John made a face. “He had on a pair of those big plastic goggles you wear in the lab and when he pulled them off his hair got caught in the strap and it”—he made a rolling motion with one hand—“kind of somersaulted into the sink.” He shrugged. “You know, I was never really sure that hair was human hair.”
“You’re making this up,” I said, shaking with laughter. Even Marcus was smiling at the memory.
“No, we’re not,” John insisted. He held up one hand, palm facing out. “I swear it’s the truth. There was a lot of smoke, the sprinklers went off and we had to evacuate the building. That was the end of the lab. We all ended up at this bar just off campus.” He shrugged again. “That’s really how we got to know each other. We all pretty much agreed without talking about it that we weren’t going to say a word about Dr. Martindale’s hair being the reason the sprinklers went off.”
“I can see how it would have been a hot-button issue for him,” I said, dissolving into laughter again.
“I think we were probably the
reason Dr. Martindale retired at the end of the year.” John winked at me and reached for his coffee.
“You mean the field trip,” Travis said. The smile on his face was more like a smirk. “Yeah, I think that cemented it for Martindale.”
A look passed between Marcus and Dani, so quickly that I wasn’t completely certain I’d seen it at all.
Dani stretched one arm behind her head and shifted to look at Travis. “C’mon, Trav, we’re probably boring Kathleen talking about the good old days.”
Travis was still leaning back in his chair, one hand wrapped around his mug. With the other he sent a knife on the table spinning in a circle. “Are we boring you, Kathleen, talking about Marcus’s youthful indiscretions?” he asked.
I could feel the tension in the air, like ozone before a thunderstorm. I knew there was no right way to answer Travis’s question. Something had happened between him and Marcus. Maybe that was why Marcus had never talked about any of them.
Under the table I put my hand on his leg. He covered it with his own for a moment. “Talking about Marcus is never boring as far as I’m concerned,” I said to Travis. That was true and it was the most neutral answer I could come up with.
Marcus turned sideways in his chair and smiled at me. “The year we took that biology class the administration decided to add some fieldwork to the course.”
“It was the only year they did that,” John added.
Marcus’s gaze flicked to Dani again and she picked up the story. “So, anyway, the college owned a woodlot and Dr. Martindale decided to take the class camping overnight. We were supposed to collect plant samples all day and then when it got dark we were going to look at the stars. Dr. Hemmings and a couple of grad students from the physics department came with us.”
“To foster an atmosphere of interdepartmental cooperation and learning,” Travis said, as though he were quoting the words straight from some university press release. He pushed his hipster glasses up his nose with one finger.
“The two grad students had to lug a telescope through the woods,” John said, grinning at the memory.
Dani gave me a smile. Her voice didn’t betray any tension but I could see it in her shoulders and the way she held her head. “Marcus volunteered to make breakfast.”