A Tale of Two Kitties

by Sofie Kelly

  “Yes.” The smile disappeared from his face. “Kathleen, I know that he was murdered. I think you’re far too polite to ask the next obvious question but I’m not nearly that well-mannered. For the record, I didn’t kill Leo Janes.”

  I thought it was a little strange for him to say that.

  “I did come to this area on business. Ruby may have told you I’m thinking about buying the Silver Casino.”

  “She did.”

  “I did want to talk to Leo once I learned the man was in Mayville Heights, too, but I give you my word that I didn’t kill him. I didn’t even see Leo the day he died.” He gestured with one hand. He seemed relaxed, confident. “And for the record, I was on the road between Minneapolis and Mayville Heights on Friday night.”

  “I’ve offended you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Elias shook his head. “No offense taken, Kathleen. I know the rumors and the stories about businessmen like me, but I don’t beat people up in back alleys when they cheat me. That’s what lawyers are for.” He glanced at his watch again. “I have to get going,” he said. “Thank you for the tour.”

  I watched him make his way to the main doors, raising a hand in acknowledgement to Abigail at the front desk. Elias Braeden was an intriguing mix of bluntness and charm, but he had worked for Idris Blackthorne, so no matter what he said about leaving his problems to be handled by his lawyers I couldn’t shake the feeling that he could be “hands-on” if he felt the situation warranted it. Could he have gotten hands-on with Leo Janes?

  • • •

  Roma and Maggie showed up at five to one. “Hi. What are you two doing here?” I asked.

  “We came to steal you for lunch,” Maggie said, grinning and holding up a take-out bag from Eric’s.

  “Do you have time?” Roma asked.

  “She does,” Susan said, moving behind me with an empty book cart. She smiled at me and pushed her cat’s-eye glasses up her nose. “Abigail and I can close. There isn’t that much to do. It’s been dead quiet all morning.” She made a shooing motion with one hand. “Go!”

  “I have time,” I said.

  Maggie smiled at Susan. “Thanks,” she said. She turned to me. “It’s beautiful outside. How about a picnic in your gazebo?”

  “I’d like that,” I said.

  I’d met Maggie when Rebecca convinced me to try her tai chi class. Mags was the instructor, tall and slim and unbelievably flexible, with cropped blond curls and green eyes that reminded me of Hercules. Our friendship had begun the night I arrived early for class and found her online at the website for the popular celebrity dance show Gotta Dance, voting for the Today show’s Matt Lauer. I was a fan of the show as well, although cutie Kevin Sorbo had been getting my votes.

  Tai chi was also where I’d met Roma. When the class had formed a circle to begin our warm-ups Roma had been beside me. She was new to the group as well and we’d bonded over our mutual inability to master White Crane Spreads Wings. I sometimes wondered if Mayville Heights would have started to feel like home so quickly if I had turned Rebecca’s invitation down.

  We walked around the building to the tall wooden gazebo in the back overlooking the water. Maggie had brought turkey-and-bacon sandwiches on thick slices of honey-granola bread. Roma handed me her insulated travel mug. “Coffee,” she said with a smile.

  “Because how could we forget that?” Maggie said drily. She and Roma were drinking lemonade.

  I ate about half of my sandwich and then eyed the two of them. “So what’s up?” I asked.

  Roma set down her lemonade. “There’s something I’d like to ask you.”

  “If you’d like me to feed the cats for you next week the answer is yes.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “No. Kathleen, I know you already said you’d be a bridesmaid, but I’d like you to be my maid of honor.”

  I stared at her. I hadn’t expected the question. “But what about Maggie?” I said. “She’s the reason you and Eddie met. She should be your maid of honor.”

  Roma and Eddie had gotten together after Maggie had made a full-sized, very lifelike Eddie Sweeney mannequin for a display about the history of sport in this part of the state for Winterfest a couple of years ago. The only way she’d been able to get Faux Eddie from her studio to the community center was in the front seat of Roma’s SUV. That had started a rumor that Roma and the Minnesota Wild star were seeing each other, and pretty soon it wasn’t just a rumor.

  “I may have indirectly gotten things started, but there wouldn’t be a wedding if you hadn’t urged Roma to throw caution to the wind and listen to her heart.” Maggie paused, a dill pickle halfway to her mouth. “And that was a lot of clichés in one sentence.”

  “I wouldn’t be marrying Eddie if it weren’t for both of you,” Roma said. “Which is why I want you both to be my maids of honor.” She looked from Maggie to me. “Please say yes.”

  “Yes!” Maggie and I said in unison.

  Roma threw an arm around each of us and hugged us. Then she straightened up and gave me a sly smile. “And when you and Marcus get married Maggie and I will be your maids of honor.”

  I felt my face flood with color. Roma and Maggie exchanged a look. They were getting a kick out of my flustered reaction. I held up both hands. “Okay. I might, might have been thinking about spending the rest of my life with Marcus.”

  “So ask him,” Maggie said, popping the pickle in her mouth.

  Roma tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “I highly recommend it,” she said with a smile.

  I took a sip of my coffee and eyed Maggie. “What about you and Brady? And don’t give us that ‘we’re just friends’ speech.”

  Maggie shrugged. “I don’t know if I want to get married at all, let alone if Brady would be the guy.” She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed and then realized we were waiting for something more from her. “What if you get married and then you wake up some morning and realize you don’t love that person anymore?” She gestured with her sandwich and little bits of shredded lettuce fell onto her lap.

  “What if you get married and then you wake up every morning for the rest of your life thinking how lucky you are to be able to spend one more day with that other person?” Roma asked. “Except for the mornings that you want to smack them with a burned bagel because they’re all cheery and full of sunshine and don’t need coffee to turn into a human being.”

  I laughed. “I hope Eddie knows how lucky he is,” I said.

  “Because most days I resist the urge to hurl burned breakfast food at him?” Roma said with a laugh.

  “No, because he gets to spend all the rest of his days with you.” I held up a hand. “And yes, I know I sound like the heroine of some romantic novel. It’s still true.”

  “I’m the lucky one,” she said, looking down at the ring on her left hand.

  “What kind of wedding dress are you going to wear?” Maggie asked.

  Roma made a face. “Do I really need one?”

  “You don’t need one, but you’d look beautiful in one,” I said.

  I caught Maggie’s eye. “Shopping trip!” we both said.

  “Maybe,” Roma said, “but nothing lacy or poufy or big. And I don’t know about white. I’d just like something very plain and simple.”

  Maggie made a sound in her throat that made me think of Owen when he was annoyed.

  “Roma, you do know you’ve pretty much just described those big recycled paper bags Harry uses out here when he collects the dead leaves and plants, don’t you?”

  She laughed. “I just want to marry Eddie. I don’t have a clue what to choose for a dress.”

  “We’ll find you the perfect dress,” Maggie said, licking mustard off her little finger. “I promise, no pouf, no white.” She frowned. “There are lots of possibilities. There’s ivory, vanilla, linen.” She studied Roma. “Cor
nsilk would look good with your hair. Or maybe ecru.”

  I reached for my coffee. “I have no idea what ecru is but I’m sure you’d look good in it. And maybe those big sleeves. I don’t know the name of them.”

  “Mutton,” Maggie said. She looked at Roma, all seriousness, although I saw the glint in her green eyes. “How do you feel about hoopskirts?”

  Roma folded her arms over her chest and smiled at us. “You do realize that as the bride it’s my prerogative to choose the maid-of-honor dresses? How do you two feel about chartreuse?”

  “When I was in art school I dated a guy with a chartreuse Volkswagen Microbus,” Maggie offered, seemingly unconcerned about wearing a yellow-green maid-of-honor dress for Roma’s wedding.

  I picked up the dill pickle spear that was lying on the wax paper that had been around my sandwich and set it next to the bit of crust left from Maggie’s sandwich. She smiled a thank-you at me.

  “The color chartreuse gets its name from a type of liqueur made by a group of French monks starting back in the eighteenth century,” I said.

  “It’s a tertiary color,” Mags added.

  “That means you mix a primary and a secondary color together?” I asked.

  She smiled at me. “Exactly.”

  Roma rubbed the space between her eyebrows with two fingers. “Okay, you can stop with the history of chartreuse. We’ll go wedding dress shopping next week. But no hoopskirts and no sleeves named after meat.”

  “Deal,” I said, grinning at Maggie over the top of Roma’s head.

  Roma took a drink of her lemonade and gestured at me with the bottle. “Have you spoken to Thorsten?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Why?”

  “Because I think he found the dog that tangled with Owen. Yesterday afternoon he brought in a stray he found running loose a little farther up Mountain Road from your house.”

  I reached for my coffee. “What makes you think it’s the dog Owen encountered?”

  “It had several infected scratches on its muzzle and one shoulder. They look like something a cat’s claws did.”

  “Is the dog going to be all right?”

  Roma nodded. “Yes, but if you hear of anyone who wants a dog, please let me know. He’s thin and he’s obviously been on his own for a while, but he’s a good-natured dog.” She gave me a sheepish grin. “Don’t tell Owen I said that.”

  We sat there for another five minutes talking and then Roma stood up. “This was fun,” she said. “And I hate to go, but I do need to go check on a horse.” She hugged Maggie and me, promising she’d call to work out a time for our shopping trip.

  “Do you think I could take another quick look at the photos?” Maggie asked as we walked around the side of the building.

  “Sure,” I said. “And you don’t have to hurry. There are some things on my desk I need to take care of.”

  “Did Keith get a price for you on the glass to cover the photos if you decide to put them out on a table for people to look at?” Maggie asked as I unlocked the building and we stepped inside.

  I nodded. “It’s a lot more expensive than I expected. I don’t have much money left in my discretionary budget.” I put my keys in my pocket. “And I still think we need some kind of hook, some kind of enticement to people who aren’t regular library users to come in and see the photos.”

  “Maybe Bridget would do a story about them for the paper.”

  “Mary said Bridget’s already working on an article for the paper about the letters.” Mary’s daughter owned the local newspaper.

  “Do you know anyone who got one of them?”

  We started up to the second floor. “No,” I said. “And no one who has been in has talked about getting one.” I nudged Maggie with my elbow. “Do you think there were any misplaced love letters hidden behind that wall?”

  “Probably not,” she said. “I know whatever was walled up in that little anteroom has been there for more than twenty years, but I think handwritten love letters went out of style long before that.” She smiled. “I think you just have romance on your mind because we were talking about Roma’s wedding dress.”

  I unlocked the door to the workroom and Maggie walked over to the table, where I spread out the photos. Her green eyes lit up. “Oh, Kath, these are incredible. I didn’t really get a good look at them at the meeting.”

  “I know,” I said. “Just based on the clothing some of them are from the early 1960s.”

  “You don’t have any idea how they got walled up in that room?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “So all these photographs belong to the library now?”

  “Uh-huh. Unless we can figure out whom they’re of and return them—which would be the best outcome. I don’t want all of these photos to just end up in a box on a shelf. I’d like to know who all those people are.”

  Maggie picked up a five-by-seven image of a group of kids standing arm in arm at the water’s edge. “We could see if Lita recognizes anyone. And maybe Harrison Taylor.”

  I leaned against the long worktable. “If we show the pictures to enough people we probably could figure out who they’re all of, but as I said at the meeting, I don’t think they’d stand up to being handled so much.”

  Maggie was staring off into space. I knew there was an idea rolling over in her mind. That’s why I’d asked her to get involved in the first place. I knew she’d probably be able to come up with some way to display the photographs and entice people to come in to see them. “I have an idea, Kath,” she said, “but I need to check on a couple of things first.”

  “I knew you’d be able to figure something out.” I looked in the direction of my office. “I have about an hour or so’s worth of paperwork to do if you want to hang around for a while and look through those.”

  She nodded, blond head already bent over the pile of pictures in front of her on the table.

  I’d been working for about half an hour when Marcus called. “Would you mind if I bailed on our plans and went to Minneapolis with Eddie?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’d probably spend the evening sobbing into my pillow.”

  “Even if I promised to make it up to you by cooking dinner tomorrow night at your house and making pudding cake and doing all the dishes?”

  “Hmmm,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “That does sound delicious. Okay, you have a deal. Why are you and Eddie headed to Minneapolis?”

  “Guy he played with retired a couple of years ago from the LA Kings. He’s been doing hockey-skills workshops all over the country. He’s in Minneapolis for some kind of meeting. Eddie’s going to take him to dinner and pick his brain about running a hockey school. I’m going along to drive and think of things that Eddie forgets.”

  Eddie had plans to start a hockey school in Mayville Heights now that he was retired and he and Roma were getting married.

  “Have fun,” I said. “I’ll be sad and lonely while you’re gone but I’m pretty sure that pudding cake you mentioned will cure that. You will be making a double batch, right?”

  Marcus laughed. “For you, absolutely.”

  “I could go out and check on Micah,” I said. “It’ll be late when you get back.”

  “Umm, yeah, if it’s not too much trouble. I was gone all morning and she gave me the silent treatment when I came back. I gave her some of your sardine crackers. I’m not sure I’m back on her good side, though.”

  “I think she’s like Owen. He’ll milk being miffed as long as he can to get as many treats as possible,” I said, swinging slowly from side to side in the chair. I was almost positive it wasn’t the only thing the two cats had in common.

  Marcus said he’d call me in the morning and I said good-bye. It took me another twenty minutes or so to finish up my paperwork. I drove Maggie over to her studio and went in to take a look at her latest collage. />
  One my way out I met Ruby coming up the stairs. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “How’s your day going?” She was wearing her Ginger Did It Backward in High Heels T-shirt.

  “Good,” I said. “Elias came in this morning. I gave him a tour.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. He has this thing for old buildings. He grew up in some pretty bare-bones places. I think that’s why.”

  “You’ve known Elias a long time.”

  “All my life.” She frowned. “Is there some kind of problem?”

  I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “When he was in the library before—the first time—Leo Janes was there and I had the feeling they knew each other.”

  Ruby shrugged. “So? Elias lived here years ago. It’s a small town. A lot of different people know each other.”

  “I know, but he told me one of the reasons he came to town was to talk to Leo.”

  “Maybe they knew each other when they were kids.”

  I shook my head. “He thought Leo had cheated him out of a lot of money—more than a million dollars.”

  She laughed. “Good dog, this isn’t some mobster movie, Kathleen. Elias didn’t have Leo Janes whacked. He’s a reputable businessman. He belongs to the Chamber of Commerce. He sponsors a kids’ hockey team.”

  “Hey, I like Elias,” I said, holding up a hand. “And I’m not saying he had Leo killed, but is it possible that someone who worked for him went to see Leo and things got out of hand?”

  She shook her head. “No.” She took a breath and let it out slowly. “Look, I’m not saying that Elias doesn’t have a bit of a reputation for being hardheaded, and yeah, some of that probably does come from working for my grandfather, but there’s a line he wouldn’t cross and hurting someone is it. Trust me.”

  I didn’t see any point in continuing the conversation. “Thanks,” I said.

  Ruby smiled. “Hey, no problem,” she said. She moved past me and I continued down the stairs.

  “Trust me,” she’d said. I wanted to. I did. I wanted to trust Elias Braeden, too. I just wasn’t sure if I should.

  I left Riverarts and headed out to Marcus’s house. There was no sign of Micah in the backyard. I let myself into the kitchen and called for the little ginger tabby. Nothing. In the middle of the table there was a loaf of bread and a Mason jar filled with the Jam Lady’s marshmallows and a note from Marcus. I love you, the note said, and it was signed with several large X’s for kisses.