A Midwinter's Tail

by Sofie Kelly

  “We needed a goalie. Derek starts college after Christmas. Remember?”

  Officer Derek Craig was finishing his degree with the long-term goal of law school. He’d borrowed every LSAT prep book I’d been able to get for him. He was smart, observant and focused. I had no doubt he’d make a good lawyer.

  “Did you finish going through Olivia’s kitchen?” I asked. Hercules had settled himself again, his head against my chest. I started stroking his fur and he began purring.

  “How did you—never mind. We’re just about done,” he said.

  “You didn’t find anything, did you?”

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  I could picture him smiling and I could hear it in his voice.

  “You know you just did,” I pointed out.

  He yawned.

  “You’re tired,” I said. “Go have a shower.”

  “Yeah, I think I’ll do that. You and Maggie are going to Roma’s to paint tomorrow afternoon, aren’t you?”

  My hand had stopped moving, and Hercules gave it a nudge with his head. “Uh-huh,” I said. “And you’ll be here for supper?”

  “Ummm, I’m looking forward to it.”

  That sound, a little like the cats purring, made me weak in the knees. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” I said softly.

  “Good night, Kathleen,” he said.

  I hung up the phone but sat there for a moment, thinking about how good Marcus smelled, how much I like threading my fingers through his dark brown hair and kissing his warm mouth. After a moment I realized Hercules was staring curiously at me.

  “Sorry, I just got a little sidetracked,” I said. He gave me a look that if he’d been a person I would have called “yeah, right.”

  I leaned back in the chair and stretched my arms over my head. “I forgot to tell Marcus I’m going to Fern’s in the morning to have breakfast with Burtis,” I said.

  The cat’s expression grew even more skeptical.

  “I really did forget,” I said. I made a mental note to tell Marcus as soon as he arrived for dinner tomorrow night. I really was trying to stay out of his cases. I just wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do it.

  * * *

  I didn’t want to get up in the morning. It was so warm and comfortable under my heavy quilt and woolen blanket. It had snowed, but only a little, so I was able to clear everything away with just the broom. Owen came out with me, chasing snowflakes as I swept them away, jumping around and generally having a good time. Hercules came only as far as the top step. He looked around, shook his head and went back through the door with a sour expression on his face. (Hercules hated snow.) And when I say through the door, I mean literally through it. The air seemed to shimmer, ever so slightly, and he was gone. Seeing that happen still made the hairs come up on the back of my neck and I couldn’t help looking around to make sure no one else had been watching.

  I fed the boys breakfast, pulled on my down-filled jacket and heavy-soled lace-up boots and grabbed my purse.

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  Hercules looked up and meowed. Owen made a low “murp” and didn’t even bother lifting his head from his bowl.

  Burtis was sitting at the counter at Fern’s when I got there, his huge hands wrapped around an equally huge mug of coffee. I’d never gone to Fern’s for breakfast and gotten there before him. I had no idea what time he got up in the morning, but it was clearly very, very early.

  I slid onto the stool next to Burtis. The place was empty except for four long-distance truckers sitting together at one of the middle booths.

  Peggy Sue turned and smiled at me. “Coffee?” she asked.

  “Oh, please,” I said.

  She poured me a cup a big as the one Burtis had and set it in front of me along with a pitcher of cream and a little metal bowl filled with sugar packets.

  I could feel Burtis’s eyes on me, but he didn’t speak until I’d added cream and sugar to my cup and taken a very large sip. “Morning, Kathleen,” he said then.

  I leaned my right elbow on the counter. “Good morning, Burtis,” I replied.

  He looked over at Peggy and held up two fingers. She nodded and went through the swinging door into the kitchen.

  “Big Breakfast okay with you?” Burtis asked.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said. I took another sip from my oversize mug. My fingers were beginning to thaw out.

  “I hear your boyfriend didn’t find anything over at Olivia Ramsey’s kitchen,” he said after another stretch of silence.

  “I heard the same thing,” I said.

  Burtis took a long drink of his own coffee. “Dayna and I were just kids when we got married. You probably already heard that.”

  I nodded. “I did.”

  “She came here with her parents on vacation. Probably vain of me to say it, but I cleaned up pretty good in those days.”

  I smiled at him. “I believe it.”

  He ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “For me, it was just going to be a summer fling. I know that’s kind of a shameful thing to admit, but it’s the truth.”

  His mouth moved and I waited without speaking. “She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and she looked at me like I could pull the stars down and hand them to her.” He looked at me. “That’s a powerful feeling, Kathleen.”

  “I can see how it would be.”

  “She ran away,” he said. “She came back here. And we got married.” He turned back to his coffee cup. “Brady came along nine months and a day after the wedding.”

  Peggy Sue came out then with our breakfasts: scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, fried potatoes with onions and yellow peppers because tomatoes were out of season and two thick slices of raisin toast. We ate in silence for several minutes. When Peggy filled up our mugs again, I set my fork down and shifted a bit on my stool so I could look at Burtis. “You said that Dayna was allergic to pistachios.”

  He nodded. “That’s right. We spent one night in a hotel in Minneapolis. She had some kinda dessert with those nuts on it. She would have died on the spot if there hadn’t been a doctor having dinner at the next table.”

  “She didn’t know she was allergic?”

  Burtis shook his head. “Dayna was a picky eater. A lot of stuff she’d never tried.”

  “I don’t remember seeing a medic alert bracelet,” I said, spearing half a sausage with my fork.

  “That’s because most of the time she didn’t wear one,” Burtis said with a snort of derision. “At least not when we were together. Doctor said she needed it and I bought one for her, but she didn’t think it looked fashionable.” I remembered Olivia saying pretty much the same thing. He reached for his coffee again. “I doubt that changed. She did carry one of those autoinjector things like Olivia Ramsey had. Or at least she used to.”

  “Who knew about the allergy?”

  He shrugged. “Far as I know, nobody outside of me. It’s not as common as peanuts. She had a bad reaction to poison ivy one time, though. Doctor said it’s the same family.”

  I used a bit of toasted raisin bread to mop up a few stray baked beans and sauce on my plate.

  “Burtis, why am I here?” I asked.

  He looked at me and nothing in his face could tell me what he was thinking. I made a mental note never to play poker with the man. He had no tells or tics that I could see.

  “Looks to me like you’re eatin’ breakfast,” he said, his tone affable.

  “You don’t think your ex-wife’s death was an accident?” I said. I picked up my fork and finished the last of my potatoes while I waited to see how he’d answer my question.

  He let out a slow breath. “I think it’s a possibility,” he finally said. “And based on the questions your boyfriend has been asking, I think he’s leanin’ the same way.”

  I reached for my coffee again. “So you want me to do what? Find out what Marcus is thinking?”

  Burtis gave a snort of laughter. “I think I know you well enough
by now to know that’s never going to happen.”

  He pushed his plate away, turned to face me and his expression grew serious. “Dayna and me were too damn young to get married. And way too different. A lot of the blame—hell, most of it—is mine. I was gone from sunup to sundown and she had babies and no help. I can’t fault her for feelin’ overwhelmed and leaving.”

  I threaded my fingers through the handle of my mug. “All these years, she never came back for a visit?”

  “She was unhappy here, unhappy with me. She stayed in touch with the boys: She wrote letters, and she remembered their birthdays and Christmas and such.” He sighed. “It wasn’t perfect, but what is?”

  “So, why did she show up now, after so many years?”

  He put his huge hand over the top of his coffee mug. It engulfed the heavy stoneware cup. “I swear, Kathleen, I don’t know.”

  I had a million questions swirling in my head. “Did you talk to her before the reception?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Lita called. Told me she’d seen Dayna at Eric’s Place. I called Brady. Then I called the other two at school. I thought she’d show up out to the house. When she didn’t, I figured I’d just wait until she did. I’d waited more than twenty years for her to get in touch. I could wait a little bit longer.”

  “I saw her come over to you and Lita,” I said. “At the Stratton. What did she say?”

  He picked up his cup and set it back down again. “She said hello. She told me I looked well and she told Lita she liked her dress.”

  “That’s it?”

  He nodded. “Yep, that’s it.”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to come up with the best way to say what I needed to say. “Burtis, even if Dayna’s death wasn’t an accident, it’s not something I should be involved in.”

  “Because of Marcus Gordon,” he said.

  I ran my finger along the edge of the counter. “Yes, because of Marcus. And because I’m not a police officer.”

  Burtis’s expression didn’t change. “That didn’t stop you when Mike Glazer died and Harrison Taylor asked you to see what you could find out. Or when that whole side of the hill let go up at Wisteria Hill and those bones were uncovered. You put all the pieces together and figured out how he died and gave Roma some peace about her father.”

  I turned to face him more directly. “Both of those times are different,” I said, narrowing my gaze at him. “Roma is one of my best friends and Harrison and I are very close. Not to mention that Marcus and I weren’t together either of those times.”

  “So you and me? We’re not friends?”

  It was one of those questions that had no right answer. So I didn’t answer it. Instead I said, “Every time I’ve gotten involved in one of Marcus’s cases, it’s cost me. He’s a good man and a good police officer. Let him do his job.”

  “Marcus is a good man,” Burtis said. He gave me a half smile. “It surprise you I think that?”

  I shook my head and tucked my hair back behind one ear. “Not really,” I said. “You’re many things, Burtis, but petty isn’t one of them.”

  “I could say the same thing about you, Kathleen,” he said. He stretched and reached for his Minnesota Wild cap on the counter beside his plate.

  “You and the detective come at things from two different ways. He follows the evidence.” Burtis put a hand on his chest. “It seems to me you follow this.”

  He climbed down off his stool. “I get that you don’t want anything to get in the way of what you have with Detective Gordon. I wouldn’t take kindly to anyone getting between Lita and me.” He pulled on his cap. “You know, Kathleen. If that boy loves you—and a person only has to look at him when you’re around to know he does—he isn’t going to want you to stop being who you are.” He gestured at our plates. “Breakfast is on me.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I’d said I wasn’t going to get involved and I meant it, but there was one question I still had to ask.

  I put out my hand as Burtis moved past me and touched his arm. He turned to look at me. “Do you know why someone would want to kill your ex-wife?” I asked.

  His gaze narrowed. “That’s the problem, Kathleen,” he said. “I don’t.”

  7

  Ruby’s truck was just pulling into the parking lot when I got to the library. I parked beside her and got out of my truck. “Good morning,” I said.

  Ruby smiled. “Hey, Kathleen, isn’t it a beautiful day?”

  The clouds were already retreating up the hill. The glimpses of sky I could see were blue, and even though it was cold, my left wrist told me there wasn’t going to be any snow for a while.

  I smiled back at her. “Yes, it is,” I said. I gestured to the boxes on the front seat and the floor of the passenger side of the truck. “Give me something to carry.”

  She slid a lidded banker’s box across the seat and handed it out to me. Then she grabbed another box and her overflowing canvas tote bag.

  We headed for the front door. I was happy to see that Harry had been by and spread more sand in the parking lot.

  I unlocked the front doors and disarmed the alarm system. Ruby set the carton she’d been carrying on the checkout desk and leaned her bag beside it. “I have one more box,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She was wearing a neon green quilted jacket with a red-and-white stocking cap. Her sherbet-colored hair poked out in two pigtails from under the edge of the knitted hat. Just looking at Ruby made me smile.

  Once she came back with the last box of supplies, I relocked the main doors. I put my things in my office, started the coffee in the staff room for myself—and Susan, assuming she wasn’t still on her latest green smoothie kick—and set some water to boil so I could make Ruby some tea. Then I went back downstairs.

  Ruby was already in the conference room setting up. Harry had put up three long tables in the inverted U shape Ruby had asked for, and she was already unpacking her boxes.

  “What do you need?” I asked

  Ruby looked around as she rolled up the sleeves of her denim shirt. “Mary said you have a portable corkboard somewhere that maybe I could use. It’s not a big deal if you’re using it somewhere else.”

  “It’s in the closet next door,” I said. I pulled my keys out of the pocket of my sweater. “I’ll go get it for you.”

  I opened the smaller meeting room, retrieved the bulletin board and wheeled it in to Ruby. Then I went upstairs. The coffee was ready, so I poured myself a cup and then made tea for Ruby. I’d brought a few of the tea bags I kept at home for Maggie—and my mother when she visited.

  Ruby smiled when I handed her the tea. “Thank you, Kathleen,” she said, bending her head over the cup. “I was so caught up in loading the truck this morning I ended up leaving my tea on the table and I’d only had about half of it.”

  I looked at the piles of paper, cardboard and fabric she’d arranged on the table in front of her. “This looks like it’s going to be fun.” I fingered a piece of translucent blue paper shot with what looked like some kind of plant fibers. “What is this?”

  “Japanese paper,” she said, bending down to take what looked to me like her own handmade paper out of the box at her feet. “It reminds me of the river, late in the summer.”

  “I wish I could stay for the workshop,” I said, leaning against one of the tables with my coffee.

  “Bookmaking isn’t that complicated,” Ruby said. “I could teach you how to make a really simple journal sometime.” She held up a sheet of thick, creamy paper flecked with gold. “I could teach you how to make paper, for that matter.”

  “Really?” I said.

  She shrugged. “Sure. Take a look at your schedule and maybe we could do it some Saturday after Christmas.” She gave me a sly smile. “That’s assuming all your Saturdays aren’t taken up by a certain detective.”

  I was happy to see the genuine warmth in her smile. Ruby and Marcus had been at odds after her mentor, Agatha Shepherd, was murdered last winter. It had taken so
me time for them to work their way back to a cordial relationship, but they had.

  “I think Marcus is going to be playing hockey pretty much every Saturday between now and Winterfest,” I said. “They want to win this year.”

  The police/fire department team had lost big-time to the boys’ high school hockey team in last year’s charity hockey game. Marcus and his teammates were—not surprisingly—very competitive. Even though the game had just been for fun, he didn’t like being on the losing side. He didn’t like losing period, I’d learned, when I bested him at the Puck Shoot, one of the games set up down by the marina during the February winter celebration.

  Ruby pushed back the sleeves of the tie-dyed tee she was wearing under her denim shirt. “Is it sexist of me to say it’s a guy thing?”

  “Um, yes,” I said, smiling at her over the top of my cup. “Hope Lind is coaching them this year.”

  Ruby’s eyes widened. “No way!”

  “Yes way,” I said. “Hope played hockey in high school and in college. She’s had the guys doing dry land training drills for a month. And she picked Eddie’s brain last time he was here.”

  Ruby laughed and held her free hand up level with her ear. “Detective Lind is only about this high.”

  She was exaggerating a little.

  “She can skate faster than all of the guys,” I said, grinning back at her. “Forward and backward. She’s working them hard. I had to rub Tiger Balm on Marcus’s shoulders twice last week.”

  “I’m sure that was a hardship,” Ruby teased, raising an eyebrow at me.

  “No comment,” I said, ducking my head over my coffee.

  “Who’s going to be their goalie?” she asked, straightening a stack of heavy cardboard that was about to tip sideways on the table.

  “Brady Chapman.”

  Ruby’s expression changed and she shook her head. “Do they know yet what happened to his mother? That was so awful.”

  “I’m not sure,” I hedged.

  “The police pretty much took Olivia’s kitchen apart yesterday. And now she’s telling everyone they didn’t find anything.” Ruby folded one arm across her chest. “I feel bad for Brady, though,” she said. “We were just a year apart in school and I think it was hard for him, not having a mother around.” She blew out a breath. “And then when she finally does come back, the last words he has with her are angry ones.”