A Midwinter's Tail

by Sofie Kelly

  My briefcase.

  “Crap on toast!” I said, slouching lower in my chair. I’d left my briefcase with my laptop in my office. “Okay, as soon as I have my computer again we’ll see what we can find online about Dana. In the meantime maybe we can use that other information superhighway.”

  Hercules frowned at me. Clearly he didn’t know what I was talking about. Or he’d just noticed a knot in the fur on his tail. He started working on his tail, but I decided to believe it was the former anyway.

  “The Mayville Heights grapevine,” I said.

  Marcus knocked on my back door a little after nine thirty. I was curled up in the big chair in the living room with the cats stretched across my legs watching a movie. They weren’t happy about having to move.

  “Hi,” I said as Marcus stepped into the porch and knocked the snow off his boots.

  “I saw your light on. It’s not too late, is it?” he said, leaning down to kiss me. The man could kiss. I tended to forget where I was and what I was doing when his mouth was on mine. I hoped the day never came when that didn’t happen.

  I smiled up at him and then remembered that he’d asked me a question. “No. We were just watching a movie on TV,” I said, pushing my hair back off my face.

  Marcus followed me into the kitchen. He draped his jacket on the back of a chair and then sat down. I was wearing a pair of old stretched-out sweatpants, heavy woolen socks and a baggy sweatshirt, and my hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. I felt self-conscious for a moment. Then I remembered that Marcus had seen me covered in mud when the embankment behind the carriage house collapsed, and when I was half-frozen with a mild case of hypothermia, wandering the woods with a bleeding arm wearing only long underwear after making it out of a cabin just before the building exploded.

  “Hi, guys,” he said.

  I realized he was talking to Owen and Hercules, who were looking around the living room doorway.

  “Have you had any supper?” I asked, leaning my hip against the table.

  He pulled both hands through his hair. “I had three cups of coffee and some beef jerky.”

  “That’s not supper.”

  I heard a meow of objection from the doorway. “No, beef jerky is not supper, Owen,” I said. I kissed the top of Marcus’s head. “I’ll warm you up some stew.”

  He reached for my hand as I moved past him. “You don’t have to do that.”

  I smiled. “I know.”

  I got the stew out of the refrigerator, put a bowl of it in the microwave and poured Marcus a glass of milk. When I turned around he had a couple of “friends” sitting next to his chair.

  “I said I would warm up some stew for Marcus, not you two,” I said.

  In perfect synchronization both cats leaned their heads to the right. Marcus noticed and did the same thing so all three of them were in their most adorable poses.

  I leaned down toward the cats. “Don’t encourage him,” I stage-whispered.

  Behind me Marcus laughed.

  Once his supper was hot, I made myself a cup of hot chocolate and joined him at the table. Owen had a dab of gravy on his whiskers and I caught Hercules licking his lips, so I knew Marcus had snuck the two of them a bit of chicken and maybe part of a dumpling from his dish.

  I folded my fingers around my cup and watched Marcus eat for a minute. “You didn’t find anything in Olivia’s kitchen, did you?” I asked. “Or am I asking a question you can’t answer?”

  He set his fork down. “No, we didn’t. And she insists she didn’t put nuts of any kind in the chocolates she made for your party because of her own allergy.”

  “That was why she reacted to the chocolate that she ate at the theater.”

  Marcus frowned at me.

  “Cashews and pistachios are in the same family.”

  “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  I knew he’d file that little piece of information away in his head somewhere. It was like that with everything he learned.

  He picked up his fork again. “Well, there were no pistachios in the kitchen where the chocolates were made, or any nuts, for that matter, or in her house, either, and she gave us permission to search both places.”

  I leaned over, grabbed the container of marshmallows from the counter and dropped two into my cup. “Not the kind of thing someone would be likely to do if they had something to hide,” I said. “Did you talk to Georgia and Earl?”

  “Uh-huh. Neither one of them uses nuts in anything.”

  “According to Abigail, Georgia makes anything with nuts at Fern’s.” I leaned back in my chair with my mug and took a long drink. “I don’t think I told you. Abigail helped pack the chocolate boxes.”

  Marcus finished half a dumpling before he answered, “I know. I talked to her and to Nic Sutton, who made the boxes.”

  “I wish people could have taken them home,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about that,” he said.

  I smiled at him. “It’s okay.”

  My cup was empty, so I got up to make another cup of hot chocolate. I knew where the other half of the dumpling would go as soon as my back was turned. I poured more milk into my cup along with a big spoonful of the dark chocolate cocoa mix I’d gotten at the Farmers’ Market and put the whole thing in the microwave. When I did turn back around, Owen was licking his lips, Hercules was washing his face and Marcus was spooning a carrot out of his bowl. It was cute how they actually thought they were fooling me.

  I leaned against the counter while I waited for the milk to heat. “So the nuts weren’t in anything Eric served or even with the coffee or the tea?” I asked.

  Marcus reached for his glass. “No. We checked the kitchen at both places. Nothing.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said slowly, turning to get my drink from the microwave. “You didn’t actually say the nuts weren’t in the chocolates. You said there didn’t seem to be any way Olivia could have put them in.”

  Marcus looked at me, just the tiny hint of a smile flickering across his face. “You’re right, that is what I said.”

  I sat down across from him again with my cup and the marshmallows. “So? What haven’t you told me?”

  He swiped a hand over his neck. At his feet both cats seemed to be listening intently. “All three of the chocolates in the box that Dana Chapman had were coated with pistachio oil. None of the other boxes that have been sampled had anything on the chocolates inside.”

  There was one piece of chicken left in his bowl. He pulled it apart with his fork and leaned over to give half to each cat, not even trying to hide what he was doing.

  “So that’s how you know somebody meant to kill Dana Chapman?”

  Marcus nodded, wiping his fingers on his napkin. “Yes. I’m not telling you anything that won’t be common knowledge in a few hours. In fact, maybe it already is.”

  He started to get to his feet and I stood up instead, reaching for his dishes with one hand and putting the other on his shoulder to tell him to stay put.

  “The paper?” I asked. The Mayville Heights Chronicle was one of the few smaller newspapers in the state whose readership was actually on the rise.

  “Yeah. Everywhere we went, one of Bridget’s reporters was right behind us.” He exhaled loudly. “Sometimes I think it’s impossible to keep anything secret in this town.”

  Dayna Chapman had been murdered. Murdered, just a few hours after she’d arrived back in town. Why, and by whom?

  Maybe it was impossible to keep some things secret, but clearly not everything.

  10

  On Sunday, I caught up on all the chores I’d let go during the week and talked to my parents in Boston. I told them what had happened with the fundraiser and they were sympathetic, which made me feel better.

  “I’ll look back through my files and see what we’ve done for fundraisers over the years at the school,” my mother promised. “If I come across any ideas that might work for you, I’ll let you know.”

  She went on to tell me that he
r laptop was being repaired—something wrong with the space bar—again—probably having to do with tea or cheesecake was my guess. So I didn’t tell her it looked as though Dayna Chapman’s death hadn’t been an accident. Mom normally read the Chronicle online, but without her computer she wouldn’t be doing that, which bought me a few days before I had to tell her I was connected with a murder.

  Again.

  After lunch I made stinky crackers for Owen and Hercules, and a pan of date squares for Rebecca and me to have with our tea.

  When Rebecca arrived, she spent several minutes talking to the boys, who loved to see her even when she wasn’t bringing them treats. Rebecca actually had conversations with the cats and didn’t seem to think there was anything odd about it.

  Even though there was no paper on Sunday, the news about Dayna Chapman’s death was already circulating. Rebecca confirmed what little I’d learned from Burtis.

  Dana had originally come to Mayville Heights on vacation with her parents. The only thing she’d seemed to like was Burtis. Her parents hadn’t shared that enthusiasm. Dana had run away, coming back to Mayville Heights as soon as she was back home, and she and Burtis were quickly married.

  No one was surprised that the marriage didn’t last, but it seemed that many people were surprised it lasted as long as it did.

  “And she never came back to visit?” I asked Rebecca.

  “No,” she said, adding a little sugar to her tea. “The boys didn’t really spend a lot of time with her.” She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Some people don’t have what it takes to be a parent.”

  That was the closest to criticism I knew I’d hear from Rebecca. I sent her home with two date squares and a reminder about our Friday trip to Red Wing.

  * * *

  Ruby was waiting for me Monday morning as I pulled into the parking lot behind River Arts. I backed into Maggie’s parking spot behind the former school, the way I usually did if I was there for some reason and she wasn’t.

  Ruby’s collection of Christmas ornaments was packed in two wooden boxes sitting at one end of the big worktable in the middle of her top-floor art studio.

  “Ruby, I can’t take all of them,” I said.

  “Sure you can,” she said with a smile. “I told you we’re not using them at the store this year, and I have a collection that belonged to my grandmother that I use on my tree at home.” She laid a hand on top of the closest crate. “There’s a list inside both boxes so you’ll have an idea of what there is. I’m warning you. There are a lot of different Santas.”

  “That’s okay with me,” I said. “I like Santa. I promise I’ll take good care of them.”

  I noticed that the newspaper was spread over the other end of the long worktable. Ruby noticed me noticing.

  “Dayna Chapman’s death wasn’t an accident,” she said.

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t look like it.”

  She sighed softly, looked away out through the tall windows and then back at me again. “You didn’t know my grandfather, Kathleen,” she said, “and I don’t exactly know how to describe him to you, except to say he had a flint-hard streak of ruthlessness in him.”

  I nodded, not exactly sure where the conversation was going.

  “You know that Burtis worked for him.”

  “I do,” I said.

  She fiddled with the stack of bracelets on her left arm. “And you’ve probably heard the stories that Burtis took over part of my grandfather’s business.”

  I nodded again.

  Ruby stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jeans and scraped one sneakered foot on the floor. “A lot of people would tell you that Idris Blackthorne was a criminal, and I guess if you go by a strict definition of right and wrong, black and white, he was.”

  “In my experience the world isn’t always black and white,” I said.

  That got me a smile and a slight nod. “As long as you played it straight and fair with my grandfather, you wouldn’t have any problems. But if you lied to him or tried to cheat him, you had an enemy for the rest of your life.”

  It occurred to me that minus the illegal businesses, Idris Blackthorne sounded a lot like my mother.

  “Burtis was friends with my grandfather until the day he died. In some ways he’s like family.”

  “I don’t think Burtis had anything to do with Dayna’s death, either,” I said.

  Ruby’s shoulders seemed to relax just a little. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said. “You know everyone isn’t going to feel that way.”

  “I know,” I said. “I also know that no matter what Burtis does for a living, fundamentally he has a lot of integrity.”

  She exhaled slowly. “You know how I told you I’d seen Brady having some kind of heated conversation with Dayna at the fundraiser?”

  I nodded.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, almost as though she was hugging herself. “I was worried about the backdrop. Afraid it wouldn’t look good or hang right, so I kept checking on it in the beginning.” She gave me a sheepish look. “I also saw—and heard—Burtis and Dayna. And they were fighting.”

  I studied her face. “You didn’t say anything before.” This just confirmed what Roma had told me.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t. Dayna is—was—Burtis’s ex-wife. They fight and the next thing you know, she’s dead. You know what people would think.” She gave a slight shrug. “I know what it’s like to be suspected of something you didn’t do.”

  “I don’t think it means anything,” I said, jiggling my keys in my jacket pocket. “Burtis and Dana used to be married and she hadn’t been back here in a long, long time. They probably had more than one thing to argue about.”

  Ruby shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “I didn’t hear much of what they were saying to each other, but I did hear Burtis say, ‘It would be better if you were just dead.’”

  I swallowed, hoping my face wasn’t giving away the little pulse of anxiety I suddenly felt. “That doesn’t mean he killed her, Ruby,” I said. “When I was in sixth grade, Kevin Monaghan snuck into the girls’ locker room, swiped my bra from my locker and draped it over the trophy case just outside the gym doors. I chased him down the hall, across the teachers’ parking lot and onto the track.”

  I could still remember the mix of embarrassment and fury that had propelled my legs. “I was yelling that when I caught him I was going to drag him into the girls’ washroom, stick his head in a toilet and flush until he drowned.”

  Ruby laughed. “Would you believe I said the same thing to Larry Taylor? I think we were in seventh grade, though. And substitute underwear for bra and flagpole for trophy case.”

  I shook my head. “Boys going through puberty really are an alien species,” I said. “My long-winded point is you said it but you didn’t actually do it.”

  She gave an offhand shrug. “Only because Agatha stopped me after the second flush.”

  I exhaled loudly. “Okay, bad example to make my point. But it’s still valid—more or less. Most of us say things like I’m going to flush your head until you drown, or I wish you were dead, but we don’t really mean it and we don’t follow through.”

  Ruby nodded. “I get it, Kathleen. I really do. But what do I do if Marcus or Hope Lind asks me what I saw and heard the night of the fundraiser?”

  “You tell them the truth,” I said. “I know you and Marcus have had your issues, but he isn’t going to jump to conclusions and neither is Detective Lind.”

  “Okay,” she said. She smiled. “Thanks.”

  “I’d better get to the library,” I said. I reached for one of the boxes and Ruby grabbed the other.

  I noticed then that Ruby had one of the little chocolate boxes from the fundraiser sitting on her worktable. She followed my gaze. “There aren’t any chocolates in it. It’s one of Nic’s prototypes. He asked for my opinion when he was working on the design.”

  It occurred to me that I knew nothing about Nicolas Sutton. I
remembered that I’d seen him tweaking the way the little boxes had been arranged on one of the serving trays. Could he have tampered with the chocolates? Why would he?

  “I didn’t know the two of you were friends,” I said as we started down the hall to the stairs.

  “We’re not, really,” she said. “I just like his work. And we’re both a little eclectic in our art. Nic’s a found metal artist. He plays with paper a little—well, you know about that—and does some stuff with photography.”

  “How did he end up in Mayville Heights?”

  Ruby stopped at the head of the stairs. “Why are you asking?”

  “Curiosity,” I said with a shrug. At least that was true. “Those boxes he made. I’ve never seen such detailed work with paper before.”

  “Yeah, he’s really good,” Ruby said as we started down the steps. “Maggie wants him to do some workshops when we get the space set up at the store.” She shifted the box in her arms, balancing it on her hip. “I know he was living in Minneapolis. I don’t know if that’s home or not. He said he had some personal stuff and he wanted a new start.”

  “Mayville Heights is a good place for that,” I said with a smile.

  “So, things are good with you and Marcus?” she asked.

  I nodded and I couldn’t help smiling.

  She smiled back at me. “Well, I think you’re good for him. You know, my grandmother used to say, ‘There’s a cover for every pot.’ Of course, then she’d say, ‘But if you don’t have a cover, you can use a big plate.’” Ruby laughed, her pigtails bobbing. “I have no idea what that means.”

  I grinned back at her. “Me either.”

  We put the boxes on the front seat of the truck and I thanked her again.

  “I’ll see you at class tomorrow night,” she said.

  At least we could start decorating the building for the holidays, I thought as I drove over to the library. I hadn’t really found out anything about Nic Sutton and I realized how far-fetched it would be that he knew Dayna, had ended up in Mayville Heights and then had killed her.

  I was grasping at straws because I really didn’t know what else to do.