Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery

by Sofie Kelly

  I put one hand on his back and picked up the cell with the other. It was Marcus.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  “I’m at Tubby’s, sitting in the truck with Hercules eating frozen yogurt.”

  “Why? Was Owen busy?”

  “As a matter of fact, he was,” I said. Hercules turned his head to lick a tiny smear of yogurt off the side of my thumb.

  Marcus laughed, the sound tickling my ear as it came through the phone. “Do you still want to clear the book drop?” he asked.

  “Please,” I said.

  “I can meet you at the library in about fifteen minutes.”

  That didn’t give me time to take Hercules home. “The only problem is, like I said, I have Hercules with me.” The cat looked up at me and narrowed his green eyes as though he didn’t like be referred to as a problem.

  “That’s not a problem,” Marcus said. “He can’t hurt anything. We’ve wrapped up everything we want to do in the building. We’re releasing it back to you. You could probably reopen on Monday.”

  I leaned against the back of the seat as relief flooded my body. “I’m going to need to get the cleaners in, and there are stacks of books to reshelve. And I’ll have to call Gavin to see if we can get the artwork moved on Monday. Maybe we should wait and reopen Tuesday.” I rummaged in my purse, looking for a pen and the notebook I usually carried.

  “Kathleen, take a breath,” Marcus said.

  “What?” I said.

  “Take a breath,” he repeated. “You don’t have to do everything at once.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “How about Hercules and I come and meet you and we’ll go from there?”

  “I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said.

  Hercules sat up, took a couple of passes at his face with a paw and then looked expectantly at me.

  Marcus was waiting by his SUV in the library parking lot. I popped Hercules into the spare shopping bag I’d brought with me and got out of the truck. I knew there was no point in leaving him in the truck when he didn’t want to stay there. He’d just climb out through the door—literally—and how would I explain that to Marcus?

  “Hi,” I said as we walked over to him.

  “Hi,” he said, leaning down to kiss me. “Hey, Hercules,” he said to the little black-and-white cat, who was poking his head out of the top of the bag.

  “Merow,” the cat said.

  Marcus let us into the building, and before I could take more than a few steps toward the checkout desk, Hercules jumped out of the bag, shook himself and looked around. “No, no, no,” I said, reaching for him. “You need to stay with me.”

  Marcus turned to look at me. “It’s okay, Kathleen,” he said. “We’re finished in here. He can’t hurt anything.”

  The cat gave me a look and headed straight for Curtis, who was in his usual spot.

  “Is this your cat?” the guard asked.

  I started toward them. “Yes. This is Hercules. Please don’t try to pet him. He was feral. He doesn’t have the best people skills.”

  Curtis laughed. “Yeah, people say that about me, too.” He looked at the cat. “Hello, Hercules,” he said.

  “Merow,” the cat answered. He considered the security guard for a moment and then moved around the circulation desk.

  I handed a take-out container of coffee to Curtis. I’d gotten it from Tubby’s before we left. “I thought you might like a cup,” I said. The creamer and a couple of sugar packets were on top.

  Curtis smiled at me. With his bushy eyebrows and nose that looked as though it had been broken at least once, he was an imposing man—a good trait for a security guard—but when he smiled his expression was transformed.

  “Thank you, Ms. Paulson,” he said. “I was a bit late getting started this morning, so I’m like my old truck that leaks oil; I’m down a quart.”

  Hercules was still prowling around, checking everything out. Marcus was doing the same, I realized, minus the whisker twitching.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked. Marcus turned to look at me. Hercules kept nosing around.

  “Are you talking to me or him?” Marcus asked, gesturing to the cat, who was sniffing the edge of one of the metal pylons that was restricting access to the exhibit area.

  “You,” I said.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. Something, anything that we might have missed.”

  “You’ll figure this out,” I said. “You always do.”

  Hercules was still sniffing the pylon. His pink tongue came out and he gave the shiny metal surface a tentative lick. “Leave that alone,” I called to him.

  He gave a sharp meow but otherwise ignored me.

  I walked over to the cat. “Don’t lick that,” I said firmly. “You don’t know what’s on it.”

  Of the two cats, Owen was the one who had finicky little quirks about his food, but I’d never seen Hercules do something as undignified as lick a metal post.

  He looked up at me, put a paw on the base of the metal pylon, and meowed again. I knew that insistent tone. It meant, “Look at this.”

  I leaned over to look at the spot he’d licked. “Move your foot,” I said.

  He obligingly lifted his white-tipped paw. There was a tiny smear of what looked like blue paint on the shiny metal.

  Curtis joined me. “That’s paint,” he said.

  “Don’t eat that,” I said to Hercules.

  His green eyes met mine and he licked his lips.

  “What is it?” Marcus asked. He’d walked over and was standing behind Hercules. The cat looked up at him and then back at the pylon. As far-fetched as it seemed, I knew there was some connection he was waiting for me to make.

  “I’m not sure,” I said slowly. I scraped a tiny speck of the paint off the pylon with a nail and then sniffed the end of my finger, hoping that I wasn’t inhaling some obscure, drug-resistant bacteria.

  “What are you doing?” Marcus said, pulling a face like I’d just scraped a piece of gum off my shoe and started chewing it.

  Herc’s green gaze was fixed on my face, and even though no one else would have believed it, I could see a gleam of expectation in his eyes.

  “It smells like egg,” I said, more to the cat than to Marcus, wondering at the same time if it was just my imagination at work.

  Hercules sat back on his haunches then, seemingly satisfied that he’d made his point.

  “No one was in here eating eggs,” Curtis said.

  The cat shot him a look of disdain as only a cat could do.

  Hercules had been having a sardine and a slice of hard-boiled egg every Sunday since the weather got warmer. We’d sit in the backyard and I’d have coffee while the boys had their Sunday treat. Hercules had developed a fondness for the hard-boiled egg. It really wasn’t that big a surprise that his nose had discovered the small splotch of paint.

  “Egg tempera,” I said slowly.

  “Paint,” Marcus said.

  I nodded. “It’s a mixture of pigment, egg and something to keep the egg from drying out too fast; water, vinegar, Maggie says some artists even use wine.”

  He crouched down beside me and studied the pale blue dab on the pylon base. Then he looked at me.

  “That’s fresh paint, not a flake of old paint that fell off something and stuck,” I said.

  “So one of the artists had wet paint on a shoe or a pants leg and brushed against this at some point. You said yourself that Maggie and the others were in and out a lot in the days before the art from the museum arrived.”

  I shook my head. “No. These are brand-new pylons. I helped take them out of the box and set them up right after we closed the library on Thursday.”

  “Was Maggie here after that?” he asked. “Or any of the others?”

  “No,” I said. “Just Margo and G
avin and the staff from the museum who came with the artwork.”

  He looked at Curtis. “Did Mr. Solomon bring anyone else in here while you’ve been here?”

  Curtis shook his head. “Every time he’s been here, he’s been alone, except for Detective Lind.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Marcus said.

  The guard went back to his chair.

  Hercules was watching us intently, head turning from side to side as we talked.

  “Rena Adler paints with egg tempera,” I said, getting to my feet. I remembered seeing a dab of blue paint on her finger. “She’s the only local artist in the exhibit who does.”

  Marcus stood up as well. He looked at me and shook his head. “I see where you’re going with this, Kathleen, but it’s a pretty big leap from someone paints with a particular kind of paint to saying they killed someone.” He pulled his hand back through his hair and as he did I remembered Harry Junior making the same gesture as he stood in my porch Friday morning . . . talking about his brother . . . and Rena Adler.

  I looked at Marcus. “Harry said she was asking Larry a lot of questions. He thought she was flirting with him and so did I, but what if she was fishing for information? She took him coffee.” I pointed at the floor. “When he was working downstairs. Where the setup is for the temporary security system.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. Then he pulled his phone out.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. I glanced at Hercules, who was washing his face. Clearly he figured his work was done.

  “Bringing the crime scene techs back to take a closer look at that pylon and the others.”

  “I thought you said it was too big a leap,” I said.

  “Maybe it is,” he said, “but I don’t have anything else.” He gave me a half smile. “So I may as well jump.”

  16

  I took Hercules out to the truck while Marcus called in the crime scene team.

  “Good job,” I told him. “I promise you a sardine when we get home.”

  He licked his whiskers and then nuzzled my chin.

  “Please stay here,” I said.

  “Mrrr,” he replied obligingly as he curled up on the driver’s seat.

  “I won’t be long,” I promised.

  I had just enough time to clear out the book drop and stack the books and magazines on several carts before Hope arrived.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” she said with a wry smile. “Looks like it’s déjà vu all over again.” She turned to Marcus. “Crime scene is right behind me.”

  “I’m going to get out of here,” I said. I touched Marcus’s arm. “Call me later.”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  Owen was sitting on the back steps when Hercules and I got home. He looked from Hercules to me and narrowed his eyes.

  “Yes, I took your brother with me,” I said as I unlocked the door.

  He made a grumbling noise almost under his breath. I leaned down to scratch behind his ear and he turned his face to one side, making it clear I was on ignore. “Next time come home when I call you,” I said.

  Owen stalked into the kitchen. He walked over to the basement door, pawed it open and disappeared down the stairs.

  “Did you ever figure out what he’s doing down there?” I asked Hercules as I put things away.

  He gave me a blank look.

  I gave Hercules a little piece of a sardine as a thank-you for his sleuthing. He ate it, washed his face and paws and followed me into the living room, curling up in a patch of sunshine on the rug for a nap while I returned e-mails and phone calls. Marcus didn’t call until after supper.

  “Any luck?” I asked.

  “I can’t really answer that,” he said.

  It was as good as a no. “What about the paint?” I asked. “Can you at least tell me if it’s egg tempera?”

  “It is,” he said. I heard the squeak of his desk chair and knew from the sound that he was still at the station. “It proves nothing, Kathleen,” he said, lowering his voice.

  “It proves Rena Adler was at the library when she shouldn’t have been,” I said.

  “No, it doesn’t. All it proves it that someone got a bit of paint on that metal pylon at some point. It’s not like it’s her fingerprint in paint.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Me too,” he said. “It looks like you’ll be able to get the building back on Tuesday. Hope will let you know for sure.”

  Hercules had raised his head and was listening to my side of the conversation.

  “Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” Marcus said, and I swear I could hear a smile creep into his voice. It made me smile as well. “I’m making my famed turkey Provençal.”

  “Sounds very fancy.”

  “Micah was impressed when I tried the recipe out on her.”

  I was grinning now. “Well, if Micah gave it two paws, I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” I said.

  We said good night and I hung up the phone. Hercules was still watching me. “The paint isn’t enough,” I said.

  He made a sour face.

  “I know,” I said.

  I looked at the laptop sitting on the footstool. “Do you want to see if we can find out anything about Rena?” I asked.

  Hercules got up, came over to my chair and meowed at the computer. I patted my legs. He jumped up and settled himself. I reached for the laptop.

  There was very little to find online about Rena Adler. She had no online presence—no Web site, no Facebook page, no Twitter account. Since I didn’t have any of those myself, it didn’t strike me as odd, but what did was the fact that prior to two years ago Rena Adler hadn’t seemed to exist. No matter what search terms or search engine I used, there was nothing to find about the woman back more than a couple of years.

  I leaned back in the big wing chair. “It’s as though she just appeared out of nowhere,” I said to Hercules. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  He looked at the phone.

  I sighed. “Marcus will just say this doesn’t mean anything.” I looked at the name in the search box and scrolled down through the results again. There were more selections that had nothing to do with Rena Adler the artist than there were ones that did. There was even a link to a fan site for the Irene Adler character from the Sherlock Holmes world.

  Irene Adler. Rena Adler.

  “Is it really that simple?” I asked the cat.

  I didn’t wait for him to answer, assuming he was even going to. I typed the name “Rena” and “name meaning” in the search engine.

  It seemed it really was as simple as that. The name Rena was of Hebrew origin. It meant joyful song. It was also a variation of the name Irene.

  Rena Adler. It was a play on the name Irene Adler, the woman who bested Sherlock Holmes.

  “The name’s a fake,” I said to Hercules. “That’s why we couldn’t find anything about her beyond two years ago. Rena Adler didn’t exist before that.”

  I chewed my lip. Marcus would think I was crazy. Hercules was eyeing me as though maybe he was having the same thought.

  “So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Rena Adler used to have a different name. Who was she and why did she change it?”

  My cell phone, on top of a stack of papers next to the chair, buzzed then. I leaned sideways for a look, one hand on the computer, the other holding Hercules. It was Gavin. I let it go to voice mail. I hadn’t spoken to Gavin since we’d gotten back from Minneapolis and he’d shared his other alibi.

  I thought about the conversation with Julian McCrea. Would I ever hear from the art dealer? I wondered. When Gavin had first mentioned the man, I’d had high hopes that talking to him would give us some kind of clue. I remembered how dismissive Marcus had been. I sighed. It looked like he was going to be right.

&nbs
p; “Maybe Gavin had just been angling for a way to spend some time alone with me,” I said.

  Hercules narrowed his green eyes as though he was considering the possibility.

  “After all, his other suggestion had been that the drawing had been stolen by some art thief/cat burglar.”

  “Merow!” Hercules said.

  “No, not someone who steals cats. Someone who’s stealthy like a cat.”

  I rubbed my right shoulder. I was having a conversation with a cat about cat burglars. No wonder the idea that Rena Adler had changed her name and was somehow connected to what had happened at the library seemed to make sense to me.

  “She dropped out of sight about two years ago. It was like she just disappeared.” That’s what Gavin had said about Devin Rossi. Two years ago art thief Devin Rossi had disappeared and artist Rena Adler had suddenly appeared.

  “Just because it’s far-fetched doesn’t mean it’s not true,” I told Hercules.

  “Murp,” he agreed.

  I reached for the phone and called Gavin.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” he said. “I was just talking to Hope Lind. It looks like they’re going to let you open the library on Tuesday. I just wanted to let you know it’ll be next Thursday or Friday before the museum can retrieve the exhibit. They’re still making space.”

  “Why?” I asked. I was beginning to think there was a metaphorical black cloud hovering over the library.

  “I’m not sure, but I think the problem with the sprinkler system was worse than they’re letting on.”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. “It’s all right,” I said. “We can make things work for a few days.”

  “I’ll help any way I can,” Gavin said. I realized from the background noise I could hear that he was probably in the bar at the St. James.

  Hercules jumped down from my lap and started nosing around the pile of papers next to the chair. I shook my head. He shook his back at me and nudged the pile with his shoulder.

  “Gavin, do you have a phone number for Julian McCrea?” I asked. I knew he did. He’d set up our luncheon, after all.

  “I do,” he said. “Why?”