Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery

by Sofie Kelly

  “I don’t think they’re going to find anything,” I said. Then I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Marshall. That was petty of me. It’s just that I need to get into my office and I can’t.”

  He tipped his head to one side and raised his eyebrows slightly. “Can’t you persuade your detective friend to bend the rules just a little for you?”

  I shook my head, wondering if I looked embarrassed. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he can be a little”—I hesitated, looking for the right word—“rigid. He’s not the type to bend the rules. It’s come between us before.”

  Marshall leaned toward me. “I understand a lot better than you’d think, Kathleen,” he said. “My father was that kind of person. I loved him but he was a very black-and-white man. I can’t tell you how many times we butted heads.” Then he laughed. “Well, I could, but I won’t because you’d wonder why I kept doing it.”

  I took a drink of my wine and got to my feet. “I think I should just go home,” I said.

  Marshall walked outside with me.

  “Thank you for the conversation,” I said. “Good night.” I turned to head down the sidewalk and Marshall fell into step beside me.

  “I’ll walk you to the library,” he said. He held up a hand before I could say anything. “I know you said you’re going home, but I know you’re not. And I’m not trying to imply you’re helpless in any way, but it is getting dark.”

  “I’ll think I’ll just say, ‘no comment,’” I said.

  He smiled. “Good answer.”

  When we got to the library I turned to face Marshall. He was at least as tall as Marcus. Without heels I felt small standing next to him. “Thank you,” I said. “But I think you really should go now.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I’m going to wait out here for you. Whoever killed Margo is still on the loose and I’ll feel better if I stick around.” He shrugged. “My father was also big on being a gentleman.”

  I looked up at the sky. “Come inside, Marshall,” I said. “It’s going to rain by the look of those clouds, and it would probably be better for both of us if you weren’t lurking around out here.”

  I pulled my spare set of keys out of my pocket, let us into the building and shut off both alarm systems. There was no security guard on duty anymore. After their initial panic, the insurance company had decided they only needed a live person in the library during the daytime. Gavin had laughed when he told me, saying that maybe they thought art thieves were afraid of the dark.

  I turned on only one set of overhead lights. Marshall followed me up the stairs. I tried not to look at the piles of books on the main floor.

  At least my office was untouched. I found the forms I needed in my filing cabinet. “I just need to go next door and copy these,” I said to Marshall, holding up the papers. “I’ll only be a minute.”

  “Do you mind if I borrow your phone book again?” he asked, a bit sheepishly, pulling his flip phone out of his pocket.

  “Sure, go ahead,” I said. I pointed to the bookshelf behind him. “It’s in the same place. I’ll be right back.”

  I walked down the hallway and picked up a plastic bag from the table in the lunchroom. I counted to twenty and stepped back into the office.

  23

  Marshall Holmes was standing in the middle of the room, holding the phone book upside down by its spine.

  I held up the plastic bag. “Are you looking for this?” I asked. Below the Falls was inside the bag.

  “Oh, my word, you found the drawing,” Marshall said. “Where was it?”

  “In that phone book,” I said. I exhaled slowly. “Where you put it.”

  His eyes darted to my desk.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t have another paperweight for you to hit me over the head the way you did to Margo.”

  He was good. He frowned, shaking his head. “You think I killed Margo? You think I’m the one who hit her over the head with that brass cat?”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “How did you know the paperweight was a brass cat?”

  He wasn’t at all rattled. “Because I was here. I used your phone book.” He held it up. “Remember?”

  “The paperweight wasn’t here when you were in my office,” I said. “It was a gift from a friend in Boston. I got it in the mail the day Margo was killed. By you.”

  Marshall rubbed a hand over his mouth. “It was an accident,” he said, changing tack. He swallowed hard. His hands were shaking. “Margo and I had gotten to be friends putting this tour together. She felt the same way that I did, that the drawing was too fragile and potentially too valuable to be part of the exhibit.”

  “So you took it, so the whole tour would be canceled.” My knees were trembling. I hoped he couldn’t tell.

  Marshall clenched his teeth and tight lines formed around his mouth. He gestured at the bag holding the drawing that I was still holding. “I took the drawing to keep it safe. That’s not a crime. It belongs to me.”

  “Half of it belongs to you,” I said.

  “All of it should belong to me.” His eyes flashed. “I’m a real Holmes. Diana isn’t.”

  “Why did you kill Margo?” I said.

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen. You have to believe me,” he said. “You know she didn’t want the artwork out of the museum, especially the Weston drawing.”

  I nodded.

  “She said more than once that no one seemed to understand what a bad idea it was. I thought . . . I thought it meant we were on the same page.”

  He cleared his throat. “I was here. Just Margo and I. Ownership has its privileges. The drawing was sitting there in its case. I thought, what if I took it? What if we made it look as though there had been a break-in? That would be the end of the exhibit.”

  “So it was a spur-of-the-moment thing?”

  “It was. It was an accident, I swear.” He sucked in a breath and looked up at the ceiling for a moment. “I made the mistake of telling Margo I was going to sell the drawing to a private collector who had the resources to make sure it was preserved properly.”

  He looked at me again, his expression pleading with me to understand. “Margo wanted the drawing to stay in a museum, where it could be examined and analyzed by art historians and anthropologists. They’d pick at it and pick at it until it was damaged. Until it wasn’t worth anything anymore. I said no.” He looked away again, running his left thumb over and over his fingers like he was trying to wipe something away.

  “I walked away from her. I came in here,” he said. “She followed me. She put her hands on my chest and she kept pushing me.” He swallowed again. “I just reached blindly behind me. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  I took a couple of steps closer to him. “Well then, tell that to the police,” I said.

  He looked at me, opened his mouth as though he was going to say something, and then closed it without speaking. His hand snaked out and snatched the bag holding the drawing from me. His entire expression changed. He shook his head, a condescending smile on his face. “I can’t believe you fell for that,” he said.

  Behind him a voice said, “Funny. I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

  Marcus was standing in the doorway.

  “How did you know?” Marshall asked after he’d been read his rights and the handcuffs had been snapped on.

  “You switched phones to have an excuse to use the phone book here in my office.”

  He shook his head but didn’t say anything.

  “You have a smartphone,” I continued. “I found photos of you online taking a call with a smartphone outside the opera. And how could a businessman manage without one these days? Which means you planned it all.”

  I remembered what Rena had said about the security system being off when she’d gotten to the library. “I think you shut off the alar
m system somehow—it can be done and money buys a lot of information—took the Weston drawing, and it was Margo’s bad luck to walk in on you. I found a photograph of Diana online from a charity talent show. When I did a little more digging, I found out you were in the same show, part of a magic act. You picked the lock.” I gestured at my office door. “You hid the drawing here just in case the police considered you to be a suspect. You didn’t count on the library being closed for so long.”

  Marshall didn’t say anything, but a tiny nerve next to his eye began to twitch.

  “You and Margo weren’t friends. She wasn’t helping you.” I moved a step closer to him. “She wasn’t the type of person to fall for your charm, but she was the type of person who would have come back here to make sure everything was perfect.”

  “And that got her killed,” Marcus said.

  Marshall’s expression darkened. “I want my lawyer,” he said.

  Diana Holmes arrived just as the police were taking her stepbrother away. Neither one of them bothered with their public faces this time, and the animosity they felt for each other was obvious.

  “The drawing will have to stay in police custody for now,” Marcus told her. “It’s evidence.”

  “I understand,” she said giving him a cool, businesslike smile. “It won’t be a problem. My lawyer will be in touch with you. The drawing won’t be going back to the museum.” One eyebrow went up. “Under the circumstances.”

  “A judge won’t give the drawing to you,” I said.

  Marshall might not have been her biological brother, but the condescending smile Diana gave me was identical to the one her brother had given me. “My brother tried to steal it,” she said. “That’s not going to work in his favor.”

  “You tried to steal it, too,” I said.

  She didn’t flinch. “Excuse me?” she said, looking at me like I was something she’d found stuck to the sole of her very expensive shoes.

  “It was a nice touch, mimicking Margo’s voice so the person you hired to steal the drawing thought it was her,” I said. “I would never have guessed except I saw that photo of you in the variety show for the children’s hospital with your dummy. I understand you were very good.”

  She gave an offhand shrug. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

  “But I do,” Hope said. “You transferred money to an account in Turks and Caicos recently. You didn’t do a very good job of covering your tracks.” She gave Diana a cool smile. “And by the way, you’re under arrest.”

  Just like it had for her brother, the public face slipped away, showing something a lot more ugly underneath as Diana Holmes was led away.

  Marcus had to go to the station, but Maggie came out to the house to celebrate with me. She’d played her part to perfection. We talked for about an hour over tea and cupcakes I’d gotten from Sweet Thing.

  Mags stretched her arms up over her head and yawned. “Sorry,” she said. She smiled down at Owen, who, as usual, was settled beside her chair. “It’s not the company.”

  He made a little murp as if saying he understood.

  I walked out into the porch with Maggie. “Thank you,” I said, wrapping her in a hug. “You were great.”

  “I’m glad I could help,” she said. “I’m glad Margo’s killer was caught.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  When I went back into the kitchen, Hercules was alone, sitting by the table. “Where’s your brother?” I asked.

  The little tuxedo cat gave me a blank look.

  The basement door opened then, pushed, I could see, by a furry gray paw. Owen came across the floor, three black feathers in his mouth, the same three feathers, I realized, that I’d taken away from him and tossed in the garbage can. Now I realized why he’d tipped it over.

  He dropped the feathers in front of his brother, shook his head and made a hacking sound before pushing them toward Herc.

  Was this a peacemaking gesture? Had Owen actually understood everything I’d said to him the other day?

  Hercules stretched out one white-tipped paw and pulled the feathers toward him. His eyes never left his brother’s face. Then he bent his head, picked up the feathers in his mouth, turned and headed for the living room. Just before he got to the door he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. He gave a strangled “meow” because his mouth was full, and then he was gone.

  After a moment I heard a sneeze, followed by another one. Clearly he’d spit out the feathers. I really hoped not on my footstool.

  • • •

  Harrison Taylor was sitting at a booth when I walked into Fern’s Diner late Saturday afternoon. Harry Junior and Elizabeth were both at the counter, each with a cup of coffee. Elizabeth wasn’t even trying to pretend she was there for any other reason than to watch her father. She was turned on her stool with her back to the counter so she could see the entire restaurant.

  I slid into the booth across from Harrison.

  “She’s not exactly subtle, is she?” he said, pointing a finger in his daughter’s direction.

  “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” I said with a smile.

  The old man laughed. “Touché, Kathleen,” he said.

  Across the room he caught Peggy Sue’s eye. He pointed to his own cup and then gestured at me. She nodded and in a moment came over with the coffeepot and a mug for me.

  “How’re things at the library, Kathleen?” Harrison asked, smiling a thank-you at Peggy, who smiled back at him.

  “We reopened this morning,” I said, adding cream and sugar to my cup.

  “You must have been happy.”

  “I did a little dance by the circulation desk before we opened up,” I said, grinning across the table at him.

  “I’m sorry I missed that,” he said.

  We spent the next ten minutes talking about the library. Several times from the corner of my eye I saw Elizabeth look at her watch and then glance at the front door of the diner.

  Finally, she slid off her stool and walked over to us. Harry followed. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said.

  “Hi,” I said. I leaned around her and smiled at Harry.

  Elizabeth had turned her attention to her father. “So where is she?”

  The old man made a show of looking at his watch. “Is she late?”

  “You know she is,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sorry. She stood you up.”

  Harry gave a snort of derision. “You’re not sorry, child.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a defiant look. “No, I’m not. I told you this woman, whoever she is, was just trying to take advantage of you, and it turns out I was right.”

  Harrison smiled up at her. “It turns out the joke’s on you,” he said. “This meeting was a setup.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened and Harry shook his head, a wry smile spreading across his face.

  The old man pointed from his daughter to his son. “You all need to butt out. I can manage my own love life on my own, thank you very much.”

  I expected Elizabeth to be angry with her father, but all she did was lean down and kiss him on the cheek. “If you think you’ve won then you’ve forgotten whose daughter I am,” she said. She smiled at me. “Good to see you, Kathleen.” She looked at her brother. “I’ll wait for you in the truck.”

  Harrison looked as though someone had just pulled the rug out from under him. Harry Junior was grinning broadly. He leaned over, patted his father on the shoulder and said, “I think you’ve finally met your match, old man.” Then he left.

  “I’ll be damned,” Harrison said.

  I laughed. “Apples and trees,” I said.

  Peggy came back to top up our cups. I looked from her to Harrison. “So, how long has this relationship between you two been going on?” I asked, bouncing my crossed leg slowly in the air. Their guilty expression
s told me I’d called it correctly.

  “Are you going to tell on me?” Harrison asked. I noticed he’d covered Peggy Sue’s hand with his own.

  “It’s not my story to tell.”

  He narrowed his blue eyes at me. “How did you know?”

  I reached for my coffee. “Peggy is the only other person in town who’s read every Mickey Spillane book we have. That and the fact that the two of you grinned at each other like a couple of sixteen-year-olds when she brought the coffee over.”

  Harrison smiled. “I’ll remember that.”

  Peggy set the carafe on the edge of the table. “Kathleen, my intentions toward Harrison are honorable, despite our age difference.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” I said.

  Harrison squeezed her hand and let it go. “I’m not stupid, Kathleen,” he said. “I know there’s a lot of water under the bridge when it comes to Peggy and me. We’re friends and we’re taking things real slow, but for the record, just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m not still in working order.”

  I shook my head and put my hands over my ears. “That’s way more information than I need to have.”

  Harrison laughed. Peggy blushed and I was very glad he didn’t say anything more.

  When I got home Marcus was in the kitchen making dinner with two furry assistants looking on.

  “Everything all right?” he asked, looking up from the stove.

  “Everything’s fine,” I said.

  “How serious is this new relationship of Harrison’s?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know and I’m not sure I really want to.”

  The table was set with a blue tablecloth. There were candles and a small vase of daisies in the center.

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  Marcus turned down the heat under a pot and stepped away from the stove. “I talked to Eddie. He isn’t giving up on Roma.”

  “I’m glad,” I said.

  Marcus put his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry that I almost ruined things between us last year,” he said. “If there was a chance to go back in time and relive just one moment, I would relive that moment down on the Riverwalk when I accused you of not trusting me.”