by Sofie Kelly
“It’s Miranda,” I said, sticking the key in the ignition.
They exchanged a look, then Hercules meowed softly. “I know,” I said. “I liked her, too.”
Owen put a paw on my leg. Hercules tipped his head to one side. I didn’t try to pretend that they didn’t understand what I was saying. “Ruby’s coming back to the house with us.”
Owen gave a murp of what I took to be approval. As I started the truck Hercules turned and looked out the passenger window. “We’ll probably see Marcus for breakfast,” I said. He turned back around and settled himself on the seat.
I was just getting out of the truck as Ruby pulled into the driveway behind me. Hercules jumped down from the seat and headed for the back door. Owen waited for Ruby.
“Hey, Owen.” She smiled down at him.
“Mrrr,” he said in reply before starting around the side of the house.
Hercules was waiting on the top step. I was glad he hadn’t decided to go inside before I’d had a chance to open the door.
Once we were inside I flipped on the kitchen light and hung the cat bag on one of the hooks by the door.
Owen had clearly appointed himself Ruby’s guardian for the evening. “Have a seat,” I said to Ruby, gesturing in the direction of the table.
She pulled out one of the retro chrome chairs and sat down, kicking off one Birkenstock and pulling her leg underneath her. Owen stationed himself by the chair. Hercules was sitting by his food dish, looking pointedly in my direction.
I got each cat three of my homemade sardine crackers and put fresh water in their dishes. Hercules murped his thanks and decided on a drink first. Owen nudged his pile of crackers over and sniffed each one suspiciously.
“He still does that,” Ruby said, leaning sideways to watch Owen’s obsessive pre-eating ritual.
“He does,” I said, reaching for a towel to dry my hands. “Roma thinks he may have eaten something out at Wisteria Hill that made him sick when he was a kitten. She says that may have made him a little . . . fanatical about his food.”
Owen lifted his head and shot me a glare when I used the word “fanatical.” Ruby smiled again and my own sadness eased a little. “It’s okay, Owen,” she stage-whispered. “Just because you’re a little paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get you.”
He wrinkled his whiskers at her and went back to his crackers.
I poured us each a tall, icy glass of lemonade and put the last two cream cheese brownies on a plate, then I took a seat at the table as well.
Ruby took a long drink, then set the glass back on the table and sighed. “I keep hoping this is all going to be a mistake somehow,” she said, the smile fading from her face. “That your phone or mine is going to ring and somehow the last hour just didn’t happen.”
I pulled up one leg and propped my chin on my knee. “I keep thinking about Miranda at the library just a day ago. She knows . . . knew the Dewey decimal system.” I had to take a drink from my own glass to get rid of the lump that had suddenly appeared at the back of my throat.
Ruby had set one brownie on her napkin. She broke it into several pieces and ate one. “That’s good,” she said.
“Thanks. I’ve been trying different brownie recipes,” I said. “Trying to come up with the ultimate one.”
She took another bite. “This one is right up there.” We sat in silence for a minute and then Ruby said, “I think she had a bad relationship with her stepbrothers.”
I knew she meant Miranda.
She shifted in her seat. “Sometimes she’d refer to herself as Cinderella, and I heard her say something about her ‘Ugly Stepbrothers’ once when she was talking to Emme and Nora. It seemed to be some kind of inside thing. Oh, Nora is Emme’s sister. You knew that, right?”
I nodded as I reached for the other brownie.
“Emme is pretty popular in Chicago. She has this really devoted fan base. Wherever she goes some of them always show up. Sometimes Miranda would step in and deflect people so Emme could go out to dinner in peace. They didn’t always take it well. A few people got pretty abusive.”
Both my mother and father had had to deal with zealous fans—Mom from her soap role and Dad from his gig as a dancing raisin in a series of commercials that had become cult classics—but they’d never had to deal with people who were that fanatical.
“Do you think any of those fans could have shown up here?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Ruby said. “Emme didn’t mention anything, and no one bothered us any of the times we were out together.”
We talked about the festival for a few minutes and then Ruby stretched her arms up over her head and yawned. “I should go,” she said. She got to her feet. “Thank you for everything—for the lemonade, for the brownies, for the company. I needed it.”
She gave me a hug.
“Thank you for coming,” I said. “I needed it, too.”
She said good night to Owen and Hercules and promised to send me any photos that turned out. Then she left, giving a little wave as she went past the sunporch windows.
I went back into the kitchen and dropped into Ruby’s chair. Hercules launched himself into my lap, walked his front paws up my chest and nuzzled my chin. “I liked Miranda,” I said. He murped his agreement. “Why would somebody kill her?”
I’d stayed away from how and why Miranda had died with Ruby, but I’d seen enough of that blood on her head to know it probably hadn’t been an accident.
chapter 4
I was making coffee the next morning when Marcus stopped in. The ends of his hair were still damp from his shower, and when he pulled me close I caught the scent of his citrusy aftershave lotion. There were dark shadows like faint bruises under his eyes, and he’d missed a spot on his chin when he’d shaved.
“I can’t stay,” he said after he’d kissed me, “but I didn’t want to go all day without seeing you.”
“Did you have breakfast?” I asked.
He pulled a hand through his hair. “I’ll grab something later.”
“Three minutes,” I said, holding up three fingers. “I can scramble an egg and make an English muffin.” The whole wheat English muffin I’d been going to use for my own breakfast was already in the toaster. I reached over and pushed the lever down.
“You don’t have to do this,” Marcus objected.
I stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” I said. Then I went to the fridge and got the eggs and spinach.
“I can stop at Eric’s,” he said.
I stopped long enough to kiss him again. “Yes, you can.”
He made an exasperated sound that reminded me of Owen when he couldn’t find one of his catnip chickens. “You’re not listening to me.”
I rinsed a handful of spinach under the tap, then took a step back and kissed him for the fourth time before returning to the sink to shake the water off the spinach. “I’m listening. You just haven’t changed my mind.”
One corner of his mouth twitched with the promise of a smile. “Well, you do keep kissing me. Why would I stop trying?”
I turned, moved as though I was going to kiss him for the fifth time and then turned back around, picked up an egg and broke it into the bowl I’d gotten out to make my own breakfast. “Point taken,” I said.
He laughed and sat down. Hercules wandered in, murped a hello at Marcus and went over to his dish. I’d already put his breakfast out.
“Where’s your brother?” I asked. I hadn’t seen Owen since I’d gotten up. Hercules lifted his head long enough to shoot a look at the basement door.
Owen had his own little lair in the basement. Maggie said that made him sound like some kind of criminal mastermind. Given that he’d swiped most of the stuff he had down there, including a scarf that had been Maggie’s and some bits of paper that had come from R
ebecca’s recycling bin, I didn’t think the term was that far off.
I turned the heat on under my cast-iron frying pan and added some dill and pepper to the egg. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Marcus check his phone and make a face.
“How’s the case?”
“Which one?” he asked.
“Miranda Moore’s murder.”
“I didn’t say she was murdered.”
The toaster popped and I reached for the English muffin. “I know you didn’t,” I said. “But she was. I saw . . . blood in her hair.”
“That’s for the medical examiner’s office to decide. Right now all we’re doing is gathering evidence.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m sorry, but I do need to get going. I have to head over to the marina to see if I can get their security footage. I suspect they’re going to be difficult and make me get a warrant.”
I noticed he hadn’t actually said the words, that it wasn’t murder, but he was in what I thought of as police-officer mode and I knew he wasn’t going to tell me anything more.
I put the egg sandwich together, filled my stainless-steel travel mug with coffee and gave both to Marcus. In return I got a long, slow kiss that made me think I definitely needed to cook him breakfast more often.
A few minutes after Marcus left, the basement door swung open and Owen poked his furry head out. He looked around the kitchen, blinking his golden eyes.
“Good morning, sunshine,” I said.
He gave an offhand meow that I decided was a “good morning” in return and made his way over to his breakfast. Hercules had just finished eating and was about to wash his face. He paused, one paw in the air, and they exchanged one of their looks. I saw Owen’s ear twitch and smiled, thinking of Maggie joking that this seemingly silent way the boys had for communicating was actually them doing semaphore with their ears.
Owen glanced at the door to the porch and then his gaze came to me.
“Meow?” he said.
“Marcus didn’t really say anything,” I replied, stretching my legs out onto the chair across from me.
The cat might not have been asking what I learned from Marcus, but then again he might have been. It wouldn’t be the first time that Owen and Hercules had ended up involved in one of Marcus’s investigations. And my answer seemed to satisfy him. He dropped his head and began to suspiciously sniff his food.
* * *
I spent the morning working outside, weeding my flowerbeds, picking tomatoes and soliciting the cats’ opinion on whether or not we should have another raised bed in the backyard so we could expand the vegetable garden next year. Hercules seemed enthusiastic; Owen was indifferent.
After lunch I headed down to Riverarts. Maggie was dyeing fabric for a new project. “It smells like cinnamon in here,” I said, dropping my bag on a stool. I’d made blueberry muffins and brought four with me.
Maggie was peering into a pot that was simmering on the small two-burner stove that she’d added to her studio just a few weeks before. She lifted her head. There was a smudge of yellow-orange on her chin. “It’s probably the marigolds,” she said. “They kind of have a spicy smell when you boil them.”
I looked at the big speckled black pot. I had a similar one in my kitchen. “That’s not lunch, is it?” I asked. I raised an eyebrow at her à la Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. “I know I said I was trying to eat more fiber.”
She laughed and pushed a stray blond curl off her face with the heel of her hand. “No, it’s not lunch, but they do feed marigolds to chickens. They make their egg yolks a deeper yellow.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, smiling back at her.
The grin faded from her face. “I heard what happened last night. Are you okay?”
I nodded, exhaling slowly. “I’m okay. Have you talked to Ruby? Is she all right?”
“I saw her a little while ago. She was on her way to a sort of unofficial meeting over at the Stratton. Just to see what people want to do.” Maggie gave the contents of the pot a stir with a large wooden spoon.
“Do you think they’re going to cancel the rest of the festival?”
“I can see why they’d want to,” she said. “But I hope they don’t. People are going to be upset. Sad. If they keep the festival going, it gives everyone something to focus on, somewhere to use that energy.”
* * *
The organizers of the music festival met first thing Monday morning and decided to continue. The final concert would be dedicated to Miranda. Emme, however, didn’t feel she could sing under the circumstances, so she resigned from the event. Ruby stopped into the library to share the news.
“I couldn’t change her mind,” she said. She played with a knotted bracelet on her left wrist. “I don’t know, maybe it’s selfish of me wanting her to stay. I just thought . . . maybe we could sing something for Miranda at the final concert.”
I put a hand on her arm. “I don’t think it’s selfish. Emme just has to work through her grief in her own way. And maybe you and Ami could still do a song for Miranda. You could talk to Emme’s sister, Nora. Maybe she could tell you what songs Miranda liked.”
Ruby nodded. “I like that idea. I’ll see what Ami says. Thanks.” She was still fingering the knotted cord around her wrist. “Kathleen, do you remember if Miranda was wearing a gold bracelet when we . . . when we found her?”
I shook my head. “I don’t. Why do you ask?”
“Emme asked me about it. She said Miranda wore it all the time but it wasn’t with . . . her.”
“You could ask Marcus,” I said. “Maybe the police have it.”
“That’s a good idea.”
There was a moment of silence filled only by the sound of the printer in the computer area. Ruby cleared her throat. “Kathleen, I kind of hate to ask this, but I need a favor.”
“Sure,” I said. “What is it?”
She exhaled softly. “Gunnerson’s Funeral Home is taking care of the arrangements for . . . Miranda. I don’t know anything yet about a service. The thing is, the police still have the apartment sealed off. Could you, uh, ask Marcus if Nora and I could just go get an outfit for her? Nora says there’s a dress that Miranda was going to wear for the final concert.”
I nodded. “Of course. I’ll go up to my office right now and try him. I’ll text you and let you know what he says, but I’m sure he can work something out.”
Ruby smiled. “Thanks,” she said. She hugged me. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
I got Marcus’s voice mail when I called. I left a message explaining what Ruby needed. He called me back about an hour later. “Give me Ruby’s number. I can take them over right after supper.”
“Thanks,” I said. I recited Ruby’s cell number from memory.
“I have to work late tonight,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was hoping to see you.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “I figured you would. Call me later if you have time. I love you.”
“Love you, too,” he said.
* * *
I was sitting in one of my big wooden Adirondack chairs after supper that evening, watching Owen prowl around the yard like he was inspecting the mowing job Harry Taylor had done earlier in the day, when Ami Lester came across the grass. I knew she was staying with Rebecca and Everett, her grandfather. We’d waved across the backyard a couple of times since she’d arrived, but I hadn’t had a chance to talk to her.
“Hi,” I said, getting to my feet.
“Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Are you busy?”
I shook my head. “No. I was just sitting here thinking that I should see if there are any more tomatoes ready to be picked.” I gestured at the chair next to mine. “Please. Sit down.”
Ami took the other Adirondack chair. She was wearing cut-off jean shorts, a black-and-gold-striped tank top and Birkenstocks. Her long, strawberry-blond hair wa
s twisted into a loose knot. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and a frown creased her forehead.
“You heard that the festival is going on after all,” she said.
I nodded. “I did.”
“Ruby and Emme and I were supposed to be singing together, so we kind of spent a lot of our off time together. Miranda, too. I mean, she was bit older, but we liked a lot of the same music and it turned out we were both watching that show Restless Days. So we kind of got to be friends.” I saw the first hint of a smile on her face. “Mostly because of the show at first. Ruby and Emme wanted to practice one night, and I didn’t, because I wanted to see the new episode. They didn’t see what the big deal was and then Miranda said, ‘But Angelo’s coming back,’ and I said, ‘You mean you don’t think he’s dead?’ and we started talking about what was going to happen next and we were just friends after that.” She cleared her throat. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Okay,” I said, looking uncertainly at her.
“I need you to find the person who killed her.”
It was the last thing I’d expected her to say. Hercules had come from somewhere, and now he settled himself by my feet, leaning against my leg, his green eyes focused on Ami, seemingly following our conversation. “Ami, the police are already doing that,” I said.
She shook her head. “They have other cases, and people aren’t going to talk to them the way they’ll talk to you.”
I started to say something but she held up one hand. “It’s true, Kathleen. Rebbie says you have a way of getting people to tell you things, and that’s important because some of the people at the festival were street performers for years. They don’t like the police and they’re not going to talk to them.” “Rebbie” was what she called Rebecca and had since she was a little girl. They had always been close.
“I’m not a detective,” I said. “Investigating a murder takes more than just getting people to talk to you.”
“You figured out who killed Ruby’s teacher Agatha Shepherd and what happened to Roma’s father. It’s because of you that my great-grandmother’s name was cleared.”