Cat Trick

by Sofie Kelly

  “Why don’t you wait until you’ve eaten to do that?” I said as I got the cats’ breakfast.

  He hesitated with a paw in midair and seemed to consider my words. Then he went back to washing the right side of his face. Apparently, having one’s portrait painted required a lot of grooming.

  Owen ate breakfast with even more care than he usually exhibited. Then the face-washing routine began all over again. Hercules watched his brother with what seemed to be amusement. The first problem came when it was time to leave. Owen refused to get in the cat carrier. He shook his furry gray head, marched over to the back door and sat down in front of it.

  “No,” I said emphatically. “You go in the bag or you don’t go.”

  He disappeared, his default play when he couldn’t get his own way.

  “Fine,” I said. I hung the carrier back on its hook, kicked off my shoes and sat down at the table again. I leaned forward, forearms on my knees, and smiled at Hercules, who still had that slightly amused expression on his black-and-white face.

  He looked from me to approximately where I figured Owen was and then back to me again. Probably wondering who was going to blink first.

  “So, what do you have planned for this morning?” I asked. “Sitting on the sunporch? A nap? Maybe some grackle stalking?”

  He meowed enthusiastically at my last suggestion.

  “I have to work on the staff schedule for next month.” I brushed a bit of lint off the bottom of my pants. “And decide what we’re going to do for Halloween programs. What do you think about a puppet show?”

  He bobbed his head up and down. It might have been a yes or it might have been that he was following a dust mite drifting near the floor.

  “Did you hear the phone ring last night?” I asked. “That was Roma. She invited me to have lunch out at Wisteria Hill next week.”

  He put a paw on my leg and looked over at the carrier bag. “I’m sure Roma wouldn’t mind you going out for a look around sometime,” I said.

  Owen winked into view then. He stalked over to where the bag was hanging, tail flicking like a whip, and sat down underneath it.

  I gave Hercules a scratch on the top of his nose. “Have a good morning,” I whispered.

  I got up, went over to where Owen was standing, his back to me, and set the cat tote on the floor. He got in without looking at me while I stepped into my shoes. I put the bag over my shoulder, grabbed my keys and briefcase and headed for the truck.

  I set the carrier on the passenger side and unzipped the top so Owen could at least poke his head out. He took riding shotgun very seriously. We were halfway down Mountain Road before one ear emerged out of the zippered opening. After a moment, the rest of the cat followed. He sat on the seat with the bag between us and stared out of the windshield for the rest of the ride.

  When we got to the River Arts Center, I pulled into Maggie’s parking spot, the way I had the last time. “Bag,” I said to Owen.

  He climbed inside with a twitch of his ears and a flick of his tail. I made sure the zipper was done up all the way before I got out of the truck.

  Ruby was waiting by the back door. “Good morning,” she said, holding it open for me.

  “Hi,” I said.

  She bent over and peeked at Owen through the front mesh panel of the carrier. “Hi, Owen,” she said.

  “Murp,” he said in return.

  Ruby laughed. “I love your cats,” she said. “They’re like little people in fur suits.”

  “You have that right,” I said, following her up the stairs. “Owen definitely thinks he’s a person and should have all the same rights and privileges.”

  Another meow came from the bag.

  “See?” I said.

  Ruby laughed again.

  Once we were in Ruby’s studio, it didn’t take long for the “photo shoot” to begin. Ruby had cleared her workspace, and her camera was ready. I opened the bag and lifted Owen out. He blinked, shook himself and took a couple of passes at his face with one paw.

  “You look fabulous,” Ruby told him, and he immediately sat up straighter and held his head up a little higher.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I muttered.

  Only the twitch of one ear told me that Owen had heard what I said, but since I was still on “ignore,” he didn’t even bother to so much as glance in my direction.

  I stood over by the windows, out of the way, while Ruby took photos, posing the cat with both instructions and hand signals. I didn’t think I had ever seen Owen be so compliant. When she was finished, she pulled the bag of organic fish crackers out of her tote bag and dumped a generous pile in front of Owen. He gave her a cat smile and started his sniff-and-eat routine. Ruby came over to me, scrolling through the pictures she’d just taken.

  “Did you get what you needed?” I asked.

  “I did. Thanks,” she said, holding out the camera so I could look at the images. “That cat is so photogenic.”

  Owen lifted his head for a moment to look over at me. I had no idea how he knew what “photogenic” meant, but I knew cat smug when I saw it.

  Ruby and I talked about her plans for the two paintings while Owen ate and did a far less meticulous washing of his face and paws than he had earlier.

  “Okay, Fuzz Face,” I said, setting the carrier on the table. “Time to go.”

  “Thank you, Owen,” Ruby said.

  He tilted his head to one side and meowed softly, and then he climbed into the bag.

  “And thank you, Kathleen,” Ruby said, giving me a one-armed hug. “I’ll let you know when both paintings are done, if you’d like to see them.”

  “I’d love to see them,” I said. There was a loud yowl from inside the bag. I patted the side. “Apparently, so would Owen.”

  I put the strap of the cat carrier over my shoulder and headed for the stairs, double-checking to make sure the zipper was closed before I started down them. At the bottom, I pushed the back door open with one hip, feeling in my pants pocket for my keys.

  They weren’t there. Where had I put them? I felt the pockets of my coat sweater. The keys to the truck were deep in the left pocket, the ring snagged on the cranberry-colored wool.

  “Crap on toast!” I muttered.

  I slipped the carrier off my shoulder and set it on the pavement so I could use both hands to get the keys free without making a hole in my favorite sweater. Which means I didn’t see a small gray paw figure out how to slide a zipper open from the inside.

  The first thing I did see as I worked the key ring free of my sweater pocket was two gray paws and a tabby head poke out of the top of the carrier.

  “No!” I said sharply. Like that ever did any good. Owen was out of the bag faster than Houdini from a straitjacket. I lunged for him, but being a cat, he could move faster. And did. Along the side of the building, straight for the tent across the street.

  Not again.

  “Owen! No!” I shouted. One ear twitched, but he kept going, like Hercules, pausing both times at the curb to look each way before darting across the street. I ran after him, skidding to a stop on the sidewalk to let an SUV and a half-ton truck go by before I could cross Main Street. That meant by the time I made it to the other side, Owen was already at the end flap to the tent.

  “Owen! Stop!” I yelled, knowing I was wasting my breath. He poked his head around the canvas and disappeared, both inside the tent and out of sight.

  I stopped outside the yellow crime scene tape that still roped off the tent. Should I duck under and go after Owen, or call Marcus? Without an officer standing guard, the area wasn’t exactly secured. It wasn’t a good enough excuse to ignore the yellow tape, though.

  “Owen, get your furry little cat behind out here,” I called.

  I waited. Nothing. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and then, feeling kind of silly, I stuck one arm under the crime scene tape and moved my hand through the air, just in case the cat was sitting there, invisible, watching me make a fool of myself.
r />   If he was, he wasn’t anywhere I could get my hands on him.

  I pulled out my phone and keyed in Marcus’s number, mentally crossing my fingers that I got him and not his voice mail. This wasn’t something I wanted to explain in a message.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” he said, answering after just a couple of rings.

  “Hi, Marcus,” I said, wondering, for a moment, how to start explaining what had happened. “I, uh, kind of have a problem.”

  His voice rumbled through the phone against my ear. “What is it? Did one of your cats find another dead body?”

  I pulled my free hand down over my neck and one shoulder, wishing that Owen would come out of the tent and I could just scoop him up and head home. He didn’t, of course.

  “No,” I said slowly. “But Owen’s . . . in the tent.”

  For a moment there was silence. “Which tent?” Marcus finally asked, his tone cautious.

  “The one that’s surrounded by crime scene tape,” I said, cringing as the words came out.

  I heard him sigh on the other end of the phone, and I could picture the tight line of his jaw.

  “Why? How?” He paused for a second. “Never mind. I’m on my way. Don’t move.” He stressed the last two words.

  “I won’t,” I promised, but he was already gone.

  I stood on the grass, hands in the pockets of my sweater, jingling the keys that had started this whole mess. I kept one eye on the flap of the tent just in case Owen decided to grace Riverwalk with his presence. I knew he’d come out when it suited him and not a moment before.

  Marcus pulled up about five minutes later. “I don’t suppose Owen decided to come out by himself,” he said as he came around the front of his SUV.

  “I haven’t seen even a whisker,” I said. At least that was true. If Owen wasn’t in the tent anymore, then he was likely sitting somewhere close, watching us, hiding in his own personal Cloak of Invisibility.

  Marcus started for the yellow tape. “Do I want to know how this happened?” I’d expected him to be a lot more, well, annoyed—mad—about what Owen had done. There was a time he would have been. Of course, there was a time I never would have imagined Marcus cooking dinner for me.

  “I think you do,” I said, “being someone who likes to stick to the facts.”

  He almost smiled. Then he ducked under the plastic tape and beckoned to me with one finger. “So tell me the facts.”

  “You want me to come with you?” I said.

  He nodded and I got a small smile as well. “I saw what happened when somebody other than you tried to pick up that cat. Remember?”

  I did. Owen and I had almost been killed when a couple of propane tanks exploded. I’d ended up in the back of an ambulance, suffering from hypothermia. Despite Marcus’s warning to everyone not to touch the cat, a police officer had tried to move him out of the paramedic’s way. The officer had ended up needing his own paramedic.

  Marcus held up the heavy canvas flap, and I followed him into the tent, pausing a couple of steps inside to let my eyes adjust to the dimmer light. Everything looked pretty much the same as the last time, except, of course, that the body and the white resin chair were gone. And there was a gray tabby cat, digging at the ground by the long side wall of the tent.

  “Owen,” I said sharply. “What are you doing?”

  The cat looked from me to Marcus. Then, with his golden eyes locked on the detective’s face, he scratched at a spot on the grass where about two inches of the tent wall made a lip on the ground and meowed loudly.

  I walked over and crouched down beside him so I could get a closer look at where he’d been digging. Something seemed to be stuck in the damp earth. “Marcus, you better look at this,” I said. “I think Owen found something.”

  Marcus came to stand beside me, leaning over to see where I was pointing.

  “I think it’s a button,” I said. It looked as though it had fallen on the grass and then been stepped on, pushing it down into the ground. It was metal, and at first glance, it looked to be vintage. Handmade, maybe.

  He bent down for a better look. He didn’t say anything, but I caught an almost imperceptible nod of his head. Then he straightened and felt for his phone.

  I reached for Owen. “Good job on the button or whatever it is,” I whispered. “Don’t think you’re not in trouble, though.” He rubbed the side of his face against my neck and shifted in my arms so he could watch Marcus.

  Once Marcus had finished his call, he looked at me. “You can take him outside,” he said, inclining his head toward the cat while his eyes were already drifting back to the tent wall.

  I pointed at the small patch of torn-up grass and earth. “Do you think that button belongs to the person who killed Mike Glazer?”

  That got me all of his attention. “I didn’t say anyone killed Mike Glazer,” he said. He hadn’t, but I knew him well enough to hear the tiniest edge in his voice, and I knew that just because he hadn’t said it didn’t mean I wasn’t right.

  “No, you didn’t,” I said. “Owen and I are just going to wait out there for you.” I’d said I was going to stay out of his case and I was, even though it seemed as though the cats were on a mission to drag me into it.

  I used my shoulder to nudge the tent flap out of the way, and then I ducked under the yellow tape and stood on the grass next to the sidewalk. Owen twisted in my arms.

  “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t,” I warned, but all he did was shift around until his paws were on my shoulder and he could watch the tent.

  Marcus came out in a minute or two. He stood next to me, feet apart, hands in his pockets. “Start from the beginning. Tell me what happened.”

  I did, starting from when I’d stepped out of the River Arts building. Marcus’s eyebrows rose when I explained how Owen had figured out how to slide the zipper pull from the inside of the bag. The cat, in turn, seemed to pull himself up a little straighter in my arms, as if he were proud of his ingenuity—which he probably was.

  “You can go, Kathleen,” Marcus said when I finished. “If I need to know anything else, I’ll call you. You’ll be at the library?”

  I glanced at my watch. There wasn’t time to take Owen home. “Yes,” I said.

  He reached out and touched my arm as I started for the curb. “Thanks for calling me. You could have just gone in and grabbed Owen.”

  I made a face and shook my head. “No, I couldn’t.”

  I got a smile for that. “I’ll see you tonight, if I don’t talk to you before then,” he said.

  A police van pulled in behind Marcus’s SUV.

  “Okay,” I said. I made sure I had a secure grip on Owen, nodded to the two officers who had gotten out of the van and crossed the street.

  The cat carrier was still sitting on the pavement by the back door of the studio building. I bent down and snagged the strap with one finger. Once we were next to the truck, I set it down again, got out my keys and unlocked the driver’s side. Then I put Owen on the seat. He walked across to the passenger side and sat, the picture of a well-behaved cat. I set the bag beside him and got in. “Why did you do that?” I asked

  He meowed and scraped a paw on the seat cover.

  “Yes, I know you might have found a clue,” I said. “You also trespassed on a crime scene.”

  Two wide eyes stared blankly at me. Either he didn’t understand what I’d just said to him, or he didn’t care.

  I was betting on the latter.

  8

  At the library, I took Owen straight up to my office. He climbed out of the bag onto my desk, shook himself and gave me a pointed look. I knew what he was looking for.

  “Ruby already gave you a treat,” I said, trying to keep my tone stern. “And after what you did, you should be on bread and water.”

  Defiantly, he pawed at the top of my desk. So he was going to try righteous indignation instead of cute and adorable.

  “Just because you might, might have found some kind of cl
ue doesn’t mean you weren’t wrong,” I said, lowering my voice because I didn’t want Mary or Susan to come in and hear me arguing with a cat.

  Owen stared at me. I glared back at him. “You drive me crazy sometimes,” I said after a couple of minutes of the eyeball-to-eyeball routine. I sat on the edge of the desk, and he came and put his front paws on my lap. I stroked the top of his head. “I’m serious,” I said. “What if someone had seen you disappear? How would I have explained that to Marcus?”

  Owen lifted a paw and swatted one of the buttons on my sweater.

  “That did look like it could have been a button you dug up,” I said. “Doesn’t mean it was dropped by whoever killed Mike Glazer.”

  Owen made a low murp. “I know,” I said, scratching behind his right ear. “Doesn’t mean it wasn’t, either.” I leaned over so my face was inches from Owen’s soft gray one. “You’re making it really hard to stay out of Marcus’s case, you know.”

  I gave Owen some water, a couple of sardine crackers and an emphatic warning not to leave my office. Then I locked the door for good measure. I was back downstairs just as Susan and Mary arrived. I let them in and followed them up to the staff room. “Oh, before I forget, Owen is in my office,” I said.

  Susan pushed her glasses up her nose. “Because?” she prompted.

  “Because he was over posing for Ruby. She’s going to paint him. It’s for the Cat People fund-raiser.”

  “I thought she was painting Hercules,” Mary said, pouring water into the coffeemaker.

  “She’s doing both of them.” I got the coffee out of the cupboard and handed it to her.

  “That’s really nice,” Susan said, shrugging off her jacket and pulling on a cropped black cardigan. She stopped with one arm half in a sleeve. “I have chicken salad, if he’s hungry. He probably wouldn’t like the arugula or the black olives, but the chicken isn’t too spicy.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Owen’s fine. Ruby had some organic fish crackers for him.” I didn’t bother telling her I’d just recently learned that Owen apparently loved black olives.

  Susan and I spent most of the morning unpacking two boxes of books that had been donated to the library—a mix of children’s picture books, graphic novels and reference books, including a huge atlas and a book of star charts—and entering them into our system. I called Abigail at home to talk about plans for a Halloween puppet show and installed a new math game on the two computers we kept reserved for kids.