Cat Trick

by Sofie Kelly

  As far as I could tell, Owen spent the morning napping in the sunshine on my desk chair. That’s where I found him after we’d closed down the library at one o’clock. I knew that didn’t mean he hadn’t nosed all over my office, just that he hadn’t left any obvious evidence. There was a good chance that sometime next week I’d find a clump of hair behind a book or in one of my desk drawers. I was glad that we closed early on Saturday. How much mischief would he have been able to get into if he’d spent the whole day alone in my office?

  Hercules was waiting in the porch when we got home. He looked from me to Owen, wondering, maybe, if we’d been off somewhere having fun while he was stuck at home.

  “If you’re wondering why I didn’t bring your brother back earlier, it’s because he decided it was a better idea to go digging around in a crime scene,” I said.

  Herc murped at Owen, who murped back. I wondered what they were talking about. Were they discussing the button or whatever it was Owen had uncovered? Or were they plotting how to get me to open a can of sardines?

  For lunch, I heated the last of the chicken soup I’d made earlier in the week with my Crock-Pot. Hercules trailed me, making little rumbles and meows from time to time. Every once in a while, he’d stop and look expectantly at me and I’d say, “Really?” or “I understand.”

  I spent the afternoon doing laundry and cleaning the house. Hercules and I had recently discovered Nickelback. It turned out Owen didn’t like Chad Kroeger any more than he liked Barry Manilow. We didn’t even get to the chorus of “Never Gonna Be Alone” before Owen streaked through the kitchen like Boris the dog was on his tail, vaulting the mop in his haste to get to the porch door and the backyard.

  It took me a ridiculously long time to get dressed and do my hair for supper with Marcus. I stood in front of the closet door with Owen on one side and Hercules on the other, pulling out things and putting them back on the rod. Finally, I settled on jeans and a lavender shirt my sister, Sara, had convinced me to buy when I was back in Boston. Neither cat yowled or hid under the bed, so I figured I looked okay.

  I double-checked to make sure there was fresh water in the boys’ dishes and a clean litter box downstairs. “I’m leaving,” I called as I pulled on my jacket. Hercules poked his head around the living room doorway. “Don’t wait up,” I told him, waggling my eyebrows. That got no reaction.

  After a moment, Owen’s gray tabby head appeared on the other side of the doorway. “Stay off the footstool,” I reminded him. I knew he wouldn’t.

  It was a beautiful evening, with just a bit of a chill in the air, a reminder that fall was here. The leaves were starting to turn and I could see splashes of gold and red in the trees around Marcus’s little house.

  I knocked on the back door, and after a moment he called, “Come in, Kathleen.”

  I stepped into the kitchen and immediately smelled chocolate. That was a good sign. I breathed in deeply. I could also catch the scent of oranges and something spicy as well. Marcus was at the counter, slicing a zucchini.

  “Hi.” He smiled at me over his shoulder. He was wearing a denim shirt and jeans. The hair at the nape of his neck was just a little damp.

  “Hi,” I said, suddenly feeling a little awkward. “It smells wonderful in here.”

  He set down the knife. “That’s probably Eric’s pudding cake.”

  I took off my jacket and hung it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs. “You made Eric’s chocolate pudding cake?” I asked.

  Marcus shook his head. “No. Eric made Eric’s chocolate pudding cake. I just brought it home and stuck it in the oven.” He reached for the knife again. “Are you hungry? I can start cooking in about five minutes.”

  I nodded. “Great. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “I have it all under control,” he said, turning back to the counter. “Have a seat.”

  I pulled out a chair and sat down while he made short work of the rest of the zucchini. “Marcus, could we talk about this morning and get that out of the way?” I asked. It wasn’t exactly the Sword of Damocles, but I didn’t want Owen’s sleuthing hanging over us all evening.

  “Sure,” he said, wiping his hands and turning around.

  “I’m sorry that Owen trespassed on your crime scene.”

  Marcus leaned back against the edge of the counter, braced his hands on either side of his body and smiled at me. “Kathleen, I do know you didn’t send Owen into the tent on purpose.”

  No, I hadn’t sent Owen across the street, but I was certain he’d headed for the tent deliberately. Just the same way that he’d prowled through a pile of recycling when Gregor Easton had been killed. And discovered a puzzle box and a piece of paper—hidden in a stack of cartons at River Arts—that turned out to be the key to the scam that artist Jaeger Merrill had been running. Both Owen and Hercules seemed to have a nose for sleuthing.

  “Maybe I could teach Owen to at least bring you a cup of coffee if he’s going to stick his whiskers in your case,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.

  “I think I’d rather have coffee with you,” Marcus said.

  His deep blue eyes met mine, and for a moment what I’d been going to say next fell right out of my head. If the timer on his stove hadn’t started buzzing just then, I think I would have just kept staring at him.

  “I have to check dessert,” Marcus said, gesturing in the direction of the oven with his eyes still glued to my face.

  Was it my imagination, or was he flustered, too?

  I waited while he looked at Eric’s pudding cake and adjusted the oven temperature before I said anything else. I liked watching him move, and it took me that long to get my train of thought back on the rails.

  “Do you think that button Owen found had anything to do with Mike Glazer’s killer?” I asked finally. “And yes, I know it doesn’t sound like I’m staying out of things.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he said, turning the heat on under the wok that was sitting on one of the stove’s front burners.

  “Would you believe I’m only asking because Owen wants to know?”

  “Given that Owen isn’t like any other cat I’ve ever been around . . .” He shook his head and laughed. Then his expression grew serious. “What makes you think someone killed Mike Glazer?”

  “The petechiae—those pinpoints of bleeding under his skin. I saw them when I checked to see if he was still alive. I think he was asphyxiated somehow.”

  “You’re really observant.”

  Maybe we really had changed our past pattern. I frowned at him. “No, you see, that wasn’t your line. You were supposed to say, ‘Stay out of my case, Kathleen.’” I made my voice low and gruff and my expression stern.

  “I do not look like that, and I don’t sound like that, either.” He frowned. I wasn’t sure if the expression was meant for me or the wok.

  I leaned back in the chair and laced my fingers over my middle. “Yes, you do,” I said.

  He dumped a plate of chicken into the wok. It sizzled as it hit the hot oil. I waited.

  Finally, he nodded. “We’re not going to be able to keep it quiet much longer. You’re right. It doesn’t look like Mike Glazer’s death was an accident. For now we’re just calling it suspicious.”

  “Does that mean the whole pitch to Legacy will be off again?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  I watched him cook for a couple of minutes. I knew how hard Liam and Maggie and a lot of other people in town had worked to make the food tasting and art show come together. If Legacy did decide to base a fall tour package around Mayville Heights, it could be very good for the local economy. But would they really want to bring their clients to a place where one of their partners had been murdered? I didn’t think so.

  “I don’t suppose you could figure out who killed Mike Glazer and prove that it was no one from Mayville Heights in, say, the next forty-eight hours?” I asked.

  He shot me an amused look. “Sorry,” he said,
pouring a small dish of sauce over the chicken and vegetables in the wok. “It doesn’t quite work that way. The investigation’s just getting started.”

  “Owen already found a clue for you,” I teased. “That button.”

  “I didn’t say that was a clue,” he countered. “I didn’t even say it was a button.”

  “But it was.” The conversation was beginning to feel a little like a volleyball match. Every time I spiked, Marcus managed a return.

  “Okay, let’s say it was a button your cat found—for the sake of argument. That doesn’t mean it came from something the killer was wearing. Half the town has been down on the Riverwalk in the past few days, including both of us.” He drained a pot of noodles with one smooth, fast motion and used a long pair of chopsticks to divide them between two blue china bowls before moving back to the stove.

  “I didn’t lose a button,” I said. “You’re welcome to check my jacket. And there’s a pretty good chance the one Owen found is either vintage or handmade. It definitely wasn’t mass-produced plastic.”

  Marcus’s eyebrows went up. “Owen told you that?”

  Orange and spices tickled my nose as he set one of the blue bowls in front of me. I picked up the set of black lacquer chopsticks at my place. “Didn’t you know? I speak cat.”

  He slid into the chair opposite me and reached for his own chopsticks. “You know, I half believe you,” he said. “I’ve always wondered why you seem to be able to communicate with Lucy. She has some kind of rapport with you that she doesn’t have with any of the other volunteers who feed the cats out there.”

  “Out there” was Wisteria Hill. There was a colony of feral cats that called the old carriage house on the estate home. Lucy, a little calico, was the undisputed leader of the group, and we did have some kind of connection I couldn’t explain. When I’d asked Roma what she thought the reason was, she’d just shrugged and said simply, “She likes you.”

  “That rapport might just be because she thinks I smell like sardines,” I said. “I do make a lot of stinky crackers for the boys.”

  “Somehow, I don’t think it’s the sardines,” Marcus said.

  I didn’t think it was the sardines, either. I couldn’t say it to Marcus or Roma, but I sometimes wondered if Lucy, like Herc and Owen, had some kind of “unique” ability that I just hadn’t seen yet and that was why she responded to me. I’d always felt that the boys had chosen me, not the other way around, and like Lucy, they were Wisteria Hill cats. Maybe I was some kind of magnet for cats with paranormal abilities.

  Okay, that definitely wasn’t the kind of thought I could share with Roma or Marcus. “This is good,” I said, gesturing to my dish.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Dang, he was cute when he smiled. Plus he could cook and fix rocking chairs and he had his own mini library in the spare bedroom. All of a sudden I couldn’t remember any of the reasons I’d always insisted to Maggie and Roma that Marcus and I were completely wrong for each other.

  This was either a very good thing or a very bad one.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” he said, his tone just a tad too casual. “Why do you think that button is either old or was handmade?”

  I shook my head and refocused my attention. “The hypothetical button?” I asked.

  A bit of color flushed his cheeks. “Okay, you got me,” he said. “It was a button Owen found, but that stays between us.”

  I nodded and scooped more noodles from my bowl. “I only got a quick look at it, but from what I saw, it didn’t look like a plastic button. I think it might have been metal, probably brass, which suggests something old or at least something not mass-produced. And the design—square center and sloped sides—is very old-style.”

  Marcus looked at me, clearly skeptical. “You got all that from a ‘quick look’?”

  I felt my own face warming now. “You said I was observant. I guess I am. It probably comes from living with two actors. My mother and father notice everything, every detail, every nuance about people and situations. That’s why they’ve both always been good at creating characters and it’s probably why my mother is developing a reputation as an excellent director.” I didn’t add that my parents’ keen powers of observation meant that at any given time they might be “living” their characters as well.

  I snared a half-moon of zucchini with my chopsticks. “And I know a little about a lot of things. That’s just part of being a librarian.”

  “Why did you decide to be a librarian and not an actor?” Marcus asked. “Or something else artistic? Your brother’s a musician, right?”

  I nodded. “Uh-huh, and Sara is a filmmaker and a makeup artist. She’s shooting and directing Ethan’s band’s first video.”

  “So why aren’t you on stage or behind a camera?”

  “Short answer: I have no talent.”

  He slowly shook his head. “I don’t think so. What’s the long answer?”

  The conversation had taken a sharp detour away from the Glazer case, but that was okay. There wasn’t anything else I wanted to know. At least, right now there wasn’t.

  “The long answer.” I frowned at the ceiling, trying to find the right words to explain. “Well, I didn’t exactly have the white-picket-fence childhood. My mother and father performed in theaters all up and down the East Coast when I was a kid and even for a while when Ethan and Sara were little. Big elaborate theaters with live orchestras and balcony boxes and little rinky-dink places that seated only fifty people above a bakery where everyone went for sticky buns during intermission.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  I laughed. “No, I’m not. And I’m not saying it was a terrible childhood, because it wasn’t, but it sure wasn’t conventional.”

  Marcus pushed his empty bowl away and leaned back in his chair. “So you wanted ‘conventional’?” he said.

  “I wanted normal. Or what I thought of as normal.”

  “Mayville Heights is your idea of normal?” he said, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes.

  “Compared to how I grew up? Oh, yeah.” I twisted the last three noodles in my dish around one chopstick and ate them. “Except for the fifteen months my parents were divorced, I always had both of them in the same house. But sometimes I was living with Lady Macbeth and Banquo, and sometimes it was Adelaide and Nathan Detroit. I wanted parents who went to the office and came home and made meat loaf and mashed potatoes for dinner, not a mother and father who staged Act One of Les Misérables in the dining room.” I gave a half shrug. “The acoustics were better than the living room.”

  “Of course,” he said as he got up and collected our dishes.

  “Everywhere we lived, I always managed to find a library and my favorite books. When I found out I could actually work in one, well, I never thought of doing anything else.” I tucked one leg up under me as Marcus took the pudding cake out of the oven. “And there probably was a little rebelliousness in the decision.”

  “Instead of running off to join the circus, you ran off to join the library.”

  “Pretty much.” I watched him spoon dessert into two more blue bowls. He set one in front of me, and I closed my eyes for a moment and inhaled the rich chocolate scent. When I opened them again, he was watching me and smiling.

  “So what about you?” I asked, picking up my spoon.

  “What do you mean?”

  I had to make a little moan of pleasure at the taste of the first mouthful before I could answer. “Why did you become a police officer?” I waved my spoon at him. “And I want to hear the long answer.”

  He pulled a hand back through his dark hair. “I don’t know if there is a long answer. A police officer is what I always wanted to be except for the summer I was five when I wanted to drive the ice cream truck.”

  “Who wouldn’t?” I mumbled around a mouthful of cake and sauce.

  “I have been told I have an overdeveloped sense of right and wrong,” he said. “Maybe that’s part of it.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t think I used the word ‘overdeveloped,’” I said.

  “It was implied,” he said dryly.

  We ate in silence for another minute or so. Then Marcus spoke again. “Probably my father had something to do with it as well.”

  “Was your father a police officer?”

  He shook his head. “No. But he was a very black-and-white kind of person.” He made a chopping motion in the air with one hand to emphasize the words. “And very focused on the facts. Not really a people person.”

  “You’re a people person,” I said, trying to decide if it would be rude to lick sauce off the back of my spoon.

  Marcus was already on his feet to get me a second helping, which I thought about turning down for maybe a millisecond. “You’re just saying that so you can have seconds,” he said.

  “No, I’m not,” I said, smiling a thank-you at him. “Yes, I sometimes think you get too caught up in the facts and forget about the feelings involved, but people like you. Maggie, Roma, Rebecca, Oren—they like you and they respect what you do.” I ate another bite of pudding. “And the cats like you—not just my two; look at Desmond over at Roma’s clinic. Even Lucy will come closer to you than she does to anyone else besides me.”

  He grinned. “Kathleen, cats are not people.”

  “I wouldn’t say that out loud around Owen or Hercules,” I warned. “They think they’re people.”

  His grin just got wider.

  He pointed in the direction of the living room then. “Don’t let me forget. I have something I want to show you.”

  “Do I get a hint?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  I couldn’t coax even the tiniest clue out of him. He sat there with just the ghost of a smile on his face, slowly—on purpose, I was certain—finishing his dessert and sipping his coffee.