Cat Trick

by Sofie Kelly

  Beside me, Roma stretched out one arm and then the other. “Your push hands are getting better,” she said. “We should practice sometime.”

  I nodded. “Please. I could use some extra practice.”

  She frowned. “Maybe this weekend. I’ll look at my schedule and let you know tomorrow night.” We started for the door. “Could I bring anything?”

  “Just yourself,” I said.

  “I have some samples of a new all-natural cat food,” Roma said, running a hand back through her dark brown hair. “I thought I’d bring them along for Hercules and Owen to try.”

  “I’m sure they’d love to be your taste testers.”

  “I’m not trying to bribe them into liking me.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well, maybe a little.”

  Since Roma wasn’t one of the cats’ favorite people, a visit to her vet clinic always involved treats, subterfuge on my part, a fair amount of yowling and a Kevlar glove. But when Roma had been dealing with the death of her birth father, it almost seemed as though Owen and Hercules had tried to be nice to her.

  “Don’t underestimate the power of a good bribe,” I said with a laugh. “Owen’s affections can be swayed—at least temporarily—although with Maggie in the room, he might just eat and ignore you.”

  “In other words, it’ll be just like my dating life before Eddie,” she said, with a glint in her brown eyes.

  “How is Eddie?” I asked as I stepped out of my tai chi shoes.

  The sound of his name made her face light up. “Wonderful,” she said. “I’m going to see him next weekend.” She searched my face. “How’s Marcus?”

  I put my shoes in my tote bag. “Annoying. Cute . . . Did I say annoying?”

  Roma laughed.

  “He made me dinner. He gave me a box of Batman comic books. Then he turns into Robocop.”

  Roma bent down to tie her red canvas sneakers. “Have you kissed him?” she asked.

  I hesitated just a second too long. She snapped upright like the top half of her body was attached to a spring. “You did!” she said, a grin spreading across her face.

  I felt my own cheeks burning. “No comment,” I said.

  She glanced at her watch. “You’re off the hook for now because I have somewhere I have to be, but I will be expecting details tomorrow night.” She grabbed her bag and headed down the stairs. “Lots of details,” she said over her shoulder.

  Halfway down, she stopped and turned to look at me. “That means you have twenty-four hours to do any additional research you might need. There will be questions about technique and style.”

  I leaned over the railing. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I hissed.

  “Let me see . . .” She scrunched up her face in a mock frown. “Yes, I think I am.” She was down the last few steps and out the door before I could say anything else.

  I pulled the elastic off my ponytail and combed my fingers through my hair while I made a mental change to the menu for supper Friday night. Brownies. I was definitely going to need brownies.

  The only person who was going to get more delight than Roma out of Marcus and me sharing a kiss was Maggie. She would be bouncing with happiness over this “proof” that Marcus and I were oh so right for each other, and I was going to require more than one brownie to get through all the insistence on details.

  14

  Marcus was waiting at Wisteria Hill when I pulled up in the morning, leaning against his SUV. Roma’s comment about doing more research into his kissing technique flashed through my mind.

  Stop that, I told myself sternly.

  The water jugs were on the hood of his car. He grabbed them and walked over to meet me. “Good morning.”

  I smiled. “Good morning.”

  We started for the carriage house. Marcus looked around. “Roma isn’t going to need all of us once she moves out here, you know,” he said. “We’ll have to stop meeting like this.” He smiled at me.

  “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done before she can move in,” I said, inclining my head in the direction of the old farmhouse. “I think it’s going to be a while.” I didn’t add that I’d miss feeding the cats with Marcus. Our friendship had developed in the old carriage house, watching Lucy and the others.

  We put out the cats’ food and water and then retreated, as usual, back by the side door to wait for them to come out to eat. I stood close to the wall. Marcus leaned his arm against the weathered gray boards over my head. He was so close, I could smell his aftershave and what I guessed was cinnamon-flavored gum.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get over to the library yesterday afternoon,” he whispered.

  “I told you everything there was to tell,” I said. “Oren waved me over. I looked in the tent, but I didn’t go in. I called you.”

  Lucy was coming from the cats’ sleeping area, and I studied her carefully, watching for any sign that she was injured or sick, but she looked fine. She glanced over at us, meowed—her way of saying “Good morning,” I guessed—and continued to the feeding station.

  “You didn’t see anyone besides Oren?”

  I shook my head. “No.” The other cats were coming out, and just like I had with Lucy, I studied each one in turn. They all seemed well.

  “Do you think the knife’s important?” I asked.

  He shifted behind me. “The problem is, there’s no way to know how long it was there.”

  I twisted around to look at him. “Yes, there is. It wasn’t there when Owen found that button from Alex Scott’s jacket.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I do know that for sure,” I said. “That knife was stuck in the ground less than a foot away from where that button was. I was right there. I would have seen it.”

  He pressed his lips together, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “There wasn’t that much light in the tent, Kathleen,” he said.

  I glanced over at the cats and then came back to Marcus. “There was enough. I was right at that spot. My hand was on the ground. If the knife had been there I would have seen it. It. Wasn’t. There.”

  He rubbed his chin. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he said quietly.

  I looked up at him. “Then don’t.” I crossed one arm over my chest. “Marcus, I would have seen a knife jammed into the dirt if it had been there—I probably would have put my hand on it—and Owen would have been trying to dig it up, just the way he did with the button. Not to mention, wouldn’t one of your investigators have found it? Can’t you at least try to keep an open mind?”

  He pushed off the wall and leaned sideways to check out the feeding station; then he turned his attention back to me. “I don’t have a problem keeping an open mind, but not so open that my brains run out my ears.” He shook his head. “You can’t swear with one hundred percent certainty that knife was not stuck in the ground when Owen was in the tent, not considering how dim the light was. Yes, we searched the tent and the grounds and I don’t think we missed anything, but we didn’t take that tent down—which we should have done—so I can’t be positive. And I’m sorry, but a cat is not exactly a credible corroborating witness. No lawyer is going to accept that.”

  There was a sudden bitter taste in my mouth. I chose my words carefully before I answered him. “I’m not asking some lawyer to accept that I know what I saw. I’m asking you to accept it,” I said.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling in frustration or something else, I wasn’t sure.

  I turned around to see that the cats were finished eating and were already headed back to their shelters, Lucy trailing all the others. She stopped and looked at me, tipping her head to one side. Had she caught the tone of our conversation, if not the actual words? I knew the little calico cat had exceptional hearing. After a moment, she followed the rest of the cats, and I immediately headed for the feeding station. I scooped up a couple of bits of dropped cat food and collected the dishes. Marcus refilled the water bowls,
silent beside me.

  Once we were outside the carriage house, he touched my shoulder. “Kathleen, look, I do believe that you think there was no knife stuck in the ground when Owen found that button, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I based an investigation on something I know a good lawyer could tear apart. And it’s not like that knife is what killed Mike Glazer; you know that.”

  “Yes, I do know that,” I said. “I think Mike suffocated in some way.” I held up my free hand. “And before you say you can’t tell me whether or not I’m right, I wasn’t asking.” I was holding on so tightly to the bag with the dishes and cat food, I could feel the strap cutting into my palm. “Marcus, I think someone jammed that knife down in the dirt on purpose, so it would be found, so it would direct attention away from the person who killed Mike and on to someone else.”

  He didn’t say anything, and his mouth was pulled into a thin, tight line.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s not any of my business.” It always came back to that. And maybe there wasn’t any way to come to a compromise. I turned and started down the path.

  Marcus caught up with me as I was setting the canvas carryall on the seat of the truck. Roma was just coming up the driveway. She waved and I raised a hand in hello.

  “I don’t want to argue with you over this,” he said. His hands were jammed in his pockets. “It’s stupid.”

  “Yes, it is,” I agreed, shifting my keys from one hand to the other. “So I’m not going to. I’m just going to go. I don’t want to say something that’ll just make this worse.”

  I climbed in, fastened my seat belt and started the truck. Marcus took a couple of steps backward. I bumped my way down the rutted driveway. I didn’t look back over my shoulder. I didn’t check the rearview mirror.

  Even though it was my morning off, I ended up going into the library early. Owen had disappeared into Rebecca’s backyard and Hercules was sitting on the bench under the maple tree, eyeing the butter-yellow leaves over his head, watching for the grackle. I wasn’t sure how to resolve things with Marcus other than to distance myself from his case, and I couldn’t do that. I’d given Harry my promise that I’d see what I could find out and I wasn’t going to go back on it.

  I pulled into my parking spot at the library and stretched across the bench seat to retrieve my purse, which had dropped down onto the passenger-floor mat. When I straightened up, I caught sight of Lita, Everett Henderson’s assistant, standing by her car, two rows over in the small lot. She was talking to Burtis Chapman. He said something and Lita smiled. Then she reached over and touched his cheek.

  I froze and then, because I was so shocked at seeing such an intimate gesture between those two, I did the next stupidest thing I could think off: I dove down onto the seat, out of sight. I lay there for a minute, face against the woolen blanket that covered the old vinyl upholstery, thinking this was a lot like the time Maggie had dragged me along to hijack Roma and her SUV because she had the idea the three of us could be Charlie’s Angels. It turned out we hadn’t been nearly as skilled at subterfuge as we’d thought.

  Slowly, I sat up again, hoping neither Lita nor Burtis had seen my swan dive onto the bench seat of the truck. There was no sign of Lita or her little car. I didn’t see Burtis either.

  I grabbed my purse and briefcase and locked the truck. Were Burtis and Lita a couple? I wondered. Maybe I’d misinterpreted that small gesture between them. The two of them, as my father liked to say, were as different as chalk and cheese.

  Inside, Mia was working the circulation desk, with Mary supervising. “Good morning,” Mary said. “You’re early.”

  I patted my briefcase. “I brought brownies.”

  “Did I ever tell you I like you best?” she said.

  I laughed. “I think you did the last time I brought brownies.”

  Mary smiled. “There’s coffee upstairs.” She reached under the counter. “And this parcel came for you.” She handed me a small padded envelope.

  I recognized my mother’s handwriting. “Thanks,” I said. I started for the stairs just as Burtis came around the end of a shelving unit.

  “Hello, Kathleen,” he said. “You’re just the person I need.”

  “How can I help?” I asked.

  He smiled, which made him seem a lot less intimidating. “I was looking for a DVD,” he said. “Computer says it’s here, but I can’t find it.”

  “People pull the cases out and then put them back in the wrong place,” I said. “Let me see if I can find it.” I started for the shelves where we kept the DVD collection. “What movie was it?” I asked.

  “Pale Rider,” Burtis said. “Clint Eastwood. You seen it?”

  I cleared my throat. “Twice. It’s a good movie.”

  I’d probably seen every movie Clint Eastwood had ever been in or directed at least once, thanks to Maggie. She was a big fan of the actor-slash-director, and we’d spent a lot of Friday nights the previous winter watching the DVDs with Owen and Hercules. I think Maggie had turned Hercules into a fan as well. He’d watch the TV screen intently, meowing and pawing the air at the most suspenseful moments, much to Maggie’s delight.

  The thing was, I happened to know that Maggie and Herc weren’t the only huge Eastwood fans in town.

  Lita was maybe the biggest fan. Maybe I hadn’t mistaken what I’d seen after all.

  The missing DVD case was at the end of a row, three shelves above where the titles beginning with the letter P were shelved. I pulled it out and handed it to Burtis. “Thank you,” he said. “You’d think people would put things back where they found ’em.”

  “Most people do,” I said.

  “My mother—rest her soul—always said, ‘There’s a place for everything and everything in its place.’” He smiled again. “She had a way of looking at you that didn’t make you want to argue.”

  It occurred to me that some people would say the same thing about Burtis.

  We started for the front of the library. “You decided if you’re going to stay with us yet, Kathleen?” he asked.

  “I’m still thinking about it,” I said.

  He looked around. “All this wouldn’t have happened without you. I know it was Everett Henderson’s money, but you’re the one who made sure the work was done. You turned the library back into an important part of this town. I hope we don’t lose you.”

  For a moment I was speechless. “Thank you, Burtis,” I finally managed to get out. “That means a lot.”

  “I’m just telling the truth,” he said, “but you’re welcome. And don’t forget that invitation to breakfast still stands. Lot better way to start your day than finding a dead man.”

  “You heard?” I said.

  “I did. I get around. I hear a lot of things, like maybe that Glazer boy’s death wasn’t an accident. I hate to think him dying is going to mess up the idea of bringing some tour business into town.” Nothing in his expression gave away what he was thinking.

  I gave him a long, steady look. “Burtis, you of all people ought to know that when you’re trying to get your hook into something, you need to use the right bait.”

  He laughed, a deep rumble that seemed to start way down in his steel-toed work boots and roll around his barrel chest. “I’ll remember that.” His face grew serious. “It’s still the truth, though. The longer the police have Glazer’s death ‘under investigation,’ the less likely it is that anyone is going to want to start bringing tourists here. And the town really could use that money coming in.”

  I pushed a strand of hair off my face. “I don’t know how Mike died,” I said. Not officially I didn’t.

  Burtis studied my face. “But I’m betting you have your suspicions.” He raised a hand before I could respond. “I’m not askin’ you to tell me. All I’m saying is you seem to have a knack for getting yourself mixed up in this kind of thing and maybe this time it would be better if you took a step back. Glazer pretty much pissed off everyone he had anything to do with from the moment he came back to town. H
e didn’t know when to shut up. So maybe somebody showed him. And I’m not saying that was right, but it happens.”

  He squeezed the brim of his Golden Gophers cap in his massive hand. “Right now Mayville Heights is your home—I hope it’ll keep on being that—and the sooner this Glazer business goes away, the better it’ll be for everybody.”

  I wasn’t sure if he was giving me a warning or just making conversation. I did know it wasn’t a good idea to be on Burtis Chapman’s bad side.

  He held up the movie. “Thanks for finding this. You have a nice day, Kathleen.” Then he turned and headed for the checkout desk.

  I watched him hand the DVD case over to Mia, and I thought about his hand wrapped around the brim of his cap. I couldn’t help wondering: It hadn’t squeezed the life out of Mike Glazer, had it?

  15

  I went upstairs to my office, put my things away and then sat in my desk chair, swinging around to look out the window over the water. I didn’t really think that Burtis had had anything to do with what had happened to Mike. He was an intimidating man, yes. But kill someone? I just didn’t see Burtis doing that. I could picture his sinewy hand tightening into a fist and making contact with Mike’s face, but I couldn’t see it slowly and deliberately blocking his nose and mouth so he couldn’t breathe.

  On the other hand, I didn’t really think Burtis had just been making friendly conversation with me, either. He was deeply loyal to the town and its people and I’d just been told to back off. That made it twice in one morning. In my mind I could see Marcus standing by his SUV, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. I hated how his cases always seemed to come between us.

  I wondered what Burtis would do if I didn’t stop asking questions about Mike Glazer’s death. I rocked back in the chair. I was going to find out because I wasn’t going to back off. Burtis wasn’t the only one with a loyal streak. I’d given Harry Taylor my word that I’d see what I could find out about how Mike Glazer had died, and I hadn’t exhausted all the possibilities yet.