Cat Trick

by Sofie Kelly

  “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “Maybe I’m just grasping at straws.”

  “I just can’t see how it all goes together.”

  “How what goes together?” I asked. Hercules was on my lap, green eyes focused on my face as though he were following the conversation.

  Mary sighed on the other end of the phone. “Kathleen, at the end of the day, this is all just gossip, but my mother always used to say, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

  She was silent for a moment and I waited, knowing she’d tell me in her own way. “Gavin was crazy about Wren’s mother, Celia. She was older than he was and she had two kids, but he didn’t care. The boy was smitten. Instead of going out with his friends on a Saturday night, he was calling bingo at the senior’s center with Celia—lovin’ it and her.” She sighed again very softly. “Not everyone thought it was a good match.”

  The hairs came up on the back of my neck. “Mike.”

  “They were Irish twins,” Mary said. “Less than a year between them. And as close as real twins before Gavin met Celia, even though they were so different. Night of the accident, Gavin had driven Mike home. He had a part-time job at the St. James. Parents weren’t there. The boys ate supper and then Gavin headed back into town to pick up Celia.”

  “Mike was the last person to see Gavin alive.”

  “Yes.” There was silence for a moment. “Kathleen, Gavin had been drinking.”

  “That wasn’t in the newspaper,” I said. I leaned my elbow on the arm of the chair.

  “He wasn’t over the legal limit,” she said. “I don’t know how his family kept it out of the paper, but they did. The only reason I knew was because back then I worked at the courthouse. I heard a lot of things that way. In fact, it’s how I really got to know Celia. She worked there, too.” She lowered her voice. “Celia didn’t drink, mostly because her father had drunk enough for two people. So Gavin didn’t drink anymore. The night of the accident, the boys had stopped for a pizza to take home for supper. A couple of people had heard Mike telling Gavin he was whipped, that a beer or two wasn’t going to turn him into a drunk.”

  “Mary, do you think that Mike kept at Gavin until he had a drink just to shut Mike up?”

  “They were both barely adults—they were babies really. Full of testosterone.” She sighed. “I can see how that could happen.”

  I thought about my brother, Ethan, and some of the stupid choices I’d seen him make because his friends were bugging him. Luckily, his dumbest was coloring in the patchy mustache he was trying to grow with a permanent Sharpie and discovering he was allergic to the marker ink.

  An idea was turning over in my head. “Mary, is it possible that Wren and her family suspected?”

  “I’ve often thought Celia did.” Mary took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “She didn’t sit with the Glazers at the funeral, and she didn’t speak to them. I know they sent presents for the kids that Christmas. I was there when the mailman brought the box. She handed it to me and asked me to drop it off at the fire station’s toy drive. I asked her why, and all she said was, there was nothing inside she wanted. It was like trying to get answers out of a stone wall.”

  “Would Celia have told Wren?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. There was silence for a minute. “No,” she repeated, and there was more certainty in her voice.

  “Did Celia keep a diary or anything like that?”

  “She did,” Mary said after a long moment. “She called it her journal. She had them going back to when she was a teenager. They were all in an old leather steamer trunk.”

  “Wren’s been cleaning out the house,” I said. “Maybe she found them, read them.”

  “Uh-uh,” Mary said at once. “The trunk isn’t there. I know that because I walked through the house with her when she came back last month. Celia must have destroyed the journals and gotten rid of the trunk when she got sick.” I heard her shift the phone from one hand to the other. “Even if you’re right and someone did kill Mike, it wasn’t Wren, Kathleen. She’s maybe half his size, for one thing. And she’s the only person who seems upset about his death. You heard how she talked about him. She was thrilled at the idea she’d get a chance to reconnect with him. I don’t see how Gavin’s death could have anything to do with Mike dying.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Like I said, I’m just grasping at straws.”

  “I wish you could figure out for certain what happened to Mike,” Mary said. “I think it might give Wren a little peace. She’s a sweet child. You know, she brought me some of her mother’s jewelry this afternoon. She said she was never going to wear it and she wanted me to have it.”

  “I like Wren,” I said. “She’s already had way too much grief in her life.”

  “She told me she met Hercules and Owen.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “Thanks for that.”

  “Anytime,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up and set the phone on the footstool. Hercules was still staring intently at me. I glanced up at the ceiling for a moment. “I don’t know,” I said.

  I looked at the cat again. “What do you think? It wasn’t the Scott brothers. It couldn’t have been Liam. It wasn’t Wren. So who killed Mike?”

  After a moment, he hung his furry black-and-white head.

  I reached over to stroke his fur. “I know,” I said softly. “I don’t know either.”

  20

  Just then there was a knock at the back door. Hercules leaned sideways and looked in the direction of the kitchen.

  “That’s probably Taylor,” I said. She’d called to say she’d be over after supper.

  It was Taylor. Her long red hair was in a loose braid over one shoulder, and she was wearing jeans and a lime green sweatshirt.

  “C’mon in,” I said. “The books are in my briefcase in the kitchen.”

  She smiled. “Thank you so much for bringing them home with you. Now I can practice before the next class.”

  “It was no problem,” I said. My bag was on the floor under the coat hooks. I reached down to get the books. Hercules was sitting in the doorway to the living room, watching us.

  “That’s Hercules, right?” she asked.

  “Yes, it is,” I said. The cat came about halfway into the room, sat down and studied Taylor.

  She put the strap of her purse over her shoulder and leaned forward, hands on her thighs, to smile at him. “Hi, Hercules,” she said.

  “Merow,” he answered, whiskers twitching.

  She looked back at me. “Hercules was the son of Zeus, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was,” I said. The fact that I’d been thinking mostly about actor Kevin Sorbo when I’d named Herc really wasn’t relevant.

  “Yeah, we did Greek myths last year in English,” she said. She straightened up, turned and took the books from me.

  “I like your purse,” I said. It was a brown leather bucket bag with a braided leather strap and four rows of what looked to be wooden buttons around the top edge.

  Taylor slid a hand over the caramel-colored leather. “It’s from the nineteen eighties, as far as I can tell,” she said. “I just got it today and I didn’t have time to do any research, but for ten dollars I figured it was okay.”

  “It’s in great shape,” I said. “Where did you find it?”

  “My dad has a building up on the highway where he rents storage space.”

  I nodded.

  “Someone’s been clearing out one of the units for the past couple of weeks, and she has some great stuff from back in the seventies and eighties.” She shrugged and the strap of her bag slipped down her shoulder a little. “The first time I asked her about maybe buying a couple of the bags she said no, because they were her mother’s, but then today she said if I still wanted the bags I could have them.” She frowned. “I kind of felt like maybe I was cheating her, you know, because all she wanted was ten dollars for this one and a little black evening clutch purse, but Wren said no, she didn’t want any of the
stuff anymore.”

  “Wren Magnusson?” I said.

  Taylor was smiling again at Hercules, who had moved a little closer to us. “Uh-huh,” she said. “The stuff all belonged to her mother. You wouldn’t believe some of the things that she’d kept—platform shoes, hot pants, elastic belts. There was a big old trunk and even a pair of roller skates. Wren just packed most of the stuff in big garbage bags and took it to Goodwill.” She turned to look at me again. “I should get going,” she said. “Thank you again for getting the books for me. I’ll see you at class on Tuesday.”

  I walked her out, and when I turned around, Hercules was behind me. I dropped onto the bench and pushed my bangs off my forehead. He jumped up and sat beside me. Uncertainty was gnawing at a point just under my breastbone.

  I looked at Herc. “You heard what Taylor said. Wren might as well have just given her those two purses. All she asked for was ten dollars. And she did give Mary some of her mother’s jewelry. Not to mention she took the rest of her mom’s stuff to Goodwill.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just nudged my hand with his head. I started absently stroking his fur. Maybe the fact that Wren was giving away things that had been important to her meant nothing. Maybe it meant that she wanted a clean slate so she could move on with her life. Or maybe . . . maybe it meant she didn’t want to move on . . . didn’t want to go on.

  I closed my eyes and went back over the conversation I’d had with Wren when she and Elizabeth were here. Her sadness over Mike Glazer’s death had been genuine. I was certain of that. I remembered her asking if I thought he’d suffered. And then I remembered what else she’d said: I hate thinking he just lay there alone for hours.

  I opened my eyes. Hercules was watching me. “Mike’s body was in a chair,” I said. “So why did Wren say she hated to think he’d lain there alone for hours?”

  I remembered feeling for a pulse against Mike’s skin, cold and waxy under my fingers. I remembered seeing the injury to the back of his head. “As though he’d fallen backward and hit his head,” I said aloud to Hercules. My stomach tightened, and I could feel a lump pressing in the middle of my chest. I swallowed a couple of times, but it didn’t move.

  “Wren was there,” I said slowly. The problem was, Wren had an alibi. “Except she was supposed to be out on the highway with a flat. Remember what Maggie said? Liam rescued Wren.”

  Hercules watched me, his green eyes fixed unmoving on my face. I thought about Wren’s expression, her body language and her words each time I’d seen her. I thought about her genuine grief over Mike’s death and how she’d been giving away her mother’s things. Each little piece fit with the next. The only explanation I could come up with was that Liam was covering for her. But why?

  I thought about it, pulling the question apart in my head. “I need to check on something,” I told Hercules. He followed me into the kitchen. All it took was a visit to a couple of social-networking sites and I had my answers.

  “She was there. She thinks she killed Mike.” I could feel the last cup of coffee I’d had, burning at the back of my throat. “Somehow, she found out that Mike had something to do with his brother’s death. Someone said something, or—” Taylor’s words echoed in my head: There was a big old trunk and even a pair of roller skates.

  “She found her mother’s journals,” I said to the cat. “She knew. She went to see Mike. Something happened and she thinks she killed him and . . . and she can’t live with that.”

  My cell phone was on the counter. I punched in Mary’s number. She’d know how to find Wren.

  The line was busy.

  I raked my fingers through my hair. Elizabeth would probably know where Wren was. I took a deep breath and called Harry Taylor. All I got was his voice mail.

  “Why isn’t anyone answering their phone?” I asked Hercules, sinking onto one of the kitchen chairs.

  The cat had been sitting patiently at my feet. Now he stood up on his back legs and put a paw on my cell.

  “What?” I said.

  He made a noise that sounded a lot like a sigh of frustration. Then I got it. I had Harry’s cell phone number.

  I found my address book in one of the inside pockets of my briefcase. I sat on the floor and tried Harry’s number. Hercules climbed onto my lap, gazing intently at the phone.

  “Harry, it’s Kathleen,” I said when he answered.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” he said, and there was an edge of caution in his voice. I’d never called his cell before. “Everything all right?”

  For a moment I thought about saying yes. I wasn’t certain Wren had seen Mike the night he died. I wasn’t sure she thought she was responsible for his death. The way the pieces all fit together, that’s how it looked to me, but maybe there was another way to look at them. The problem was I couldn’t find it.

  “I . . . I don’t know. Is Elizabeth with you?”

  “Sorry, no,” he said. “I’m not at the house. And, anyway, she’s not either. She went to pick up Wren Magnusson. They’re having supper at Eric’s. Wren has to go back to Minneapolis tomorrow. Her brother needs her there for something.”

  My stomach twisted itself into a knot. Wren’s brother wasn’t in Minneapolis. Mary had told me he was working in Alaska until the end of the month.

  “Can you meet me at Eric’s?” I asked.

  “I can,” he said. “I’m up on the bluff, so I’ll be a while. What’s going on?”

  I told him my suspicions about Wren. “I might be wrong.”

  “You don’t think you are.”

  “No, Harry, I don’t,” I said, shaking my head even though he couldn’t see me.

  “I don’t think you are, either,” he said. “Go. I’ll get there as fast as I can.”

  I called Maggie next, pulling on my shoes as the phone rang against my ear.

  “Hi, Kath. What’s up?” she said when she answered.

  “I was wondering if you know where Liam is,” I said. If I was going to stop what Wren had planned, it would help to have support for her. “Is he working or is he in town?”

  “He was working. I’m waiting for him now. He’s meeting Alex Scott over at the tents later for a walk-through, but we’re going to get some supper first.”

  “Mags, could you and Liam meet me at Eric’s?” I asked.

  “Something’s going on,” she said.

  I explained what I’d figured out, hoping that somehow in telling her I’d find a flaw in my logic. I didn’t.

  “Good goddess,” she said softly. “I’ll make sure Liam’s there.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Kath, if Wren didn’t kill Mike, who did?”

  I sighed. “That’s the problem,” I said. “I still don’t know.”

  I ended the call and stood there, staring at the phone. I couldn’t leave Marcus in the dark on this.

  All I got was his voice mail. I tried his house. Same thing. I left another message.

  Hercules hadn’t moved the entire time I’d been on the phone. “I have to go,” I told him.

  Wren thought she’d killed someone and she couldn’t live with that.

  I couldn’t do nothing.

  I couldn’t do nothing.

  21

  Elizabeth and Wren were sitting at one of the tables in the window at Eric’s Place. Elizabeth saw me coming up the sidewalk and waved. I stepped inside the restaurant and walked over to them.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Are you by yourself? Would you like to join us?”

  “Thank you. I would,” I said. I grabbed a chair from a nearby empty table. Claire came over with coffee. I added cream and sugar and folded my fingers around the cup.

  “Wren’s leaving in the morning,” Elizabeth said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I was. I was sorry that so many things hurt her and sorry that I was about to add to them.

  “There’re some things I have to do,” Wren said, tucking a strand of her fine blond hair behind her ear. “And it’s just too sad here right now.�
� She looked even thinner, somehow, than the last time I’d seen her, with dark smudges like bruises under her eyes.

  “And it must have been hard pretending you felt bad because Mike Glazer was dead when really you didn’t,” I said. “At least at first.”

  She swallowed, and a little color came into her pale face. “I do feel bad,” she said. She set her fork down and dropped her hands into her lap.

  Elizabeth leaned forward, a frown creasing her forehead. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  Maggie and Liam came in then. She nodded at me and caught Liam’s sleeve, and they walked over to us.

  Liam looked at Wren and frowned. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s all right,” Wren said in her soft voice.

  “No, it isn’t,” Elizabeth said. I could see Harrison in the way she held herself and the assurance in her voice. She turned to me. “I think you should go sit somewhere else, Kathleen.”

  I kept my eyes on Wren. “I know that you hated Mike. I know you wanted him dead,” I said. “And I know why. But you didn’t kill him. You just knocked him out. So . . . so I think you should stay here.” I looked back over my shoulder. Eric was at the counter. He raised his eyebrows at me. I gave my head a little shake and he nodded.

  Liam held up both hands. “Hold on,” he said. “Everyone knows Wren didn’t have anything to do with Glazer’s death. She didn’t knock him out. She wasn’t even in town that night. She had a flat tire out on the highway. I stopped to help her.” He shrugged. “Anyway, he died of a heart attack or something like it. So this doesn’t even matter.”

  “Mike Glazer didn’t die from a heart attack,” I said. I kept watching Wren. Her left hand was covering her right one in her lap. That bottom hand was tightly clenched in a fist.

  Elizabeth stood up and grabbed her purse from the back of her chair. “Let’s go, Wren,” she said. She glared at me. “You’re crazy.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Harry Taylor said behind me. I hadn’t even noticed him come in. He must have broken every speed limit driving down from Wild Rose Bluff.