by Sofie Kelly
He licked my nose.
I pushed the door closed with my hip and set the cat on the floor. Closing my eyes for a moment, I rubbed the space between my eyes. It felt like something in my head had twisted into a pretzel, trying to make sense out of what I’d seen. I blew out a breath and opened my eyes. Herc was watching me as though I was the one who’d done something bizarre. I dropped into my desk chair and he immediately jumped onto my lap.
“How did you do that?” I asked. “Is there a kitty version of ‘abracadabra’? Do you click your back paws together or wiggle your whiskers?” I was asking a cat how he walked through a solid door. Maybe I was losing my mind.
I stroked the top of Herc’s head. What if the police weren’t finished in the room? Could the cat have left any DNA or hair behind? I felt a knot clench in my stomach to match the one pressing behind my eyes. He was a cat. How could he not leave hair behind?
And Will Redfern had been using that space for storage for weeks. It was a messy, dusty space. Would the police find paw prints?
Or worse?
I scratched the side of Herc’s face so he’d turn toward me. “Please tell me you didn’t hack up anything in there?” I said.
He looked at me, almost . . . smugly, nudged my hand away with a push of his head, then bent over my hand and spat out a small green glass bead.
My mouth went dry. I stared at the tiny glass sphere. There were a few threads caught on it. Hercules had found that in the storage room. How had it ended up there? Before the damaged floor in the room had been repaired, the baseboards had been pulled off and the tile had been steam cleaned. It had been clean enough to eat off of. Literally. And I couldn’t picture any of the burly workmen wearing anything with tiny, green glass beads. Had Hercules found something the police missed?
“How did you get this?” I said. He jumped off my lap and stood in front of the window. He seemed to be studying the wall. After a moment he started scratching at the edge of the trim—where the old wood met the floor—with one paw.
“Hey! Stop that!” I said.
As usual, Hercules ignored me. He caught the end of something with his paw and bent his head over it.
“No!” I snapped, so loudly my voice echoed around the room and startled both of us. I leaned forward. “Give that to me,” I said. He moved his paw and a purple plastic paperclip skittered across the floor toward me.
I picked it up. Hercules looked from the twist of plastic to me to the baseboard trim. Then he sat, wrapped his tail around his feet, and looked at me again.
It was crazy, but it was like . . . he wanted me to do something. What?
I got up and knelt down in front of the window. Feeling along the edge of the baseboard I found a small gap, not much thicker than the blade of a butter knife, between the trim and the floor. No surprise in a hundred-year-old building. And because the building had shifted over the past century the floors had also moved a little. They slanted toward the window. Anything I dropped tended to slide or roll up against that wall.
I looked over my shoulder at the cat, who was patiently watching me. I was still holding the purple paperclip as well as the glass bead Hercules had found. I rolled the tiny bead under my thumb, along my fingers.
And then I got it.
I got to my feet, walking around the desk to stand with my back to the door. I shut my eyes, trying to see the meeting-room space before the renovations had started, before it had become the storage place for tools and supplies. The space below was almost identical to my office. Maybe that floor had the same slant toward the window. Maybe there was a gap between the baseboard and the floor in there, too.
I held the bead up to the light. I felt light-headed. “Could this bead have something to do with Gregor Easton’s murder?” I asked Hercules.
Okay, so now I had to deal with the idea that not only did my cats have magical abilities, but they were also trying to nudge me to solve a murder. I looked at Herc with narrowed eyes.
He continued to stare unblinkingly at me.
The mosaic tile floor on the main level of the library had been repaired and resealed early in the renovations, then covered for weeks with heavy brown paper—that had made me think of butcher’s paper—and a layer of cardboard. The paper was still down in the storage area to protect the floor.
Vincent Gallo’s crew had done meticulous work. They wouldn’t have left a bead, a bit of paper or even a dust bunny behind. The old man, who could have been anywhere from seventy to ninety, had crawled all over the floor on his hands and knees, glasses perched on the end of his nose, to check the work.
I shook my head. “Maybe it does,” I said. I crossed to the window again and looked down on the reading garden. “I should take this bead to the police or call Detective Gordon,” I said to Hercules. I dropped onto my swivel chair again. “Of course, I can’t do that, because how can I explain why it might be important without explaining how I have it.”
I slumped against the back of the chair. Hercules came to sit front of me. I patted my leg. “C’mon up,” I said.
He leaped into my lap. I stroked the top of his head and he began to purr. Slowly I rolled my head from one shoulder to the other, to try to loosen the knots in my neck. The cat continued to purr in my lap, warm and comforting.
Warm.
Solid.
He wasn’t some superhero from the X-Men comics who could teleport or manipulate DNA. He couldn’t shoot lightning bolts from his fingers. Hercules was a cat. A small, furry, black-and-white cat. That I’d seen walk through an inch-and-a-half-thick wooden door. That defied the laws of physics. It couldn’t have happened.
Except it had.
What could I do? I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t tell the truth—not that I was even sure what the truth was. But how could I lie? Was there some option in between the two? I was tired. If there was a third option, I couldn’t think of it right now.
“Let’s go home,” I said to Hercules.
I stood up and set him on the desk. He made disgruntled murp sounds but he climbed willingly into the bag.
I glanced out the window again. It was getting dark. I swung the cat bag over my shoulder, grabbed the rest of my things and left the office.
“We’ll figure this out when we get home,” I said as I locked the gate and the main doors. “Some chocolate for me, some tuna for you and we’ll work it out.”
“Work what out?” a voice said behind me.
Maggie was standing at the top of the steps. How could I have forgotten that she was meeting me so we could watch the Gotta Dance reunion special?
I turned, brushing my hair back behind one ear. “Umm . . . ah . . . I just meant everything that’s happened since I found Gregor Easton’s body.”
We walked down the stairs together and out along the path to the sidewalk.
“Are you all right?” Maggie asked.
I blew a wayward strand of hair off my cheek, remembering that I hadn’t had a chance to tell Maggie about the piece of paper the police had found on Easton’s body. For a while I’d almost forgotten about it. “I can’t believe I didn’t tell you before, but the police found a note in Easton’s pocket, supposedly from me, asking him to meet me here at the library.”
Maggie stopped so abruptly I almost banged into her. “How could he have a note from you? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.” The shoulder strap of the bag was digging into the side of my neck. I shifted it a little. “I didn’t write it. It’s not my handwriting. But whoever wrote it signed my name.”
She shook her head dismissively. “Of course you didn’t write it,” she said. “But somebody obviously wanted him to think you did.”
We started walking again. “Why?” I said.
“Because that somebody knew Easton wouldn’t show up for him . . . or her.”
“But they thought he’d show up for me?”
Maggie shot me a wry sideways glance. “Kath, you’re not exactly ugly, you know.”
“I’m not exactly Easton’s type, either. From what I’ve heard he liked women young enough to be his granddaughters.”
We crossed the street and started up Mountain Road, and I switched Hercules to my other shoulder.
“After what happened with Owen in the library Easton probably thought you were looking to make amends.”
I squirmed at the image. Then comprehension set in. I stopped walking and turned to face Maggie. “But that would mean whoever sent the note knew what had happened.”
She nodded. “So who knew?”
“You. Susan. Mary.” I held up my hand and ticked the names off on my fingers. “That’s it. Oh, and Eric—Susan’s husband—because I’d asked her to call him and have breakfast delivered to Easton as an apology.”
Maggie stretched one arm behind her head as we started up the hill again. “Anyone else?” she asked.
“Just the cats,” I said. “And I don’t think they told anyone, but I have no idea who Susan or Mary or Eric—”
“—or even Easton himself might have told,” Maggie finished. “Did you see the paper? Do you know what it said?”
“I saw it,” I said. I pulled the image of Detective Gordon holding up the plastic bag with the note inside into my head. “It was written on a piece of paper from one of the library notepads. Remember? The ones that say ‘Mabel’ instead of ‘Mayville.’ There were two boxes in the workroom. There’s a silhouette of an open book in the left corner and it says ‘Mabel Heights Free Public Library’ across the bottom.” I rubbed the back of my neck again. “The note itself said, ‘Meet me at the library at eleven thirty. Kathleen.’”
Maggie made a skeptical noise and touched my arm. “He sure had an overinflated idea of his appeal if he thought you were interested in a rendezvous among the stacks at eleven thirty at night.”
“The man didn’t lack confidence, Mags,” I said.
She smiled and her hand, still on my arm, was warm. “Tomorrow I’ll ask around and see what I can find out about Easton and what he’d been doing since he got here. No one’s going to believe you killed the man.”
Hercules meowed his agreement from my hip. Maggie held up both hands. “See? Even Furry Face knows that.” She checked her watch, then patted the canvas bag she was carrying. “It’s five minutes to showtime, and I have a bag of organic cheese puffs and another bottle of Ruby’s homemade wine.”
I opened the porch door and followed Maggie inside, tucking my keys in my pocket. My fingers touched the little sea-green glass bead. Okay, so I couldn’t take it to the police. I could do some digging of my own. Because I was definitely going to figure out what was going on.
Someone had used my name to get Gregor Easton to meet him or her. And maybe kill him.
Not someone passing through town. Not some stranger.
Someone here in Mayville Heights. Someone I knew.
10
Play Guitar
I woke up early, and when I couldn’t get back to sleep I cooked. By eight o’clock a batch of blueberry- poppy seed muffins was cooling on the counter next to a double recipe of Hercules and Owen’s favorite kitty treats. There was a cat glued to each of my legs as I made coffee and scrambled an egg.
I poured a cup of coffee and put it, my breakfast and a big handful of cat nibbles on a tray. Then I snagged the newspaper from the front door and carried everything out to the backyard, followed, of course, by the cats.
I settled on my favorite Adirondack chair and spread my napkin on the grass. Half the cat crackers went on one side; half on the other.
Hercules sniffed the food carefully even though he’d been dogging me since the cookie sheets had come out of the oven. He must have liked what his nose told him because he began to eat, eyes half closed in enjoyment. Owen, as usual, was moving his stash, two or three pieces at a time, onto the grass.
“That’s going to get soggy,” I told him.
He shot me an annoyed glare and continued to deposit his food in little piles on the lawn.
I read the paper as I ate. There were very few details about the investigation into Gregor Easton’s death, beyond a statement from Detective Gordon saying that the police were still investigating. The major story was what was going to happen to the music festival. The paper, via its editorial, took the position that without a well-known musician to act as music director, the festival should be canceled. The opinions in the letters to the editor section ran the gamut from continuing without a guest musician to bringing in the latest American Idol winner, to hiring Luciano Pavarotti, who was, unfortunately, dead.
Both cats finished eating. Owen set off across the lawn, probably heading for Rebecca’s gazebo and a nap. Herc walked around the yard, doing his daily survey of things. I watched him for a moment, wondering if last night could somehow have been just a stress-fueled hallucination. Logically, I knew cats couldn’t walk through solid doors or walls. Neither could dogs, monkeys, snakes, or people—although I’d seen some cockroaches come pretty close.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard rumors about the cats from Wisteria Hill, but there were no tales about paranormal abilities. Stories about the Wisteria cats ranged from innocuous (they all had six toes; mine didn’t) to bizarre (the cats were more than a hundred years old). I’d never heard anyone suggest the cats had the ability to disappear at will. Not that I’d been able to find out much about them or the crumbling house. Most people changed the subject when I brought it up. Maybe I’d be able to find out more when I went out there with Roma.
Herc had finished his check of the yard and worked his way back to me. He gave the napkin, still spread on the grass, a cursory sniff and then jumped up onto my lap. I scratched the top of his head and he started to purr. The reality was, I couldn’t ever say anything to anyone about what I’d seen him do. Because if I did and someone actually believed me, it was only going to end with my cats in a lab somewhere with wire mesh on the windows and electrodes stuck to their little shaved heads.
“I’d rather be the crazy cat lady,” I told Hercules.
He purred even louder. I took that to mean living with a crazy cat lady was okay by him. Suddenly he lifted his head. His ears moved and he looked toward the side of the house.
I leaned sideways in the chair, but I couldn’t see anyone. That didn’t mean no one was there. I set the cat on the grass and stood up just as Everett Henderson came around the side of the house. “How do you do that?” I whispered to Hercules.
Everett Henderson looked a lot like Sean Connery—balding, close-cropped white beard, intense dark eyes, and a lived-in face—enough that when he spoke I always expected to hear Connery’s Scottish accent. Everett was tall and lean, and when he walked into a room focus shifted automatically to him. If he said he was going to do something, it got done. I had no idea how he’d made his money, but, based on how much he was spending on the library, he seemed to have a lot of it.
“Hello, Kathleen,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you on your morning off.”
“You’re no bother,” I assured him. “I was just having coffee and reading the paper. Would you like a cup?”
“It’s not decaf, is it?”
I made a cross with one index finger over the other. “Bite your tongue,” I said.
His smile widened. “In that case, yes, I would,” he said.
I gestured toward the back door. “Come into the kitchen,” I said.
Everett followed me into the house. Both cats had disappeared for the moment. I poured Everett a cup of coffee and got a new cup for myself. We sat at the kitchen table.
“Would you like a muffin?” I asked. “They’re blueberry-poppy seed.”
He shook his head. “I’m allergic to poppy seeds.”
“I’ve heard of peanut and shellfish allergies, but never poppy seeds,” I said.
“It’s in the family.” Everett picked up his mug and took a drink. “Mmmm, you make good coffee.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“So, I heard
you found Gregor Easton’s body,” he said. Everett was not the kind of person to dance around things, I’d learned in the few months I’d known him.
“I did.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think you had,” he said. “I hope I haven’t offended you by asking.”
“You haven’t.” I smiled to show I meant it. “And since we’re being frank, I didn’t have an affair with Mr. Easton, either.”
Everett laughed as he put his cup on the table. “Kathleen, you hardly seem the type to be sneaking around, engaging in hanky-panky with a man old enough to be, well, me.”
“You’re not an old man, Everett,” I said.
“Yes, I am,” he said, brown eyes twinkling. “But I do appreciate your flattery.” Then his face turned serious. “Detective Gordon came to see me.”
I should have realized the detective would do that.
“I gave him your references,” he said. “And I told him I checked you out thoroughly and interviewed you myself before you were hired. And I told him I have complete faith in you.”
“I”—my voice stuck in my throat—“I . . . thank you.”
Everett drained his cup and set it on the table again. “Now, tell me how things are at the library.”
I stood up to get us both refills as Hercules came into the kitchen from the porch. For a second I wondered if I’d left the screen door open. Then I remembered doors weren’t exactly a barrier for Hercules. The cat stopped about halfway across the kitchen floor, his attention focused on our visitor.
Everett stared back at the cat. He looked stunned. “Where did that cat come from?” he managed to choke out. He didn’t even look at me—he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the little tuxedo cat who seemed equally interested in the man.
“He’s mine,” I said slowly. “That’s Hercules. Owen is out in the yard somewhere.” I swallowed a mouthful of coffee, almost burning my tongue. “I was out walking, not long after I first arrived here. I stumbled upon Wisteria Hill and I realize I was trespassing, but the garden at the back was so beautiful. That’s where I found Owen and Hercules. They . . . followed me home.” I was babbling.