Final Catcall: A Magical Cats Mystery

by Kelly, Sofie

  Hannah wasn’t nearly as rusty as she’d claimed. At one point I looked over to see her standing between Rebecca and Taylor, all three of them moving smoothly through Repulse Monkey.

  When we finished the form at the end of class, Maggie smiled at all of us. “Good work, everyone,” she said. “I’ll see you all on Thursday.”

  I walked over to her, wiping my forehead with the sleeve of my T-shirt. “What time are you leaving tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Late morning.” Maggie stretched her arms up over her head. “That way I’ll have time to get lunch and get to the grant meeting early.”

  I held up my right hand. “My fingers are crossed and Owen sends his love.”

  She smiled. “Thanks, Kath. Give the fur ball a kiss from me.”

  I hugged her. “Call me when you get back.”

  “I will,” she said.

  Ruby walked over to us and I went out to change my shoes. Rebecca was by the coat hooks pulling on a cream-colored sweater. She smiled when she caught sight of me. “Hello, Kathleen,” she said. She held out a canvas bag with blue handles.

  “What’s this?” I asked, peering inside.

  “I heard your mother is coming tomorrow. I made you some bread and a dozen blueberry muffins.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the bag from her.

  “And there’s a little treat for the boys in there as well.”

  I shook my head. “You’re as bad as Maggie. The two of you are spoiling Owen and Hercules. And you’re spoiling me, too.”

  Rebecca made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “A little indulgence once in a while isn’t going to hurt them—or you.” She gave me a slightly mischievous grin. “Everett says it’s not fair of me to pressure you to stay with us. So I won’t say a word about that. I’ll just say one of those loaves is cinnamon raisin bread.”

  I wrapped her in a hug. “You are the nicest person I know.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m turning into a nasty old woman trying to get this wedding planned.”

  “You couldn’t be nasty if you tried,” I said.

  She started buttoning her sweater. “I came close to it today. Everett suggested we have the wedding at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis. It’s a beautiful, beautiful church, but neither one of us is Catholic.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to wear a lacy dress with a train, or have a seven-course sit-down meal or, heaven forbid, hire a choreographer for our first dance. I just want to get married.”

  “So tell Everett that.”

  She adjusted the scarf at her neck. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings. All of the trappings are so important to him. He has Lita looking for someone to set off fireworks after the reception. Fireworks, for heaven’s sake.”

  I gave her hand a squeeze. “Rebecca, he loves you and he wants the whole world to know that. But you’re the most important thing to him. I think he’d understand that you just want something small and quiet if you explain that to him.”

  She sighed. “I wish we’d eloped weeks ago.”

  “You’ll work it out.” I gave her an encouraging smile.

  “As long as I don’t end up in twenty pounds of handmade Belgian lace.”

  I slipped my tote bag over my shoulder and we started down the stairs. “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “If it looks like that’s going to happen the boys and I will help you grab Everett and elope. I have a tarp in the basement, lots of gas in the truck and I’m very good at knots.”

  She grinned and gave my arm a squeeze. “Thank you, my dear. I just might take you up on that.”

  Hannah was standing outside on the sidewalk, looking at her cell phone. She looked troubled, but when she saw me she smiled. “Your form didn’t look that wobbly to me,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Neither did yours.” I looked around and didn’t see Marcus’s SUV anywhere nearby. Since they’d argued, I guessed that Hannah wasn’t driving it. “Could I drop you somewhere?” I asked. “I’m just parked a little bit up the hill.” I pointed in the general direction of the truck.

  She hesitated.

  “Really, I don’t mind.”

  She still had her phone in her hand. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Abigail,” she said. “I was hoping I could get a drive out to Marcus’s with her.” She looked at the phone. “Could I get a ride over to the theater? Maybe I can catch her.”

  “You don’t need to,” I said. “I’ll take you to Marcus’s.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to put you out of your way.”

  I smiled. “Hannah, that’s one of the great things about Mayville Heights—nowhere is out of the way. Let’s go.”

  I saw a little of the tension in her body ease. She smiled back at me. “Okay. Thank you.”

  We started up the sidewalk. “How are rehearsals going?” I asked.

  “Not that bad, under the circumstances, although I’m glad your mom’s going to be here tomorrow. Did you know Ben organized a little memorial for Hugh?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought it was nice, considering Ben didn’t really like him. Anyway, Chloe and I have been trying to help Ben as much as we can—the two of us have the most professional experience after him.” She stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Have you met Chloe?”

  I nodded. “I have. I like her.”

  “Everyone does. She’s a genuinely nice person, even after everything. And I think she could direct if that’s what she wanted to do. She has good instincts. Chloe and I supervised a run-through of all of the short plays that are going to be performed on the street. I just felt like I was stumbling in the dark, but she knew what she was doing.”

  We turned the corner and started up the hill. “That’s my truck,” I said, pointing a little way up the grade on the other side of the street. We looked both ways and crossed the street. “So you don’t want to direct someday?” I asked. “I thought that was something a lot of actors wanted to do.”

  She nodded. “It is, but no, I’d rather stick to acting and writing.”

  “Writing for the stage or a screenplay?” I asked as we reached the truck.

  “Stage.”

  I unlocked the passenger door and walked around to the driver’s side. “You should talk to my mom. She’s been a judge in several script-writing contests.” I grinned and raised my eyebrows at her over the hood of the truck. “She does have some ‘strong opinions’ on what sells and what doesn’t.”

  “I don’t mind,” Hannah said. “That’s a lot better than someone who’ll waffle because they don’t want to hurt my feelings.”

  That made me laugh. “Don’t worry,” I said, inserting the key in the ignition. “One thing my mother doesn’t do is waffle.”

  I checked for traffic and pulled out. I heard Hannah give a soft sigh. “Is everything all right?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the road so she wouldn’t feel she was being interrogated.

  For a moment she didn’t say anything. Then she spoke, her voice soft and low. “Have you talked to Marcus today?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “So you know what he did.”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  “I told him I was in Red Wing. My word wasn’t enough for him. He went into police officer mode and checked up on me.”

  I noticed she’d said she’d been in Red Wing, not that she’d been in Red Wing Friday night. I glanced over at her. Her face was flushed with annoyance.

  I put on my blinker and turned right, toward Marcus’s house. “Hannah, you know Marcus a lot better than I do, so you probably know this. Being a police officer is wired into his DNA.” I let out a breath. “It took me a long time to understand that and for what it’s worth, I don’t think he was in police officer mode. I think he was in big brother mode.”

  “I’m not six,” she said stubbornly and something in her tone made me think of her big brother.

  I glanced over briefly at her again. Her head was up, shoulders rigid behind her seat belt. Hannah and Marcus were
so much alike.

  “Doesn’t make any difference,” I said. “I have a younger brother and sister—twins. I was fifteen when they were born and if you asked either one of them I know they’d say I still treat them like they were six.”

  “So are you saying you’d do the same thing Marcus did?”

  I slowed down to let the car in front of me make a left turn. “I’m saying that if I thought Ethan or Sara was mixed up in something that might hurt them, I’d do just about anything.”

  She let the silence hang between us for a moment. “I didn’t kill Hugh Davis,” she said softly.

  “I believe you,” I said. “And so does Marcus.” I hesitated. “But you haven’t been completely honest, either. Just now you said you were in Red Wing.”

  I heard her shift in the seat. “Because I was.”

  “You didn’t say you were in Red Wing Friday night.”

  The silence lasted so long this time I thought she’d just stopped talking to me. “No, I didn’t,” she said finally.

  Marcus’s house was just up ahead. As I pulled into the driveway I could see him, cleaning out the flower bed underneath the living room window. He got to his feet, wiping his hands on his paint-spattered jeans.

  “Kathleen, could you stay for a minute?” Hannah asked.

  “All right,” I said.

  Marcus walked over to us and we both got out of the truck. “Hi, Kathleen,” he said with just a touch of a smile.

  I nodded. “Hi, Marcus.”

  He turned to Hannah. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Marcus, I’m not six anymore,” she said, folding her arms across her middle.

  “I know that,” he said, frowning slightly.

  “So don’t treat me like I am.” She held up a hand to stop him from speaking. “I’m not finished. Kathleen pointed out that it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not; you’re always going to get involved in my life. So since I can’t stop you, at least be straight with me from now on.”

  Marcus’s eyes flicked over to me for a second. “Okay,” he said, “but it goes both ways. I expect you to be straight with me.”

  “You want to know where I was Friday night.”

  “I do.” He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He swiped them on his pants again.

  Hannah glanced at me and I hoped the look I gave her seemed supportive.

  “I was getting drunk,” she said flatly.

  I don’t know what I’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it. On the other hand, I did believe her.

  Marcus closed his eyes for a moment. “You don’t drink,” he said when he opened them again.

  She swallowed and fiddled with the strap of her tote bag. “I do a lot of things you think I don’t do. Don’t worry. I didn’t drive.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m not the perfect person everyone always expects me to be, but I wouldn’t do that.”

  She turned to me then, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Thanks, Kathleen, for the drive and . . . everything.” She looked from me to Marcus and shook her head. “Sometimes you miss what’s right in front of you, big brother.” Then she disappeared around the side of the house.

  I waited until Hannah had disappeared around the side of the house, and then I turned to Marcus. “I believe her,” I said.

  “So do I,” he said. “Whatever you said to her, thank you.”

  He was standing so close to me I could smell his aftershave mixed with the loamy smell of earth and plants. “All I said was I would have done the same thing if I thought Sara or Ethan were connected to a murder.”

  He smiled. “Feels good for us to look at something the same way. Different, but good.”

  I wanted to reach up and smooth the hair back off his forehead. No, I was kidding myself. I wanted to grab the front of his sweatshirt, pull his face down to my level and kiss him just the way he’d kissed me the last time we’d stood in his driveway next to my truck. I didn’t, of course. I was good at imagining those kinds of scenarios, but I was just too practical to carry them out. Or maybe too chicken.

  “You’re right—it does,” I said. I put a hand on the side of the truck to remind myself I was in the real world and not some fantasy. “I should get going.”

  He nodded. “Thanks, Kathleen, for driving Hannah home and for talking to her and for . . . just . . . thanks.”

  I couldn’t seem to stop looking into those gorgeous blue eyes. “I’ll, uh, see you,” I said. I walked around the truck, got in and backed carefully down the driveway. He stayed where he was, watching me, and even when I was out of sight around the curve in the road, I could still feel his eyes on me.

  I was almost home before I started to weigh Hannah’s words. She’d said she’d gotten drunk. I believed her. The way she’d said the words, her tone, her body language—everything told me she was telling the truth, not acting. But the fact was that Maggie had seen Hannah not long after Andrew and I found Hugh Davis’s body. And Andrew had seen her drive by the marina.

  So she got drunk a little later that Friday night. What had happened earlier that made her want to?

  18

  There was no sign of either cat when I got home. I kicked off my shoes, hung up my sweater and set the bag Rebecca had given me on the counter. Inside I found the promised loaf of her cinnamon raisin bread, a round loaf of honey sunflower and a dozen blueberry muffins. There was also a tiny brown paper bag from the Grainery that I knew had to hold a catnip Fred the Funky Chicken for Owen. And there was a tiny cardboard box from the same store. By the process of elimination it had to be for Hercules. I wondered what was inside.

  I put a piece of bread in the toaster and a cup of milk in the microwave. Usually the sound of the toaster would make both cats show up, and after a moment Owen’s gray tabby head peered around the living room doorway.

  “What were you doing?” I asked, getting the peanut butter and the cocoa mix out of the cupboard.

  He gave an offhand meow, cat for “Not much.”

  Hercules’s black-and-white face looked around the opposite side of the door to the living room.

  “And how was your night?”

  He made a motion that kind of looked like a shrug.

  “I saw Rebecca at tai chi,” I said as the microwave beeped. I held up the two loaves of bread. “She brought me some bread.” I saw the two of them exchange glances at Rebecca’s name.

  Owen crossed the floor, sat down in front of me and meowed, cocking his head to one side. I knew what he was asking.

  “Yes, she sent something for you,” I said. “She spoils you.”

  He blinked a couple of times as though he couldn’t understand what I’d said.

  I opened the top of the little paper bag and set it on the floor. Owen sniffed cautiously and then a blissful expression spread across his face. He poked a paw inside the bag and batted out a neon yellow Fred the Funky Chicken. For a moment he just inhaled the scent of catnip, a lot like the way Maggie did when I took a pan of brownies out of the oven. Then he picked up the toy and retreated under the table with it.

  Hercules had watched the whole thing from the doorway. “Come over here,” I said. “Rebecca sent something for you, too.”

  His green eyes immediately darted to his brother, who was already sprawled on the floor, chewing happily on the chicken.

  “No, it’s not a catnip chicken,” I said.

  The toaster popped then. I held up a finger. “Give me a minute,” I said. I put peanut butter on the bread and cocoa mix in my milk and set everything on the table. Then I grabbed the little cardboard box.

  I crouched down next to Hercules. He looked at the box and then looked at me.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  I took off the lid. Inside was a tiny stuffed purple mouse. There was a tag attached to its tail. Shake for thirty seconds. Set on flat surface and press down on mouse.

  “Let’s try it,” I said. I picked up the mouse and shook it, counting to thirty slowly. Then I set it on the floo
r in front of the cat and pressed down on its purple back. When I took my hand away the mouse began to skitter around in a circle.

  Hercules watched it for a moment. Then his paw darted out and landed on top of the mouse. When he lifted it again the mouse ran in the other direction. He caught it a second time. This time when he took his paw away the little purple critter went in a figure eight and when the cat tried to stop it he missed.

  He leaned forward, watching intently. He didn’t miss twice. He looked up at me and I swear I could see satisfaction gleaming in his eyes. I had no idea how the mechanism in the little mouse worked, but it was obviously a hit with Hercules.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down, propping my feet on the seat of the chair opposite mine. While I ate I told the cats what had happened at Marcus’s place. Neither one of them seemed to be paying attention, but it helped me to sort things out if I said them out loud. Except it didn’t seem to be helping this time.

  After a few minutes the purple mouse ran out of steam and stopped with a little whizzing sound. Hercules poked it a couple of times and when he decided it wasn’t going to move, he took a few steps toward the counter, looked up and meowed.

  “What? Do you want a cracker?” I asked. He looked at me over his shoulder and then turned back to the counter.

  I got to my feet. The magazine page that Hercules had appropriated from the box Hugh Davis had hidden at the library was still lying there. I picked it up and Herc meowed again. Was he really trying to tell me it was connected to the director’s death?

  I smoothed out the wrinkles in the paper. It wouldn’t hurt to get my laptop and look for the original article. The magazine’s name and the date of publication were on the top of the page.

  I put my computer on the table and as soon as I sat back down Hercules jumped onto my lap. “So you’re helping?” I said.

  He put one paw on the edge of the keyboard. He was definitely helping. I glanced under the table. Owen was stretched out on his side, eyes half closed, chewing on Fred the Funky Chicken with a loopy look on his face.

  A quick search and I found the issue of the magazine online. The article was the grand-prize winner in a contest called Share the Change, Be the Change, sponsored by a soft-drink company. It was about a program for teen alcoholics, written by a young woman the program had helped.