Hooked on a Feline

by Sofie Kelly

  Lorraine went over my options again and I decided to have my records sent to my regular dentist for now. “I don’t think you’re going to have any problems with that tooth,” she said, “but if you do, any of the endodontists in Minneapolis are good.”

  I thanked her for her help and headed for the library. Mary was at the circulation desk. I hadn’t seen her in a couple of days.

  “You’re early,” she said.

  I held up the cooler bag. “I had a stop to make, so I thought I’d have lunch here. Maybe out in the gazebo.” I pulled out my phone and brought up the photos of her and Marcus. “Eddie took these,” I said. “Roma is going to send you copies.”

  “I look pretty good,” Mary said. “And that guy of yours is a real hottie.”

  I felt my cheeks getting red. “I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that,” I said.

  Mary laughed; then her expression became serious. “I heard the news about Leitha Anderson’s death. And I’ve already talked to Marcus.”

  “Was there really anyone who would have wanted Leitha dead? I know she was—”

  “Arrogant, rude, condescending?” Mary finished. “A lot of people might have wished she wasn’t around, but as far as actually killing her? I don’t think so. There’s a big difference between wishing someone were dead and actually making it happpen.” She picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. “Leitha just had a way of getting under people’s skin. The day she was here, the day she died, she was annoyed at me because I could show the Finnamores had very little to do with settling the town. And Lordy, she was constantly nitpicking with Mike when he was alive because she wanted him to settle down and make little Finnamore babies.”

  “Do you think it bothered him?” I asked.

  Mary gave a snort of laughter. “Not in the slightest. I remember her complaining that he didn’t think about how his choices in his personal life affected her. She was always disappointed because Jonas wasn’t a biological Finnamore—or as she put it, a ‘real’ Finnamore—like anyone cared. Before she died she was even butting in on where Lachlan was going to go to college and what he was going to study.”

  “It really mattered to her?”

  “You’d better believe it did,” she said, tapping the pen again for emphasis. “She wanted him to go into medicine or business, which is what the Finnamore men do. The Finnamore name and its legacy were the most important things to Leitha. From what I’ve heard, it was the same way with Leitha’s grandfather, so she got it honestly. The two disappointments in the family were Mike working on people’s teeth and Jonas becoming a college professor and PhD. Those were not the career paths she had chosen for them.”

  I shook my head. “It sounds exhausting.”

  “I think in some ways it was more exhausting for her.”

  “What happened to Lachlan’s parents,” I asked. “I know they were killed in an accident but I don’t know any of the details.”

  Mary shook her head. “That was before you got here. It was heartbreaking. They were on their way back from Minneapolis and hit a patch of black ice that spun them into the path of a furniture delivery truck. Colin was killed outright. The driver of the truck and Ainsley were badly injured. The truck driver had to have his left leg amputated below the knee, but he did recover. Ainsley spent months in a coma before she died. Lachlan was just eleven. Luckily, he had stayed with Jonas. And I have to give credit where credit is due, for all of Leitha’s abrasive ways, she rallied around the child just the way everyone else did.”

  It was good to hear the woman had had a heart after all. I hadn’t really seen that.

  I dropped my things in my office and had my lunch outside in the gazebo. Marcus called to say he was on his way to Minneapolis to talk to the doctor heading the cardiac study again.

  “I don’t know when I’ll get back,” he said.

  “I love you,” I said. “Drive safe.”

  * * *

  I wasn’t that hungry when I got home, so I toasted another bagel, cut a slice of cheddar and poured a glass of lemonade, promising myself I’d eat extra vegetables tomorrow.

  The house felt warm and stuffy. I took my food and the laptop and went to sit in the backyard. I was halfway through my bagel, looking at the concert photos again when Hercules came though the porch door. Literally. He walked across the grass, sat at my feet and meowed. I patted my lap. “You can come up.”

  He meowed again.

  “You’re perfectly capable of jumping,” I said. “It’s not that far.”

  He still didn’t move.

  “I guess you don’t want a bit of cheese, then.”

  He was on my lap almost before I got the words out, his black-and-white face looming in front of mine. I broke off a tiny bite of cheese and handed it to him. He murped a thank-you and ate it. Then he poked at my legs until he was settled in to look at the computer screen with me.

  I scrolled through the photos so the cat could see all of them and I told him about my visit to Mike’s office and about what I’d learned from Mary. He tipped his head to one side as though he were thinking about everything I’d said. Then he swiped a paw at the touch pad and a shot of Mike and Harry filled the screen. He turned to look at me as though he expected me to do or say something.

  I studied the photo but saw nothing that would help figure out who had killed Mike. “I know you’re not trying to suggest that Harry is the killer, so I don’t see what you want me to see,” I said.

  I moved on to one of the images of Roma and me, arms over each other’s shoulders. When I took a drink from my lemonade, Hercules managed to go back to the photo of Harry and Mike. I had a cat with computer skills that were better than those some people had.

  I narrowed my gaze at him. “Quit it!” I said.

  He gave a huff of impatience.

  I broke the last little piece of cheese in half and gave one piece to him. I ate the other one. “Sometimes I wish you could talk,” I said.

  He made an indignant meow.

  “Talk in a language I understand, I mean.” I looked at the image on the laptop and thought about how much fun Mike and Harry had been having that night and how magical it had been to be there.

  Hercules peered into my lemonade, wrinkled his nose and then began to wash his face, shooting looks at the computer and me from time to time. Whatever I was supposed to see, I didn’t. Or maybe the cat wasn’t trying to show me anything.

  “The guys worked so hard to make it a surprise,” I said. “And if anyone did guess, those people kept it to themselves.”

  “I’m pretty sure the old man figured it out, although he said he didn’t,” Harry had said when he’d told me about Mike being out at the house every Thursday night for weeks. “Monday through Wednesday he worked later at the office and Friday night he was checking out new music somewhere in the area. . . . Eventually, we worked things out so the others could join in on Zoom.”

  Johnny had told me how odd it felt not to be getting together online with the others anymore on Thursday nights.

  Thursday. Not Wednesday. Thursday.

  “That’s not what Caroline told me,” I said slowly.

  Hercules paused the face washing with one paw in midair. It almost seemed as though there was a look of anticipation on his face.

  “Mike was insistent that he had to leave on time on Wednesday and Thursday. I had to schedule anything that had the possibility of running late for earlier in the day.” That’s what Caroline said: Wednesday and Thursday.

  Hercules made a soft “mrr,” glanced at the screen and went back to washing his face with a murp. Had I stumbled on what he’d been trying to tell me?

  A moth fluttered by only a couple of inches from the cat’s face. He leaped into the air, lost his balance and landed awkwardly—albeit upright—on the lawn. He gave himself a shake and looked kind of embarrassed. The moth was f
ine.

  Was it possible that Mike Bishop was doing something on Wednesday nights that he didn’t want anyone to know about? I knew I needed to check with Harry and maybe the rest of the band to make sure he hadn’t been practicing on Wednesdays, too. Was I on to something? Or was my leap of logic as ungainly as Herc’s leap after that moth? Had Mike had a secret of his own?

  chapter 12

  I decided that I would call Harry once the library closed for the day, but when I pulled into the parking lot Saturday morning, his truck was already there and he was unloading the lawn mower.

  “I thought I’d get an early start,” he said. His mouth worked as though he were trying out what he wanted to say before he actually said the words. “Kathleen, I don’t mean to push but I just wondered if you’ve come up with anything yet.”

  I knew he meant about Mike’s killer.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I haven’t. Not yet, but I do have a question. Did you and Mike ever practice on Wednesday?”

  He shook his head. “As far as I know, he was at the office getting caught up with paperwork on Wednesday nights. That’s what he said.”

  “Could he have been getting together with someone else to rehearse?”

  “Not with Paul. He had something going on with his kids on Wednesdays. I can check with Ritchie and Johnny if that will help.”

  “I’ll talk to Johnny myself,” I said. “But if you could ask Ritchie, that would help.”

  “What does this have to do with who killed Mike?”

  I shrugged. “At this point I don’t know.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find out and I’ll talk to you later. I’ll be out this afternoon to do the mowing and clipping at your place and I’ll take a look at the problem with the downspout.”

  I thanked him and went inside.

  About half an hour later, as I was wrestling with a shelf that seemed to be permanently stuck at a thirty-degree angle, Maggie called to invite me to join her and Roma for a late lunch at Eric’s. I was already feeling frustrated and too warm. Lunch that I didn’t have to make sounded wonderful. “I’ll walk over right after we close,” I said.

  When the mail arrived on Friday, I had found the copy of the map I’d requested for Mike along with a note from the reference librarian in Grand Rapids. I called Jonas to let him know he could come and get the map along with the copies of the census. I’d also found a zippered folder of notes and papers that Mike had left behind. Everything was in my office sitting on my desk.

  I had expected to get Jonas’s voice mail but I got him instead.

  “I’m free at the moment,” he said. “Would it be all right if I came over now?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  Jonas walked in about half an hour later, just as I was pushing an empty book cart back to the front desk. He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt and something about the measured way he moved made me think of Lachlan. They didn’t really look like they were related. Lachlan had the Finnamore green eyes while Jonas’s eyes were dark. Jonas kept his wavy hair short, while Lachlan’s hair brushed his shoulders when it wasn’t pulled back in a ponytail. Like Mike, Lachlan was very animated when he spoke, but his Quinn DNA showed in the way he moved.

  “Everything is in my office,” I said. “C’mon up with me.”

  He followed me up the stairs. I unlocked my office door and picked up the folder and the file of papers from my desk. I handed everything to Jonas.

  He stared at the papers for a moment before he took them from me. “Is . . . is this everything?” he asked.

  “As far as I know. I think the last time Mike was here, he was in a bit of a rush. It was the day of the concert. That’s probably why that folder got left behind, but if I find anything else, I’ll set it aside and call you.”

  “I appreciate that,” he said. “Mike and Lachlan were close and I like to think all this information about his family may be important to Lachlan someday.”

  “I hope it will,” I said. “Mike shared a few of the stories with me. The Finnamores are a very colorful family.”

  He gave me a gentle smile. “That’s a very diplomatic way to put things, Kathleen.”

  “I’m serious. For example, it turns out there’s more than one musician in the family tree. An eighteenth-century bagpiper among others.”

  “I always said Mike had music in his blood. I guess he did. That night at the Last Bash he was so happy.”

  “Did you have any hint that the band was getting back together?” I asked.

  His gaze softened. “I didn’t. I was oblivious. There were a couple of times that Lachlan invited Mike for supper and he couldn’t come, but he just said he was working late and I didn’t think twice about it. That wasn’t unusual. Mike was either working, out somewhere listening to live music or lately working on the family tree.”

  “How’s Lachlan doing?”

  He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Losing Mike was horrible and now learning that Leitha’s death wasn’t an accident . . . it’s a lot for anyone to deal with. I’m not saying she wasn’t a difficult person, but we have so little family left that any loss is painful. I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but do you know if Detective Gordon has any suspects, or are you even allowed to answer that?”

  I wanted to give Jonas some kind of hope that the person or people who had devastated his family would be brought to justice, but I didn’t know what I could say that would do that. “At this point the police are still gathering information and asking questions. I know it’s probably not much comfort, but they need to be slow and meticulous so they don’t miss anything that might be important.”

  He nodded. “Leitha was a prickly person who said what she thought, whether or not it was thoughtful or kind or helpful. She made her share of enemies over the years, but she pretty much outlived them all. You saw her argument with Mary Lowe?”

  “I did.”

  “At the time she was annoyed at Mike over something. I don’t even remember what now. I was on her good side. In a few days Mike would have gotten back on the A-list and I would likely have been on the naughty list, so to speak, once again. It was just the way Leitha was in her personal life as well as in business. I don’t think she cared what people thought of her.”

  “She was a woman in the business world when it wasn’t that common,” I said, treading carefully because I didn’t want to offend Jonas. “She must have developed a thick skin.”

  “Like a rhinoceros hide.” He smiled to take the sting out of his words. “As a young woman, Leitha worked with her grandfather at Black Dog and over time she built up a small portfolio of properties that she was still very hands-on with right up until she died. In fact, she had a potential deal with Everett Henderson that had fallen apart just before her death—I don’t know any of the details—and I’m not trying to suggest that Everett had anything to do with her death.”

  He paused, almost as though he was weighing what he wanted to say next. “Kathleen, I hope I’m not being, well, rude, but I know you have some experience in this kind of thing. Do you think it’s possible that Leitha’s death and Mike’s death are somehow connected? I thought that Mike had walked in on someone in the middle of breaking in to his house.”

  I shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. The conversation made me uncomfortable. I understood that Jonas wanted answers but I wasn’t the person who could give them to him. “I think it’s way too soon to know at this point.”

  “I admit I’m still having trouble with the idea that Leitha’s death wasn’t an accident. I keep thinking that maybe she took the potassium chloride by accident or even by design, not realizing it could hurt her. She did seem to be getting a bit fatigued on occasion, but she was in her nineties. She was very private about her health along with everything else. It was her generation. Now I wis
h that I’d pushed.”

  I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “From what I knew of Leitha, I don’t think pushing would have worked with her.”

  Jonas nodded. “Her response to being pushed was to push back even harder.”

  “Give the police time, Jonas,” I said. “They’re good at what they do.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “Thank you for listening and for all of this.” He held up the papers.

  “If I find anything else, I’ll be in touch,” I said.

  Jonas left and I sat down at my desk and looked at the phone. I didn’t think for a moment that Everett had had anything to do with Leitha’s death, but I was curious about their failed deal. I decided to call Henderson Holdings and leave a message for Lita. To my surprise she answered the phone.

  “Hi. I didn’t expect to actually get you,” I said when she picked up.

  She laughed. “That begs the question: Then why did you call?”

  “I was going to leave a message.”

  “You can still do that if you want to,” she teased. “I just came in to clean up a few things from yesterday that had to be put aside because the power went out. I only picked up because I recognized the number and guessed it was you. What do you need?”

  “Information,” I said. There was no need to beat around the bush with Lita.

  “That I have. Whether or not it’s the information you’re looking for, I can’t say.”

  “Tell me about the deal between Everett and Leitha Anderson.”

  She didn’t ask why I wanted to know. “Leitha owned a property in Red Wing that Everett was interested in turning into condos or apartments.”

  “It’s something he’s done before.”