Cat Trick (17 page)

“I should have a drawing for you in a couple of days,” he said. “And some idea of
what it’s going to cost.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I’m sorry about this morning.” He pulled off his cap and raked his fingers back through
his sun-bleached hair.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I was here in time. Did Marcus keep you very long?”

Oren shook his head. “No. I got the feeling he doesn’t think that knife really means
anything.”

I brushed some dried grass off of my pants. “Why do you say that?”

He shrugged and fingered the brim of his cap. “He asked me twice how sure I was it
wasn’t there when we were setting up the tent.”

“It wasn’t,” I said.

His gaze narrowed. “You found . . . the body, didn’t you?”

I nodded. “I did. And something else that turned out not to be important. There wasn’t
any knife stuck in the ground there. I’m certain of it.”

“It was probably just kids or someone goofing around in there.”

“Probably,” I agreed.

Oren left with a promise that he’d get back to me in the next few days, and I went
inside again.

Hercules was sitting on one of the Adirondack chairs in the backyard when I came around
the side of the house after work. “What are you doing out here?” I said. He squinted
up at the big maple and meowed. I leaned over and scooped him into my arms. “Is Professor
Moriarty back?” I asked.

The grackle seemed to think Herc should sit somewhere other than the small wooden
bench under the maple tree and dive-bombed the cat to make its point. Herc had pretty
fast paws, and more than once he’d almost grabbed the bird. That hadn’t dissuaded
it at all.

I’d thought that maybe the grackle had a nest in the tree, and once the babies were
gone it would give up on trying to chase the cat, but so far that hadn’t happened.
Hercules made a point of sitting on the bench at least once a day, and the bird, for
its part, made at least one low-flying pass over the cat’s head whenever they were
both in the yard, with appropriate sound effects from both sides. Both the grackle
and the cat seemed to know how to hold a grudge.

One of these days one of them was going to win. I still wasn’t sure which one to put
my money on.

“How was the rest of your day?” I asked as I carried Hercules into the house. He muttered
and murped the whole way, so I guessed it had been busy. I set him on the kitchen
floor, hung up my sweater and put my briefcase on one of the chairs.

The basement door opened and Owen appeared. He had the end of my favorite purple scarf
in his mouth. I’d been looking for the thing for more than a week. He dragged the
scarf across the floor and dropped it at my feet, looking up at me with a self-satisfied
expression on his gray face.

I picked up the length of woven fabric. “Thank you,” I said. I reached down and patted
the top of his head. “I searched everywhere for this. It didn’t enter my mind to check
in the basement.” Owen ducked his head. “You don’t have any idea how this scarf ended
up down there, do you?”

His furry head dropped even lower over his paws, as though they were suddenly the
most fascinating appendages he’d ever seen.

“That’s what I thought,” I said.

I filled the boys in on Oren finding the knife inside the tent. Mostly I just wanted
to say everything out loud to see if it made any more sense than when I just rolled
what had happened around in my head.

“The knife wasn’t there when you found the button,” I told Owen. He was trying to
snag part of a Funky Chicken that was poking out from under the stove and lifted his
head only long enough to murp his agreement.

“Oren thinks it was probably just kids goofing around.” I picked up my fork and then
set it back down again. “You know, I can see the attraction of sneaking into the tent
for a look around, but what was the point of sticking that knife or whatever it is
in the ground? What kid carries something like that around?”

Hercules had been carefully washing his face. He gave one last pass behind his right
ear; then he walked over to the coat hooks, jumped in the air and with one swipe of
his paw pulled down the scarf that his brother had brought up from the basement. He
grabbed one end with his teeth and dragged it across the floor to me. He gave me what
I would have called a pointed look if he’d been a person and not a cat, and then he
went into the living room.

“Is this supposed to mean something?” I called after him. Since he was a cat and not
a person, I didn’t get an answer. “Does this mean something?” I said to Owen. He was
too busy eating to do more than just glance at me. In other words, “You figure it
out.”

I picked the scarf up from the floor. I knew Owen had swiped it for cat knows what
reason. I suspected he’d pretended to discover the scarf in the basement to divert
suspicion from himself. Cat or not, he was more than capable of doing that.

I stared at the woven tangle of purple fabric shot with silver in my hand. If Owen,
a cat, was capable of a little subterfuge and diversion, why not the person who had
killed Mike Glazer? It felt a little like something from an old Nancy Drew mystery,
but maybe that silver-handled knife was a plant designed to reroute the police’s interest
on to someone else. It was a little outlandish—okay, it was a lot outlandish—but it
didn’t mean I wasn’t on the right track.

“I get it,” I called. After a moment there was an answering meow from the next room.

Maggie insisted that she talked to Owen and Hercules like they were people only because
I did. I wondered what she’d say if she knew that not only did I talk to them as though
they were people, but sometimes I was pretty sure they were answering. I headed upstairs
to get ready for tai chi, taking the scarf with me.

I had enough time, so I walked down to class. Taylor King was coming along the sidewalk
as I turned the corner. “Hi, Taylor,” I said.

“Hi, Ms. Paulson.” Her purse slipped down off her shoulder as she reached for the
door.

“You can call me Kathleen,” I said.

She smiled. “Okay.”

I gestured at her bag. “I like your purse. It’s vintage, isn’t it?” The little copper
satin handbag had a gold clasp and fabric strap.

“It’s from the nineteen fifties,” Taylor said, running her fingers over the smooth
fabric. “I collect old purses. I like to think about the women who used to own them—what
they were like, what their lives were like.”

“The bags have a story,” I said.

She nodded. “Yeah, they do.”

“I like old things, too,” I said, smiling back at her. We started up the stairs. “How
do you like tai chi so far?” I asked.

“I like it.” She shrugged. “But I don’t see how I’ll ever learn all one hundred and
eight movements.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “I thought I was never going to get beyond Cloud Hands.”
I fluttered my hands in front of myself and she laughed. I laughed too. “But I did
and so will you. You’re a lot better than I was. And I’m not just saying that to be
a polite adult.”

“Are there any books about tai chi at the library?” Taylor asked as we got to the
top of the steps.

“Four or five,” I said, peeling off my hoodie and sitting down to change my shoes.
“Would you like me to leave a couple for you at the front desk?”

She nodded, pulling her hair back into a high ponytail. “Yes, please. Sometimes when
I get home I can’t remember one of the parts of a movement. It would help if I could
at least see a picture.”

“I’m going over to the library after class. I’ll see what we have.”

Taylor gave me a little-girl grin, lacing her fingers together. “Thank you. I work
for my dad on the weekend, but I’ll try to leave early on Saturday and come get them.”

“I could take the books home with me and you could stop by my house and pick them
up, if that would help,” I said, hanging my hooded sweatshirt on one of the hooks
and setting my shoes on the floor underneath.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Seriously,” I said, smiling as I straightened up.

“Well.” She hesitated. “If it’s not too much trouble. I’m trying to show my dad that
I’m responsible because I’m going to start driving soon, so I don’t really want to
ask to leave work early. I promise I’ll come get them on Sunday.”

“It’s no trouble.”

“Okay, then, thanks.” She hung her little bag on an empty hook and we went into the
studio. Ruby waved Taylor over, and Maggie walked over to me, carrying her before-class
mug of tea. “I heard that Oren found something in one of the tents this morning,”
she said.

I tried to keep my face neutral. “I heard the same thing.”

“Ruby says Marcus and his cohorts were there all morning.”

I couldn’t stop myself from smiling at her. “You’re fishing,” I said.

“Okay, I’m fishing,” she said. “I saw you cross the street to speak to Oren this morning.
What was going on?”

“He found something. He wasn’t sure if it was important or not, so I used my phone
to call Marcus because Oren doesn’t have one.”

Maggie sipped her tea and watched me over the top of her cup. “Was it important?”

I pulled a hand over my neck. “I saw Oren this afternoon and he didn’t think that
Marcus thought so.”

“Do you think so?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Maggie sighed. “I’ll be glad when this is all over—not just the investigation, but
everything: the food tasting, the art show, the whole pitch to Legacy. This entire
project has a bad energy to it.” She looked up at the clock. “Time to get started.”
She moved to the middle of the room, clapped her hands and called, “Circle, please.”

I slipped in place between Rebecca and Roma. They both smiled at me. Before I could
do anything more than smile back, Maggie was calling out instructions.

I worked hard the entire class. It was a good distraction from thinking about Mike
Glazer and what had happened to him.

“Good work, everyone,” Maggie said when we finished the form at the end of the class.
“Work on bending your knees and shifting your weight.”

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

M
arcus 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. He 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?