Cat Trick (21 page)

“I’m just going to go then,” I said, gesturing in the general direction of the door.
And I did, before I started acting any more like a goofy teenager.

18

S
unday was warm and sunny, and even Hercules was happy to spend most of the day outside
while I worked in the yard. I sat on one of the big Adirondack chairs to eat lunch.
Hercules took the other, eyeing the big maple for any signs of Professor Moriarty,
while Owen roamed between our yard and Rebecca’s. By midafternoon I’d cleaned out
the last of the flower beds and made a pile of brush and weeds for Harry to take away
for composting.

Owen was sprawled over the railing of Rebecca’s gazebo, on his stomach, legs hanging
down on either side, dozing in the sunshine. Hercules was poking at the compost pile
with one paw. My back was stiff from bending over and I needed a break.

I stretched out in the swing, knees bent, one arm tucked under my head. “Hey, leave
that alone,” I called to Hercules.

He made his way across the grass and came to stand in front of the swing, green eyes
narrowed questioningly. I patted my midsection. “C’mon up,” I said.

He jumped onto my stomach, setting the swing swaying gently. I reached out to steady
him with my free hand. He leaned his head back and looked all around.

“The bird’s not here,” I said. “He’s hanging out somewhere with his little bird friends.
I think you can relax.”

He made a sound a lot like a sigh and lay down, stretching across my chest with his
chin on my breastbone.

“And please stay out of that pile of branches and dead plants. Harry’s coming to get
all that tomorrow to put in his compost pile.”

I stroked the cat’s black fur, warm from the afternoon sun. “I don’t have anything
to tell him,” I said. “Mike Glazer didn’t die from anything natural—like a heart attack—but
other than that, I don’t know what happened to him, or why it happened.”

I scratched the top of the cat’s head with one finger. “Got any ideas?” I asked.

He squinted at me. Either he was pondering my questions or the sun was in his eyes.

“Mike’s partners are out. They both have alibis. They were at that awards dinner in
Minneapolis.” I sighed. “I keep thinking that it has to matter that he was killed
here, in Mayville Heights.” I moved my arm a little under my head. “Okay,” I said.
“There’s Liam.”

Hercules made a face.

“Yes, I know Maggie likes him, but Liam and Mike did have that argument outside Eric’s
Place. Maybe whatever happened was an accident and Liam panicked.”

Hercules didn’t look convinced.

“Who else?” I said.

He seemed to think for a moment and then he licked his whiskers.

“Georgia?” I said. I shook my head. “I don’t think so.” She’d been awfully convincing
in her explanation about losing the little spatula. Then again, whoever killed Mike
had likely convinced
him
they weren’t a threat.

He flicked the tip of his tail and gave a snippy meow.

“Fine. Liam and Georgia are both on the list.”

Herc put his head back down again.

“What about Burtis?” I asked.

Hercules gave his head a vigorous shake. I wasn’t sure if that was a yes or a no.

“What reason could he have had for killing Mike?” The cat didn’t have an answer. “Does
Burtis strike you as the kind of person who would panic and run if something had happened
by accident?” I blew a strand of hair off my cheek. “Liam, Georgia and Burtis,” I
said. “That’s what we have. Or some mysterious person from out of town who followed
Mike here to kill him because . . . because . . .” I made a face. “I don’t have a
‘because.’”

I put my arm around Hercules and sat up. I set him on the swing beside me. He shook
himself and looked inquiringly at me. “I guess we might as well start with Liam. What
do we know about him?” I held up one finger. “He’s a bartender at Barry’s Hat.” I
stuck a second finger in the air. “He’s working on a degree in psychology.” I held
up a third finger. “He’s been the driving force behind this whole tour proposal idea.”

Herc cocked his head to one side.

I nodded. “Yeah. That might be important.”

I knew almost nothing about Liam Stone, I realized, other than he was good-looking
and liked to help women in trouble. He hadn’t borrowed books or anything else from
the library. People’s borrowing habits were a good way to get some insight into what
secret dreams they had and who they really were.

“Maggie said Liam likes to rescue damsels in distress,” I said to Hercules. Then I
remembered what she’d also said about Liam rescuing Wren Magnusson the night Mike
Glazer had been killed.

I folded one arm over my face and groaned into my shoulder. “Liam has an alibi,” I
said, letting my hand slide down over the back of my head. I nodded slowly. “I bet
Marcus knew that. That’s why he didn’t seem too concerned about that fight between
Liam and Mike.”

Hercules put both paws on my leg.

“That leaves us with Georgia, Burtis and some nameless, faceless person from Chicago . . .
or, or anywhere for that matter.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Do you know what
the problem is?”

He looked around. Searching for an answer to my question or doing a quick spot check
to make sure his friend the grackle wasn’t back?

“We don’t know anything about Mike other than what Rebecca and Harrison told us. And
the fact that everyone who’d dealt with him here in town thought he was a jerk.”

Rebecca had described Mike as being “full of life.” Harry Senior had said he was “young
and reckless.” And they’d both talked about how the death of his brother had changed
Mike.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to recall Harrison’s exact words:
If anyone had predicted that one of the Glazer boys was going to end up dead the way
he did, well, no one would have figured it to be Gavin.

I opened my eyes and looked down into Hercules’s green ones. “Everyone says that Mike
changed when his brother died. And Harrison told me no one would have expected Gavin
to die ‘the way he did.’ Maybe that’s where the answer to this whole thing is. Maybe
what we need to do next is to find out just exactly how Gavin Glazer did die.”

19

T
he problem was I couldn’t find any details about Gavin Glazer’s death online. His
car had missed a turn on Wild Rose Bluff and gone down over an embankment. The weather
was good, the road bare and dry. I scrolled through two weeks’ worth of newspapers
online for the period of time after the accident, looking for follow-up articles and
reading the Letters to the Editor. There was some speculation that a deer might have
darted in front of the car, and when Gavin had swerved to avoid it, he’d lost control
of the vehicle, but that’s all it was—speculation.

After supper I’d taken the computer outside to sit in one of the big chairs by the
back steps. Hercules was on the wide, flat arm of the other so he could look at the
computer screen. “There’s something off here,” I said to him. “The night of Gavin
Glazer’s accident it wasn’t snowing or raining. He was on a stretch of road he’d been
driving since he was sixteen.” I touched the screen with one finger. “See that?” I
said, pointing to the photo on the front page of the archived issue of the
Mayville Heights Chronicle
. “The embankment is on the left-hand side of the road and it’s an open field on the
right. If a deer ran out in front of him, where did it come from and why didn’t he
see it?”

I leaned against the back of the wooden chair. Hercules seemed to be reading the article
on the screen, so I left the page open. I knew I was reaching, but something felt
off about Gavin Glazer’s death. Maybe it had nothing whatsoever to do with his little
brother’s death last week, but I didn’t have anything better to go on.

“I think I’ll call Mary,” I said.

Hercules stopped reading—assuming he had been reading and not just admiring his reflection
in the screen. He jumped down and started for the house. There was an e-mail in my
in-box from Lise, I noticed. It was probably the information I’d asked her for about
Legacy Tours.

Hercules paused, looked back over his shoulder at me and meowed insistently. I could
read the e-mail later, I decided. I shut down the computer and followed him.

I wasn’t sure how to explain to Mary why I wanted to know what I wanted to know.

“You don’t think Mike’s death was an accident, do you, Kathleen?” she asked.

“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

J
ust 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
.