Curiosity Thrilled the Cat (28 page)

“I get it,” I said.

“And there was some suggestion that he’d pressured the young woman.”

“Is that why he left Oberlin?” Herc was purring.

“Indirectly. The young woman came from a wealthy family. Money seems to have made the entire thing and Easton go away.”

“Paid off or run off?” I asked.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Lise said, yawning loudly in my ear. “I have to go to bed. But there’s one more thing. The young woman, the one Easton took the pictures of? I have her number. Do you want it?”

“Yes,” I said, scrambling out of the chair. “Let me grab a pencil.” I wrote down the woman’s name, Phoebe Michaels, and her number, thanked Lise profusely, reminding her that I owed her, and said good-bye.

Hercules had been waiting patiently for me. I picked him up and went into the kitchen. Lise had pretty much confirmed Ruby’s assessment of Easton’s character.

I was curious about Violet, and did some fast calculations. She could have been at Oberlin at the same time as Easton. Why hadn’t she said anything? She had to have recognized Easton. Could she have killed him? What reason would she have? It made about as much sense as Oren being involved.

“So far my choices are Oren or Violet,” I said to Hercules. “I don’t like either one.”

There was a knock at the door. I set Hercules down and went to see who it was.

Abigail stood on my back stoop, holding a cardboard box. “Did I catch you at a bad time?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I was just getting a cup of coffee. Come in. Can I get you a cup?”

“Thanks, Kathleen, but I can’t stay. I just wanted to show you these books.” She followed me into the kitchen and set the box on the table. “I was sorting more things for the yard sale yesterday.” She opened the flaps of the box. “I found these and I didn’t want to leave them at the library so I brought them home.”

I picked up the top volume, a copy of
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
in excellent condition.

“That’s a first edition,” Abigail said.

I almost dropped the book. “Are you serious? Do you know what this could be worth?”

She nodded. “I do now. I spent some time online last night, researching prices.” She gestured to the box. “There’s several thousand dollars’ worth of books in just that box. I didn’t feel right about leaving them at the library. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s very okay,” I said. “Thank you. The board will have to have all the books valued, but this is going to be a big boost to the book-buying budget.”

“I’m so glad,” Abigail said.

“Where do you think they came from?” I picked up
Alice
again, then wondered if I should be handling the book.

“I suppose they could have been part of the library’s collection, but I’m guessing they were donated by someone who didn’t know what they had.”

I pointed to the side of the box where it looked like a chicken had been practicing hieroglyphics with a Sharpie. “Your secret code?” I asked.

Abigail smiled. “I didn’t want anyone to know what was in the box and I didn’t want to mix up the books with the others for the sale. It seems kind of silly now.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. An idea was beginning to tickle the back of my mind. “I have a meeting with Everett on Monday,” I said. “I’ll show him these and he can arrange to have them appraised and sold.”

“If I find anything else, I’ll let you know,” she promised.

I walked her to the back door. “Thanks,” I said. “I have a wish list of kid’s books I’ve been itching to order, and now it looks like I’ll be able to.”

Abigail smiled. “See you tomorrow,” she said.

Hercules, who had disappeared when Abigail knocked, came back to the kitchen. “You may be a genius,” I told him. “Your brother, too.”

He ducked his head. It may have been modesty or, more likely, he’d noticed a couple of stinky-cracker crumbs on the floor.

I pointed at him. “Don’t move.” The piece of paper Hercules had taken from Oren’s was on my dresser. So was the scrap Owen had swiped out of Rebecca’s recycling bin. I grabbed both of them.

Hercules was waiting by the table. I showed him the piece of paper he’d found last night. “You see this?” I asked. “I think it’s code. Only instead of being letters and words I think it’s music.” Hercules studied the paper as if he was trying to decide if he agreed with me.

“See this?” I held out the sheet music Owen had pilfered the other day. “Gregor Easton wrote that.” I pointed to the composer’s name in the top corner of the paper. “At least he’s supposed to have written it, but look at the first line of music, and then look at the first line of the other page. The pattern’s the same.”

Herc actually looked from one sheet of paper to the other. I sat down, laying both bits of paper on the table. My mind was throwing out ideas faster than I could sort them into sense.

“Lise said Easton was suspected of cheating. His music went from nothing to spectacular almost overnight.” I tapped my nails on the tabletop. “Oren didn’t finish university because of some kind of breakdown. What if he was at Oberlin, too? What if Easton’s music was really Oren’s?”

There was a sour taste in the back of my throat. If Easton had stolen Oren’s music I’d just come up with a motive for him to want the conductor dead. I got up and had a glass of water instead of more coffee. Phoebe Michaels’s phone number was still sitting on the counter. She’d been there at Oberlin with Easton—actually Williams—and Violet. Maybe she could give me some answers.

I looked at the clock. It wasn’t too early to call anymore. I picked up the number. “What do I say to her?” I asked Hercules. He was busy washing his face and had no suggestions.

Then I thought of my dad. “When all else fails, Katie, just tell the truth,” he liked to say. Before I could talk myself out of it I went into the living room, picked up the receiver and punched in the number.

Phoebe Michaels answered on the fourth ring.

“Dr. Michaels, my name is Kathleen Paulson,” I said. “I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, but I’m hoping you’ll talk to me about Gregor Easton. You knew him as Douglas Williams.”

“You’re Dr. Tremayne’s friend,” she said.

Thank you, Lise,
I thought. “Yes, I am. You know that Mr. Easton is dead?”

“Yes,” Dr. Michaels said. “Did you kill him? That doesn’t mean I won’t talk to you. I’d just like to know.”

“No, I didn’t kill him,” I said. “In fact, the police haven’t said how he died yet.”

“But you don’t think he died of natural causes.” Her voice was low and husky.

I sat down on the footstool. “I don’t. I’m the librarian here in Mayville Heights, Minnesota. Mr. Easton was in my library the night he died, and I’m the one who found his body at the Stratton Theater the next morning.”

“Ah, so you’re a suspect,” she said.

“Yes, I guess I am. And it doesn’t help that I’ve only been here a few months.”

“So how can I help you, Ms. Paulson?”

“First, please call me Kathleen,” I said.

“All right, Kathleen—if you’ll call me Phoebe. I’m only Dr. Michaels to my students and pretentious colleagues.”

I smiled, liking her more the more she talked. “You were in the music program at Oberlin Conservatory with Gregor Easton, when he was known as Douglas Williams.”

“I was.”

“What was he like?”

“Handsome, charming, amoral, manipulative and not very talented.”

“There were rumors he was cheating somehow when it came to his compositions.”

“Oh, I think that was more than a rumor. I think it was the truth.”

“Why?” I asked, stretching both my legs out in front of me.

“He had no ability, no talent as a composer. Then suddenly he got incredibly good. He claimed he’d just been suffering from performance anxiety.”

“You didn’t believe him?”

I heard a snort of derisive laughter.

“No, I didn’t,” she said emphatically. “Doug—Easton—was confident to the point of arrogance. The music he started handing in was complex, sensitive and inspired. All the things he wasn’t. I don’t know where it came from, but I’ve never believed he wrote it.”

“Easton left after a year,” I said, trying to work up to asking her about the pictures. I didn’t need to.

“Kathleen, I’m sure Dr. Tremayne told you about the pictures.”

“She did. I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

She laughed. “Oh, that ship sailed a long time ago.” Her voice grew serious again. “Yes, he took photographs of me. Nothing that would be a big deal now.”

“But not then.”

“No,” she said. “Then it seemed like the end of the world. I was eighteen. I’d been sheltered by my parents from everything. He was older. He seemed so sophisticated, so worldly, compared to the boys I knew. They seemed like, well, boys. I was an easy mark.”

“Did he pressure you to pose for the pictures?”

“‘You would if you loved me,’” she said. “How many women have fallen for that line? He promised the pictures would be art. They were just shots of me in my underwear, wrapped in some gauzy black fabric that had probably been a window curtain.”

“But no nudity?”

“No. Just bare shoulders or a curve of cleavage. But it was how things seemed that was the problem, not how they really were.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” I said, changing my position on the footstool.

“He did my makeup—red lips, black eyeliner, false eyelashes. I didn’t exactly look like some inexperienced young woman from a good family.”

“What happened after?”

“He dropped me as soon as he had the pictures. I cried. I begged. He laughed. I was terrified he’d show them to everyone I knew.”

I tried to imagine how humiliated she must have felt. “I’m so sorry that happened to you, Phoebe,” I said. “It must have been horrible.”

“At the time it was. But I was very lucky. I had a mother I could talk to and a father with money. I went home for ten days. When I went back Easton was gone.”

“Your father paid him off.”

Her voice turned thoughtful. “You know, I don’t know for certain. I just assumed he did. We never spoke about it. I thought at the time that my father had gotten the photographs from Easton and destroyed them.”

“He didn’t?”

“No. One day the photos and negatives just showed up in my mailbox in the proverbial plain brown envelope.”

“And you don’t have any idea who sent them?”

“I don’t think I was the first young woman Easton took photographs of. Or the last. I always felt it was one of the women from our Tuesday seminar class.”

“Why?”

“Those were the people Easton spent all his time with.”

“Was there a young woman named Violet in that group?” I asked.

“No.”

“You’re certain?”

“I am. I still have a photo of all of us. Ironically, it was Easton who took it. There was no Violet in the class.” She listed off the names from memory.

So either I was wrong about when Violet had been at Oberlin or she hadn’t known Easton. I felt relieved, but it was a long time ago and I wanted to be sure.

“Phoebe, do you think you could find that photograph?”

“I think so,” she said. “But it’ll take some time. I’m a bit of a pack rat.”

“That’s all right,” I said.

“Give me your e-mail address. If I find the picture I’ll scan it and send it to you.”

“One last question,” I said. “Oren Kenyon. Was he in the seminar class?”
Please say no,
I thought, crossing my fingers.

“Oren Kenyon? Would he have been maybe sixteen or seventeen?”

“Yes.”

“He was. But I think he was auditing the class, not taking it for credit.”

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Thank you so much for talking to me,” I said. “I won’t keep you any longer.”

“You’re welcome, Kathleen,” she said. “When this is finally settled, when you finally figure out what happened, please call me and let me know how it ends.”

“I’ll do that,” I promised. We said good-bye and hung up.

I went back to the kitchen, where the papers were still on the table. It always came back to Oren, no matter which way I turned. The more evidence that piled up against Oren, the more resistant I got to the idea that he’d had something to do with Gregor Easton’s death.

“I have to talk to him,” I said to the empty kitchen. I shut off the coffeemaker. Again. I went upstairs, brushed my hair and put on some lipstick.

I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Was I crazy? Was going to talk to Oren a mistake? But I needed to find out if he was involved in Gregor Easton’s death in some way.

Was this like one of those old melodramatic, womenin-jeopardy movies? Was I just like the innocent young heroine who, when she hears a noise in the cellar late at night, with a violent serial killer on the loose, tosses her hair, licks her lips and goes down into the basement instead of getting the heck out of there? My hair was too short to toss and I didn’t want to lick off the lipstick I’d just applied. Oren was not the bad guy in some old Hollywood B movie.

I got my keys. Both cats were sitting on the bench in the porch. I stopped to pet them. “I have to go see Oren,” I told them. “I’ll be back soon.” I locked the door behind me. It would at least keep Owen from roaming around.

The clouds overhead were thinning, being blown away to wisps of nothing over the lake. It was another beautiful day. I realized I was beginning to think of Mayville as home.

I could see Oren’s truck in the driveway as I approached his house. Moving closer, I caught sight of him on the verandah. He was painting something. It looked like a wooden trough; then I realized it was a window box. Oren looked up and waved his paintbrush in greeting.

I took a deep breath, wiped my sweaty palms on the bottom of my T-shirt and walked down the driveway toward him.