Curiosity Thrilled the Cat (33 page)

So much for being the new
Charlie’s Angels
. “I thought Ingrid resigned,” I said.
Just keep him talking,
I told myself.
Keep him talking until Everett shows up.

Will clenched his teeth. “That was a mistake. You need to just go back where you came from, because you don’t belong here, anyway. Then Everett will have to ask Ingrid to step in and everything will be just fine.” His voice was getting louder.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize Ingrid wanted her job back.”

“She will when she sees how much everyone needs her.” He kept flexing and squeezing his left hand.

“I don’t think Ingrid would want you to do this,” I said, deliberately keeping my voice low and steady. I couldn’t get around him, I realized. Could I beat him to the kitchen? I didn’t think so. The best I could do was keep him talking.

“You don’t know Ingrid, so there’s no way you can know what she’d want.”

I held up a placating hand. “You’re right. But I saw the two of you together and she seemed crazy about you.”
You, on the other hand,
I thought,
just seem crazy
.

The muscles along his jaw tightened. “Stop trying to screw with me, Kathleen. You’re stalling. You think if you keep on talking someone will show up.”

Will was more on the ball than I’d thought. “Not happening.” He jerked his head toward Rebecca’s. “The old gal isn’t home, and your artist friend is out having dinner.”

“I’m not stalling, Will,” I said. “I don’t know what you want me to do.”

He leaned toward me, so suddenly I automatically took a step backward. “I want you to go away,” he spat. “You, Everett, that conductor guy—you all keep interfering in what I’m doing.”

“Conductor? You mean Gregor Easton?” I stammered.

“He almost ruined everything,” Will said. “I had to do a little work on that wall outlet in the computer room and I couldn’t exactly do that when the library was open. Now, could I?”

My legs were shaking. All those accidents. They hadn’t been accidents. Maggie and Roma were right.

“You see what happens when you end up somewhere you aren’t supposed to be, Kathleen?” He clapped his hands together right in front of my face and I almost came out of my skin. “You end up dead. That’s what happened to that pretentious old fart.”

I pressed a hand to my mouth. Will killed Easton?
Will?
Because he’d showed up at the library at the wrong time? It didn’t make any sense.

Will held up his hand and waved his fingers the way a child might. “Bye-bye, Kathleen. Time to go now.”

I took a shaky breath and felt behind me for the doorframe. Nothing. I wasn’t close enough. “I can’t just go. Everett will ask questions. You know how he is.”

Will swiped a hand over his face and looked around as though the answers were somehow on the walls of the porch.

I took a step back and this time my hand made contact with the side of the doorframe. Maybe I could distract him. Maybe I could bolt, run through the house and out the front door.

“You’re gonna write a letter,” Will said suddenly. He took several steps toward me. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin was pasty and he needed a shave. He looked like hell. I would have felt sorry for him if he weren’t scaring the crap out of me. He was too close now for me to cut and run and make it. “Let’s go,” he said. “Letter. Find something to write with.”

“I have a pen and some paper inside.” Will grabbed my arm and half dragged, half marched me into the kitchen. I pulled a small pad I used for making grocery lists and a pen out of one of the drawers. He shoved me down into a chair.

“Write,” he ordered.

My mouth was too dry to swallow. “What do you want me to write?” I asked.

Will rubbed his face again. He was breathing heavily. “Put down that you’re going back to Boston. You don’t . . . You don’t like Minnesota.” His strong fingers dug into my injured shoulder.

I ground my teeth together against the stab of pain.

“Make it sound real,” Will said.

I wrote slowly and neatly, hoping to buy a bit more time.

Will’s fingers continued to bite into my skin. He leaned over my shoulder. “Speed it up!” he hissed.

He’d been drinking. I could smell it. I finished the letter and placed my hands flat on the table.

Will read the words and seemed satisfied with what was on the page. I pressed the ends of my fingers against the painted wooden tabletop to keep my hands from shaking.

“That’ll do,” he said. He grabbed my upper arm. “Now you’re gonna pack.”

“All right,” I said. “But first I have to call Roma and ask her to take my cats.”

He yanked me around to face him. The pain sliced down my back and my stomach lurched. He jabbed a finger in my face. “No phone!” he snapped.

I made myself take a couple of steadying breaths. “No one will believe I just left the cats here.”

“They’re not going to be here,” he said. “I heard you say they came from out at the old house. I’ll just dump them back out there.”

“You can’t do that,” I said. “Owen and Hercules can’t take care of themselves in the wild.”

“They’re cats. They can hunt.” He shrugged. “And if they can’t, well, life is hard.”

I felt a knot of anger burning in my stomach. It wasn’t unlike the feeling of taking a drink of Ruby’s homemade wine. Will wasn’t going to hurt my cats. He wasn’t going to get near them.

“So’s this, Will,” I shouted, kicking him as hard as I could in the knee. Pain shot through my foot and up my shinbone. I lunged for his face, but he was faster. He grabbed my wrist, twisting the skin.

“You’re gonna regret that,” he yelled. His skin was mottled now. His eyes were two angry slits. He hauled my arm up behind my back.

My bruised shoulder screamed and my knees started to buckle. I tried to stay upright so I could kick him again, but he kept pressure on my arm and the world began to go dark from the edges in. For a second I thought I was hallucinating the flash of gray fur.

But I wasn’t. Owen appeared in midair, teeth bared, ears flattened against his head. He landed, yowling, on Will’s head and dug in his claws.

Will screamed, let go of my arm and swiped at his head. I fell against the counter.

Owen launched himself onto the table, arched his back and yowled again, all his fur standing on end.

Blood dripped down the edge of Will’s forehead. His lips pulled away from his teeth like a rabid dog’s. He pulled back his arm to punch me. I shrank even farther against the cupboards, my good arm, my good hand grabbing for something to hang on to. I touched the ruined rolls, welded together like a cinnamon-scented chunk of rock. Without even thinking about it I grabbed them and swung for Will’s head with all the strength terror gave me.

I connected with the left side of his face. His mouth fell open. The color drained from his face as his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor.

For a moment the only sound was my ragged breathing. “It’s okay,” I wheezed to Owen. He looked over the edge of the table at Will sprawled on the floor. “We have to get out of here,” I said.

I grabbed the cat, sidestepped around Will and backed rapidly out of the kitchen, into the porch, and against the very strong, very normal chest of Harry Taylor.

“Harry, thank heaven,” I gasped. He caught me by the arm. I winced and he dropped his hand.

“Kathleen, are you all right?” he asked.

“No. Yes.” I took a breath. “Will Redfern is on my kitchen floor,” I said, thinking that if I didn’t sit down soon I was going to be on the floor, too.

“Why’s Will on your kitchen floor?” Harry asked, leading me over to the bench.

“I hit him,” I said. I sat down and set Owen beside me. My legs were shaking. Hercules was sitting on the floor by the door.

I thought about what Will had been planning to do with the cats. And what he might have done to Gregor Easton. It made me want to hit him again, this time with something harder than a batch of failed cinnamon rolls. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure there were a lot of things harder than those rolls.

“Stay here, Kathleen,” Harry said. “I’m just going to take a look at Will.”

I nodded. As soon as Harry got up Hercules jumped up on the bench. He put his front paws on my lap and studied my face. “I’m all right,” I said. He laid his chin on my leg. Owen climbed all the way onto my lap on the other side and placed his paws on my chest. I stroked his fur. “I can’t believe you did that,” I said. “You saved me from Will.” He bumped my shoulder with his head. “Tomorrow I’m going to buy you the biggest, yellowest Fred the Funky Chicken that the Grainery has.” Owen started to purr.

Harry came out of the kitchen, his face serious. “Police are on their way,” he said.

I looked past him, heart suddenly pounding again. “Is Will . . .?”

“I tied him to the table leg with my belt,” Harry said. He wiped a hand across his forehead. “Will’s been drinking.”

“I know,” I said.

“What did you hit him with?”

“Owen jumped on . . . on Will’s head, and I hit him with a batch of rolls.”

“Remind me to say no next time you ask if I’d like coffee and a muffin,” Harry said. He held out his hand. A drywall knife with a retractable blade lay on his palm. “Will had this in his pocket. What was he doing here?”

I wrapped my aching arm around my body. “He wanted me to leave. He was . . . involved with Ingrid.”

“Ingrid? The old librarian?”

I nodded. “He got the idea if I was gone, she could come back to the library and they’d have some kind of happy ending.”

Harry shook his head. “Damned idiot,” he muttered.

“Harry, how . . . what . . . What are you doing here?” I asked.

“That cat of yours. Hercules?” He tipped his head toward Herc, who lifted his head at the sound of his name. “I was working over at Rebecca’s. Suddenly there he was, just a few feet in front of the mower. Wouldn’t move, either. He was howling like a banshee. I thought something was wrong with the cat, not you.”

I bent over and kissed the top of Herc’s head. “You went for help,” I said. He gave me his
it’s not a big deal
look. I didn’t want to think about what could have happened if Owen wasn’t able to disappear and Hercules couldn’t walk through walls.

“Not bad for a couple of cats,” Harry said.

“You have no idea,” I said.

A
patrol car and Marcus Gordon pulled in my driveway one behind the other. Right behind them was Roma, with Maggie riding shotgun. Harry met the police officers at the door and took them into the kitchen.

Marcus stood in front of me. “Are you all right, Kathleen?” he asked.

“I am,” I said. The fear and shakiness were being replaced by anger now.

“Why was Mr. Redfern here?” he asked.

“It’s my fault,” Maggie said from the door. “Kathleen, I’m so sorry.” She looked on the verge of tears.

I shook my head. “It’s not your fault, Mags. You were right about Will. None of the accidents was an accident. He was trying to get me to go back to Boston. And I think he might have confessed to killing Gregor Easton.” I leaned forward, wincing at the pain in my shoulder.

“You’re hurt,” Roma said, easing past Maggie.

“I’ll call for an ambulance.” Marcus reached into his pocket for his phone.

I shook my head vigorously.

“No,” I said. “I’d rather have Roma. Please.”

“It’s not like we haven’t done this before,” Roma said.

The detective sighed. “Go ahead.”

Roma bent in front of me and carefully checked me over. She pulled the neck of my shirt to one side and made a face when she saw my shoulder. Then she felt her way down my arm. My wrist was already swelling and changing color.

“Are you going to have to shoot me?” I joked.

“No, but I’m thinking a good dose of cod-liver oil couldn’t hurt.”

I sucked in a breath and bit my tongue as she felt her way around my wrist.

“I’d like to get some ice on both that wrist and that shoulder,” she said.

“I’ve got ice packs in the freezer.”

“May I get them?” Roma said to Marcus.

“I’ll get them,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

Roma sat back on her heels. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d agree to go to the emergency room for an X-ray?”

“Nope,” I said.

She looked at Maggie. “I told Kathleen that this is why I became a vet,” she said. “Two-legged patients talk back too much.” She looked at me again. “What do you think, Maggie? Any chance we could wedge her into that dog cage I have in the car and get her to the hospital?”

“You should know that like your four-legged patients, I bite.”

Roma grinned. “I knew I wasn’t going to win this one, but I do want you to go to the clinic tomorrow.”

“All right,” I said.

“I’m just going to see what’s holding up those cold packs,” Roma said, getting to her feet. She went into the kitchen.

Maggie leaned over to hug me. “You’re shivering,” she said. She reached for Rebecca’s sweater.

“That’s not dry,” I said.

Roma came back then with two cold packs, followed by Marcus. She put one on my wrist; then she eased me back against the rear of the bench and set the other on top of my shoulder.

“She’s cold,” Maggie said, looking pointedly at the police officer.

He looked around the porch and then realized Mags wanted him to surrender his sport coat.

“I’m fine,” I said.

Neither of them was listening to me. He shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to Maggie. She draped it around me. It was much warmer. Hercules kept his head in my lap and Owen stayed stretched out on my chest.

Marcus folded his arms. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what happened.”

So I did, beginning with stepping into the porch and finding Will.