Cat Trick (13 page)

I leaned sideways in my chair and looked down at both of them. “We have company coming
after supper.”

Owen immediately sat up, looked around and started washing his face in earnest. Hercules
looked at his brother and then he looked at me. In Owen’s kitty mind, the word “company”
meant one person: Maggie.

“Yes, I know what he’s thinking and he’s wrong,” I said quietly to Herc. “Should we
tell him, or wait until he gets cleaned up?”

He stared at his feet, whiskers twitching, almost as though he were considering my
question. I waited, giving him time to think—just in case he really was; then he meowed
softly.

“Okay,” I said. I tapped my fingers on the edge of the table to get Owen’s attention.
He looked over at me, one paw raised in the air. “Not Maggie,” I said, shaking my
head. He took one more pass at his face, dropped his paw and stretched back out on
the floor with a sigh.

Hercules head-butted my leg and meowed, his way of asking, “So who is it?”

I reached down and scratched the top of his head. “Harrison Taylor’s daughter, Elizabeth,
and her friend will be here in a little while. They want to meet the two of you.”

Hercules made a satisfied rumble in his throat, tilting his head so I’d scratch behind
his ear. Owen, meanwhile, made a show of stretching, sitting up and starting on his
face again as though that had been his intention all along.

I picked up my fork and speared a meatball. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Herc
start to wash his own face.

* * *

I’d just finished the dishes when I heard a knock on the porch door. The boys were
sitting side by side next to the end of the table. Faces washed and paws spotless,
they were the poster children for cat adoption. “Very nice,” I said approvingly as
I went to answer the door.

Elizabeth smiled when she saw me. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “This is my friend Wren.
I think you met at the library.”

“Yes, we did.” I smiled. “Hi, Wren. Come in, please. The cats are in the kitchen.”

Wren Magnusson gave me a small smile. She looked tired. There were dark smudges under
her eyes, and I noticed that she kept running her thumb back and forth along the side
of her index finger.

“Thank you for letting us come and see them,” Elizabeth said, stepping into the porch.
“I hope Harry didn’t put you on the spot.”

“He didn’t,” I said. “It’s not a big deal. Harry’s come through for me more than once.
And your father is one of my favorite people.”

She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, her expression still serious.
“Harrison said that he never would have found me if it hadn’t been for you.”

I ducked my head, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed. “All I did was find a few
papers.”

She pressed her lips together before speaking. “He said it was a lot more than that.
He said that you helped the police figure out who killed my birth mother.” She stumbled
a little over the word “mother.” “And you were almost caught in an explosion.” She
swallowed. “I, uh, don’t know how to thank you.”

I hesitated and then lightly touched her shoulder. “You just did,” I said. “And I
have all the thanks I’m ever going to need just seeing how happy finding you has made
Harrison.”

She nodded.

We stepped into the kitchen. Owen and Hercules hadn’t moved. They looked curiously
at the two young women. Wren immediately looked at me. “Liz said we can’t pet them,
but is it okay if I get a little closer?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

Both cats were watching her intently.

Wren stopped about three feet away from them and dropped down to her knees.

“That’s Owen,” I said, pointing. He turned his face toward me for a moment and then
gave all his attention to Wren again. I gestured at Herc. “And that’s Hercules.” He
bobbed his head in acknowledgment.

Wren smiled at them. “Hi, guys,” she said.

Owen craned his neck and sniffed. He seemed to like what his nose told him because
he took a step forward.

Wren turned to look at me. “He’s so cute,” she said.

He knew the word “cute.” He dipped his head for a moment, trying to give the appearance
of being modest, too.

Hercules raised a paw in a bid to get Wren’s attention. “I see you,” she said. “You’re
just as handsome as your brother.” He murped his agreement.

“You found both of them at Wisteria Hill?” Elizabeth asked as Wren continued to talk
to both cats, leaning forward with her arms propped on her thighs.

“I think it’s more like they found me.”

I told her the story of how I’d gone exploring out at the old estate a few weeks after
I’d arrived in Mayville Heights—had it really been a year and a half ago?—and Owen
and Hercules, just tiny kittens then, had persisted in following me until I’d scooped
them up and brought them home.

“And there’s seven more cats still out there?” Elizabeth asked. Hercules took a couple
of steps sideways and looked at her, green eyes wide with curiosity. She crouched
next to Wren and extended her hand. He sniffed it and then sat down again.

“That’s right,” I said, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I guess you could
call Lucy the alpha cat of the group. Where she goes, the rest of the family pretty
much follows.”

Wren shifted so she could look at me. “What happens in the wintertime? How do they
stay warm?”

I explained about the shelters Rebecca and Roma’s other volunteers had made and how
Harry used straw bales for insulation in one corner of the carriage house.

Wren frowned, two lines forming between her eyebrows. “Why doesn’t someone just adopt
them? I’d take one. I’d take two.”

“They aren’t like an average house cat,” I said. “They aren’t even like these two.
They’re not going to bond with you. They’re not going to curl up at your feet and
start purring.” I pointed at Owen. “He likes you. Most people don’t get that close
to him, but I promise if you try to pet him, he will scratch you.”

“It just seems . . . cruel,” Wren said, “you know, to leave them outside to fend for
themselves.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that reasoning. “They don’t have to fend for
themselves. Volunteers go out every day with fresh food and water. If the weather
is too bad for a four-wheel drive to get up the driveway, Harry uses his snowmobile.
The carriage house and the shelters keep them dry and warm. And now Roma’s going to
be living out there.” I braced my hands against the counter on either side of me.
“Wisteria Hill is the cats’ home. What would be cruel would be forcing them to live
somewhere else, to be what we think they should be instead of who they are.”

Elizabeth looked up at me with a wry smile. “That’s what Harrison said.”

I nodded. “He’s pretty smart.”

I reached behind me for a bag of sardine cat treats, took out a couple for each cat
and handed them to Wren. “Owen’s stinky crackers,” I said, “but Hercules likes them,
too.”

Wren handed two of the crackers to Elizabeth, and then she held one of the two she
had left out to Owen. His whiskers twitched and he looked from Wren to me; then he
pawed the ground with one foot.

“He wants me to set it down, doesn’t he?” she said.

“Yes,” I said. “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt anything.”

She set the cracker down on the floor. Owen hesitated, but not for long. He picked
up the cracker, took three steps backward and set it down again. Then he dropped his
head and carefully sniffed it. I wondered sometimes what he thought his keen nose
was going to discover.

By this time Hercules’s patience was almost worn out. One paw moved through the air
as though he were reaching for the crackers Elizabeth had in her hand. She held one
out to him, her fingers just touching the corner edge, and to my surprise, after hesitating
for a minute, he took it from her.

“He almost never does that,” I said. “I think you’ve made a friend.”

She offered the other treat, and this one he took without any hesitation at all. Elizabeth
smiled, clearly pleased.

“How about a mint-chocolate-chip cupcake?” I asked. “And I have tea or hot chocolate.”

Wren looked at Elizabeth. “Do we have time?”

She nodded.

“Hot chocolate, please,” Wren said to me. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s not,” I said.

“Me too,” Elizabeth said, brushing her hands on her jeans and getting to her feet.
“Could I help?”

I pointed to the bubble-glass plate sitting on the counter. “You could put the cupcakes
on the table.”

Wren sat on the floor, talking to Owen and Hercules until the hot chocolate was ready;
then she stood up and joined us at the table. I showed them a couple of pictures I’d
taken of Lucy walking in the long grass behind the carriage house. Both Wren and Elizabeth
had a lot more questions about the cats, and I tried to answer them all as honestly
as I could.

Hercules came to lean against my leg, and I reached down to stroke his fur. I noticed
he was watching Wren. Owen sat halfway between my chair and Wren’s, watching her too,
but not with the same goofy adoration that he gave to Maggie. If he’d been a person
instead of a cat, I would have said that he seemed concerned. Wren had an air of sadness
about her, and given that both cats seemed to be able to sense someone’s mood, maybe
he
was
concerned.

After a few minutes, Wren grew silent. She was rubbing her thumb against her finger
again. A couple of times she caught the edge of her lower lip between her teeth.

“Wren, is there something you wanted to ask me?” I said. Twice it had looked like
she was going to speak but then she hadn’t.

She traced the rim of her cup with a finger. “Yeah,” she said, “but it’s not about
the cats.”

“That’s okay,” I said, folding my hands around my own cup. “What is it?”

She took a deep breath as though she were trying to work up her nerve. She seemed
very fragile. “Is it true that you found Mike Glazer’s . . . that you found him?”

I nodded slowly. “Yes. It is.”

Elizabeth reached over and gave her friend’s arm a brief squeeze.

“Did he . . . did it look like he . . . suffered? I hate thinking he just lay there
alone for hours.” Wren lifted her head to look at me, and I could see the grief in
her pale blue eyes.

I took a moment before I answered. I wanted to say something that might make her feel
a little better, but I didn’t want to make up a story, either. “From what I saw, I
don’t think so,” I finally said. “I didn’t see anything that made me think he’d had
a fight with someone. There were no signs of a struggle. No overturned furniture.
He was just there. There wasn’t any blood.”

She swallowed a couple of times, gave Owen—who was still watching her—a small smile
and then looked at me again. “Just so you know, I, uh, I’m not trying to be some kind
of a ghoul. When I was little, I was really close to Mike and his family.”

“I know about Mike’s brother,” I said.

“I hadn’t seen Mike in a long time . . . years,” she said. She picked up the cupcake
on her plate, broke it in half and set it back down again without taking a bite. “I
was so happy when I found out he was involved in this tour thing. I thought about
going to see the whole family a bunch of times, but I didn’t exactly know how to find
them and I didn’t want to make anybody feel bad.”

She shrugged. “It probably sounds dumb, but us both being here at the same time just
kind of seemed like a sign.”

“It’s not dumb,” Elizabeth said. She might not have been raised by the Taylors, but
like her father and her half siblings, Elizabeth seemed to be fiercely loyal to the
people she cared about.

“No, it’s not,” I agreed.

Wren took a sip from her hot chocolate. “I know that people are saying he was a jerk,
but he really wasn’t.” She twisted a lock of hair around her finger. “I was going
to see him that night, you know. I’d already missed seeing him once. But I had car
trouble . . .”

She swallowed again and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “I was going to see if
we could have lunch and catch up.”

“I’m sorry that didn’t happen,” I said. Both cats were sitting next to Wren’s chair
now. It was impossible not to be touched by the pain she was feeling.

“Things didn’t exactly turn out the way I thought they would,” she said.

Elizabeth cleared her throat. “We should get going,” she said, touching her friend’s
shoulder.

Wren nodded. She leaned over and smiled at Owen and Hercules. “It was nice to meet
you,” she said. Owen meowed and Herc lifted one paw.

“They feel the same way,” I said. “You’re welcome to come and visit anytime.”

Wren smiled, the first real smile I’d seen that hadn’t been directed at a cat. “Thank
you,” she said, getting to her feet. “I might do that.”

“Thanks, Kathleen,” Elizabeth said. She looked down at the boys and waggled her fingers
good-bye at them.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “If you’d like to go out with me sometime to feed the cats,
just let me know.”

“I will,” she said.

The cats and I walked them to the back door and said good night. Owen climbed up on
the bench to look out the window. I carried Hercules back into the kitchen and dropped
into my chair. Wren was so wounded, she reminded me of the tiny birds that shared
her name.

Herc studied my face. “We have to figure out what happened, don’t we?” I said. He
meowed his agreement and laid his head on my chest. I stroked his soft black fur.
“Yeah.” I sighed. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

10

H
ercules went back and forth from the bedroom to the hallway while I got dressed in
the morning, which I didn’t seem to be doing fast enough for him. Now that he’d met
Wren, he was clearly motivated to help her and he wanted to get going. The third time
he went into the hall, he didn’t come back. I figured he’d given up and gone to wait
for me downstairs.

I found him sitting next to my briefcase underneath the coat hooks. Since he knew
my laptop was inside, I wondered if he was suggesting I get started on some research.

Owen seemed to have other priorities. He’d nosed his food dish into the middle of
the floor and was waiting beside it.

Hercules meowed the moment he caught sight of me. Owen leaned over so I couldn’t miss
seeing him and meowed as well, just a little louder. But Hercules was a cat on a mission.
He stalked across the floor and sat in front of Owen’s bowl, looking up at me with
serious green eyes.

They weren’t brothers for nothing. Owen immediately began pushing the dish around
his brother. I could see the fur was going to be flying—literally—in just a minute
if I didn’t step in. I held up one hand. “Stop, stop, stop,” I said sharply.

They didn’t even look at me. Owen was staring at Hercules through slitted golden eyes.
Hercules glared back, unmoving except for his tail. I clapped my hands together, which
made them both jump.

“Cut it out!” I said.

I pointed at Hercules. There was something a little self-righteous in the way he sat
there perfectly straight, head up, neck a smooth expanse of white fur. “I know you
want to help Wren,” I said. “So do I. But these are not the Middle Ages and we are
not the Knights Templar. We have time for breakfast.”

He dropped his eyes and meowed softly.

“Your heart’s in the right place,” I told him.

Owen lifted his head, his eyes darting sideways to his brother. I crossed my arms
over my chest. “Hang on a minute, Fur Ball,” I said.

He turned his attention to me, at the same time setting a paw on the edge of his bowl.
“You are not starving to death. I know breakfast is the most important meal of the
day, but you can wait five minutes while I figure out what I’m going to do first.”

I pressed my lips together and shook my head. Had I actually just told a cat that
breakfast was the most important meal of the day?

Owen took a step forward then—or at least tried to—except he ended up putting his
weight down on the side of the bowl where his left paw had been resting. I don’t know
if it was all the stinky crackers he’d been eating, or the extra racing around the
backyard, but he seemed to have more strength than he realized. The plastic dish somersaulted
into the air end over end like it had been launched from a catapult. I lunged for
it, but I was too slow. It landed, upside down, on Owen’s head and slipped a bit sideways
so it looked like a jaunty, oversize beret. He gave a yowl of outrage and shook his
head furiously, which just made the bowl dip down over his eyes. I grabbed it before
he got any madder.

And he was mad. His gray fur was standing on end, one ear was turned inside out and
a bit of something—a crumb of cracker maybe—was stuck to a whisker.

“Are you all right?” I asked, swallowing down the bubble of laughter that was threatening
to get loose. Hercules had wisely become engrossed in sniffing the end of his tail
and wasn’t even looking at us.

Owen bobbed his head and sneezed away whatever had been stuck to his whiskers. I reached
over and fixed his ear, smoothing down his fur while he made huffy noises of indignation.
His dignity was wounded, but otherwise he seemed to be okay.

I got breakfast for both cats, setting Owen’s dishes in the usual place, but moving
Hercules’s a bit farther away. “You are the soul of discretion,” I whispered to Herc,
giving him a little scratch under his chin as I put the food in front of him.

I washed my hands and stuck my oatmeal in the microwave. I turned around in time to
see Hercules pick up a couple of pieces of cat kibble, carry them over and drop them
by Owen’s bowl, then go back to his own food. After a moment, Owen sniffed the peace
offering, moved each triangle a couple of inches and ate them.

All was well in my small corner of the universe.

I had more than an hour before I had to leave for the library, so after we’d all had
breakfast and washed hands (me), and face and paws (Hercules and Owen), I got the
laptop so I could do some research into Legacy Tours. It took some digging, but I
finally found what I was looking for in a six-month-old article in the archives of
an online business magazine.

“Listen to this,” I said to Hercules, who had been sitting patiently at my feet.

Legacy Tours had been started by Alex and Christopher Scott while the twins were still
in university. The company had found its niche putting together all-inclusive getaways
for corporate clients. Almost three years ago, Mike Glazer, an old friend from law
school, had joined Legacy as a full partner. According to the article’s author, the
new collaboration hadn’t worked from the start. About a year ago—six months before
the piece had been written—the rumblings about Mike Glazer had turned from hints that
the Scott brothers were planning to buy out their old buddy to whispers that Mike
had been taking kickbacks from businesses the tours patronized and was about to be
ousted. The author even cited a couple of his “questionable” deals. But in the six
months since, nothing had changed. The rumors persisted, but Mike had remained at
Legacy.

Hercules moved closer to my chair. I patted my thighs and he jumped onto my lap and
immediately leaned forward, as if he wanted to read the article for himself. Feeling
a little foolish, I scrolled down the screen.

“You think it’s possible his partners had something to do with Mike’s death?” I asked.
Hercules didn’t seem to have an opinion.

“I don’t see it,” I said, stretching my arms over my head. “Why kill him? The business
was doing well. If they wanted Mike out, they could have just bought him out. And
if he was taking kickbacks, they could have had him arrested. Heck, they should have
had him arrested.”

Hercules touched the screen with one paw.

I leaned in to see what had caught his attention. It was a photograph of Mike Glazer
at some kind of travel conference, smiling at the camera. He was flanked by his partners,
who, it turns out, were identical twins. But that wasn’t what made me stare at the
computer and then click on the picture to enlarge it so it filled the screen.

I had no idea which one, but one of the Scott brothers had been in Mayville Heights.
I’d spoken to him. He was the man I’d talked to at the library, the same one I’d seen
at Eric’s getting directions from Claire the night Marcus and I had gone for dinner.

The night Mike Glazer had died.

“Holy molars, Batman,” I said to Hercules, who looked at me blankly.

My brother, Ethan, had reintroduced me to the campy sixties TV show when I was back
in Boston. Unlike his brother, Herc didn’t see the fun in watching old episodes of
Batman
online, although I suspected what Owen really liked was sprawling across my stomach
and getting scratched behind his ears.

Owen wandered in from the living room, pretending he needed a drink. I knew what he
really wanted was to see what Hercules and I were doing. Seeing him reminded me about
the button he’d found. Like I’d told Marcus, it didn’t look like something plastic
or mass-produced.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture the jacket whichever Scott brother I’d seen
had been wearing—red and black wool and denim collar and cuffs. It had struck me as
being something Ethan would wear. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been mass-produced either.

Finding photos of Alex and Christopher Scott online was surprisingly easy. Scrolling
through to see if I could find one of them wearing that jacket wasn’t. Hercules’s
furry black-and-white head kept getting in the way.

“I appreciate your help, but you need to get down,” I told him. Muttering, he jumped
to the floor.

I found what I was looking for on the fourth page: Alex Scott wearing the red and
black jacket at a fundraiser for the children’s hospital. I enlarged the picture and
studied the buttons. I’d gotten only a quick look at the one Owen had found, but these
seemed to be the right size and color.

As I sat there staring at the screen, Owen leaped into my lap. He looked expectantly
from the computer to me. He was the one who’d discovered the button and gotten the
best look at it. Feeling more than a little silly, I pointed to the photograph. “Does
that look like the button you found?”

He squinted at the image, his face just inches from the screen, and then he pulled
his head back and looked at me kind of cross-eyed. It could have been a yes.

I looked at my watch. It was almost time to leave. “Thank you,” I said. I set him
on the floor and he headed for the living room. “And thank you, too,” I told Hercules.
“You were a big help.”

He rubbed against my leg and then went through the kitchen door into the porch. I
wondered what it said about me that seeing him literally go through a door had just
become a regular part of my day. I shut down my computer, put it back in my briefcase
and got my sweater from the living room closet.

“I’m leaving,” I called. After a moment, there was a muffled meow from Owen. He was
either in the living room closet or looking under the couch for more catnip chicken
parts.

Hercules was on the bench by the window in the porch. I stopped to pet the top of
his head. “Have a good day,” I said. He jumped down and walked me out, waiting for
me to open the porch door instead of just walking through it. With the sun shining
and the grass dry, I knew he’d probably walk over and take a nap in Rebecca’s gazebo.

Abigail and Mia were waiting for me by the steps when I pulled into the library lot.
Tuesday meant story time, so the first thing we did was get the puppet theater out
of the storage room and set it up in the children’s section.

“Could I borrow Mia?” Abigail asked. “I could use an extra set of hands with the little
ones.”

“Absolutely,” I said. I figured Mia, with her electric-blue hair, would be a big hit
with the preschoolers.

With story time, a group of seniors checking out our meeting room to see if it would
work for their Spanish class and what seemed like more traffic than usual for a Tuesday,
it was noon before I realized it. I’d worked for Susan a couple of weeks earlier and
she was repaying the favor, which meant I could go out to Wisteria Hill for a late
lunch with Roma. She was standing by her SUV as I bumped my way up the rutted driveway,
and she walked over to meet me as I got out of the truck.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She had a grin that matched the sunny day. She held up both hands and looked
around. “I still can’t believe this place is mine. I have the urge to jump up and
down and squeal. Is that silly?”

I shook my head. “No. I think it’s wonderful that this place isn’t going to be lonely
and empty anymore.” I’d worried that Roma might regret her decision to buy the property.
After all, her biological father’s remains had been found in the field out behind
the carriage house. But putting him to rest—literally and figuratively—had been good
for her.

In a misguided attempt to keep Rebecca from learning about her mother’s part in the
death of Roma’s father, Everett Henderson had left the old estate unoccupied for a
very long time after his mother died and the caretakers of the old house retired.
But when Tom Karlsson’s remains were unearthed back in the spring, the truth about
Ellen Montgomery had been exposed as well. There were no more secrets to hide. Everett
and Rebecca had decided to make their life together in town, and now Wisteria Hill
would be Roma’s home.

“Do you want the tour first, or do you want to eat first?” Roma asked as we walked
across to the old house.

“Tour, of course,” I said. I’d been inside more than once while I was helping Rebecca
clean everything out, but I wanted to walk around with Roma and hear what her plans
were.

The house was more than a hundred years old, and like a lot of homes of that vintage,
pieces had been added to it over the years. Roma pointed to a small porch on the far
side of the building. “That’s coming down,” she said. “Oren said it’s not even on
a proper foundation, and the floor is half-rotten anyway.”

We stepped onto the verandah that ran across the front of the house and down one side.
Roma reached over and put a hand on the railing. “This needs to be replaced as well,
but Oren says he can duplicate the original design.”

Oren Kenyon was an extremely talented carpenter. He’d created a beautiful sunburst
to hang above the main door just inside the library entrance. He was also Roma’s cousin
in the convoluted way that everyone seemed to be related to everyone else in Mayville
Heights.

Roma unlocked the side door and we stepped into what I guessed had originally been
the pantry. “I may make this into a mudroom,” she said. “Or I might just knock the
wall down and make it part of the kitchen.”

The country kitchen was a big, bright space with windows that looked out over the
backyard, or would once the overgrown garden was cut back. There was also a dining
room, a living room and a small parlor on the main floor. Upstairs, I knew there were
four bedrooms and a big bathroom with a huge claw-foot tub.

Structurally, the house was sound. The old stone foundation didn’t leak, and there
was no rot in the floor joists. The ceilings were high, and the wide wooden floors
just needed to be refinished. The rooms were filled with light, and if there were
any ghosts, well, they must have been friendly ones, because there was nothing foreboding
about the place.

I stood in the middle of the living room floor and turned in a slow circle. “I love
this house,” I said to Roma, smiling because her grin seemed to be contagious. “If
you don’t jump up and down and squeal, I might.”