Cat Trick (15 page)

I reached over and patted her arm. “That’s a nice thought,” I said.

When we got out of the truck, Ruby was coming up the sidewalk, and we waited by the
door for her. Her hair was in three ponytails sticking out from her head at odd angles.
“Hi,” she said. She gestured to her hair. “Thank you for the conditioner,” she said
to Rebecca. “I can’t believe how soft my hair is.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Rebecca said. She held up her bag. “Now that the show is on
again do you want this back?”

Ruby shook her head, making her little ponytails bounce. “No. I have more of Ella’s
bags. What I want is for you to make sure you have that bag with you at the show and
that you tell people you like it.” She frowned at Rebecca. “You do like it, right?”

“Heavens, yes,” Rebecca said. They started up the stairs, discussing the merits of
Ella King’s tote bags. I followed them.

Rebecca saw the best in everyone and everything. That was one of the many things I
liked about her. But she was also a very good judge of people, and if she said that
Mike Glazer was a good person at heart, I had to believe she’d seen some goodness
in him.

Maggie had decided we were going to spend the class working on our weak areas. I knew
for me that would be Cloud Hands. After the warm-up, we spread out and she moved from
one person to the next, watching, encouraging, making small adjustments. By the time
we finished the form at the end of the class, my T-shirt was blotched with patches
of sweat.

“Your Cloud Hands look better,” Maggie said, holding her arms out and shaking them
as she walked over to me.

“Seriously?” I said.

“I wouldn’t say they did if they didn’t.” She pulled both hands back through her blond
hair. “Could you give me a ride?” she asked. “I have three bags of cotton stuffing
in my office, and I don’t really want to carry them.”

“Sure,” I said. “That reminds me. I have Liam’s coffee mug in my bag.”

“Why?” The bridge of her nose wrinkled as she frowned at me.

“Because he left it at Eric’s and hasn’t been back. Claire gave it to me to give to
you.”

“He’s had a lot on his mind,” Maggie said with an offhand shrug. “Thanks for bringing
it.”

I didn’t see any point in bringing up the argument Liam had had with Mike. Maggie
had a lot on her mind, too. “What are you going to do with three bags of stuffing?”
I asked instead. “Are you working on another piece like Eddie?”

Maggie’s life-size Eddie Sweeney had been part of last winter’s Winterfest display
at the community center. And he’d indirectly been the reason Roma and the real Eddie
had started going out. The last time I’d been at Maggie’s apartment, Eddie had been
sitting in her living room with his skates propped on a footstool.

Maggie grinned and gave her head a little shake. “Don’t tell Roma, but I’m actually
working on Eddie. He needs a little bodywork”—she patted her hips with both hands—“if
you know what I mean. Eddie—the real one—wants stuffed Eddie as a housewarming gift
for Roma.”

“Aww, that’s so romantic,” I said, using the sleeve of my shirt to wipe sweat off
the side of my neck.

“It is, isn’t it?” Maggie said as we started for her office. She bumped me with her
hip. “Kind of like offering to put the pieces of an old rocking chair together for
someone.”

I shot her a daggers look. She held up both hands as though she were surrendering.
“I’m just saying,” she said.

We carried the three bags of cotton stuffing out to the truck. Mags put two of them
in the middle of the bench seat and fastened the lap belt around them. The third bag
she jammed down by her feet.

Maggie’s apartment was on the top floor of an old brick building that had been a corset
factory at one time. The stairs came out onto a landing with a huge window that flooded
the space with light. To the left was a small bathroom and an equally small bedroom.

Straight ahead, down two steps, was the living space, dark hardwood stretching all
the way to the other end of the long room. Maggie’s dark chocolate dining room table
and chairs were in the area next to the stairs where the wall jutted inward to make
room for a small roof terrace outside.

An old Oriental rug, which Mags had confided she’d scavenged from the dump and half
carried, half dragged home, marked the living room space. There were two deep blue
sofas and a square-shaped leather chair in front of the built-in bookshelves with
their beveled glass doors. Faux Eddie was in the chair, skates up on the dark blue
footstool. Maggie had somehow fastened a copy of the
Wall Street Journal
to his hockey gloves. From the front it actually looked like a real person sitting
there reading the financial news in skates and full hockey gear.

At the end of the long room there was a small galley kitchen with a dropped hammered-tin
ceiling.

“How about some hot chocolate?” Maggie asked, setting the two bags of stuffing she’d
been carrying on one of the sofas and heading for the little kitchen. She set Liam’s
coffee mug on the counter.

“Sounds good,” I said. I put the bag of stuffing I’d been holding next to the other
two, sat on the empty sofa and studied Eddie. He really did look like the real thing.

I watched Maggie move around the tiny kitchen, shifting her weight instead of stretching
and overreaching. It made me wonder if eventually all the tai chi practice would have
me moving like that. “That’s really nice of you to let Eddie have Eddie,” I said.
“I had lunch with Roma out at Wisteria Hill today.”

Maggie turned from the refrigerator, a container of milk in her hand. “I know,” she
said. “Roma called me—before she called Marcus.”

“She told you about seeing Liam arguing with Mike Glazer.” So she knew after all.
I kicked off my shoes and curled my feet up under me.

“She did. I know he was angry about the way things were working out. Mike was driving
everyone crazy.” She shot me a sidelong glance. “That’s why he left his mug at Eric’s,
isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Claire said he just tossed some money on the table and left before she
could catch him.”

She sighed. “Kath, Liam’s not the kind of person who would hurt someone, let alone
kill anyone. People say a lot of things they don’t mean when they’re angry.” She got
the marshmallows out of the cupboard over her head. “I got mad at Jimmy Harrison in
third grade and told him I was going to stuff him in the toilet and flush him to China.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Of course not,” she said. “You can’t flush someone to China. And anyway, eight-year-old
boys don’t fit in elementary school toilets.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” I said.

Maggie just laughed.

I looked over at Eddie. Straight on, it looked like he was reading the news, but from
this angle it seemed as though he were watching me out of the corner of his eye, over
the top of the newspaper. “Mags, is Eddie watching me or am I just imagining things?”
I asked.

“Very good,” she said with a smile. “You’re the first person to notice that, or maybe
I should say you’re the first person to say you noticed it. Everyone else has just
moved to the other end of the sofa.”

“So you did it on purpose?”

She picked up one of the heavy pottery mugs and brought it over to me. “It was an
experiment. Remember me telling you about the art show I went to in Detroit?”

“There was a painting—a landscape. You said it made you uncomfortable, but you couldn’t
figure out why at first.”

She nodded. “It turned out there was a person in the image, almost lost in the shadows
of the picture. Wherever you stood in the gallery, it felt as though that figure were
watching you.” She picked up her own mug. “Close your eyes.”

I closed them. The feeling I was being stared at seemed stronger now that I couldn’t
see Eddie.

“Don’t look,” Maggie said.

I folded my fingers tightly around my cup, and after a minute I felt Maggie sit down.
“Okay, open your eyes,” she said.

The first thing I did was turn my head toward Eddie. I had no idea what she’d done,
but he wasn’t watching me anymore. That unsettling sensation, like someone’s breath
on the back of my neck, slipped away.

“What did you do?” I asked.

Maggie was curled into the opposite corner of the sofa. “I just moved his head, maybe
an inch or so down and about the same amount to the side.”

I leaned forward. “It’s almost like he’s smiling at me now.”

“I know,” she said. She grinned and took a sip of her hot chocolate.

“Mags, do you know much about Legacy Tours?” I asked.

“A little,” she said. “Why?”

I hesitated. “This stays between us?”

Her expression turned serious. She put one hand over her heart. “Of course.”

“Harry Taylor—Junior—asked me to poke around a little and see if I could maybe figure
out what happened to Mike.”

“Why?”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Because his sister, Elizabeth, is friends
with Wren Magnusson, and Wren’s pretty much the only person who really feels bad about
Mike Glazer’s death.”

“And if Elizabeth is upset, then so is Harry Senior.”

“He’s a good person. I couldn’t say no.”

Maggie shook her head and gave me a half smile.

I shrugged. “Okay, I could have said no, but I care about Harry. He feels like family
to me.”

“You care about Harry. Harry cares about Elizabeth. Elizabeth cares about Wren. It’s
getting complicated, Kath.”

“If I find out anything, anything, the information goes to Marcus.” I took another
sip from my cup.

Maggie wrinkled her nose at me. “So I’d be wasting my time telling you what a bad
idea this is.”

“Pretty much,” I said.

She pulled her feet up so she was sitting cross-legged. “Okay. Most of what I know
about Legacy Tours comes from Liam. You know that they specialize in putting together
travel packages for corporate clients.”

I nodded. “I did a little research. I know that Alex and Christopher Scott started
the company and they brought Mike in about three years ago.”

Maggie propped her cup on one knee. “Did you know that the company was having financial
problems at the time?”

I sat up a little straighter. “No.”

“Legacy wasn’t the only company Liam considered for this tour pitch. He checked every
one of them very carefully. He knows someone who works for one of the big banks in
Chicago. Liam found out that before Mike became a partner, Legacy had a high expense-to-revenue
ratio, but in the last eighteen months things had turned around.”

She peered into her cup, frowned and got up for another marshmallow. Then she settled
back on the sofa again. “I know the major reason Liam thought Legacy was the best
choice for this whole tour idea was because Mike Glazer had grown up here, but I also
know it was important to him that Mike was a good businessman.”

My foot was going to sleep. I stretched out my leg and rolled my ankle in slow circles.
“I found an article online that hinted that Mike was taking kickbacks from some of
the businesses he was dealing with.”

Maggie nodded and took another drink. “It’s probably the same article Liam found.
I know he spoke to the writer. He said all the guy had were rumors and loose talk.”

“Did you know that either Alex or Christopher Scott was here the day Mike died?” I
asked.

“Are you sure?”

I shifted against the arm of the sofa. “Positive. I spoke to whichever one of them
it was at the library.”

Maggie started nodding her head. “I remember Liam saying that Alex was getting an
award from some service organization. There was a big dinner in Minneapolis. It’s
only an hour’s drive. He probably came to see Mike about something.”

I made a face and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. If Alex Scott had been at
a dinner in Minneapolis, he couldn’t have been here when Mike Glazer died. But maybe
his twin could have been.

“Kathleen, you don’t really think it was one of Mike’s partners who killed him, do
you?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It sure would be a nice, simple solution though, wouldn’t
it?”

She nodded, lacing her fingers around her cup. “It would,” she said. “But it seems
to me that when someone dies around here, there’s nothing nice or simple about it.”

11

M
arcus came into the library about nine thirty the next morning. Mary was working at
the circulation desk. She gave me a sly smile as I walked over to meet him.

“Hi,” he said. “Do you have a few minutes?”

I noticed he was carrying a small paper bag from Eric’s, and I could smell cinnamon.

“I do,” I said. “How about a cup of coffee?”

He smiled. “That would be good.”

I turned to Mary. “Susan is reshelving books and Mia’s helping her. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said. Then she turned to look at Marcus, gesturing to the bag
he was holding. “Did you bring enough to share with the class, Detective? Or just
sweets for the sweet?”

His eyes shifted from me to Mary. “Excuse me?” he said.

“Never mind,” I said to Mary. “I smell cinnamon and just a hint of vanilla, which
most likely means there are cinnamon rolls in that bag. Cinnamon rolls that Eric made
from the ‘secret’ recipe that you gave him and that neither one of you will share
with anyone else.” I made a face at her, and she looked back at me all wide-eyed,
nurturing grandma. “And now that I’m thinking of it, you smelled like cinnamon and
vanilla when you got here this morning.” I crossed my arms over my chest, so I probably
looked like every caricature of the stern librarian. “Do you have anything upstairs
in your bag that you’d like to share with the rest of us?”

Mary cocked her head to one side and gave Marcus a sweet albeit slightly fake smile,
eyes sparking with mischief. “Enjoy your coffee, Detective,” she said.

I inclined my head toward the stairs. “C’mon up to my office,” I said to Marcus.

“What was that about?” he asked, as we started up the stairs to the second floor.

“A little meddling,” I said, feeling my face get warm. While we were emptying the
book drop before the library opened, Mary had asked if Marcus and I were a couple
now. “We’re taking it slowly,” I’d told her.

“Well, if you decide you want to speed things up a little, I could teach you a few
things,” she’d said. She’d pantomimed pulling off a glove with her teeth while I stood
there, dumbstruck. Then she’d winked and wheeled the cart over to the checkout desk.

“Because we had dinner together at Eric’s,” he said.

I nodded as I unlocked my office door. “Have a seat and I’ll get the coffee,” I said.

He held up the brown paper bag. “You were right, by the way: Eric’s cinnamon rolls.
They’re still warm.” He rolled his eyes. “I suppose this will have people talking,
too.”

“Probably,” I said.

A slow smile stretched across his face as he shrugged out of his jacket. “It’s a good
thing no one saw us in the driveway then,” he said, his eyes locked on mine.

For a moment I just stood there, looking at him and indulging in a Walter Mitty–esque
fantasy in which I backed Marcus up against my desk and kissed him until his knees
wobbled.

I shook my head to get rid of the picture. Okay, not something I should even be thinking
about doing in the library in the middle of a workday. Or in the middle of any day,
for that matter.

I gestured over my shoulder and cleared my throat. “I’ll, uh . . . I’ll be right back.”

When I came back with our coffee, I found Marcus standing beside my desk holding the
picture frame that had been sitting next to my phone. He looked up at me. “This is
your family.”

I smiled. “It is.” I set the cups down on the desktop and leaned over to look at the
photograph. My friend Lise had taken it when I was back in Boston during the summer.
We’d been down on the Common, throwing around a foam football and generally acting
like goofy kids. In the photo, Sara and I were tackling Ethan, trying to get the ball
while Mom and Dad cheered us on. We were laughing, the sun was sparkling, and looking
at the picture, I felt a small ache of homesickness.

“Sara and Ethan are twins, right?” Marcus asked.

I nodded. “I think I told you that my parents were married, divorced and then they
got married again. After the divorce, they started seeing each other—no one knew—and
then all of a sudden Ethan and Sara were on the way. I was a teenager. I was mortified.”
He handed me the frame, and I set the picture back on the desk again. “Mom said she
decided it didn’t matter how crazy my father made her; she was just happier with him
than without him.”

Marcus picked up his coffee, and I gestured to one of the two chairs in front of my
desk.

“I just realized that I don’t know if you have any brothers or sisters,” I said.

“I have one sister,” he said. “She’s younger.”

I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. I reached for my own cup and
sat down. He took the two buns out of the paper bag and set them on the plate I’d
brought in.

“So what’s up?” I asked.

“What makes you think something’s up?” he asked. “Maybe I just wanted to bring you
a cinnamon roll. You’ve brought me coffee lots of times.”

I leaned over and broke off a piece of one of the buns. It was so good. Better than
any cinnamon roll I made. I’d never been able to duplicate Mary and Eric’s secret
recipe, and when I asked Mary why that recipe was always so much better, she’d just
grin and say, “Because we make them with love.” I always made mine with a couple of
cats eyeballing my every move.

“I have gotten you coffee lots of time,” I said. “I just brought you that cup.” I
gestured to the mug in his big hands. “And the cinnamon roll is delicious. Thank you.
Now, what’s up?”

He smiled and shook his head. “You were right. The button Owen found came from a jacket
that belongs to one of Mike’s partners—Alex Scott.”

“He was here in Mayville Heights the day Mike died. I saw him at the library, and
he spoke to me on his way out at Eric’s. Do you remember?”

Marcus nodded. “But he wasn’t actually in town when Glazer died.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. He was in Minneapolis at a benefit dinner. There are photos and video
online.”

That’s what Maggie had said. Marcus was good. “Alex and Christopher Scott are identical
twins,” I said. “One of them could have been at that benefit and the other could have
been here.”

“They were both there.”

“Maybe one brother was pretending to be both brothers while the other was here.” It
sounded silly even to me.

Marcus pointed at my laptop. “Could I borrow your computer for a second?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

He went around the desk and leaned over the keyboard. After a minute, he beckoned
to me. I went to stand beside him. An image of Alex and Christopher Scott, grinning
and soaked with sweat, arms around each other’s shoulders, filled the screen.

The two men were the spitting image of each other, down to their close-cropped hair
and stubbled chins—except one of them had an elaborate dragon tattoo curling around
his right arm.

Marcus held up a finger. “Hang on.” He brought up another photo. This one, I guessed,
had been taken at the benefit in Minneapolis. One of the two Scott brothers was standing
with three other people, a drink in his hand. He wasn’t wearing a suit jacket, and
the cuffs of his white shirt had been rolled back. There was no tattoo.

“That’s Alex,” Marcus said. “And this”—he clicked the mouse pad—“is Christopher Scott.”

It could have been the same person. Christopher Scott was wearing the same dark pants
and white shirt. His sleeves weren’t rolled back, but I could see a bit of the dragon
tattoo beyond the edge of his shirt cuff.

“So much for wrapping up the case in a nice, neat package.” I moved back around the
desk.

“It doesn’t usually work that way,” Marcus said, leaning against the side of my desk.

“There’s something else you should know,” I said, breaking off another bite of the
cinnamon roll before I sat down again. I knew Roma had spoken to him, but I didn’t
want to keep secrets.

“What is it?”

“Liam Stone had an argument with Mike on the sidewalk in front of Eric’s Place. I’m
not saying I think he had anything to do with what happened to Mike; I’m just trying—”

“—not to interfere in my case?” he finished. He gave me a smile that made his blue
eyes crinkle. “I know about the argument. Roma called me, and more than one person
heard them.” He looked expectantly at me.

“What?” I said.

“Aren’t you going to tell me that really you think Liam had nothing to do with Glazer’s
death?”

I shook my head and took another sip from my mug. “No.”

“No?”

“I don’t know who killed Mike,” I said, setting my cup back on the desk. “I like Liam,
but I don’t know him that well.” I smiled sweetly at Marcus. “So I’m not going to
waste a perfectly good argument.” I held out the plastic top to the mug he was holding.
“Here.”

“What is it?” he said, taking it from me.

“The lid. It’s a travel mug. You can take the rest of your coffee with you.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” He couldn’t quite stop the beginnings of a smile
from pulling at his mouth.

“No,” I said. “But in the last couple of minutes you’ve scratched your arm twice so
you could check your watch.”

He stared at me for a minute. He rarely blushed, but there was a flush of pink on
the tops of his cheekbones. “I only scratched it once,” he said finally. “The second
time I was pushing my sleeve back.” The smile got loose completely then. “I do have
to go, though.”

He leaned across the desk and broke the second cinnamon roll in half. Then he snapped
the lid on the coffee mug, setting the bun half on top. Straightening up, he took
a couple of steps closer to me. He was so close, I could feel the warmth coming off
his body. “Thank you for the coffee, Kathleen,” he said.

My mouth was dry and I had to swallow before I answered. “You’re welcome,” I said.
“Thank you for the cinnamon roll.”

We stood there for a long moment, looking at each other, just a little bit closer
than we probably should have been standing, and maybe in another minute or so I really
would have backed him against the desk and given him a good romance-novel kissing,
but I didn’t get the chance because Mary cleared her throat in the doorway. Marcus
immediately took a step backward and we both turned to look at her.

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said.

She didn’t look sorry. She looked like a smug little elf. All she needed was a pair
of curly-toed shoes.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“There’s a bit of a problem with a book delivery.”

“I didn’t order any books,” I said.

Mary nodded. “I know. That’s the problem. Delivery guy says he has six boxes of books
for us.”

“I have to get back to work,” Marcus said.

I smiled at him. “Thank you.”

He raised his cup and eased by Mary, smiling at her as he passed. I grabbed my keys
and locked my office door while Mary waited, the same smug elvish grin on her face.

“I really am sorry I interrupted you two,” she said as we started down the stairs.
“I hope it wasn’t an important conversation.” She put a little stress on the word
“important.”

“I’m ignoring you,” I said darkly, keeping my eyes forward.

She gave a snort of laughter. “That never works, Kathleen.” She scampered down the
last four steps ahead of me. At the bottom, she looked back at me over her shoulder
and gave me a saucy wink.

The day of the annual library book sale, at the beginning of the summer, Susan had
shown up wearing her favorite
Younger, Stronger, Faster
T-shirt. Mary had taken off her sweater to show off her own shirt. It said,
Old, Sneaky and Stubborn
. At least three people had tried to buy it from her.

It took me a while to straighten out the mix-up with the book delivery. The last two
boxes were going out the door as Elizabeth came in. She raised a hand when she caught
sight of me and walked over to the circulation desk.

“Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Is it possible to request a book for Harrison? I don’t
have his library card.”

“What would he like?” I said.

“He’s already halfway through the book we picked up for him. I thought maybe I’d request
the next one in the series for him.”

“I already did,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, giving me a small smile. “I guess you know him pretty well.”

“He’s one of my best readers.”

She tucked her hands into the front kangaroo pocket of her red sweatshirt. “Thank
you for letting us meet your cats the other night. Wren loved them.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Come back and visit anytime. They love people who make
a fuss over them.”

Elizabeth’s expression grew serious. “And thank you for answering Wren’s questions
about”—she stopped and stared at her feet for a moment—“about finding Mike Glazer.”

I hesitated; then I reached out and laid my hand on her arm. “I hope it helped.”

She nodded. “It did. It’s been really hard for her. Everyone says he was a jerk.”
She shrugged. “Maybe he was. I don’t know. All I know is that Wren was really happy
to be going to see him, and when she found out he was dead, she almost passed out
from the shock.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know the police are working on the case. Maybe they’ll
come up with some answers that will at least put her mind at rest.”

She made a face. “It said in the paper that his death is still under investigation.
Isn’t that just a polite way of saying they think someone killed him but they don’t
want to actually admit that for some reason?”

I chose my words carefully. “I think they need to look at all the evidence before
they say anything.”

“This not knowing is eating a hole in Wren,” Elizabeth said. “First her mother dies
and now this. It’s not fair. I just wish somebody would figure out something.”

She looked so much like her father and had the same deep loyalty to the people she
cared about as he had. And like Agatha, she seemed to inspire that in other people,
too.

“Somebody will figure out something,” I told her.