Sleight of Paw (2 page)

“Do you think Eddie can dance?” Roma asked, referring to Matt Lauer’s improbable win on the previous season of
Gotta Dance
.

“Gee, I don’t know. He does have some smooth moves.”

“Ha, ha, ha,” Maggie said. “I don’t have a thing for Eddie Sweeney.”

“Of course not,” Roma said. “He’s only tall, strong and gorgeous.”

Maggie squared her shoulders. “I’m just a fan of Eddie’s athletic abilities—that’s all.”

“Oh, me, too,” Roma retorted. “If I were just a little bit younger . . .” She let the end of the sentence trail away, and grinned.

We turned left at the corner and drove down Main Street under the huge Winterfest banner stretched across the road in front of the James Hotel.

“So, how long has Winterfest been going on?” I asked.

“Since I was a kid,” Maggie said. “And before that.”

Roma nodded. “It started out as an ice-fishing competition back in the forties.”

“I didn’t know that,” Maggie said.

“Oh, yeah. People came from all over the state.” Roma put on her blinker to turn in to the community center parking lot. She shot a quick glance back over her shoulder at Maggie. “Which door?”

“The side one, please,” Maggie said, shifting to peer through the windshield. “Tell me there’s a perfectly good reason it looks like no one else is here.”

Except for one light I’d noticed at the front entrance, the building seemed to be closed.

“Sam’s been on an energy-saving kick,” Roma said. “He can go overboard pretty easily.”

Sam was the mayor of Mayville Heights, and Roma was right. His efforts to save energy had gone a little bit too far for some people.

She pulled into a parking spot close to the door and shut off the SUV. “Let’s get Eddie inside,” she said.

We reversed the process of putting Eddie in the passenger’s seat. Maggie went ahead to hold the door for us.

It was locked. “No,” she groaned, kicking the door with her heavy boot. “Hey, anybody in there?” she called.

Silence.

“Seven o’clock, Thorsten said. Seven. O’. Clock. Where is he?”

I looked around. Thorsten was the building’s caretaker. There were maybe a half dozen vehicles in the parking lot. None of them were Thorsten’s.

“Can you hold on to Eddie while I try to find out what’s going on?” Maggie asked, pulling out her cell phone.

“Sure,” I said. I tucked Eddie’s knees against my sides. Roma pulled his body a little closer, wrapping her arms around his chest. I couldn’t help wondering what this would look like to anyone walking by.

Maggie punched a number into the phone and took a couple of slow deep breaths while she waited for it to ring on the other end. She made a face. “Voice mail.” She waited another moment. “Thorsten, it’s Maggie Adams. I’m at the community center and the building is locked. Where are you?” She rattled off her cell number and pressed the END button. “Who else is on the Winterfest committee?” she asked.

“Rebecca,” Roma said.

Maggie made a face. “I don’t want to bring her down here in the cold.”

Eddie was heavy for a guy that was mostly cotton padding. My arms were starting to cramp. “What about Mary?” I said. Mary worked for me at the library.

“Do you know her number?” Maggie asked.

I recited it to her.

“Thanks,” she said, putting the phone up to her ear. We waited, then Maggie let out a breath. She watched it slowly dissipate in the frigid air. “Does anyone answer the phone?”

Eddie’s back end was hanging dangerously close to a pile of dirty snow. I tightened my grip on his legs.

“Call Oren,” Roma said. “He did some work on the ceiling this week, fixing that leak from the ice buildup. He’ll have a key.” Oren Kenyon was a jack-of-all-trades. He’d worked on the library renovation last summer as well as getting the Stratton Theater ready for the Wild Rose Summer Music Festival.

“Roma, you’re a genius,” Maggie said, pushing buttons on the phone.

The cold was seeping up through the heavy soles and fuzzy linings of my boots, and the long underwear I was wearing underneath my jeans.

“Oren,” Maggie said. “It’s Maggie.” Quickly she explained the problem. Then she listened, nodding even though Oren couldn’t see her. “Thank you so much,” she said. “We’ll see you then.” She snapped the phone shut. “Oren will be here in about a half hour. Do you guys mind waiting?”

Roma shook her head.

“Why don’t we go down to Eric’s and have hot chocolate while we wait?” I said.

“Excellent idea,” Roma said, her voice partly muffled because her face was pressed against Eddie’s side. “But what are we going to do with Eddie?”

“Stick him back in the SUV,” I said.

Maggie held the passenger’s door open and we managed to get Eddie back in the front seat without dumping him in the snow. We piled into the car, and Roma backed out of the parking spot.

“I know it probably looks like I’m being a little obsessive,” Maggie said.

I raised an eyebrow in my best Mr. Spock impersonation.

“I just don’t want anything to happen to Eddie. He’s the biggest piece ever I’ve done.”

Roma looked both ways and pulled out of the lot. “Hey, I don’t want anything to happen to Eddie, either. He’s the only man in my life right now.”

I laughed.

“Oh, sure, Kathleen. Go ahead and laugh. You have two guys in your life.”

“I do?” I said. Then I realized she was talking about my cats. “You mean Owen and Hercules? They shed, they don’t pay any attention to anything I say to them and their breath smells like sardines.”

“And that would be different from a real man how?” Roma asked.

Maggie and I both laughed.

Eric’s Place was just up ahead. It was one of the best places to eat in town and was run, perhaps unsurprisingly, by Eric Cullen. His wife, Susan, worked for me at the library.

“Look for somewhere to park,” Roma said.

I scanned the street, wondering why there were so many cars on a Wednesday night in February.

Maggie must have read my mind. “Wait a sec. There’s an auction going on tonight over at Fischer’s Warehouse, isn’t there? The stuff from Cormac Henry’s place.”

I remembered reading about that in the paper. “That’s where Mary is,” I said.

“Probably Thorsten, too,” Roma added.

“There,” Maggie suddenly squealed, pointing across the street. Amazingly, there was an empty parking spot in front of Eric’s.

Roma scanned the pavement in front of us. “You didn’t see this,” she muttered. She made a tight U-turn in the mouth of the alley two buildings down from the café, then drove ahead and backed smoothly into the empty space in front of the restaurant. “There,” she said to Maggie. “You can keep an eye on Eddie and he won’t miss all the fun.”

We piled on to the sidewalk and went into the restaurant. It was almost empty. Peter Lundgren was at a table by the end wall, his head bent over a book, probably something to do with World War II history; that was where his reading interests lay. I also knew he liked heavy-metal music, which wasn’t what I would have expected of a lawyer.

Claire, my favorite waitress, smiled at us. “Sit anywhere,” she called, making a sweeping gesture with one hand.

I caught sight of Eric behind the counter.

“Why don’t we take a table by the window so we can keep an eye on Eddie?” Roma said.

“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll be right back. I just need to speak to Eric for a second.”

“Hi, Kathleen,” Eric said with a smile. He was wearing a long apron with splotches of chocolate all over it. That had to be good.

“Hi,” I said. “I just wanted to say thank you for the apple cake this morning.” Eric liked to experiment with new recipes for the café. Sometimes Susan brought his efforts to work.

“Oh, you’re welcome.” He pushed back the sleeves of his dark green sweater. “Did you think there was too much cinnamon?”

I shook my head. “No. But if you feel you need to experiment a little more . . .”

“You’ll all force yourselves to be my taste testers.”

I put my hand over my heart. “We’ll make the sacrifice,” I said solemnly.

He laughed, and I headed back to Roma and Maggie, pulling off my old coat. It was warm, but it was an ugly shade of brown. I’d bought it to wear out to Wisteria Hill when it was my turn to help feed the cat colony that lived at the abandoned house. Since I’d paid only five dollars for the jacket at Goodwill, I didn’t really care that it wasn’t very fashionable. I was pretty sure the cats didn’t, either.

Claire came over with an insulated carafe. “Hot chocolate?” she asked, holding it up.

“Please,” Roma said, pulling off her gloves and rubbing her hands together.

Maggie and I both nodded.

Claire poured three mugs of cocoa. “Marshmallows or cinnamon?”

“Marshmallows!” Maggie and I said in unison.

“Eric made chocolate pudding cake,” Claire said with a sly smile. Her red curls were caught in two pigtails and she looked like a mischievous little girl.

Roma was bent over, fixing her boot. “Yes,” she said, holding up one hand and waving it.

“That sounds good,” Maggie said.

“It does,” I agreed.

“It’ll just be a couple of minutes,” Claire promised, heading back to the counter.

Roma straightened and picked up her mug. “Here’s to chocolate and duct tape.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“Chocolate and duct tape,” she repeated. “Between the two of them you can solve just about any problem.” She stuck out her left leg, pointing to her boot. “See?” There was a piece of gray duct tape stuck to the heel on the inside edge. “I caught that on a spike this afternoon. Couple of pieces of tape and it’s fine for now.”

I laughed. “Don’t tell me you carry a roll of duct tape in your bag.”

“I do. And a bag of M&M’s.” She held out her right hand, palm up. “Duct tape.” She did the same with her other hand. “M&M’s. If I can’t fix whatever’s wrong with those two things, I’m going home and getting back into bed.”

Claire was coming toward us, carrying a large oval tray. I could smell the warm chocolate. She set a dish of marshmallows in the middle of the table, then slid a bowl of pudding cake in front of each of us.

It tasted even better than it smelled, and it smelled wonderful. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked. All she got for an answer was three grunts. She smiled. “I’ll check back in a few minutes.”

We ate in silence except for the occasional sigh of pleasure. Maggie set down her spoon first and licked a drop of chocolate sauce from the side of her thumb. “That was so, so good,” she said. She pulled a small black notebook from her pocket. “What’s the rest of your week look like?” she asked Roma. “I need to take some more pictures of the cats.”

Roma wiped her hand with her napkin. “What works for you?” she asked. They leaned across the table, comparing schedules.

Maggie had done a collage of photos of the feral cat colony at Wisteria Hill, where I’d found Owen and Hercules. It hung in the waiting room of Roma’s veterinary clinic. Now an animal-rescue organization had commissioned Maggie to create a poster for their spay-neuter program. She was going to take pictures of three new strays that had been left on the doorstep of the clinic last week.

There was a rush of cold wind in my face as the door to the café opened. A tiny, elderly woman stepped inside. Something about her seemed familiar. She hesitated in the doorway, blinking in the light. Was she looking around for someone? I wasn’t sure. I touched Roma’s arm. “Roma, who’s that?” I asked.

She looked up, smiling at the sight of the old woman. “That’s Agatha,” she said, her smile widening as the other woman noticed her. Agatha didn’t exactly smile back, but her expression softened a little. And she ducked her head in recognition. Then her eyes shifted to me and she nodded.

Roma frowned. “Do you know her?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I saw her a couple of times yesterday. When I was shoveling she, uh, she stopped to talk to Hercules. You know what a wuss he is about getting his feet wet.”

What I didn’t say was that Agatha had picked up my little black-and-white cat and carried him over to me. Hercules and Owen, like the rest of the cats from Wisteria Hill, were likely feral. I’d found them as kittens, and they typically wouldn’t let anyone other than me touch them.

Agatha was slowly making her way over to where Peter Lundgren was leaning on the counter, talking to Eric. I couldn’t tell how old she was. She was hunched over with what I guessed was osteoporosis, her face lined with a web of fine wrinkles. She wore what looked to me like an early 1960s vintage red-and-black-plaid mohair coat. It seemed just a bit too big, or maybe the woman wearing it had gotten smaller with time.

Peter straightened and walked over to Agatha, offering his arm to her. She took it, shifting a black canvas bag to her other hand, and he helped her the rest of the way. They clearly knew each other.

“Why have I never seen her before?” I said.

“Agatha had a minor stroke this time last year and fell and broke her hip,” Roma said. “She’s been in a rehab center in Minneapolis.” She glanced over at the counter, where Eric was handing Agatha a brown paper bag and take-out cup. Peter was on his way back to his table. “I didn’t think she was coming home and then yesterday I saw her with Ruby.”

Like Maggie, Ruby was also an artist. She painted huge abstracts and taught art. And she was the best student in our tai chi class.

The second time I’d seen Agatha she’d been talking to Ruby, as well. They’d been in the parking lot of the library and Agatha had seemed upset with Ruby, the way she seemed to be right now with Eric. He was gesturing at an envelope the old woman was holding. She’d had it the day I’d seen her with Ruby, as well. It looked like the kind of envelope my sixth-grade report card had been in.

Even at a distance I could see Agatha’s expression, her lips pulled into a thin, angry line. Eric’s face was flushed. He shook his head.