Cat Trick (22 page)

21

E
lizabeth and Wren were sitting at one of the tables in the window at Eric’s Place.
Elizabeth saw me coming up the sidewalk and waved. I stepped inside the restaurant
and walked over to them.

“Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Are you by yourself? Would you like to join us?”

“Thank you. I would,” I said. I grabbed a chair from a nearby empty table. Claire
came over with coffee. I added cream and sugar and folded my fingers around the cup.

“Wren’s leaving in the morning,” Elizabeth said.

“I’m sorry,” I said. I was. I was sorry that so many things hurt her and sorry that
I was about to add to them.

“There’re some things I have to do,” Wren said, tucking a strand of her fine blond
hair behind her ear. “And it’s just too sad here right now.” She looked even thinner,
somehow, than the last time I’d seen her, with dark smudges like bruises under her
eyes.

“And it must have been hard pretending you felt bad because Mike Glazer was dead when
really you didn’t,” I said. “At least at first.”

She swallowed, and a little color came into her pale face. “I do feel bad,” she said.
She set her fork down and dropped her hands into her lap.

Elizabeth leaned forward, a frown creasing her forehead. “What are you talking about?”
she asked.

Maggie and Liam came in then. She nodded at me and caught Liam’s sleeve, and they
walked over to us.

Liam looked at Wren and frowned. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“It’s all right,” Wren said in her soft voice.

“No, it isn’t,” Elizabeth said. I could see Harrison in the way she held herself and
the assurance in her voice. She turned to me. “I think you should go sit somewhere
else, Kathleen.”

I kept my eyes on Wren. “I know that you hated Mike. I know you wanted him dead,”
I said. “And I know why. But you didn’t kill him. You just knocked him out. So . . .
so I think you should stay here.” I looked back over my shoulder. Eric was at the
counter. He raised his eyebrows at me. I gave my head a little shake and he nodded.

Liam held up both hands. “Hold on,” he said. “Everyone knows Wren didn’t have anything
to do with Glazer’s death. She didn’t knock him out. She wasn’t even in town that
night. She had a flat tire out on the highway. I stopped to help her.” He shrugged.
“Anyway, he died of a heart attack or something like it. So this doesn’t even matter.”

“Mike Glazer didn’t die from a heart attack,” I said. I kept watching Wren. Her left
hand was covering her right one in her lap. That bottom hand was tightly clenched
in a fist.

Elizabeth stood up and grabbed her purse from the back of her chair. “Let’s go, Wren,”
she said. She glared at me. “You’re crazy.”

“No, she isn’t,” Harry Taylor said behind me. I hadn’t even noticed him come in. He
must have broken every speed limit driving down from Wild Rose Bluff.

“You don’t know what she’s saying, Harry. It’s all crazy,” she said.

He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket. “You have time to listen.”

Liam turned to Harry. He gestured at me. “It is crazy,” he said. “Kathleen thinks
Wren hit Glazer over the head or something. I already told her Wren was miles away
from here.”

Maggie touched his arm and smiled. “Liam, loyalty is one of your very best qualities,”
she said. “But you need to stop talking right now, because you aren’t helping.”

“You found out the truth about how Mike’s brother, Gavin, died, didn’t you?” I asked
Wren. “You found out that Mike was partially responsible for the death of the man
you thought of as your stepfather.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a tiny muscle in Liam’s cheek begin to twitch.

Elizabeth was still standing. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Why would she say what
a great guy he was if she thought he had something to do with that?”

“Because you didn’t want anyone to know how much you hated him, did you?” I said gently.

Wren gave her head a tiny shake, the movement almost imperceptible. “No, I didn’t.”

Elizabeth stiffened and swallowed a couple of times before she could speak. “Why?”
The one word came out in a whisper.

Wren turned from me to look at her friend. “Because I didn’t want anyone to know I
killed him,” she said.

Liam ducked his head and stared at the floor. Maggie pressed her lips together. Harry
moved around the table and put his arm around his sister’s shoulders. She stood there
rigidly, but she didn’t shrug him off.

“Except you didn’t,” I said.

“Yes, I did,” Wren repeated, pushing back the strand of hair that had fallen in her
face again.

I leaned forward and laid my hand on her arm. “I know you think you did. But you didn’t.
You didn’t
. Tell me what happened.”

“I read my mother’s journals,” she said. “The first week I got here after classes
ended. They were in this old leather trunk. It was out in a storage unit she had.
I just picked out random ones and started reading. One of them was from the time when
Gavin died.

“Some people were saying that Mike had bought beer that night and that he’d kept telling
Gavin that my mother had him whipped.” She swiped at a tear that had started to slide
down her face. “My mother . . . confronted Mike, the morning of the . . . the funeral.
She found out the stories were true. That was . . . that was why she never had anything
to do with any of that family again.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I decided I was going to drive to Chicago and confront him. I didn’t even get out
of town before my crappy car broke down. It took a while before I had the money to
get it fixed.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Elizabeth was listening, although she
was looking down at the floor.

“Then I found out he was here, in Mayville Heights,” Wren continued. “I couldn’t believe
it, but I saw him crossing the street and it just seemed like a sign, you know?”

I nodded. “Why did you wait a day and a half to go see him?”

She folded one arm across her middle as though she were hugging herself. “I didn’t,”
she said. “Not exactly. I went to the St. James—that’s where he was staying—the first
night Mike got here. I don’t know what I planned to do. I was just so angry. I watched
him in the bar and I realized that hurting him wasn’t going to make anything different.
So I just left.”

“But you couldn’t let the chance to talk to him go by,” I said.

Wren nodded. “I thought about it all the next day. I couldn’t let him just go without
telling him what he did to me, to my family, either. I waited for everyone to leave
Wednesday night and then I confronted him.”

Her face tightened in anger. “He didn’t recognize me, and when I told him who I was
and why I was there, he tried to . . . to make excuses.” She was breathing hard. “I
was so . . . so angry.”

The hand still resting in her lap was squeezed so tightly into a fist, I thought the
skin pulled white over her knuckles would split open. “There was . . . a metal table
just inside the tent. I think he was using it for a desk, and I kicked it or maybe
I shoved it. I don’t know. He had this leather briefcase on top, and when I hit the
table it fell off. When Mike went to grab it, the table knocked him off balance.”

She stopped to swallow and get her breath. “He went backward and he hit his head—on
the ground, I think. I . . . I . . . waited for him to move . . . to get up, but he
didn’t and . . . and I just ran.” She brushed another tear away. “I killed him. It
was an accident, but I killed him just the same. I panicked. I used a rock to put
a nail in my tire so it would go flat. I drove up onto the highway because I knew
there was a good chance Liam would drive by and see me.”

“You didn’t kill Mike, Wren,” I said. She turned her head. I leaned sideways so she
had to look at me again and put a hand over hers. “I swear you didn’t kill him. He
didn’t die from a head injury. He was suffocated with one of the backdrops for the
booths. Whatever you were going to do . . . don’t. Please, please, please don’t.”
I swallowed, but I couldn’t seem to get the lump in my throat to move.

Marcus was standing quietly off to the side. I’d seen him come in a couple of minutes
before, and now I turned to look at him. “Could you please tell her?” I said.

His shoulders were rigid and his expression unreadable. For a moment I wasn’t sure
he was going to answer my question. Then he gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Mike
Glazer didn’t die from a head injury,” he said.

22

E
lizabeth pushed her way around the table and wrapped Wren in a hug. Wren looked stunned.
She was crying and shaking at the same time.

“Ms. Magnusson, I do need to hear the whole story,” Marcus said. “Officially.” He
looked at me.

Harry stepped forward. “We’ll come over to the police station,” he said. “Soon as
I line up a lawyer. You understand, Detective. No offense.”

Marcus nodded. “Of course.”

“Thank you, Kathleen,” Harry said quietly as he moved past me. He put one hand on
Elizabeth’s back and steered both young women over to another table.

“I’ll need to talk to you too,” Marcus said to Liam, “but that can wait until morning.”

“I’ll be there,” Liam said. He looked at me. “She really was going to . . . hurt herself,
wasn’t she?”

I nodded. “She told you, didn’t she? That Mike had been partly responsible for what
happened to his brother? It’s what you were arguing about the night he died.”

He swallowed before he answered. “Yes.”

“You were afraid she might be a suspect. That’s why you lied about what time you’d
found her with the flat tire.”

“I knew it would hurt a lot of people if the truth came out,” Liam said, swiping a
hand over his chin. “Especially Wren. I was friends with her brother. I’ve known her
since she was a little kid.” He looked over to where Wren was sitting with Elizabeth’s
arm still around her shoulders. “I had no idea she would . . .” He shook his head
and looked at me again. “Thank you, Kathleen.”

Maggie gave me a hug. “You done for the night?” she whispered.

“I’m not sure,” I said softly.

“Call me if you need me,” she said before letting go. She touched Liam’s arm. “Let’s
get something to go.” They started for the counter and Claire met them partway.

I’d been watching Marcus out of the corner of my eye, but now I turned and looked
at him directly. “Thank you,” I said.

He stared at me for a long moment. “We need to talk, later,” he said.

I could tell by the cool tone to his voice and the rigid way he was standing that
he was angry. But I knew once he understood that Wren really had been planning to
kill herself, he’d also understand why I hadn’t waited for him to call me back.

“I know,” I said. “I’ll be home.”

He nodded and left.

Eric came around the counter and walked over to me. He had a take-out cup in one hand
and a paper bag in the other. He held them out to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Coffee and cinnamon rolls,” he said. “On the house.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

Eric smiled. “I figure you had a good reason.” He inclined his head toward the street.
“Everything okay between you and the detective?”

“I think so,” I said.

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “I have to get back to work,” he said.

I held up the coffee. “Thanks again.”

Eric nodded and walked back to the counter. I headed for the truck.

Hercules was waiting in the porch. The moment I opened the door, he meowed. “It’s
all right,” I told him. I set the coffee and cinnamon rolls next to him on the bench
and scooped him into a hug. I had a kind of giddy, unsettled energy. “Wren’s going
to be just fine.”

He licked my chin and then squirmed to be set down so he could investigate the bag.
“Cinnamon rolls,” I said, waggling my eyebrows. There was a loud meow from the other
side of the porch door. I reached over and opened it, and Owen came in. He looked
from me to his brother and licked his whiskers.

“How did you know?” I asked.

His nose twitched.

“You did not smell cinnamon rolls from out in the yard,” I told him. I grabbed the
bag off the bench before Hercules managed to poke a hole in it with his paw.

Once I was settled at the table with the cats at my feet, I brought them up-to-date
on what had happened with Wren and Mike Glazer the night he died.

“She gave the table a shove.” I mimed the motion. “Mike tried to grab his briefcase
and he was off balance when the table hit him. He went backward and was knocked out
for a minute. He was probably still groggy when whoever killed him showed up.”

Owen’s head snapped up as though he’d had the same realization I’d just had.

“Where did the briefcase go?” I said. I pictured the inside of the tent, working my
way around it in my head. There had been no leather briefcase on the grass, no briefcase
on the table. I looked at Owen. “Did you see it?” His golden eyes met mine and he
gave a sharp meow.

No.

“The killer must have taken it,” I said. “But why?”

Owen didn’t have an answer for that question. But it seemed Hercules did. He jumped
onto the chair opposite me and poked at my laptop with one paw.

I remembered that I hadn’t read Lise’s e-mail, so I pulled the computer closer and
turned it on. “Chairs are for people,” I said to Hercules.

He gave me a blank look. Both cats thought they were people.

“People with two legs,” I added. “And you’re sitting on my sweater.”

He jumped down, making complaining noises low in his throat. Then he launched himself
onto my lap, a glint of triumph in his eyes.

There was an e-mail from my sister, Sara, in my in-box too, but I opened Lise’s message
first. She’d found out quite a lot in just a couple of days.

According to Lise’s information, Alex and Chris Scott wouldn’t have been able to push
Mike out of the business that easily. He apparently had a deal that entitled him to
major compensation if they let him go before the fourth full year of his contract—more
than a million dollars.

“People have killed for less,” I said to Hercules. “And that would explain why Mike’s
briefcase disappeared.” It also explained the way Mike Glazer had been killed. Holding
something over someone’s face until they stopped breathing would take strength—it
would also take a lot of anger.

“Both Scott brothers were at that fund-raising dinner in Minneapolis,” I said to Herc.
“And yes, it is a very nice coincidence that they happened to be just an hour away
when their partner was killed. But how could they be there and here at the same time?”

Hercules touched the screen with his paw as though he were pointing to Sara’s e-mail.

“Okay, I’ll read Sara’s e-mail,” I said. “I don’t have any other ideas.”

Sara had sent some of the photos from the video shoot. My favorite image was the guys
looking like clean-cut members of a boy band in white shirts with the sleeves pushed
back, vests, loosened skinny ties and not a sign of piercings, tattoos or even stubble.
The shot of them in their ruffled pirate shirts was pretty funny, too. I remembered
what she’d said about seeing way more of the guys than she’d ever wanted to:
Best way to cover up all their ink was to airbrush. It did a great job, but none of
those guys were on my list of men I wanted to see without their shirts.

Hercules cocked his head to one side. His whiskers twitched as though he were waiting
for me to make the connection. And just like that, I figured it out.

I closed my e-mail and used a search engine to bring up all the photos I could find
from the dinner in Minneapolis. I checked each one carefully. It wasn’t what I was
seeing on the screen that told me who had killed Mike Glazer; it was what I wasn’t
seeing.

There were no images of Alex and Christopher Scott together. In the dozens and dozens
of pictures from that night, not once had the brothers been photographed together.
Because both of them hadn’t been there.

It was a pretty outrageous plan, Christopher covering up his tattoo and pretending
to be Alex for part of the evening. On the other hand, they were identical twins and
it couldn’t have been the first time they had impersonated each other.

“They planned it,” I said to Hercules. I thought about the frosting spatula belonging
to Georgia Tepper that had been shoved down into the dirt by the edge of the tent.
“Do you think that making it look like Georgia was involved somehow was part of the
plan too?”

He narrowed his eyes and considered the question. Marcus had said the company Georgia’s
former father-in-law worked for was a longtime client of Legacy Tours. Had Alex Scott
recognized Georgia and figured she’d be a good person to frame? My stomach turned
over at the thought.

“Maggie said that Liam and Alex were going to do a walk-through of the tents before
tomorrow’s tasting and art show,” I said. “What if he’s going to plant some other
piece of so-called evidence to implicate Georgia?”

Owen meowed loudly. He was already on his way to the living room.

I stood up and set Hercules down. “We have to call Maggie and see if she and Liam
can stall Alex until I can get in touch with Marcus.”

I called Marcus’s cell phone first, hoping I’d get him and not his voice mail, but
I didn’t. He must have still been talking to Wren. I left a short message and then
I tried Maggie. She didn’t answer at her apartment, and when I tried her cell, I got
that voice mail too.

“Where is everybody?” I asked, pulling a hand back through my hair. Owen and Hercules
didn’t seem to have any more idea than I did.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Georgia, saying maybe it was time for her and her little
girl to move on. If any more “evidence” turned up, I felt certain she’d bolt. She’d
leave Mayville Heights, where she had a good life, and run. She wouldn’t wait to see
how things worked out. I’d already seen that in her eyes.

I looked down at the two furry faces staring up at me. “Marcus would say I don’t know
anything,” I said. “Not for sure.” So why did I feel so certain? I had no real proof
the Scott brothers had killed Mike. I had no proof that Georgia would go on the run
again. Still, I knew I was right. I was as certain about my instincts as Marcus always
was about his facts.

“Marcus said being a police officer is part of who he is,” I said to the boys. “This
is who I am. He’ll understand that.”

I got up, grabbed my purse and my keys and stepped into my shoes. Owen and Hercules
were right behind me. They followed me out into the porch, and I decided to let them
come with me. It wasn’t any crazier than anything else I was about to do.

I opened the driver’s-side door of the truck and lifted Hercules onto the seat. Owen
jumped up on his own. I got in, started the engine and looked over at them sitting
quietly beside me with what seemed to me to be a fierce look of determination on both
of their furry faces. I was about to confront a potential murderer with just a couple
of small cats for backup.

I looked at the house through the windshield. I could have gone back inside and waited
for Marcus to call me. I could have gone down to the police station and waited for
him.

But I didn’t.