Cat Trick (5 page)

There was no sign of Owen when we got home. I changed, grabbed the lunch I’d made
earlier and drove down to the library. Susan was coming up the street as I pulled
into the parking lot, and she waited for me at the bottom of the library steps. She
was wearing her black cat’s-eye glasses, and her hair was in its usual Pebbles Flintstone
updo, secured with a small cocktail fork. Sometimes I wondered if the twins did her
hair every morning.

“Good morning,” she said, a huge smile lighting up her face.

I smiled back. “Good morning.” I went ahead of her up the stairs, opened the doors
and disarmed the alarm system.

Susan moved past me to snap on the lights. “So how was your night?” Her knowing tone
told me she already had the answer to the question.

I shook my head at her as I relocked the main door. “I know that you know I had dinner
with Marcus Gordon last night.”

The smile turned into a grin. “Eric told me,” she said. She clasped her hands behind
her back and pushed her glasses up her nose. “So, did he sweep you into those strong,
manly arms for a good-night kiss? And when are you going to see him again?”

“Number one, none of your business. And number two, I’ve already seen Marcus this
morning—and not because last night stretched into this morning.”

It took a moment, but then Susan’s face grew serious as she made the connection. She’d
obviously already heard what had happened to Mike. “Don’t tell me you found Mike Glazer’s
body.”

I shifted my leather briefcase from one hand to the other. “Technically, it was Hercules
who found the body,” I said.

“Hercules?” Susan’s eyes darted from side to side in confusion. “What was your cat
doing down on the Riverwalk?”

“We were at the studio building. Ruby wants to do another cat painting. Remember the
one Maggie sold this summer?”

She nodded.

“We were a few minutes early. I didn’t have the zipper closed all the way on the carrier . . .”
I gestured with my free hand.

“And the cat’s out of the bag.”

I nodded. “Pretty much.”

“Do you think Hercules sensed . . . something?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Cats have a much better sense of smell than we do.” I didn’t add
that both Hercules and Owen had an uncanny ability for poking their furry noses into
things they shouldn’t. Marcus would probably say the same thing about me.

“I guess this is the end of the pitch to Legacy Tours,” Susan said as we headed for
the stairs to the second floor.

“Probably,” I agreed.

“Well, not to speak ill of the dead, but from what I heard, Mike Glazer was pretty
much impossible to please, so I don’t think the idea had much of a chance anyway.
I’m sorry to hear he’s dead, though.”

Behind us, someone tapped on the front door. “That’ll be Mary,” I said.

“I’ll go,” Susan said. She hurried over to the entrance and let the older woman in.

“Hi, Kathleen,” Mary said, hustling into the library as though she were being pushed
by a sudden gust of wind. “I’m sorry I’m running late.” She was a little out of breath,
and I noticed that her jacket was buttoned wrong.

“How did swimming lessons go?” she asked Susan. The boys had gone for their first
swim class in the pool at the St. James Hotel.

“Wet,” Susan said with a grimace. “Very, very wet. On the other hand, we haven’t been
banned from the hotel property, so I take that as a positive sign.”

“I really didn’t mean to be late,” Mary said, turning to me.

“You’re not late,” I said. “We don’t open for another five minutes.”

“Oh, good.” She patted her gray curls, which looked as though they’d been lacquered
into place with about half a can of extra-strength hair spray. “I swear this whole
tour thing is turning out to be way more trouble than it’s worth. Heaven help me for
saying it, but there are moments I think Burtis is right; someone ought to smack a
little sense into that Glazer boy.”

Susan and I exchanged awkward glances.

Mary saw the look that passed between us. “What?” she asked, blue eyes narrowing.
“Something’s up. What is it?”

I exhaled slowly. “Mary,” I began, “Mike is . . . dead.”

“Lord love a duck,” she said softly.

4

I
told Mary about discovering the body in the tent. She sighed and shook her head. “He
hasn’t been home in years, and now this happens—as if that family hasn’t already been
through enough.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as we headed up to the second-floor staff room.

Mary gave me a half smile. “That’s right. You weren’t here when it happened.” Her
forehead furrowed in thought. “Let me see. It must be close to ten years ago now.
The Glazers lost a son—Michael’s older brother, Gavin—in a car accident.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“It gets worse,” Mary said. “His parents were away for the weekend. Gavin hit a guardrail
and rolled his car down an embankment. He died in the hospital, and they didn’t make
it back in time to say good-bye.”

Susan nodded in silent confirmation.

“That’s why Mike has no family here anymore.” I fished the keys to my office out of
my pocket.

Mary slipped her bag down off her shoulder. “He left for Chicago maybe a month or
so after the accident. His mother and father eventually moved as well, just to get
a little space from their memories, I think.” She shook her head. “No one deserves
this.”

I touched her arm. “If you’d like to take the day, Susan and I can handle things here
and I can call Abigail to come in.”

Mary gave me a small smile. “Thank you, Kathleen. That’s very thoughtful, but I’m
fine.”

Susan patted her canvas tote. “I have a piece of lemon-blueberry coffee cake. Want
to split it?”

“Oh, that does sound good,” Mary said. She might have claimed she was fine, but there
were tight lines around her eyes and mouth.

“It is,” Susan said, pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose with one hand
and linking her other arm through Mary’s. “But I keep telling Eric that I’m not sure
so he’ll keep trying the recipe.”

They started down the hall to the staff room. I unlocked my office door, put my things
away and then went back downstairs to officially open the building for the day.

It was about ten thirty and I was at the checkout desk, looking at a picture book
that Susan had discovered in the book drop with every page covered in glitter glue,
when Wren Magnusson came in. She looked around, almost as though she wasn’t sure if
she was in the right place, and then she walked over to us.

I didn’t know Wren very well. She’d been away at university, living with her older
brother in Minneapolis. Her mother had died suddenly about six months ago, and Wren
had taken the fall term off to sort through the things in her mother’s house and spend
some time back in Mayville Heights.

Wren was tiny, with white-blond hair and fair skin that seemed even paler this morning.
She was twisting her left thumb tightly with her other hand, although she didn’t seem
to really be aware of it.

“Excuse me?” she asked in her soft voice. “Is Mary Lowe here?”

“She is,” I said. “I’ll get her for you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Mary was shelving books at the far end of the nonfiction section. While her hands
were working, her thoughts were clearly somewhere else, and she jumped when I came
around the end of the metal shelving unit and spoke her name.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Don’t apologize,” Mary said. “I was woolgathering when I should have been paying
more attention to what I’m doing.”

“Wren Magnusson is at the checkout desk, looking for you.”

Mary made a face and pressed a hand to her forehead. “I forgot all about the child
being back in town. How could I do that? She must have heard what happened.”

Clearly the fact that I had no idea what she was talking about was showing on my face.

“Wren knows”—she shook her head—“knew Mike. She was close to all the Glazers when
she was a kid. It’s . . . complicated.”

A lot of the relationships in Mayville Heights were, I’d come to learn. So was my
own background, for that matter. My mother and father had married each other twice,
with my brother and sister, Sara and Ethan, front and center with my mother, so to
speak, at the second ceremony.

“Go talk to her,” I said. “Take half an hour. It’s not busy. Susan and I will be fine.”

“Thank you, Kathleen,” Mary said. She patted my arm as she squeezed past me. “You
have a good heart.”

I followed Mary as far as the children’s reading area and watched her fold Wren Magnusson
into her arms. Mary was the one with the good heart.

She pulled out of the hug, keeping her hands on Wren’s shoulders as she studied the
young woman’s face. After a moment Mary hooked her arm through Wren’s and they headed
for the library entrance.

I walked over to Susan. She looked up at me. “That poor kid.”

“She knew Mike,” I said.

She nodded. “She was almost part of that family.”

I frowned at her. “What do you mean ‘almost’?”

Susan pushed the seafood fork a little more tightly into her topknot. “You know that
older brother of Mike’s Mary was telling you about?”

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Wren’s mother was going to marry him.”

I blew out a breath. “So Gavin Glazer was going to be Wren’s stepfather,” I said.

Susan traced a finger around the outside edge of the heavy hardcover book she was
holding. “The Glazers already treated them as though they were family. Wren’s mother
never really got over what happened. She cut off all contact with the family even
before they moved away. I think it was just too painful for her.” She sighed. “But
it had to be hell for Wren. She didn’t just lose Gavin. She lost that entire family.”
She set the book on the counter.

“Sometimes life isn’t very fair,” I said.

“You got that right,” Susan agreed.

“I’m going to finish shelving that cart Mary was working on,” I said. “Yell if you
need me.”

I was putting back issues of
Scientific American
into their cubby when Mary returned about twenty minutes later. She walked over to
me, and I got to my feet, brushing my hands on my black pants.

“How’s Wren?” I asked.

“A little shaky, but all right, considering,” Mary said. “If her brother wasn’t up
in Alaska until the end of the month, I would have suggested she go back to Minneapolis.”

“Susan told me about Wren’s connection to the Glazers.”

“She was so happy to get the chance to reconnect with Mike. She’d been going to see
him today. She was even talking about getting to see his mother.” She tucked her hands
into the pockets of her peach-colored cardigan. “Kathleen, do you have any idea how
Mike died?”

I hesitated, unsure how to answer.

Before I could say anything, Mary held up a hand and gave her head a little shake.
“I’m sorry. How could you know that?” She sighed softly. “It doesn’t make any difference
how he died,” she said. “It doesn’t make him any less dead. I just thought maybe it
would help Wren if I could tell her that he didn’t suffer.” She shook her head again
as if to clear it. “Not a very nice way to go, alone in that big old tent of Burtis’s.”

“Is there a good way to die?” I asked, picking up another book from the cart.

“Well, I darn sure know how I plan on going,” Mary said, a saucy gleam suddenly lighting
up her eyes.

I put one hand on my hip and looked skeptically at her, happy to have the subject
changed. “I don’t think that’s something you can really plan, but that doesn’t mean
I don’t want to hear what those plans of yours are.”

She pulled herself up straight to her full height, which wasn’t actually that tall.
“I plan to live to be one hundred and be shot in bed by the jealous girlfriend of
a much, much younger man.” She smiled at me. “And since I’m nowhere near the century
mark right now, I’m going to go wash my hands and then come back and finish those
books.”

I watched her head for the stairs. She was in excellent shape. If anyone was likely
to make it to a hundred, it was Mary. And even though she was very happily married,
I’d seen her get admiring looks from men a lot younger. Those long, strong legs of
hers tended to turn men of any age into mush.

I went back over to the desk to see if Susan needed anything, and when she didn’t,
I headed upstairs to my office. I dropped into my chair and swung around to look out
the window.

How had Mike Glazer died? That question had been rolling around in my mind since I’d
stepped into the tent and caught sight of his body slumped in that plastic lawn chair.
There had been no blood, no signs of a fight. The body had been cold and stiff.

But when I’d felt for a pulse, my fingers had brushed over something—a small bump,
a little smaller than an egg, on the back of Mike Glazer’s head, behind his left ear.

I wasn’t sure that even mattered. Not compared to what I’d noticed on his face. Tiny
red marks barely bigger than a needle prick—petechial hemorrhages was the medical
term for them—and I knew they were a sign of suffocation, among other things. Which
meant Mike Glazer’s death probably wasn’t an accident.

I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead. A headache was starting to throb behind
my eyes. I knew it was possible that I was wrong. But I was pretty sure I wasn’t.

5

T
he library got busier as the day went on, and I overheard more than one person speculating
on what was going to happen to Mayville Height’s pitch to Legacy Tours. At lunchtime
I tried calling Maggie, but all I got was her voice mail. I left a message telling
her I knew what had happened and I’d see her later at tai chi class.

Both cats were waiting by the kitchen table when I got home. They seemed to have put
their differences from the morning aside. I hung up my coat and bent down to pet them
both. Owen had the slightly loopy look that told me he’d been into his Fred the Funky
Chicken stash. Rebecca, whose house backed up to mine, kept him in the neon-yellow
catnip chickens, using any excuse to buy him one, including Hug Your Cat Day and the
summer solstice.

“How was your day?” I said to Hercules. He held up one front paw. There was a jet-black
feather stuck between two toes on his right paw. I bent over to pull it loose. “Did
you and that grackle get into it again?” I asked. Hercules had been having a war for
months with what seemed to be one bird that liked to dive-bomb his head when he was
in the backyard. I had nicknamed him Professor Moriarty because he was an arch-nemesis
if a cat ever had one. He and Herc had had a couple of run-ins, one of which had ended
with Hercules as the proud possessor of another large black wing feather. The bird
had disappeared for a while after that. I was guessing he was back.

I pointed to his paw. “Do I want to know what happened?”

He immediately put his left paw on top of his right and looked at me, blinking his
big green eyes.

“That’s fine with me,” I said. “Whatever happens in the backyard stays in the backyard.”

I turned to Owen. “And how was your day?” I asked, reaching over to scratch under
his chin. He gave me a blissful if slightly stoned-looking smile, and leaned in to
my hand.

After I’d gotten some cat love, I went upstairs, changed into my tai chi clothes and
came back down to get supper. I made a grocery list while I ate, making sure I put
sardines on the list so I could make the cats’ favorite stinky crackers on the weekend.

When the dishes were done, I realized I had enough time to walk down to tai chi class.
I put my shoes and a towel in my bag—after picking out a little clump of black fur—pulled
on a sweater and called good-bye to the boys. They had disappeared as soon as I’d
started the dishes.

Roma was coming up the sidewalk from the other direction as I got close to the artist’s
co-op store. She waited for me by the door. “Hi,” she said. “I heard about this morning.
Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “And, technically, it was Hercules who discovered Mike Glazer’s
body.” We went inside and started up the steps to the second-floor tai chi studio.

“Ruby told me she’s doing another painting of Hercules,” Roma said, running her hand
through her sleek, dark bob. “I hope it brings in as much as the last one. Cat People
needs the money.”

Cat People was a rescue group that worked with feral cats in this area. The fund-raiser
Ruby was donating the painting to was for them.

At the top of the stairs, Roma dropped onto the bench near the coat hooks to change
her shoes. I pulled off my sweater and draped it over a hook.

“How did Hercules end up over by the tents in the first place?” Roma asked, tucking
her sleek brown hair behind one ear. She slid to the right and I sat down beside her.

“I didn’t have the zipper on the cat carrier closed all the way.” I felt my cheeks
getting warm. “He hustled down the street, looked both ways at the curb and made a
beeline for the tent.”

“At least he knew to watch for cars,” she said with a smile.

“Roma, do you think he really could have smelled . . . something at that distance?”
I asked, swapping one running shoe for one of the purple canvas pull-ons I wore for
class.

“It’s possible. A cat’s sense of smell is vastly superior to ours.”

“I know,” I said. “I swear Owen can sniff out a catnip chicken all the way across
the backyard at Rebecca’s house.”

“And Owen and Hercules aren’t exactly typical cats either, Kathleen,” she said.

My stomach gave a little lurch. Did Roma know more about my cats’ abilities than she’d
let on? “What do you mean?” I asked, as she stood up to pull her sweatshirt over her
head.

“Well, they were feral, or at the very least, abandoned as young kittens.” Her voice
was muffled a little by the fabric. She pulled the shirt off the rest of the way and
shook her head. Her hair fell back into its shiny bob. Even with Rebecca’s expert
scissors styling my hair these days, it never quite behaved like that. “And they definitely
don’t have a typical house cat’s digestive system,” she added with an eyebrows-raised,
sideways glance.

I felt myself relax. Roma didn’t know that Owen could disappear like a rabbit from
a magician’s hat or that Hercules hadn’t just walked into Burtis’s tent; he’d walked
through it.

“By the way, what was the last treat you gave Hercules?” Roma asked, still eyeing
me.

“One of those stinky sardine crackers I make,” I said. “And Ruby gave him a few organic
fish-shaped treats this morning, which she said you okayed.”

“Good,” she said, putting her sweatshirt over one of the coat hooks.

We walked into the studio space. Maggie was standing in the center of the room with
Ruby and fifteen-year-old Taylor King. Ruby was showing them something on her cell
phone. Taylor was the newest student in the class. The teenager smiled when she saw
Roma.

The Kings had bought an old horse for their daughter, and Roma had spent a lot of
time nursing Horton back to health. Now Taylor was interested in becoming a veterinarian.

“Hi,” Ruby said, holding up the phone. “Want to see which photo I finally decided
on?”

“Yes,” I said, leaning in for a look.

“Me too,” Roma added.

Hercules was looking directly at the camera in the photograph. He was standing on
Roma’s worktable with his head turned just a bit to the left with what I recognized
as his “serious” expression on his black-and-white face.

“That’s perfect,” Roma said, smiling at Ruby. “I can’t wait to see the finished painting.”

“I like it,” I agreed.

“I love your cat,” Taylor said shyly. “Ruby said he came from Wisteria Hill.”

I nodded. “That’s right. So did his brother, Owen.”

“Do they like people?” she asked.

Roma rolled her eyes. “They think they are people,” she said.

Both Maggie and Ruby laughed. “Roma’s right,” I said with a smile. “They do sometimes
act like they think they’re people. They just don’t like to be touched for the most
part, by anyone other than me. But, yes, both Hercules and Owen like people.” I elbowed
Maggie. “Especially Owen. He loves Maggie.”

Mags wrinkled her nose at me. “Which just goes to prove how smart that cat is.”

Everyone laughed at that.

I turned to Roma. “Maybe Taylor could help feed the cats out at Wisteria Hill sometime.”

The teenager’s eyes lit up. “Could I?” she asked.

“That’s a good idea,” Roma said. “We can always use another volunteer.” She pointed
to Ruby’s cell phone. “Do you still have a picture of Lucy?” Lucy was the matriarch
of the feral cats that lived on the Wisteria Hill estate.

“I think so,” Ruby said, bending her red and blue pigtailed head over the screen.
“Let me see if I can find it.”

Maggie narrowed her gaze at me. “Excuse us a second, please,” she said. “I need Kathleen
for just a minute and then we’re going to get started.” She caught my arm and all
but dragged me over to the small table where she kept a kettle and a selection of
herbal teas. “You didn’t tell me you were the one who found Mike’s body,” she said,
frowning and propping one hand on her hip.

“It didn’t seem like the kind of thing to share in a phone message,” I said, “and,
technically, Hercules found the body.” I smiled at her. “I’m fine, Mags.”

She pulled her free hand through her short blond curls. “You know I didn’t like Mike,
but this is awful.”

“What’s going to happen to the pitch for the tour?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Liam’s having a meeting”—she glanced at the clock over the door—“right
now with the other people on the committee.” She exhaled, lifting her bangs off her
forehead. “They’re hoping that either Alex or Chris Scott—they’re Mike’s partners—will
come, but I doubt it. I think they’ll probably go ahead with the food tasting and
the art show anyway. There’s been so much work put into it all.”

“If I can do anything . . ,” I said.

Maggie smiled. “I know. Thanks.” She held both arms out a bit from her body and shook
them. Then she started for the middle of the room. “Circle, everyone,” she called.

Mags took her usual place with her back to the wall, facing the door. Ruby slid in
beside her as everyone else spread out. Taylor stopped to pull an elastic from her
pocket and pull her red hair up into a high ponytail. Roma smiled at me and patted
the air to her left. I took the empty space next to her.

Rebecca was already hurrying across the floor. She joined the circle beside me. “Hi,
Kathleen,” she whispered.

“Hi,” I whispered back as Maggie started the warm-up.

“Have you gotten the rocking chair back together yet?” Rebecca asked. Her arms were
swinging forward and back and the light sparkled off the diamond ring on her left
hand.

I was happy that Rebecca and Everett were getting their happily ever after, even though
it had taken close to fifty years for it to happen. And I had a permanent little bubble
of warmth in my chest knowing that the cats and I had played a very tiny role in helping
the two of them find their way back to each other, though I couldn’t imagine that
it wouldn’t have happened anyway. As Ruby liked to say, “What’s meant to be will always
find a way.” I wasn’t a big believer in fate, but in the case of those two, I was
willing to make an exception.

Before I could answer Rebecca’s question, Maggie called across the circle to me, “Kathleen,
bend your knees.”

I gave a melodramatic sigh and everyone laughed. It was a running joke in the class.
I thought I was bending my knees. I was trying to bend my knees. It just seemed that
my knees didn’t know that.

I got down a little lower to the ground and Rebecca gave me a sympathetic smile, the
way she always did. “To answer your questions, yes and no,” I said, keeping my voice
low.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not the slightest bit out of breath even though she was twice
my age. “I’m not following you.”

I was already a tiny bit winded. I made a mental resolution to leave the truck at
home more often and walk to the library. “I got the rocking chair all together okay,
but it had a decided list to one side,” I said.

“Oh, dear,” Rebecca said, two frown lines appearing between her blue eyes. “Maybe
Oren could help you.”

Oren Kenyon was a jack-of-all-trades. He’d duplicated the old trim for the library
restoration and created the beautiful carved wooden sun that was over the entrance.
If Marcus couldn’t fix the chair, maybe I would ask Oren.

“Marcus is going to try to put it together for me,” I said.

Rebecca beamed at me. “He’s a very nice young man,” she said, with a gleam in her
eye that even with her gray hair made her look about as old as Taylor King. “I’m glad
the two of you have become friends.”

“You’re as bad as Maggie,” I said.

Rebecca gave me a look that was all innocence. She was much better at it than either
Owen or Hercules.

Marcus had figured out that Maggie had been trying to get the two of us together.
I wondered if he knew that it seemed as though everyone else in town was trying to
do the same thing.

Maggie worked us hard. By the time we did the entire form at the end of class, the
neck of my T-shirt was wet with sweat. Some of my movements still needed more practice,
especially Cloud Hands, but I could go all the way through all one hundred and eight
movements of the form.

I walked over to Roma and Taylor, who were standing by the table while Roma made herself
a cup of tea that smelled like cranberries and cinnamon. “I’m never going to be able
to do that,” Taylor was saying as she shook her hair out of its ponytail.

“If you mean the entire form, yes, you will,” Maggie said, joining us. She’d peeled
off her T-shirt to uncover the red and purple tie-dye tank she had on underneath.
I was pretty sure Ruby had made it. “Everyone was where you are when they first started.
You just take it a movement at a time.”

Taylor shook her head. She didn’t look convinced.

“It’s just like eating an elephant,” Ruby said, walking over to us as she pulled the
elastics off her pigtails.

Roma frowned at her over the top of her teacup. “I don’t get what you mean,” she said.
“How do you eat an elephant?”

Ruby grinned. “A bite at a time.”

Everyone groaned, and Ruby made a face at us. Then she turned to Taylor. “If you keep
at it and you practice, you’ll get it all. Anytime you want to come over to my studio
and practice with me, you can.”

“Really?” Taylor said. “Because I know my right hand isn’t, well, right when I do
White Crane Spreads Wings.”

“Show me,” Ruby said, draping the towel around her neck. She looked at Maggie. “You
don’t mind?”

Mags made a sweeping movement with one hand. “Go ahead.”

Taylor followed Ruby over to a spot near the middle of the studio.

Roma took another sip of her tea and turned to Maggie. “Do you have any idea what’s
going to happen with the food tasting and the art show now that Mike Glazer is dead?”

Maggie shook her head. “I was telling Kathleen earlier that Liam was having a meeting
with the others on the committee while we were doing class.” She glanced over at the
clock above the door. “They’ve probably decided what to do by now.”

“You think they’ll go ahead?” Roma asked.