Copycat Killing: A Magical Cats Mystery (22 page)

“So…so he could have gone to see Idris Blackthorne or gone to the poker game, ended up in some kind of…altercation with someone and…” Roma didn’t finish the sentence.

“I think there’s a good chance the remains being found where they were has more to do with the people Tom was associating with and probably nothing to do with Wisteria Hill, other than it was a convenient spot for someone to dispose of a body,” Neil said.

Pearl nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry all of this happened, Roma. And I’m sorry that I lied to you about Tom. I didn’t think there was any harm in letting you think well of him. And for what it’s worth, I never saw him as happy as he was the day you were born. Not before. Not after. Not even when they won the state championship.”

Roma swallowed and nodded. “Thank you,” she said, her voice a little raspy with emotion.

Pearl smiled at her daughter. Then she looked at me. “How did you know about The Ladies Knitting Circle, Kathleen?” she asked.

“You know that we’re celebrating the centennial of the library this June?” I said. Neil had gotten up for the coffeepot and I held up my cup for a refill, smiling my thanks at him.

“Roma told me.”

“As part of the celebrations we’re planning some displays about the history of the town as it ties in to the history of the library. I found a reference to The Ladies Knitting Circle in an old journal and one of my staff—Mary Lowe—told me more about the women.”

“How is Mary?” Pearl asked. “I haven’t seen her in such a long time.”

“Still kickboxing, still making the best pie I’ve ever eaten,” I said.

“I’d love to see her,” she said.

“She’s working tomorrow at the library.”

“I’ll try to make it in to say hello.” Pearl took the fresh cup of coffee Neil handed her as I put cream and sugar in my own.

“There are so many people I want to see while I’m here,” she said.

Roma smiled. “You can stay as long as you want to.”

“Maybe an extra day or two?” Pearl said, looking at her husband.

“Fine with me. I’m sure there are people who would like to see you too.” Then he gave Pearl a sly sideways glance and arched an eyebrow at her. “His worship, the
mayor, for example. You know, if you hadn’t married me, you could be the first lady of Mayville Heights now.”

Roma and I exchanged confused looks and Pearl blushed.

“First lady of Mayville Heights?” Roma said. “Do you mean Mom and…and Sam Ingstrom?”

“He’s just being silly,” Pearl said, giving him a poke with her elbow.

“No I’m not,” Neil retorted. “Sam Ingstrom had a crush on you.” He looked over at Roma and me. “From what I heard, whenever Pearl was around Sam pretty much lost his senses.”

Pearl made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Sammy and I were just friends. He was younger and he wasn’t carrying any torch for me, no matter what Mr. Romance Novel here says.”

I laughed along with everyone else, but I was remembering that photo of Sam looking at Pearl and her friends. Looking at Pearl with longing written all over his face.

Pearl gestured at me then. “Kathleen, there is one thing I remember from the night I left Tom. Oddly enough, Sam was there, at Wisteria Hill.”

I frowned at her. “He was?”

She nodded. “He’d driven out with a load of old railway ties they’d salvaged from some job for Carson, and Sam stepped on a nail while he was taking them off the truck. It went right through his boot into his foot. Ellen was bandaging it when Roma and I got there. The doctor’s office was closed and well, she was as good as any doctor.”

I’d noticed that Sam had an almost imperceptible limp when he’d been on his feet a lot. Maybe it was because of that old injury.

I wondered if Maggie was right. Had Sam lied about knowing Pearl because he was embarrassed about a teenage crush? Or could he have had something to do with Thomas Karlsson’s death?

No. That didn’t make any more sense than thinking Anna had killed Tom and buried him at the edge of the tree line. Working for his father’s landscaping company would have given Sam lots of good places to hide the body if he’d had anything to do with Tom’s death. It made no sense for him to take a body to Wisteria Hill. What would he have done? Hidden it in among the old railway ties? It wasn’t as though he would have been able to walk through the yard unnoticed carrying a dead body.

It seemed lame, but Maggie’s explanation was probably the right one. And given the amount of time that had passed, maybe no one would ever figure out how Thomas Karlsson had ended up buried at Wisteria Hill.

The doorbell rang. Roma got up to answer it and I leaned sideways in my chair to see who it was. When she opened the door Marcus Gordon was standing on the stoop.

“H
ello, Roma,” I heard him say. “I’m sorry for stopping by at this time of night, but I was hoping to talk to your mother. She’s here?”

I knew the tone of voice and the body language well. Marcus was in cop mode. I stood up and walked over to the door before Roma could invite him in.

“Hi Marcus,” I said. “It’s kind of late. Do you have to talk to Pearl tonight? She only got here a little while ago.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Roma was frowning at me.

“Kathleen,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“I was invited,” I said, stressing the word
invited
just a little. “For dinner.”

We stood there for a long moment doing the same kind of stare-down thing I sometimes did with the cats. Of course with them I was always the first to look away. This time, here, it was Marcus. I felt a tiny surge of very childish satisfaction when he did.

“So could you wait until the morning to talk to Pearl?” I asked.

He exhaled slowly and for a second I almost thought I saw a smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “I guess I could.” He pulled one of his cards out of his pocket and gave it to Roma. “Would you call me first thing and we’ll set up a time”—his eyes darted to me for a moment—“that works for everyone.”

“I will,” Roma said.

“I really should get going myself,” I said. I glanced at Marcus still in the doorway. “Could you wait and walk me to my truck?” I asked. “It’s dark.”

The truck was parked in Roma’s driveway only a few steps away from the door, but Marcus didn’t so much as turn his head in that direction. “It is dark,” he agreed. “I’ll just wait out here for you. Take your time.” To Roma he said, “I’ll speak to you in the morning.” He moved down the steps to the bottom and leaned against the newel post, crossing his arms over his chest and one incredibly long, strong leg over the other.

Roma closed the door and turned to me. “What was all that between you two?”

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s just that it’s late and your mom must be tired. Why not let her get some sleep? This has to be hard on her.” Pearl was still on the sofa, turned toward Neil, talking to him in a low voice.

“You’re right,” Roma said, tipping her head back to stretch her neck. “I should have thought of that.”

I reached over and gave her arm a pat. “It’s been hard on you too.”

She looked at the little cardboard rectangle in her hand and then put it in her pocket. “I’ll call Marcus in the morning and we’ll take care of it first thing.”

“I think you should…uh…take a lawyer with you.”

“A lawyer?” She made a face and shook her head. “Why would we need a lawyer? Marcus is my friend. I thought you thought of him as a friend too.”

“This is still a police investigation and Marcus has to do his job. Call Peter Lundgren. Call somebody. Please, Roma.” I waited.

“All right,” she finally said.

I walked back to Pearl and Neil. “It was so good to see you,” I said.

Pearl stood up and took my hands in hers. “You too, Kathleen,” she said. “My daughter is very lucky to have you as a friend.”

“I’m lucky to have her,” I said and I realized how much I meant the words as I said them.

“It looks as though we’re going to be here for a few days. I hope we’ll see you again.”

I smiled at her. “I would like that very much.” I gave her hands a gentle squeeze and said, “Good night,” to Neil.

“Call me if you need anything,” I told Roma.

She had one arm folded across her midsection but she wrapped me in a one-armed hug. “Thank you for coming tonight.”

“Anytime,” I said.

Marcus was still at the bottom of the steps. He straightened when I stepped out and walked silently over to the truck with me. Then he made a point to check the front seat and the bed. “Everything looks all right.”

“Thank you,” I said.

He didn’t smile, but I could tell he wanted to. “You’re welcome,” he said. He made no move toward his car, which was parked on the street in front of the house.

“Are you going to give me the ‘stay out of my case’ lecture?” I asked.

“Will it work?” He was standing with his feet apart, hands behind his back.

“No.”

That made him laugh. “You’re honest, Kathleen,” he said. “I’ll give you that.”

I smiled at him. “I’m not trying to interfere in your investigation.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“All right, I admit it doesn’t exactly look that way.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“What was Burtis Chapman doing out at Wisteria Hill this morning?” I asked.

He hesitated.

“I can ask Burtis myself,” I said.

“Yes you can,” he said. “It’s not a secret. Burtis knows those woods better than anyone else in town. I asked him to give me the lay of the land back there, that’s all.”

So did that mean he knew about the poker game and Idris Blackthorne’s business operations? I knew he wouldn’t answer that question.

I stuffed my hands in my pockets. “Do you know what The Ladies Knitting Circle was?”

“No. I’m guessing they were knitting?”

I shook my head. “That’s what I thought. Years ago—at the time that Thomas Karlsson disappeared—they were operating a kind of safe house, hiding women from their abusive husbands and helping them get away to start new lives.”

“And how do you know this?” he asked.

My hair was slipping from its ponytail and I reached back and pulled out the elastic. “I’ve been researching
some of the groups that used to meet at the library. The Ladies Knitting Circle was one of them.”

“So you think, what? That a group of little old ladies buried Thomas Karlsson out at Wisteria Hill?” Clearly he wasn’t taking what the women had been doing seriously.

“They weren’t exactly little old ladies. Anna Henderson was the leader of the group. When Tom Karlsson disappeared, when it looked like he’d abandoned Pearl and Roma, they were already being hidden by Anna and her friends.”

Marcus glanced back at the house.

My ankle was aching and I shifted more of my weight to my other leg and made a mental note to use Rebecca’s herbal salve on my ankle again before bed. “I’m not telling you this to point the finger at Anna Henderson,” I said. “Pearl had an out and she’d taken it. She was safe. Her child was safe. She had no reason to kill her husband.”

“I didn’t say that Thomas Karlsson was murdered,” he said.

“Oh c’mon,” I said, my exasperation showing in my voice. “I saw his remains. I don’t think he hit himself in the head and then lay down and scraped dirt and leaves over his own body with his last bit of energy. At best he hit his head accidentally and someone hid the body.”

Marcus stared past me, down the driveway. I knew what was coming. Finally he looked at me. “Kathleen, this is an active police investigation,” he said.

“So stay out of it,” I finished. This was the point where I usually got aggravated at him and left in a huff. But I really didn’t want to do that anymore. “Could you stop being a police officer and just be a person for one minute?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Being a police officer is part of who I am. As far back as I can remember, it’s the only thing I ever wanted to be. If you and I are going to be friends, you’re going to have to find a way to accept that.” He shifted position, folding his arms across his chest. “I can’t go easy on someone who’s part of an investigation just because you’re friends with them.”

“And I just can’t ignore it when one of my friends is in trouble,” I said, pushing that annoying tendril of hair back off my face again. “You’re going to have to find a way to accept that, if we’re going to be friends.”

I pulled my keys out of my pocket and unlocked the driver’s door. “I’m going to leave now,” I said. “Because I’m kind of mad right now.”

“Are you still going to be mad Saturday morning when we go feed the cats?”

Right. I’d forgotten that I’d traded a shift with Harry Junior so I’d be out at Wisteria Hill again in another couple of days.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” I wanted to stay mad. It just wasn’t working for some reason.

I climbed in the truck, started it, and backed carefully out of the driveway, making sure my seat belt was fastened. Marcus watched me from the driveway. I raised one hand in good-bye. I was annoyed.

Not rude.

I
thought about everything Pearl had said all the way home. Could Ruby’s grandfather have had something to do with Tom Karlsson’s death? Then there were the men Tom had cheated at poker. Did Tom go back to the game? Did something happen there?

I hoped Roma really would call a lawyer before they went to talk to the police in the morning. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Marcus, it was just that as he himself had pointed out to me back in Roma’s driveway—he was a cop. That wasn’t just what he did; it was part of who he was. I’d seen firsthand that when he was on a case he could be even more single-minded than Owen on the hunt for Fred the Funky Chicken parts.

There was no sign of the cats in the kitchen when I got home. I kicked off my shoes, hung up my jacket and padded into the living room. Owen was the picture of an adorable house cat, sitting next to the big wing chair.

“I’m not fooled,” I said. “I know you were lying on the footstool.” It was his favorite place to nap, which meant
I was always vacuuming cat hair off the top. I could just never catch him up there.