Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery (11 page)

An unspoken “but” hung in the air between us.

I studied his face. “How about indirectly?” I asked. “Is there something about Gavin you haven’t told me?”

He swiped a hand over the back of his neck. “No. I just . . . I just get a bad feeling from the guy.”

It took effort to keep from smiling. “A feeling?” I said. “You?” Marcus was very much a “just the facts, ma’am” kind of person. I was the one who relied much more on feelings, nuance and body language. It was one of the reasons we’d butted heads so much in the past. It had taken a case that involved his sister, Hannah, for both of us to be able to see the other person’s point of view.

The corners of Marcus’s mouth twitched. I realized that meant he could see the irony of his words, too. “I guess that’s what happens from spending so much time with you,” he said, the tight lines around his eyes softening.

“I guess it does,” I agreed, wiggling my eyebrows at him.

Just then Claire came out of the kitchen carrying a large brown paper bag. She set it on the counter in front of Marcus.

He smiled at her. “Thanks, Claire. Could I get two large coffees to go, please?”

“Of course.” Claire smiled back at him. “Black with two sugars for you and one sugar no cream for Detective Lind.”

He nodded and looked at me again. “The coffeemaker at the station died. Again. And we did an extra run this morning.” He fished his wallet out of his pocket.

Hope was training for a triathlon and Marcus was running with her a couple of mornings a week. Brady Chapman was helping her with the cycling portion and I knew that Mary had been working with Hope on a strength program for her legs using kickboxing moves. It was one of the things that had made me fall in love with Mayville Heights, the way people were willing to help one another.

Claire came back with the coffee. Marcus handed her a couple of bills. “The rest is for you,” he said.

She smiled again. “Thanks. Have a good day, Detective.” She moved down the counter to the cash register.

“I can drop you at the library,” Marcus said, reaching for the paper bag of take-out food. “It looks like rain.”

I turned and looked out the front window of the restaurant. It was cloudy but it didn’t look like rain to me. And more important, my left wrist, which was a pretty good indicator of wet or snowy weather, felt fine.

I realized that maybe Gavin’s invitation to breakfast had been motivated, a tiny bit, by wanting to spend time with me. The two of us eating at Eric’s was getting to be a habit. On the other hand, I also believed that he wanted to catch whoever took the Weston drawing and killed Margo as much as I did. If I went with him to talk to Big Jule, maybe I could find out if there was anything more to Marcus’s “feeling” about Gavin than just a smidgen of jealousy that he didn’t want to admit to.

“Thank you,” I said, brushing his hand with my fingers. “But there are a couple of other things I want to talk to Gavin about.”

Marcus picked up the bag of take-out food with one hand and the pressed-paper tray holding the coffee with the other. “You’re going to go with him, aren’t you? To talk to his
contact
.” Something in his voice when he said the word “contact” made me suspect that he didn’t really believe there was one.

I nodded. “Yes. And just so you know, I keep that little can of industrial-strength hair spray that Mary gave me in my bag. It’s more lethal than pepper spray.” I held up my first three fingers. “I’ll be careful. I’ll call you when we get there and as soon as we get back. Librarian’s honor.”

“There’s no such thing as librarian’s honor,” he said.

“Don’t make me shush you,” I countered, narrowing my gaze at him in a mock glare.

He smiled and gave my fingers a quick squeeze. “I’ll call you later,” he said.

I nodded and watched him go, thinking for what had to be the millionth time by now that he looked good no matter in what direction he was headed.

I walked back to the table.

“Everything okay with you and your detective?” Gavin asked.

I nodded and sat down again. “You wanted to get a rise out of him. That’s why you told him that ‘we’ were going to talk to Big Jule.”

I thought he’d deny it, but he just gave me that easy grin. “Guilty as charged,” he said, leaning back and propping one arm on the chair back. The smiled dimmed. “I’m sorry, Kathleen. I shouldn’t have done that. It was juvenile.”

He seemed sincere, so I decided to accept his apology.

“When do you want to go talk to Julian McCrea?” I asked.

The smile came back. “You’re coming with me?”

I reached for my coffee. The cup was empty, but Claire, with her seemingly sixth sense about when I needed a refill, was already headed our way with a full pot. “Yes, I’m coming with you,” I said. “I hope it’s not a waste of time.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine.”

I nodded. “That’s fine.”

“I’ll call Big Jule in a little while and if anything changes I’ll let you know,” he said. He made a gesture at the table. “Breakfast is on me.”

“Thank you,” I said, getting to my feet and sliding the strap of my bag over my shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

I stopped at the counter for a cup of coffee to go even though I was probably already overcaffeinated. It gave me the opportunity to quietly pay for both my and Gavin’s breakfasts, my subtle way of letting him know that all the charm in the world wasn’t going to work on me.

G
avin pulled into my driveway exactly at nine the next morning, something I was pretty certain he’d timed for effect since I’d once seen him check his watch and linger for a moment at the library when he’d had a meeting with Margo.

“I’m leaving,” I said to the boys, reaching for my jacket.

Owen looked up from the stack of stinky crackers that he was arranging on the floor like a bingo player spreading out cards before the numbers were called. It could have been my imagination, but his expression looked sour, as though he’d just gotten a whiff of something rotten. Hercules didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. “I’ll see you later,” I said.

Gavin was just coming around the side of the house as I stepped outside. “Good morning,” he said. After a pause he added, “You look nice.”

“Thank you,” I said. I’d waffled on whether it was manipulative to wear a skirt and heels for the meeting with Julian McCrea, standing, undecided, in front of the closet. Hercules, who had been sitting just inside, seemingly eyeing everything I pulled out and rejecting it like a feline Tim Gunn, had finally reached out and set a paw on my black boots and blinked his green eyes at me.

Ruby would have said that was a sign from the universe. It was more likely a sign that Hercules wanted his breakfast, but I decided I was overthinking things. I’d chosen a black skirt with a lavender shirt and the boots.

“We’re meeting Big Jule for brunch at the Rose and Gray,” Gavin said as I settled into the passenger seat of his Mercedes and fastened my seat belt.

I’d never been to the restaurant that specialized in cuisine made exclusively with ingredients from within a hundred-mile radius of Minneapolis, but I knew Roma and Eddie had had dinner there a few times and it was only his position as a local celebrity that had gotten them a reservation on short notice. Either Julian McCrea or Gavin had some clout.

We talked about Gavin’s work for much of the drive, and that led, eventually, to a conversation about Margo.

“She had talent in her own right, you know,” Gavin said, his eyes flicking away from the road for a moment to look at me. “One night we were working in the bar at the hotel and she showed me photos of her artwork. I can’t even draw a stick man, but Margo had done some paintings of these old buildings, and I know it sounds crazy, but she could actually make you feel something when you looked at them.”

I thought of Ruby’s oversize pop-art acrylic renderings of Owen and Hercules. I couldn’t explain it, but she’d managed to capture Owen’s mischievous streak and Herc’s sensitive side with her vivid colors. “It doesn’t sound crazy to me,” I said.

“She painted this barn—it was half falling down—and I kid you not, when she showed it to me I got a little choked up just looking at it. But she had another one she’d done of this old farmhouse, and be damned, but the feeling I got was that I wanted to live in the thing.” He shook his head.

“Had she ever exhibited her work?”

“Somehow I don’t think so. Margo was her own worst critic.”

I exhaled slowly. “I know she could be”—I hesitated, looking for the right word—“challenging. But she was very encouraging to the local artists who had pieces in the show.”

I remembered the smile on Nic Sutton’s face after he’d come out of his meeting with Margo, and how Ruby had been literally bouncing with enthusiasm after hers.

“Lita said Margo didn’t have any family. Is she right?” I felt a twinge of guilt that it had taken me until now to ask the question.

“She is,” he said, moving into the passing lane and accelerating to pass a high-sided furniture delivery truck. “She told me once that her parents had died when she was a child and she’d been raised by her grandmother.” His gaze flicked over to me for a moment. “I think that’s why she was so exacting. Her grandmother was a doctor in an era when there weren’t that many women doctors. I got the impression the woman had very high standards for Margo.”

He looked at me again as the sleek silver Mercedes hugged a wide turn of the highway. “Margo has”—he paused for a moment—“had a degree in molecular biology. I think studying art history was a huge act of rebellion for her.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

Gavin smiled. “I know. ‘Rebellious’ isn’t really the first word you’d think of to describe her.”

I couldn’t help smiling myself. “No, it isn’t,” I agreed. Knowing a bit of Margo’s history helped me understand her a little more. I found myself wishing I’d known all of this before she’d died.

“What about you, Kathleen?” Gavin asked, his eyes fixed straight ahead as he moved into the left lane to pass a slow-moving minivan and then back to the right to get by a tractor-trailer. He drove the way he did everything else: with a confidence that teetered on the edge of arrogance. I felt safe—he wasn’t taking stupid chances, and he was a good driver. It reminded me of driving with Marcus, a comparison neither man would probably have liked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Do you have a rebellious streak?”

I couldn’t help laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Gavin asked, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

I put one hand flat on my chest and took a moment to get my breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that ‘rebellious’ is pretty much the last word anyone would ever use to describe me, either.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What about you?”

“Rebellious is my middle name,” he teased.

“So, what or who were you rebelling against?” I asked, shifting sideways a little under my seat belt so I could watch his face.

“Three generations of Solomon men who always worked in the paper mill, married girls from the neighborhood and turned out a yard full of babies, and a high school that said people from my side of the river didn’t go to college.” He shrugged, and the bad-boy smile seemed a little forced. “You might say that bringing you along to meet Big Jule was an act of rebellion.” He shot me a quick glance. “I saw Lita yesterday and I told her what we were doing today.” The smile got wider and more genuine, it seemed to me. “She said I was poking the bear with a stick.”

Clearly Marcus was the bear.

Lita wasn’t the kind of person to judge other people’s choices; she was involved with Burtis Chapman after all, and he had a reputation. But when she did share her opinion, she wasn’t shy about it. I was guessing she’d done more than just compare Marcus to an angry bear. Whatever she’d said, it was none of my business.

“That’s because Lita is immune to your charm,” I said lightly.

“I’m like a bottle of fine wine,” Gavin said, moving the car into the right lane so we could take the exit that would take us downtown. “You may not be captivated at the first taste, but after a little time the nuances will win you over.”

I waited for a moment and then looked pointedly at my feet. “Good thing I wore boots,” I said.

Gavin frowned. “Why?” he asked.

“Because my shoes would have been ruined by that load of fertilizer you’re spreading around.”

He gave a snort of laughter. “Busted,” he said with a grin. “And I worked hard on that line.”

Gavin had a brief meeting scheduled at the Walker Art Center, so I looked around the pop-art exhibition while I waited for him, thinking Ruby’s portraits of Owen and Hercules would have fit right in with the artwork. My thoughts kept wandering to our lunch with Julian McCrea.

I hadn’t been able to find anything more than what Gavin had told me about the man through my usual online sources, so I’d ended up calling Lise, in Boston. Her expertise was music, but I knew she had contacts in the art world. Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything about McCrea.

“Do I want to know why you’re asking about this Julian McCrea person?” she’d asked.

I’d stretched my feet out on the footstool, and Hercules, who was sprawled on my lap, had moved his head so it was resting against my arm and closed his green eyes. “Remember that exhibit I told you was coming to the library?” I’d said.

“The centerpiece was an early Sam Weston drawing,” she immediately said.

I’d exhaled softly. “It was stolen.”

“What?”

“It looks as though the thief came in through a skylight in the roof I didn’t even know would open.”

“You’re not serious.”

I pictured her, elbows propped on her kitchen table, making a face at my words. “I wish I wasn’t.”

“I’m beginning to think that Mayville Heights is the crime capital of the Midwest,” she’d said. “You’re okay, right?”

“I’m fine,” I had said, shifting my arm a little, which got me a one-eyed glare from Hercules. It evaporated once I began to stroke his ebony fur. I’d decided not to tell Lise about Margo or how the brass statue she’d sent me had been used to kill her.

“That Weston drawing could be worth quite a lot of money,” Lise had said. “Though actually, some experts believe it’s not Weston’s work.”

Hercules had been purring, a low rumble coming from his chest. “If it’s not Weston’s work, then how can it be worth a lot of money?” I asked.

“Because some experts think the drawing was done by Weston’s first wife. She was Native American.”

“Do you know anyone I could talk to who could tell me more?”

“I can tell you more.”

“I didn’t know you were interested in nineteenth-century American art.”

“I’m interested in lots of things,” she’d said, and I had felt her smile through the phone. “Did I ever introduce you to Edward Mato?”

Hercules had lifted his head and looked at me. My hand had stopped moving. “I don’t think so.”

“Back about 1990 the federal government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act—as a way of hopefully returning remains and artifacts buried with them to the Native American tribes they belonged to. Ed’s ancestry is Sioux and he’s an expert on native burial rituals.”

“What does that have to do with the Weston drawing?” I’d asked.

“He’s also interested in native art,” Lise had said. “He’s very knowledgeable. About a month ago we bumped into each other at a cocktail party and I was telling him about the exhibit coming to your library. He’s the one who told me there’s some controversy about who the real creator of that drawing is. I think he actually might have appraised it at some point.”

After I’d talked to Lise I’d pulled out my computer to see what I could find out about Sam Weston and his art. It was a fascinating story.

Sam Weston had been a graduate of West Point and a mapmaker and artist for the United States Army. He’d spent three years at Fort Snelling, which was located near where Minneapolis is today. Weston had learned the language of the Sioux people and created detailed sketches and paintings of their lives. And he had married fifteen-year-old Wakaninajiinwin, or Stands Sacred, leaving her and their daughter behind when he was reassigned two years later.

Weston kept very detailed sketchbooks during his time at Fort Snelling, I learned, but there was also a portfolio of individual sketches and watercolors from that time. That’s where the controversy began. There was a school of thought that believed some of the drawings in that portfolio, including the village scene missing from the exhibit, weren’t done by Weston, but by Stands Sacred, his teenage first wife.

“If there was any kind of proof that those disputed drawings weren’t done by Sam Weston, they could be worth a fortune to collectors of Native American art, not to mention the historical value to the Dakota Sioux people,” I’d said to Hercules, who’d been “helping” me with my research. “Which could explain why someone wanted to steal the drawing.”

The cat had murped his agreement.

If Stands Sacred was the real artist, the drawing would be one of the few intact pieces of native art from that period. And it could call into question the provenance of every other Weston drawing from that time.

I’d told Marcus what I’d learned about the drawing. Now I wondered if Margo had known how potentially valuable the drawing was. Was that why she had had reservations about the exhibit?

Gavin touched my shoulder and I jumped. “Sorry,” he said. “I called your name but you didn’t hear me. Where were you?”

“I got a little distracted,” I said. “Are you ready to leave?”

He nodded. “Big Jule is meeting us at the restaurant.” He glanced at his watch. “And we should get going.”

The Rose and Gray restaurant was on the bottom floor of a restored brick building close to the river in downtown Minneapolis. Inside there was wide plank flooring and high windows overlooking the waterfront. We were shown to a round table in the middle of the room. The ponytailed waiter dressed all in black held out my chair for me. “Would you like coffee?” he asked.

“Please,” I said.

Gavin nodded his agreement and sat down as the waiter headed to the far side of the room. “Big Jule should be here in a couple of minutes,” he said. “He likes to make an entrance.”

The waiter returned with our coffee and I was just taking my first sip when Julian McCrea entered the restaurant.

He was a large man, tall and round in a double-breasted pinstripe suit with a white shirt and a white tie with navy polka dots. His black wingtips gleamed and he was carrying a charcoal fedora. He did make me think of the character from
Guys and Dolls
, but he could just as easily have been a fashion-forward businessman.

Gavin got to his feet as McCrea approached the table, and I did the same.

“Gavin, it’s been too long,” the big man said, shaking the hand offered. I saw a glint of gold cuff links at the cuffs of the crisp white shirt.

“It’s good to see you,” Gavin replied with what sounded to me like a touch of deference in his voice. “This is my friend Kathleen Paulson.” He gestured to me. “Kathleen, I’d like you to meet Julian McCrea.”

McCrea smiled and took the hand I held out in both of his. “It’s truly a pleasure to meet you, Miss Paulson,” he said. I caught a hint of an accent in his cultured voice—not British or Australian; maybe South African.

“Thank you for making time to talk to us,” I said.

“Gavin told me what happened at your library,” he said. “I don’t know if I can be of any help, but I’m happy to answer your questions.”