Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery (15 page)

Marcus stood up as well. He looked at me and shook his head. “I see where you’re going with this, Kathleen, but it’s a pretty big leap from someone paints with a particular kind of paint to saying they killed someone.” He pulled his hand back through his hair and as he did I remembered Harry Junior making the same gesture as he stood in my porch Friday morning . . . talking about his brother . . . and Rena Adler.

I looked at Marcus. “Harry said she was asking Larry a lot of questions. He thought she was flirting with him and so did I, but what if she was fishing for information? She took him coffee.” I pointed at the floor. “When he was working downstairs. Where the setup is for the temporary security system.”

He stared at me for a long moment. Then he pulled his phone out.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I glanced at Hercules, who was washing his face. Clearly he figured his work was done.

“Bringing the crime scene techs back to take a closer look at that pylon and the others.”

“I thought you said it was too big a leap,” I said.

“Maybe it is,” he said, “but I don’t have anything else.” He gave me a half smile. “So I may as well jump.”

I
took Hercules out to the truck while Marcus called in the crime scene team.

“Good job,” I told him. “I promise you a sardine when we get home.”

He licked his whiskers and then nuzzled my chin.

“Please stay here,” I said.

“Mrrr,” he replied obligingly as he curled up on the driver’s seat.

“I won’t be long,” I promised.

I had just enough time to clear out the book drop and stack the books and magazines on several carts before Hope arrived.

“Hi, Kathleen,” she said with a wry smile. “Looks like it’s déjà vu all over again.” She turned to Marcus. “Crime scene is right behind me.”

“I’m going to get out of here,” I said. I touched Marcus’s arm. “Call me later.”

He nodded. “I will.”

Owen was sitting on the back steps when Hercules and I got home. He looked from Hercules to me and narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, I took your brother with me,” I said as I unlocked the door.

He made a grumbling noise almost under his breath. I leaned down to scratch behind his ear and he turned his face to one side, making it clear I was on ignore. “Next time come home when I call you,” I said.

Owen stalked into the kitchen. He walked over to the basement door, pawed it open and disappeared down the stairs.

“Did you ever figure out what he’s doing down there?” I asked Hercules as I put things away.

He gave me a blank look.

I gave Hercules a little piece of a sardine as a thank-you for his sleuthing. He ate it, washed his face and paws and followed me into the living room, curling up in a patch of sunshine on the rug for a nap while I returned e-mails and phone calls. Marcus didn’t call until after supper.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“I can’t really answer that,” he said.

It was as good as a no. “What about the paint?” I asked. “Can you at least tell me if it’s egg tempera?”

“It is,” he said. I heard the squeak of his desk chair and knew from the sound that he was still at the station. “It proves nothing, Kathleen,” he said, lowering his voice.

“It proves Rena Adler was at the library when she shouldn’t have been,” I said.

“No, it doesn’t. All it proves it that someone got a bit of paint on that metal pylon at some point. It’s not like it’s her fingerprint in paint.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me too,” he said. “It looks like you’ll be able to get the building back on Tuesday. Hope will let you know for sure.”

Hercules had raised his head and was listening to my side of the conversation.

“Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Marcus said, and I swear I could hear a smile creep into his voice. It made me smile as well. “I’m making my famed turkey Provençal.”

“Sounds very fancy.”

“Micah was impressed when I tried the recipe out on her.”

I was grinning now. “Well, if Micah gave it two paws, I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” I said.

We said good night and I hung up the phone. Hercules was still watching me. “The paint isn’t enough,” I said.

He made a sour face.

“I know,” I said.

I looked at the laptop sitting on the footstool. “Do you want to see if we can find out anything about Rena?” I asked.

Hercules got up, came over to my chair and meowed at the computer. I patted my legs. He jumped up and settled himself. I reached for the laptop.

There was very little to find online about Rena Adler. She had no online presence—no Web site, no Facebook page, no Twitter account. Since I didn’t have any of those myself, it didn’t strike me as odd, but what did was the fact that prior to two years ago Rena Adler hadn’t seemed to exist. No matter what search terms or search engine I used, there was nothing to find about the woman back more than a couple of years.

I leaned back in the big wing chair. “It’s as though she just appeared out of nowhere,” I said to Hercules. “It doesn’t make sense.”

He looked at the phone.

I sighed. “Marcus will just say this doesn’t mean anything.” I looked at the name in the search box and scrolled down through the results again. There were more selections that had nothing to do with Rena Adler the artist than there were ones that did. There was even a link to a fan site for the Irene Adler character from the Sherlock Holmes world.

Irene Adler. Rena Adler.

“Is it really that simple?” I asked the cat.

I didn’t wait for him to answer, assuming he was even going to. I typed the name “Rena” and “name meaning” in the search engine.

It seemed it really
was
as simple as that. The name Rena was of Hebrew origin. It meant joyful song. It was also a variation of the name Irene.

Rena Adler. It was a play on the name Irene Adler, the woman who bested Sherlock Holmes.

“The name’s a fake,” I said to Hercules. “That’s why we couldn’t find anything about her beyond two years ago. Rena Adler didn’t exist before that.”

I chewed my lip. Marcus would think I was crazy. Hercules was eyeing me as though maybe he was having the same thought.

“So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Rena Adler used to have a different name. Who was she and why did she change it?”

My cell phone, on top of a stack of papers next to the chair, buzzed then. I leaned sideways for a look, one hand on the computer, the other holding Hercules. It was Gavin. I let it go to voice mail. I hadn’t spoken to Gavin since we’d gotten back from Minneapolis and he’d shared his other alibi.

I thought about the conversation with Julian McCrea. Would I ever hear from the art dealer? I wondered. When Gavin had first mentioned the man, I’d had high hopes that talking to him would give us some kind of clue. I remembered how dismissive Marcus had been. I sighed. It looked like he was going to be right.

“Maybe Gavin had just been angling for a way to spend some time alone with me,” I said.

Hercules narrowed his green eyes as though he was considering the possibility.

“After all, his other suggestion had been that the drawing had been stolen by some art thief/cat burglar.”

“Merow!” Hercules said.

“No, not someone who steals cats. Someone who’s stealthy like a cat.”

I rubbed my right shoulder. I was having a conversation with a cat about cat burglars. No wonder the idea that Rena Adler had changed her name and was somehow connected to what had happened at the library seemed to make sense to me.

“She dropped out of sight about two years ago. It was like she just disappeared.”
That’s what Gavin had said about Devin Rossi. Two years ago art thief Devin Rossi had disappeared and artist Rena Adler had suddenly appeared.

“Just because it’s far-fetched doesn’t mean it’s not true,” I told Hercules.

“Murp,” he agreed.

I reached for the phone and called Gavin.

“Hi, Kathleen,” he said. “I was just talking to Hope Lind. It looks like they’re going to let you open the library on Tuesday. I just wanted to let you know it’ll be next Thursday or Friday before the museum can retrieve the exhibit. They’re still making space.”

“Why?” I asked. I was beginning to think there was a metaphorical black cloud hovering over the library.

“I’m not sure, but I think the problem with the sprinkler system was worse than they’re letting on.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. “It’s all right,” I said. “We can make things work for a few days.”

“I’ll help any way I can,” Gavin said. I realized from the background noise I could hear that he was probably in the bar at the St. James.

Hercules jumped down from my lap and started nosing around the pile of papers next to the chair. I shook my head. He shook his back at me and nudged the pile with his shoulder.

“Gavin, do you have a phone number for Julian McCrea?” I asked. I knew he did. He’d set up our luncheon, after all.

“I do,” he said. “Why?”

The stack of papers Hercules had been poking at fell over then. He jumped backward and then looked guiltily up at me. I glared at him.

I couldn’t exactly say I wanted to call the art dealer to find out what Devin Rossi looked like. Well, I could have, but I didn’t want to.

“Kathleen, are you still there?” Gavin asked.

I switched the phone to my other hand. Hercules was wisely still out of my reach. “I’m sorry, Gavin. One of my cats just knocked a pile of papers over.”

I could see my photo album on the bottom of the stack, the cover flipped open. Maggie had been looking at it the last time she’d been over, teasing me about my teenage tartan skirts and neon tights, and I hadn’t put the book away.

Suddenly, I knew how to answer Gavin’s question. “I have a photo of my mom onstage as Adelaide in
Guys and Dolls
. I thought maybe if Julian would like it, I’d send it to him as a thank-you for talking to us.”

“I know what you’re trying to do, Kathleen,” Gavin said, a knowing edge to his voice.

“You do?” I said.

“You think if you offer to send the picture it might motivate him to ask around, see if he can learn anything about the Weston drawing.”

“Something like that,” I said.

“All right, fine,” he finally said.

I reached down, grabbed a pad of paper from the floor and wrote down the number he gave me.

“Good luck, Kathleen,” Gavin said. I heard a woman’s voice in the background. “I have to go.”

“I’ll call you in the morning,” I said. “Good night.”

I set the phone down and looked at Hercules. He looked at me.

“I should be mad at you,” I said.

The cat didn’t so much as twitch a whisker.

“Between you and your brother I feel like all I do is pick up paper.”

Still no reaction.

I glanced down at the photo album on the floor. Thanks to Hercules knocking things over I’d come up with a plausible reason to call Julian McCrea. And I would send him the photo if he wanted it. In a moment of levity my mother had signed it before she’d given it to me.

“Well,” I said slowly. “You did help me. Indirectly. So I guess you’re off the hook.”

He blinked, turned and headed for the kitchen. He stopped in the doorway and looked expectantly back over his shoulder.

“Indirectly,” I repeated. “That doesn’t warrant a treat.”

“Murp,” he said, disappearing—not literally—around the doorway.

I padded out to the kitchen and gave Hercules a second tiny bite of sardine, because who was I kidding? We both knew I was going to. Owen wandered in, looked at his brother eating and then looked at me.

“What did you do to warrant a treat?” I asked.

He seemed to think for a minute, then tipped his head to one side and gave me his “I’m so adorable” look. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I said. Then I got him a chunk of the little fish.

“You’re both spoiled,” I said, leaning against the counter. “Your character has been weakened.”

They looked at each other. Something passed wordlessly between them and then they dropped their heads and went back to eating.

Since Owen and Hercules were having a treat I decided I’d have one as well. I made a cup of hot chocolate and took it to the table with the last cinnamon roll.

“Am I crazy?” I said.

Neither cat even bothered to look up at me.

My cell phone was sitting in the middle of the table. I had Julian McCrea’s number now. There was nothing to stop me from calling him and asking about Devin Rossi. Nothing except the fact that the more I thought about it, the more preposterous my idea seemed. An art thief who had been stealing from museums and galleries all over North America changes her name, retires to Red Wing, Minnesota, to live the quiet life of an artist, then comes out of retirement to steal a drawing from an exhibit in my library.

“I think it might have been an episode of
Murder, She Wrote
,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

On the other hand . . .
“It’s better to do something and know than not do it and wonder.”
How many times had I heard my mother say those words?

I got up and retrieved the piece of paper with Julian McCrea’s phone number. When I came back to the kitchen, both cats were sitting next to my chair and two furry faces were pointed in my direction. I took it as a vote of support.

Julian McCrea answered his phone on the fourth ring. “Good evening, Kathleen,” he said smoothly. He must have had caller ID.

I smiled, hoping it would come through in my voice. “Good evening, Julian,” I said. “I hope I haven’t taken you from anything important.”

“You haven’t,” he replied. “What can I do for you?”

“I have a photograph of my mother in character as Adelaide. It’s even signed. You mentioned you were a bit of a fan. I’d like to send it to you as a small thank-you for meeting with me. Is there an address I could use?”

“That’s very thoughtful,” he said. “Do you have a pen?”

I did. He gave me a post office box address and I wrote it underneath his phone number.

“I’m sorry that I don’t have any more information for you,” Julian said.

“It’s all right,” I said. “I understand. I don’t think this is going to be an easy case to solve.”

“The police aren’t any closer to figuring out who took the Weston drawing?”

I shifted in my chair, pulling one foot up underneath me. “Or who killed Margo Walsh. No.” I hesitated. “Do you remember we spoke about Devin Rossi?”

“Let me guess,” Julian said. “Gavin still thinks that perhaps she was the thief.” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

I tried to match his tone. “I know it’s kind of silly to think an art thief came to a small town in Minnesota to steal a drawing that isn’t even worth that much money.”

“No offense, Kathleen, but, yes, a little.”

“We’re all kind of grasping at straws,” I said. “So I hope you won’t think less of me if I ask if you know what Devin Rossi looks like. Is she possibly quite tall—over six feet, with an athletic frame? There was a woman like that in the library the day before the picture was stolen and Margo was killed.”

Rena Adler was probably a couple of inches shorter than I was. The person I’d described
had
been in the library the day before Margo’s murder. She was the women’s basketball coach at the high school.