Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery (4 page)

Found this in a little shop in Maine and thought of you.

Love, Lise

I felt an unexpected prickle of tears. I swallowed a couple of times and set the little cat next to the photo of my family. Lise had taken that when I’d been home on a visit. I was so lucky that distance hadn’t ended our friendship.

By the end of the day I was happy to be heading home. I was hungry and I had a headache from smiling and nodding so much. I was just shutting off my computer when Marshall Holmes tapped on my open office door. I sighed inwardly and silently and immediately felt guilty for it.

Margo was out continuing her search for the “perfect” light bulbs. I came around my desk and met Marshall in the middle of my office.

“Hello, Marshall,” I said. “If you’re looking for Margo, I’m sorry. She isn’t here.”

He glanced at his watch. “Are you expecting her back soon?” He was wearing a dark sport coat with a pale yellow shirt and black pants, everything casually expensive.

“Not before we close,” I said.

He made a small sound of dissatisfaction. “She had an update on the security system for me.”

“I have her cell number, if that will help,” I offered.

“Thank you. I have it,” he said. He looked down at his watch again, and when he looked back up at me his expression cleared. “You must be tired of us all invading your library.”

I gave him my best professional librarian smile. “I’m happy to have the exhibit in my library. Any inconvenience is worth it.”

He smiled. “That’s very nice of you to say. Will you tell Margo I was here, please?”

“I will,” I said.

He turned to leave and then stopped. “Would you by any chance have a phone book? I mean a real, paper one.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It was an older flip-phone model. “I’m a little bit of a dinosaur.”

“Yes, I do,” I said. I moved over to the bookshelves and pulled down the Mayville Heights phone book. “We have the books for the entire state, but no one ever used them so we moved them up here.” I brushed a dust bunny off the top of the directory and gave him a sheepish grin. “As you can see, they don’t get used much up here, either.”

Marshall smiled. “I know I should get a smartphone with all the features and apps. I’m just not sure I
want
to be available all the time.”

He took the phone book from me and flipped through the pages, fishing a pen from his pocket. I reached over and grabbed a pad of sticky notes from my desk, handing them to him so he could write down his number. He stuck the square of paper to his phone and dropped it in his pocket. Then he handed everything else back to me.

“I’ll tell Margo you were in,” I repeated.

“I appreciate it,” Marshall said. We shook hands and he left.

There were no decapitated yellow chickens in the kitchen when I stepped in the back door. Owen and Hercules seemed to have called a truce.

“I’m home,” I called.

After a moment there was a distant answering murp from Owen. The basement door was open a crack. I had no idea why he liked to prowl around down there, but I suspected what he was doing was napping in the laundry basket. Maybe there was some way to teach him how to push the buttons with a paw and at least start the washing machine.

The fact that for a fleeting moment I’d actually considered the possibility proved how tired I really was. Still, I couldn’t help laughing at the mental image of the little gray tabby dragging towels over to the washer in his teeth.

Hercules peeked around the living room doorway.

“Hi,” I said, kicking off my red boots.

Hercules came over to me and I reached down and picked him up. “How was your day?” I asked. “Did you have coffee with Everett again?”

His whiskers twitched. I knew that was a yes.

I yawned and he turned his head to one side and studied my face. “Long day,” I said.

He gave a soft murp of sympathy. I stroked his fur and padded into the living room. There were two banker’s boxes of files sitting beside my coffee table. It was all paperwork pertaining to the exhibit. Margo and I had spent an hour and a half organizing it all a few days before. Strangely, the cats seemed to like her. They were less enthusiastic about Gavin Solomon.

“I should take those boxes down to the library.”

Herc looked at the two cartons and then back at me. “Merow?” he asked. Or maybe I was imagining the question in the sound.

“Okay, I guess I don’t have to take them tonight,” I said.

He nudged my hand with his head and I began to scratch the space just above his eyes where the white fur on his nose met the black fur on the top of his head.

Hercules sat by the bedroom closet and I told him about my day as I changed into my tai chi clothes and brushed my hair back into a ponytail. He trailed me into the bathroom when I went to wash my face, making occasional murping comments as I talked. When we came back out into the hallway, Owen was waiting. They exchanged looks and soft meows that made me think of people making polite conversation in some awkward social situation.

I crouched down and gave Owen a scratch behind one ear. His eyes narrowed to slits and he began to purr. “I don’t suppose you threw in a load of towels while you were in the basement?” I asked. One golden eye fixed on me for a moment as though he were saying, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How about some meatball soup for me and some sardine crackers for you two?” I asked, straightening up.

Hercules had been cleaning his tail, but he lifted his head when I said, “sardine crackers.”

Owen opened both eyes and gave an enthusiastic meow.

They followed me downstairs, where I put a bowl of soup in the microwave for myself and set a tiny stack of my homemade crackers in each of their dishes. Hercules immediately ate the top cracker off his pile without knocking it over. Owen, as he always did, picked up one little square, set it on the floor, and sniffed it cautiously before he took a bite.

Roma and I had speculated about why he always did that. She thought that he’d probably eaten something he shouldn’t have and gotten sick from it in the time before I found him and Hercules as kittens out at Wisteria Hill. She was probably right, but sometimes I thought it was just Owen’s skeptical personality that made him check his food like some paranoid despot.

My cell phone buzzed in my jacket pocket and the coat shook on its hook. Two furry faces immediately looked at me.

“I’m not answering that,” I said, getting my soup from the microwave. “I’m having my supper. It’s either Margo or Gavin, and whatever they need can wait.”

A pair of green eyes and a pair of golden ones continued to regard me unblinkingly.

I didn’t retrieve my phone until my bowl was empty. There were two missed calls from Margo and three texts from Gavin. I called Margo first, but all I got was her voice mail. I sent a quick text to Gavin and waited a couple of minutes to see if there would be a response.

Nothing.

“See?” I said to the boys. “Gavin and Margo both tend to act like everything is life or death, but it never is.”

In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have said that.

B
y the time the library building closed at one on Thursday for the final preparations before the exhibit opening, I’d had probably two dozen texts from Gavin. Margo, on the other hand, was surprisingly laid-back about everything.

The artwork arrived a little ahead of schedule, just before we closed, but for once Margo took the disruption in stride. She even called me into the workroom so I could see the Weston drawing I’d heard so much about. It wasn’t any bigger than a piece of plain paper. The sketch was beautifully detailed and I understood much better now why Margo worried about something happening to it.

I’d expected that they’d want me to stay around as they set up, but I was hustled out of my office and the building. Diana Holmes was just coming across the parking lot as I came down the steps. She wore red leather pants and a cropped black jacket, her wavy dark hair in a short shag that I knew from my own experience with short hair took a lot of styling to look so casually tousled.

“Hello, Kathleen. Is Margo here?” she asked.

“She’s inside,” I said. “She and Gavin are just taking care of a few last-minute details.”

“Perfect,” she said. “That means they’ll have time to bring me up-to-date on the changes to the security system.”

I didn’t think that was what it meant at all, but Diana had already started up the main stairs. I stood in the middle of the parking lot and sent a text to Maggie to see if she wanted to have lunch at her studio.

Please and thank you,
she texted back.

The sky was cloudy but neither the morning’s weather forecast nor my left wrist was predicting rain, so I decided to leave my truck in the library lot and walk. Susan was sitting at the counter with a bowl of soup, heat spiraling up and steaming up her glasses, when I walked in to Eric’s.

I bumped her with my shoulder. “Hey, what is that?” I asked. “It smells wonderful.” My stomach gurgled as if to emphasize my enthusiasm.

Susan took off her glasses and cleaned them on the edge of her sweater. “Italian sausage soup with oregano cheese croutons.” She put her glasses back on and smiled at me. “Want to join me? I have an in with the owner.”

“Thanks, but I’m taking lunch to Maggie,” I said.

Claire was working, as she did pretty much every weekday lunch rush. She set the coffeepot she was carrying back in its place and turned to me. “Did I just hear you say you wanted takeout?” she asked.

“Please,” I said. I looked over at Susan, thinking that the soup really did smell delicious.

“How about a couple of containers of soup and a couple of multigrain rolls?” Claire asked.

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

It took Claire only a few minutes to get my order ready. “I put in two real spoons,” she whispered. “Just drop them off next time you’re in.”

I thanked her and paid for lunch, adding a generous tip.

Susan waved her spoon at me. “I’ll see you Saturday morning. Call me if you need anything before that.”

“I will. Thanks,” I said.

Ruby was just coming out of the building when I got to Riverarts, so she held the door for me. As I came out of the stairwell on the top floor I caught sight of Maggie in the hallway. She was wearing her favorite red hooded sweatshirt and she was deep in conversation with a woman in a jean jacket and black leggings. It was Rena Adler, I realized.

“I appreciate this,” Rena said.

Maggie nodded. “I’ll e-mail you everything later this afternoon.” She turned to look at me. “Hi,” she said. “Did Ruby let you in?”

I nodded. “She did.” I smiled at Rena. “Hi.”

“Hi, Kathleen,” she said, pushing her backpack a little higher on her shoulder. She was wearing her dark hair loose, just brushing her shoulders. Her fingers on the strap of her leather bag were long and slender, like Maggie’s, the nails clipped short, buffed but not polished. And like Maggie often did, Rena had a smudge of paint on one finger, a bit of cerulean blue on her index finger. “Is the library closed now for the day?” she asked.

I nodded. “The artwork from the museum arrived”— I checked my watch—“about an hour ago.” I knew there was enough soup in the two containers to feed three of us. “Can you join us for lunch?” I asked.

“Yes. Can you?” Maggie echoed.

“I’d like to; thanks,” Rena said, “but Ruby and I have a class in about”—she checked her watch—“half an hour. I’m just going to grab some tea.”

“Next time,” Maggie said.

“Absolutely,” Rena said. “I’ll watch for your e-mail.” She smiled at me. “And I’ll see you Saturday, Kathleen.” She headed toward the stairs, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she moved.

“So how was your morning?” Maggie asked as we moved into her studio. I handed her the brown paper take-out bag and took off my jacket, dropping it on one of the stools pulled up to the center workspace.

“Margo decided we had to change all the light bulbs. Again. She didn’t like the color of the light from the LEDs. She thought they gave everything a faint blue cast.”

Mags gave an almost imperceptible nod.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You agree with her.”

She opened the bag and took out the two containers of soup. She’d already made tea. “Yes, I agree with Margo about the light. I know she can be a little obsessive, but it’s all those small details that add up to a successful show.”

I swallowed down a grin. Maggie could be a “little obsessive” about things herself.

“So what happened with the lights?” she asked.

“Larry managed to find enough incandescent bulbs for all the fixtures.”

“Burtis,” Maggie immediately said.

“Burtis has a stash of old-style light bulbs?”

“Burtis has a stash of all sorts of things.”

“And you would know this because?” I teased with a sly smile.

Her cheeks grew pink. “I know things,” she said, just a little too defensively.

Maggie and Brady Chapman had been casually seeing each other for the past few months. The relationship may not have been serious, but I’d noticed that neither one of them was spending time with anyone else.

Brady was Burtis Chapman’s oldest son. Burtis was a self-made businessman. Some of his enterprises were legal, some, not so much.

Maggie handed me a mug of tea and I pulled out a stool and sat down. She took a seat opposite me.

I told her about the possible magazine article and the reporter from
USA Today
as we ate.

“How did all this happen?” she asked.

“Lita,” I said around a mouthful of little meatballs.

“I should have guessed.”

“I think she has more connections than Burtis has light bulbs,” I said.

Maggie laughed.

One of Lita’s connections was Burtis himself. They’d been dating for close to a year and their relationship had become a lot more serious—and public—in the last few months.

Maggie walked me down to the back door after lunch. She pulled a tiny brown paper bag from the Grainery out of her pocket.

“Ah, Mags, you didn’t buy Owen another funky chicken, did you?” I asked, frowning at her.

“He likes them,” she said. “And you’ve been so busy at the library for the last month he deserves a little treat. Hercules, too. There are some of those little crackers he likes in there.” She studied my face. “You’re not going to give me the ‘They’re cats, not people’ speech?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Uh-uh. But I am going to call you the next time your furry little friend spreads chicken parts all over my kitchen.” I took the bag from her.

She hugged me. “I’ll see you at class tonight,” she said, and then she headed back up the stairs to her studio and I walked back to the library to get my truck, stopping in at Eric’s long enough to return the spoons—and get a cinnamon roll.

Hercules was sitting on the bottom step by the back door when I got home. I reached down and picked him up and he nuzzled my face.

“Have you and Everett been solving all the town’s problems?” I asked as I juggled the cat, my purse and my briefcase and tried to fish my keys from my pocket.

The cat wrinkled his nose. I was pretty sure that meant no.

I managed to get the key in the lock and the door open without dropping anything. “So if you haven’t been eating bacon, why are you in such a good mood?”

It seemed bizarre to say it—especially since generally it was Owen who was scheming—but I knew Hercules had done something. I just didn’t know what. The moment I opened the kitchen door I had my answer.

I could hear “Bandstand Boogie”—Barry Manilow—coming from the living room. Had some Barry Manilow–loving burglar broken in? Or was it a furry Barry Manilow fan?

Hercules was wiggling in my arms. I set him down and dropped the rest of my things on the floor beside him. Then I went into the living room. My iPod was in the dock. The song changed to “Ready to Take a Chance Again.”

Hercules had followed me and his head was bobbing like he was grooving to the music, which he was, because the little black-and-white cat loved Barry Manilow just about as much as I did. His brother, on the other hand, didn’t get the attraction of the man who makes the whole world sing. In fact, Owen loathed every Barry Manilow song ever recorded.

“Where’s your brother?” I asked.

Herc gave me a blank look.

“I know you did this,” I said, pointing a finger at him.

I had no idea how Hercules had managed to turn on the music. It certainly seemed to be a skill beyond the average cat’s capabilities, but then again neither cat was exactly average.

I turned the music off and went looking for Owen. I finally found him hiding in the back of my closet, his head stuffed in one of the fuzzy Bigfoot slippers my brother, Ethan, had given me at Christmas.

I crouched down on the floor next to him, pushing my shoes aside. “It’s okay,” I said. “I turned it off.”

He lifted his head, the big fluffy bootie still stuck in place. I pulled it off and he shook himself. His gray fur was sticking up on one side and matted down on the other. He put his two front paws on my knee and meowed loudly.

“I know,” I said, reaching over to smooth his fur.

He kept up a steady stream of meows and murps. I had no idea how long Barry Manilow had been playing, but for Owen any amount of time was too long.

I picked him up and got to my feet, dodging clothes and hangers as I backed out of the closet. “I’m sorry,” I said, continuing to stroke his fur. “What Hercules did was wrong.”

“Merow!” Owen said with as much indignation as he could muster.

“But you haven’t exactly been a paragon of cat virtue the last week or so.”

He grumbled under his breath.

I had no idea what was going on between the two of them. It felt a bit like being caught in a squabble between a couple of middle schoolers. Maybe Roma would have some insight.

I kissed the top of his furry head and set him down on the floor. “Stay away from your brother,” I said firmly.

His gaze slid off my face and he suddenly became engrossed in a spot on the bedroom floor.

I changed for tai chi, retrieved the iPod from the dock in the living room and then went into the kitchen to get some supper before class. Hercules was sitting under the coat hooks. Owen had followed me downstairs, and he stopped by the table and glared at his brother, his tail twitching.

I stepped into the space between them. “I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but I want you both to cut it out,” I said, feeling a little foolish that I was having this conversation with two cats. I needed a little incentive, I decided, to force détente, even temporarily. I went over to the counter and grabbed the container of sardine cat crackers I’d made on the weekend.

“See this?” I said.

That got their attention. “If you two don’t cut it out, I’m taking all the crackers to Marcus’s house and leaving them for Micah.”

Owen immediately started grumbling. Hercules came over to me and wound around my ankles. I leaned down and gave the top of his head a scratch. “Sucking up is
not
going to work,” I said. I set the container of crackers on the table and reached over to give Owen a little scratch on the side of his face. “Neither is complaining.”

I picked up the container of crackers and put it in my canvas tote on top of my towel. “Behave yourselves or I’ll be swinging by Marcus’s house on the way home,” I warned.

Maybe they understood the words. Maybe they didn’t, but they definitely understood the tone and the actions. This clearly was a much better warning than my previous threat to feed their treats to Harry Senior’s German shepherd, Boris.

When I left for class, Owen had disappeared down into the basement and Hercules was upstairs in my bedroom. When I pulled on my jacket I found the Grainery bag Maggie had given me. It didn’t seem like a good time to give her gifts to Owen and Hercules. I didn’t want to reward bad behavior.

I was the first person to arrive at tai chi. I found Maggie sipping a cup of mint tea and looking out the window.

“You’re early,” she said. She held up her cup. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes,” I said.

She frowned at me. “Seriously?”

I linked my hands behind my neck and tipped my head up to the ceiling. “I’d like something hot and I’ve had way too much caffeine today.”

Maggie patted my arm and headed toward the table where she always set up the tea supplies before class. “Margo?” she asked.

I shook out my arms and followed her. “And Gavin,” I said. “She called me four times while I was eating supper—she doesn’t text, which I probably should be grateful for. But Gavin sent me two texts.”

“Do you want to put your phone in my office during class?” she asked.

“Could I?” I asked. I reached into my pocket. The phone wasn’t there. I remembered setting it on the table while I went to get my hoodie from the living room closet. I didn’t remember picking it up because I hadn’t. I closed my eyes for a second and sighed. “It’s sitting on the kitchen table.”

“Good,” she said. “There isn’t anything that Margo or Gavin is going to need that can’t wait. You can take an hour for yourself.”

“I’ll probably have a dozen messages by the time I get back.”