Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery (8 page)

Owen was making his way purposefully across the mosaic tile floor. He didn’t seem to be having any problem with his paw. He stopped at a spot in the middle of the space, under the domed ceiling with its curved skylight, bent his head and sniffed at something on the floor. He scraped at whatever he’d found and then sat and looked over his shoulder at me.

“Really bad thing to do if you want the rest of that chicken,” I said, glaring at the small cat. I reached down to pick him up. He twisted away, put his paw on the same spot on the floor he’d been pawing at and meowed at me.

“Do you happen to have a cat-size set of handcuffs?” I asked Hope.

“Sorry,” she said. “I left them in my other jacket.” She frowned at Owen. “What’s he scratching at?”

“I don’t know.” I crouched down beside the little tabby. He looked at the floor and then he looked at me. I knew that expression. It was his “So do you see it?” look.

There was something stuck to the tiny square tiles. I scraped the edge with a fingernail. It was a dried pine needle sticky with sap. I held out my finger to show Hope. I was certain Owen had a reason for pointing out this particular bit of dirt, but I couldn’t exactly tell that to Hope. No, that wouldn’t seem at all peculiar, would it?

“That’s pine sap,” she said. She turned and squinted toward the front entrance.

I waited. I could tell from her expression that she was making connections in her head. I didn’t need to tell her Owen thought the sticky pine needle was important; clearly she thought it was as well.

Hope sat back on her haunches. “Kathleen, there aren’t any pine trees out front, are there?”

I shook my head. “No. There’s one by the loading dock.”

She pressed her lips together. Owen was watching her intently. “I don’t suppose you know when this floor was last cleaned?” she asked.

Suddenly I understood why both she and Owen were so interested in the pinesap. “I do,” I said, slowly. “This entire level was steam mopped late last Thursday afternoon.” I picked up Owen, who made no move to wiggle away from me now, although he kept all of his focus on Hope. “Do you think the thief might have gotten into the building through the loading dock?” I asked. Hope got to her feet and so did I.

“We went over the entire building, but I’m thinking it might be worth a second look,” she said. “My guys wore booties when they were in here, and if the floor was cleaned not too long before the break-in . . .” She held out both hands.

“Maybe this was tracked in by the person who took the Weston drawing and killed Margo,” I finished.

Hope looked at me. “Maybe,” she said. She got her camera and took some photos of the spot on the floor as well as of my finger. Then she scraped the sticky pine needle off my finger into an evidence envelope.

“I should call Marcus,” she said. She peeled off the latex gloves she’d pulled on to collect the sap from my finger, pulled out her phone and called Marcus. The call went to voice mail.

“Damn!” she muttered almost under her breath. “He’s in a meeting with the prosecuting attorney.”

While she’d been making the call I’d put Owen back in the cat carrier. He’d climbed in without objection—something he didn’t often do. He seemed to have forgotten about his injured paw.

Hope dropped her phone back in her pocket. She looked at me and one eyebrow went up. “Do you want to go take a look back there? Off the record?” She blew out a breath. “Way, way off the record.”

Before I could say anything, Owen answered for me. “Merow!” he said loudly.

“We’re in,” I said.

She turned to the security guard. “Curtis, we’re just going to check something outside.”

He nodded.

I swung the bag over my shoulder and followed Hope out, stopping to lock up and set both alarms. Owen and I stood on the grass and watched while she examined the loading-dock area and the heavy metal door.

After a few minutes she pushed her hair back from her face and sighed. “I don’t see any sign that someone broke in through this door,” she said. She looked at the cat carrier. I could see a pair of eyes watching her. “You got any more clues, Owen?” she asked.

“Murp,” he said.

Hope came to stand beside us. “I guess I was just grasping at straws,” she said, scanning the area.

Harry Junior had just started working on the library grounds, collecting small branches that had blown down over the winter and uncovering the shrubs that had been protected from the cold and snowy Minnesota weather.

Hope was focused on a spot to the side of the loading dock, where the bronze rain chain hung down the side of the building. It looked like a sequence of tiny pots.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“It’s a rain chain,” I said. “It guides the water down to the ground from the gutter.”

“Why don’t you have a downspout?” she asked without taking her eyes off the side of the building.

“That was Harry’s idea,” I said. “Kids kept using the downspout to climb up onto the roof over the loading dock.”

Hope’s eyes met mine then. “Stay right here,” she said. She took a couple of steps forward, her gaze fixed to the ground. Then suddenly she stopped and backtracked.

“What size would you say Harry’s feet are, Kathleen?” she asked. “Fourteen maybe?”

I thought about the big black rubber boots he had been wearing when he’d last been working on the library grounds. “At least,” I said.

Hope looked at me. “I think I know how the killer got into the building,” she said, pulling out her phone.

“T
he thief came in through the roof?” Ruby said. “C’mon, Kathleen, tell me Bridget got that wrong.”

We were in the tai chi studio. Maggie and Ruby were holding mugs of some kind of tea that smelled of orange and spices, and I was wishing I’d stopped for coffee at Eric’s. The current edition of the
Mayville Heights Chronicle
was on the table.

I shook my head. “She didn’t.” The latest developments at the library were front-page news. Once again, Mary’s daughter, Bridget, had all the details.

What Hope had seen on the ground by the loading dock to make her back up so quickly was part of a footprint. A footprint that was smaller than anything Harry would have left in his rubber boots. Not that he would have stepped in a flower bed that was still too wet to work in in the first place.

It appeared that Margo’s killer had some kind of gymnastic or climbing skills, as far-fetched as that seemed. There was no other way to have gotten up onto the roof without leaving evidence behind. Hope had called in her crime scene team, Marcus had arrived, and any hope I had of reopening the library had evaporated. I’d taken Owen home and then spent the rest of the day at Henderson Holdings with Lita, doing damage control.

“It sounds like something out of a Tom Cruise movie,” Maggie said, stretching one arm over her head.

“I didn’t know that skylight even opened,” Ruby said. She’d changed her hair color back to grape-jelly purple.

I made a face. “I knew it could be opened—in theory. What I didn’t know was that Will Redfern and his crew had left it unsecured.”

Will Redfern was the contractor who had been in charge of the library renovations that had brought me to Mayville Heights in the first place. Will had been having an affair with the librarian before me, Ingrid, and as far as he was concerned, if I gave up and went back to Boston things would work out just right for him.

The renovations had been plagued with problems, and in the end the only way we’d managed to have the building ready on time for its anniversary celebrations was to replace Will and his crew with Oren Kenyon.

Lita had shaken her head when I’d told her about the skylight. “No good deed goes unpunished,” she’d said.

The work on the library had been Everett Henderson’s gift to the town for the Carnegie building’s centennial. He’d agreed to hire Will for the job because he’d had a good reputation up to that point and because Everett had gone to school with Will’s father. Lita had very strongly advised him not to do it. It was one of the rare times, I was guessing, that Everett had let sentiment and nostalgia influence a decision.

“How did the thief get up onto the roof in the first place?” Ruby asked. She drained the last of her tea and set the cup on the table. “You can’t exactly walk around Mayville Heights carrying a ladder. It’s something people would notice.”

“They think he climbed up from the loading-dock roof,” I said. I wasn’t telling them anything that Bridget wouldn’t be printing in the next issue of the
Mayville Heights Chronicle
in the morning. She’d had a reporter on the scene while Hope was still securing the library grounds. I was beginning to suspect Bridget had some kind of contact at the police department.

“Do you think Margo surprised this burglar and he killed her?” Maggie asked.

I shrugged. “It looks that way.”

She linked her fingers around her mug of tea. “It’s hard to believe someone would risk that much bad karma over that little drawing.”

“I don’t think whoever took that drawing was thinking about their karma,” Ruby said. “They were probably thinking about money.”

Taylor King appeared in the doorway then. She looked in our direction.

“Excuse me,” Ruby said. “I have something for Taylor.” She headed across the studio.

Taylor King collected vintage purses and bags. The teenager, who was part of our tai chi class, was becoming quite an expert on them. Ruby had found a small embroidered clutch at a flea market she and Maggie and I had gone to in Red Wing and paid a dollar for it. She was planning on giving it to Taylor as a thank-you for the work Taylor had been putting in, helping get everything ready for a yard sale at the Riverarts building, where most of the town’s artists had studios.

“Mags, is that Weston drawing really worth that much money?” I asked, linking my hands behind my back and squeezing my shoulders together to loosen the knots that seemed to have settled in at the base of my neck.

“In the end, a piece of art is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.” She took a sip of her tea. “You saw it, right?”

I nodded.

“I’ve seen the drawing a couple of times. The detail is exquisite.” She put her mug on the table next to Ruby’s. “It was the only thing stolen? You’re certain of that?”

I nodded. “Gavin and someone from the museum did an inventory.”

Maggie glanced at her watch. It was time to start class. “Whoever stole that drawing went to a lot of trouble to get into the library. Doesn’t it seem like they would have at least made sure the building was empty?”

“You think the thief planned to kill Margo?” I said slowly.

“You don’t?” she said. She gave me a look and then moved toward the center of the room, clapping her hands and calling, “Circle, everyone.”

Maggie had given voice to the niggling little thought that had been way in the back of my mind since the moment I’d walked into my office and discovered Margo Walsh’s body. If the thief hadn’t planned on murdering Margo, then why had he or she gone up to my office? Why stay in the building any longer than was necessary? Everything of value was on the main floor. But if the thief had planned to kill her, why hadn’t that person brought along a weapon?

•   •   •

Since the library was closed at least until the end of the week, I decided not to set my alarm clock, and sleep in a little in the morning. Owen had other ideas. He put both paws on the edge of the bed, licked my chin, and then breathed on me. Let’s just say his breath wasn’t exactly minty fresh.

I opened one eye. All I could see was his golden ones staring back at me, slightly out of focus because he was so close to my face.

“Fifteen more minutes,” I said.

His response was to lick my chin again.

I groaned and threw an arm over my face. “Ten minutes, then. You can wait for your breakfast for ten minutes.”

A paw began to bat a strand of my hair. I knew if I didn’t get up in a minute or two, Owen would be standing on my chest despite my edict that furry people did not belong in my bed. I thought about trying to negotiate for five more minutes under the covers, and then I remembered I was dealing with a cat.

The phone rang while I was eating breakfast. “Stay away from my oatmeal,” I told Owen as I headed for the living room to answer the phone. He glared darkly at me. Oatmeal was pretty much the only thing he didn’t try to mooch from me.

“Hi,” Marcus said when I picked up. “I called to see what your day’s like.”

I dropped onto the footstool. I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot at the sound of his voice. Sometimes—a lot of times—Marcus had me acting like a teenager.

“I have to check in with Lita, and I’m having dinner with Maggie and Roma, but otherwise I’ll be here,” I said.

“Hope and I have a couple of interviews this morning. How about lunch at Eric’s?”

“Umm, that sounds good,” I said.

Owen was peeking around the living room doorway. “Merow,” he said loudly.

“Was that Owen?” Marcus asked.

I laughed. “Uh-huh. That’s his not very subtle way of telling me he’s ready to go outside and check the yard for interlopers.”

“Oh well, I wouldn’t want to mess up his schedule.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

We agreed on a time and said good-bye.

Owen was sitting by the back door, his tail moving restlessly on the floor. I knew that meant he was in a bad mood. I held the door open without comment and he went outside without making a sound.

“What’s with your brother?” I asked Hercules when I went back into the kitchen.

He was washing his face. He looked blankly at me, one paw paused in midair. Owen was usually the one giving me the faux innocent look. I had to admit Hercules was a lot better at it than his brother.

“You’re not fooling me,” I said, narrowing my gaze at him.

He gave an offhand murp and went back to his grooming routine.

Marcus was sitting at a table by the window when I walked into Eric’s just before twelve thirty. He was talking to Hope, who was standing by the table, and he got to his feet, smiling when he caught sight of me.

I walked across to them. “Hi,” I said.

Hope turned halfway around. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to horn in on your lunch. I seem to always be interrupting.”

“You’re not,” I said, unzipping my jacket and hanging it over the back of a chair. “Can you join us?”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but I have a pile of paperwork back at the station.” She inclined her head in the direction of the counter at the back of the small restaurant. “I’m just waiting for takeout.” She looked at Marcus. “I’ll meet you at Riverarts in an hour,” she said. “Have a good lunch,” she said to me. She headed to the counter as Nic came out of the kitchen carrying a brown paper take-out bag.

“How was your morning?” Marcus asked as I sat down.

“All right,” I said. “Everett talked to the insurance company. And the CEO of the museum. They’re making space in another part of the museum. We should be able to get the artwork back to them early next week.”

Hope was on her way out the door. She raised a hand at us as Nic approached the table. “Hello, Kathleen,” he said. He refilled Marcus’s cup and poured coffee for me. “The lunch special is macaroni and cheese with ham and chopped tomatoes.” He turned to me. “Eric said to tell you he also has a roasted vegetable sandwich on sourdough.”

“That sounds good,” I said, imagining two thick slices of Eric’s sourdough bread soaked with juicy roasted tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers.

Marcus ordered the macaroni and cheese.

“It’ll just be a few minutes,” Nic said.

I reached for the cream for my coffee. “You’re going to talk to Maggie and Ruby,” I said.

He nodded. “We’re putting together a timeline for last Thursday.”

“Let me know if you need anything else from me.”

We spent the next several minutes talking about my family back in Boston. I was telling Marcus about my mother’s latest efforts directing my dad when Nic slid an oval-shaped stoneware dish in front of him. I could smell the aroma of cheese and ham. He put a heavy plate at my place and my mouth began to water as the scent of warm grilled bread, tomatoes and spices reached my nose.

I’d just reached over and snagged a forkful of macaroni and cheese from Marcus’s bowl when Gavin Solomon stepped into the restaurant. He looked around and came in our direction once he caught sight of us.

“I’m glad I found you, Kathleen,” he said to me. “I just spoke to Detective Lind. I think I know who took the Weston drawing.”

“You know who broke in to the library?” Marcus said with just an edge of skepticism in his voice.

“Possibly,” Gavin said. If he’d heard Marcus’s disbelief, he was ignoring it. He grabbed a chair from a nearby table, pulled it over and sat down. “A criminal named Devin Rossi.”

“And he is?” Marcus asked.

“She,” Gavin corrected. He leaned sideways, managed to catch Nic’s attention and mimicked drinking. Nic nodded and reached under the counter for a coffee cup. “Devin,” he repeated. “With an ‘i’ and an ‘n.’ As soon as Detective Lind told me how the break-in was done, I thought of her.”

“So you’re saying this person is some kind of professional cat burglar?” I said.

Gavin laughed. “Yeah, I know how ridiculous that sounds—a cat burglar, here.” He held up both hands for a moment in a “what can you do?” gesture. “But this isn’t an old Cary Grant movie. And Mayville Heights is the perfect place for a thief like Rossi to be operating. It makes more sense than trying to rob a high-security art museum in Paris.”

I thought he had a point, but I could tell from the set of Marcus’s jaw that he didn’t agree.

Nic arrived then with a cup of coffee for Gavin. “Could I get you anything else?” he asked.

Gavin gestured at his cup. “Let me finish this first, and then I’ll decide.”

Nic nodded. “No problem.”

Gavin added cream to his coffee, then reached across the table for my spoon to stir it, smiling at me as he did so. He took a long drink and leaned back in his chair.

“Devin Rossi stole artwork on demand for specific customers. She’d been operating mostly in North America and Great Britain for the past few years.”

“Stole?” I asked. “Past tense?”

“It looks that way. She dropped out of sight about two years ago. It was like she just disappeared.”

“Why haven’t I heard of this person?” Marcus asked.

“She’d been eluding law enforcement for pretty much the entire time.” Gavin shrugged. “No one is really sure what she even looks like. There was some speculation that she’d given up stealing for a living and was living on a beach somewhere in Costa Rica.”

Marcus speared a forkful of macaroni and ham but didn’t actually eat it.

“You think she’s the one who broke in to the library?” I said. “Why?”

“Because she was a gymnast as a kid who segued into rock climbing as a teenager. Can you think of someone better equipped to get onto the roof of the library and climb down from a skylight?”

“You’re saying she deliberately chose the most difficult way she could think of to break in to the building—assuming she even did this?” Marcus asked. He set his fork down on the table and gave up on pretending to eat.

“In a way, yes. Devin was always very careful
not
to be seen,
not
to be caught, but it was as if she liked the rush from doing things the hard way.” He held up one finger. “Excuse me a minute.” He pulled his cell out of his pocket, looked at the screen and put it away again. He turned to Marcus. “I have a contact at the Chicago Police Department. He’s sending you everything he has on Devin Rossi.”