Sleight of Paw (21 page)

Roma’s daughter was a biologist and commercial diver working on a new TV show for the Exploration Channel.

“What about you, Maggie?” Roma asked sweetly. “Ever been married that you know of?”

Maggie stretched her hands behind her head. “No. First of all, I was what people call a late bloomer. I think I was maybe fifteen before I figured out why all my friends were so gaga about boys. Then I was concentrating on school. It was just my mom and me.” She smiled down at Owen, still sitting adoringly by her side of the sofa. “In college I was a geek, working in the summer and studying every term, trying to hold on to my scholarship.”

“What about you, Kathleen?” Roma asked.

Maggie and I exchanged glances. “I was almost married,” I said.

“In Boston?” Roma leaned forward, clearly interested.

“Yes.” Hercules appeared at my feet and I reached over to stroke the top of his head. “His name was . . . is Andrew. He’s a contractor. He specializes in restoring old houses.”

“What happened?” Roma asked. She held out both hands palms up. “You chose all of this instead?”

That made me laugh. “In a way. We had a fight. Andrew went away on a two-week trip with his friends. He married someone else while he was gone.”

“You’re kidding.”

I shook my head. “True love, tequila style,” I said. Telling the story didn’t hurt the way it used to.

“So you decided if he could get married, you could come to Minnesota.”

I grinned. “Pretty much.”

Roma propped her feet on the footstool. “I think Toby Keith wrote a song about something like that. Was she a waitress at a honky-tonk?”

“Fifties diner, I think.”

Roma shrugged. “Close enough.”

“Maybe you were supposed to come here,” Maggie said. “Maybe you’ll meet Mr. Right here.”

“I don’t believe in soul mates or destiny,” I said. “And don’t even try to sell me on Marcus Gordon as my one true love.”

“What’s wrong with Marcus?” Roma asked.

I frowned at her and pulled up my feet. “He arrested Ruby,” I said, holding up a finger. “He thought I was having an affair with Gregor Easton and that I might’ve killed him.” Now I was holding up two fingers. “And he’s annoying.” I added one more finger to the other two.

Roma held up a finger of her own and waved it at me. “He’s my best volunteer.” She added another. “And he rescued Lucy and Desmond.”

I folded my arms and watched her, amused. Now she was holding up three fingers. “And he helps coach the boys’ hockey team.”

So that’s why he was such a good skater. “He arrested Ruby,” I said.

“He’s a police officer,” she said. “He’s doing his job. It wasn’t just his call. And Marcus won’t stop investigating just because Ruby’s been arrested. He’ll follow the evidence wherever it takes him, and he will figure out Ruby didn’t do this.”

“You like Marcus.”

“I do. He’s a good person. Give him a chance.”

Owen chose that moment to meow his agreement.

“Not you, too,” I said. He flicked his tail at me and went back to giving Maggie googley eyes.

I stood up. “As much as I like listening to you act like Marcus Gordon’s cheerleader, I have to go make dumplings.” The word “dumplings” got Owen’s attention. He turned his head toward me. “C’mon,” I said.

Owen kept up a murping commentary while I made dumplings and set them on top of the stew pot. The phone rang while I had my hands in the dough. “Maggie, would you get that and take a message, please?” I called.

“Got it,” she said.

I was just putting the lid back on the pot when Maggie stuck her head in the kitchen.

“That was Rebecca,” she said. “Ruby’s okay. She has to spend the night in jail, but she’ll go before a judge in the morning.”

“We expected that,” I said.

She leaned against the doorframe. “I don’t understand how this got to be such a mess.”

Roma came up beside Maggie as I started washing the few dirty dishes.

“How did Agatha die?” Roma asked. “Do you know?”

I hesitated. “I’m not certain.” I scraped bits of dried dough out of the mixing bowl I’d used for the dumplings. “She might have been hit by a car.”

Roma looked away for a second and Maggie lightly touched her shoulder. “You mean someone ran her down and then . . . ?”

“Maybe.”

“Which proves it wasn’t Ruby,” Maggie said. “She would’ve never run someone over and just left them.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” Roma agreed.

“What was Agatha like?” I asked to change the subject. “When she was young, when she was teaching?”

Maggie got out the placemats, and I handed Roma salt and pepper.

“Well, you saw her,” Roma said. “She was tiny and as tough as nails. I’ve seen her face down kids and parents that were twice her size. She was on your side all the way if you were going to give it your best effort. But if she thought you weren’t working, forget the excuses.”

Maggie nodded. “Karen Anne Peary,” she said.

Roma and I both turned to her.

“After Agatha retired she still did substitute teaching. She taught our math class in grade six for a month because Mr. Kavanaugh broke his hand in gym, trying to teach the class how to climb the ropes. Not a good idea if you’re afraid of heights.” She waved away the mental picture.

“Anyway, Agatha gave us a math test. Two-thirds of the class failed, including me, including Karen Anne Peary. Mr. Kavanaugh graded generously and on a curve. Agatha didn’t.”

Roma was already smiling. Maggie handed her a fork and spoon. “Day after we got the tests back, Karen Anne’s father showed up. Ever seen Mike Peary?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“Bigfoot,” Roma said. “Okay, maybe a little bit hairier.”

Maggie nodded in agreement. “Back then we were in a portable classroom, like a Spam can with fake wood paneling inside. Agatha goes outside with Mr. Peary. He’s a roaring at her, shaking those massive hands. We were all at the windows, watching.”

“What did she do?”

“Nothing,” Maggie said, centering her placemat on the table. “She let him wind down and then she started to talk, and I swear you could see the man shrinking. All that hot air, gone.”

“That sounds like her,” Roma said.

“When she came back in she told us we were all going to get our grades up. And she promised Karen Anne in front of the entire class that she would have an A by the end of the year.”

Maggie laughed. “The only subject Karen Anne Peary was interested in was boys. Getting an A in math didn’t seem very likely.”

“But she did, didn’t she?” Roma said.

Maggie nodded. “Agatha took a promise very seriously.”

I thought of Harry Taylor, adamant about keeping his promise to a dead person.

I got three bowls down from the cupboard and checked the clock. The dumplings were just about done. “What was she like outside of school?”

“Her whole life was school,” Roma said. “After she got divorced she threw her energy into David and the school. I don’t think I told you she did a six-month stint of volunteer teaching in a school in rural Tennessee. That was Agatha.”

Mags and Roma shared stories from their high school days over supper. I spent as much time laughing as I did eating.

“I want to see pictures,” I said, pointing my spoon at Maggie.

“Nonexistent.” She speared the last dumpling in her bowl. “When my mother moved I got every single one of them and burned them all.”

“You didn’t.”

“Big hair and parachute pants, gone.”

“I need to check in at the clinic,” Roma said after the table was cleared and I’d turned down her offer to help with the dishes. She looked at Maggie. “Do you want a ride?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “I don’t feel like walking.”

Hercules and Owen wandered in to say good-bye. “Call me if you hear anything,” I said, giving Maggie a hug.

“You, too.”

Owen made a low sound in his throat when the door closed. It was almost like a sigh.

“Just a little too over the top, Owen,” I said, walking back into the living room. The house seemed so quiet with Maggie and Roma gone. Then I thought about Ruby sitting in a jail cell. I picked up the pillow Maggie had thrown at Roma and put it back on the sofa. I sat in the chair and pulled the phone closer. Hercules appeared at my feet as I punched in the number.

“Come on up,” I said, patting my leg. He jumped and settled on my lap.

My brother, Ethan, answered on the fourth ring. “Hey, Mom said it was you.”

Our mother always seemed to know when it was one of us on the phone. Ethan would be on the road, hundreds of miles away. The phone would ring and Mom would say, “Get the phone, Katie. That’s your brother.” And the next thing I’d hear would be, “This is a collect call from . . .”

“So, you haven’t run off with a yeti or anything yet,” Ethan said. I could picture him grinning.

“No,” I said indignantly. “We’ve just started dating.”

He laughed and the sound made me catch my breath with homesickness.

“So, what’s up?”

“Winterfest.”

“What’s Winterfest? Some kind of pagan ritual where you all join hands in a circle and ask the gods of winter not to send any more snow?”

“Actually we ask them to send it all to Boston,” I countered. That got another laugh. I told him about the sliding hill, my victory at the puck shoot and my first time on skates.

“Are there any pictures? Any cell-phone video?” he teased. “Because I have cash.”

“Forget it. The only way you’re going to see me on skates is if you come and do it in person.”

“You inviting me to visit?”

“Anytime, baby brother,” I said. “We’re planning a big party for the library in the spring.”

“Yeah, maybe I will. When things quiet down. I miss having you to boss me around.”

I felt that twist of homesickness again, but I swallowed it away. Ethan and I talked about his band, The Flaming Gerbils—which was spending a lot more time on the road—and his love life, which was always entertaining and way more complicated than anyone’s I knew.

Finally Ethan said, “I’d better let you talk to Mom. She’s hovering.”

“Stay out of trouble,” I said. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” he said, handing the phone off to Mom.

“I wasn’t hovering” were the first words out of her mouth.

“Okay.”

“I was lurking,” she continued.

“What’s the difference?”

“It’s all in how you hold your upper body.”

I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. With my mother you couldn’t always tell.

“How are you, Katydid?”

“I’m fine.”

“Tell me about Winterfest,” she said. My mother read the Mayville Heights paper online, so she always had a general idea of what was going on here.

I told her all about the winter carnival, including my turn around the outdoor rink. She laughed. “So that’s what Ethan was teasing you about.”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s a good thing there are no pictures. Knowing him, I might end up an Internet star.”

“Are there any photos of Maggie’s installation?” Mom asked. “I’d love to see it.”

“I don’t think she’d mind if I took some and e-mailed them to you.”

“Thank you, sweetie.”

We talked for a few more minutes. Mom and Dad were working on a production of
King Lear
at the school where they both taught. She was directing and he was playing the old king. They were speaking at the moment, but I knew before the production started there’d be fireworks. There always were, which is why they’d been married twice. There were crazy for each other, but they also made themselves and everyone around them crazy, too.

I thought about telling Mom about Ruby and letting her reassure me that everything would work out. But I didn’t. I didn’t want her to worry that I’d gotten tangled up in another crime, even if only peripherally.

Finally I said good-bye and set the phone back on the table. Hercules lifted his head and looked at me. No matter what I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about Ruby. I couldn’t let it go.

I remembered what Maggie had said. Ruby couldn’t even kill a mouse in her apartment. She hadn’t killed Agatha. Not deliberately. Not by accident. I didn’t care what evidence Marcus had. Ruby wasn’t that kind of person.

If I hadn’t found that sliver of glass in my pants cuff, would Ruby be in jail right now? I couldn’t help feeling responsible. Was there anything I could say to Marcus to make him see he was wrong? No. He believed in evidence, not feelings. The only way I could convince him Ruby was innocent was to prove it.

I looked into the cat’s green eyes. “You know Ruby didn’t kill Agatha,” I said. “How are we going to find out who did?”

B
efore I could get up, the phone rang. We both jumped. Herc teetered on my lap like a high-wire walker in a windstorm, and almost fell off.

I put one hand on the cat and picked up the phone with the other. It was Rebecca.

“Hi,” I said. “Maggie gave me your message from earlier.”

“Oh, good,” she said. “I’m hoping you can do me a favor. It’s for Ruby, actually.”

“Of course. What do you need?”

“Her lawyer called. Ruby needs clothes for court in the morning. I have Violet’s keys, so I have a key to Ruby’s apartment, too.”

“And you’d like me to go with you.” It was only a couple of days ago that I’d gone with Ruby to find clothes for Agatha.

“If you don’t mind. Ruby’s style is quite a bit different from mine.”

I smiled. “Mine, too, but between the two of us we should be able to find something that will work.”

We settled on a time in the morning and said good night.

“This is a sign,” I said.

Hercules looked at the phone and then at me.

“All right, so I don’t believe in signs,” I said. “But if I did, this would be one.” He just kept staring at me. “Rebecca wants me to help her find something for Ruby to wear to court. I’m going to meet her at Ruby’s apartment in the morning.” He still didn’t so much as blink. “Ruby’s apartment,” I repeated. “Where she probably took that bag of Agatha’s things Lita gave her. You know,” I leaned close to his furry black and white face. “That bag that may have the envelope everyone was fighting with her about.”