Софи Келли - Faux Paw

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.

4

By 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.