Софи Келли - Faux Paw

The cat gave me a look and headed straight for Curtis, who was in his usual spot.

“Is this your cat?” the guard asked.

I started toward them. “Yes. This is Hercules. Please don’t try to pet him. He was feral. He doesn’t have the best people skills.”

Curtis laughed. “Yeah, people say that about me, too.” He looked at the cat. “Hello, Hercules,” he said.

“Merow,” the cat answered. He considered the security guard for a moment and then moved around the circulation desk.

I handed a take-out container of coffee to Curtis. I’d gotten it from Tubby’s before we left. “I thought you might like a cup,” I said. The creamer and a couple of sugar packets were on top.

Curtis smiled at me. With his bushy eyebrows and nose that looked as though it had been broken at least once, he was an imposing man—a good trait for a security guard—but when he smiled his expression was transformed.

“Thank you, Ms. Paulson,” he said. “I was a bit late getting started this morning, so I’m like my old truck that leaks oil; I’m down a quart.”

Hercules was still prowling around, checking everything out. Marcus was doing the same, I realized, minus the whisker twitching.

“What are you looking for?” I asked. Marcus turned to look at me. Hercules kept nosing around.

“Are you talking to me or him?” Marcus asked, gesturing to the cat, who was sniffing the edge of one of the metal pylons that was restricting access to the exhibit area.

“You,” I said.

He shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. Something, anything that we might have missed.”

“You’ll figure this out,” I said. “You always do.”

Hercules was still sniffing the pylon. His pink tongue came out and he gave the shiny metal surface a tentative lick. “Leave that alone,” I called to him.

He gave a sharp meow but otherwise ignored me.

I walked over to the cat. “Don’t lick that,” I said firmly. “You don’t know what’s on it.”

Of the two cats, Owen was the one who had finicky little quirks about his food, but I’d never seen Hercules do something as undignified as lick a metal post.

He looked up at me, put a paw on the base of the metal pylon, and meowed again. I knew that insistent tone. It meant, “Look at this.”

I leaned over to look at the spot he’d licked. “Move your foot,” I said.

He obligingly lifted his white-tipped paw. There was a tiny smear of what looked like blue paint on the shiny metal.

Curtis joined me. “That’s paint,” he said.

“Don’t eat that,” I said to Hercules.

His green eyes met mine and he licked his lips.

“What is it?” Marcus asked. He’d walked over and was standing behind Hercules. The cat looked up at him and then back at the pylon. As far-fetched as it seemed, I knew there was some connection he was waiting for me to make.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly. I scraped a tiny speck of the paint off the pylon with a nail and then sniffed the end of my finger, hoping that I wasn’t inhaling some obscure, drug-resistant bacteria.

“What are you doing?” Marcus said, pulling a face like I’d just scraped a piece of gum off my shoe and started chewing it.

Herc’s green gaze was fixed on my face, and even though no one else would have believed it, I could see a gleam of expectation in his eyes.

“It smells like egg,” I said, more to the cat than to Marcus, wondering at the same time if it was just my imagination at work.

Hercules sat back on his haunches then, seemingly satisfied that he’d made his point.

“No one was in here eating eggs,” Curtis said.

The cat shot him a look of disdain as only a cat could do.

Hercules had been having a sardine and a slice of hard-boiled egg every Sunday since the weather got warmer. We’d sit in the backyard and I’d have coffee while the boys had their Sunday treat. Hercules had developed a fondness for the hard-boiled egg. It really wasn’t that big a surprise that his nose had discovered the small splotch of paint.

“Egg tempera,” I said slowly.

“Paint,” Marcus said.

I nodded. “It’s a mixture of pigment, egg and something to keep the egg from drying out too fast; water, vinegar, Maggie says some artists even use wine.”

He crouched down beside me and studied the pale blue dab on the pylon base. Then he looked at me.

“That’s fresh paint, not a flake of old paint that fell off something and stuck,” I said.

“So one of the artists had wet paint on a shoe or a pants leg and brushed against this at some point. You said yourself that Maggie and the others were in and out a lot in the days before the art from the museum arrived.”

I shook my head. “No. These are brand-new pylons. I helped take them out of the box and set them up right after we closed the library on Thursday.”

“Was Maggie here after that?” he asked. “Or any of the others?”

“No,” I said. “Just Margo and Gavin and the staff from the museum who came with the artwork.”

He looked at Curtis. “Did Mr. Solomon bring anyone else in here while you’ve been here?”

Curtis shook his head. “Every time he’s been here, he’s been alone, except for Detective Lind.”

“Okay, thanks,” Marcus said.

The guard went back to his chair.

Hercules was watching us intently, head turning from side to side as we talked.

“Rena Adler paints with egg tempera,” I said, getting to my feet. I remembered seeing a dab of blue paint on her finger. “She’s the only local artist in the exhibit who does.”

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.”

16

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.