Софи Келли - Faux Paw

He made a grumbling noise almost under his breath. I leaned down to scratch behind his ear and he turned his face to one side, making it clear I was on ignore. “Next time come home when I call you,” I said.

Owen stalked into the kitchen. He walked over to the basement door, pawed it open and disappeared down the stairs.

“Did you ever figure out what he’s doing down there?” I asked Hercules as I put things away.

He gave me a blank look.

I gave Hercules a little piece of a sardine as a thank-you for his sleuthing. He ate it, washed his face and paws and followed me into the living room, curling up in a patch of sunshine on the rug for a nap while I returned e-mails and phone calls. Marcus didn’t call until after supper.

“Any luck?” I asked.

“I can’t really answer that,” he said.

It was as good as a no. “What about the paint?” I asked. “Can you at least tell me if it’s egg tempera?”

“It is,” he said. I heard the squeak of his desk chair and knew from the sound that he was still at the station. “It proves nothing, Kathleen,” he said, lowering his voice.

“It proves Rena Adler was at the library when she shouldn’t have been,” I said.

“No, it doesn’t. All it proves it that someone got a bit of paint on that metal pylon at some point. It’s not like it’s her fingerprint in paint.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me too,” he said. “It looks like you’ll be able to get the building back on Tuesday. Hope will let you know for sure.”

Hercules had raised his head and was listening to my side of the conversation.

“Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Marcus said, and I swear I could hear a smile creep into his voice. It made me smile as well. “I’m making my famed turkey Provençal.”

“Sounds very fancy.”

“Micah was impressed when I tried the recipe out on her.”

I was grinning now. “Well, if Micah gave it two paws, I’m sure it’ll be delicious,” I said.

We said good night and I hung up the phone. Hercules was still watching me. “The paint isn’t enough,” I said.

He made a sour face.

“I know,” I said.

I looked at the laptop sitting on the footstool. “Do you want to see if we can find out anything about Rena?” I asked.

Hercules got up, came over to my chair and meowed at the computer. I patted my legs. He jumped up and settled himself. I reached for the laptop.

There was very little to find online about Rena Adler. She had no online presence—no Web site, no Facebook page, no Twitter account. Since I didn’t have any of those myself, it didn’t strike me as odd, but what did was the fact that prior to two years ago Rena Adler hadn’t seemed to exist. No matter what search terms or search engine I used, there was nothing to find about the woman back more than a couple of years.

I leaned back in the big wing chair. “It’s as though she just appeared out of nowhere,” I said to Hercules. “It doesn’t make sense.”

He looked at the phone.

I sighed. “Marcus will just say this doesn’t mean anything.” I looked at the name in the search box and scrolled down through the results again. There were more selections that had nothing to do with Rena Adler the artist than there were ones that did. There was even a link to a fan site for the Irene Adler character from the Sherlock Holmes world.

Irene Adler. Rena Adler.

“Is it really that simple?” I asked the cat.

I didn’t wait for him to answer, assuming he was even going to. I typed the name “Rena” and “name meaning” in the search engine.

It seemed it really was as simple as that. The name Rena was of Hebrew origin. It meant joyful song. It was also a variation of the name Irene.

Rena Adler. It was a play on the name Irene Adler, the woman who bested Sherlock Holmes.

“The name’s a fake,” I said to Hercules. “That’s why we couldn’t find anything about her beyond two years ago. Rena Adler didn’t exist before that.”

I chewed my lip. Marcus would think I was crazy. Hercules was eyeing me as though maybe he was having the same thought.

“So let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that Rena Adler used to have a different name. Who was she and why did she change it?”

My cell phone, on top of a stack of papers next to the chair, buzzed then. I leaned sideways for a look, one hand on the computer, the other holding Hercules. It was Gavin. I let it go to voice mail. I hadn’t spoken to Gavin since we’d gotten back from Minneapolis and he’d shared his other alibi.

I thought about the conversation with Julian McCrea. Would I ever hear from the art dealer? I wondered. When Gavin had first mentioned the man, I’d had high hopes that talking to him would give us some kind of clue. I remembered how dismissive Marcus had been. I sighed. It looked like he was going to be right.

“Maybe Gavin had just been angling for a way to spend some time alone with me,” I said.

Hercules narrowed his green eyes as though he was considering the possibility.

“After all, his other suggestion had been that the drawing had been stolen by some art thief/cat burglar.”

“Merow!” Hercules said.

“No, not someone who steals cats. Someone who’s stealthy like a cat.”

I rubbed my right shoulder. I was having a conversation with a cat about cat burglars. No wonder the idea that Rena Adler had changed her name and was somehow connected to what had happened at the library seemed to make sense to me.

“She dropped out of sight about two years ago. It was like she just disappeared.” That’s what Gavin had said about Devin Rossi. Two years ago art thief Devin Rossi had disappeared and artist Rena Adler had suddenly appeared.

“Just because it’s far-fetched doesn’t mean it’s not true,” I told Hercules.

“Murp,” he agreed.

I reached for the phone and called Gavin.

“Hi, Kathleen,” he said. “I was just talking to Hope Lind. It looks like they’re going to let you open the library on Tuesday. I just wanted to let you know it’ll be next Thursday or Friday before the museum can retrieve the exhibit. They’re still making space.”

“Why?” I asked. I was beginning to think there was a metaphorical black cloud hovering over the library.

“I’m not sure, but I think the problem with the sprinkler system was worse than they’re letting on.”

I closed my eyes for a moment. “It’s all right,” I said. “We can make things work for a few days.”

“I’ll help any way I can,” Gavin said. I realized from the background noise I could hear that he was probably in the bar at the St. James.

Hercules jumped down from my lap and started nosing around the pile of papers next to the chair. I shook my head. He shook his back at me and nudged the pile with his shoulder.

“Gavin, do you have a phone number for Julian McCrea?” I asked. I knew he did. He’d set up our luncheon, after all.

“I do,” he said. “Why?”

The stack of papers Hercules had been poking at fell over then. He jumped backward and then looked guiltily up at me. I glared at him.

I couldn’t exactly say I wanted to call the art dealer to find out what Devin Rossi looked like. Well, I could have, but I didn’t want to.

“Kathleen, are you still there?” Gavin asked.

I switched the phone to my other hand. Hercules was wisely still out of my reach. “I’m sorry, Gavin. One of my cats just knocked a pile of papers over.”

I could see my photo album on the bottom of the stack, the cover flipped open. Maggie had been looking at it the last time she’d been over, teasing me about my teenage tartan skirts and neon tights, and I hadn’t put the book away.