Софи Келли - Final Catcall

“I know,” she said. She rubbed her palms together and studied me. “So you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “But there is something I wanted to ask you about.”

“Anything. What is it?”

We stopped at the corner, looked both ways and crossed the street. Eric’s was just ahead. “It’s Abigail. I think she knew Hugh, I mean I think she knew him before the festival ended up here.”

Maggie frowned. “Are you sure?”

I shook my head. “Not really. It’s just something she said to me and something else Mary overheard.”

“You don’t think Abigail had something to do with Hugh Davis’s death, do you?”

“No. But I think she’s hiding something, which isn’t like Abigail. And he is dead.”

“Which is an awfully big coincidence—not that coincidences don’t happen.”

We were at the café. I followed Maggie in. A tall man I didn’t recognize was behind the counter. He smiled at Maggie. She gestured toward an empty table in the window, raising her eyebrows. He nodded and she smiled back and started for the table.

“Who’s that?” I asked, shrugging off my jacket.

“That’s Nicolas,” Maggie said “He’s about to be the newest member of the co-op. He’s a found-metal artist.”

“What’s a found-metal artist?”

She hung her purse on the back of her chair and peeled off her jacket. “He recycles all kind of metal—forks, knives, gears, screws—into sculptures. He’s working on a series of birds right now that are just incredible.”

Nicolas was on his way over with hot water and tea bags for Maggie and the coffeepot. “Hi, Maggie,” he said, setting the metal carafe of hot water and a small stoneware teapot in front of her.

He was about medium height, built like a hockey goalie with a smooth, shaved head, light brown skin and deep brown eyes.

“Coffee?” he asked me.

“Please.” I pushed my cup closer.

“Nic, this is my friend Kathleen,” Maggie said.

“Nice to meet you,” I said.

He smiled as he filled my cup. “You as well.”

Maggie leaned forward and looked in the direction of the kitchen. She reminded me of Owen when I was making kitty crackers. “Do I smell pea soup?” she asked.

He nodded. “With corn bread. It’s today’s special.”

Maggie’s gaze shifted to me. “Yes?”

“Yes,” I said with a smile.

“It’ll just be a few minutes,” he said and headed back to the kitchen.

I added cream and sugar to my coffee. “He’s nice.”

“He is,” Maggie said, dropping a tea bag into the pot and reaching for the hot water. “I think he’ll be a good addition to the co-op.”

I leaned back in my chair and watched the little ritual she went through when she made her tea. Finally she picked up the cup and stretched her long legs under the table.

“Okay, tell me why you think Abigail knew Hugh before the festival,” she said.

“This stays between us.”

“Of course.”

I ran my finger around the top edge of my coffee mug. “It was what she said after Ben Saroyan and Hugh had come to take a look at the gazebo, although I didn’t pay attention to it at the time. Hugh wasn’t happy with the idea of using it as a stage. Abigail said, ‘He’s still a control freak, I’ve discovered.’”

Maggie’s eyebrows went up. “‘Still’?”

I nodded.

“And you said Mary overheard something.”

“Mary went over to the Stratton yesterday morning, early, to talk to Abigail and overheard her in the parking lot, arguing with Hugh.”

Maggie shrugged. “People argue. It doesn’t always mean they know each other that well.”

Nicolas was coming our way with a tray. The aroma of smoked ham and onions drifted in our direction.

“It’s not the fact that they were arguing that bothers me,” I said. “It’s what Mary heard Abigail say.”

“Which was?”

“‘If I’d killed you the first time you messed up my life I’d be out of prison by now.’” I looked at Maggie across the table. “No one says that to someone they just met.”

She sighed. “True.”

Nic had reached the table. He slipped fragrant, steaming bowls of thick soup in front of us and set a napkin-lined basket of corn bread in the middle of the table. “I’ll be right back with the coffeepot,” he said with a smile.

I didn’t say anything else until my cup had been topped up and I’d buttered a slab of corn bread, still warm from the oven. “It’s not like Abigail,” I said. “Do you remember when she found that box of old books at the library? The one with the first edition of Alice in Wonderland ?”

“I remember,” Maggie said, gesturing with her spoon. “That was how you bought all the books for the children’s section, wasn’t it? Just from auctioning that one book.”

I dunked a chunk of corn bread in my soup and took a bite before I answered. “It was. Abigail found those books in the storage room stuffed in a box that had been donated to the library, and the first thing she did was bring them to me. Everyone had forgotten they were even there. She could have taken that first edition and the rest of the books and no one would have known.”

Maggie dipped a piece of the corn bread in her own bowl, took a bite and gave a little groan of happiness. “Abigail’s not a deceitful person,” she said.

“I know,” I said. “So her lying about this doesn’t make any sense. And it’s not like she can keep it up. Marcus is a good detective. He’ll figure it out.”

“So tell her that.”

“I’m trying not to get mixed up in another one of Marcus’s cases.” I glanced out the window, wondering where Marcus was right now.

Maggie leaned forward, resting one elbow on the table. “Kath, I didn’t ask you a lot of questions about why things didn’t work out with Marcus because that’s none of my business, but I think I have a pretty good idea. All I’m going to say is it’s not wrong to care about your friends.”

I nodded. “Thanks.” I’d told Marcus more than once that I couldn’t turn away if someone I cared about was in trouble. It helped to hear Maggie say that wasn’t wrong.

I picked up my spoon again. “There’s something else that bothers me about this whole thing.”

Maggie sipped her tea and then added a little more honey. “What?” she asked.

“Abigail was lying about knowing Hugh,” I said. “But why was he lying about knowing her?”

9

“And he did act like they didn’t know each other, didn’t he?” Maggie said thoughtfully. “When we were painting the stage the other night Hugh came in looking for Abigail. Remember? He called her Ms. Pierce.”

“I remember,” I said.

She shrugged. “Maybe it was as simple as they had a thing and were embarrassed about it.”

“A thing?”

“You know Abigail loves the theater.” Maggie gestured with her cup, almost spilling her tea. “She went on that tour to New York in the spring. Maybe she met Hugh, they had a wild and torrid affair over a long weekend, and then they were both mortified at what they’d done so they agreed to pretend it never happened.”

I tried to get a mental picture of Abigail having a torrid affair with Hugh—and couldn’t. I shook my head. “If we were talking about Mary, maybe,” I said. “But I just can’t picture Abigail doing something so impulsive.”

“No one could picture you leaving Boston for the wilds of Minnesota, but you did.”

Because I’d been hurt over Andrew’s drunken marriage and tired of always being practical and sensible. Maybe Maggie was right. Maybe the same thing had happened to Abigail, minus someone marrying a waitress they’d just met. Maybe I was seeing mysterious connections where there weren’t any.