Софи Келли - Cat Trick

It took me a while to straighten out the mix-up with the book delivery. The last two boxes were going out the door as Elizabeth came in. She raised a hand when she caught sight of me and walked over to the circulation desk.

“Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Is it possible to request a book for Harrison? I don’t have his library card.”

“What would he like?” I said.

“He’s already halfway through the book we picked up for him. I thought maybe I’d request the next one in the series for him.”

“I already did,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said, giving me a small smile. “I guess you know him pretty well.”

“He’s one of my best readers.”

She tucked her hands into the front kangaroo pocket of her red sweatshirt. “Thank you for letting us meet your cats the other night. Wren loved them.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Come back and visit anytime. They love people who make a fuss over them.”

Elizabeth’s expression grew serious. “And thank you for answering Wren’s questions about”—she stopped and stared at her feet for a moment—“about finding Mike Glazer.”

I hesitated; then I reached out and laid my hand on her arm. “I hope it helped.”

She nodded. “It did. It’s been really hard for her. Everyone says he was a jerk.” She shrugged. “Maybe he was. I don’t know. All I know is that Wren was really happy to be going to see him, and when she found out he was dead, she almost passed out from the shock.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know the police are working on the case. Maybe they’ll come up with some answers that will at least put her mind at rest.”

She made a face. “It said in the paper that his death is still under investigation. Isn’t that just a polite way of saying they think someone killed him but they don’t want to actually admit that for some reason?”

I chose my words carefully. “I think they need to look at all the evidence before they say anything.”

“This not knowing is eating a hole in Wren,” Elizabeth said. “First her mother dies and now this. It’s not fair. I just wish somebody would figure out something.”

She looked so much like her father and had the same deep loyalty to the people she cared about as he had. And like Agatha, she seemed to inspire that in other people, too.

“Somebody will figure out something,” I told her.

What I didn’t say was maybe that somebody would turn out to be me.

12

There were no dismembered chicken parts strewn around the kitchen when I got home, although I did find what looked to me to be gray fur on the seat of the big chair in the living room. “Were you sleeping on my chair?” I asked Owen.

His whiskers twitched, as though he were thinking about my question. Then he gave a sharp, short meow.

I reached for the little clump of cat hair. “Okay, so you might not have been sleeping,” I said. “But I know you were up here.” I turned around and discovered I was talking to myself.

Hercules kept me company while I made supper, and Owen prowled the backyard, poking around the flower beds and chasing the odd bird. While I ate, I told them what I’d learned from Marcus about the Scott brothers. “How are we going to figure out who killed Mike Glazer?” I asked them.

Hercules meowed softly. I leaned sideways to see what he was looking at. I’d brought home two books and a DVD from the library. They were sitting on one of the kitchen chairs, which Hercules seemed to be staring at.

“You think a book on Scottish history would help?” I asked.

The look he shot me was clearly disdainful.

I reached for the DVD. It was Young Sherlock Holmes . “You think we should play Sherlock Holmes?”

“Merow,” he said.

I leaned back in the chair. “So what do you think we should do? Round up the usual suspects?”

Herc looked up at the ceiling. Could cats roll their eyes?

“Oh, right,” I said. “That’s Casablanca , not Sherlock Holmes .”

The cat brought his gaze back to me, not at all impressed with my sense of humor or my knowledge of old movies.

I reached down to stroke the top of his head. “Okay, no more teasing,” I said. “So who are our suspects?”

Owen chimed in then with a loud meow.

I looked over at him trying to work something sticky off the side of a back paw. “Liam?” I asked.

He meowed again and went back to his cleanup routine.

I straightened up in the chair. “Okay, Liam,” I said to Hercules. “Maybe Abigail’s friend Georgia, and maybe even Burtis. Who else?” He looked at the books again. “Not Mary,” I said. “I know she threatened to launch Mike Glazer between two streetlights like she was kicking for three points in the Super Bowl, but I refuse to believe she’d kill anyone.”

I laced my fingers together and rested my hands on the top of my head. “I know Marcus said the Scott brothers couldn’t have had anything to do with Mike Glazer’s death, but I’d still like to know more about them.”

Hercules lifted one paw and looked at me. Feeling kind of silly, I leaned down and held out my hand. He put his paw on my palm. It looked like we had a plan.

The phone rang just as I was starting the dishes. “Hello, Katydid,” my mother’s voice said, warm somehow against my ear.

I dropped down onto the footstool. “Hi, Mom,” I said. “How’s LA?” My mother was in Los Angeles, reprising the role she’d created on a soap opera early in the year.

“Warm and sunny,” she said. “At least I’m assuming it is. I’m at the studio.”

“How’s everything going?”

She laughed. I loved the sound. My mother had a great laugh—big and deep and warm. “Wonderful. I could very easily turn into a diva. I have a gorgeous suite. They send a car for me every morning. And my dressing room is bigger than our first apartment.” She paused. “Or our second apartment, or our third.”

I laughed too. “I get the picture, Mom.”

“I read in your paper that there was a dead body found in the downtown,” she said. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, sweetie, would you?”

My mother read the Mayville Heights Chronicle online so she could keep up with what was happening in town.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

She laughed again. “Mother’s intuition. Did you find the body, or is the dead man connected to someone you know?”

I stretched my feet out across the hardwood floor. “Actually, Hercules found the body.”

“Your cat?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Most people just buy their cats a couple of rubber mice and a ball of yarn to entertain them, Katydid,” she said dryly.

“It’s kind of complicated, Mom.”

“The best stories always are.”

I explained about Ruby’s paintings, Hercules bolting across the street, and Mike Glazer’s body being in the tent. I even filled her in on the proposal for Legacy Tours.

“So what happens to the tour idea now?”

“It’s still on,” I said, rolling my head from one side to the other. “One of the other partners is coming to town.”

“My fingers and toes are crossed for all of you,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “Now, how about a couple of hints about your story line? Maggie’s going to ask me.”

Mags had become a loyal Wild and Wonderful fan after she’d started watching to see my mother in action.

“I could never give away story line secrets,” Mom said, and I pictured her with her hand over her heart. I waited. “But if I were to do it . . .” She went on to tell me a couple of surprises planned for her character that I knew would have Maggie glued to her DVR.

“I have to go,” Mom said. “They’re going to be calling me to the set soon. I love you, and I sent you something in the mail.”