Софи Келли - Cat Trick

“I’m not trying to bribe them into liking me.” She raised her eyebrows. “Well, maybe a little.”

Since Roma wasn’t one of the cats’ favorite people, a visit to her vet clinic always involved treats, subterfuge on my part, a fair amount of yowling and a Kevlar glove. But when Roma had been dealing with the death of her birth father, it almost seemed as though Owen and Hercules had tried to be nice to her.

“Don’t underestimate the power of a good bribe,” I said with a laugh. “Owen’s affections can be swayed—at least temporarily—although with Maggie in the room, he might just eat and ignore you.”

“In other words, it’ll be just like my dating life before Eddie,” she said, with a glint in her brown eyes.

“How is Eddie?” I asked as I stepped out of my tai chi shoes.

The sound of his name made her face light up. “Wonderful,” she said. “I’m going to see him next weekend.” She searched my face. “How’s Marcus?”

I put my shoes in my tote bag. “Annoying. Cute . . . Did I say annoying?”

Roma laughed.

“He made me dinner. He gave me a box of Batman comic books. Then he turns into Robocop.”

Roma bent down to tie her red canvas sneakers. “Have you kissed him?” she asked.

I hesitated just a second too long. She snapped upright like the top half of her body was attached to a spring. “You did!” she said, a grin spreading across her face.

I felt my own cheeks burning. “No comment,” I said.

She glanced at her watch. “You’re off the hook for now because I have somewhere I have to be, but I will be expecting details tomorrow night.” She grabbed her bag and headed down the stairs. “Lots of details,” she said over her shoulder.

Halfway down, she stopped and turned to look at me. “That means you have twenty-four hours to do any additional research you might need. There will be questions about technique and style.”

I leaned over the railing. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I hissed.

“Let me see . . .” She scrunched up her face in a mock frown. “Yes, I think I am.” She was down the last few steps and out the door before I could say anything else.

I pulled the elastic off my ponytail and combed my fingers through my hair while I made a mental change to the menu for supper Friday night. Brownies. I was definitely going to need brownies.

The only person who was going to get more delight than Roma out of Marcus and me sharing a kiss was Maggie. She would be bouncing with happiness over this “proof” that Marcus and I were oh so right for each other, and I was going to require more than one brownie to get through all the insistence on details.

14

Marcus was waiting at Wisteria Hill when I pulled up in the morning, leaning against his SUV. Roma’s comment about doing more research into his kissing technique flashed through my mind.

Stop that , I told myself sternly.

The water jugs were on the hood of his car. He grabbed them and walked over to meet me. “Good morning.”

I smiled. “Good morning.”

We started for the carriage house. Marcus looked around. “Roma isn’t going to need all of us once she moves out here, you know,” he said. “We’ll have to stop meeting like this.” He smiled at me.

“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done before she can move in,” I said, inclining my head in the direction of the old farmhouse. “I think it’s going to be a while.” I didn’t add that I’d miss feeding the cats with Marcus. Our friendship had developed in the old carriage house, watching Lucy and the others.

We put out the cats’ food and water and then retreated, as usual, back by the side door to wait for them to come out to eat. I stood close to the wall. Marcus leaned his arm against the weathered gray boards over my head. He was so close, I could smell his aftershave and what I guessed was cinnamon-flavored gum.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get over to the library yesterday afternoon,” he whispered.

“I told you everything there was to tell,” I said. “Oren waved me over. I looked in the tent, but I didn’t go in. I called you.”

Lucy was coming from the cats’ sleeping area, and I studied her carefully, watching for any sign that she was injured or sick, but she looked fine. She glanced over at us, meowed—her way of saying “Good morning,” I guessed—and continued to the feeding station.

“You didn’t see anyone besides Oren?”

I shook my head. “No.” The other cats were coming out, and just like I had with Lucy, I studied each one in turn. They all seemed well.

“Do you think the knife’s important?” I asked.

He shifted behind me. “The problem is, there’s no way to know how long it was there.”

I twisted around to look at him. “Yes, there is. It wasn’t there when Owen found that button from Alex Scott’s jacket.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I do know that for sure,” I said. “That knife was stuck in the ground less than a foot away from where that button was. I was right there. I would have seen it.”

He pressed his lips together, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “There wasn’t that much light in the tent, Kathleen,” he said.

I glanced over at the cats and then came back to Marcus. “There was enough. I was right at that spot. My hand was on the ground. If the knife had been there I would have seen it. It. Wasn’t. There.”

He rubbed his chin. “I don’t want to argue with you,” he said quietly.

I looked up at him. “Then don’t.” I crossed one arm over my chest. “Marcus, I would have seen a knife jammed into the dirt if it had been there—I probably would have put my hand on it—and Owen would have been trying to dig it up, just the way he did with the button. Not to mention, wouldn’t one of your investigators have found it? Can’t you at least try to keep an open mind?”

He pushed off the wall and leaned sideways to check out the feeding station; then he turned his attention back to me. “I don’t have a problem keeping an open mind, but not so open that my brains run out my ears.” He shook his head. “You can’t swear with one hundred percent certainty that knife was not stuck in the ground when Owen was in the tent, not considering how dim the light was. Yes, we searched the tent and the grounds and I don’t think we missed anything, but we didn’t take that tent down—which we should have done—so I can’t be positive. And I’m sorry, but a cat is not exactly a credible corroborating witness. No lawyer is going to accept that.”

There was a sudden bitter taste in my mouth. I chose my words carefully before I answered him. “I’m not asking some lawyer to accept that I know what I saw. I’m asking you to accept it,” I said.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked up at the ceiling in frustration or something else, I wasn’t sure.

I turned around to see that the cats were finished eating and were already headed back to their shelters, Lucy trailing all the others. She stopped and looked at me, tipping her head to one side. Had she caught the tone of our conversation, if not the actual words? I knew the little calico cat had exceptional hearing. After a moment, she followed the rest of the cats, and I immediately headed for the feeding station. I scooped up a couple of bits of dropped cat food and collected the dishes. Marcus refilled the water bowls, silent beside me.

Once we were outside the carriage house, he touched my shoulder. “Kathleen, look, I do believe that you think there was no knife stuck in the ground when Owen found that button, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I based an investigation on something I know a good lawyer could tear apart. And it’s not like that knife is what killed Mike Glazer; you know that.”