Софи Келли - Cat Trick

“Could I help you?” I’d asked, walking over to the magazine section, where he’d stood.

He’d smiled and shaken his head. “Thanks, no. I was just taking a trip down memory lane. These photos are incredible.”

“Take your time,” I’d said. “There are more panels hanging in the computer room.”

He’d checked his watch and frowned. “I wish I could, but I have to get going.” He shrugged and looked around. He seemed a little sad. “Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right; you can’t go home again.”

“I prefer The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ,” I’d said.

Mike had frowned, not getting the reference.

“There’s no place like home.”

He’d nodded his head with just a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll try to remember that.”

Burtis was standing silently, holding a sledgehammer in both of his large hands. His expression was unreadable, until I got close enough to see his eyes. There was a hint of menace in them. If the rumors I’d heard about Burtis were even partly true, I knew he wasn’t a man to get on the bad side of.

“Well?” Mike said impatiently.

“My turn to talk now, is it?” Burtis said, looking at the younger man as though he were something Burtis had just scraped off his shoe. “First of all, boy, both these tents here are just a couple of years old. That canvas is water-repellent, mildew-resistant and flame-retardant. My tents don’t sag when they’re wet and they don’t blow over. When my boys put a tent up, it stays up.” There was a challenge in his body language and his tone.

Mike Glazer shook his head and made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Forget it. I’ll talk to Liam.”

He walked away, heading for a group of people standing over by the retaining wall between the river and the boardwalk. Burtis caught sight of us. He nodded to Marcus and smiled at me. Whatever anger had been there just the moment before was gone.

“Hello, Kathleen,” he said. “When are you comin’ to have breakfast with me again? I don’t have to wait for you to fall over another body, do I?”

We’d had a lot of rain early in the spring, and all that water had caused an embankment to let go out at Wisteria Hill while I was standing on top of it. The collapse had uncovered remains that had turned out to be those of Roma’s long-lost father. Burtis had known the man. They’d both worked for Idris Blackthorne, who had been the town bootlegger back in the day. I’d had breakfast with Burtis early one morning, looking for any kind of information that would answer the questions Roma had about what had happened to her father.

“No, you don’t,” I said. I could feel Marcus’s eyes watching me. “But does it have to be at six o’clock in the morning?”

“Now, don’t be telling me you need your beauty sleep.” Burtis grinned. “Because nobody’s gonna believe that.” He turned and, with one hand, swung the heavy sledgehammer up into the back of the one-ton truck parked at the curb. Then he looked at me again. “C’mon over to Fern’s some morning. I’ll tell you all about the good old days. Peggy makes some damn fine blueberry pancakes.” His eyes darted over to Marcus for a moment. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I got work to do.” He headed for the half-finished tent.

For a moment neither Marcus nor I said anything. Then he cleared his throat. “You’ll notice I’m not asking you why you were having breakfast with Burtis Chapman,” he said.

“I appreciate that,” I said. Before I could say anything else, Mary Lowe came around the side of the half-finished tent. Mary worked at the library when she wasn’t baking the best apple pie I’d ever tasted or practicing her kickboxing. She was state champion in her age and weight class.

Her gray hair was disheveled and she looked exasperated, but she smiled as she drew level with us. “Hello, Kathleen, Marcus,” she said. She made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “Welcome to the circus.”

I knew she didn’t mean the tent.

“Problems?” Marcus asked.

“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she said, her gaze flicking over to where Mike Glazer was standing by the river wall. “Oh, and I’m probably going to drop-kick that boy’s backside between those two light poles before we’re done here,” she said. “Just so you know.”

2

“Should I go get my handcuffs?” Marcus asked. I could tell by the gleam in his eye that he wasn’t serious.

Mary folded her arms over her chest. “Teaching that young man some manners would be a public service, not a crime,” she said tartly. “But, no, I promise I’ll behave.” She gave me a cheeky grin. “Not that I couldn’t take him on if I wanted to.”

“I have no doubt about that,” I said. And I didn’t. I’d seen Mary compete. I’d also seen her dancing onstage in a feathered mask and corset to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” during amateur night at the Brick, a club out on the highway, last winter, but I was trying to get that image out of my head.

“I need to go light a fire under Burtis,” Mary said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kathleen.” She gave Marcus a little wave. “Good night, Detective.”

“She wasn’t serious, was she?” Marcus said, as Mary disappeared inside the tent.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. But trust me; Mary would be perfectly capable of drop-kicking Mike Glazer between those two light posts”—I pointed at the streetlights along the boardwalk—“if she felt like it. Just like a football through the middle of the uprights.”

He opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, then closed it again and gave a little shake of his head.

“What?” I asked.

“I was just thinking that you know a lot of interesting people,” he said, a hint of a smile on his face.

I was saved from having to answer because Maggie was cutting across the grass to us. Years of yoga and tai chi had given her excellent posture, and she moved with a smooth gracefulness, not unlike my cats.

“Hi, guys,” she said. She looked from Marcus to me and she was almost grinning. “What are you two doing down here?” She was wearing the T-shirt I’d brought her back from Boston— I Matt Lauer . The black fabric looked good with her fair skin and short blond hair, but she would have worn the shirt even if it hadn’t. Mags had a longtime crush on the morning-show host.

“We just came to see if the tents were up,” I said.

She blew out a long breath. “We’re getting there. Mike isn’t sure this is the correct type of tent. He’s been discussing it with Burtis.”

That was probably the conversation Marcus and I had caught the end of.

“What about the art show?” Marcus asked. “Is it going to be in one of the tents?”

Maggie shook her head. “No. They’re both for food. We’re in the community center.” She gestured over her shoulder to the building across the street. “There’s more space and more light. Not to mention a roof. Liam thought it was a better idea. People can come back and forth.”

Liam was Liam Stone, part-time bartender and full-time grad student in psychology. He was also the main organizer of the group that had put together the pitch to Legacy Tours. Maggie and I had met Liam the previous winter, when we’d been cruising the bars up on the highway, looking for information about who had run down former school principal Agatha Shepherd. (It was the same night I’d seen more of Mary than I had ever wanted to.)

Maggie had charmed Liam to the point that for a moment he’d struggled to make words into sentences. They’d been going out casually for months. She insisted it was nothing serious.