Софи Келли - A Case Of Cat And Mouse

Susan was coming up the front steps about five minutes later just as Harry was coming out the main doors carrying a stepladder so he could put a new bulb in one of the outdoor lights. As best as I could put together afterward, Susan moved left, Harry moved right and it went downhill from there.

Inside the building all I heard was, “No, no, no! Not the coffee!” I hurried outside just in time to see the take-out cup tumbling end over end toward the parking lot, where it came to rest, upright, with the lid still securely on , between two very startled squirrels.

Apparently squirrels like coffee. And are stronger than they look. They grabbed the cup and started hustling it across the pavement.

Susan threw her head back and looked at the sky. “I shouldn’t have added the hazelnut creamer,” she said. Then she pulled a knitting needle from her bag and gave chase as the two furry rodents dragged the cup over the asphalt. “Bring that back, you mangy furballs!” she shouted.

“Be careful! They bite!” Harry called to her. He dropped the ladder on the grass and grabbed a broom.

Off to my left I heard someone yell, “Give ’em hell, Harry!”

The Seniors’ Book Club had arrived. Based on the cheering, most of them seemed to be Team Squirrels. I could see why. They worked really well as a team.

It was maybe thirty minutes later that Harry appeared in my door with a take-out cup from Eric’s, plus a bag of ground coffee and a replacement mug for the one he’d run over.

He set everything in the middle of my desk. “You don’t have to talk to me until next week,” he said. Then he turned and left.

I reached for the coffee, took a long, very satisfying drink and then leaned back in my chair. All was right with the world. I swung around in my chair so I could look out the window.

What looked to be a large tractor tire sat in the middle of the gazebo.

I swung back around so I was facing the door and had another drink.

Harry changed the burned-out light bulb and dealt with the giant tire. He made a point of staying away from me.

Eugenie called midmorning. “Elias has called a meeting for this afternoon at one thirty. It will take place on the set since the community center is still off-limits. Are you able to be there?”

“I am,” I said.

“I’ll see you then.” She ended the call before I had the chance to say anything else.

It seemed like everyone in Mayville Heights came into the library that morning.

“Karmic punishment for my saying it was too quiet last night,” Susan said with a grin as she checked out a towering pile of books for a seven-year-old.

I didn’t get a chance to eat, but we did close on time, which meant I made it over to the meeting with a little time to spare. My stomach growled its objections but I decided to wait until after the meeting to eat my sandwich. The streets that ran from one end of Mayville Heights to the other all followed the curve of the shoreline, more or less, so it was a quick and almost straight-line drive across town.

I parked at the community center. Stacey Foster was just coming out the back door of the building. She waited for me. “I take it you’re going to the meeting, Kathleen?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yes, I am.” We started toward the street.

“That’s horrible about Kassie,” Stacey said. Her dark hair was cropped in a pixie cut and often stood straight up when she was cooking. She was wearing a green-and-black-striped T-shirt dress with a black sweater over the top. Her hands were jammed into the sweater pockets. “‘Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,’” she quoted in her gentle voice. “‘And nothing to look backward to with pride.’”

“‘And nothing to look forward to with hope,’” I finished. “The Death of the Hired Man.” Robert Frost. It struck me that in some ways the words fit Kassie. I wondered if that was why Stacey had chosen to recite them.

Someone had set up folding chairs on the set. About three-quarters of them were already filled.

“It was good to see you, Kathleen,” Stacey said. She started making her way across the room to a couple of people who had waved when she’d walked in. Rebecca spotted me and held up her hand. I made my way over to join her.

“I knew you’d be coming from the library so I saved you a seat,” she said, patting the empty chair next to her.

“Thank you,” I said.

Caroline was sitting on the other side of Rebecca. She leaned sideways to look at me, a frown of concern knotting her forehead. “Hello, Kathleen. How are you?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” I said. I had a feeling that word had gotten around that I had been the one to discover Kassie. Caroline’s next words confirmed that.

“I heard you found Kassie and tried to help her.”

“I wish I had been able to.”

“I wish we’d noticed that she wasn’t with us when we left,” Caroline said.

“How did you end up going to Eric’s Place anyway?” I asked.

“Oh, that was because of Norman.” Charles Bacchus had spoken. He was seated in front of Rebecca, half-turned in his chair.

Charles pointed a finger toward the left front corner of the kitchen set. A young man carrying an iPad, his blond hair pulled back in a man bun, was standing there talking to Ray Nightingale. “Norman Prentiss. He’s one of the production grunts. Seems he had the chocolate pudding cake at lunch yesterday and he couldn’t stop running his mouth about it. And it is pretty damn good by the way. It was going for six o’clock. Everyone was trying to figure out where to eat and there was some talk about a short meeting for the contestants. First thing you know the whole damn bunch of us are headin’ down for supper. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. And we packed the place.”

So many people together in the café like that would make it hard for the police to figure out timelines for everyone.

“Hindsight being what it is, I’m second-guessing that decision now,” Eugenie said.

“There’s no way you could have known what was going to happen,” Rebecca said.

“Damn straight!” Charles nodded. “Kassie was a grown woman. It’s not your job to keep track of where everyone is all the time. Not everyone went for supper in the first place and some folks left before the meeting even started.”

“So I’m guessing this meeting is to tell us the show is over?” I said.

Charles laughed, the sound bouncing around the room. People turned to look. Humor seemed out of place under the circumstances. “Not likely,” he said. “You ever hear that old saying, the show must go on?”

“But Kassie is dead,” Rebecca said.

“And that’s awful, but stopping the show isn’t going to make her any less dead. People have a lot of time and money tied up in this production and I don’t see something like this keeping the show from going forward.”

I looked at Eugenie and she gave a small shrug.

“But what about the fact that the show is now short a judge?” I asked.

Charles gave a snort of derision. “Not a problem.” He jabbed a thick finger in the air. “Mark my words. Braeden already has a replacement lined up.”

Elias Braeden walked in then, as though our talking about him had somehow conjured him out of thin air. The man was a bit above average height with wide shoulders and a muscular build that even his dark suit couldn’t hide. His hair was a mix of brown and gray. He had piercing dark eyes and a lined, lived-in face. His presence alone could be intimidating.

Charles turned in his chair, raising an eyebrow as he did. “You watch,” he said, confident in what he had decided was going to happen.

Rebecca leaned toward me. “Do you think he’s right?”