Софи Келли: A Case Of Cat And Mouse

I stopped at Eric’s and got three large coffees. I found Harry and Larry standing by Harry’s truck in the parking lot. I handed them each a cup. They both thanked me.

“Let’s go see the gazebo,” I said, wrapping my hands around my travel mug. Harry glanced at it but didn’t say anything.

The pool almost covered the floor of the gazebo.

“I figure fifteen feet in diameter,” Harry said. It was filled almost to the top with black raspberry Jell-O. Which had set. The squirrels were gone. I had a feeling that if we didn’t get it emptied soon we could become the downtown squirrel hangout.

Part of me admired the resourcefulness of our guilty party. He or she had to be good at chemistry and computers and math. On the other hand, these stunts were costing time and money and I was afraid they might escalate to something dangerous.

I turned to Larry. “So, our offender disconnected the camera?”

He turned to gesture at the building. “I think he spotted the camera and somehow managed to disable the Wi-Fi temporarily.” He shrugged. “It’s not hard. He probably used a jammer. He did his thing, then he swiped the SD card. The cool thing is—”

Harry glared at him.

Larry’s face reddened. “I, uh, mean the interesting thing is it looks like he hacked into the program and got it to send an alert when he was ready to leave.”

“To bring us down here on a wild goose chase,” Harry said.

“And maybe to show off a little, too,” I said.

“You want me to put the camera back up?” Larry asked.

I looked at the building. I looked at the pool. I shook my head. “I appreciate all the work you put in, but I think it’s time to bring Marcus in on this.”

“It could just be a kid,” Larry said.

“A kid that climbed up somehow and got that SD card out of the camera,” Harry said. “A kid that could have gotten hurt.”

“Harry’s right,” I said. “The first couple of times it was annoying and yeah, kind of funny, but now . . .” I looked over at the building. “I don’t want to get here some morning and find some kid back here with a broken leg or worse.”

I thanked Larry again for all his work.

“I’m just going to drive him home and I’ll be back to get rid of that.” Harry gestured at the gazebo. “You staying here?”

I nodded. “I’ve got breakfast and there’s lots I can do. Come in for a cup of coffee if you’d like one when you get back.” Like me, Harry now had a master key and the alarm code to the building.

I got my things from the truck and let myself into the building. It wasn’t often I was alone inside. I liked being able to walk around with nothing but silence and thousands of books surrounding me.

By the time Harry came back I’d had my breakfast, brushed my teeth again, touched up my makeup and most importantly made the coffee. I got him a cup and he went to connect the hose so he could empty the pool while I set to work emptying the book drop, which for once was only full of books.

I took an early lunch because once again I needed to make a quick trip to the community center. Eugenie had stepped in to help Elias and since he seemed to be giving her a fair amount of leeway, she and Russell were going to film a quick segment at Wild Rose Bluff. I had mentioned that the library had a reproduction of an original map of the area. Eugenie wanted to use it in her segment.

“I know it’s last minute,” she’d said on the phone. “I’d be happy to send a production assistant to get it.”

“I’ll bring it,” I said. While the map was just a reproduction, it was old and it wasn’t something that usually left the library.

I took the map to the staff photographer, who was all set up to photograph it. The whole process took very little time and I thanked her before I headed for Eugenie’s office.

Eugenie was at her desk with her laptop. She looked up when I knocked on the partly open door. “Oh hello, Kathleen,” she said, tucking a strand of her silver hair behind one ear. “I didn’t realize what time it was.”

“The map has been photographed,” I said.

She smiled. “Thank you. May I see it?”

“Of course.” I set the portfolio I was carrying down on the desk, removed the map and slipped it out of its protective cardboard cover.

Eugenie leaned over to get a closer look. “The original was all drawn by hand? The detail is spectacular.”

“Yes it was,” I said. “And you’re right about the detail. The original artist was very talented.”

“Thank you for bringing it over,” Eugenie said. “This is turning out to be a very busy day. I came in early to help Russell find some clips of Stacey. You know that the two of them are . . . ?” She made a rolling motion with one hand.

I nodded.

“After we finish today he’s going to put together a little montage for her.”

“You’re doing the last part of the filming after lunch?” I asked as I returned the map to its protective cover. Peggy felt more at ease so I wasn’t needed for this episode’s filming. I had told her to call me if there was any way I could help but I didn’t expect to hear from her.

She nodded. “We are. Yesterday went so well.” She glanced briefly at the hallway door. “Not to speak ill of the dead, but Peggy has a much better rapport with everyone and she and Richard work very well together.”

I slid the map back into the portfolio. “Maybe this will be a new career path for Peggy,” I said.

“I don’t doubt that she’d do very well on television if she chose to pursue it.” Eugenie held up a hand and fluttered her fingers. “And this little birdie will be encouraging her to think about it.”

“I’ll let you get back to work,” I said.

She glanced at the computer and sighed. “I don’t mean to be melodramatic but I feel as though I have a bit of a Sisyphean task on my hands.”

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She gave me a wry smile. “Elias wasn’t happy with the In Memoriam we did for Kassie. He felt it was a little too impersonal, so he asked me to go back through some of the outtakes and other raw camera footage and see if I could find any casual moments of her with the crew or the contestants.”

“You can’t find anything?” I asked.

Eugenie shook her head. “I can find Kassie interacting with people but they aren’t moments that belong in a memorial segment.” She slid behind the computer again and hit several keys. “Take a look at this, Kathleen.”

I came around the desk and Eugenie turned the computer so I could see the screen.

“This is actually from the day Kassie was killed,” she said.

The footage was from the kitchen set. I remembered Rebecca mentioning that they were filming some promos that afternoon.

Kassie was standing in front of Caroline’s workstation. Kate was working at her own station in the background, almost out of camera range. I got a glimpse of Ray behind her.

Caroline was angry. It was easy to see by the tension in her body, the rigidity of her shoulders and how she held the whisk she was using more like it was a weapon than a cooking tool. I noticed Kate in the background sneaking little peeks in their direction and even Ray glanced their way more than once. Maybe he did care about Caroline even just a little.

“You’re a helicopter parent,” Kassie said with the kind of joking tone that people used when they wanted to say something mean but also wanted to be able to say they were just kidding if anyone called them on it.

“I don’t want to talk about parenting with you,” Caroline said, her words clipped and tight. She kept her eyes down on whatever she was mixing.

“Chemicals are in everything we eat,” Kassie continued, “everything we put on our skin. That’s just life. If they were that bad we’d all be dead by now.” She either couldn’t read Caroline’s body language or she didn’t care how she was making the other woman feel.