Софи Келли - A Night's Tail

Zach nodded but he’d already turned his attention to me. “Hi, Maggie’s friend,” he said with a smile. “I’m Zach Redmond.”

“Hi, Zach,” I said. “I’m Kathleen.” He was cute in a naughty-little-boy sort of way.

My stomach growled then. Loudly.

“Aww, didn’t anyone feed you today?” he asked.

“I kind of missed supper.” It had been a busy Friday night at the library. It had been a busy Friday period.

“Spicy fries,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Come up to the bar. I’ll take care of you.” He winked and gave me his naughty-boy smile again.

I smiled back at him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He lifted a hand in good-bye to Maggie and headed for the bar, weaving through the crowd.

Maggie had been watching our conversation with an amused expression on her face. “Zach is in my yoga class,” she said. As well as being an artist Mags taught yoga and tai chi. Her tai chi class was where we’d first met. “He’s also a big flirt.”

I nodded. “It was hard not to notice that.”

“He’s like a big untrained puppy. Sometimes you have to smack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.”

I laughed at the mental picture of Maggie at the front of her yoga class with a rolled-up copy of the Mayville Heights Chronicle at her side.

Marcus got to his feet as we reached the table, giving me a smile that still made my stomach flutter. Detective Marcus Gordon was tall with wavy dark hair and blue eyes. What mattered was that he was a good man; ethical, hardworking, kind. I smiled, remembering how Mary had once described him: “He is a good man inside, but that candy shell outside looks pretty dang delicious!” I had to admit she was right.

Marcus looked around, spotted an empty chair and gestured to me to take his seat while he went to get the chair.

I sat down next to Brady Chapman as Maggie took the empty seat on the other side of him that he’d somehow managed to save for her. Brady was . . . I wasn’t exactly sure what he was when it came to Maggie. They were more than friends but they weren’t exactly a couple, either. I noted the way they smiled at each other and how their eyes stayed linked a little longer than just friends’ would.

Brady had pale blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair he wore clipped short. He liked science fiction—novels and movies—pinball and a good argument. He’d practiced law in Chicago but Mayville Heights had eventually called him back home, although he still took cases in Minneapolis, an hour away, from time to time. He was deep in conversation with Ethan at the moment, elbows propped on the table, which was cluttered with glasses and empty plates.

Ethan, along with the members of his band, The Flaming Gerbils, was going to be in Mayville Heights for the next two weeks with a three-night gig in Milwaukee scheduled for the middle of the visit. It would be the most time we’d spent together since I’d moved to Minnesota just over three years ago. The band had just finished a successful string of club dates in the Midwest—Chicago, Springfield, Des Moines, Kansas City and Minneapolis.

Ethan was spending time with me, his first visit since I’d moved to Minnesota or, as he liked to teasingly call it, the Land of Bigfoot and Lumberjacks. The rest of the band, Milo and Devon—Jake had left the group to go to art school—were taking a break and, in Milo’s case, planning a visit to a woman in Red Wing who made guitars and restored vintage instruments. Devon had met a girl in an online chat room and gone to see her.

“He thinks she might be the one,” Ethan had said when I’d asked where their bandmate was.

“Not again,” I’d said, rolling my eyes. Devon fell in love more frequently than most people got their teeth cleaned.

Milo had shrugged. “The guy is a romantic. What else would you expect from a dude whose favorite movie is The Princess Bride ?”

Milo was across the table from me now, leaning back in his chair, one hand tented over the beer in front of him and an amused smile on his face as Ethan continued his conversation with Brady, hands darting through the air. Milo, who was the Gerbils’s bass player, looked like a young Timothy B. Schmit from the Eagles, dark hair halfway down his back, dark eyes, long fingers. He was hoping the luthier in Red Wing could restore a battered vintage Martin acoustic bass he’d bought for a few dollars in a yard sale at an old farmhouse in Maine.

Marcus had come back with the chair, which he squeezed in next to me. He sat down and I felt the warmth of his arm against mine. Derek Hanson was on his other side. He was The Flaming Gerbils’s opening act and he’d been sitting in with the band on some of their songs, playing lead guitar on several of them since Jake was gone.

Ethan and the guys were in their early twenties while Derek, I was guessing, was in his late thirties. I knew he had one son, Liam, from a relationship he’d had when he was twenty. He’d told me in a voice edged with pride that his son was graduating in a couple of months and was headed for college in the fall. Derek had fair hair streaked with gray that looked like he’d missed a haircut, and a day or so of scruff on his face most of the time. He was a big man, solid and an inch or two taller than Marcus’s six feet.

He touched my arm. “Kathleen, I’m going for a beer,” he said. “Can I get you anything?”

My stomach gurgled again. It was hard not to be enticed by the smell of French fries. “A plate of spicy fries and a small ginger ale,” I said, fishing in my pocket for my wallet.

Derek shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You’ve fed me three times in the last day. I can spring for a few fries.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said. Ethan was staying with me while the guys were at a bed-and-breakfast downtown. I’d volunteered to feed everyone.

This was the first time Derek had offered to pay for anything since the guys had gotten to town. Ethan had arrived with a box of chocolate mice from L.A. Burdick in Back Bay—one of my favorite treats. Milo had shown up with a couple of gallons of milk at breakfast—“I’ve seen Ethan eat cereal,” he’d said with a grin as he stashed the containers in my refrigerator.

Derek gestured at the glass on the table in front of Marcus. “You want another one?”

“I’m driving,” I added.

Marcus nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

Derek waved away his money. “I’ve got this,” he said. “You got the last round.” He headed for the crowded bar.

I was finding it a bit of a challenge to warm up to Derek. He shared very little about himself so it was hard to get to know him. Or maybe it was just that I missed Jake, who’d been hanging around my parents’ house since he and Ethan had met in sixth grade. Jake, who filled every scrap of paper he got his hands on with sketches of whatever happened to catch his eye, was an open book, quick to smile, quick to step up and help out. Derek was more like a book with uncut pages, a reference I realized only another librarian would understand.

Marcus leaned in close to my ear. “How was your day?” he asked.

“I think the printer is truly ready for last rites this time,” I said. “Susan tried to fix it but she didn’t have any luck.”

“I didn’t know Susan knew how to do that,” Marcus said. “I would have gotten her to look at my printer instead buying a new one.”

I held up a finger. “Number one, your printer was so old the company no longer had any customer service manuals for it, and number two”—I added another finger—“Susan’s way of fixing the printer is to give it a couple of whacks on one side and use one of her made-up swear words.” Before he could say anything I raised an eyebrow. “Although to be fair that has always worked with the library’s coffeemaker.”