Софи Келли - A Midwinter's Tail

I looked at him sitting by the door. I had no proof, of course, but there was something defiant in the way he sat there, head up, tail flicking around.

I took a step closer to him. “Owen, did you do that?” I asked, pointing at the water dish with its little purple corpse. He met my eyes for a moment and then he turned to study the side of the refrigerator. Okay, so he was a cat and not a person, but that looked like a guilty conscience to me.

“That mouse belonged to your brother,” I said. “That was mean.”

His gaze flicked back to me for a moment and then something behind me caught his eye. He gave a yowl of outrage. I turned around to see Hercules coming from the living room with one of Owen’s yellow funky chickens in his mouth. He set it on the floor, put a paw on the body and pulled off the head. Then he looked directly at Owen and started chewing.

It was a really stupid idea for revenge. Hercules was pretty much indifferent to the charm of catnip and I knew the bits that were flying into the air as he shook his and the chicken’s head were going to make him sneeze. Which in a moment they did.

The first sneeze launched the yellow chicken out of his mouth. It arced across the kitchen in a perfect curve and splashed down next to the purple mouse.

There was a sudden silence in the room. Owen made his way over to the water dish. He poked the limp chicken head with one paw. Hercules joined him. He looked sadly at his mouse, but he didn’t poke it. That would have meant getting his paw wet.

“That serves you both right,” I said.

I went into the living room and called Rebecca, relaying Roma’s idea of supper when she answered.

“Oh my word,” she said. “I forgot completely that we were going to Red Wing.”

“Is it a problem?” I asked.

She sounded distracted.

There was a brief silence and then she sighed softly. “Kathleen, have you ever been out to Marsh Farm?” she asked.

“Is that the beautiful, big house between here and Red Wing where they have weddings in the summertime?”

“That’s it,” she said. “It’s usually closed all winter, but Everett has rented the entire place because we didn’t have an engagement dinner and now he’s decided we need to do that before we get married.”

“Oh,” I said.

“I hope you don’t have any plans for next Saturday night,” she added.

I sat down on the footstool. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Thank you, dear, no. Maggie’s out there right now seeing what we’ll need for centerpieces and things like that. And then I have to drive out there myself because now it seems that Everett has come up with a seating plan that Maggie is going to need to see.”

“Do you need to talk to Maggie for anything else?” I asked.

“No,” Rebecca said. “I don’t care about seat covers and party favors. All I want to do is get married. I should have listened to you when you suggested I tell Everett that I didn’t want all this hoopla.”

“You love him,” I said. “You didn’t want to hurt his feelings. So let me do something for you. Where’s this seating plan? Do you have it?”

“Lita’s going to bring it up in a few minutes.”

“Call her and tell her to drop it off here,” I said. “Please. Then Roma and I will pick you up about quarter to six, we’ll find a dress in Red Wing and things will end the way they do in all stories of true love: happily ever after.”

Rebecca actually laughed. “Having you become my backyard neighbor is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

“Me too,” I said.

“You’re a darling girl,” Rebecca said. “Thank you. I’ll call Lita. She should be there in about fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll see you tonight,” I said.

I had more than enough time to get the vacuum cleaner out and vacuum up the bits of catnip on the kitchen floor. What on earth had Hercules been thinking, assuming that cats thought through what they were going to do? He didn’t even like catnip, but he was willing to eat it just to get back at Owen.

It was as if one domino had been knocked over in my brain and suddenly another and another were following. Hercules was a cat, a very smart one with some very unusual abilities, but a cat nonetheless. And he’d eaten a catnip chicken to make a point. Was it possible that Olivia Ramsey had eaten a chocolate she knew she was allergic to, just to eliminate herself as a suspect in Dayna Chapman’s death? If Marcus had been here he would have laughed and said I was being sent off on a tangent by my feelings. I didn’t have a single fact. Why on earth would Olivia Ramsey want to kill Dayna Chapman?

Then another domino fell over. Roma’s daughter’s name was Olivia, too. Ollie had been her baby nickname when she was two. She could just as easily have been called Liv. The way Georgia had called Olivia Ramsey “Liv.”

Dayna had said “live” and “package” to me. Both Marcus and I had assumed she was trying to say she wanted to live and she was allergic to something in the little package of chocolates. But what if “live” was really “Liv,” short for Olivia?

I scrambled up the stairs for my laptop, brought it back downstairs and went to Edwin Jensen’s Web site. I scrolled through the photos looking for any with Dayna and Olivia together. I couldn’t find any, but as I studied the images of Olivia, I noticed something. In the first two shots of her giving first aid to Nic Sutton’s father, there was something on the ground beside her. Olivia had said she was coming from the comic book store. But it didn’t look like a plastic bag. It looked like a small, padded envelope.

It looked like a package.

Package.

Liv. Package.

No. That was crazy.

I scrolled through the other photos of Olivia as quickly as I could. She wasn’t carrying any padded envelope in any of the later pictures.

“Olivia Ramsey killed Dayna,” I said out loud. “Why?”

I had to call Marcus. I started for the living room, but there was a knock at the back door. That had to be Lita.

It was.

“I’ll take this out to Maggie,” I said. “Thanks for bringing it out to me.”

“Thank you for helping Rebecca,” Lita said. “And Brady said you may have come up with something that will help figure out who killed his mother.”

“I hope so,” I said.

I took the list into the kitchen. There was lots of time to take the seating chart out to Maggie, then come back and convince Marcus that I knew who had killed Dayna Chapman, but didn’t know why.

I put on my coat and boots and was about to leave when it occurred to me that I should call Maggie to make sure she didn’t leave for any reason before I got to Marsh Farm.

“Hey,” I said when she answered her phone. “I have a seating chart from Everett that I’m about to bring out to you, so don’t leave.”

“Kath, could you bring Owen with you?” she asked.

“Um, yes, I guess I could,” I said. “Why?” I was pretty sure I knew the answer to my own question.

“Because I think I just saw a mouse on the stairs.”

Maggie was afraid of mice. She wasn’t that crazy about hamsters, gerbils or guinea pigs, either.

“Go wait in your car,” I said. “The furry cavalry is on its way.”

I reached over to the counter, grabbed the bag of sardine treats I’d made just a few days ago and gave it a shake. It was the fastest way to get Owen’s attention. His gray head peered around the living room doorway before I got my boots laced.

“Road trip,” I said. “Maggie needs us.”

I left a few crackers in his dish for Hercules and took the rest with me.

I tried Marcus before I pulled out of the driveway, but the call went straight to voice mail. I didn’t leave a message. My theory was a bit too complicated to explain in just a few words. I figured fifteen minutes to drive to Marsh Farm. Fifteen for Owen to do his thing and for me to act as cleanup crew and fifteen more to drive back. At the most I’d be back in an hour and then I could try Marcus again.