Софи Келли - A Tale Оf Two Kitties

“Then you have something to celebrate,” he said. “So how about coming for supper tomorrow night?”

I liked spending time with Harrison and maybe I’d get the chance to talk to Harry. “That sounds wonderful,” I said. We settled the details and I hung up.

The rest of the morning passed quickly. Abigail and I went over the plans for our Christmas programming and then I spent some time looking through the book suggestions people had left on our “What Would you Like to Read?” bulletin board display. Maggie came in after lunch to sort through the photos and decide which ones she was going to frame first.

“Are you going to have enough frames?” I asked.

She nodded. “In fact it looks like I may be able to get some of the mail and display that as well. Did you hear that Thorsten Hall got a Christmas card from an old girlfriend?”

“Very romantic,” I said.

Maggie laughed. “Not exactly. It was a religious card with a picture of a snow-covered church on the front. Inside it said, God Loves You and underneath she’d written, I still think you’re a jerk! ”

“You’re making that up!”

She put one hand on her chest. “I swear I’m not.”

I thought about Meredith Janes’s letter to her former best friend. I wondered what it said.

• • •

Marcus had hockey practice while I was at tai chi but we met afterward for hot chocolate at Eric’s.

“Want to split a cinnamon roll?” he asked.

“They haven’t been out of the oven very long,” Claire said. “They’re still warm.” That was all I needed to persuade me.

“Okay,” I said.

Marcus smiled at Claire. “One cinnamon roll, two plates,” he said.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

Eric’s cinnamon rolls were as good as Mary’s. That’s because he used her recipe. And so far I hadn’t been able to wheedle, whine or bribe it out of either of them.

Marcus must have guessed what I was thinking. “Do you think you’ll ever convince Mary to tell you what her secret ingredient is?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “And I’ve tried everything I can think of to make mine come out the same.”

“But yours are good,” he said. He’d tried just about every batch I’d made.

“I’ve gotten close.” I held up my thumb and index finger about a half an inch apart. “But there’s a little something missing.” I lined up the sugar bowl and cream pitcher on the table. “Mary says she’ll leave me the secret in her will.”

Marcus nodded solemnly. “Other words, she’s never going to tell you.”

I laughed. “Pretty much.” I leaned my elbows on the table and smiled at him. “What are you trying to sweeten me up for?” I asked. To his credit he didn’t try to pretend.

“We’re bringing Simon Janes in for questioning tomorrow. I didn’t want you to find out from . . . from anyone else.”

“He didn’t kill his father,” I said. I was beginning to sound like a broken record.

“I’m not saying he did.” He picked up a spoon from the table and flipped it end over end in his fingers. “Do you remember Schrödinger’s cat?” he asked.

I frowned, unsure of how we’d gotten from talking about whether or not Simon had killed his father to quantum mechanics. “I remember,” I said slowly. “It’s a thought experiment that Erwin Schrödinger came up with that’s really a criticism of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum superpositions.”

Marcus laughed. “Well, here’s what I remember: a steel box, a cat, a vial of poison. The cat could be dead or it could be alive. Until you open the box you don’t know which.”

“Yes.”

“Until someone is charged with Leo Janes’s murder Simon could be guilty and he could be innocent and this idea of Schrödinger’s murder investigation made a lot more sense in my head.”

I reached across the table and gave his hand a squeeze. “I get it,” I said. “You’re just doing your job. I can live with that.”

• • •

I thought about what Marcus had said as I drove out to the Taylors’ after work Wednesday night. Harry might know something that could help solve Leo Janes’s murder or he might not. Until I opened the box, until I came right out and asked him, there was no way to know. I wondered how the Austrian physicist would have felt about his thought experiment becoming part of pop culture.

Harry opened the door when I knocked and the rich smell of onions, garlic and tomatoes welcomed me as I stepped inside. “It smells wonderful in here,” I said as he took my coat.

“Italian beef stew. I hope you like it.”

I smiled at him. “I already do. Anything that smells that good has to taste at least as wonderful.”

Boris padded over to meet me. “Hi, boy,” I said. I handed the paper bag I was carrying to Harry. “Half a dozen of those organic dog biscuits Roma’s friend makes and Maggie sent you a bottle of blueberry syrup.”

“That’s a bribe,” Harrison said. I went over to give him a hug, trailed by the dog.

“Why is Maggie bribing you?” I asked.

“You know that mail they found stuffed behind that wall at the post office?”

I nodded.

“There was a Christmas card addressed to me. She wants me to let her use it for some exhibit she’s putting together for you.”

“And you don’t want to?” I asked, taking the chair opposite him. Boris leaned against my knee and I scratched the thick fur on the top of his head. He gave a contented sigh.

“I don’t mind one bit, but if she wants to send me a bottle of her blueberry syrup to soften me up, who am I to say no?”

We talked about the mail and the photos that had been hidden behind that wall at the post office for the past twenty years. “Do you think someone put them there on purpose?” I asked Harrison. “Or do you think they ended up there somehow by accident?”

“Neither and both,” he said.

“You do know that doesn’t make sense?” Harry said.

“Sure it does,” Harrison said. “Do you remember Campbell Larsen?”

Harry nodded. “He was the postmaster.”

“Named after his mother, not the soup,” the old man said. “Father’s side was Danish. That’s where the Larsen came from. Mother’s side was Scottish.”

“What does Campbell Larsen have to do with that stuff they found at the post office?” Harry asked. He was still standing in the kitchen doorway.

“He had some kind of dementia. He ended up in a nursing home.”

His son was nodding. “I remember that.”

“Well, he did some danged odd things before anyone figured out what was wrong with him. I think he put that stuff back there and in his mind he probably had a good reason for it.”

“That’s as good an explanation as any,” Harry said. He glanced over his shoulder. “We should be ready to eat in about ten minutes.”

Harrison got to his feet. He pointed a gnarled finger at me. “Before you ask, no, there isn’t a thing you can do. Sit there and talk to Boris.”

I smiled. “Yes, sir.” I turned all my attention to the dog, who seemed happy to get it.

“You’re driving?” Harrison said.

I nodded. “I am.”

“Well, I’m not,” the old man said, heading for the fridge and, I was guessing, a bottle of Thorsten Hall’s wine.

Harry served his Italian beef stew with slices of crusty multi-grain bread. I took one bite of the thick, spicy creation and closed my eyes with happiness. “Any chance I could get the recipe?”

“Sure,” Harry said. “There’s not that much to it. Onions, garlic, tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, celery, beef and my secret ingredient, half a bottle of Thorsten’s red wine.”

“He made the bread, too,” Harrison said, using a chunk to soak up some of the spicy liquid in his bowl.