Софи Райан - The Whole Cat Аnd Caboodle

I didn’t want to lie to her. Plus I wasn’t very good at it. “I don’t know,” I said, fishing my keys out of my pocket. “He was slumped to one side. I felt for his pulse and I couldn’t find one.”

She nodded, seeming satisfied with my answer. “I should get back inside,” she said.

“Call me if Maddie or any of you need anything.”

“I will.” Liz reached over and patted my cheek. “I’m glad you’re here, Sarah.” She turned then and headed back up the driveway.

I climbed in the truck and waited until she was inside before I backed into the street. I looked down at Elvis next to me on the seat. “There’s something Liz wasn’t telling me,” I said.

He gave a short, sharp meow. I decided to see it as him agreeing with me.

I reached over and gave the top of his head a scratch. “So what’s her secret?” I said. “And what does it have to do with Arthur Fenety?”

Elvis made a sound close to a sigh.

Clearly he didn’t know, either.

Chapter 5

Rose was going through boxes when I got back to the store. The double doors to the storage area were open so she could keep an eye on the store, but there were no customers. The first couple of days of the week were always quiet. I set Elvis down and he made a beeline for Rose. Poking his nose and a paw into boxes was kind of his hobby.

She was unpacking a collection of vintage Fiestaware. I knew of at least two collectors who would be interested in the brightly colored cream soup and onion soup bowls. She smiled at me, pushing her glasses up her nose. “Hello, dear,” she said. “Did you go see Maddie?”

I nodded.

She immediately noticed my serious expression. “Is Maddie all right?”

“She’s fine. It’s her . . . friend. Arthur Fenety. He’s . . . dead.”

“Oh, good gracious,” Rose said, closing her eyes for a brief moment. “Where’s Maddie?”

“She’s at Charlotte’s. Liz is there, too.”

Rose nodded. “Good.”

“If you want to leave now, it’s all right with me,” I said.

She set the forest green bowl she’d been holding down on the table. “Thank you, but Maddie’s in good hands. I’ll stop in on my way home.” She brushed bits of newsprint from the front of her red apron. “Do you know what happened to Arthur?”

I shook my head. “Not really. There’ll be an autopsy to find out for sure.”

“That’s so sad for Daisy,” Rose said. “She’s Arthur’s sister. I don’t know if there’s any other family.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that Nick had taken a job with the medical examiner?” I asked.

“It wasn’t my place.”

“Charlotte told me they disagreed.”

Rose pushed her glasses up her nose. “That’s one way to put it,” she said.

I looked around. There were two very large boxes on the floor, holding open one of the doors. Elvis was poking one of the flaps with a paw, trying to get it open. “Get out of that,” I said.

He turned to look at me over his shoulder and then went back to scraping at the cardboard. “Hey!” I snapped. “Stop it!”

He didn’t even bother glancing back at me.

“Jessie’s coming to pick up those two boxes,” Rose said. “Elvis can’t get them open. He can’t hurt anything.”

“That’s not the point,” I said, dropping my bag to the floor so I could go grab the cat. “I told him to stop. He acts like he can’t hear me.”

Rose took another paper-wrapped bowl from the box at her elbow. “Oh, he can hear you. He just doesn’t have any intention of listening.” She smiled without looking up. “He’s a cat.”

“He’s a very bad cat,” I said, picking him off the floor. “You’re bad,” I said, sternly, shaking my finger at him.

His response was to sniff it. Behind me Rose laughed.

I set Elvis down just inside the store. I pointed to the steps. “Go upstairs.” I made a shooing motion with my hand for emphasis. He looked at me unblinkingly. Then he made a wide circle around me and went back into the storage room, in search of Mac—or more boxes he could paw his way into.

“Where’s Mac?” I said to Rose.

She dipped her head toward the back of the space. “He’s in the shed.”

I headed for the door along the back wall. Elvis had jumped onto a metal plant stand. He looked a little like some Egyptian cat-god statue.

I found Mac out back in what we called the shed. The outbuilding had most likely been a two-car garage originally. It had been built much later than the house and had had at least two other lives that I knew about—as an appliance repair business and a pottery studio. My long-term plans were to fix the roof, add some insulation and use the space for more formal workshops, along with badly needed extra storage.

Mac was crouched down in front of a long dresser. It had two long drawers, two short ones, and it sat on four squat, curved feet. The wood, which we thought was elm, was in pretty decent shape. Really the only problem was the fact that it had been painted an unfortunate shade of orange that I thought was reserved just for traffic cones.

“What do you think?” I asked.

He squinted up at me. “The joints are all solid. There’s no sign of mold or worms, although it does smell pretty strongly of mothballs and, if my nose is correct, Evening in Paris perfume.”

“Some time in the sun will get rid of a lot of the smell,” I said. I took a couple of steps to the front of the chest so I could get the full effect of the orange.

“What are you going to do for a finish?” Mac asked, getting to his feet and brushing the dust off his hands. He’d rolled back his sleeves and I could see the muscles in his arms. Mac was all lean, strong muscle. A couple of times I’d thought about inviting him for a run but I was a bit afraid he’d leave me behind.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “I’m going for a distressed look but I’m not sure about the color.”

“That orange is pretty distressing,” Mac said with a smile as he came to stand beside me.

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time with Avery.”

He smoothed a hand over his head. “Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Avery.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What did she do?”

“Nothing. I was thinking maybe we should see if she’d be interested in helping me do some work in here.”

“You mean repurposing some of the pieces?” I said. I looked around. Between Mac and me there were probably a dozen refurbishing projects in various stages of completion and maybe eight or nine more waiting to be worked on.

“She has a good eye for color.”

I had been thinking the same thing. “Okay,” I said, rubbing my left shoulder with the other hand. “I trust your judgment.” I squinted at the chest of drawers, trying to picture it in some other—any other—color. Green, maybe.

Mac frowned at me. “Everything okay?”

I blew out a breath. “I’m not sure. One of the women didn’t show up for the workshop. Madeline—Maddie—she’s a friend of Gram’s. I’ve known her since I was a little girl.” I stretched my left arm up over my head trying to work out the stiffness. “Charlotte and I went to check on her.”

“Was she okay?”

“She was. But her gentleman friend wasn’t. He was . . . uh . . . dead.”

“Dead?” Mac said. His brown eyes narrowed with concern. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure.” I headed for the door and he followed. “The police came, and after that I took Maddie and Charlotte over to Charlotte’s house. That’s what took me so long.”

We swung the wide doors shut and I made sure they were both closed tightly and locked securely. “Do you remember that older man who came in the other day with the silver tea set?” I asked Mac.