Софи Райан - The Whole Cat Аnd Caboodle

The cat gave an enthusiastic meow at the sound of his own name. We both laughed and it seemed to chase away some of the awkwardness.

I took Michelle upstairs to my office and gave her the box with the silver tea set. She looked quickly at each piece and then wrote me a receipt.

“You know this place was briefly a private smokers’ club,” she said as we headed back downstairs.

“That would explain the smell and the window boxes full of cigarette butts,” I said.

“I’m glad you’re giving the place a new life.” She gestured at the sign by the door. “A second chance.” Her expression grew serious. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable before, when I brought up your show.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “It was just a job.” I held out a hand. “And now I have this.”

“Not everyone bounces back as well as you did, Sarah,” Michelle said. “Believe me. I’ve seen people at their worst.”

I brushed my hair back from my face. “I’m lucky. I had a lot of people helping me. “

She nodded. “You are.”

I walked her out to the small parking lot. She shifted the box with the silver from one arm to the other and bent down to stroke Elvis’s fur. “Bye, puss,” she said. She straightened up. “I’m glad you’re back, Sarah.” She turned then and headed toward the street.

I watched her go, and then I walked back over to the table. Elvis jumped up again, made a wide berth around the bucket of potting soil and ended up sitting down in the middle of the collection of little plants—the second-most inconvenient place for him to be. Even with him pretty much in the way the entire time I still managed to get all the plants transferred into the cups.

I was just coming back from putting the last teacup in the front window when Nick Elliot walked up the driveway. “Hi,” he said. “I was hoping I’d find you here.”

“Well, you did.” I realized how lame the words sounded as soon as I’d said them.

Elvis was eyeing Nick the same way he’d checked out Michelle.

“Elvis, right?” Nick said. “Mom told me you’d taken the cat that had been hanging around downtown.”

“More like Sam and Elvis”—I gestured to the cat with the tray of plastic pots I was holding—“conspired to trick me into taking him.”

Nick reached for the bucket of soil. “Sam tricked you?” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” I said.

He smiled. “Yeah, I can see him doing that.”

Nick followed me in the storage room, and I took the bucket from him and set it up on the shelf next to my pile of pots. He looked around. “You’ve done a lot of work here. How about a tour?”

“All right,” I said. I held up both hands. “This is part storage room, part workroom. Anything that’s really messy we do out in the old garage. It still needs some work.”

I led him over to the doors that led into the shop.

“This is great,” he said as he stepped into the space. “Are you using both floors?”

I shook my head. “No. I have an office upstairs and some more storage.”

He nodded but one of the guitars on the wall had caught his eye. “That’s a Rickenbacker,” he said. “A ’sixty-five.”

“Uh-huh. Sparkle inlays. All original.” I walked over and lifted the guitar off the wall. It was the deep russet color of an autumn leaf. “Try it,” I said.

His eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”

“Yes.” I held out the guitar. “You still play, don’t you?” I asked.

He gave me a wry smile. “Not as much as I used to, but yeah, I still play.”

“So play something for me,” I said.

Nick took the guitar from me and sat down on the steps to the second floor. I leaned against the wall while he tuned the strings and played some chords. Then he looked over at me. “I don’t know,” he said a little self-consciously, “but maybe you remember this.” He bent his head and started to play.

I did remember. It was the first song Nick had taught me to play on guitar. “Comin’ Back to You.” He played the bridge and then he started into the first verse, singing along softly with the music:

I’m comin’ back to you,

Somehow I always knew

No matter what I do,

All roads lead back to you.

For a moment I was fifteen again, it was summertime and the night sky was filled with stars. The memory wrapped around me with the music. Nick played through to the end of the chorus, then looked up at me and smiled a bit sheepishly. “I’m a little rusty.”

“You sounded great to me,” I said.

“Do you play much?” he asked.

I pushed away from the wall and shook my head. “I’ve been a little busy.”

“That’s too bad.” He got to his feet again and his gaze darted to my face for a moment. “Mom told me about your radio show being canceled,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Nick didn’t say anything for a moment, as though maybe he was waiting for me to say something more. Then he held out the guitar. “It’s a nice instrument, Sarah. Thanks for letting me play it.”

I raised an eyebrow at him as I took it, trying to lighten the mood a little. “You know, you qualify for the family discount.”

He shrugged. “It should go to someone who would actually play it once in a while. I don’t have a lot of time these days.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, copying his words and the tone of his voice from before.

He smiled. “Touché.”

I smiled back.

“Speaking of family,” he said. “How’s yours?”

“Good,” I said. “Dad’s teaching journalism now and still doing some writing, mostly longer pieces for magazines. Mom has a new book out next month.” My mother wrote a series for elementary school kids about a talking gerbil named Einstein. “And Liam’s pretty much focused on passive solar design now.”

Nick nodded. “Yeah, he told me he’s gotten involved with the small-house movement.”

“I didn’t know you guys stayed in touch,” I said. I wondered why Liam hadn’t told me.

Nick shrugged. “Off and on.”

I hung the guitar back on the wall and turned to face him. “I’m thinking the reason you’re here isn’t because you wanted a tour of the shop or to catch up on my family.”

“Yeah, I do have a few questions.”

Elvis had wandered in from wherever he’d been. He twisted around my legs and I bent down and picked him up. “No offense,” I said, “but isn’t that Michelle’s job?”

Nick leaned over to give the cat a scratch under his chin, which pretty much earned him a friend for life. “It’s mine, too,” he said. “The police are trying to figure out whether or not a crime’s been committed. I’m trying to figure out how and why Mr. Fenety died. We overlap a little.”

I explained about the workshop and Maddie not showing up. Elvis was leaning sideways, his head nestled in the crook of my elbow. I shifted him slightly in my arms and he turned his head just enough to shoot me a look. “I knew Charlotte would go over there to check on Maddie. I went with her, just in case.”

I recounted how we’d tried the front door and then decided to see if Maddie had been working in the backyard and just lost track of time.

“What did the body look like?”

I narrowed my eyes and pictured Arthur Fenety’s body in my mind. “It . . . he was slumped to one side and his eyes were closed. There was something at the corner of his mouth.” I raised a hand to my face.

“Where was Maddie?”

“She was just sitting there,” I said. “I think she was in shock.”

Elvis started to purr. Nick smiled at the cat. “Do you have any idea how long she’d been sitting there?”

“I don’t know. A couple of minutes, I guess. She said she’d been making an omelet for the two of them. Then the phone rang.” I paused for a moment, picturing the table and running Maddie’s words through my head again. “When, uh, she went back outside Arthur Fenety was dead.”