Софи Келли - Paws Аnd Effect

The snoring had gotten louder when I pulled into the driveway. I left Elliot in his seat, shut off the engine and walked around the back of the house. A light was on in the kitchen. That was good.

I banged on the back door and after a moment Marcus opened it, Micah at his feet.

“Kathleen, what are you doing here?” he said.

“Your father’s in the front seat of my truck, snoring,” I said, rubbing my hands together. It was getting cool now at night.

He frowned at me in confusion. “My father?”

I nodded.

“Why?”

“I was taking Burtis home. Your father called shotgun, not that there was actually anywhere else for him to sit.”

“Hang on a minute.” He held up both hands like he was about to surrender. “My father and Burtis were . . . ?”

“In the bar at the St. James.”

“Why were you driving them anywhere?”

This was taking longer than I’d intended. “Because Brady is in Minneapolis, Maggie is in a lockdown at the high school with Ruby and I have no idea where Lita is.” I looked over my shoulder. “I’m sorry about bringing him here, but it was that or leave him in the truck all night covered in a blanket.”

“Show me where he is,” Marcus said, resignation in his voice.

We walked back around the house and I pointed at the truck. Marcus leaned in on the driver’s side and took Elliot by the shoulders, shaking him. Then he pulled his dad along the seat and eased him out, putting one arm behind the older man and one in front of him for support. I slammed the truck door and went around to Elliot’s other side to help support his weight. We got him all the way around the house and inside.

“Living room,” Marcus said.

We eased Elliot onto the sofa and I grabbed a plaid throw blanket from the back and covered him.

Marcus looked down at his father. “How much did he have to drink?”

“A lot,” I said. “If it helps, they seemed to be having a good time, especially when they were singing.”

Marcus turned his head slowly to look at me. “Singing?”

“Lynyrd Skynyrd in the truck on the way out to Burtis’s place. Bob Seger in the bar at the St. James.”

He exhaled loudly. “Okay. That settles it. I can never go in there again.”

I put my arms around his waist and leaned up to kiss him. “Did you know your dad and Burtis were friends when they were young?”

He shook his head. “I had no idea. Neither one of them ever said a word about it.”

He walked me out to the deck. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to stay, can I?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve heard enough seventies’ rock for one night.” I planted a kiss on his mouth and went back to the truck.

* * *

I didn’t sleep very well. I kept dreaming that Elliot and Burtis had decided to take their music on the road and I had somehow gone along as their road manager. I was down in the kitchen making blueberry pancakes before six o’clock Saturday morning. Owen wandered in, yawned and sat down next to his dishes.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I said as I got his breakfast. He grumped at me and avoided making eye contact. Some nights Owen stayed up for hours roaming the house doing who knew what. Then in the morning he was a cranky grump and I had learned to give him lots of space. Hercules came in just as I finished making the pancakes. He sniffed the air and murped inquiringly.

“Pancakes for me, cat food for you,” I said. He seemed okay with that.

We both lingered over breakfast. Hercules took his time eating and making sure he looked good to face the day. I’d brought Abigail’s twenty-five-cent book in from the truck and I picked it up and read the back cover as I finished my second pancake.

Owen, on the other hand, ate, washed his face and then headed for the back door. I let him outside so he could do his morning circuit of the property. He grunted in my direction, which I took as “Thank you” but may not have been. The sky was low and dull and that, combined with the ache in my previously broken left wrist, told me that we were in for rain.

When I stepped back into the kitchen I found Hercules sitting on my chair, bits of paper at his feet. Abigail had bookmarked several places in the slim paperback that she thought might interest me. Hercules had just pulled all but one of those bits of paper out of the book.

“What did you do?” I asked, hands on my hips. For some reason the cat looked quite pleased with himself. “That was bad. Very bad.”

Hercules frowned as though he couldn’t understand my attitude. I picked up the book. The one piece of paper left was marking a place close to the beginning. I opened the book to see what Abigail had wanted me to check out. The text, illustrated with a couple of old maps of Minnesota, talked about how the state got its name. Minnesota was named for the Minnesota River, from the Dakota Sioux word for sky-tinted water.

“Sky-tinted water, I like that,” I said to Hercules, who tipped his head sideways and blinked slowly at me a couple of times. “And I probably would have been interested in the other things Abigail marked, even though you don’t seem to think so.”

Hercules jumped down from the chair, walked over to his water dish and peered down at it. It was still about half full. “Mrrr?” he said. He looked back at me.

“No, I think sky-tinted water means water that’s outside, like a lake or a river. It reflects the color of the sky, which is one of the reasons lakes and rivers look blue. That’s just plain, clear water in your dish.” I was explaining reflection to a cat.

At least he seemed to be considering what I’d said. “Thank you for the place name lesson,” I said. Then I leaned down so my face was inches from him. “But next time stay away from my books.”

Hercules licked my chin and then sat down, looking expectantly at me. He seemed to be waiting for me to do or say something. I had no idea what.

I sat down at the table again, speared the last bit of my pancake and ate it. Then I looked at Herc still looking at me. “I don’t suppose you know where Ira Kenyon is?” I said.

He shook his head, flicked his tail in annoyance and took a step backward, bumping his dish and sending a tiny splash of water onto the floor. Hercules yowled and jumped at the same time, all four feet going in different directions like a feline version of Riverdance.

“It’s okay. I’ve got it,” I said. I grabbed a rag from under the sink and wiped up the water. Then I got a second cloth to dry Hercules’s feet. He complained the entire time. Hercules hated having wet feet, so much so that Maggie had actually bought him a pair of boots—which is how I learned that he hated looking like a dork more than he hated wet feet.

I refilled the water bowl and set it closer to the side of the refrigerator so he wouldn’t spill it again. “There,” I said. “There’s your water, clear because we’re all out of sky-tinted.”

And then, suddenly, I remembered something Maggie had said while we were talking about the development. She’d pointed out that right now this end of the lake wasn’t even any good for swimming thanks to a very late algal bloom.

“The clear water is on the other side,” I said aloud.

“Merow,” Hercules agreed and began to clean his paws.

“Ira Kenyon didn’t go to Clearwater in Florida. He went to clear water on the other side of the lake.” No. That was too easy. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be hard to check.

I looked at Hercules, who was now happily ignoring me, cleaning his front left paw. He’d tried awfully hard to draw my attention to water, in the name of the state and in his dish. Had he been trying to tell me something? More than once it had seemed to me that Owen and Hercules were playing detective in their own unique way.