Софи Келли - Hooked On A Feline

“Was there really anyone who would have wanted Leitha dead? I know she was—”

“Arrogant, rude, condescending?” Mary finished. “A lot of people might have wished she wasn’t around, but as far as actually killing her? I don’t think so. There’s a big difference between wishing someone were dead and actually making it happpen.” She picked up a pen and tapped it on the desk. “Leitha just had a way of getting under people’s skin. The day she was here, the day she died, she was annoyed at me because I could show the Finnamores had very little to do with settling the town. And Lordy, she was constantly nitpicking with Mike when he was alive because she wanted him to settle down and make little Finnamore babies.”

“Do you think it bothered him?” I asked.

Mary gave a snort of laughter. “Not in the slightest. I remember her complaining that he didn’t think about how his choices in his personal life affected her. She was always disappointed because Jonas wasn’t a biological Finnamore—or as she put it, a ‘real’ Finnamore—like anyone cared. Before she died she was even butting in on where Lachlan was going to go to college and what he was going to study.”

“It really mattered to her?”

“You’d better believe it did,” she said, tapping the pen again for emphasis. “She wanted him to go into medicine or business, which is what the Finnamore men do. The Finnamore name and its legacy were the most important things to Leitha. From what I’ve heard, it was the same way with Leitha’s grandfather, so she got it honestly. The two disappointments in the family were Mike working on people’s teeth and Jonas becoming a college professor and PhD. Those were not the career paths she had chosen for them.”

I shook my head. “It sounds exhausting.”

“I think in some ways it was more exhausting for her.”

“What happened to Lachlan’s parents,” I asked. “I know they were killed in an accident but I don’t know any of the details.”

Mary shook her head. “That was before you got here. It was heartbreaking. They were on their way back from Minneapolis and hit a patch of black ice that spun them into the path of a furniture delivery truck. Colin was killed outright. The driver of the truck and Ainsley were badly injured. The truck driver had to have his left leg amputated below the knee, but he did recover. Ainsley spent months in a coma before she died. Lachlan was just eleven. Luckily, he had stayed with Jonas. And I have to give credit where credit is due, for all of Leitha’s abrasive ways, she rallied around the child just the way everyone else did.”

It was good to hear the woman had had a heart after all. I hadn’t really seen that.

I dropped my things in my office and had my lunch outside in the gazebo. Marcus called to say he was on his way to Minneapolis to talk to the doctor heading the cardiac study again.

“I don’t know when I’ll get back,” he said.

“I love you,” I said. “Drive safe.”

I wasn’t that hungry when I got home, so I toasted another bagel, cut a slice of cheddar and poured a glass of lemonade, promising myself I’d eat extra vegetables tomorrow.

The house felt warm and stuffy. I took my food and the laptop and went to sit in the backyard. I was halfway through my bagel, looking at the concert photos again when Hercules came though the porch door. Literally. He walked across the grass, sat at my feet and meowed. I patted my lap. “You can come up.”

He meowed again.

“You’re perfectly capable of jumping,” I said. “It’s not that far.”

He still didn’t move.

“I guess you don’t want a bit of cheese, then.”

He was on my lap almost before I got the words out, his black-and-white face looming in front of mine. I broke off a tiny bite of cheese and handed it to him. He murped a thank-you and ate it. Then he poked at my legs until he was settled in to look at the computer screen with me.

I scrolled through the photos so the cat could see all of them and I told him about my visit to Mike’s office and about what I’d learned from Mary. He tipped his head to one side as though he were thinking about everything I’d said. Then he swiped a paw at the touch pad and a shot of Mike and Harry filled the screen. He turned to look at me as though he expected me to do or say something.

I studied the photo but saw nothing that would help figure out who had killed Mike. “I know you’re not trying to suggest that Harry is the killer, so I don’t see what you want me to see,” I said.

I moved on to one of the images of Roma and me, arms over each other’s shoulders. When I took a drink from my lemonade, Hercules managed to go back to the photo of Harry and Mike. I had a cat with computer skills that were better than those some people had.

I narrowed my gaze at him. “Quit it!” I said.

He gave a huff of impatience.

I broke the last little piece of cheese in half and gave one piece to him. I ate the other one. “Sometimes I wish you could talk,” I said.

He made an indignant meow.

“Talk in a language I understand, I mean.” I looked at the image on the laptop and thought about how much fun Mike and Harry had been having that night and how magical it had been to be there.

Hercules peered into my lemonade, wrinkled his nose and then began to wash his face, shooting looks at the computer and me from time to time. Whatever I was supposed to see, I didn’t. Or maybe the cat wasn’t trying to show me anything.

“The guys worked so hard to make it a surprise,” I said. “And if anyone did guess, those people kept it to themselves.”

“I’m pretty sure the old man figured it out, although he said he didn’t,” Harry had said when he’d told me about Mike being out at the house every Thursday night for weeks. “Monday through Wednesday he worked later at the office and Friday night he was checking out new music somewhere in the area. . . . Eventually, we worked things out so the others could join in on Zoom.”

Johnny had told me how odd it felt not to be getting together online with the others anymore on Thursday nights.

Thursday. Not Wednesday. Thursday .

“That’s not what Caroline told me,” I said slowly.

Hercules paused the face washing with one paw in midair. It almost seemed as though there was a look of anticipation on his face.

“Mike was insistent that he had to leave on time on Wednesday and Thursday. I had to schedule anything that had the possibility of running late for earlier in the day.” That’s what Caroline said: Wednesday and Thursday.

Hercules made a soft “mrr,” glanced at the screen and went back to washing his face with a murp. Had I stumbled on what he’d been trying to tell me?

A moth fluttered by only a couple of inches from the cat’s face. He leaped into the air, lost his balance and landed awkwardly—albeit upright—on the lawn. He gave himself a shake and looked kind of embarrassed. The moth was fine.

Was it possible that Mike Bishop was doing something on Wednesday nights that he didn’t want anyone to know about? I knew I needed to check with Harry and maybe the rest of the band to make sure he hadn’t been practicing on Wednesdays, too. Was I on to something? Or was my leap of logic as ungainly as Herc’s leap after that moth? Had Mike had a secret of his own?

chapter 12

I decided that I would call Harry once the library closed for the day, but when I pulled into the parking lot Saturday morning, his truck was already there and he was unloading the lawn mower.

“I thought I’d get an early start,” he said. His mouth worked as though he were trying out what he wanted to say before he actually said the words. “Kathleen, I don’t mean to push but I just wondered if you’ve come up with anything yet.”