Софи Келли - Hooked On A Feline

“Hi. I didn’t expect to actually get you,” I said when she picked up.

She laughed. “That begs the question: Then why did you call?”

“I was going to leave a message.”

“You can still do that if you want to,” she teased. “I just came in to clean up a few things from yesterday that had to be put aside because the power went out. I only picked up because I recognized the number and guessed it was you. What do you need?”

“Information,” I said. There was no need to beat around the bush with Lita.

“That I have. Whether or not it’s the information you’re looking for, I can’t say.”

“Tell me about the deal between Everett and Leitha Anderson.”

She didn’t ask why I wanted to know. “Leitha owned a property in Red Wing that Everett was interested in turning into condos or apartments.”

“It’s something he’s done before.”

“Oh yes, restoring an old building instead of tearing it down.” Like Mary and Harrison, Everett cared about the history of the state, and as he’d said at his presentation, not every old structure could be saved or should be, but they shouldn’t all be torn down, either. “You know how Everett—and Rebecca—feel about not losing our ties to the past.”

“ ‘A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots,’ ” I said. “Marcus Garvey.”

“Mr. Garvey was a very wise man,” Lita said.

I propped an elbow on my desk and leaned the side of my head against my hand. “So what made the project fall apart?”

“Leitha’s pigheadedness. John Stone came to see Everett. He wanted to buy that building himself. John believed it had been the home of the first music school in the state, predating the MacPhail School by about two years. He wanted to turn the property back into a school. Everett agreed and tried to convince Leitha to sell to John instead.”

“I take it that didn’t go well.”

“No, it did not,” she said emphatically. “Leitha didn’t like John. I don’t think she ever liked the idea of Mike being in the band. She found that kind of thing unseemly for a Finnamore man. So she didn’t want to be accommodating. And she saw John’s desire to save the building as nothing more than just foolish sentimentality. Those were her exact words, ‘foolish sentimentality.’ ”

The same expression she’d used with me about renovating the library.

“She decided to sell to someone else who was going to tear down the building and turn it into a parking lot. John was furious and Everett wasn’t too happy, either.”

“There was nothing either of them could do?” I asked.

“No. Leitha and Everett had no agreement in place on the property. And it was impossible to reason with her. It was weeks before John got over his anger. Finally, he just seemed to accept there was nothing he could do. He even told Everett to let it go.”

“That’s not exactly something Everett is good at.”

Lita laughed. “No, it isn’t.” There was silence for a moment. “Kathleen, I heard that the police think Leitha’s death wasn’t an accident after all. Does any of this have anything to do with that building?”

I shook my head even though she wasn’t there to see me. “I honestly don’t know.”

“Well, if you think any of this will help Marcus, go ahead and tell him. He knows where to find us if he has any questions.”

“I will. Thank you,” I said.

After we hung up, I got to my feet and went to stand by the window. I looked out over the water. It occurred to me that to solve one murder, I might just have to solve two.

chapter 13

I spent the rest of the morning shelving books and helping several people find something new to read. The latter was one of my favorite parts of the job. It always made my day when I suggested a book to someone and they came back to tell me that they had enjoyed it.

I discovered that someone had put gum on three different shelves in the reference section. Grape-flavored bubble gum, it seemed.

I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. “Some days I think gum should be a controlled substance,” I muttered to Levi, who had been helping me get the reference section back to rights. Several students who were taking a summer school history class had just spent the last hour looking for references in “real” books for a class assignment.

“Did you know that the ancient Greeks chewed gum?” Levi asked.

“I did not,” I said. “And I hope none of those ancient Greeks ever stuck their gum on one of the wings on the statue of Nike or on Venus de Milo’s shoulder.”

He laughed. Then he gestured at the shelf. “I can take care of that,” he said.

“Are you sure?” I asked. Getting gum off anything was a tedious job. I thought about Mariah doing the same thing out at the diner.

“It’s no problem,” Levi said.

“You’ll need a scraper. That stuff sticks like superglue. It took forever to get it out of the book drop.”

“I used to be a room service waiter, remember? Everywhere someone can put gum, I’ve probably seen. Including some that, trust me, you don’t want to know about.”

He headed upstairs to get the scraper and I thought once again how glad I was that I’d hired Levi. The senior ladies loved his manners and were always bringing cookies to try to fatten him up. He had very wide tastes in reading material, which meant he could help pretty much any reader find something they’d like, and he knew more about graphic novels than I did.

I went back to the front desk to get the last cart of books to put on the shelves.

“You don’t want Levi to finish this?” Abigail asked.

“He’s scraping gum off one of the shelves.”

She shook her head. “I swear some people behave like they were raised by wolves.”

“I don’t think wolves chew gum,” I said.

“Then they clearly have better manners than some of our patrons.”

I smiled. “No argument here.”

Abigail had been on tour for her most recent children’s book in June. She had a contract to write three more books in the series and I wondered sometimes if we’d lose her to a full-time career as a writer. She was very talented. I suspected her main character—a daring little girl with five bossy older brothers—was modeled after the little girl Abigail herself once was. She, too, had five older brothers. She’d even created a secret code so she could write things in what she called her logbook and they wouldn’t be able to read it.

The first day she was back at work—which happened to be a Friday—Mike had come in with coffee and muffins for the whole staff, but I’d always had the feeling the gesture was really aimed at Abigail. I’d harbored a secret hope that the two of them might get together. Now that was never going to happen.

Maggie and Roma were already at a table when I got to Eric’s Place. “Have you been waiting very long?” I asked as I slid onto my chair.

“I just got here,” Roma said.

“And I barely got here before she got here,” Maggie added.

Claire came over to take our orders. We all decided on the chopped salad and breadsticks. “And how about the blackberry iced tea?” Claire suggested. She smiled at me. “I know it’s not coffee, Kathleen, but I think you’ll like it.”

“I’ll try it,” Maggie said.

Roma nodded. “Me too.”

They all looked at me.

“So will I,” I said.

“Seriously?” Roma said. She looked . . . surprised.

“I do drink more than coffee.” Even I could hear that I sounded a little defensive.

“Not very often,” Maggie teased.

Claire gathered our menus. “If you don’t like it, I’ll bring you coffee, I promise,” she whispered as she collected mine.