Sofie Kelly - Copycat Killing - A Magical Cats Mystery

“When did you pick up Maggie?” he said.

I gave my head a little shake and focused all my attention on Marcus again. “I didn’t. The co-op members had a meeting first thing this morning. She was already here.”

“By herself.”

He said the words so casually, looking at his cup instead of at me, but I saw the slight tightening of his jaw.

“I don’t know,” I said, keeping my own voice equally casual. “You should ask her.”

“Did you see anyone when you got here?”

I took a long drink before I answered. I could feel a lump of annoyance pressing up in my chest and I couldn’t seem to swallow it down. “No I didn’t. The only person I saw was Maggie.” I pointed to a spot on the sidewalk a few feet away. “She was standing right there.”

“She wasn’t inside?”

“No.” Why did I feel that I’d said the wrong thing? I studied his face. There were no clues in his blue eyes to what he was thinking.

He drank the last of his coffee and set the empty takeout cup on the hood of the car, his hand over the top. “Okay. Maggie was waiting out here. You went inside. Then what?”

“Actually, we stood here talking for a minute,” I said. “Maggie noticed my head.” I lifted my hand toward my forehead, but didn’t actually touch it this time. “She wanted to know what happened. I told her. Then we went inside.”

I held up a finger before he had a chance to say anything. “We went upstairs. We loaded some boxes in my truck. Maggie wanted to check the basement. We found Jaeger. I called 911. That’s it.”

“Did she say why she wanted to check the basement?” Marcus asked, frowning.

“She just wanted to take one more look before we went down to River Arts.” I couldn’t keep the defensive tone out of my voice. It was as though Marcus and I were a couple of sumo wrestlers, circling, each waiting for the other to make a move. I reminded myself that he was just doing his job. He knew Maggie. He knew she wouldn’t push Jaeger or anyone else down those basement steps.

Still, I felt I had to say it out loud. “Maggie didn’t push Jaeger Merrill down the stairs.” I put a hand to my mouth to stifle a yawn. I was tired. My head ached. My jeans were damp from being down in the co-op basement, and what I really needed was to go soak in the bathtub for a while.

“I didn’t say she did. I didn’t say anyone did. I just want to know what happened, Kathleen,” he said. “That’s all.” He looked over at the building, then back at me.

Just the facts. It frustrated me that when he was working on a case, all Marcus seemed to be concerned about were the facts, not what he knew about the people involved. On the other hand, I knew it frustrated him that whatever was going on, I was going to filter the facts through what I knew about the people.

“Is there anything else you need to know?” I asked. I wanted to go home, spend some time with Hercules and Owen and soak up some kitty sympathy.

Marcus shook his head. “That’s it for now.” He studied my face for a moment. Then he reached over and very gently tucked a loose tendril of hair behind my ear.

All at once I didn’t see the tall, intimidating police detective with the serious, almost stern expression standing in front of me. I saw the man in the waiting room at Roma’s veterinary clinic just last week, sneaking little fish-shaped crackers to Desmond, the clinic cat, when he thought no one was looking.

The moment stretched between us just a shade too long.

He looked away first, taking a step backward. “You uh, should go home and get off your feet.”

I nodded, and shifted my take-out cup from one hand to the other. “I am. Call me if…if there’s anything else.” I turned and started back up the street.

“Kathleen,” Marcus called out as I reached the corner. I stopped and after a moment’s hesitation, turned around.

He held up the empty take-out cup. “Thank you for the coffee,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” I said. I turned and just as I was about to step off the curb to cross the street my cell phone rang. It was Ruby.

“Hey, Kathleen,” she said. “Where are you?” She was talking faster than usual.

“I’m walking back to the library. Why?”

“Are you close enough to come down to River Arts?”

“Why?” I asked. “Is something wrong? Is Maggie okay?”

“Yeah. She’s fine,” Ruby said. “She went home to change. It’s just”—she paused for a moment—“I figured out where I’d seen Jaeger.” There was an edge of excitement to her voice. “I know who he is, Kathleen. Or I guess I should say, who he really was.”

8

“What do you mean, who he really was?” I said.

“It’s too complicated to explain over the phone,” Ruby said. She exhaled slowly. “There’s something I need you to see—I need somebody to see.”

I looked back over my shoulder. Marcus must have gone inside the building.

I could turn around, find him and tell him Ruby had maybe found out something about Jaeger Merrill that might be useful.

Or might not.

Then he’d tell me to stay out of his case—even though it didn’t look as though there even was a case, I’d get annoyed and go meet Ruby.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I said. I was going to end up over at the studio building anyway. It just seemed like a good idea to eliminate a couple of steps.

I decided it made more sense to get the truck and drive over to River Arts so I could just go home afterward. Ruby was watching for me at the back door.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, as I followed her up to the top floor.

“Believe what?” I asked. Somehow the stairs had gotten steeper since the last time I’d climbed them a couple of hours ago.

She patted the top of her head with one hand. “You just have to see this. Trust me.”

There was a hardcover book open on one of Ruby’s worktables in her studio. She pointed to a black-and-white photograph of several men that took up half of the left page. “Recognize the guy in the middle?”

The hair was shorter and darker, the nose was a little longer, he was heavier, and he was several years younger, but it was Jaeger Merrill. I think I would have recognized him even if I hadn’t been expecting to see the man. “That’s Jaeger,” I said.

Ruby gave me a knowing smile. “Not exactly,” she said.

“You’re not going to tell me he has an identical evil twin, are you?”

“Nope.”

I looked at the caption underneath the picture. According to that, Christian Ellis was the man in the center of the photograph. “He changed his name,” I said slowly, turning the book over so I could see the cover: Divine Provenance: The Greatest Art Fraud in U.S. History .

“He did more than that,” Ruby said. “He changed the way he looked—different nose, different hair. I’m pretty sure different eye color. He lied about his age. He lied about his background. As far as I can tell, nothing about Jaeger Merrill was real.”

I flipped the book so I could look at the picture again. “So Jaeger—when he was still Christian Ellis—was involved in some kind of art fraud?”

She nodded. “Religious icons. Fakes. Good ones. I looked him up online. He created some elaborate forgeries that fooled some of the best art experts in the country. Heck, in the world. You could call him a con artist.” She gestured at the book. “Funny thing is, I got that at the library book sale last summer. I’d looked through it, but I never had a chance to actually read the whole thing.”

“I assume he got caught,” I said.

“He spent eighteen months in jail.”

“So he came here for a new start with a new name.” I set the book back on the table.