Kelly, Sofie - Sleight of Paw

I shook my head. I couldn’t help remembering my first few weeks in Mayville Heights after I’d left Andrew back in Boston. I’d spent a fair amount of time sitting in the dark, eating raw cookie dough myself. And ice cream and gobs of jam on English muffins. “It’s not stupid,” I said.

“If I had answered the phone or I checked my e-mail I’d at least be able to prove I was there.”

“We’ll figure something else out.” I looked around the room. Maggie was still talking. Justin was deep in conversation with a man whose suit and tie pegged him as Ruby’s lawyer. I was surprised to see Peter standing by one of the tall windows. In his dark suit and white shirt, his hair back in a ponytail, I almost hadn’t recognized him. Maybe he was there to represent Agatha’s son. I took a deep breath. “Ruby, I need to ask you something,” I said.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Last week, I saw you in the parking lot of the library with Agatha.”

She stiffened. “You probably did,” she said carefully.

“You were arguing about something.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with her death,” she said with an offhand shrug. “It was nothing.”

I knew that wasn’t true. She’d answered too quickly. I was getting so sick of hearing that the arguments and the envelope meant nothing when it was so clear they did.

“No, it wasn’t,” I said. “That brown envelope she was holding on to so tightly? It’s disappeared.”

The color drained from Ruby’s face. “Agatha’s death was an accident,” she said. “Someone was driving too fast or driving when they’d been drinking and they ran her down, panicked and took off.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But maybe not.”

Ruby looked stricken. “You think . . .” She had trouble getting the words out. “You think someone killed Agatha deliberately?”

“I don’t know.” What I left unsaid was that Marcus Gordon thought so, and that was what mattered.

“Even if that’s true, it couldn’t have been because of what was in the envelope.” She shook her head emphatically.

“Why?” I didn’t even try to keep the aggravation out of my voice. “What was in that stupid thing, anyway?”

“I can’t tell you,” she said.

“Ruby,” I said, leaning closer to make my point. “The police think you killed Agatha. This is a very bad time to be keeping secrets.”

“It’s not my secret to tell,” she said stubbornly.

“Well, whose secret is it?”

She took a long moment to think. “You should talk to Harry Taylor,” she said at last.

All roads led back to the old man. “Old Harry?”

She nodded. Harry had a secret. Ruby had a secret. Agatha had a secret. And now it looked like it was the same secret. All this secret keeping was a very, very bad thing to do. You just had to watch a couple of episodes of The Young and the Restless to know that.

Justin was looking in our direction and I knew I didn’t have much more time to make my point. “Agatha had some secret that Harry apparently knew, that you knew, and who knows how many other people knew.”

“No one else knew.”

I thought about Eric and realized that probably wasn’t true. “Agatha is dead. The police don’t think it’s an accident. That envelope with whatever was in it is gone. And you, who just happen to be one of the secret keepers, have been charged with Agatha’s murder. That’s four too many coincidences.” And way too many secrets .

“Harry didn’t hurt Agatha,” Ruby said, her mouth set in a tight line, hands on her hips. “First of all, he’s too old, and second, he’s not strong enough. And even if none of that stuff was true, I can promise you he would never ever hurt Agatha.”

“Ruby, I know that,” I said. “I know Harry didn’t kill Agatha any more than you did. But I can’t help but to keep thinking that whatever she had in that old envelope had something to do with her death.”

“It didn’t. You just have to trust me on this. It didn’t.” She made a dismissive wave with a hand. “Talk to Harry, Kathleen,” she said. And then she walked back to the others.

For a moment I thought about turning around and leaving, but Maggie was on her way over to me. “Everything all right?” she asked,

“Ask me later,” I said, watching Ruby go over and hug another one of the building’s artists who had just come in.

“Okay.” She linked her arm through mine and walked me toward the food. “Come have some soup,” she said. “It’s tomato vegetable, and there’s fresh Parmesan and those sourdough croutons you like.”

Maggie got me a bowl of soup and sprinkled cheese and croutons on top. I picked up a spoon and took a stool at the end of her worktable. I’d eaten about half the bowl when Justin came over, hooked the rung of an empty stool with his foot, and pulled it close so he could sit down.

“Hi, Kathleen,” he said. “I wanted to thank you for helping Ruby, so”—he held out his hands—“thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

We sat in silence for a moment. Then he said, “This doesn’t feel real, you know. Ruby being arrested and me suddenly getting all this money from someone I didn’t know.” He shook his head. “I got something that will do so much good from Agatha Shepherd’s death, and Ruby—who loved her—got a load of trouble.”

So it was definitely true. “No one thinks Ruby killed Agatha.”

“The police do.”

“And they’ll figure out they’re wrong and find the real killer.”

Justin put his fingers flat on the table. And stared at them. “The funding fell through and I thought it was the end of the project. I was out of ideas. I’d begged for money. I’d literally begged for it. And then I found out a stranger had left me what I needed to get started. A stranger. I thought it was a dream or some kind of sick practical joke.” His eyes went to Ruby before giving me his attention again. “I’m thinking about not taking the money.”

“Because of Ruby.”

“Yeah.”

I could actually feel the energy coming off of him. It didn’t seem like he ever stopped moving. Some part of him—hands, feet—was always in motion. Right now it was his right foot moving up and down on the rung of the stool.

“Turning down that money isn’t going to change anything for Ruby,” I said. “And she’d hate your doing it.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But it would ease my guilty conscience.” He gave me a small smile.

I could sympathize a little on the guilt.

Justin shifted in his seat, picked up his coffee and set it down again. “Kathleen, what do you think happened in that alley?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It could have been an accident,” he said slowly. He was still playing with his cup. “Maybe it was, I don’t know, someone who panicked, someone who was drinking. They ran and now they’re afraid to come forward. Otherwise . . . why would anyone want to kill an old woman?”

I shrugged.

“I just don’t buy that someone her age, who’d just come from rehabilitation hospital, for God’s sake, would have any enemies.”

“So maybe it was an accident and the driver panicked.”

“Yeah,” he said. “That had to be it. And it’s a stupid shortcut, you know. I walked through it.”

I’d thought the same thing myself. The alley didn’t really save any time or any distance, but if someone were driving it would help him avoid the stop sign at the corner.

“I feel bad for Eric, too,” Justin said, looking past me toward the high windows of the former school classroom behind us. “This can’t be good for business, and he made a hell of a lot of sacrifices to get that place off the ground.”