Hairless Harassment

Chapter Twelve

I brought Matt a cup of plain Earl Grey tea—no cream, no sugar, no good, really. It would have to do, though, seeing as I hadn’t had time to go to the store since moving in yesterday afternoon. Honestly, it was kind of a miracle that I even had this.

“Thanks,” he said with a friendly smile, accepting the warm mug and holding it between his hands. “Look, about last night, I just wanted to apologize for… Well, I’m sure you remember.”

“Water under the bridge.” I waved off his apology, even though I was happy it had been given. I needed to keep him on my side if I were to learn what he knew about his mom’s murder.

“You’re just being so hospitable and then offering to take the cats, too. I feel really bad about how I acted. It’s just…” He sighed heavily and turned the mug around in his hands so that the artwork faced me. It was my crazy cat lady mug. Nan had gotten it to celebrate my official adoption of Octo-Cat a few months back, and it had quickly become my favorite.

Matt sighed and cast his eyes toward the floor. “It may not be the manliest thing to admit, but I was terrified.”

“It’s understandable,” I assured him. “After all, someone did just kill your mother.”

“Exactly!” Matt lifted the tea to his lips, took a small sip, then set it on the coffee table. There weren’t any coasters, but the old piece of furniture already had lots of wear, so I figured this wasn’t a problem I needed to worry about at this precise moment. “I’m staying in her house, too. Granted, it was my house growing up, but it just gives me the creeps.”

“My thoughts exactly.” I reached forward to offer him a fist bump on the subject of staying in creepy houses. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it, so we shook hands instead.

“So, you grew up around here?” I asked, taking a sip from my own mug. I couldn’t stand tea without at least two spoonfuls of sugar mixed in, so I’d secretly filled mine with plain hot water. At least this way I could accompany Matt, make my questions seem more like a conversation than an interrogation.

“Not around here.” He stopped and shook his head. “Here. Right next door.”

“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you leave?” I was really pleased with how things were going so far. Matt was opening up to me without even the slightest hesitation. How much more would he be willing to tell me before he reached the bottom of that tea cup?

“Love.” Matt snorted and rolled his eyes. “Lot of good that did me.”

I winced sympathetically. Even though I’d never been in anything more than puppy love, I felt for the recent divorcee. Everything must have still been so fresh and new, and now he’d lost his mother on top of it all. “So, why don’t you come back? I’m assuming your mother left the house to you.”

“She did, but I don’t know.” He drummed his fingers on the side of his mug and frowned. “It would be hard to live there without constantly thinking of her.”

“Was she a good mom?” I asked before taking a casual sip from my mug of hot water.

If Matt thought my questions were coming too fast and close together, he made no indication of it. Rather, he seemed happy to share, or at least happy to have someone to talk to. The poor guy.

“She was the best,” he said with a nostalgic sigh. “Everything you read about her in the papers is true, by the way. She really had the kindest heart. Even before she got elected, she was always volunteering somewhere. In fact, we spent more of our Christmases serving up hot meals at the soup kitchen, then opening gifts at home.”

“That’s incredible. I’m sure a lot of people will miss her dearly. I know I will.” I already knew this about her, of course, but hearing it from her son’s lips made me that much angrier that someone had brought her life to an early and violent end.

Matt’s eyes lit up with true warmth. “Did you know her well?”

I smiled. “Well, I voted for her every time I was able, and I could always tell she believed the things she said. It was refreshing.”

Matt picked his tea up and took a long, slow sip. “I have no idea who would want to hurt her,” he said, shaking his head. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“It could have been an accident,” I pointed out, even though I didn’t believe it myself.

“Maybe,” he conceded.

We sat in silence for a few moments. He didn’t say anything else, but I could also tell he wasn’t ready to go, so I asked another question.

“When I stopped by earlier, you were at the will reading. Did everything go okay there?” I thought back to the first and only will reading I’d attended. It was the same one where I’d nearly died at the hands of an old coffee maker, where I’d discovered my powers and met Octo-Cat for the first time. As far as my experience told me, will readings could be a real riot.

“It was fine,” Matt answered passively. “No real surprises. I got the house. My kids both got trusts set up for when they turn eighteen. Most of the rest of it went toward a scholarship fund she’d talked about setting up for years but had never got the chance to follow through on.”

“A scholarship? That’s nice,” I said, nodding along. “For students who want to study politics?”

Matt scoffed. “No way. Mom always hated politicians. Even more so after she became one. Said they were smart people with good intentions that got twisted along the way. But hers never did. God bless her soul.”

“May I ask what the scholarship is for?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t insensitive to track back after his tender words. “I mean, I’m thinking about going back to school, so maybe I’ll apply for it.” I wasn’t really considering more school at the moment, but knowing me and my insatiable love of learning, it was really just a matter of time.

Matt glanced around my swanky manor house, his implication obvious—why would you need a scholarship? He didn’t say that, though. Despite our rough start, I could tell he was kind, exactly the way his mama had raised him to be. “Biology. Or, more specifically, marine biology,” he told me, and it was not the answer I’d expected.

Seeing the confusion on my face, he jumped in to explain. “I know, it seems weird for a senator, right? But back in the 70’s, she’d just had me and my dad wanted her to stay at home to raise me. I guess that never suited her and she divorced him eventually, but before she did, she became involved with the new Save the Whales movement. It gave her that first taste of political activism, and she was hooked.”

He paused and took another sip of Earl Grey before continuing. “It’s why she stayed in that big house by herself all these years. She didn’t want to leave the ocean and all it meant to her. I guess I take after her a little bit myself because I made sure to get a place that overlooks Lake Michigan back in Chicago. Even now, I can’t imagine looking out my window and seeing anything other than water.”

“So, she wants to continue saving the whales through her scholarship fund,” I summarized with a dreamy smile. “That’s beautiful.”

Another knock sounded at the front door, this one fast and light.

“Coming!” I yelled, jumping to my feet then squealing with happiness when I saw Nan through the stained glass.

“Okay, I’m here,” she said as she stepped inside. She was wearing bright green galoshes and leggings patterned with rainbows. Up top, she wore an old T-shirt that had lost much of its original color from having gone through so many wash cycles. “Now catch me up on these riddle-speaking cats.”

I turned toward Matt and made a funny face. “It’s this book we’re reading together,” I explained quickly. Books really made the best excuses because few people would ask follow-up questions. It was sad but convenient nonetheless. “Anyway, this is my nan. Nan, this is Matt. Senator Harlow was his mother.”

“Oh, you poor dear,” Nan said, rushing over to sit beside him and pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Matt answered, though it sounded more like a question.

“I voted for your dear mama each and every time,” Nan announced proudly. “They didn’t come any better than her.”

Matt raised his mug. “I’ll drink to that.”

I returned to my spot in the wingback chair across from them. “Matt was just telling me a bit more about his mom’s legacy. Also, I’ve volunteered to watch the senator’s cats while Matt gets the rest of the estate sorted out.”

“One can never have too many opinions or too many cats,” Nan said with a nod and a chuckle. Neither of these seemed true to me, but I let it pass.

Matt took another long drink of tea, then set his empty cup back on the coffee table. “I should probably be going,” he said, rising to a stand. “Thank you again for the hospitality and the kind words about my mom.”

Nan stood, too, and gave him a warm hug. She looked so tiny wrapped around his big, bear-like form. Even so, I could tell he appreciated the gesture.

After Nan let him go, I got up and followed Matt to the door. “Let me know when you want me to come by for the cats,” I said as we lingered at the doorway.

“Oh, right,” he said in a way that suggested he’d already forgotten—or was pretending to have forgotten after Octo-Cat’s little hissy fit from earlier. “Are you sure it isn’t too much of an imposition?”

“I’m sure,” I said, perhaps too quickly. The truth was I needed those cats. They held the key to busting this murder mystery wide open, and I really wanted to know what they would say. “In fact, maybe I should just come with you now? Give them some time to settle in before nightfall.”

I couldn’t risk him changing his mind, and now that I had Nan here, she could help keep Octo-Cat in a good enough mood to actually be useful. Even though I was supposedly his best friend, he clearly preferred her company to mine. I tried not to let that hurt my feelings.

Matt’s brows pinched together as he studied me. “Are you sure you’re sure?”

“The more, the merrier!” Nan said, slinging an arm around each of our waists and pulling us closer. “Now let’s go get our guests.”

Matt didn’t say anything more as the three of us exited onto the porch. I searched around but didn’t see any extra vehicles—other than Nan’s souped up sports coupe—which meant Matt must have chosen to walk through the woods to pay me a visit.

And, even though he’d been a perfectly lovely companion for afternoon tea, this realization did not sit well with me. If he felt comfortable traipsing through the woods after our mutual scare last night, might he be willing to come through them again by the cloak of night?

Maybe I wasn’t as safe as I’d hoped after all.