A Midwinter's Tail

12

Marcus had to get back to the police station. He kissed my cheek and I repeated my promise to keep what he’d just told me to myself. The fact that Burtis and Dayna had still been married when she died didn’t change my belief that Burtis had had nothing to do Dayna’s death, but I realized it might matter to other people.

Harry Junior came in just after one o’clock. “Thank you for putting the sand down,” I said, walking over to meet him by the main doors.

“You’re welcome,” he said, pulling off his heavy gloves. “I’m going to keep on that for a while. Thorsten has enough on his plate. There’s a leak in the roof at the community center.”

“Again?” I exhaled loudly. “He just got the last one patched.” The community center roof was leakier than a wooden rowboat that had been left out all winter.

“Thanks for getting your book expert to look at those old readers,” Harry said. “We can use the money. I think there’s more patch up there than there is original roof. Thorsten has someone coming to take a look tomorrow.” He shook his head. “The whole building needs work. It’s older than I am.”

“Wow, that is old,” I said, completely deadpan.

One eyebrow went up. “Better be careful, Kathleen, or I might just recommend you to head up the committee to renovate the community center.”

“Do we have a committee to renovate the community center?” I asked.

Harry scratched his stubbled chin. “No. But I think we’re going to need one.” He gave his head a shake. “But that’s not why I stopped in. The old man sent me to invite you to dinner tonight. I’m sorry about the short notice.”

The only plans I had were dinner with Owen and Hercules and maybe a load or two of laundry after that. The short notice didn’t really matter.

“He’s been chewing on something all weekend,” Harry said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t have a clue about what’s on his mind. I’m pretty sure he wants to talk to you. He sure as hell isn’t interested in talking to me.”

“I’d love to come,” I said. “What can I bring?”

“Just yourself,” he said. “About six o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.” I smiled at him. “Are you joining us?”

Harry gave a snort of laughter. “Hard to tell, Kathleen. So far you’re the only one who’s been invited.”

I showed Harry where Mary and I had decided to put the second tree and told him about Ruby’s ornaments.

“I should be able to bring the tree first thing tomorrow,” he said.

“Okay, we’ll have the space ready,” I said.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet, even for a Monday, which gave Mary and me time to rearrange things and bring the big tree stand up from the library basement.

Clouds were moving in over the water as I drove up the hill and my left wrist was aching, both signs that we were going to get some snow. Hercules was waiting for me on the bench in the back porch when I got home.

“This is a nice surprise,” I said, leaning over to scoop him up. Not only did he dislike snow and rain, but he wasn’t that crazy about cold, either.

“I’m home,” I called when I stepped into the kitchen. I waited. No answering meow from Owen. “Either he didn’t hear me or he’s doing something he’s not supposed to be doing,” I said to Hercules as I set him down on the floor. I hung up my coat and set my hat and gloves by the heat. There was still no sign of Owen.

Herc stretched and followed me upstairs. I changed into jeans and a sweater and pulled my hair back into a ponytail.

“Merow?” he said, head cocked to one side as though he was asking a question.

“I’m going out for supper.”

He seemed to consider my words for a moment and then he turned and headed for the door. I knew what that meant.

“You can’t come with me,” I called after him. “I’m going out to the Taylors’.”

He stopped in his tracks and made a huffy sound in the back of his throat.

I walked over to him. “Do you really see yourself having dinner with Boris?” I asked.

He looked up at me with half-lidded eyes. “Murrr,” he grumbled.

“Yes, I know Boris is a dog,” I said. “But that’s not really his fault.”

Hercules didn’t look convinced.

“C’mon, let’s go down to the kitchen and you can test the new batch of stinky crackers.”

That seemed to cheer him up immensely and he headed for the stairs.

We found Owen in the kitchen, head almost on the floor as he peered under the refrigerator.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He looked over his shoulder at me and gave a sharp meow.

“Don’t tell me there are chicken parts under the fridge again?” I said. I got down on my hands and knees so I could look for myself. Just under the edge of the refrigerator, I could see a brilliant yellow feather.

“Give me a minute,” I said, getting to my feet. I got my wooden mixing spoon, got back on the floor again and batted out a small yellow chicken on the first pass.

“Keep those things away from the refrigerator,” I warned. “One of these days one is going to get stuck under there, beyond the reach of this spoon, and I’m not moving this great big refrigerator to get it.”

Owen sniffed the catnip chicken suspiciously, then picked it up in his mouth. He looked at me, golden eyes narrowed, glared at his brother and stalked off to the living room.

Hercules watched him go and then shifted his attention to his bowl.

“Yes, I know I promised you stinky crackers,” I said. I got fresh water for both cats, gave Herc a stack of the sardine crackers and left a little pile in Owen’s dish.

“I won’t be late,” I said to Hercules. He was already into the crackers and all I got was a low murp, which might have been more about his enthusiasm for the crackers than an acknowledgment that he’d heard me—or even cared.

I laced up my low, heavy-treaded snow boots, pulled on my blue jacket with the hood and grabbed my purse, keys and gloves. I’d stopped and bought a couple of tallboys on the way home. As far as I knew, Harrison’s doctor allowed him to have the occasional drink. I wasn’t sure about Harry Junior, though. I could end up in the doghouse with him.

Harrison must have been watching for me, because he was waiting by the back door of his little house when I got out of the truck.

I stomped the snow off my boots, stepped inside and gave him a hug. “You look good,” I said, stepping back to check him out.

As always, to me he looked like Santa Claus. The first time I’d met Harrison was when I discovered him in my backyard with Owen and Hercules while his son was mowing the lawn. For a moment I’d thought St. Nick was holding court in my blue Adirondack chair. Actually, Harry Senior reminded me of my favorite incarnation of Santa Claus, Edmund Gwenn in Miracle on 34th Street. Harrison had the same fluffy beard and the same warm gleam in his eyes.

Those eyes were smiling at me now.

“And if I looked like a steaming pile of horse manure, would you tell me?” he asked.

I made a face and shook my head. “No, but I probably wouldn’t stand so close to you.”

He laughed. The old man might have been in his eighties, but his laugh was deep and strong.

I felt a wet nose nudge my hand. I turned to see Boris beside me, looking up with his chocolaty velvet eyes.

“Hello, boy,” I said, bending over to scratch behind his ears.

“Let me take your coat,” Harrison said. He touched the dog’s back. “Give Kathleen a minute to take off her things and catch her breath.”

Boris immediately sat down. I gave Harry my jacket and he hung it over a hook by the back door. I put my purse over the top, stepped out of my boots and handed over the brown paper bag holding the two tallboys.

“You didn’t have to bring anything,” he said.

I smiled. “I know.”

He unfolded the top of the bag and looked inside. Then he grinned at me. “Can’t say I’m sorry you did, though.”

“I’m not going to be in trouble with Harry, am I?” I asked as we stepped into the kitchen.

“That depends,” a voice said behind me.

I turned to see Harry Junior standing by the woodstove.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Nothing that’s any of your business,” his father said.

“How many tallboys are in that bag?” Harry asked me.

“You don’t have to answer that, Kathleen,” Harrison said as he moved toward the refrigerator.

I held up two fingers.

“Are you planning on sharing?” Harry asked his father.

“I might be,” he said, setting the two cans inside his refrigerator. He turned around. “Then again, I might not.”

I didn’t even bother trying to stifle a smile.

Harrison made a shooing motion with one hand. “Take a seat,” he said.

I sat down in the chair next to his, across from the fire burning and snapping in the woodstove. I couldn’t help reaching one hand out to the flames. My hands had been cold all afternoon.

“Nothing’s as warm as wood heat,” Harrison said, easing down into his own chair.

I stuck out my other hand toward the fire.

“Cold hands?” he asked.

I nodded. “A little. Mary’s making a pair of double-knit mittens for me. She says they’ll keep my fingers warm.”

Harrison nodded. “I have a pair of those. Hands are never cold when I wear them.”

“That’s because you wear them to church and you’re so busy flirting one of your hands could be cut off with a chain saw and you wouldn’t notice,” his son said dryly.

“Ignore him, Kathleen,” the old man said. “He’s just jealous because he doesn’t have a quarter of my appeal to the opposite sex.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” I heard Harry mutter.

Boris had come to sit beside me. He laid his chin on my knee and I began to scratch behind his ears. He gave an audible sigh and closed his eyes.

Harrison reached over and picked up an envelope that was on the small table beside his chair. I recognized the return address in a boxy black font in the upper left corner. It was from Henderson Holdings.

“Got this in the mail this morning,” he said.

It had to be the refund for the fundraiser tickets. “Good,” I said.

The old man gave me a look. “No, not good. Why in the name of all that’s holy is Lita giving people their money back? I bought those tickets to help kids learn to read so they can go out and make something of themselves. Where I come from, when you have a fundraiser you don’t give the money back. The end.”

Boris lifted his head, looked over at Harrison for a moment and then went back to leaning on my leg again.

“Where I come from, when you don’t deliver what you promised you give the money back. The end,” I countered.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Harry Junior leaning back in his chair, an amused expression playing across his face.

“So what you’re saying is you’re not taking the check back?” Harrison had one hand on his cane and I half expected him to bang it on the floor to make his point.

“No, I’m not,” I said.

To my surprise he smiled at me. “I guess I know you pretty well,” he said. “So I pretty much knew that’s what you’d say.”

“Does that mean we’re not going to argue about this?” I shifted my leg a little, which got me a look from the big German shepherd still leaning on me.

“It most decidedly does, seeing as how this envelope is empty.” He waved it at me. “I took that check back down to Everett’s office this afternoon and told him where to put it.”

I glanced over at Harry, who had given up trying to stifle his smile.

“You’re a sneaky old man.” I mock-glared at Harrison.

“Guilty as charged,” he agreed, struggling to get to his feet.

I made a move to stand up myself, but he waved me back down. “Sit,” he said. “You’re a guest.”

He looked across at his son. “You’re not.”

The younger Taylor got to his feet. “Welcome to my world,” he said softly as he passed me. The delicious aroma of apples, cinnamon and nutmeg filled the air as he opened the oven door and took a look inside.

“You’re letting all the heat out,” Harrison grumbled.

“Do I smell apple crisp?” I asked, leaning on the arm of my chair so I could see what they were doing.

“That you do,” Harrison said, putting a blue glass pitcher of ice water on the table. “Mary Lowe’s apple crisp.” He smiled at me. “She likes me.”

“That’s because you flirt with her like the two of you are sixteen,” Harry countered, using a kitchen towel to lift a heavy blue-and-white casserole dish out of the oven.

“Like I told you before, it’s not my fault women find me irresistible,” his father said, winking at me.

Harry just shook his head.

Harrison opened the fridge door again, studied the two cans of beer for a moment and then took them out and set them on the counter. He reached up into the cupboard next to the sink and lifted down two tall glasses.

“You don’t have to use glasses on my account,” I said.

“I’m not.” He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “None of us were born in a barn. And we’ve got perfectly good glasses. No reason not to use them.”

He poured the beer into the glasses and set one at his place and one at his son’s.

“Kathleen, my son needs a woman,” the old man said as he moved around the table.

Harry’s head came up and he looked over at his father.

“If I hadn’t invited him over tonight, he would probably have had just a peanut butter sandwich for supper. When the kids are out he doesn’t cook.” He jerked his head in the direction of his son. “He thinks I don’t know that.”

Since I wasn’t sure what to say, I didn’t say anything.

“So do you have any suggestions?” the old man asked.

“I’ll find my own woman, thank you very much,” Harry said.

Harrison raised one eyebrow and gave me a conspiratorial grin. “We’ll talk later,” he said.

He looked over at the table. “If you want to wash up, looks like we’re ready.”

I gave Boris one last scratch. He made a soft noise that sounded a lot like a sigh.

“Go lie down,” Harry said to the dog. He padded over and lay down next to the old man’s chair, head on his paws.

I washed my hands at the sink and took the seat Harrison indicated at the table.

Over shepherd’s pie and Mary’s apple crisp—which was delicious, no surprise—we talked about the library and the problems with the roof at the community center. After Harry poured me a second cup of coffee, I leaned back in my chair, crossed my legs and fixed my gaze on the old man.

“So, why did you invite me to dinner?” I asked. “It wasn’t just to tell me you’d already done an end run around me with that check.”

“I can’t just enjoy the pleasure of your company?” he said.

I folded one arm over my chest and behind me Harry Junior gave a quiet snort of disbelief.

I smiled. “You can,” I said. “And I think you know I enjoy your company or else I would have said no to the invitation, but I also know when I’m being played like a five-string banjo.”

Harrison laughed, which made his resemblance to Kris Kringle even more pronounced. “I figured you’d like to know more about Burtis and his ex-wife,” he said.

I studied the old man. He might have been in his eighties, but he didn’t miss anything. “Why do you think that?” I asked.

I wasn’t going to admit he was right, even though he was. As I’d told Owen and Hercules, the Mayville Heights grapevine could be just as good a source of information as the Internet.

His expression grew serious. “Just because you and Marcus Gordon are keeping company doesn’t mean you’re going to sit around on your hands when your friends are in trouble.” He studied my face for a moment. “Burtis Chapman is your friend, isn’t he?” It was more of a challenge than a question.

That was really what it all hinged on. Was Burtis Chapman my friend? After a long moment I nodded.

Harrison leaned against the back of his chair and folded both his arms over his midsection, his eyes fixed on my face. “Good,” he said. “Then you’d better get to work and find out who killed his ex-wife before your fella arrests him.”