A Tale Оf Two Kitties

chapter 4

I took a slow, shaky breath and then another one. Leo was lying partly on his side, partly on his back, his head turned to the right. I could see some kind of injury to the back of his head. A sculpture about a foot and a half high lay on the floor nearby, two twists of angular metal curved around a central copper disk. There was blood on the curved edge of metal on one side. The sculpture had to be what had caused that injury.

My stomach clenched. I looked away and took another deep breath. “Safe journey,” I whispered.

I stood up and looked around. Nothing seemed to be disturbed in the small apartment other than a photo that was lying on its side on a dark wooden table behind Leo Janes’s body, knocked over maybe when he was attacked. The black-and-white, smiling image of a young woman in its inexpensive plastic department-store frame seemed a little out of place next to the other photo on the table—a candid shot of Simon and Mia. That photo had been matted and framed in a sleek metal frame. I wondered who the woman in the old photo was, maybe someone from Leo’s past he’d been hoping to reconnect with while he was in town. I felt the prickle of tears but I blinked them away. Rebecca and Mia were waiting.

I stepped back into the hallway. Rebecca still had her arms around Mia. The teen’s eyes darted all around. “Where’s Grandpa?” she immediately asked. She tried to pull away but Rebecca kept her arms around the teen.

“Kathleen, where’s Grandpa?” Mia asked again in a shaky voice.

I took both of her hands in mine. No matter what I said, the words were going to be wrong. “I’m sorry,” I began. I stopped and swallowed a couple of times.

Mia had gone rigid, so pale that I was afraid she was going to pass out.

“Sweetie, he’s gone.”

“No.” Her voice was so quiet I almost missed the word. Mia shook her head, repeating “No” over and over as tears begin to slide down her face. She tried to take a step toward the apartment pulling against Rebecca’s grasp. I folded her into my arms and she slumped against me, trembling with silent sobs. Rebecca’s eyes met mine over the top of Mia’s head. She shook her own head and gently rubbed Mia’s back.

“My phone is in my pocket,” I said, poking the right side of my jacket with my elbow. Rebecca reached over, pulled out my cell and took a few steps away from us. Owen leaned against my leg. I laid my cheek against the top of Mia’s head and wished there was some way I could fix everything.

After a minute Rebecca walked back over to us. “The police are on the way,” she said. “And I hope you don’t mind, I called Marcus.”

“I’m glad you did,” I said. She slipped the phone back into my pocket.

“Take her upstairs, please,” I said.

Mia lifted her face. It was wet with tears and smudged makeup. “No,” she said vehemently. “I’m not going anywhere.” She fixed her gaze on me. “You can’t make me leave.”

I looked at Rebecca, who gave her head a little shake. I turned my attention back to Mia. “The police are coming. When they get here I’m going to need to talk to them. And it’s going to get really chaotic here. Please, go upstairs with Rebecca.”

“I won’t leave Grandpa by himself,” Mia said. I recognized the stubborn set of her jaw and the flash in her eyes. In that moment she reminded me so much of Simon. There was a lump in the back of my throat that I couldn’t seem to get rid of no matter how many times I tried to swallow it down. For a moment I was hit with the feeling that I couldn’t do this.

I imagined my mother, what she’d do and say if she were here, and then I steadied myself. I knew she would tell me to just put one foot in front of the other. “He won’t be alone. I’ll stay with him,” I said. I looked Mia in the eye. “I promise.”

I could hear the sirens getting closer. I wiped the tears from Mia’s face with my hand. “Go with Rebecca.”

Mia swallowed and pressed her lips together. Then she nodded. I handed her off to Rebecca. They headed for the stairs and Owen followed, looking back over his shoulder at me before making his way up the steps.

I knew Officer Keller, the responding police officer, from Marcus’s past cases. The army vet had the bearing of a former military man and an air of calm competence that was reassuring. I explained what had happened. “The door was open?” he asked.

“It had been pulled to but it wasn’t closed all the way,” I said.

He nodded. “Where are Mrs. Henderson and Mr. Janes’s granddaughter?”

“I sent them upstairs.” I hesitated. “I didn’t want Mia to see . . . everything that’s going to happen.”

He nodded again as if that made sense to him. Then he pulled on a pair of disposable gloves. “Please stay here, Ms. Paulson,” he said.

“All right,” I said. I took a couple of steps back and hugged myself against the damp cold that seemed to be sinking into my bones.

Behind me I heard something and turned to see Marcus in the doorway. “Kathleen,” he said, relief washing over his face. He gave me a quick hug and then pulled back to study me. “What’s happened?”

I gestured at the apartment door. “Leo Janes—Simon’s father—he’s, uh, dead.”

He frowned. “What are you doing here?”

I explained about Rebecca’s parcel and how I’d offered Mia a drive to see her grandfather. “Rebecca came down and let us in. I thought Leo would have heard us talking over there by the stairs. When he didn’t come out of his apartment I just had the feeling that there was something hinky going on.”

Frown lines furrowed his forehead. “How did you get into the apartment? Did Mia have a key?”

“No. The door was open just a crack. I went in because I knew then that . . .” I didn’t need to finish the sentence.

“Are you all right?” he said.

I pulled a hand over the back of my neck. “No, but I’ll manage.”

Officer Keller came to the door then. “Detective,” he said.

I put a hand on Marcus’s arm. He held up a finger to the officer and turned back to me. “Is it all right if I call Simon?” I asked. “Mia needs him. And if he has to hear this over the phone it should at least be from a friend.”

Marcus hesitated and then nodded his agreement. “Go ahead. I can send someone to get him.”

I gave his arm a squeeze and dropped my hand. The whole town knew we were a couple, but I tried not to take advantage of that when it came to his cases.

Marcus pulled on a pair of purple disposable gloves and went into the apartment. I walked back to the entryway. I wished Hope Lind, Marcus’s partner, were here. I could have gone with her to tell Simon about his father in person. It really wasn’t the kind of news he should get over the telephone. But Hope was in a rehab center in Minneapolis getting her mobility back after a serious injury to her leg that had required surgery to implant two plates in her ankle. She’d been hurt tracking a killer through the woods behind Wisteria Hill just before Halloween.

I wasn’t sure how to tell Simon what had happened but I hoped the news would be a little better coming from me. I pressed a hand over my mouth. There was no way to make this news any better.

Suddenly I could hear my mother’s voice in my head saying, “You can do this, Katydid.” I pulled out my phone, found Simon’s number and tapped the screen.

“Hi, Kathleen,” Simon said when he answered. “Let me guess, Mia thinks I’m taking too long.” There was an edge of amusement in his voice that sliced me like a knife thrust into my stomach.

“Hello, Simon,” I said, working to keep the emotion out of my voice and not completely succeeding. For a moment words escaped me. Then I found them. “Mia is all right”—I knew he needed to hear that first—“but there’s been an accident.”

“What happened?” His voice was devoid of all emotion.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s your father.”

For a moment there was silence, then Simon said, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

I nodded, then remembered that he couldn’t see me. “Yes,” I said. “Mia needs you.”

“Where are you?”

“Your father’s apartment.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Are you all right to drive?” I asked before he could end the call. “Marcus— The police can send someone or . . . or I can come get you.” I wasn’t sure if it would be all right for me to leave but I didn’t want Simon to have an accident on the way across town.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Stay with Mia . . . please.”

“I will,” I said.

He didn’t say anything else and I realized he’d ended the call.

I stood there for a moment, watching the rain run down the glass panel in the heavy wooden door, then went upstairs.

Mia was curled up on Rebecca’s sofa, wrapped in a knitted blanket. She was cradling a mug that I guessed held hot chocolate. Her tears were gone. She’d washed her face but she was very pale. Rebecca sat beside her and Owen was on duty at her feet with what I suspected was a saucer of chicken.

Rebecca gave Mia’s arm a squeeze and got to her feet. She came over to me. “The police are here,” I said, keeping my voice low.

“What do you need, my dear?” she asked. I could see the concern in her blue eyes.

I shook my head. “I’m all right,” I said. But I wasn’t. This was not my first dead body but I felt more off-centered than I ever had before, maybe because of Mia. It was impossible not to feel the raw ache of her pain.

Rebecca put her arms around me and gave me a quick hug. “How about a cup of coffee?” she offered.

“That would be good,” I said, giving her hand an extra squeeze before I let her go.

Rebecca headed for the kitchen. I sat down on the black tweed sofa. “Your dad’s on the way,” I said to Mia.

Her knees were pulled up to her chest and she wrapped her free arm around them. “I bugged him until he said he’d come for Thanksgiving,” she said.

I knew she meant her grandfather. “And he was happy to be here,” I said. I flashed to Leo Janes at the library with his granddaughter. His happiness had been evident.

Mia held out her hand almost unthinkingly and I took it. “I don’t know how to do this,” she said. “I’ve never been in a world that Grandpa wasn’t in.” She chewed the corner of her lip.

I took the mug of hot chocolate and set it at her feet. Owen gave it a curious look but seemed to know this would be a bad time to investigate any further. I put my arms around Mia, who laid her head on my shoulder. “I don’t think there is a right way to do this,” I said. “One foot in front of the other is what my mother always says. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other and you’ll end up somewhere—maybe even where you wanted to go.”

“Your mother sounds pretty cool,” Mia said.

“She is,” I agreed.

Rebecca brought me a cup of coffee and I took exactly two sips from it before Simon appeared.

He wasn’t wearing a tie and the shoulders of his leather jacket and his face were wet with rain. He swiped a hand over his face and exhaled loudly. Mia was already on her feet. She went into her father’s arms and he folded her against his chest. He looked at me over the top of his daughter’s head and I could see the pain in every single line on his face.

Things seemed to speed up then. Mia told Simon what happened. She seemed steadier with him there. Marcus came in just as she was finishing. He told Simon and Mia how sorry he was about Leo and I noticed that his response was more personal than the usual, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” he continued, “but I need to ask you a few more questions, Kathleen.”

“I have questions, Detective,” Simon said.

“I understand,” Marcus said. “Just let me get a few more details from Kathleen and I’ll do my best to answer them.”

“You can use the kitchen,” Rebecca said.

“Thank you,” he said. He gestured for me to go ahead of him and I touched Mia’s shoulder as I passed her.

Marcus and I sat at the small round wooden table in the kitchen. “I just want you to walk me through what happened one more time, from the moment you realized the apartment door was ajar.”

“Okay,” I said. I explained how I had knocked and called out Leo’s name. “I know I should have just stopped and called nine-one-one right there. I just thought . . .”

My hands were flat on the table and Marcus covered one of them with one of his own. “It’s okay,” he said. “You said you gave Mia a ride because she was coming to see her grandfather. Why didn’t she just ring his doorbell when you first came in?”

“She did,” I said. “Leo didn’t answer when she rang the bell. Mia thought he was listening to music but something felt off to me.” I told him briefly again how I had stepped inside the apartment, seen the body and realized that Leo was dead. “I tried to tread carefully and I only touched his neck. I, uh, I didn’t want to mess up any potential evidence.”

He nodded. “I wish you didn’t know that.”

I knew he was referring to the fact that this wasn’t the first case of his I’d been mixed up in.

“Yeah, me too,” I said.

He leaned back in his chair. “I just have a few questions for Rebecca and then I’ll talk to Simon.”

I got to my feet. “I’ll get her for you.”

He raked a hand back through his hair. “Do you think Rebecca would mind if I had a cup of that coffee?” he asked, gesturing at the pot.

“Of course not.” I managed a small smile. “You know Rebecca.” There were several stoneware mugs on the counter next to the coffeepot. I gestured at them. “Pour yourself a cup and I’ll go get her for you.”

He got to his feet, stretching his neck to one side.

I paused by the doorway. “Are you going to tell Simon how his father died?” I asked.

For a moment he didn’t move. Then he turned to look at me, his movements slow and deliberate. “What do you mean?”

“I saw his head,” I said. “I saw that metal sculpture or whatever it was on the floor.” I swallowed. “And the place where his skull was crushed. I know he was murdered.”