A Tale Оf Two Kitties

chapter 15

As she often was, Micah was waiting for me on Marcus’s back deck. She seemed to share the same prescience that I’d seen in Owen. Her whiskers twitched and she sniffed at the canvas bag I was carrying.

“Chicken soup,” I said. “He’ll probably let you taste it.”

She made a satisfied “Mrr,” jumped down and led the way over to the back door.

Marcus was at the sink, washing lettuce. For a moment I just enjoyed looking at him. I thought about what Mary had once said about him: “I know what really matters about a person is what’s inside, and he is a good man inside, but that candy shell outside looks pretty dang delicious!” I had to admit she was right.

Micah meowed loudly then, as if to announce me, and Marcus looked up and smiled. “Hi,” he said. He dropped the lettuce into the strainer and wrapped me in a slightly wet hug. His mouth covered mine and I forgot all about his wet hand on the back of my neck.

I forgot about pretty much everything.

He finally let me go and I noticed that his face was as flushed as mine felt. “I have to stop doing that if we want supper,” he said. “And we do want supper, right?”

“Yes?” I said. The fact that I’d answered as a question made him laugh. I set my bag on the chair, lifted out the two Mason jars of chicken soup and handed them to him. “For lunch next week,” I said.

“Chicken noodle?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

I nodded.

“Thanks.” He dropped a kiss on the top of my head as he moved to put them in the fridge.

For the first time I noticed that the small table in the middle of the room had been set with extra care, a tablecloth instead of placemats, and four fat pillar candles. “This is beautiful,” I said. “Is this for me?”

“It is,” he said, moving back to the sink to finish washing the lettuce. “Given the past couple of weeks I thought maybe you could use a little romance.”

“I definitely could,” I said as I slipped out of my jacket.

“Good. We have about forty minutes until we eat, which means we have about forty minutes to talk about the case.” He glanced at me. “I know that you want to.”

“All right,” I agreed, dropping onto the closest chair. Micah came to lean against my leg. “Did you know the day before he died Leo got one of those pieces of mail they found at the post office?”

Marcus hesitated for a moment. “Yes,” he finally said.

“Did you know there was a key in the envelope?”

He looked over his shoulder at me. “A key?”

“Sandra Godfrey delivered the letter and Leo opened it in front of her. She said the only thing inside was a silver key.”

“What kind of a key?” he asked. “A house key? A car key? One of those little keys for a diary?”

“I don’t know. All Sandra said was that it was a silver key. Marcus, what if it was a car key?”

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s say it was.” He grabbed a carrot from the counter. “What are you thinking? That another car caused the accident that killed Meredith Janes twenty years ago and that someone, somehow got the key to that car and instead of talking to the police put it in an envelope and mailed it to her estranged husband?”

“No,” I said, reaching down to stroke Micah’s soft fur. She seemed to be following the conversation, which didn’t really surprise me. Like Owen and Hercules, Micah was a Wisteria Hill cat. “Even Owen wouldn’t let me get away with a theory as far-fetched as that.” I sighed. “It’s just that I can’t seem to let go of the idea that there’s a connection between what happened to Meredith Janes all those years ago and Leo’s murder.”

Marcus turned to look at me. “Why?” He gestured with the carrot. “Go ahead. Make your case.”

I tucked one leg up underneath me, getting a little more comfortable. Micah nuzzled my hand as if in encouragement. “All right,” I said. “First of all, there’s nothing that suggests what happened to Leo was some random act—a robbery gone wrong, for example.” I leaned sideways for a moment so I was in his line of vision. “I’m assuming I’m right about that.”

“Keep going,” was all he said.

“So it was personal. Thanks to that video Mariah Taylor filmed, Simon has an alibi.”

Marcus smiled as he chopped the carrot. “You can say ‘I told you so’ if you want.”

I smiled back at him. “I thought that was implied,” I teased. I was getting a kink in my back so I lifted Micah onto my lap. She immediately stretched across my legs. “Harry had a reason to kill Leo—at least in theory.” I held up a hand before Marcus could object. “Yes, I know killing someone over an old watch is a pretty weak reason for murder, but people have been killed for less.”

“Agreed,” he said, dropping the chopped carrot into what I was guessing was our salad.

“More important, no one who knows Harry would ever believe he could kill anyone and he also has an alibi. That leaves two people: Elias Braeden and Leo’s late wife’s best friend, Celia Hunter.”

Marcus turned to face me. “I don’t see how Celia Hunter could have killed Leo. I doubt she has the upper-body strength to swing that piece of sculpture. As for Elias Braeden, he was on the road between Minneapolis and here.”

I held up one finger. “Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean Celia couldn’t have the strength to have swung that sculpture. Look at Mary. People mistake her for just a sweet, cookie-baking grandma but she could probably take you down with just one roundhouse kick.”

“Point taken,” he said.

I held up a second finger. “And Elias’s alibi is weak. He could have left a little bit earlier than he says he did or driven a lot faster. There’s some wiggle room. I think we need to look at both of them anyway.”

Micah meowed loudly.

“See? She agrees with me,” I said, smiling at the little cat.

Marcus snapped on the oven light and bent down to look through the door. I was so busy watching him that I completely missed what he said. He turned and looked expectantly at me.

“I’m sorry, I got sidetracked. What did you say?”

“I said okay; let’s start with Celia Hunter.”

“All right,” I said. “Didn’t you think it was odd she came here just to show Leo that letter she received? I don’t see why she thought it was so important.”

He nodded. “I had the same thought.”

“And she was at Leo’s apartment no more than half an hour before his murder.”

“The woman has an alibi, Kathleen,” Marcus said. “Leo Janes got a phone call from a former colleague at the university where he used to teach just as she was leaving. He heard Leo say good-bye to her, not to mention Mrs. Hunter isn’t tall enough or strong enough to have killed him.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He set down the cast-iron frying pan he’d just picked up and gave me a puzzled look. “Unless she was wearing stilts, yes, I’m sure. So is the medical examiner. The murder weapon was that piece of abstract metal art. It’s heavy. Too heavy for Celia Hunter to have picked up. And even if she happened to have a bionic arm that we didn’t know about she was too short to have delivered the blow that killed Leo.”

Micah sat up then and jumped down to the floor. She moved over to sit next to the stove, either to see what was going to be happening there next or because she’d decided to switch sides in the discussion.

I pulled my other leg up and rested my chin on my knee. “What if he was bending over?” I said.

Marcus picked up the pan again, set it on the burner and turned on the heat.

“Think about it. This wasn’t a planned murder or the killer would have had a weapon with her—or him. What if Leo bent down to pick something up and Celia saw her opportunity?”

“Except that piece of artwork is solid metal.” He frowned at the pan. “Could you swing a twenty-pound bag of potatoes at my head?” he asked without looking at me.

“No,” I said. “But Maggie probably could.”

Marcus did glance at me then. “Okay, but how about Rebecca?”

I shook my head. “No, but I think Celia’s stronger than we both know. I found photos online of her from this past spring as part of a medal-winning dragon boat team.” I put my hand around the upper part of my left arm. “She has actual muscles here. I don’t think it’s that unrealistic that she could have lifted that statue.”

“So what’s her motive?” He added a little butter and some olive oil to the pan.

“That’s where I’m stuck,” I said with a shrug.

“Okay, so what’s your case for Elias Braeden?” He set two small bacon-wrapped filets into the pan. Micah’s whiskers began to twitch as the smell of searing beef filled the kitchen.

“Leo took his casino for about a million dollars. And Elias doesn’t know how he did that so it leaves him open for it to happen again, or at least it did while Leo was alive. Add to that he worked for Idris Blackthorne at one time. Idris had a reputation, and not all of that was just talk.”

“So his motive is?”

“Money. Or in the heat of the moment, anger, especially if Leo wouldn’t explain how he’d managed to win so much money.”

“I’ve seen those motives before,” Marcus agreed. He gave the pan a little shake and then turned the meat. “Do you happen to know if Celia or Elias are right-handed or left-handed?”

I closed my eyes for a moment and pictured Celia picking up things at the flea market. “It’s possible that Celia is left-handed,” I said. “I don’t know about Elias.”

“I think you need to give up on the idea that Celia Hunter is the killer,” he said. “And I know you think there’s some connection to what happened to Leo’s former wife twenty years ago, but I think your connection is just a coincidence.”

“Wait a minute, the killer is left-handed?”

Marcus held up both hands like he was surrendering. “I didn’t say that.”

I grinned at him. “You didn’t have to.”

He put our filets in the oven to finish cooking then pulled me up out of my chair so he could kiss me again, and for a while I forgot all about Elias Braeden and Celia Hunter.

• • •

Sunday dawned cold and wet. Eddie was coaching at hockey camp in Red Wing and Marcus was going along to help and to rub elbows with some former Wild players. I had been supposed to spend the afternoon with Roma but she called about ten to tell me a truck towing a trailer full of Angora show goats had gone off the road just outside of Lake City. She was on her way there to help with the injured animals.

I was at loose ends after lunch so I decided to go down to the library to repair some of the books that I knew had been piling up in the workroom. Neither Owen nor Hercules was willing to dash through the rain to the truck but I didn’t mind having the library to myself. As much as I loved it when the hundred-year-old-plus building was full of life, I liked the occasional moment when I could walk through and appreciate all the beautiful details that made the library feel like my second home: Oren’s carved sun over the doors, the mosaic tile floor, the intricate, wide woodwork that Oren had matched so well it was impossible to tell where old ended and new began, and of course shelf after shelf of books.

I pulled into the parking lot and when I got out of the truck a sleek silver Mercedes pulled in beside me. Elias Braeden was behind the wheel. He got out and came around the back of the car. “Kathleen, could I talk to you for a minute?” he asked.

“Were you following me?” I said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just need to talk.”

“What about?” I said. I was careful to keep some distance between us.

“Leo Janes.”

I nodded. “All right.” It was drizzling lightly, not enough to be called a shower, just enough to be annoying.

“Could we go inside?” Elias said. He was wearing a gray trench coat over dark pants. I had on my purple quilted jacket and a black-and-white scarf at my neck. Neither one of us would be cold staying outside.

“I’m good here,” I said. I put one hand on the side of the truck. I didn’t think Elias was stupid enough to try anything, but I had a couple of hockey sticks in the bed of the truck from a game of driveway hockey with Marcus. Maybe I couldn’t swing a twenty-pound bag of potatoes at Elias’s head, but I could swing a hockey stick if I had to.

“The woman you were with in the café on Friday. She told you she saw me with Leo.” He stood with his feet apart, hands in his pockets.

“You lied to me,” I said.

“No, I didn’t. I told you I didn’t see Leo the day he died. I didn’t. I went to see him the day before, not to threaten him but to offer him a security job. He turned me down.”

“Can you prove this?”

Elias nodded. “Leo turned me down but he suggested I hire one of his former grad students. I didn’t tell you that because we were still negotiating her contract, but now that it’s signed you and the police are welcome to talk to her. She’ll confirm that Leo called her about my offer.” He held out a piece of paper. “This is her name and her contact information.”

I put the piece of paper in my pocket. “Thank you,” I said. I hesitated. “I apologize for thinking the worst of you.”

He smiled. “No apology necessary. I admire your loyalty and your tenacity. If you ever want to make a career change, please call me.” He got back in his car and pulled out of the lot.

I headed for the front entrance. It seemed pretty clear that Elias wasn’t Leo’s killer. Was Marcus wrong about Celia Hunter, I wondered? Was I right? I didn’t know what to think. I was glad for the distraction working on the books would give me.

Several of the repairs were minor and I breezed quickly through the first six books. I realized that the seventh was going to need Abigail’s expertise. She’d taken a course on conservation and had been able to work on several of the old books in our reference section. That was where this book had come from. The stitching had come loose and several pages had fallen out. One page in particular seemed to have been sticking out beyond the book cover, unprotected by it, for some time. The edge was worn in several places and the paper was faded a lighter color about a quarter of an inch in from the edge the entire length of the page. I’d seen another page faded and damaged in the same way just recently. I should put that book aside for Abigail as well, I thought. I looked through the other books in the pile but I couldn’t find it. Maybe Susan or Mary would know? I’d ask them both on Monday. Mia, too.

Mia.

Simon.

That was all it took to make the connection. The page I was remembering wasn’t from a book, it was the second page of the letter Celia Hunter had shared with Simon. The outside edge of the paper had been faded and worn in exactly the same way as the book page in front of me. In the case of the book, the page had been loose and a small part of the edge had extended beyond the protection of the cover. So how had the second sheet of pink stationery gotten worn and faded?

I thought about it for a moment. Both sides of the envelope were worn almost through at the folds. If the two pages of the letter hadn’t been folded evenly then that edge of the second page would have been exposed to changes in temperature and humidity inside that dusty wall, unprotected by the first page of the letter and by the envelope worn thin along the crease. But why didn’t the first page of the letter show the same wear on the opposite edge of the page where that edge would have been exposed by an uneven fold of the pages?

Because there was a middle page, I realized. That wasn’t a two-page letter, it was a three-page letter. Celia had shown Simon his mother’s letter, she just hadn’t shown him all of it.

I didn’t stop to think whether it was a good idea or a bad idea; I closed up the workroom, got my purse and my jacket from my office and headed for the St. James Hotel to find Celia Hunter.

Sunday afternoons during the fall the St. James serves high tea in their dining room. That was where I found Celia. She was sitting at a table for two and I walked across the room as though I was supposed to be joining her, pulled out the second chair and sat down. She looked cool and elegant in a long purple heather sweater and black trousers.

“Hello, Celia,” I said.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Since she had skipped the social niceties and gotten right to the point, so did I. “I want to know what it says on the page of Meredith’s letter that you didn’t show us.”

The color drained from her face but it was the only sign that she was rattled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said stiffly.

I leaned back in my seat, crossing one leg over the other to fake a confidence I didn’t exactly feel. I had no way to make her show me the missing page of the letter.

At that moment a waiter made his way across to us. “Ms. Paulson, hi,” he said as he came level with the table.

“Hello, Levi,” I said, smiling at the teen. He was a voracious reader, in the library at least once and often twice a week.

“I’ll bring you a cup and a fresh pot,” he said, smiling back at me.

“Thank you,” I said.

Celia was far too polite to protest that I wasn’t her guest. Levi moved to a nearby sideboard and returned with a larger pot of tea, wrapped in an old-fashioned quilted cozy, and a china cup and saucer. “Let me know if you need anything else,” he said.

I poured myself a cup of tea and added a little milk and two lumps of sugar. My mouth was dry and getting the tea ready bought me a little more time to figure out what I was going to say next. I took a sip and looked at Celia across the table. “The letter you received from Meredith had three pages, not two. For some reason you didn’t want Simon—or, I’m guessing, Leo—to see what was written on the middle page.”

“You have a very . . . fanciful imagination, Kathleen,” she said.

I may have rattled her a little when I’d first appeared at the table, but she seemed completely composed now. “What I don’t understand is if there’s something that you feel you need to hide in that letter then why show it to Leo or Simon at all?”

“And as I already said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I studied her for a moment, hoping I seemed as unconcerned as she did, when I realized she wasn’t quite as calm as she seemed at first glance. Her hands were folded in her lap, left over right, and I noticed she was fingering something in her right hand. I caught a flash of something round and purple and suddenly a lot of things began to make sense.

“You’re working the twelve steps,” I said.

Something shifted in Celia’s face. She reached up and set the purple nine-month AA coin she had been fingering on the table. “Yes,” she said. “I wanted to make amends with Leo.”

I remembered what Oren had told me. “Because you helped break up his marriage.”

Wordlessly, she nodded.

“But you didn’t tell Leo or Simon the truth.”

Celia took a deep breath and let it out. “Kathleen, do you know the twelve steps?”

“Yes,” I said. Susan’s husband, Eric, was in AA.

“Then you know that it’s important to make amends but not if that will hurt the person or someone else.” She picked up the purple token and set it down again. “I’ve been sober for ten months,” she said. “I know what a cliché it is, but I really am a different person—a better person. What I did to Leo and Simon was unforgivable and forgiveness wasn’t what I was looking for. I wanted them both to know that Meredith wouldn’t have left them if it hadn’t been for me. If I hadn’t told Victor what to say to win her over.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again I could see regret and shame in them. “I was all set to tell Leo the truth and let him read the letter from Meredith. Yes, there’s another page. And then he told me that Victor was here and that he’s sick.”

I understood then. “And you knew if you told Leo the truth that any chance of the two of them reconciling would be gone.”

She nodded. “He’s sick, Kathleen. He could die. I couldn’t do it. No matter what he did—what we did—I couldn’t take away his chance to have a relationship with the only family he has left.”

“But you’d already told Leo about the letter.”

“Yes.” She studied the purple token for a moment and set it on the table once more. “Then I realized I could just remove the middle page. The letter still made sense.”

“Why did you push to show it to Simon?”

“A reporter who is doing an article about the mail that was found contacted me. I made the mistake of telling her that I had received a letter from an old friend. I was afraid Simon would put two and two together and figure out the friend was his mother. This way I could . . . control what he—what everyone—found out.” She looked past me for a moment and then her gaze met mine again. “And because, selfishly, it made me feel a little better.”

“What’s on the missing page?” I asked.

She reached for her purse tucked next to her hip in the upholstered chair, removed the pink envelope and handed it across the table to me. I took out the three sheets of paper and read the letter, the whole letter, from the beginning.

Dear Celia,

I hope you don’t throw this letter away as soon as you see it’s from me. You probably hate me for what I’ve done, but you couldn’t hate me more than I hate myself. Victor and Leo may look the same but they’re very different men. I thought Victor was exciting, and he seemed to know what I was thinking in a way Leo didn’t, as if he could see into my heart somehow. But I was wrong. I’ve learned that Victor is selfish, manipulative and cruel. He doesn’t really care about me. He doesn’t love me. I think the only reason he showed any interest in me at all was to hurt Leo. He’s so jealous of his brother and I have proof of that now. I miss Simon so much. Victor is going out of town in a couple of weeks. I’ll be able to leave then. I was a childish fool. I don’t know if Leo will ever forgive me but I have to find out.

I love him. I will see you soon.

Love, Merry

I set the pages down on the cream tablecloth. I had to swallow down the lump in the back of my throat. “She was coming home to them.”

Celia nodded. “And I know I have to let Simon read this. Not telling him leaves him with more pain than telling will cause Victor.”

“I think so,” I said. I put the pages back in the envelope and handed it back to her. “Thank you for telling me the truth.”

“I should have told it from the beginning,” she said.

“You were doing what you thought was right,” I told her. “I can’t fault you for that. I don’t think anyone can. I do have one more question, though. Did you know Leo also received a piece of that lost mail?”

Celia shook her head. “He didn’t say anything to me.”

Nothing in her face or her body language made me think she wasn’t telling the truth. “Was it from Meredith?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Can you think of any reason she might have sent him a key?”

A frown formed between her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “A key?”

I nodded.

“No. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” I said. I reached into my bag, pulled out a pen and a small notepad and wrote down my cell phone number. “If you think of anything, anything, please call me.”

“I will,” she said. “And I promise you I’ll call Simon and let him read the letter.”

“He’s in Minneapolis with his daughter for a couple of days,” I said. “They’ll be back Tuesday. That’s soon enough.” I got up and made my way across the room.

Levi was at another table. I waited by the door and when he turned I raised a hand. He came right over to me. I gave him my credit card and paid for our tea with a generous tip. After what I’d learned from Celia it seemed the least I could do.

It was still raining when I stepped outside. I ran through the rain back to the truck, sliding onto the front seat, shaking the water off my hair. Then I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. Marcus would be in Red Wing until late. There was nothing he could do with what I’d learned from Celia. At least not right now. I put my phone away.

I was glad Simon and Mia were in Minneapolis for a couple of days. Because as soon as Simon read that letter he was going to suspect what I was starting to strongly suspect—that Victor Janes had killed his own brother.