Cat Trick

10

Hercules went back and forth from the bedroom to the hallway while I got dressed in the morning, which I didn’t seem to be doing fast enough for him. Now that he’d met Wren, he was clearly motivated to help her and he wanted to get going. The third time he went into the hall, he didn’t come back. I figured he’d given up and gone to wait for me downstairs.

I found him sitting next to my briefcase underneath the coat hooks. Since he knew my laptop was inside, I wondered if he was suggesting I get started on some research.

Owen seemed to have other priorities. He’d nosed his food dish into the middle of the floor and was waiting beside it.

Hercules meowed the moment he caught sight of me. Owen leaned over so I couldn’t miss seeing him and meowed as well, just a little louder. But Hercules was a cat on a mission. He stalked across the floor and sat in front of Owen’s bowl, looking up at me with serious green eyes.

They weren’t brothers for nothing. Owen immediately began pushing the dish around his brother. I could see the fur was going to be flying—literally—in just a minute if I didn’t step in. I held up one hand. “Stop, stop, stop,” I said sharply.

They didn’t even look at me. Owen was staring at Hercules through slitted golden eyes. Hercules glared back, unmoving except for his tail. I clapped my hands together, which made them both jump.

“Cut it out!” I said.

I pointed at Hercules. There was something a little self-righteous in the way he sat there perfectly straight, head up, neck a smooth expanse of white fur. “I know you want to help Wren,” I said. “So do I. But these are not the Middle Ages and we are not the Knights Templar. We have time for breakfast.”

He dropped his eyes and meowed softly.

“Your heart’s in the right place,” I told him.

Owen lifted his head, his eyes darting sideways to his brother. I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hang on a minute, Fur Ball,” I said.

He turned his attention to me, at the same time setting a paw on the edge of his bowl. “You are not starving to death. I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but you can wait five minutes while I figure out what I’m going to do first.”

I pressed my lips together and shook my head. Had I actually just told a cat that breakfast was the most important meal of the day?

Owen took a step forward then—or at least tried to—except he ended up putting his weight down on the side of the bowl where his left paw had been resting. I don’t know if it was all the stinky crackers he’d been eating, or the extra racing around the backyard, but he seemed to have more strength than he realized. The plastic dish somersaulted into the air end over end like it had been launched from a catapult. I lunged for it, but I was too slow. It landed, upside down, on Owen’s head and slipped a bit sideways so it looked like a jaunty, oversize beret. He gave a yowl of outrage and shook his head furiously, which just made the bowl dip down over his eyes. I grabbed it before he got any madder.

And he was mad. His gray fur was standing on end, one ear was turned inside out and a bit of something—a crumb of cracker maybe—was stuck to a whisker.

“Are you all right?” I asked, swallowing down the bubble of laughter that was threatening to get loose. Hercules had wisely become engrossed in sniffing the end of his tail and wasn’t even looking at us.

Owen bobbed his head and sneezed away whatever had been stuck to his whiskers. I reached over and fixed his ear, smoothing down his fur while he made huffy noises of indignation. His dignity was wounded, but otherwise he seemed to be okay.

I got breakfast for both cats, setting Owen’s dishes in the usual place, but moving Hercules’s a bit farther away. “You are the soul of discretion,” I whispered to Herc, giving him a little scratch under his chin as I put the food in front of him.

I washed my hands and stuck my oatmeal in the microwave. I turned around in time to see Hercules pick up a couple of pieces of cat kibble, carry them over and drop them by Owen’s bowl, then go back to his own food. After a moment, Owen sniffed the peace offering, moved each triangle a couple of inches and ate them.

All was well in my small corner of the universe.

I had more than an hour before I had to leave for the library, so after we’d all had breakfast and washed hands (me), and face and paws (Hercules and Owen), I got the laptop so I could do some research into Legacy Tours. It took some digging, but I finally found what I was looking for in a six-month-old article in the archives of an online business magazine.

“Listen to this,” I said to Hercules, who had been sitting patiently at my feet.

Legacy Tours had been started by Alex and Christopher Scott while the twins were still in university. The company had found its niche putting together all-inclusive getaways for corporate clients. Almost three years ago, Mike Glazer, an old friend from law school, had joined Legacy as a full partner. According to the article’s author, the new collaboration hadn’t worked from the start. About a year ago—six months before the piece had been written—the rumblings about Mike Glazer had turned from hints that the Scott brothers were planning to buy out their old buddy to whispers that Mike had been taking kickbacks from businesses the tours patronized and was about to be ousted. The author even cited a couple of his “questionable” deals. But in the six months since, nothing had changed. The rumors persisted, but Mike had remained at Legacy.

Hercules moved closer to my chair. I patted my thighs and he jumped onto my lap and immediately leaned forward, as if he wanted to read the article for himself. Feeling a little foolish, I scrolled down the screen.

“You think it’s possible his partners had something to do with Mike’s death?” I asked. Hercules didn’t seem to have an opinion.

“I don’t see it,” I said, stretching my arms over my head. “Why kill him? The business was doing well. If they wanted Mike out, they could have just bought him out. And if he was taking kickbacks, they could have had him arrested. Heck, they should have had him arrested.”

Hercules touched the screen with one paw.

I leaned in to see what had caught his attention. It was a photograph of Mike Glazer at some kind of travel conference, smiling at the camera. He was flanked by his partners, who, it turns out, were identical twins. But that wasn’t what made me stare at the computer and then click on the picture to enlarge it so it filled the screen.

I had no idea which one, but one of the Scott brothers had been in Mayville Heights. I’d spoken to him. He was the man I’d talked to at the library, the same one I’d seen at Eric’s getting directions from Claire the night Marcus and I had gone for dinner.

The night Mike Glazer had died.

“Holy molars, Batman,” I said to Hercules, who looked at me blankly.

My brother, Ethan, had reintroduced me to the campy sixties TV show when I was back in Boston. Unlike his brother, Herc didn’t see the fun in watching old episodes of Batman online, although I suspected what Owen really liked was sprawling across my stomach and getting scratched behind his ears.

Owen wandered in from the living room, pretending he needed a drink. I knew what he really wanted was to see what Hercules and I were doing. Seeing him reminded me about the button he’d found. Like I’d told Marcus, it didn’t look like something plastic or mass-produced.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture the jacket whichever Scott brother I’d seen had been wearing—red and black wool and denim collar and cuffs. It had struck me as being something Ethan would wear. I was pretty sure it hadn’t been mass-produced either.

Finding photos of Alex and Christopher Scott online was surprisingly easy. Scrolling through to see if I could find one of them wearing that jacket wasn’t. Hercules’s furry black-and-white head kept getting in the way.

“I appreciate your help, but you need to get down,” I told him. Muttering, he jumped to the floor.

I found what I was looking for on the fourth page: Alex Scott wearing the red and black jacket at a fundraiser for the children’s hospital. I enlarged the picture and studied the buttons. I’d gotten only a quick look at the one Owen had found, but these seemed to be the right size and color.

As I sat there staring at the screen, Owen leaped into my lap. He looked expectantly from the computer to me. He was the one who’d discovered the button and gotten the best look at it. Feeling more than a little silly, I pointed to the photograph. “Does that look like the button you found?”

He squinted at the image, his face just inches from the screen, and then he pulled his head back and looked at me kind of cross-eyed. It could have been a yes.

I looked at my watch. It was almost time to leave. “Thank you,” I said. I set him on the floor and he headed for the living room. “And thank you, too,” I told Hercules. “You were a big help.”

He rubbed against my leg and then went through the kitchen door into the porch. I wondered what it said about me that seeing him literally go through a door had just become a regular part of my day. I shut down my computer, put it back in my briefcase and got my sweater from the living room closet.

“I’m leaving,” I called. After a moment, there was a muffled meow from Owen. He was either in the living room closet or looking under the couch for more catnip chicken parts.

Hercules was on the bench by the window in the porch. I stopped to pet the top of his head. “Have a good day,” I said. He jumped down and walked me out, waiting for me to open the porch door instead of just walking through it. With the sun shining and the grass dry, I knew he’d probably walk over and take a nap in Rebecca’s gazebo.

Abigail and Mia were waiting for me by the steps when I pulled into the library lot. Tuesday meant story time, so the first thing we did was get the puppet theater out of the storage room and set it up in the children’s section.

“Could I borrow Mia?” Abigail asked. “I could use an extra set of hands with the little ones.”

“Absolutely,” I said. I figured Mia, with her electric-blue hair, would be a big hit with the preschoolers.

With story time, a group of seniors checking out our meeting room to see if it would work for their Spanish class and what seemed like more traffic than usual for a Tuesday, it was noon before I realized it. I’d worked for Susan a couple of weeks earlier and she was repaying the favor, which meant I could go out to Wisteria Hill for a late lunch with Roma. She was standing by her SUV as I bumped my way up the rutted driveway, and she walked over to meet me as I got out of the truck.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She had a grin that matched the sunny day. She held up both hands and looked around. “I still can’t believe this place is mine. I have the urge to jump up and down and squeal. Is that silly?”

I shook my head. “No. I think it’s wonderful that this place isn’t going to be lonely and empty anymore.” I’d worried that Roma might regret her decision to buy the property. After all, her biological father’s remains had been found in the field out behind the carriage house. But putting him to rest—literally and figuratively—had been good for her.

In a misguided attempt to keep Rebecca from learning about her mother’s part in the death of Roma’s father, Everett Henderson had left the old estate unoccupied for a very long time after his mother died and the caretakers of the old house retired. But when Tom Karlsson’s remains were unearthed back in the spring, the truth about Ellen Montgomery had been exposed as well. There were no more secrets to hide. Everett and Rebecca had decided to make their life together in town, and now Wisteria Hill would be Roma’s home.

“Do you want the tour first, or do you want to eat first?” Roma asked as we walked across to the old house.

“Tour, of course,” I said. I’d been inside more than once while I was helping Rebecca clean everything out, but I wanted to walk around with Roma and hear what her plans were.

The house was more than a hundred years old, and like a lot of homes of that vintage, pieces had been added to it over the years. Roma pointed to a small porch on the far side of the building. “That’s coming down,” she said. “Oren said it’s not even on a proper foundation, and the floor is half-rotten anyway.”

We stepped onto the verandah that ran across the front of the house and down one side. Roma reached over and put a hand on the railing. “This needs to be replaced as well, but Oren says he can duplicate the original design.”

Oren Kenyon was an extremely talented carpenter. He’d created a beautiful sunburst to hang above the main door just inside the library entrance. He was also Roma’s cousin in the convoluted way that everyone seemed to be related to everyone else in Mayville Heights.

Roma unlocked the side door and we stepped into what I guessed had originally been the pantry. “I may make this into a mudroom,” she said. “Or I might just knock the wall down and make it part of the kitchen.”

The country kitchen was a big, bright space with windows that looked out over the backyard, or would once the overgrown garden was cut back. There was also a dining room, a living room and a small parlor on the main floor. Upstairs, I knew there were four bedrooms and a big bathroom with a huge claw-foot tub.

Structurally, the house was sound. The old stone foundation didn’t leak, and there was no rot in the floor joists. The ceilings were high, and the wide wooden floors just needed to be refinished. The rooms were filled with light, and if there were any ghosts, well, they must have been friendly ones, because there was nothing foreboding about the place.

I stood in the middle of the living room floor and turned in a slow circle. “I love this house,” I said to Roma, smiling because her grin seemed to be contagious. “If you don’t jump up and down and squeal, I might.”

“How about we eat first?” she said. She led the way back into the kitchen, where she’d left a small cooler on the round wooden table in front of the window overlooking the backyard.

“Let me guess,” I said. “Rebecca gave you the table and chairs.”

Roma nodded, opening the lid of the cooler. “She said Old Harry made them for Everett’s mother—he turned the legs on a hand lathe—and the table belonged here. Eddie said he’ll refinish it for me.”

“Is there anything he can’t do?” I teased.

Her cheeks turned pink. “No,” she said with a smile, setting salad and a corn bread muffin in front of me. “He’s just about perfect. Well, except for the spiders.” She handed me a napkin roll of utensils and took a thermos and a couple of cups out of the cooler.

“Spiders?” I said. “What does he do? Raise them as a hobby?” I took a bite of my salad. It was good: turkey, apple and dried cranberries mixed with lettuce and carrots and tossed with a citrus dressing.

Roma gave a snort of laughter. “No. I’m pretty sure he has a bit of a phobia about them.”

“Why?” I asked, breaking my muffin in half.

Roma hooked her chair with a foot and pulled it closer so she could sit down. “Because I caught him stomping on something in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He said he was trying to push a nail back into one of the floorboards.”

“Maybe he was,” I offered. “Or maybe he’s auditioning for the road company of Riverdance and didn’t want to spoil the surprise.”

She shot me a skeptical look and picked up her fork. “Of course. That sounds so much like Eddie.”

The thought of Eddie Sweeney—all six foot four inches of muscled hockey player—being afraid of a little spider made me smile. He was so perfect in every other way; he cooked, apparently he could refinish furniture, he was a star hockey player for the Minnesota Wild and a romantic boyfriend, plus he looked like he should be on the cover of GQ, not Sports Illustrated.

“Have you talked to Marcus?” Roma asked.

“We’re taking it really slowly,” I said. “We’ve had dinner a couple of times, but that’s all.” Except for a kiss that had made me forget, momentarily, the thirteen times table, my own name and how to breathe. But I didn’t say that out loud.

“Good to know,” she said. “But I meant, have you talked to him about Mike Glazer?”

“I think he’s waiting for something official on the cause of death,” I said.

She frowned, chewing on her bottom lip.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Probably.” She reached for the thermos and poured iced tea for both of us.

“Tell me.”

“I feel like an old busybody.”

“You’re not an old busybody,” I said. Roma knew more about what was going on around town than most people did. Half the town was in and out of her clinic with their pets and she still made house calls, but she kept what she heard and saw to herself. “C’mon. What is it?”

She exhaled slowly. “Okay. Last Wednesday night, I was late getting out of the clinic, and Eddie’s at training camp, so I decided to have supper at Eric’s. I parked the truck and I walked down to the corner first to mail a letter. When I turned around, Mike Glazer was outside the restaurant and he was arguing with Liam, Maggie’s boyfriend or whatever he is.”

“I know,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean ‘you know’?”

“Claire was working that night. Liam was so distracted by whatever happened out on the sidewalk that he left his coffee mug behind. She gave it to me to give to Maggie.”

“Did Claire hear what they were saying?” Roma asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, I did. They were pretty loud, and I felt awkward about just walking up to them, so I stepped into the alley.” She ran a finger up and down the side of her glass. “I wish I hadn’t, because even from there I heard Liam tell Mike to leave town—except he didn’t put it quite that nicely. He told Mike to forget about the food tasting and the art show—everything—it was all over.”

“You think he was serious?” I asked.

“Very.” Roma traced a scratch on the tabletop with two fingers. “He said if he saw Mike on the street, he might just forget what the brakes on his truck were for.”

“And the next morning . . .”

“Mike Glazer was dead.”

“Roma, you need to tell this to Marcus,” I said.

She brushed a strand of dark hair off her cheek and sighed. “I know. I was trying to convince myself that what Liam said didn’t mean anything. People say things like that all the time when they’re angry.”

“I know that,” I said. “And I’m not saying that I think Liam had anything to do with Mike Glazer’s death. It’s Marcus’s job to figure that out.”

“You’re right,” Roma said, picking up her fork again. “I’ll call him after lunch.” She leaned an elbow on the table and propped her chin on her hand. “Let’s talk about something else. So, you’ve had two dinners with Marcus.” Her eyebrows went up on “two.” “Just exactly how slowly are you two taking it?”

“Very, very slowly,” I said, making a face at her. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“What would you like to happen?” This time she wiggled her eyebrows at me.

“I would like to eat my lunch,” I said, feeling my face get red.

She laughed, and I knew that when she and Maggie found out Marcus had kissed me, they were going to giggle like a couple of sixth graders.

We finished lunch—there was rice pudding with peaches for dessert—and then Roma walked me around the yard and told me about her plans for the outside of the old house. As we came around the side of the carriage house, she stopped suddenly and put a hand on my arm. “See that?” she asked, pointing to the old lilac hedge. The long grass moved, and I saw what looked like a flash of ginger fur.

“Is that another cat?” I asked.

She nodded. “I don’t know if it’s feral or someone abandoned it, but this is the third time I’ve seen it.” She started walking again. “It’s a little marmalade tabby, about half-grown. I’ve been calling it Micah.”

“For the biblical prophet?” I asked.

“More for the mineral. It was the way the cat’s fur seemed to glisten in the sun.” She gave a half shrug and looked a little embarrassed. “Eddie likes to collect rocks.”

We walked back to the driveway. “I’m so glad you’re going to be living out here,” I said as the two of us stood by my truck. “I’m glad the cats will be safe. And if I can do anything, anything to help, please ask.”

“Can you paint?” she asked.

“Roller, brush and sprayer.” I held up one, two and then three fingers.

“You’re hired,” she said with a laugh.

“Anytime,” I said. I hugged her. “Thanks for lunch. I’ll see you at class tonight.”

Roma waved as I started down the rutted driveway—the first outdoor project on her list. In the rearview mirror, I saw her pull out her cell phone and I hoped that was because she was calling Marcus. I had meant what I’d said to her. Just because Liam had told Mike if he saw him again he might forget what the brakes on his truck were for didn’t mean that Liam had had anything to do with Mike’s death.

I spent the afternoon cleaning out the flower beds in the backyard, getting them ready for the bag of compost Harry had promised to drop off to me. Owen and Hercules helped.

Owen’s idea of helping was to pounce on every dead and dried-up plant I pulled out of the ground. Hercules took a more paws-off approach, sitting on one of the wooden Adirondack chairs and meowing comments from time to time.

I was putting my tai chi shoes in my bag and complaining about Cloud Hands to Hercules, who wasn’t even pretending to listen, when the phone rang after supper. It was Rebecca.

“Hello, Kathleen,” she said. “Are you going to class tonight?”

“I am,” I said. “Would you like a ride?”

“I would, please.” I could hear her smile through the phone. “I was going to walk, but I’m feeling a little lazy and I don’t want to take my car because I’m meeting Everett later.”

Rebecca was many things, but lazy wasn’t one of them. I knew if I questioned her, I’d find out she’d done more all day than I’d done in the past three days. “I’m leaving in about ten minutes,” I said. “I can come around and pick you up.”

“You don’t need to do that,” she said. “I’ll come through the back. It’ll give me a chance to see the boys.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll see you in a minute.”

I went back into the kitchen and wasn’t at all surprised to see “the boys” waiting by the back door, Owen giving his face a quick wash so he’d look presentable for Rebecca. They followed me into the porch.

Rebecca was making her way across the backyard. Even with arthritis, she moved like a much younger woman, a combination, she said, of good genes and regular tai chi practice. She was wearing gray yoga pants and a gray sweater over a rose-colored T-shirt and carrying a wildly colored, crazy-quilted tote bag.

“Thank you for giving me a ride,” she said as reached the back steps.

“Anytime,” I said.

“Everett and I are trying to decide on a wedding date,” she said. “After class, we’re going to sit down with our calendars.” She rolled her eyes just a little when she said “calendars.”

“Are you thinking next spring?” I asked.

She smiled at Owen and Hercules, who both gave her adoring looks, then looked at me. “To tell the truth, Kathleen, all I’m thinking is, Let’s get on with it.”

I laughed.

“Do I sound like—what’s the word—a ‘bridezilla’?”

I shook my head. “No. I think you’re the opposite of a bridezilla.”

“Everett is determined that we’re going to have a ‘wedding.’ I’d be happy with just Ami and the boys and a few close friends like you.” She shook her head. “Sometimes that man can be unbelievably stubborn.”

“He loves you,” I said.

She smiled again and it lit up her entire face. “I know,” she said, a tinge of pink coming to her cheeks. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

I couldn’t help grinning back at her. “Yes, it is.” I gestured toward the kitchen. “I just have to get my keys and my bag.”

“Take your time, my dear,” Rebecca said, setting her tote on the window bench. “I’ll just catch up with Owen and Hercules.”

I went back into the kitchen, stuffed a towel and my water bottle in with my shoes and wallet and got my keys from my purse. Liam’s coffee mug was in the bottom of the bag. I made sure both cats had a drink and then I went back out into the porch. Rebecca was sitting on the bench, hands folded in her lap, talking to Herc and Owen, who seemed to be listening intently. Both cats were purring like twin diesel engines.

I held the kitchen door open. “Time to say good night,” I told them.

Rebecca got to her feet. “Come over for tea some morning,” she said.

Owen meowed with his usual exuberance. He knew tea with Rebecca usually meant a catnip chicken. He was so busy looking back at her over his shoulder that he almost walked into the doorframe. He pulled up short and shook himself. Hercules looked from Owen to me, and I thought I saw an almost imperceptible head shake.

I locked both doors, and Rebecca and I walked around to the truck. “I like your bag,” I said as we backed out of the driveway.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she said, smoothing the fabric with one hand. “I kind of got it under false pretenses.”

“You?” I shot her a quick glance. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s a piece from the art show,” Rebecca said. “I was helping Ruby unpack everything last week, and I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. Ella King made it.”

“She does beautiful work,” I said.

“Yes, she does. When it looked as though the show and the food tasting were going to be canceled, Ruby let me buy the bag, but I wonder if I should let her have it again now that everything is back on.”

“It’s probably not the only bag Ella made, but why don’t you ask Ruby.”

“That’s a good idea,” she said. “That’s what I’ll do.” She rubbed her right wrist.

“Is your arm bothering you?” I asked. My own wrist felt fine now. I stopped at the bottom of the hill and waited for a couple of cars to go by.

“Just a little,” Rebecca said. “I was helping Mary this afternoon. We were ironing all the backdrops for the booths in the two tents. Mary had ironed every single one of them last week and hung them on a couple of racks in the tent, but of course the police had to look through them and they got wrinkled again. I think I’m a bit out of practice. I don’t iron many things these days.” She laced her fingers in her lap. “That was so sad about Michael.”

I turned right, glancing over at her as I did. “You knew him?”

“Heavens, yes,” she said. “I gave Michael his first haircut and every one after that until the family left Mayville Heights. He was so full of life.” Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw her hold up one hand. “And yes, Kathleen, I’ve heard what people have been saying around town about Michael—that he was rude and insulting and no one really wanted to work with him.” She sighed softly. “All I can say is, that’s not the young man I knew.”

“What was he like when you knew him, when he was younger?” I asked, looking ahead for a parking spot.

“Full of life,” Rebecca said. “He could hardly sit still in the chair for me to cut his hair—not because he had a problem paying attention. It was just that he was so full of energy and there were so many things he wanted to do. He was on the ski patrol. He helped his old coach at every track-and-field event the little ones at the elementary school had.”

I spied an empty parking space, big enough for the truck, a couple of doors down from the tai chi studio and backed into it.

“You’ve probably heard what happened to Michael’s brother,” Rebecca said.

I nodded.

“He was different after that. But then, how could he not be?” She looked at me, her blue eyes warm and kind, as always. “But I think that young man who was so full of life was still somewhere inside. Maybe if Michael had had a little more time here, he would have come out.”

I reached over and patted her arm. “That’s a nice thought,” I said.

When we got out of the truck, Ruby was coming up the sidewalk, and we waited by the door for her. Her hair was in three ponytails sticking out from her head at odd angles. “Hi,” she said. She gestured to her hair. “Thank you for the conditioner,” she said to Rebecca. “I can’t believe how soft my hair is.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Rebecca said. She held up her bag. “Now that the show is on again do you want this back?”

Ruby shook her head, making her little ponytails bounce. “No. I have more of Ella’s bags. What I want is for you to make sure you have that bag with you at the show and that you tell people you like it.” She frowned at Rebecca. “You do like it, right?”

“Heavens, yes,” Rebecca said. They started up the stairs, discussing the merits of Ella King’s tote bags. I followed them.

Rebecca saw the best in everyone and everything. That was one of the many things I liked about her. But she was also a very good judge of people, and if she said that Mike Glazer was a good person at heart, I had to believe she’d seen some goodness in him.

Maggie had decided we were going to spend the class working on our weak areas. I knew for me that would be Cloud Hands. After the warm-up, we spread out and she moved from one person to the next, watching, encouraging, making small adjustments. By the time we finished the form at the end of the class, my T-shirt was blotched with patches of sweat.

“Your Cloud Hands look better,” Maggie said, holding her arms out and shaking them as she walked over to me.

“Seriously?” I said.

“I wouldn’t say they did if they didn’t.” She pulled both hands back through her blond hair. “Could you give me a ride?” she asked. “I have three bags of cotton stuffing in my office, and I don’t really want to carry them.”

“Sure,” I said. “That reminds me. I have Liam’s coffee mug in my bag.”

“Why?” The bridge of her nose wrinkled as she frowned at me.

“Because he left it at Eric’s and hasn’t been back. Claire gave it to me to give to you.”

“He’s had a lot on his mind,” Maggie said with an offhand shrug. “Thanks for bringing it.”

I didn’t see any point in bringing up the argument Liam had had with Mike. Maggie had a lot on her mind, too. “What are you going to do with three bags of stuffing?” I asked instead. “Are you working on another piece like Eddie?”

Maggie’s life-size Eddie Sweeney had been part of last winter’s Winterfest display at the community center. And he’d indirectly been the reason Roma and the real Eddie had started going out. The last time I’d been at Maggie’s apartment, Eddie had been sitting in her living room with his skates propped on a footstool.

Maggie grinned and gave her head a little shake. “Don’t tell Roma, but I’m actually working on Eddie. He needs a little bodywork”—she patted her hips with both hands—“if you know what I mean. Eddie—the real one—wants stuffed Eddie as a housewarming gift for Roma.”

“Aww, that’s so romantic,” I said, using the sleeve of my shirt to wipe sweat off the side of my neck.

“It is, isn’t it?” Maggie said as we started for her office. She bumped me with her hip. “Kind of like offering to put the pieces of an old rocking chair together for someone.”

I shot her a daggers look. She held up both hands as though she were surrendering. “I’m just saying,” she said.

We carried the three bags of cotton stuffing out to the truck. Mags put two of them in the middle of the bench seat and fastened the lap belt around them. The third bag she jammed down by her feet.

Maggie’s apartment was on the top floor of an old brick building that had been a corset factory at one time. The stairs came out onto a landing with a huge window that flooded the space with light. To the left was a small bathroom and an equally small bedroom.

Straight ahead, down two steps, was the living space, dark hardwood stretching all the way to the other end of the long room. Maggie’s dark chocolate dining room table and chairs were in the area next to the stairs where the wall jutted inward to make room for a small roof terrace outside.

An old Oriental rug, which Mags had confided she’d scavenged from the dump and half carried, half dragged home, marked the living room space. There were two deep blue sofas and a square-shaped leather chair in front of the built-in bookshelves with their beveled glass doors. Faux Eddie was in the chair, skates up on the dark blue footstool. Maggie had somehow fastened a copy of the Wall Street Journal to his hockey gloves. From the front it actually looked like a real person sitting there reading the financial news in skates and full hockey gear.

At the end of the long room there was a small galley kitchen with a dropped hammered-tin ceiling.

“How about some hot chocolate?” Maggie asked, setting the two bags of stuffing she’d been carrying on one of the sofas and heading for the little kitchen. She set Liam’s coffee mug on the counter.

“Sounds good,” I said. I put the bag of stuffing I’d been holding next to the other two, sat on the empty sofa and studied Eddie. He really did look like the real thing.

I watched Maggie move around the tiny kitchen, shifting her weight instead of stretching and overreaching. It made me wonder if eventually all the tai chi practice would have me moving like that. “That’s really nice of you to let Eddie have Eddie,” I said. “I had lunch with Roma out at Wisteria Hill today.”

Maggie turned from the refrigerator, a container of milk in her hand. “I know,” she said. “Roma called me—before she called Marcus.”

“She told you about seeing Liam arguing with Mike Glazer.” So she knew after all. I kicked off my shoes and curled my feet up under me.

“She did. I know he was angry about the way things were working out. Mike was driving everyone crazy.” She shot me a sidelong glance. “That’s why he left his mug at Eric’s, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “Claire said he just tossed some money on the table and left before she could catch him.”

She sighed. “Kath, Liam’s not the kind of person who would hurt someone, let alone kill anyone. People say a lot of things they don’t mean when they’re angry.” She got the marshmallows out of the cupboard over her head. “I got mad at Jimmy Harrison in third grade and told him I was going to stuff him in the toilet and flush him to China.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Of course not,” she said. “You can’t flush someone to China. And anyway, eight-year-old boys don’t fit in elementary school toilets.”

“I’m not going to ask how you know that,” I said.

Maggie just laughed.

I looked over at Eddie. Straight on, it looked like he was reading the news, but from this angle it seemed as though he were watching me out of the corner of his eye, over the top of the newspaper. “Mags, is Eddie watching me or am I just imagining things?” I asked.

“Very good,” she said with a smile. “You’re the first person to notice that, or maybe I should say you’re the first person to say you noticed it. Everyone else has just moved to the other end of the sofa.”

“So you did it on purpose?”

She picked up one of the heavy pottery mugs and brought it over to me. “It was an experiment. Remember me telling you about the art show I went to in Detroit?”

“There was a painting—a landscape. You said it made you uncomfortable, but you couldn’t figure out why at first.”

She nodded. “It turned out there was a person in the image, almost lost in the shadows of the picture. Wherever you stood in the gallery, it felt as though that figure were watching you.” She picked up her own mug. “Close your eyes.”

I closed them. The feeling I was being stared at seemed stronger now that I couldn’t see Eddie.

“Don’t look,” Maggie said.

I folded my fingers tightly around my cup, and after a minute I felt Maggie sit down. “Okay, open your eyes,” she said.

The first thing I did was turn my head toward Eddie. I had no idea what she’d done, but he wasn’t watching me anymore. That unsettling sensation, like someone’s breath on the back of my neck, slipped away.

“What did you do?” I asked.

Maggie was curled into the opposite corner of the sofa. “I just moved his head, maybe an inch or so down and about the same amount to the side.”

I leaned forward. “It’s almost like he’s smiling at me now.”

“I know,” she said. She grinned and took a sip of her hot chocolate.

“Mags, do you know much about Legacy Tours?” I asked.

“A little,” she said. “Why?”

I hesitated. “This stays between us?”

Her expression turned serious. She put one hand over her heart. “Of course.”

“Harry Taylor—Junior—asked me to poke around a little and see if I could maybe figure out what happened to Mike.”

“Why?”

I leaned back against the arm of the couch. “Because his sister, Elizabeth, is friends with Wren Magnusson, and Wren’s pretty much the only person who really feels bad about Mike Glazer’s death.”

“And if Elizabeth is upset, then so is Harry Senior.”

“He’s a good person. I couldn’t say no.”

Maggie shook her head and gave me a half smile.

I shrugged. “Okay, I could have said no, but I care about Harry. He feels like family to me.”

“You care about Harry. Harry cares about Elizabeth. Elizabeth cares about Wren. It’s getting complicated, Kath.”

“If I find out anything, anything, the information goes to Marcus.” I took another sip from my cup.

Maggie wrinkled her nose at me. “So I’d be wasting my time telling you what a bad idea this is.”

“Pretty much,” I said.

She pulled her feet up so she was sitting cross-legged. “Okay. Most of what I know about Legacy Tours comes from Liam. You know that they specialize in putting together travel packages for corporate clients.”

I nodded. “I did a little research. I know that Alex and Christopher Scott started the company and they brought Mike in about three years ago.”

Maggie propped her cup on one knee. “Did you know that the company was having financial problems at the time?”

I sat up a little straighter. “No.”

“Legacy wasn’t the only company Liam considered for this tour pitch. He checked every one of them very carefully. He knows someone who works for one of the big banks in Chicago. Liam found out that before Mike became a partner, Legacy had a high expense-to-revenue ratio, but in the last eighteen months things had turned around.”

She peered into her cup, frowned and got up for another marshmallow. Then she settled back on the sofa again. “I know the major reason Liam thought Legacy was the best choice for this whole tour idea was because Mike Glazer had grown up here, but I also know it was important to him that Mike was a good businessman.”

My foot was going to sleep. I stretched out my leg and rolled my ankle in slow circles. “I found an article online that hinted that Mike was taking kickbacks from some of the businesses he was dealing with.”

Maggie nodded and took another drink. “It’s probably the same article Liam found. I know he spoke to the writer. He said all the guy had were rumors and loose talk.”

“Did you know that either Alex or Christopher Scott was here the day Mike died?” I asked.

“Are you sure?”

I shifted against the arm of the sofa. “Positive. I spoke to whichever one of them it was at the library.”

Maggie started nodding her head. “I remember Liam saying that Alex was getting an award from some service organization. There was a big dinner in Minneapolis. It’s only an hour’s drive. He probably came to see Mike about something.”

I made a face and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. If Alex Scott had been at a dinner in Minneapolis, he couldn’t have been here when Mike Glazer died. But maybe his twin could have been.

“Kathleen, you don’t really think it was one of Mike’s partners who killed him, do you?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It sure would be a nice, simple solution though, wouldn’t it?”

She nodded, lacing her fingers around her cup. “It would,” she said. “But it seems to me that when someone dies around here, there’s nothing nice or simple about it.”