Curiosity Thrilled the Cat

4

Repulse Monkey

Blood in the library and Gregor Easton’s body at the Stratton. It wasn’t a coincidence. I wanted it to be, but it wasn’t.

I could see Detective Gordon’s blurry shape moving on the other side of the heavy plastic. Any minute now he was going to come out and tell me again that I had to leave the building. I hurried up to my office and collected my bag, sweater and laptop, because it seemed pretty clear I wouldn’t be getting any work done there, and locked the door.

I headed for the front entrance. The sky had darkened and spits of rain hit the glass. Now what? I didn’t want to walk home in the rain. I had an umbrella in my office. Then I remembered. No, I didn’t. I’d used it the last time I’d been caught at the library in the rain.

I stood in the entryway and looked through the wavy glass in the old wooden doors. The wind was pushing heavy gray clouds across the sky. It was probably only going to be a shower. I could wait here, out of Detective Gordon’s way, until the rain stopped, and then go.

I heard the murmur of his voice then. I leaned sideways, just far enough to look through the ironwork gate. He was standing by the temporary circulation desk, back to me, talking on his cell phone. His voice seemed to bounce off the library’s high ceiling all the way across to where I was standing.

I couldn’t help hearing what he was saying. Well, maybe I could have, but I would have had to stuff my fingers in my ears and start humming the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” to do it, and I was trying to stay unobtrusive. After all, Detective Gordon had asked me to leave the building and he already seemed to think I was mixed up in all of this. It was better if I just waited quietly until the rain stopped, and then left.

“. . . found the primary crime scene,” I heard him say into his phone. He listened. “No. Now would be better . . . Fine.” He snapped his cell shut, and I stepped back out of his line of sight.

Which didn’t do me any good, because instead of going back to his “primary crime scene” he walked across to the entrance. I stood to one side of the heavy doors and tried to look as though I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Which, really, I wasn’t.

“Ms. Paulson, why are you still here?” he said.

I gestured at the glass. “It’s raining.”

“I see that. You can’t make it from here to the parking lot?”

“I don’t have a car.” And this was the first time I’d regretted that since I’d arrived in Mayville. “I don’t have an umbrella, either,” I added.

Just then a young man came dashing across the grass, holding a giant golf umbrella—alternating red, green, and blue sections—and a large black case. Detective Gordon unlocked the door for him. The man shook his umbrella, stepped inside and handed it to the detective, who immediately handed it to me.

“Now you have an umbrella,” he said.

It looked like a circus umbrella, or, more accurately, like a circus tent. There was a logo for spiced Jamaican rum on one panel. The other police officer opened his mouth, looked from me to Detective Gordon and closed it again. “I’ll make sure you get this back,” I told him. I pulled my key ring out of my pocket and unsnapped the library keys from the rest. “Silver one is for this door,” I said, holding them out to the detective. “Brass one is for the security gate. The other key is the master for all the inside locks.”

“Thank you,” he said. He leaned in front of me to open the door.

I ducked under his arm, then turned on the top step. “There are two more muffins and half a pot of coffee in the staff room. Please help yourself.” I popped open the umbrella and headed down the steps, waggling it at the bottom to let him know that I’d heard his surprised thank-you.

The rain stopped about halfway up Mountain Road, and by the time I was walking up the driveway I could see a patch of blue sky over the left corner of Rebecca’s house. I left my wet shoes and socks and the dripping umbrella on the porch and stepped into the kitchen.

Owen was sprawled on one side by the table, chewing on something. He looked up, startled, with a What are you doing home? expression on his furry gray face.

“What are you eating?” I asked, and I swear he put both paws on top of whatever it was he’d been gnawing on. “Oh, like that’s going to work,” I said, crossing the kitchen floor. “Let me see.”

The cat looked up at me with big golden eyes. “Let me see,” I said again.

He dropped his head and lifted one paw. A mangled piece of what had to be part of a Fred the Funky Chicken carcass lay on the floor.

“Owen! Where did you get that?” I said.

He made a rumbling merow sound.

“Do you have Fred the Funky Chicken parts stashed all over the house?”

Nothing.

I crouched down next to the cat. “Owen, look at me,” I said.

He slowly lifted his head. If a cat could look guilty, he did.

He leaned forward and gave me a head butt. Sighing, I scratched behind his left ear and Owen began to purr. “You are such a suck-up,” I told him.

Hercules came in from the living room and stopped when he saw us. He tipped his head to one side and looked up at me.

“Yes, I know I’m not supposed to be home.” I gave Owen one last scratch. “I need more coffee,” I told the cats. “And I have to make a couple of phone calls.”

I started the coffeemaker, and while it did its thing I called Mary, who was one of my full-time staff members, to tell her not to come to work. Luckily, her husband answered the phone, so I didn’t have to get into any details on the why. I left a message for Jason, our summer student, on his voice mail. Then I called Everett Henderson’s office and briefly explained what was going on to his secretary, Lita.

When the coffee was made I poured a cup and padded, barefoot, out to the porch, with the cats trailing behind me. The stretch of blue sky above the roofline of Rebecca’s house was getting bigger. I slid my feet into a pair of rubber clogs and went out into the yard.

Rebecca waved from her back step. I set my mug on the landing by the screen door and headed across the grass toward the gap in the lilac hedge. Owen moved ahead of me, stalking like some sleek jungle cat on the prowl—probably hoping Rebecca had a treat for him.

I glanced back over my shoulder. Hercules was coming, too, stopping every few steps to shake the damp from his feet. Herc was a bit of a fussbudget, a cat version of Goldilocks. He didn’t like anything to be too hot, too cold, or wet at all.

He gave me his I am such a poor pathetic kitty look.

“It’s a little rain on the grass, you wuss,” I said. “I’m not carrying you.” He shook his right front paw and gave me the look again. “I have a blister on my foot from walking up the hill in those canvas flats, and you don’t hear me complaining,” I said. Herc just stood there, paw in the air. He didn’t move, didn’t blink. I waited another twenty seconds or so to save face before going back to pick him up.

Ahead of us, Owen had climbed onto the railing of Rebecca’s gazebo, pointedly ignoring Rebecca, who was calling to him and holding out her hand. I set Hercules on the gazebo steps and walked over to Rebecca. Like me, she was wearing rubber clogs. She had a gardening glove on one hand and she was holding a bouquet of lavender mums. Should I tell her about finding Gregor Easton’s body? I wondered. No. I didn’t want to be one of those people who couldn’t wait to spread bad news, and it wasn’t as though Rebecca would have known Easton.

“Good morning, Kathleen,” she said. “How are the cats?”

“Hi, Rebecca,” I said. “The cats are fine.”

“Do you think Owen would like another catnip chicken?”

“If he has any more catnip he’s going to end up with the munchies and an overwhelming urge to rent 2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Rebecca looked puzzled.

“He’s addicted to catnip. He’s decapitated four chickens and hidden pieces all over the house. He’s a kitty junkie.”

“Maybe he’s stressed,” Rebecca said. “Maybe it just helps him relax a little.”

I looked over at the gazebo. Hercules sat on the railing like an ancient Egyptian cat statue guarding the tomb of the pharaoh. Owen, on the other hand, was stretched out on his belly on the same railing, eyes closed, legs hanging down on either side.

“Thank you for caring about the cats,” I said. “But Owen doesn’t need any more catnip.”

“All right,” Rebecca said, but I saw her glance over at the cats and I knew she’d try to sneak Owen another fix, and who knew what to Hercules.

“Your flowers are beautiful,” I said, to change the subject.

“Would you like them?” Rebecca asked. “I already have two vases in the house.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.” She handed me the flowers, and as she did her sleeve slipped back and I saw that her right wrist was bandaged. “Rebecca, is your arthritis acting up again?” I asked. Rebecca used herbal poultices for her arthritis. Her wrists were often wrapped with unbleached cotton strips to hold the poultice in place.

She nodded and smoothed the pale blue sleeve down over the bandage and kept her hand there. “Yes,” she said. She looked a little uncomfortable. “I suppose I sound like an old lady, but I’d rather use something natural than take a lot of drugs.”

“You don’t sound like an old lady,” I said. “There’s a lot of interest these days in natural medicine. At the library where I worked in Boston we had an entire section on alternative medicine—dozens of books on using plants to treat and heal everything from a scrape to serious illnesses. The books were out a lot.”

“Do you miss Boston?” Rebecca asked.

“Sometimes.” I ran my fingers over the rosy-purple flower petals. “My parents are actors, so I’ve lived all over the place. But Boston is where I lived the longest, so it feels like home.”

“Your parents act?” Rebecca said. “Theater?”

I nodded. “And my dad has done various commercials over the years. Other than that they’ve been onstage.”

“Would I have seen your father in anything?” she asked.

Should I tell her he was the middle-aged man shaking it like James Brown in a commercial for medication to treat erectile dysfunction? Or that he was also the golfer telling his friends he could play eighteen holes again, thanks to his disposable undergarments?

“Do you remember the ad for the cereal Flakies—oat bran flakes and plump raisins?” I said, finally. “The leading competitor had the shriveled-up raisins.”

“I do remember that,” Rebecca said, pulling off her glove. “In fact, I’ve eaten the cereal. The announcer had a wonderful deep voice. Was that your father?”

I felt my cheeks getting red. “No, he was one of the shriveled-up raisins.”

Rebecca struggled to keep from smiling, but couldn’t help it. “The raisins were good, too,” she said.

Just then we heard footsteps coming up Rebecca’s gravel driveway. “That’s probably Ami, back from the store,” Rebecca said. “Have you met her? She’s interning at the theater and she’s also one of the lead voices in the festival choir. I’ve known her since she was a little girl.” She smiled. “She has an apartment near the Stratton, but you’ll see her here quite a bit. I’m teaching her to cook before she leaves for college.”

“She’s been in the library a few times,” I said, as Ami Lester came around the side of the house.

She had a canvas bag slung over one shoulder. A loaf of bread wrapped in brown paper and the dark green leaves of a head of romaine poked out of the top of the bag. Her red-blond hair was pulled into a high ponytail and she wore a gray T-shirt with a bust of Mozart silkscreened on the front. Mozart was wearing headphones, and I think his eyes were crossed.

Ami’s eyes were troubled and her face was pale. She stopped beside us and Rebecca touched her shoulder. “Is everything all right, dear?”

Ami swallowed a couple of times. “I, uh . . . I can’t believe it, but Mr. Easton is dead.”

Rebecca’s mouth moved, but at first no sound came out. She dropped the glove she’d been holding. “Dead?” she finally whispered. Her color was worse than Ami’s. I took her arm. “Here. Sit,” I said, easing her down on to the top step.

“I’m sorry,” Ami said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” She looked at me. “You’re the librarian, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I’m Kathleen.” I pointed at my house. “I just live right there.”

Rebecca reached for Ami’s hand. “You didn’t upset me, dear. You just caught me by surprise,” she said. “It’s not as though I knew Mr. Easton. I just knew of his reputation.” She rubbed her wrist. “Are you sure he’s . . . dead?” Her voice wavered a little.

Ami swung the bag off her shoulder and set it on top of her feet. “Uh-huh. Someone found his—him—early this morning at the theater.”

“I, uh, did,” I said.

They both stared at me.

“You found him—at the Stratton? At the theater?” Rebecca asked weakly. She let go of Ami’s hand. “Oh, Kathleen, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” I said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

“What were you doing at the Stratton?” she asked.

“I was looking for Oren.” I picked up the dropped glove and handed it to her.

“But why was he at the theater so early?” Ami said. “We never had early practice, because he said he only worked at a civilized hour.”

“Do the police know what happened?” Rebecca asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“He was old,” Ami said. “I bet he had a heart attack.”

I remembered the injury to Easton’s head. I wasn’t so sure it was a heart attack that had killed him. I felt a brush of fur against my leg. Owen. He sat beside me and looked intently at Rebecca.

“Did you come to check on me?” Rebecca asked him.

Owen meowed softly.

“He’s beautiful,” Ami said. She leaned forward and held out her hand to Owen, who ignored her. He took a few steps closer to Rebecca and meowed softly again.

“I’m fine, Owen,” Rebecca said. “At my age I should be a little more accustomed to people dying.” She stood up and managed a smile for Ami. “Let’s make brunch.” She looked at me. “Kathleen, would you like to join us?”

“Thank you,” I said. “But I have a pile of paperwork I need to start on.” I turned to Ami. “It was nice to see you again.”

“You, too,” she said.

Rebecca took a couple of steps toward me, reached up and laid a hand on my cheek. “My dear, I’m so sorry that you had to be involved in that man’s death.” She was still very pale.

“It’s all right,” I told her. “Take care of your arthritis, and call me if you need anything. And thank you for the flowers.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.

I started across the yard to the house. Hercules had disappeared from his perch on the gazebo railing. Behind me Owen meowed. I stopped and turned back to him, tucking Rebecca’s flowers under my arm. He looked at me and then at Rebecca’s house.

“She’s fine,” I said. Owen took a step toward Rebecca’s and stopped. “She’s fine,” I said again. “Ami is with her.”

He started back across the grass toward the small white house. I followed, scooped him up and started for home again.

Owen squirmed until he was turned around and could look over my shoulder. I opened the porch door, set the cat down inside and grabbed my cup from the railing. There was a fat, green-and-black-shelled bug doing the backstroke in my coffee. I picked it up and dropped it down into the grass. Three cups of coffee today, and I’d barely had one sip.

In the kitchen I put the flowers in water, got another cup of coffee, then almost dumped it on my bare feet when Hercules came up behind me and licked my ankle.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” I said. He rubbed his face against my leg in apology. “How did you get in? Did I not close the screen door?” I padded out to the porch again. Herc followed. The screen door was closed. Somehow he’d come in behind Owen and me and I hadn’t noticed.

I was trying really hard to distract myself, to not think about Gregor Easton’s body slumped at the piano at the Stratton. Or about the detective’s questions. He didn’t really think I’d done something to the conductor, did he?

In Rebecca’s backyard Ami was spreading a yellowflowered tablecloth on the table in the gazebo. Rebecca came out the back door, carrying a tray. Ami scurried to take it from her. I watched the two of them set the table, and I felt a sudden ache of homesickness settle in the middle of my chest like a lumpy blob of cold potatoes.

I went back into the kitchen and sat at the table with my coffee. Boston suddenly seemed a long way from Minnesota. My mother and father were doing Shakespeare in the Park again this summer. This year it was A Midsummer Night’s Dream. My mother was directing, with my father in the role of Nick Bottom.

On any given day, if they weren’t rehearsing or performing, they were reading a play to each other. So they might be completely in sync, grinning at each other like a couple of love-struck teenagers, or they might be going through “artistic differences” where they’d only speak to each other through other people. I wasn’t sure which version of their marriage was worse.

My parents had married each other twice. My younger brother and sister, Ethan and Sara—twins—were the result of their reconciliation. I was fifteen and mortified by the undeniable proof that my mother and father, whom I thought weren’t even speaking to each other, were instead having sex, and unprotected sex at that.

They were crazy . . . and I missed them. They drove me crazy . . . and I missed them. I felt the ache in my chest press up into my throat. I had eighteen more months in the contract I’d signed with Everett. Eighteen more months in Minnesota.

Hercules went to the living room door, stopped and looked back at me, then disappeared. After a minute, when I didn’t follow him, he came back to the door, stared at me and went back into the living room. “What?” I said. I set my cup down and went into the next room to see what the cat was up to.

He was sitting next to the cabinet that held the CD player and CDs. He swatted the door with a paw.

“Okay, I get it,” I said, reaching inside for a CD. “But it’s going to make Owen crazy.”

I picked up Herc as the first notes of “Copacabana” came through the speakers. About a week after I’d adopted the cats I’d discovered Hercules shared my love for Barry Manilow. When I’d put on a Manilow CD he would sit blissfully in front of the CD player, eyes closed to slits, bobbing his head to the music. Owen, on the other hand . . .

At that moment there was a loud yowl of cat outrage as a gray streak flashed by us and dove into the closet by the front door.

Herc and I looked at each other. I shrugged. Mr. Barry Manilow is not everyone’s taste.

Herc and I followed “Copacabana” with our kickline version of “Can’t Smile Without You.” By the time that song was over I felt a little better. I kissed the top of Hercules’ furry black head and set him on the floor, turned down the CD player and went to make lunch.

I worked all afternoon at the kitchen table. By suppertime I had made up the staff schedule through the end of September, ordered the books I wanted for the children’s section, and arranged to have several crates of reference material brought back to the library from one of Everett Henderson’s warehouses, where they’d been stored during the messiest part of the renovation. Plus, there was a pan of double-chocolate brownies cooling on the counter for when Maggie arrived to watch Gotta Dance.

She tapped on my back door at quarter to eight. “I heard what happened,” she said, kicking off her shoes. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“I hope Mr. Easton will be welcomed by the light,” she said, bending down to look for something in her backpack. “But if what I’ve heard about him was true, I think he has a few more lessons to learn.” She pulled out a bottle of wine and stood up.

“Ruby’s latest vintage,” she said with a grin. “I volunteered us as taste testers.”

She followed me into the kitchen. I got a plate from the cupboard for the brownies, while Maggie got the corkscrew from the drawer by the sink and set to work opening the wine.

“What is this wine made from?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Maggie said. “Maybe rhubarb. Maybe dandelions.”

“Do brownies go with rhubarb wine?” I said as she popped the cork.

Maggie’s grin got wider. “Brownies go with everything.” She swiped one from the plate as she passed behind me to get the wineglasses. “How long will the library be closed?” she asked as she poured.

“I don’t know.” I said. I picked up the brownies and headed for the living room. “I just assumed we’d be able to open tomorrow.” For the first time it dawned on me that the police could keep the library closed for days, putting the renovations even further behind schedule.

Maggie followed with the glasses. The TV was already on and Owen and Hercules were waiting by the footstool. “Hi, guys,” she said to the cats. She knew better than to try to pet them.

I set the brownies on the footstool and sat down, tucking my legs underneath me.

Maggie handed me my glass and curled up in one corner of the sofa. “What were the police doing at the library, anyway?” she asked.

I took a sip of my wine. It was light and fruity. “They—or at least the detective in charge—seem to think Easton and I were involved.”

She set her glass on the floor by the arm of the sofa and reached for a brownie. “Involved? You mean?” She waggled her eyebrows at me.

“Uh-huh. Apparently, onstage at the theater at six thirty in the morning.”

“They have to ask questions like that,” Maggie said, picking chocolate crumbs off the front of her T-shirt. “It doesn’t mean they think you actually did anything . . . or anyone.”

“They found blood at the library,” I blurted.

She sat up straighter. “Blood? Where?”

“In the part of the library that’s not finished, where the meeting room is going to be.” I took another sip of my wine.

Maggie relaxed against the cushions again. “So? With all the work that’s been going on and all the things that have gone wrong, I’m surprised they didn’t find part of an ear and a couple of fingers. Anyway, you said Easton was in the computer room.”

She was right. Gregor Easton hadn’t been anywhere near the space still being renovated, as far as I knew. I felt my stomach unknot.

Owen had been quietly moving across the floor toward Maggie’s glass. Now he stuck his nose in the top, sniffed and jumped back at the aroma. “Back off, furry face,” she said, picking up the glass.

Owen made low, grumpy sounds in his throat and moved back in front of the TV.

Maggie shifted position on the couch. “Kath,” she said, “Gregor Easton wasn’t a young man. He probably had a heart attack. There’s no way anyone would seriously believe you had anything to do with his death. And as for the blood at the library—assuming it is blood and not paint—it’s more likely one of the workmen cut himself.” She gestured at Owen, sprawled on his side now in front of the television, intently watching a talking dog sell baked beans. “And no one is going to believe you set your attack cat on Easton or that you two were . . .” She paused, looking for the right word. “. . . Getting funky with each other. C’mon!”

I thought about the gash on the side of Easton’s head. Of course, just because he’d hit his head didn’t mean that was what had killed him. He still could have had a heart attack. I leaned into the sofa cushions and stretched out my legs onto the footstool. “Why are you always so sensible and logical?” I asked.

“You forgot my winning personality and stunning good looks,” Maggie said with a grin. The grin faded to a smile. “Seriously, Kath, this will be over in another day or two. Don’t worry about it.”

The opening music for Gotta Dance began and Maggie turned to the TV. In the recap of the previous episodes there was a shot of rocker Pat Benatar with a gash on one side of her forehead from a fall when a lift went wrong. I pictured the wound I’d seen on the side of Gregor Easton’s head. There had been no blood around the injury or in his hair. Had someone cleaned it? And what had Detective Gordon picked up off the library floor as he’d moved me out of the way? And why had a police car driven by my house at least three times in the last few hours? It was hard to concentrate on the TV.

I wanted to believe Maggie was right. I wanted to believe that this would all be over in a day or two. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that things were just getting started.