Hooked On A Feline

chapter 8

I got home to find Hercules on the back step with a grackle feather under one paw and a triumphant look on his face.

“Don’t tell me that you two are at it again?” I said.

He looked down at the feather and then looked at me. “Merow,” he said.

The cat and one particular grackle—or maybe it was several different birds for all I knew—had had some kind of war going on for quite some time. Basically neither wanted to share the backyard with the other. They had seemed to reach a détente earlier in the summer, but now it seemed the battle was on again.

I had always had the feeling that the two of them liked their little skirmishes. If one took down the other, the fun would be over. I’d seen the grackle sweep low, just inches over the cat’s head, several different times. To me, it looked liked the same bird. I’d discovered that the average life span of a grackle was about seventeen years, so it wasn’t that unlikely that Hercules had been warring with the same bird from the beginning. This wasn’t the first time he had snagged one of the bird’s feathers. Last week the grackle had swiped two sardine crackers from the arm of one of the Adirondack chairs, just inches from Herc’s nose. Was this some kind of retaliation or had Hercules found the feather on the lawn and brought it home as a trophy

I unlocked the porch door. “Leave that out here,” I said, indicating the feather.

He wrinkled his nose at me.

“The spoils of battle stay outside,” I said firmly.

He looked at the feather, sighed and came inside.

I changed for tai chi class and warmed up a bowl of noodles and veggies for supper. Hercules sulked around the kitchen. I found the little mechanical mouse Marcus had brought back for him after a recent trip. He’d gotten Owen a catnip frog, Ferdinand the Funky Frog, to be precise, sibling, via adoption, to Owen’s beloved Fred the Funky Chicken. Since Hercules didn’t get the attraction of catnip his gift was the mouse.

I set the mouse going and put it on the floor. Hercules liked to watch it run randomly all over the kitchen and then whack it with a paw. Once he’d smacked the little toy so hard, it skidded across the floor all the way to the living room doorway.

Owen wandered in for a drink, and when the tiny mouse suddenly veered in his direction, bushing against the end of his tail, he started with a loud meow. His paw hit the edge of the dish and flipped it into the air like someone doing a trick with a Frisbee. I sucked in a breath, picturing water everywhere and a wet, indignant cat, but luckily the bowl was empty and it landed right side up on the floor.

“You’re fine,” I said. “No water. No harm done.”

I spoke too soon.

The mouse was still moving, veering to the right, toward Hercules, who slapped a paw on it and looked at us with triumph in his green eyes.

Owen glared at his brother, taking a step back and unfortunately putting his foot in Herc’s water dish. Owen let out a yowl of annoyance, vigorously shaking his back right foot. Hercules made an equally annoyed grumble because he very much did not like Owen putting even a whisker near his dishes. Somehow the mouse got out from under Hercules’s foot, spun around in a circle and headed for the back door as though trying to get away from what was shaping up to be a monumental cat argument.

I walked around the table and pointed a finger at Hercules, who was already starting for his brother. “Not another step, mister,” I said.

“Merow!” he replied with a fair amount of indignation, pleading his case as it were.

“It was an accident. They happen.” They seemed to happen a lot in this house but that wasn’t the point.

Owen gave me his best I-have-been-injured look and shook his foot. I bent down and picked him up, using the hem of my shirt to wipe his foot. It was only a little damp. I stroked the top of his head.

“It was just an accident,” I repeated. “It’s not your brother’s fault.”

He continued to mutter almost under his breath.

I set Owen down next to the basement door. I looked from one cat to the other. “Don’t move.”

Owen’s front left paw twitched.

“Don’t push it,” I warned.

The paw stopped moving and Owen contented himself with making a show of not looking in his brother’s direction, while Hercules darted sideways looks at his sibling.

I gave each cat a cracker. “I’m probably weakening your character by doing this,” I told them. That didn’t seem to be a concern for either one of them.

I wiped up the tiny bit of water on the floor and rinsed all four bowls. Roma had suggested a fountain for the cats. Maybe it was something I should consider.

I retrieved the mouse from the back door and put it in the cupboard with the cat treats. I realized I just had time to change my T-shirt before tai chi if I wanted to walk down to class.

Owen had eaten his cracker and he followed me upstairs, immediately going to sit in front of the closet door. I thought of him as the feline fashion police. I held up a T-shirt and he wrinkled his whiskers. He didn’t like my second choice, either, but he seemed happy with my third pick. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and went back downstairs.

I didn’t have time to do my own dishes, so I stacked them in the sink and grabbed my bag with my towel and tai chi shoes. Hercules was in the porch looking out the window.

“Please give Owen some space,” I said.

“Mrr,” he said.

I hoped that was acquiescence.

It was the perfect night for walking, warm but not overwhelmingly hot. When I got to the studio, I discovered that the stairwell and the area where we hung up our things and changed our shoes had gotten a fresh coat of paint. The clean, bright white walls made the space seem a little larger.

Maggie was inside, standing by the window with a mug of tea. I walked over to join her.

“The entry looks great,” I said.

She smiled. “I can’t believe what a difference just a coat of paint makes. I didn’t realize how dingy the walls looked until the painters started working.”

“Who did the work? I know you couldn’t have used Oren because he’s out of town.” Oren Kenyon was a very talented carpenter and a meticulous painter. He was away for a few days supervising the installation of several pieces of his father’s artwork in a gallery in Madison.

“It’s a company run by a bunch of students just for the summer,” Maggie said. “And it was actually Oren who suggested them, so that was enough of a recommendation for me. And you’ll never guess who one of the painters turned out to be? Zach Redmond.”

Zach had been bartending at The Brick, a club up on the highway. He was one of Maggie’s yoga students and I’d met him when my brother and his band had visited and we’d gone to the club to listen to a group Ethan had wanted to check out. Zach wore his thick dark hair in a man bun most of the time. He had dark skin and beautiful blue eyes.

“I thought he’d gone back to school,” I said.

She took a sip of her tea. It smelled like marmalade. “He’s still working on his degree and he’s doing some shifts at The Brick and painting during the day.”

Zach was still trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. I remembered how Maggie had described him to me: “He’s like a big untrained puppy. Sometimes you have to smack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.”

Maggie smiled. “You know how Zach has always lacked, well, focus?”

I nodded.

“I overheard him talking to the young woman he was working with, warning her about drinking too much, staying out late and borrowing stuff from her grandmother without asking.”

“Sound like he’s maturing,” I said.

Roma joined us then. Her dark hair was pulled back in a stubby ponytail and she was wearing a sea green sleeveless T-shirt and cropped gray leggings. “We match,” she said, holding out the hem of her shirt. My top was just a slightly darker version of the shade of green she was wearing.

“Truthfully, Owen picked it out,” I said.

“Hey, you have a fashion consultant. That’s great,” she said, grinning and bumping me with her shoulder. “I was going through photos Eddie took at the concert and there are some good ones of you and Marcus. First chance I get this week, I’ll send them and some of the others to you.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t think about taking pictures and now I wish I had.”

“You’re welcome. Eddie loves any chance to use that fancy camera. Ruby has been giving him some tips.”

Ruby Blackthorne, a very talented artist and photographer, was a member of the local artists’ co-op.

“I need to go speak to Rebecca,” Roma said. “Eddie got a beautiful shot of her and Everett dancing.”

As though saying her name had suddenly conjured her out of thin air, Ruby appeared in the doorway. She crossed the room and joined us.

“I have something to show you,” she said, a huge smile lighting up her face.

“Is it the new calendar?” I asked.

Ruby had taken some photos of Owen and Hercules, and that had morphed into a very successful promotional calendar for the town. So successful that now there was a second one, once again featuring the boys at various locations around town.

Ruby nodded and held out the large envelope she was holding. “Take a look.”

The calendar’s cover photo was Owen and Hercules on the deck of a sailboat. I remembered that shoot. Owen had shown no trepidation about getting on the boat but Hercules had been very reluctant. Given his intense dislike of wet feet, that hadn’t surprised me. Ruby had shamelessly bribed him with a dish of chopped roast beef.

Maggie and I flipped through the calendar pages. “Oh, I like this one!” I exclaimed about the photo that had been taken of the boys in the same spot we were standing. Owen was on his back legs with his front paws on the window ledge. Hercules was sitting on the ledge, one paw in the air almost as though he was working on his tai chi form.

“Look, Owen’s doing Cloud Hands,” Maggie teased. “He’s good, too.” Cloud Hands was one of the 108 movements of the form that still gave me grief.

I stuck my tongue out at her and she laughed. Then she bent her head over the calendar again.

“I like the lighting in this one,” she said to Ruby. “You’ve done an incredible job.”

I nodded my agreement. “I didn’t think it was possible, but this one is even better than the first calendar.”

Ruby’s cheeks flushed at the compliments. “You can keep that one and take it home for Owen and Hercules to see.”

“Thank you,” I said, slipping the calendar back inside the envelope.

“I’m going to get a cup of tea,” Ruby said. “I’m glad you like the calendar.”

Maggie took another sip of her own tea while stretching one arm over her head. “How was your day?” she asked. Maggie was the kind of person who was genuinely interested when she asked a question like that.

“Johnny Rock came in to make a donation in Mike’s memory to our computer fund,” I said. “It put us over the top.”

“I think that’s a great memorial for Mike.”

“It is. There are a lot of people who depend on us for Internet access and just for the chance to even use a computer. I’m happy that now we have the money to replace all the old ones.”

“But you wish it wasn’t because Mike’s dead.” She switched arms, stretching her left one now.

“Exactly,” I said. “He called the old ones boat anchors, which isn’t far from the truth.”

“So he’d be happy you’re getting new ones.”

I rubbed the back of my neck with one hand. “I think so, yes.”

“So you should be happy, too.”

“What would I do without you?” I said.

“You’d never master Cloud Hands, you and Marcus would not be a couple and you’d let your cat pick out your clothes all the time,” she teased.

I wrapped her in a hug. “Then lucky for me that I came to Mayville Heights.”

“Lucky for me, too,” Maggie said.

It was almost time to begin. Maggie and I walked over to the tea table.

“Has anyone from Mike Bishop’s office called you?” she asked.

I frowned at her. “No. Why would they be calling?”

Maggie ran a hand over her blond curls. “Well, I heard from them because I had an appointment coming up and Caroline wanted to let me know what my options are.”

Caroline was Mike Bishop’s office manager. She was someone I should talk to, I realized.

“They’re going to call every patient at some point to see what people want to do with their records.” She set her cup on the table. “Has Marcus has come up with anything yet?”

I sighed softly. “No.”

“Have you?”

There wasn’t any point in denying that I was asking questions about Mike’s death. I shook my head. “No.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Maggie said, giving my arm a squeeze as she moved to the center of the room. She clapped her hands and called, “Circle, everyone.”

I darted out to put the calendar in my bag. Then I moved into my usual spot next to Roma and it struck me that I didn’t know if Maggie had been referring to both Marcus and me when she’d said, “You’ll figure it out,” or if she’d just meant me.

When we finished the form at the end of the class, I was surprised to see Marcus waiting by the door. He walked over to me. “Can I lure you out for frozen yogurt at Tubby’s?” he asked. “Or do you need to get home?”

I smiled. “I can always find time for Tubby’s,” I said.

“Good,” he said. He turned to Maggie. “Brady showed me your design ideas for the T-shirts for the girls’ hockey team. I don’t know how we’re going to pick just one.”

“It was fun working on them,” Maggie said. “And it wasn’t just me. Kathleen and Owen both offered their input.”

Marcus smiled. “I’ll make sure both of them are rewarded.”

I changed my shoes and we headed down the stairs.

“Where did you park?” Marcus asked as we stepped outside. “I didn’t see the truck anywhere.”

“I walked,” I said. “It was such a nice evening and I spent a lot of time sitting today. I wanted to stretch my legs.”

His SUV was parked just ahead. “That works out perfectly. We can drive over to Tubby’s for yogurt and find a place to enjoy it along the Riverwalk. I’ll take you home after that.”

I recognized his matter-of-fact tone. He was in detective mode.

We got to the car, and before I got inside, I stopped, resting one hand on the roof. “Marcus, I’m always happy to see you and I’m always up for frozen yogurt, but I know you’re here for more than that. So please tell me what’s up.”

He looked at the keys in his hand for a moment; then he looked over the roof of the car at me. “I need you to tell me all about Leitha Anderson’s visit to the library on the day she died.”

My heart began to thump in my ears. “Did you actually find a connection between her death and Mike’s?”

He thought for a moment. “Can we just get in, please?” he said.

We both climbed into the SUV and I turned to face him before I even fastened my seat belt. “What’s going on?” I said. “Is Leitha’s accident connected to Mike’s death?”

He stuck the key in the ignition without saying anything, then looked at me. “At this point I can’t be sure, but I have reason to believe Leitha Anderson’s death wasn’t so accidental after all.”