Hooked On A Feline

chapter 10

I reached over and laid my hand on Marcus’s arm. His skin was warm under my fingers “So what do you do until you get some answers?” I asked.

“I keep working on the Bishop case. Do you remember? Was Mike at the library for Mary’s talk?”

“He was. It was a Friday afternoon and his office was closed, so Mike was there.”

Marcus linked his fingers with mine. “Do you know if he had started digging into his ancestry at that point?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He told me that Leitha’s death was actually what inspired him to learn more abut the family, but he seemed very interested in what Mary had to say. I know he talked to her a couple of times about his great-grandfather when he was working on the family tree.”

“Do you remember if Mike came to any of the other lectures?” Marcus asked.

“He was at the second one Harrison gave, and I did see them talking afterward, but they knew each other well, so it didn’t mean they were talking about Mike’s family tree. Why are you asking? Do you think something Mike uncovered in his family’s past has something to do with his death?”

He shrugged. “Right now I’m not ruling anything out. Do you remember when he first came into the library to start researching his family history?”

I straightened the neck of my T-shirt, running my fingers over the stitching around the neck, as I searched my memory for the first time Mike had asked for my help. “I think it was roughly about a month after Leitha’s death. He showed up one Friday morning right after we opened.

“Mike said he’d been poking around online on one of those ancestry sites, but he wasn’t finding a lot of what he was looking for, and he wanted to know what to do next.

“I made some suggestions—there were some old documents that had been digitized but weren’t accessible through the library’s website yet and we had some other papers he could look at if he took the proper care, plus old microfilm he could go through. Mike asked if there was a way to borrow certain other documents.”

“Do you remember which documents?” Marcus asked.

“A diary, some passenger manifests and some photos. Pretty much all the things he asked about were too fragile to be in circulation, so I told him if he could let me know specifically what he wanted, I should be able to get copies or images of most things for him. And I know he went to Minneapolis to do some research at least once.”

Marcus looked thoughtful and I knew he was filing away everything I said, already looking for connections between what he knew and what he was learning.

“Do you remember me telling you about an old map they used on the Great Northern Baking Showdown?” I asked.

Eugenie had been very good about working local references into the show whenever she had the chance. When she and Russell had filmed a segment at Wild Rose Bluff, they had used a map from the library in their intro.

Marcus frowned. “It was a map of the area around Wild Rose Bluff?”

I nodded, pushing my hair back off my face again. “Mike looked at that and he was very interested when I told him about an even earlier map showing land claims in the area that had just recently been donated to the library in Red Wing. The librarian there made a copy of it for me.”

“Can you think of anything else?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, let’s go back to Mary’s presentation for a minute. Did Mike sit with Leitha?”

I thought for a moment, trying to picture the meeting room. “Yes,” I said. “Leitha was on the end of a row, Mike was beside her and Jonas Quinn was next to him.” I motioned with one hand, slotting people in their seats in my mind. “Harrison was in the row in front of them. And Keith King. Keith has been tracing his family tree ever since Ella got him one of those DNA test kits. And I remember seeing Keith and Mike talking before Mary got started.”

Marcus nodded and I knew he was making a mental note to talk to Keith. “Were there people there that you didn’t know?” he asked.

“Of course. There always are. There were several tourists and those kinds of presentations always bring out the history buffs—at least based on the other ones we’ve done. I know there were a few people who came from Minneapolis. During Everett’s talk I remember there were several real estate developers in the audience.”

“Developers?” Marcus frowned. “Why?”

“Everett told me they showed up for one of two reasons—he was talking about old buildings in Mayville Heights and Red Wing, and developers want to know some of the history of a property they want to restore to exploit those details for financing. Or they want to know a property’s past to be sure they won’t face too much opposition because they want to tear it down. Do you remember that old bank building in Red Wing that was turned into condos? The plans had to be adapted because of the historical significance of the property.”

Marcus rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “How did Leitha act while she was at the library that day?”

“Like I said before, I wasn’t watching the woman all the time.”

“Anything you saw might be helpful.”

I sighed. “You know how she could be. She had a rather superior attitude.”

He nodded.

“Every time I looked in Leitha’s direction while Mary was speaking, she had a look of disdain on her face. Now, if Mary noticed and if it bothered her at all, you couldn’t tell. And to be fair, Leitha had acted the same way during Everett’s talk, so I don’t think it was personal.”

“Is there anything else you can remember?”

My fingers were still linked with his. I traced my thumb along the side of his hand. “I’m not really sure what you’re looking for.”

He gave me a wry smile. “That makes two of us. You did say that Leitha had one of Eric’s cookies. I know she drank a cup of tea at some point. According to her stomach contents, she’d had tea with milk and sugar. Was that at the library?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Did she get the tea herself or did someone else get it for her?”

I knew what he was getting at. If Leitha’s death hadn’t been an accident, if she had died because of an overdose of potassium chloride—and I was having trouble with the idea—then maybe she had ingested it at the library.

“Someone else got it— Well, sort of.”

“Wait a second. What do you mean, someone else got it ‘sort of’?”

I exhaled loudly, feeling frustrated. “This is secondhand, so you should really talk to Rebecca. She told me this story the day after Leitha died.” I remembered Rebecca saying she didn’t like speaking ill of the dead.

“And I will,” Marcus said. “Please, just tell me what you know for now.”

I picked up the spoon from my frozen yogurt container and turned it over in my fingers. “As far as I know, this happened right before the argument between Leitha and Mary. Leitha did have a cup of tea, but it was actually Jonas’s cup that she had taken from his hand, which according to Rebecca was her entitled way of behaving.”

“Do you know if he poured the tea himself?” Marcus asked.

I nodded. “Rebecca said that he did and she remembers him drinking from it while the two of them were talking. I don’t see how there could have been anything in the tea. Who could have guessed Leitha would take his cup? And anyway, Jonas is fine.”

“I know,” he said. “I might be completely off base about all of this but I need to be certain.”

It was starting to get dark. “Are you ready to go?” Marcus asked, gathering up both of our empty yogurt containers. We started walking back to his SUV.

“When do you expect the medical examiner will have something?” I said.

He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe a week.”

Actually it took fewer than three days to get some answers. On Friday, after some investigation by the police and more tests by the medical examiner, the cause of Leitha Finnamore Anderson’s death was changed from accident to homicide.