Hooked On A Feline

chapter 15

There’s something I need to tell you,” I said. “I’m not sure if it’s important or not.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“Wednesday nights, Mike was making sure to leave work on time.”

“Because he was going out to Harry’s to practice.”

I shook my head. “No, he wasn’t. They practiced on Thursday. I checked with Harry.”

“So he was probably just going home.”

We headed for the street.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “He stopped at Eric’s for takeout on those Wednesday nights. I don’t think he was going home.”

Marcus frowned. “So you think he was doing what? Leading some kind of secret life?”

“No. Maybe.” It sounded silly when he said the words out loud.

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said. “I’m not saying your instincts aren’t good, but so far from what I’ve learned, Mike Bishop’s life was an open book.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said.

We walked over to the bookstore and got the book for Elliot and then headed to Marcus’s house. The plan was to do some yard work and figure out a permanent spot for the bench he’d bought.

I changed my clothes and started weeding the vegetable garden. Micah perched on one corner of the raised bed, watching me, while Marcus tried to decide on the best location for the bench.

“I thought you were going to paint it first,” I said.

“I am,” he said as he stood in the middle of the yard, looking around. “I just want to know where it’s going to go when I’m finished.”

I didn’t follow the logic. “Okay.” I looked at Micah, who seemed to shrug.

“What do you think?”

“On the deck,” I said.

Micah meowed her agreement.

Marcus looked around the yard again. “I think by the rosebushes,” he said, muscling the bench over the grass into place.

“Bees,” I said.

He thought for a moment, then moved the bench to the other side of the bed I was working in. Micah and I exchanged another look, which this time he saw.

“What?”

I hesitated.

“You don’t think this is a good spot? Why?”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s just that the ground is kind of uneven right there.”

He pushed at one end of the seat. “There. I’ve found a level spot.”

“Good,” I said without looking up. I knew there were no level spots on that part of the lawn.

Marcus dropped onto the bench. It immediately canted sideways, almost knocking him to the ground. Micah walked around the edge of the vegetable bed, peered at Marcus and gave a concerned meow.

“I’m fine,” he muttered.

“Why don’t you try it on the deck?” I suggested.

He moved the bench under the maple tree instead and stood back with a look of satisfaction on his face.

Micah looked skyward, then glanced at me and meowed once more.

Marcus shook his head. “What’s wrong with right here? There’s shade. There are no bees. The ground is level. It’s perfect.”

Before I could answer, a bird flew overhead and made a direct hit on the center of the bench seat.

Micah ducked her head. I bit my lip to keep from laughing and watched Marcus from the corner of my eye.

He stood silently for a long moment. Finally, he said, “You know, I think the bench would look great on the deck.”

I nodded. “Good idea.”

Later, once the weeding was done and the grass had been clipped around the flower beds, we sat on the deck steps with glasses of lemonade and lots of ice. Marcus seemed lost in thought.

“You weren’t wrong to take a second look at Leitha’s death,” I said, “no matter what Johnny says, no matter what anyone says.”

He put his free hand on my knee and gave it a squeeze. “Thanks. I know, but it has complicated the investigation into Mike Bishop’s death.”

“I’m not second-guessing you, but is there any chance his death is connected somehow to those car break-ins?”

He shook his head. “It’s not.” He ran a hand though his hair. “They’re just kids—you know that, teenagers—and more important, they have alibis for the night Mike was killed. I’m glad that Mariah Taylor isn’t hanging around with that bunch, though.”

“She’s a bright kid,” I said, reaching for my glass, which was two steps below me between my feet.

“There are three kids involved as far as I can tell—a girl and two boys—and I feel confident that the girl is the ring leader. She’s smart and articulate and she’s got a bit of a chip on her shoulder. She’s being raised by a single dad, and from what I could see, money is tight. We have them on the whipped cream incident and a couple of other car break-ins, but that’s as far as it goes. They didn’t have anything to do with Mike’s death.”

“Why didn’t you tell that to Johnny? He thinks you’re not working on the case.”

He leaned sideways, kissed my neck and straightened up again. “Because it just happened and the lawyers and the prosecuting attorney are still talking, hopefully working out some kind of a deal that involves restitution and community service. Cleaning garbage out of ditches sounds pretty good this time of year. And I think right now nothing I could say is going to make a difference to Johnny.”

“It would be such an easy solution if you found out that Mike had been killed just by some random thief.”

“I don’t think this case is going to be that easy,” he said.

I leaned my head against his shoulder. Neither did I.

Marcus kissed the top of my head. “Could you make a list of everyone you remember being at the library for Mary’s talk? I should have asked for that sooner.”

“I can do that, but there’s no way I’ll remember everyone.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’s a place to start.”

We sat there for a little while longer, talking about the backyard and whether or not it need another raised bed. Finally Marcus stretched and got to his feet. “Do you want to try those veggie burgers Maggie recommended?”

I looked at Micah, who wrinkled her nose. “No,” I said.

“Let me rephrase.” He gave me an over-the-top smile that made me think of SpongeBob SquarePants for some reason. “Hey! Let’s try those veggie burgers Maggie recommended!”

“Merow!” Micah said. Rephrasing had not changed her opinion.

I laughed. “I’m willing to try them, but if they taste terrible, you have to promise we can order pizza.”

“Deal,” he said. “And Maggie said they’re good.”

I stood up and kissed the side of his mouth. “Maggie thinks herbal tea is better than coffee. I love her, but she’s not a reliable source of information on this kind of thing.”

The veggie burgers were actually good. Even Micah tried a tiny bite and seemed to like them. After supper I pulled up some paint swatches on my phone and we tried to decide what color to paint the bench with Micah weighing in with her opinion from time to time. Later on, we drove out to The Brick to listen to a new band. We didn’t talk about Mike or Leitha and I tried not to think about them, either.

Marcus and I went out to feed the cats at Wisteria Hill the next morning.

“Do you know if Leitha shopped online?” I asked as we drove up the hill. I was thinking out loud as much as I was talking to him.

He shot me a quick glance. “Where did that come from?”

“I’m just trying to work out a couple of things. Did she shop online?”

He kept his eyes on the road but gave his head a little shake. “Lots of people in their nineties have embraced technology, but Leitha Anderson was not one of them. No computer. No tablet. No smartphone. What is it exactly that you’re trying to work out?”

“How she ended up with potassium chloride in her system. What if she took too much by mistake?” I held up a hand before he could say anything. “Just hear me out. Leitha was stubborn and opinionated. Maybe she thought it would benefit her somehow. Potassium does help the heart and the kidneys work properly, among other things, although as far as I know, most people get enough from what they eat.”

“I don’t disagree with your reasoning,” Marcus said. “But we’re still left with the same question. How did she get it? She didn’t order anything online. She didn’t buy it in town. There was no potassium chloride in her house. No charges for it on her credit card. And before you suggest she bought it in Minneapolis, when she went there, Jonas Quinn always drove her. She’d have had no opportunity to buy anything he wouldn’t have seen.”

“Maybe she stole it,” I said.

“You mean, from the hospital?”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “I had the same thought. Again, no opportunity.”

I sighed softly.

“Kathleen, your own timeline puts Leitha at the library for close to two hours. The medical examiner says the potassium chloride had to have been ingested there. There’s not a lot of wiggle room in that. All she had in her stomach was the partly digested cookie and tea with milk and sugar.”

“Did she take any pills?” I knew I was reaching.

“She took a multivitamin every day. It was a large yellow pill, not a capsule, which could have been tampered with a lot more easily. I don’t see how it could have been the source of the potassium chloride.”

I rubbed the back of my head with one hand. This whole thing gave me a headache. “What about blood pressure medication or something to manage her blood sugar or thyroid?”

Marcus shook his head. “There was nothing like that. The woman was as healthy as a horse. That’s why she was part of that study.”

“I remember that when the accident happened you didn’t find any evidence that Leitha’s car had been tampered with,” I said. “That hasn’t changed?”

He turned his head to look at me for a moment. “No, it hasn’t. Leitha’s death was not an accident, Kathleen. I wish it was. But it wasn’t. Why are you having such a hard time with that?”

There was a knot in my stomach. “Because if someone deliberately killed Leitha, then maybe that same person also killed Mike. Maybe . . . maybe it wasn’t some random burglar who panicked.” I straightened up, linked my fingers together and rested my hands on the top of my head. “I know this is more emotion than logic talking. It’s just how I feel right now.”

“The car was checked from top to bottom. There were no mechanical issues. In fact, Lachlan had taken the car in for service the day before Leitha died.”

“Harry’s looking for answers. So is Johnny. So is pretty much the entire town.”

“And you’re afraid they’re not going to like those answers.”

I sighed, dropped my arms and adjusted my seat belt. “I’m afraid they’re not going to get any answers,” I said.

“I’m not going to give up,” Marcus said. “Are you?”

I studied his profile. I knew what that determined jut of his chin meant. I shook my head. “No.”

“Then everyone will get their answers eventually.”

The cats all looked healthy and they seemed to still be happy in the new home Eddie had built for them. The girls’ hockey team had a training session and Marcus needed to stop in at the station, so I drove home right before lunch.

Hercules was waiting in the porch. I brought him up-to-date on what I’d learned from Marcus while I made coffee. Since I hadn’t had any at lunch, I decided it was okay to have a cup of coffee now. I was very good at rationalizing my coffee drinking.

I sat at the kitchen table with my cup, a banana muffin and two sliced tomatoes. Hercules climbed onto my lap and helped me make the list that Marcus had asked me for. When I couldn’t come up with any more names, I e-mailed it to him, but I didn’t shut down my laptop.

“What do we know about Leitha’s daughter, Eloise?” I asked the cat.

He blinked his green eyes and gave me a blank look.

“Exactly,” I said. “Really, we know nothing.”

I didn’t actually believe Eloise had snuck back into town twice, once to kill her mother and a second time to get rid of her cousin, but maybe there was something in her life or her background that might help me. I was grasping at straws, but right now I didn’t really have anything else to hold on to.

As usual, Hercules was happy to help me see what we could find online, making occasional comments about what was on the screen and swiping at the touch pad when he wanted to check out something else.

Eloise Finnamore Anderson-Hill was a fascinating person, I learned, very different from her mother. She had two daughters adopted from Korea, Nari and Min, and ran a children’s clothing company that focused on sustainable practices and provided shoes and clothing to kids in need. And she had established a scholarship in her father’s name—Markham Anderson. There was only one mention of the Finnamore name in a newspaper article about the scholarship.

“I know I can’t change the world,” Eloise had said in an interview. “But I can work on making my small corner of it better.”

Hercules and I looked at Eloise’s social media and her company’s website. Most people called her Ellie, I learned. She was divorced. She was a vegan. She liked to hike and camp.

“How could Leitha not have been wildly proud of her daughter?” I said to Hercules. I thought about my own mother. She was my, Sarah’s and Ethan’s biggest cheerleader.

He blinked his green eyes at me again. It didn’t make any sense to him, either.

An errant paw took me to a photo of Eloise at her mother’s funeral, which had been private. She wore a navy coat over a gray dress. Mike’s hand was on her shoulder, and even at a distance, she looked profoundly sad. Other than that one time, I couldn’t recall ever seeing the woman in town.

There was a knock at the door.

Hercules looked expectantly at me. “Are you going to get that or should I?” I asked.

His tail flicked through the air and he made a huffy sound, his way of telling me I wasn’t as funny as I thought I was.

Keith King was standing at my back door. He was about average height, strong and wiry with dark hair and dark eyes behind a pair of black stainless steel–framed glasses.

“Hi, Keith,” I said. I was surprised to see him.

He smiled. “Hi, Kathleen. I’m sorry to bother you at home, but I’m going out of town for a couple of days and I didn’t just want to leave this.” He was holding a green file folder and he offered it to me.

“What is this?” I asked. Keith was on the library board. Was there a meeting I’d forgotten about?

“I found some papers in a book that I borrowed from the library. They look like they belong to someone tracing their family tree. You know I’m doing some of that myself. I didn’t get a chance to look at the book before now, so that’s why I didn’t find them sooner.”

“Thanks for dropping them off,” I said. “Maybe I can figure out who they belong to.”

“That’s what I was hoping,” Keith said. “There are several pages of notes in there, which means a lot of research someone will have to do again.” He smiled. “We’re going to see Taylor.”

Keith’s daughter had a summer job in St. Paul.

“Tell her we miss her at tai chi.”

“I will,” he said. “She’s going to be home for a few days at the end of the month. I know she’ll want to see you.”

“We all want to see her, too.”

I thanked Keith again and he left.

I took the file of papers into the kitchen. Hercules was sitting on my chair, washing his face. I pushed the laptop aside and laid the folder on the table. Hercules abandoned his beauty routine and stood up on his back legs, one white-tipped paw on the edge of the table, craning his neck for a look.

I picked up the top sheet of paper and right away I knew who had made the notes. I recognized Mike’s cramped, angular handwriting. I’d seen it many times. I flipped though the pages. Some were just copies of documents with notes in the margins. Others were paragraphs of information and one page was covered with what looked like several Punnett squares. It looked as though Mike had been trying to figure out someone’s eye color. Maybe he’d been trying to eliminate someone from the family tree. I remembered him telling me that back in the 1800s, the Finnamores had been a randy lot.

“I should get these to Jonas,” I said to Hercules.

He yawned and jumped down to the floor. It seemed the eye color of errant Finnamores didn’t interest him.

I looked up Jonas’s address. There was a flea market close to where he lived that would be wrapping up in about an hour. I was searching for some old maps for a display I had planned at the library, but so far I hadn’t found anything that would work. I could swing by the flea market and then drop Mike’s notes off to Jonas if he was around.

I called Jonas, crossing my fingers that he was home. He was. I explained about Keith finding the papers and bringing them to me. “I’m heading to the flea market. I can drop them off afterward. I won’t be that long.”

“I appreciate that,” Jonas said. “Do you know how to find me?”

“I do,” I said.

“Then I’ll see you soon.”

I grabbed my bag and the folder and stepped into my canvas shoes. “I’m leaving,” I called.

There was silence and then an answering meow from upstairs. I locked the back door, walked around the house to the truck and climbed inside, setting Mike’s notes on the seat beside me. Out of nowhere Owen appeared on the hood of the truck. “Merow,” he said, cocking his head to one side.

I knew what he wanted. Owen loved going out in the truck, but there was no way taking him with me was a good idea. I knew what would happen. Owen would do his disappearing act and then go on a self-directed tour of Jonas’s house as I tried to nonchalantly swing my arms around and make contact with him while at the same time making casual conversation with Jonas.

I shook my head. “Not this time.”

He got a sulky look on his face and disappeared.

I jumped out of the truck, leaving the driver’s door open, felt around on the hood and somehow managed to grab him. He reappeared, looking even more disgruntled than he had before.

“Not this time,” I repeated.

I set him on the path. He refused to look at me, starting around the house in a snit. He flicked his tail in my direction just as he turned the corner and then once again he disappeared.

I got back in the truck, wondering what it was like to have normal cats.

The flea market was winding down, so there weren’t many people around. I didn’t unearth any maps, but I did come across a poster of a large tree covered with dollar bills that would be good for Money Week in the fall.

I found Jonas’s house without any difficulty. It was a beautiful Victorian, larger than I had expected, painted a creamy white with dark gray accents. It was set back from the road and the grounds looked like a park with a well-trimmed lawn, beautiful flower beds and what might have been an English-style cottage garden at the back.

Lachlan was sitting on the front steps, bent over his phone, as I pulled up. He was dressed all in black: jeans, T-shirt, high-tops. When I got out of the truck, he got to his feet and came over to me.

“Could I talk to you for a minute first before you go inside?” he asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“Uncle Mike said you were really good at research and I was wondering if you could teach me how to find some information about . . . something?” He shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other.

I pushed my sunglasses up onto the top of my head. “I could try. Can you give me an idea of what the something is?”

He looked over his shoulder at the house. Whatever it was, he didn’t want Jonas to know. “There’s this building in Red Wing that my family owns. My Aunt Leitha was selling it to someone but I want to cancel the deal and sell it to someone else instead. She was wrong and I need to correct her mistake.”

“You mean, the building that may have been the first music school in the state?” I said. “You want to sell it to Johnny?”

He looked surprised but he nodded. “He told me to just let it be, but I can’t do that. If I can find proof that it was the first music school, then maybe I can stop it from being turned into a parking lot.”

“You’re welcome to come to the library anytime and any of us would be happy to help you, but I happen to know there are other people researching that same building, so you might want to wait a bit.”

“It’s Johnny, isn’t it?” he said.

“I’m just going to go with ‘no comment’ for now,” I said.

He nodded. “Okay, I can wait for a while but not forever. I can’t let that building be torn down.”

“How about if I happen to come across anything that might help you, I put it aside and let you know?”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

Jonas came around the side of the house then. “Kathleen, hello. You found us without any difficulty?” he said.

“I did. I’ve driven by several times but I never realized this beautiful house was here.”

“This is the Quinn family homestead. Colin—Lachlan’s dad—and I grew up here. So did our father.”

Lachlan pointed to a large elm tree on the other side of the driveway. “Don’t get him started on all the members of the Quinn family who have fallen out of that tree,” he said. “I think it’s some kind of weird family tradition by now.” He darted a look at Jonas and I saw the same mischievous gleam in his eye that I’d seen more than once in Mike’s.

“Don’t you have a couple of books left on your summer reading list that you should be pretending to read?” Jonas asked.

“Yeah, probably,” Lachlan said. He looked at me. “I might come in some time and try to finish the family tree Uncle Mike was working on.”

“Anytime,” I said. “You might get lucky and Mary might have cookies.”

He headed for the house. As he passed his uncle, Jonas put a hand on the boy’s shoulder for a brief moment.

I held out the folder of papers. Jonas took them but didn’t bother looking inside. “Thank you,” he said. He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

“I’d like that,” I said.

We walked around the side of the house, and the backyard stopped me in my tracks. “Oh, this is beautiful,” I said.

The thick green lawn was bordered by curving flower beds that were bursting with color. I recognized wild roses, black-eyed Susans and lilies with colors running the gamut from pale yellow to a purple so dark, it was almost black. There were daisies, astilbes and other plants I didn’t know the names of.

Jonas smiled. “Thank you. My mother, Mary-Margaret, designed the garden. When Ainsley, Lachlan’s mother, was alive, they lived in this house and she took care of it. Since then I’ve mostly been just trying to keep all the plants alive. Thankfully, I’ve had a lot of help from Harry Taylor.”

He gestured to a small wrought iron table sitting on a flagstone patio at the back of the house. “Please have a seat.” There were three wicker chairs spaced around the table with fat flowered seat cushions, and on top sat a round wooden tray with an insulated carafe, a heavy white stoneware mug, spoons, sugar and cream. Another mug sat in front of one of the chairs.

Jonas set the file of papers on the seat of the empty chair and then poured a cup of coffee for me. I added cream and sugar to mine and took a sip.

“This is good,” I said. The coffee was strong and rich, just the way I liked it.

He took a sip from his own cup and smiled. “I confess I’d choose a cup of coffee over tea or pretty much anything else. I generally only have tea if it’s late in the day. I had a feeling we might be kindred souls on that front.”

I smiled back at him. “Guilty,” I said.

“I know I’m going to sound like an overprotective parental figure, but Lachlan asked you to help him try to document the history of that building in Red Wing that Leitha was in the process of selling, didn’t he?”

I hesitated. “Yes,” I finally said. “Is that a problem?”

He shook his head. “Not for me. It’s something for him to focus on and right now I think it’s good for him.”

“I’ll do a little digging on Monday and see what I can find.”

“I appreciate that,” Jonas said. “He’s a tough kid, but he’s had more loss than most adults ever have to face. We’re lucky to have people like Johnny and Harry around us. They’ve become family.”

“ ‘Families are like pieces of art,’ ” I said. “ ‘You can make them from almost anything.’ Mitch Albom.”

Jonas nodded. “Smart man.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I glanced sideways as the file folder on the chair between us opened. There was no breeze but I was pretty sure there was a small gray tabby cat sitting on the chair. Owen had gotten in the truck after all. Somehow he had darted back and jumped inside, probably because I’d left the driver’s door open when I’d gotten out to lift him off the hood. He was faster than I’d realized and for once he hadn’t given himself away on the drive out or at the flea market. The little furball was getting sneakier. Had he gotten out of the truck at the flea market? I didn’t want to think about that.

What I needed to do was distract Jonas so he didn’t see the piece of paper that was now seemingly levitating above the flowered seat all by itself.

I set my mug on the table. “Would you mind if I took a closer look at the flower beds?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Jonas said. He set his cup next to mine and got to his feet. I stood up as well and we walked over to the closest bed.

Looking at the paint box of colors, I wished I had more of a green thumb. I pointed at the plant closest to me. “I would say that’s a black-eyed Susan with purple petals but I’m thinking I’d be wrong.”

He smiled. “Those are Echinacea purpurea, purple coneflowers. They attract bees and butterflies and they’re easy to grow.”

I smiled. “My kind of plant.” Behind us the piece of paper was moving, seemingly of its own volition, across the grass. I fervently hoped it and Owen were headed in the direction of my truck.

Jonas and I spent about ten minutes walking around, looking at the various plants. “You’re welcome to come out again for another look anytime you’d like,” he said. “And if you describe pretty much any of these plants to Harry, he’ll know what they are.”

“Thank you for the tour of the garden,” I said as we walked back to the truck. I had no idea where Owen was or what he’d done with that piece of paper. “When I get to the library on Monday, I’m going to be looking for some gardening books.”

“Thank you for bringing out those papers,” Jonas said. “And thanks for offering to help Lachlan.”

I opened the driver’s door, hoping Owen was close by and would hop in. I felt something move across my foot and looked down to see my shoelace was untied. I set my bag by my feet and bent down to fasten it and just under the edge of the truck spotted the piece of paper Owen had swiped.

I didn’t want to leave it there covered in cat drool and I didn’t want Jonas to see me pick it up. Luckily he was checking out the truck and I managed to pick up my bag and the paper and set them on the front seat in one more or less smooth motion.

“Kathleen, where did you get this truck?” he asked. There was something in his expression I couldn’t quite read, an almost wistfulness.

“Harrison Taylor gave it to me. It’s old, but it’ll push through a fair amount of snow and pretty much anything else that gets in its way.”

“Colin, my brother, had one just like it. It brings back a lot of good memories.” He laid his hand on the front fender for a moment and I thought how Lachlan wasn’t the only one who had lost way more than was fair.

I drove away with my fingers crossed that I had a furry—and invisible—stowaway. Once I was down the road beyond the Quinn driveway, I pulled over to the side of the road.

“Show yourself, Owen,” I said.

Nothing.

“Right now. I’m not kidding.”

Still nothing.

Was I wrong? Was he still out prowling around Jonas’s yard? How on earth would I explain that I had left my cat behind?

And then I felt the tiniest brush of something against my right arm. It felt like a piece of dandelion fluff grazing my skin. Or a cat’s tail. I stretched both arms over my head and then shifted sideways and brought my right hand down onto the seat. I had timed it perfectly. I had a handful of invisible cat.

Owen winked into sight and there was something cocky about the look he gave me.

“You’re in so much trouble,” I said, glaring at him. “Jonas almost saw you and you stole one of those pieces of paper.”

He peered at the seat, spotted the piece of paper in question and set one paw on it, looking at me as though he was expecting some kind of praise. As usual, he wasn’t sorry. I reached over and picked the paper up, wondering what it was that had attracted the cat’s attention.

The paper was half of a page from a lined yellow notepad. I’d seen Mike making notes on a similar pad at the library and it was his writing filling the lines.

There were two Punnett squares drawn on the page. Like the notes I’d glanced at earlier, it seemed as though Mike had been trying to work out eye-color probabilities. His handwriting was hard to read. “Leitha” with a question mark was written just above the tear line. What had Mike been trying to figure out and why was Leitha’s name written on the page? I had no idea.

Once again, none of this made sense.