Paws Аnd Effect

1

The body was lying on the swing on the back deck, the wooden seat swaying slowly back and forth. Definitely dead, I decided. And it had been placed there no more than half an hour ago.

I’d stopped so suddenly Marcus almost bumped into me. He put a hand on my shoulder to steady himself. “What is it?” he asked, leaning sideways so he could see around me. He blew out a breath. “Not another one. Why does she keep doing this?”

Before I could answer, there was a loud meow and Micah, his small ginger tabby, came walking purposefully along the deck railing toward us. I reached over to stroke her fur. “Nice work,” I said. I was certain that Micah was the source of that body—a very large, very dead vole.

Marcus pulled a hand back through his hair, a sure sign he was stressed. “Don’t encourage her, Kathleen.”

“She’s a cat,” I said. “Cats hunt. It’s her nature.”

Marcus walked over to the swing and squinted at the dead rodent. “It’s the third dead thing this week,” he said. “I asked Roma. She said it’s her way of showing her affection for me.” He looked back over his shoulder at me. “I mean Micah’s way of showing affection, not Roma’s.”

I smiled. “I know. When Roma likes you she takes you to Meatloaf Tuesday at Fern’s Diner.” Roma Davidson was Mayville Heights’s only veterinarian and one of my closest friends. I’d originally come to town to supervise the renovations to the public library in advance of its centenary. Part of the reason I’d signed a contract to stay on as head librarian once the hundredth-anniversary celebrations were over was because of the connections I’d made. Mayville Heights had come to feel like home.

I looked down at Micah, who was intently watching Marcus as I continued to stroke her fur. Like my own cats, Owen and Hercules, Micah didn’t give her affection to just anyone. We’d discovered the little cat, abandoned, out at Wisteria Hill, where Roma lived. Although she certainly seemed to like Roma and me now, back then she wouldn’t come to either one of us. It was Marcus who had coaxed her out of hiding. Marcus who had picked her up and held her on his lap all the way to Roma’s clinic. It was his scarf she’d slept on that first night there. I thought this rash of “gifts” might be Micah’s way of showing Marcus she could pull her weight and that she deserved to stay.

Marcus glanced around the deck. I realized he was probably looking for something he could use to pick up the dead vole.

“Go get your other keys and your boots and I’ll take care of that,” I said inclining my head in the direction of the swing. Bugs, bats and furry critters didn’t bother me. I gave Micah one last scratch behind the ear and headed for the storage shed in the backyard.

I was coming across the grass with a long-handled spade just as Marcus came out the back door holding the extra set of keys to his SUV. The two of us had been headed to Wisteria Hill to feed the colony of feral cats that lived out there. When he’d arrived to pick me up, his SUV had died in my driveway. We’d pushed it out onto the street so I could back my truck out and stopped by his house to get his spare set of keys. Those he’d drop off to Thorsten Hall, who, among his many other skills, was an excellent mechanic.

“Hey, Kathleen, do you really think I need my boots?” Marcus called to me.

“Roma said the path is mud all the way around the side of the carriage house.” I stuck out one leg so he could see that I was wearing my old gum-rubber boots. “But don’t worry about it. I can feed Lucy and the others.”

“It’s okay,” he said. “My boots are right here.” He gestured to a green rubber pair sitting next to the back door, under the small overhang.

Micah jumped down from the railing and padded over to him, rubbing against his leg as Marcus took off his left shoe and shoved his foot into the corresponding boot. And immediately kicked his foot forward, yelling a word he’d never used in my presence. The boot came off and pin-wheeled up and out over the deck toward the back lawn. A second dead vole that had been dropped inside came shooting out of the open end of the boot. Micah leapt into the air and caught the furry corpse with her two front paws like Lynn Swann catching a forward pass from my dad’s favorite quarterback, Terry Bradshaw.

At the same time, the boot arced its way toward me. I sprinted forward, holding the spade ahead of me like some sort of medieval soldier with a lance, catching the boot on the end of the wooden handle. I stopped at the bottom of the steps flushed and sweaty, feeling pleased that I’d stopped the boot from ending up in Marcus’s rain barrel.

He was still standing by the back door on one foot with a scowl on his face. Micah was sitting in the middle of the deck with a paw on the vole like an African lion with the prey it had just brought down. And I was holding up the boot, impaled on the end of the spade like the leader of some kind of weird processional.

In retrospect it probably would have been better if I hadn’t laughed.

Micah wisely picked up the dead rodent, which was easily half as big as she was, and headed for the backyard without making a sound. Silently, I took the boot off the spade handle, crossed the deck and set it next to Marcus. Then I scooped the other vole off the swing with my shovel and followed Micah. It was pretty clear Marcus needed a minute—or maybe several.

By the time I put the garden spade back in the shed he was waiting at the bottom of the steps wearing his old sneakers, I noticed.

We got into the truck without speaking. I cleaned my hands with the sanitizer I kept in the glove compartment, fished my keys out of the pocket of my jeans and started for Wisteria Hill.

“Nice catch,” Marcus commented, after a minute or so of silence.

I kept my eyes on the road. “Thank you,” I said. “Harrison taught me how to play horseshoes last summer, remember? I think it helped.”

Harrison Taylor, aka Old Harry and Harry Senior, figured since I was a good road hockey player I might be good at horseshoes.

We drove in silence again. I chewed the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t laugh. In my mind’s eye I could see Marcus sending that boot airborne, Micah leaping to pull the dead vole out of the air and me running with the spade, shouting, “I got it! I got it!” I was starting to rethink that part, too.

“Go ahead and laugh,” Marcus said from the passenger seat. “You know you want to.”

“No,” I said. “It’s not funny.” I glanced over and he was smiling at me.

“Yeah, Kathleen, it kind of is. You trying to catch that boot. You should have seen your face. It was like you were at the Super Bowl and there were only two seconds left on the clock.”

“Well if you’d gotten a little more distance you could have sent that boot right between those two maple trees in the backyard for a three-pointer.” I shot him another quick glance and grinned. “You’re not the only one who can do a football analogy.”

He laughed. Then he reached over and gave my leg a squeeze. “Aren’t you going to tell me that I shouldn’t leave my boots out on the deck?”

“Uh-uh,” I said. “I told you that the time you left them out there and it started to rain. And you gave me a small engineering lecture on how the overhang would protect them.”

“Yeah, the overhang didn’t really help this time.”

I flicked on my blinker and turned into the driveway to Wisteria Hill. “Yeah,” I said, mimicking his overly casual tone. “The overhang didn’t really help last time, either.”

“Wait a minute. You saw me pour the water out that time?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw him shift sideways a little in his seat so it was easier to look at me.

“Yes, I saw you pour the water out that time,” I said.

“You didn’t say anything.”

I pulled into the gravel parking area to the left of Roma’s house and shut off the truck. “We had just started actually dating.”

It had taken a while for the relationship between the two of us to get started, even though at times it had felt like the whole town was playing matchmaker. It didn’t help that Marcus was a police detective and we’d met when I was briefly a person of interest in one of his cases.

“You volunteered to get up early on a Saturday morning to help supervise a group of teenagers pick up garbage from the side of the road,” I said. “I was so impressed you could have tied a couple of plastic bags around your feet and I wouldn’t have said anything.”

Marcus grinned. “You’re only saying that because Maggie made us wear those big orange trash bags with a giant X on the back made of yellow duct tape because there weren’t enough safety vests.

I laughed, remembering Mags putting the makeshift vest on Marcus while he stood awkwardly with his arms out at his sides. I think seeing a police officer willing to look a little silly had made points with the kids who were with us.

We got out and carried the cats’ food and dishes around to the back of the old carriage house. Because the cats were feral they weren’t socialized, although they had all learned to associate Roma’s regular volunteers with food. After we put out the food and water, Marcus and I retreated back by the door and waited. I leaned against him and he folded his arms around me. I could have happily stayed there all day.

“Do you think catching mice like that one is how Micah survived out here until we found her?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Possibly,” I said. “And that was a vole, not a mouse. Probably a meadow vole, Microtus pennsylvanicus. They have a short tail and small ears and a chunkier body type.”

“Sometimes I picture the inside of your head as a huge room with row after row of filing cabinets filled with information on pretty much everything.”

“It used to look like that.” I grinned over my shoulder at him. “But everything got digitized last year.” I held up my right thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. “It’s all on a little computer chip behind my left ear. Really. Librarian’s honor.”

He smiled, pulling me closer against him.

I turned in his arms and stretched up on tiptoe so I could kiss him. All thoughts of meadow voles and honor among librarians went out the window.

After a couple of minutes Lucy made her way out to the feeding station. She was the smallest of the cats but she was unmistakably the matriarch of the group. “Hi, Lucy,” I said softly.

She turned at the sound of my voice. Lucy and I had developed a connection in the time I’d been helping Roma feed the cats. Although I’d never been able to touch her, she got closer to me than she did to anyone else. Now she crossed the wooden floor and stopped a few feet in front of us. I hadn’t seen the cats in several weeks. After Roma had bought Wisteria Hill from Everett Henderson she didn’t need her volunteers as much.

Lucy cocked her furry head to one side and meowed, inquiringly it seemed to me.

I crouched down but didn’t make any move to get any closer. “I’m sorry I haven’t been out to see you,” I said.

“Mrr,” she rumbled softly.

“I promise not to stay away so long next time.”

Lucy made the same soft sound again and then turned and headed for the food. After a minute, lured by some unspoken signal I’d never been able to figure out, the rest of the cats joined her. They all looked well, even Smokey, the oldest of the group, who had had to have surgery the previous fall.

“I’m starting to think Maggie is right,” Marcus whispered, his breath warm on my neck after I’d straightened up and returned to his embrace. “You are the cat whisperer.”

Cat Whisperer was the nickname my friend Maggie Adams had given me because of my rapport with Lucy and the other Wisteria Hill cats. I felt a special connection to the seven cats. Not only was Wisteria Hill where I’d found my own cats, it was also where my friendship with Marcus had been cemented.

“Lucy is special,” I said.

“You say that about all the cats from out here.” He pulled me in tighter against his chest. He smelled like soap and cinnamon gum.

“That’s because they all are.”

It seemed more and more that there was something special, something different about at least some of the cats from the old estate. I was uncomfortably aware that someday soon I was going to have to talk to Marcus about that.

After the cats had eaten and left, we cleaned up, put out fresh water and gathered the rest of the dishes. As we came out of the carriage house into the sunny fall morning I couldn’t help looking behind the building at the field and the woods beyond it.

“You’re thinking about the development, aren’t you?” Marcus asked, taking the canvas bag of empty bowls from me.

I sighed softly. “I can’t help it. It’s all anyone in town has been talking about for the last two weeks.”

The development was a proposal that had just been announced to build an upscale hotel and spa on the shore of Long Lake, not far from Wisteria Hill, a place to get away from it all for harried businesspeople. The developers, out of Chicago, had already bought some of the land. The idea had stirred up strong feeling on both sides in town. Those in favor of the proposal pointed out that visitors to the hotel would likely spend time and money in town. Opponents were concerned about cutting down a large section of old-growth forest to build the resort and the chance that the pristine lake would be polluted.

“I know Roma is worried about the cats,” I said, as we made our way back to the truck. “If the development goes through, there’s going to be a lot of construction traffic out on the main road. She’s afraid it might spook them.” I sighed softly and looked around. “And I can’t help thinking about the cats that get dumped out here.”

“What do you mean?” Marcus asked.

I gestured at the carriage house. “People know Lucy and the others are here. It lets them rationalize that it’s okay to abandon one out here.” I stopped and turned to face him. “Do you know how many cats Roma has rescued just since she started taking care of these cats?”

He shook his head.

“Ten. Ten cats that people left to fend for themselves. Eleven, if you count Micah.”

His jaw tightened and anger flashed in his blue eyes. “I had no idea.”

“I don’t like thinking about how many she didn’t find,” I said as we started walking again. “If it’s busy out here, if there’s more activity, more traffic, those cats will be dumped somewhere else.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Marcus said as we reached the truck. “I’ll talk to Roma. Either way, no matter what happens with the development, we need to do something about so many cats just being dumped.”

I leaned against his shoulder for a moment and smiled up at him. Marcus had a kind heart underneath his play-by-the-rules-detective exterior.

I unlocked the truck and slid behind the wheel, checking my watch as I did so. “Do you have time for breakfast at Eric’s?” I asked. “My treat.”

He leaned in the open passenger door and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “Are you trying to make amends for laughing at me with coffee and one of Eric’s breakfast sandwiches?”

“Yes,” I said.

He did smile then. “Well, lucky for you that will work.”

I leaned across the seat and kissed him.

“That works, too.” He caught my shoulder with one hand and kissed me again.

For a moment I forgot what I was going to do next. His kisses still had that effect on me. He had that effect on me.

I pulled back, very reluctantly. “Um, okay, so Eric’s. For breakfast.”

Marcus pulled a hand over his chin. He cleared his throat. “Right.”

Since it was early I had no trouble finding a parking place on the street just down from Eric’s Place.

“Do you think it’s too early to call Thorsten?” Marcus asked as we started along the sidewalk.

“No,” I said, stopping to scrape a clump of mud off my boot. “You could have called him at six a.m. You know the saying, the early bird gets the worm?”

“I get it. Thorsten is the early bird.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

I shook my head. “Uh-uh. He’s the guy who wakes up the early bird.”

Marcus laughed. “That has to have come from Mary.”

I grinned. “Good guess.”

Mary Lowe worked for me at the library. She looked like everyone’s favorite grandmother with her sensible shoes and decorated sweaters for every occasion. She was also state kickboxing champion for her age and weight class.

“And I think the comment comes from first hand knowledge. Back before Mary was a responsible, married grandmother I think she and Thorsten may have had a thing.”

Marcus raised an eyebrow. “What kind of a thing? He’s younger than she is.”

“I know he is,” I said, “which is why I didn’t ask any questions. I was afraid she might tell me. I know he’s seen her dance.”

“Kathleen, a lot of people have seen Mary dance—including you.”

I winced. “Don’t remind me. It took me about two weeks until I could look her directly in the eye.”

I had discovered—very much by accident—that Mary danced on amateur night complete with lacy corset and a feathered fan at a bar up on the highway that featured exotic dancing. I tipped my head in the direction of the café’s door. “Try Thorsten and I’ll go get us a table.”

Eric’s was quiet, even for a Friday morning. There were two men at the counter who I knew worked at the marina and a woman and two other men I didn’t recognize at a table at the far end of the room.

Eric himself was at the counter. He raised a hand in hello. “Sit anywhere, Kathleen,” he called. “Claire will be right out.”

“Thanks,” I said, heading for my favorite table in the front window. I could see Marcus on the sidewalk. I was guessing he’d reached Thorsten. He was holding his phone to his ear with one hand and gesturing with the other.

I hung my purse over the back of the chair and pulled off my hoodie, looking up to see Claire approaching with coffee.

“Good morning,” she said, as she began to fill the mugs on the table. She didn’t ask if we wanted coffee. She knew both of us well enough to know the answer by now.

“Would you like a menu?” Claire asked. “Or do you know what you’d like?

“Two breakfast sandwiches, please.” I looked around. “It’s awfully quiet this morning.”

She nodded. “There’s a breakfast meeting about the proposal for Long Lake over at the community center. We catered it for them. Nic is working over there. Eric just came back.”

“I thought that was tomorrow,” I said, reaching for the small pitcher of cream Claire had set in the middle of the table.

She shot a quick glance over her shoulder to see if anyone needed anything from her. One of the men at the table pointed at his cup. Claire nodded before she turned back to me. “It was,” she said. “They changed the date at the last minute. Some environmental group is getting involved.” She turned toward the other table. “Your sandwiches won’t be very long.”

I had just taken the first sip of my coffee when Marcus came though the door of the café. He looked around for me, and then, as his gaze slid by the three people at the nearby table he just stopped, staring at them without moving, as though he’d forgotten about me, forgotten why he was there.

I got to my feet but the woman at the table was faster. She pushed her chair back and stood up, surprise clear in her wide-eyed expression. “Marcus?” she said.

The two men with her turned toward the door when she spoke. They both looked as surprised as she did. Her astonishment had already been replaced with a delighted smile. She made her way across the café, maneuvering quickly around chairs and tables and threw her arms around Marcus. One of the men was already on his feet, a smile stretching across his face. Marcus was smiling, too. And hugging the woman.

I stood at my table feeling lost and confused. I had no idea who the people were.