Paws Аnd Effect

2

The man who had just stood up joined Marcus and the woman. He was easily six feet tall with wavy blond hair that looked a little overdue for a haircut, and a rangy build. He and Marcus shook hands and then hugged in the quick way that men do with slaps on the back.

Marcus looked around for me then. I could tell from the half smile he gave me that he was uncomfortable. I felt certain of his feelings for me but even so, I was still learning about him, about his life. There was still a lot I didn’t know. Whoever these people were, they were important to him.

The second man walked over to join the little group. He was maybe an inch or two less than six feet, with the wide shoulders and muscled build of an athlete. His dark hair was cropped short and he wore black-framed glasses. He eyed Marcus with curiosity and at the same time seemed to be sizing him up. Nothing in his face or his body language said that he was as happy to see Marcus as his friends clearly were.

He offered his hand. “Marcus, it’s been a long time.”

“Hello, Travis,” Marcus said. I noticed neither man had said “It’s good to see you” or anything of the kind.

Marcus saw me approaching and his shoulders seemed to relax, just a little. When I reached his side he took my hand. I was a little surprised. He wasn’t one for public demonstrations of his feelings. I gave it a squeeze and smiled at his friends, because obviously that’s who they were.

“Kathleen,” he said, “I’d like you to meet Danielle, John and Travis. We went to college together.”

Danielle immediately held out her hand. “Hi, Kathleen,” she said. “Call me Dani.” She had long, slender fingers and I felt calluses on her palm. She was beautiful, tall and slender with high cheekbones and green eyes. Her blond hair was pulled back in a messy bun.

The tall, shaggy-haired man was John. He smiled and shook my hand as well. I watched Travis out of the corner of my eye. He was watching me and not trying to be subtle about it.

“Hello, Travis,” I said turning toward him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“You too,” he said. He looked over at their table. “Why don’t you two join us? We can catch up and get to know you a little.” He looked at Marcus and to me it looked like a challenge in his dark eyes.

I gave him my best librarian-in-charge look. “Thanks, that would be great,” I said. I caught Claire’s attention and very quickly two tables were pushed together.

They seemed to be good friends, but why had Marcus never mentioned them to me before?

“So what are you doing here?” John asked, turning sideways in his chair and leaning one arm across its back.

“I live here,” Marcus said.

“You’re still a police officer?”

Marcus nodded. “Detective, yes.”

“What are the three of you doing in town?” I asked.

“You know there’s a development proposed for Long Lake?” Dani said, propping her elbows on the table.

I nodded over my coffee cup.

“We work for a coalition of environmental groups. We’re here to look at the land and see if there’s any reason to stop the project.” She hesitated. “I’m a geologist, Travis is an environmental engineer—”

“And John’s a biologist,” I finished.

Marcus covered his surprise at my seemingly psychic abilities very well. Actually, I’d just made a guess based on the Wildflowers of Minnesota Field Guide and the copy of Bird Feathers that were sticking out of the top of the messenger bag hanging from the back of John’s chair.

Dani nodded. “My job is to look at the land to see if there’s anything about the soil or the topography that precludes the developers’ plans for the site.” She gestured at Travis. “Travis will look at what the environmental impact will be on the area.”

“Possible air and water pollution, soil contamination, etcetera, etcetera,” Travis added.

“And my job is to determine whether there are any rare or endangered plants on the site,” John said. “Which reminds me, I heard Mayville Heights has a really extensive herbarium.”

“Yes, we do,” I said. The library had inherited the herbarium—which was a collection of dried, preserved plants—years before when a government plant research station had consolidated its work in St. Paul.

“Do you have any idea who I’d talk to about looking through the collection?” John pulled a small, hardbound book from his shirt pocket.

“You should talk to the head librarian,” Marcus said, turning to smile at me. “Which happens to be Kathleen.”

“That’s great,” John said. He gave me an inquiring look. “So could I?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I can get you set up this morning if you’d like.”

“I would. Thank you.”

“Kathleen, you’re not from here, are you?” Travis asked. He waved a finger by his ear. “I can hear a little of the East Coast in your voice.”

I folded both hands around my cup and turned toward him. “You have a very good ear,” I said. “And no, I’m not originally from here. I am from back east, all up and down the coast actually, but most recently Boston.”

“How did the two of you meet?” Dani asked. She glanced at Marcus and gave him a smile.

“The library had a connection to a case I was working on,” he said. Under the table his hand brushed my leg for a moment.

“And he won you over with his charm,” Travis commented, a fine edge of sarcasm in his tone.

I nodded, keeping my gaze locked on Marcus. “Yes, he did.”

I knew it was wrong to make up my mind about someone I’d just met, but Travis rubbed me the wrong way. I thought of what my mother would say in this circumstance: You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig.

“So did he tell you how we all met?” Travis continued. It was almost as though he knew Marcus hadn’t told me about them and wanted to out him on that.

“I don’t think I ever asked,” I said. Which was true. “So how did a future police detective end up being friends with three environmentalists?”

Dani was sitting next to Marcus. She bumped his arm with her shoulder. “First year bio lab, remember?”

“Biology?” I said. Marcus’s undergraduate degree was in criminology with a minor in computer science.

He shrugged. “I was taking the course as an elective because it fit my schedule. The four of us ended up at the same lab bench.”

“And?” I nudged, knowing from the sound of his voice that there was more to the story. His face reddened. I raised an eyebrow at him à la Star Trek’s Mr. Spock.

“We were staining slides. We had to use a Bunsen burner for one of them . . . and then a fire extinguisher.”

“So the four of you bonded when you started a fire in the biology lab and then had to put it out with a fire extinguisher?”

Dani shook her head. “No, it wasn’t like that,” she said, laughter sparkling in her green eyes. “And technically it was the sprinkler system that put the fire out.” She held up a hand before I could say anything. “And it wasn’t our fault that the sprinkler system activated in the first place. That was because of Dr. Martindale’s hair.”

“You’ve lost me,” I said. “Who’s Dr. Martindale?”

“Bio prof,” John said, frowning as though the answer should have been obvious.

“And it was his hair that set off the sprinklers?” I was still lost.

He nodded.

“Because he was wearing a tiki-torch hat?”

“Very funny,” he said, “but no. When Travis set his slide on fire with the Bunsen burner he dropped it in the sink. The problem was whoever had been in the lab before us had dumped alcohol down that sink.”

“Which was not my fault,” Travis interjected.

“I think I get the picture,” I said. “But I still don’t understand how the professor’s hair set off the sprinklers.”

“It wasn’t exactly his hair, if you get what I mean,” Dani said with a Cheshire-cat grin.

I nodded. “I’m starting to.”

“Dr. Martindale was an excitable kind of guy.” Travis looked toward the front of the restaurant. When he caught Claire’s attention he pointed at his cup the same way I’d seen him do earlier.

“Flaming hair will do that to you, I’m guessing,” I said.

Claire arrived at the table with the coffeepot then. As she filled my cup I met her gaze and held up one finger. She nodded almost imperceptibly and I felt confident that she knew I intended to take care of the bill.

“Okay, Dr. Martindale’s alleged hair was on fire,” I said as I doctored my coffee. “Then what happened?” It was impossible to keep my smile contained.

John made a face. “He had on a pair of those big plastic goggles you wear in the lab and when he pulled them off his hair got caught in the strap and it”—he made a rolling motion with one hand—“kind of somersaulted into the sink.” He shrugged. “You know, I was never really sure that hair was human hair.”

“You’re making this up,” I said, shaking with laughter. Even Marcus was smiling at the memory.

“No, we’re not,” John insisted. He held up one hand, palm facing out. “I swear it’s the truth. There was a lot of smoke, the sprinklers went off and we had to evacuate the building. That was the end of the lab. We all ended up at this bar just off campus.” He shrugged again. “That’s really how we got to know each other. We all pretty much agreed without talking about it that we weren’t going to say a word about Dr. Martindale’s hair being the reason the sprinklers went off.”

“I can see how it would have been a hot-button issue for him,” I said, dissolving into laughter again.

“I think we were probably the reason Dr. Martindale retired at the end of the year.” John winked at me and reached for his coffee.

“You mean the field trip,” Travis said. The smile on his face was more like a smirk. “Yeah, I think that cemented it for Martindale.”

A look passed between Marcus and Dani, so quickly that I wasn’t completely certain I’d seen it at all.

Dani stretched one arm behind her head and shifted to look at Travis. “C’mon, Trav, we’re probably boring Kathleen talking about the good old days.”

Travis was still leaning back in his chair, one hand wrapped around his mug. With the other he sent a knife on the table spinning in a circle. “Are we boring you, Kathleen, talking about Marcus’s youthful indiscretions?” he asked.

I could feel the tension in the air, like ozone before a thunderstorm. I knew there was no right way to answer Travis’s question. Something had happened between him and Marcus. Maybe that was why Marcus had never talked about any of them.

Under the table I put my hand on his leg. He covered it with his own for a moment. “Talking about Marcus is never boring as far as I’m concerned,” I said to Travis. That was true and it was the most neutral answer I could come up with.

Marcus turned sideways in his chair and smiled at me. “The year we took that biology class the administration decided to add some fieldwork to the course.”

“It was the only year they did that,” John added.

Marcus’s gaze flicked to Dani again and she picked up the story. “So, anyway, the college owned a woodlot and Dr. Martindale decided to take the class camping overnight. We were supposed to collect plant samples all day and then when it got dark we were going to look at the stars. Dr. Hemmings and a couple of grad students from the physics department came with us.”

“To foster an atmosphere of interdepartmental cooperation and learning,” Travis said, as though he were quoting the words straight from some university press release. He pushed his hipster glasses up his nose with one finger.

“The two grad students had to lug a telescope through the woods,” John said, grinning at the memory.

Dani gave me a smile. Her voice didn’t betray any tension but I could see it in her shoulders and the way she held her head. “Marcus volunteered to make breakfast.”

I glanced at him again and smiled. “He’s a good cook.”

John almost choked on his coffee. “You’re serious? He cooks?”

I nodded.

Dani turned and glared. “Be nice,” she said.

He just laughed.

“I didn’t exactly volunteer,” Marcus said. “I was the only one up.”

He looked over at John, who immediately shook his head and turned to look at me. “For the record, Kathleen, I do not snore and I did not drive him out of our tent.”

“Duly noted,” I said.

“Dr. Hemmings gave me a bag of oatmeal and a pot,” Marcus said. “She told me to make breakfast for my group.”

“And you what? Burned the oatmeal?”

John was laughing now. Dani’s smile still seemed forced.

“You’re a librarian, Kathleen,” Travis said. His voice was still laced with a touch of sarcasm. “You probably know the story of Medusa.”

I had no idea what a character from Greek mythology had to do with Marcus making oatmeal but I nodded. “Medusa was a Gorgon. According to the legend, the sight of her face was so terrible it would turn anyone who looked at her to stone.”

Travis’s gaze slid from Marcus to me. “Yeah, well that’s pretty much what Marcus did to our breakfast.”

“It wasn’t quite like that, Kathleen,” Dani said. She wore a silver double-infinity-knot ring on the middle finger of her left hand and she twisted it around and around on the finger.

“It was pretty much exactly like that,” John retorted.

“My mother always made oatmeal with milk,” Marcus said.

“Something you need to know about John is that he always has a few essential supplies when he’s out in the field,” Dani said. She looked past me, at Marcus, giving him a genuine smile of affection. “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Pop-Tarts, coffee, powdered milk.” She put extra emphasis on the last two words.

“I’m starting to think I know where this is going,” I said. “You thought you’d use the powdered milk.”

Marcus nodded.

I turned back to Dani. “But?”

“John also had a bag of plaster of Paris in his backpack.”

“No,” I said.

John’s head was bobbing up and down. “Yes.”

“You could have put a label on the bag.” Marcus leaned forward to look at John.

“Hey, plaster of Paris and powdered milk don’t exactly look that much alike.” John was laughing.

“They do at five in the morning when you’re sleep-deprived.”

I leaned against Marcus for a moment, feeling the warmth of his body through the fabric of his shirt. “So what happened to the oatmeal?”

Travis spoke up before anyone could answer. “You know how people say stuff like that is good for you because it sticks with you?”

“I do,” I said.

“Lucky for Marcus that oatmeal stuck with the pot so nobody actually ate it.”

John turned to look at him, waving one hand in the air. “No, that’s not true. We actually managed to get it out of the pot. It was like a big cylindrical boulder. We just rolled it into the trees. I think Dr. Hemmings made one of her grad students carry it back to campus so she could use it as a doorstop. She thought it was some kind of unusual rock formation.”

“Okay, I know you’re making that up,” I said, shaking with laughter.

John put a hand over his heart. “Sadly, I’m not.”

“So what did you all do for breakfast?”

“Marcus hiked out to the road, thumbed a ride to McDonald’s and came back with Egg McMuffins for everyone.” Dani smiled at him again.

“Pretty much saved the day,” Travis said, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

“Wait a minute.” I gestured at Dani. “You said John had Pop-Tarts in his backpack. Why didn’t you eat those?”

John raised a hand skyward as though he were in a classroom. “I know this,” he said. “Pick me! Pick me.”

Dani rolled her eyes at him. She didn’t seem as tense now.

“Go ahead,” I said to John.

“When Chef Marcus here was foraging for powdered milk he left my backpack outside the tent and a raccoon took the Pop-Tarts, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and two pairs of my socks.”

“That was a long time ago,” Marcus said with a smile.

I smiled. “And for the record, Marcus is a vey good cook now.”

“Back then the problem wasn’t a lack of cooking skills,” Travis said. “It was taking something you had no business putting your hands on.”

The table grew silent. John exhaled and shook his head, muttering something I didn’t catch. Dani closed her eyes, resting her forehead on her hand. Marcus went into police officer mode. He set his cup and then his napkin on the table with precise, economical movements. Then he turned his attention to Travis. “This isn’t the time or the place for whatever problem you have with me.”

“Trav, don’t do this,” John said. He stood up. “We should get going.”

“I’m just sharing stories with Marcus’s girlfriend about the good old days,” Travis said. He was talking to John, but his eyes never left Marcus’s face.

This was where my mother would say, “Fish or cut bait.” Actually, she’d probably use a more colorful expression that involved getting off a pot but the sentiment was the same.

“It was good to meet all of you,” I said. “But I have to get going as well.” I stood up and reached down to rest my hand on Marcus’s shoulder. I was just like Owen with his paw on a kitty treat: I was marking my territory.

“I see the women in your life still rush to your defense,” Travis commented, one hand playing with his coffee cup. The snarky edge to his voice was more pronounced.

Marcus pushed back his chair and got to his feet. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Eric over at the counter watching us. I knew all I had to do was raise a hand and he’d be at the table.

“Is this where I’m supposed to go all caveman and take a swing at you?” Marcus asked.

“C’mon, Trav, don’t be a tool,” John said to his friend.

Travis got up as well. “Did you tell Kathleen how you stabbed your best friend in the back?” Feet apart, shoulders squared, I could see confrontation in his body language as well as his words. He was a big man and his anger made him look even bigger

“Don’t do this,” Dani said.

“Defend him the way you always do.” Sarcasm dripped off of Travis’s words.

What could have happened that he felt so wronged after so many years? I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

Dani sighed and pushed a stray strand of hair back off her face. She looked tired all of a sudden. “Fine, then,” she said. “Kathleen, Travis and I were a couple in college, until Marcus and I met.” She swallowed hard. “And we started seeing each other . . . behind Travis’s back.”

My first thought was why hadn’t she just broken up with Travis if she wanted to date Marcus, but I hadn’t always made good decisions when I was in college, so who was I to judge? “We do dumb things when we’re in college,” I said. “I know I did things I’m sorry for now.”

I looked at Travis. He hadn’t made a very good first impression, but I couldn’t help feeling sad that he hadn’t been able to let go of something that had happened so many years ago. He seemed to be wearing his hurt like a hair shirt. Why on earth was he still working with Dani?

Travis’s dark eyes flashed. “First of all, we were more than a couple. We were engaged. And second, I caught them together in—what’s the polite term? A compromising situation? It was more than a dumb thing, Kathleen.”

His words hit Dani like a slap. Her face reddened and she bit her lip.

I could feel the tension vibrating in Marcus like a plucked violin string. “Leave,” he growled, his voice low and harsh with warning. “Stay away from Dani. Stay away from Kathleen and stay the hell away from me. If you think my badge means I won’t defend the people I care about you’re very, very wrong.”

John grabbed Travis’s arm. “Let’s go, man,” he said.

Travis glared at Marcus, who met his gaze seemingly calmly. I think only I could feel the hum of anger his body was giving off.

John caught the neck of Travis’s shirt with his free hand and pulled. “We’re going. Now!” he said, sharply.

Marcus’s jaw was tight with tension. I knew he was grinding his teeth together and I was impressed with his restraint.

Travis shook off John’s hands, shoved his chair out of the way and headed for the door.

John closed his eyes for a moment and blew out a noisy breath. When he opened them again he looked at us and gestured in the direction of the door. “I should go . . . check on him.” He shrugged and gave me a wry smile. “Kathleen, it really was good to meet you. I’m sorry about . . .” He made a helpless gesture in the air. “ . . . everything.” He reached for his wallet but Marcus shook his head silently.

John rested his hand on Dani’s shoulder for a moment. She seemed to shrink inside herself as though she were cringing with embarrassment.

Dani said nothing until the door closed behind John. Then she sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault.” I said. “I’m sorry that Travis got hurt and I can see you both are, too.”

“You probably think I’m a—”

I shook my head. “I think I’m glad I got to meet you, Dani. And I hope I’ll see you again while you’re in town.”

She nodded, swatting at a stray strand of hair. “Thank you, Kathleen. I’m very glad I got to meet you. And I’m glad Marcus has you.”

“I’ll get this,” I said to Marcus, gesturing at the table. “Stay here with Dani. I’m going to head over to the library.”

He hesitated for a moment and then leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Thanks,” he said. “I’m sorry about this.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

I headed over to the counter. Eric held up his largest take-out coffee cup and raised an eyebrow.

“Please,” I said.

“Everything okay?” he asked quietly as he picked up the coffeepot.

I glanced back at Marcus and Dani. He was sitting down facing her, elbows resting on his thighs, hands with fingers interlaced hanging between his knees. Dani was listening as he talked, still twisting her ring around her finger.

“I uh . . . I think so,” I said.

Eric handed me my coffee and the bill. I glanced at it and pulled enough money out of my wallet to cover the total plus a tip.

“Guy’s crazy about you, you know.” Eric inclined his head in Marcus’s direction.

I gave him a smile. “Thanks, Eric,” I said. “Have a good day.”

When I stepped outside John was alone on the sidewalk.

“Hi, Kathleen,” he said, giving me a wry smile. “My plans for the day have changed. Any chance I could get a look at your herbarium? Or have you had enough of us?”

I gave him a smile that was probably more professional than friendly. “I was going to walk over to the library. Would you like to come with me right now?”

He looked back at the café. “Yeah, why not?”

We started down the sidewalk. I took a sip of my coffee. John looked out toward the water. The sky was a deep, seemingly endless shade of blue. “This is a nice place,” he said.

I nodded. “Yes, it is.”

We walked a bit farther in uncomfortable silence and then John stopped. He turned to face me. “Does this feel as awkward to you as it does to me?”

I nodded and took another sip from my cup.

“Look, I’m sorry about Travis,” he said. “This whole thing with Marcus and Dani happened a long time ago and ended pretty quickly.” He gave an offhanded shrug. “And it’s not like they were going to do the whole happily-ever-after thing anyway. It’s just . . . I think working together for the past few weeks brought up some old feelings for him. Dani made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested and I think seeing Marcus, well, it was just easier to blame him than face the fact that it was never going to happen with Dani.”

“So they don’t work together all the time?” I said.

John shook his head. “No. The engineer who was working with us on this project dislocated his shoulder and broke his arm rock climbing. Travis came on board at the last minute.” He held out both hands. “And now I’m going to change the subject. How did you end up in Minnesota? Was it the librarian’s equivalent of running off to join the circus?”

I laughed. “I wanted to do something different. The library board was looking for someone to supervise renovations to the building.” I held up my cup. “And here I am.”

“How the heck did you end up with an herbarium? I don’t think I’ve ever come across one in a library before.” We started walking again.

“That happened before I got here. It’s a small town. We have a lot of things people don’t expect to find in a library—a collection of documents with the history of this area, high school yearbooks going back almost a hundred years.” We stopped at the corner to let two cars go by before we crossed the street.

“Basically we inherited the herbarium when the government plant research station consolidated all its work in St. Paul.”

John made a face. “I’ve already been through the endangered species database. I’m hoping there might be something in the herbarium records, some rare plant we didn’t know was native to this area. Plants don’t always follow the rules about where they grow.” He held out both hands and shrugged. “It’s a long shot.”

It occurred to me then that maybe it would help John if he talked to Rebecca. “I have a friend who’s been making herbal remedies all her life,” I said as we approached the library. “She knows a lot about the plants that grow in this area. I could call her and see if she has any suggestions, I mean, if you think it would help.”

“It couldn’t hurt,” he said. “Thanks. If we’re going to stop this project or at least get the proposal modified we don’t have a lot of time.”

“So all three of you work for the same environmental group?” I asked.

John shook his head. “Dani and I do. Not Travis. There are four different groups working together right now. They’re all opposed to the resort proposal. It just made more sense for us to pool our resources.” He stopped in front of the old brick building. “This is your library?”

I nodded.

“Very nice,” he said approvingly. “How old is the building?”

“Over a hundred years.” I led the way up the steps. I noticed John eye the wrought-iron railings and the heavy wooden doors.

Mary Lowe was at the circulation desk when we stepped inside. “Good morning, Kathleen,” she said. “You’re early.”

“A little,” I said. “Is Abigail around?”

Mary tipped her head in the direction of the stacks. “She’s shelving in the children’s section.” She looked past me and gave her best grandmotherly smile to John. “Welcome to the Mayville Heights Free Public Library.”

“Thank you,” he said. “It’s a beautiful building.”

Mary beamed. “We think so.”

I touched John’s arm. “I’ll introduce you to Abigail Pierce. She can get you set up.”

We found Abigail arranging picture books on a low shelf, forehead furrowed in concentration. Abigail was also a children’s author and I was hearing lots of great buzz about the new book she had coming out in early winter, just a couple of months away.

She straightened up and smiled when she caught sight of us. I made the introductions and explained what John was looking for.

“I can get you set up in our small meeting room,” Abigail said. A pensive look crossed her face and she tucked a strand of hair absently behind one ear. She looked so different without her long braid. “We also have some sketchbooks that might be helpful. One of the botanists who worked at the research station was also an artist. He drew some of the plants he saw and there are maps and notes as well.”

John pulled a hand back over his neck. “That sounds terrific but I think I’m going to need an extra set of hands to go through all that.”

“I think I can get those for you,” I said.

“They’re not going to come ripping out of my chest like in that Alien movie, are they?” he asked.

Abigail looked at me, narrowing her eyes. “Are you thinking of Maggie?”

“Yes,” I said. “Rebecca taught her a lot about plants in this part of the state and I know she took a look at those sketchbooks.” I turned back to John. “My friend Maggie Adams is an artist. If you think it would help I could call her and see if she could stop by and go through those sketchbooks.”

“It would help,” John said. “But are you sure she’s available?”

“I can ask. Maggie is very much on the no side when it comes to the development. I think she’d be happy to help if she can.”

Abigail—who I knew was also opposed to the development—smiled. “Why don’t I show John the herbarium while you call Maggie?”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

John picked up the leather messenger bag he’d set at his feet and gave me a warm smile. “Thanks, Kathleen. I appreciate all your help.”

I smiled back at him. “You’re welcome.”

I went upstairs to my office to call Maggie. “I can walk over right now,” she said once I explained about John and the sketchbooks.

I swiveled in my chair and looked out the window over the water. There were a few clouds, like puffs of white cotton floating high in the sky. “I’m not taking you from anything important, am I?” I asked.

“I’ve been staring at a bunch of photos on my computer for the last twenty minutes and I still don’t know which ones to print,” she said. “And stopping the plans for the lakefront is more important than anything else right now as far as I’m concerned. I’ll see you in a little while.”

I ended the call and leaned back in my chair. I didn’t want the development—at least the way the plans were at the moment—to happen, either. But more than that I wanted the whole debate settled. It was beginning to affect the town. Rebecca and Everett were on different sides of the issue but they had somehow found a way for that to not affect their relationship—probably because in the end Everett would do anything for her if she asked. But they were the exception. Even at the library we’d agreed to disagree. Abigail and I were in the no camp, but Mary was for the proposal, pointing out that Mayville Heights would benefit from more tourists so close by.

“I grew up swimming in Long Lake, picking blueberries and getting a Christmas tree out there every year,” she’d told me one morning about a week and a half previous, standing in the upstairs hallway. “And in a perfect world none of that land would ever be developed. But it’s far from a perfect world.” She’d brushed a stray bit of lint from the front of her blue sweater, which was decorated with huge yellow-and-brown sunflowers. “Time only runs in one direction, Kathleen. Forward,” she’d continued, her expression serious, which was rare for Mary. “I believe it’s because we’re supposed to keep moving forward, not live in the past.”

I hadn’t argued with Mary’s reasoning—but I knew that Harrison Taylor had had a fairly heated conversation on the subject with her. Harrison and Mary had been friends for years and I felt sure their friendship would withstand this disagreement, but I still hated seeing them squabble instead of blatantly flirting with each other the way they usually did.

When Maggie arrived I took her in to meet John and promised I’d bring her back lunch from Eric’s.

“I’m going home to change,” I told Mary. “I shouldn’t be long.” Generally I didn’t start until lunchtime on Fridays.

Mary nodded. “The young man who came in with you, he’s looking for something to stop the plans for the resort, isn’t he?”

I turned back around to face her. “Yes, he is,” I said. “Will that be a problem for you?”

The moment the words were out I regretted saying them. I held up my hand. “I’m sorry, Mary. I shouldn’t have asked that. I know that you don’t let personal feeling interfere with your work.”

She gave a snort of laughter. “Yes, I do. All the time. But I promise you I won’t go into the meeting room where he’s working loaded for bear.”

I smiled. “I appreciate that.”

When I got home I found Hercules in the backyard sitting on the wide arm of my favorite Adirondack chair. “What are you doing out here?” I asked. He looked in the direction of the gazebo in Rebecca’s backyard. Rebecca and Everett’s backyard, I mentally corrected myself. Rebecca had been my neighbor since I’d moved to Mayville Heights. She’d been the first person to welcome me. Then I’d met Maggie and Roma when Rebecca invited me to try her tai chi class. She was one of my favorite people. Both Owen and Hercules adored her and not just because she spoiled them with kitty treats.

Now that Rebecca and Everett were married Hercules had taken to joining Everett for coffee—and the occasional (I hoped) slice of bacon in the gazebo a couple of times a week.

“So have you solved all the town’s problems?” I asked, scooping up the little black-and-white cat and heading for the back door. Hercules pretty much came and went as he pleased. That was because he had a very unique ability. He could walk through the door—walls, too. The first time I’d seen him do it—at the library while it was under construction—I didn’t know if I was hallucinating or having a stroke. I wasn’t sure what it said about me that seeing my cat walk through an otherwise solid wooden door or an equally solid brick wall was pretty much commonplace for me now.

I unlocked the back door and set Hercules on the porch floor. At least Owen didn’t walk though walls. I opened the kitchen door, letting Hercules go ahead of me. “Owen,” I called. “Where are you?”

Hercules cocked his black-and-white head to one side and looked toward the cats’ food bowls next to the refrigerator. Owen winked into view, materializing like Captain Kirk getting beamed onto the bridge of the starship Enterprise.

No, Owen couldn’t walk through walls and doors the way his brother could. His superpower, as it were, was the ability to make himself invisible. Which he generally did at the worst times for me.

He made his way across the kitchen floor toward me, making disgruntled little murps.

I crouched down and stroked his fur. “I’m sorry it took so long. I took Marcus out to breakfast.” That got me a louder dissatisfied murp.

“I need to change and head back down to the library.” My regular workday would be starting soon anyway and I wanted to see how John was doing in the herbarium. “And I need to call Rebecca,” I said aloud.

Owen immediately headed for the back door. “No,” I said. “She’s not coming over for tea.” Owen stopped in his tracks and looked over at his brother. They exchanged a glance and then Herc nudged his food dish with his head, pushing it several inches across the floor. He looked over at me, his green eyes wide and unblinking. I didn’t need to turn toward Owen to know his golden eyes were also fixed on me.

“Neither one of you knows the meaning of the word ‘subtle,’” I said as I got the container of sardine crackers out of the cupboard.

“Merow!” Hercules said, which may have meant he did in fact know what the word meant, but in reality was probably his way of saying “Hurry up.”

I gave each cat a small stack of the homemade crackers and a fresh drink of water and then went upstairs to change.

When I came out of the bathroom after brushing my teeth I found Hercules in the hallway. Because Owen could be kind of finicky I knew it would take him a lot longer to finish his snack.

Hercules followed me into the bedroom and poked his head in the closet. I sometimes got the feeling he’d been some sort of fashionista in a past life. He eyed every item while I was picking out my clothes as though he had an opinion on everything—which it sometimes seemed to me that he did.

“Marcus has friends from college,” I said as I pulled the elastic from my hair and ran my fingers through it.

“Mrrr,” Hercules said.

“They’re here, three of them. In town, I mean.”

I talked to the cats. A lot. For a long time I’d rationalized it by telling myself it helped me to work out things out loud—to hear what I was thinking. And that was true, but I also believed they understood most if not all of what I was saying. Given their other “skills,” it wasn’t that far-fetched.

I told Hercules all about meeting Travis, John and Danielle. At one point in the conversation I looked over to see Owen in the doorway, carefully washing his face. He looked up at me when I stopped talking and meowed—cat for “Keep going,” perhaps?

“It’s not like Marcus,” I said. Hercules leaned against my leg and I reached down and picked him up. If he shed any fur on my charcoal sweater it wouldn’t show. “He slept with his best friend’s girlfriend. Does that sound like Marcus to you?”

The cat wrinkled his nose as though he was actually considering my question. “I know it was a long time ago, but . . .” I let the end of the sentence trail off because I didn’t know what else to say. Marcus hadn’t told me anything about these friends that he’d been very close to at one point in his life—in the case of Dani, extremely close. He was a very private person but this felt wrong, even for him.

It had been hard for Marcus, who was accustomed to keeping things to himself, to share his life with me. And it had been hard for me, used to my let-it-all-hang-out family, to give him time to let me in. “I really do love him,” I said to Hercules.

“Mrr,” Hercules said. It may have seemed silly, but I was glad both cats liked Marcus. I remembered the first time he had told me he loved me. He’d had a furry Greek chorus urging him on.

“There’s some reason he didn’t tell me about them,” I said. “Something more than he slept with his friend’s girlfriend.”

“Merow!” Owen chimed in from the doorway, one paw in the air as he paused in his fur care routine.

“Owen agrees with me.” Hercules made a sound a lot like a sigh and nuzzled my chin. It seemed he was going to take more convincing.

Before I left I called Rebecca. She readily agreed to come by the library and share what she knew about the area’s plant life with John. I called Marcus but the call went to voice mail. “I just wanted to check in,” I said after the beep. “I’ll be at the library if you need me.”

Down in the kitchen I put a container of chicken soup and one of Rebecca’s rhubarb muffins in my insulated lunch bag. I grabbed my purse and the messenger bag that had been doubling as a briefcase and looked around for the boys. There was no sign of either furry face. “I’m gone. See you tonight,” I called. I waited but there was no answering meow from either one of them.

There was a stray dried leaf on the windshield of the truck. Harry Taylor had been over earlier in the week to clean up my flowerbeds. He’d covered the two new bushes he’d planted the previous summer and some of the dried, wizened leaves that had been caught at the base of the shrubs had blown around the yard, much to the delight of Owen, who had chased them like he was a kitten again.

I leaned over and brushed the crumpled maple leaf off the windshield before climbing into the truck and setting my various bags on the passenger floor mat.

I adjusted the rearview mirror, looked around to make sure I had everything and said, “I know you’re here, Owen.”

Nothing. No murp, meow or hiss. I folded my hands in my lap and waited. A minute went by—maybe—it seemed longer but I knew it couldn’t have been, given Owen’s impatience.

“I have the rest of the morning,” I said, a warning edge creeping into my voice. Both cats may have been smarter than the average feline, but neither one of them could tell time as far as I knew. I looked at the “empty” bench seat beside me and in a moment Owen winked into sight. I had no good words to explain what it was like, suddenly seeing the little tabby in a spot that had previously appeared to be empty. It seemed to me that there was the softest of pops as he appeared, but I wasn’t even certain that it wasn’t just my mind filling in a blank because I thought there should be a sound. Owen fixed his golden eyes on me and tried to look innocent. That was a waste of time. We both knew he was trying to sneak down to the library, probably because he’d heard me say Maggie was there.

Owen adored Maggie. Like Rebecca she spoiled him with catnip chickens. In return Owen could be counted on to dispatch any small, furry vermin that made the mistake of intruding in Maggie’s life. Maggie was one of the kindest people I’d ever met. I’d seen her rescue a seagull with a broken wing and carefully carry a spider out of her studio, but she was terrified of any kind of rodent. She wouldn’t see the humor in the dead vole in Marcus’s boot at all.

I stuck the key in the ignition and reached for my seat belt. “Buckle up,” I said to Owen.

To my delight he actually scanned the seat. Then he took a couple of steps toward me and meowed, studying me with narrowed eyes.

I backed out onto Mountain Road. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?” I said with a grin.