Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery Read online

  “I have work to do,” I said, using the last bite of sourdough bread to soak up a bit of tomato on my plate.

  “It won’t take that long,” Gavin countered. “And I’m serious. Big Jule is more likely to talk to you than he is to me.”

  Claire came to the table then and poured each of us more coffee. Marcus walked into the café as she was topping up my mug. The smile that flashed across his face when he saw me was tempered when he saw Gavin. I raised a hand in hello, and Marcus came over to us, crossing the space between the door and the table in about three strides of his long legs.

  “Hi,” I said, smiling up at him.

  Gavin got to his feet and offered his hand. “Good morning, Detective,” he said with an easy smile.

  “Good morning,” Marcus replied, shaking Gavin’s hand and then, once he’d let it go, resting his other hand on my shoulder. “I didn’t know you two had a meeting this morning,” he said. His eyes flicked briefly to me, and while I knew the words were directed to me, he kept his gaze on Gavin.

  “It was a last-minute thing,” I said. “Gavin may know someone who can help us figure out who might have wanted the Weston drawing.”

  “I’m sure Detective Lind will be happy to have that information,” Marcus said.

  “Actually, Kathleen and I were planning on going to talk to my contact tomorrow. No offense to Detective Lind, but I think we’d have better luck.” Gavin’s tone was offhand, but there was nothing offhand in the way he returned Marcus’s gaze.

  “This is a police investigation,” Marcus said. His eyes shifted to me for a moment. “You know how this works, Kathleen.”

  His hand was still possessively on my shoulder. I suddenly felt like a fire hydrant between two dogs.

  I looked up at Marcus. “I do,” I said. “But Gavin has contacts the police don’t.” I couldn’t quite picture a man whose business clearly wasn’t completely legal and who liked to be called Big Jule—even if the name did come from a fifties musical—wanting to share a lot of information with the police, but I wasn’t going to say that to Marcus with Gavin standing right there.

  The muscles were tight along his jawline, but he turned to Gavin and forced a cool smile. “I’m sure your contacts are more likely to talk to you than to us,” he said as though he’d read my mind. “But please let Detective Lind know if you find out anything.”

  “Of course,” Gavin said.

  “I need to get my order and get back to the station,” Marcus said, motioning toward the counter.

  “I’ll walk you over,” I said, getting to my feet. His hand fell away from my shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” I said to Gavin. I followed Marcus to the back of the small restaurant.

  “Hi, Detective,” Claire said. “Eric’s just putting your order together in the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”

  I waited until she’d passed through the swinging door and then I turned my head to study Marcus. “So you’re really not jealous?”

  He glanced over at the table. Gavin’s back was to us and he was talking to someone on his cell phone. Marcus’s blue eyes narrowed. “Of him? No. I just don’t want him interfering in the case.”

  “He’s acting as a consultant,” I said gently. “That’s not exactly interfering.”

  “I know that,” he said. He sighed softly. “Kathleen, I don’t trust him. There’s something he’s not being honest about.”

  “You don’t think he had something to do with the robbery and Margo’s death, do you?” I asked.

  Marcus shook his head and his gaze darted across the restaurant again for just a moment. “He has an alibi. He was in the bar at the hotel. At least a dozen people saw him, so, no, I don’t think he had anything to do with what happened at the library. Not directly.”

  An unspoken “but” hung in the air between us.

  I studied his face. “How about indirectly?” I asked. “Is there something about Gavin you haven’t told me?”

  He swiped a hand over the back of his neck. “No. I just . . . I just get a bad feeling from the guy.”

  It took effort to keep from smiling. “A feeling?” I said. “You?” Marcus was very much a “just the facts, ma’am” kind of person. I was the one who relied much more on feelings, nuance and body language. It was one of the reasons we’d butted heads so much in the past. It had taken a case that involved his sister, Hannah, for both of us to be able to see the other person’s point of view.

  The corners of Marcus’s mouth twitched. I realized that meant he could see the irony of his words, too. “I guess that’s what happens from spending so much time with you,” he said, the tight lines around his eyes softening.

  “I guess it does,” I agreed, wiggling my eyebrows at him.

  Just then Claire came out of the kitchen carrying a large brown paper bag. She set it on the counter in front of Marcus.

  He smiled at her. “Thanks, Claire. Could I get two large coffees to go, please?”

  “Of course.” Claire smiled back at him. “Black with two sugars for you and one sugar no cream for Detective Lind.”

  He nodded and looked at me again. “The coffeemaker at the station died. Again. And we did an extra run this morning.” He fished his wallet out of his pocket.

  Hope was training for a triathlon and Marcus was running with her a couple of mornings a week. Brady Chapman was helping her with the cycling portion and I knew that Mary had been working with Hope on a strength program for her legs using kickboxing moves. It was one of the things that had made me fall in love with Mayville Heights, the way people were willing to help one another.

  Claire came back with the coffee. Marcus handed her a couple of bills. “The rest is for you,” he said.

  She smiled again. “Thanks. Have a good day, Detective.” She moved down the counter to the cash register.

  “I can drop you at the library,” Marcus said, reaching for the paper bag of take-out food. “It looks like rain.”

  I turned and looked out the front window of the restaurant. It was cloudy but it didn’t look like rain to me. And more important, my left wrist, which was a pretty good indicator of wet or snowy weather, felt fine.

  I realized that maybe Gavin’s invitation to breakfast had been motivated, a tiny bit, by wanting to spend time with me. The two of us eating at Eric’s was getting to be a habit. On the other hand, I also believed that he wanted to catch whoever took the Weston drawing and killed Margo as much as I did. If I went with him to talk to Big Jule, maybe I could find out if there was anything more to Marcus’s “feeling” about Gavin than just a smidgen of jealousy that he didn’t want to admit to.

  “Thank you,” I said, brushing his hand with my fingers. “But there are a couple of other things I want to talk to Gavin about.”

  Marcus picked up the bag of take-out food with one hand and the pressed-paper tray holding the coffee with the other. “You’re going to go with him, aren’t you? To talk to his contact.” Something in his voice when he said the word “contact” made me suspect that he didn’t really believe there was one.

  I nodded. “Yes. And just so you know, I keep that little can of industrial-strength hair spray that Mary gave me in my bag. It’s more lethal than pepper spray.” I held up my first three fingers. “I’ll be careful. I’ll call you when we get there and as soon as we get back. Librarian’s honor.”

  “There’s no such thing as librarian’s honor,” he said.

  “Don’t make me shush you,” I countered, narrowing my gaze at him in a mock glare.

  He smiled and gave my fingers a quick squeeze. “I’ll call you later,” he said.

  I nodded and watched him go, thinking for what had to be the millionth time by now that he looked good no matter in what direction he was headed.

  I walked back to the table.

  “Everything okay with you and your detective?” Gavin asked.
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br />   I nodded and sat down again. “You wanted to get a rise out of him. That’s why you told him that ‘we’ were going to talk to Big Jule.”

  I thought he’d deny it, but he just gave me that easy grin. “Guilty as charged,” he said, leaning back and propping one arm on the chair back. The smiled dimmed. “I’m sorry, Kathleen. I shouldn’t have done that. It was juvenile.”

  He seemed sincere, so I decided to accept his apology.

  “When do you want to go talk to Julian McCrea?” I asked.

  The smile came back. “You’re coming with me?”

  I reached for my coffee. The cup was empty, but Claire, with her seemingly sixth sense about when I needed a refill, was already headed our way with a full pot. “Yes, I’m coming with you,” I said. “I hope it’s not a waste of time.”

  “I’ll pick you up at nine.”

  I nodded. “That’s fine.”

  “I’ll call Big Jule in a little while and if anything changes I’ll let you know,” he said. He made a gesture at the table. “Breakfast is on me.”

  “Thank you,” I said, getting to my feet and sliding the strap of my bag over my shoulder. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I stopped at the counter for a cup of coffee to go even though I was probably already overcaffeinated. It gave me the opportunity to quietly pay for both my and Gavin’s breakfasts, my subtle way of letting him know that all the charm in the world wasn’t going to work on me.

  12

  Gavin pulled into my driveway exactly at nine the next morning, something I was pretty certain he’d timed for effect since I’d once seen him check his watch and linger for a moment at the library when he’d had a meeting with Margo.

  “I’m leaving,” I said to the boys, reaching for my jacket.

  Owen looked up from the stack of stinky crackers that he was arranging on the floor like a bingo player spreading out cards before the numbers were called. It could have been my imagination, but his expression looked sour, as though he’d just gotten a whiff of something rotten. Hercules didn’t even acknowledge that I’d spoken. “I’ll see you later,” I said.

  Gavin was just coming around the side of the house as I stepped outside. “Good morning,” he said. After a pause he added, “You look nice.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I’d waffled on whether it was manipulative to wear a skirt and heels for the meeting with Julian McCrea, standing, undecided, in front of the closet. Hercules, who had been sitting just inside, seemingly eyeing everything I pulled out and rejecting it like a feline Tim Gunn, had finally reached out and set a paw on my black boots and blinked his green eyes at me.

  Ruby would have said that was a sign from the universe. It was more likely a sign that Hercules wanted his breakfast, but I decided I was overthinking things. I’d chosen a black skirt with a lavender shirt and the boots.

  “We’re meeting Big Jule for brunch at the Rose and Gray,” Gavin said as I settled into the passenger seat of his Mercedes and fastened my seat belt.

  I’d never been to the restaurant that specialized in cuisine made exclusively with ingredients from within a hundred-mile radius of Minneapolis, but I knew Roma and Eddie had had dinner there a few times and it was only his position as a local celebrity that had gotten them a reservation on short notice. Either Julian McCrea or Gavin had some clout.

  We talked about Gavin’s work for much of the drive, and that led, eventually, to a conversation about Margo.

  “She had talent in her own right, you know,” Gavin said, his eyes flicking away from the road for a moment to look at me. “One night we were working in the bar at the hotel and she showed me photos of her artwork. I can’t even draw a stick man, but Margo had done some paintings of these old buildings, and I know it sounds crazy, but she could actually make you feel something when you looked at them.”

  I thought of Ruby’s oversize pop-art acrylic renderings of Owen and Hercules. I couldn’t explain it, but she’d managed to capture Owen’s mischievous streak and Herc’s sensitive side with her vivid colors. “It doesn’t sound crazy to me,” I said.

  “She painted this barn—it was half falling down—and I kid you not, when she showed it to me I got a little choked up just looking at it. But she had another one she’d done of this old farmhouse, and be damned, but the feeling I got was that I wanted to live in the thing.” He shook his head.

  “Had she ever exhibited her work?”

  “Somehow I don’t think so. Margo was her own worst critic.”

  I exhaled slowly. “I know she could be”—I hesitated, looking for the right word—“challenging. But she was very encouraging to the local artists who had pieces in the show.”

  I remembered the smile on Nic Sutton’s face after he’d come out of his meeting with Margo, and how Ruby had been literally bouncing with enthusiasm after hers.

  “Lita said Margo didn’t have any family. Is she right?” I felt a twinge of guilt that it had taken me until now to ask the question.

  “She is,” he said, moving into the passing lane and accelerating to pass a high-sided furniture delivery truck. “She told me once that her parents had died when she was a child and she’d been raised by her grandmother.” His gaze flicked over to me for a moment. “I think that’s why she was so exacting. Her grandmother was a doctor in an era when there weren’t that many women doctors. I got the impression the woman had very high standards for Margo.”

  He looked at me again as the sleek silver Mercedes hugged a wide turn of the highway. “Margo has”—he paused for a moment—“had a degree in molecular biology. I think studying art history was a huge act of rebellion for her.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said.

  Gavin smiled. “I know. ‘Rebellious’ isn’t really the first word you’d think of to describe her.”

  I couldn’t help smiling myself. “No, it isn’t,” I agreed. Knowing a bit of Margo’s history helped me understand her a little more. I found myself wishing I’d known all of this before she’d died.

  “What about you, Kathleen?” Gavin asked, his eyes fixed straight ahead as he moved into the left lane to pass a slow-moving minivan and then back to the right to get by a tractor-trailer. He drove the way he did everything else: with a confidence that teetered on the edge of arrogance. I felt safe—he wasn’t taking stupid chances, and he was a good driver. It reminded me of driving with Marcus, a comparison neither man would probably have liked.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Do you have a rebellious streak?”

  I couldn’t help laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” Gavin asked, his eyes gleaming with curiosity.

  I put one hand flat on my chest and took a moment to get my breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that ‘rebellious’ is pretty much the last word anyone would ever use to describe me, either.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What about you?”

  “Rebellious is my middle name,” he teased.

  “So, what or who were you rebelling against?” I asked, shifting sideways a little under my seat belt so I could watch his face.

  “Three generations of Solomon men who always worked in the paper mill, married girls from the neighborhood and turned out a yard full of babies, and a high school that said people from my side of the river didn’t go to college.” He shrugged, and the bad-boy smile seemed a little forced. “You might say that bringing you along to meet Big Jule was an act of rebellion.” He shot me a quick glance. “I saw Lita yesterday and I told her what we were doing today.” The smile got wider and more genuine, it seemed to me. “She said I was poking the bear with a stick.”

  Clearly Marcus was the bear.

  Lita wasn’t the kind of person to judge other people’s choices; she was involved with Burtis Chapman after all, and he had a reputation. But when she did share her opinion, she wasn’t shy about it. I was guessing
she’d done more than just compare Marcus to an angry bear. Whatever she’d said, it was none of my business.

  “That’s because Lita is immune to your charm,” I said lightly.

  “I’m like a bottle of fine wine,” Gavin said, moving the car into the right lane so we could take the exit that would take us downtown. “You may not be captivated at the first taste, but after a little time the nuances will win you over.”

  I waited for a moment and then looked pointedly at my feet. “Good thing I wore boots,” I said.

  Gavin frowned. “Why?” he asked.

  “Because my shoes would have been ruined by that load of fertilizer you’re spreading around.”

  He gave a snort of laughter. “Busted,” he said with a grin. “And I worked hard on that line.”

  Gavin had a brief meeting scheduled at the Walker Art Center, so I looked around the pop-art exhibition while I waited for him, thinking Ruby’s portraits of Owen and Hercules would have fit right in with the artwork. My thoughts kept wandering to our lunch with Julian McCrea.

  I hadn’t been able to find anything more than what Gavin had told me about the man through my usual online sources, so I’d ended up calling Lise, in Boston. Her expertise was music, but I knew she had contacts in the art world. Unfortunately, she didn’t know anything about McCrea.

  “Do I want to know why you’re asking about this Julian McCrea person?” she’d asked.

  I’d stretched my feet out on the footstool, and Hercules, who was sprawled on my lap, had moved his head so it was resting against my arm and closed his green eyes. “Remember that exhibit I told you was coming to the library?” I’d said.

  “The centerpiece was an early Sam Weston drawing,” she immediately said.

  I’d exhaled softly. “It was stolen.”

  “What?”

  “It looks as though the thief came in through a skylight in the roof I didn’t even know would open.”

  “You’re not serious.”