Cat Trick: A Magical Cats Mystery Read online

  “‘Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning,’” Marcus said softly behind me.

  I turned to look at him.

  “My father used to say that,” he said with a shrug. “Then he’d go into this long explanation about the light from the setting sun, dust particles and high-pressure systems.”

  “He wasn’t wrong,” I said as we started walking.

  “Yeah, I know. But when you’re ten and your friends are standing there, that kind of thing is embarrassing.”

  I waved my hand dismissively at him. “No, no, no, no. Embarrassing is your father doing the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet on the fire escape. In tights. In January. Embarrassing is all your friends dressing up as tap-dancing raisins for Halloween because your father played one in a cereal commercial and became some kind of cultural icon slash cult hero.”

  “You’re joking,” Marcus said.

  I sighed and shook my head. “No, sadly, I’m not.”

  “A tap-dancing raisin?” He still looked a little disbelieving.

  “A shriveled, tap-dancing raisin that had no rhythm.”

  He nodded slowly. “You win. That definitely is more embarrassing.”

  I bumped his arm with my shoulder. “Someday I’ll tell you about the time my mother picked me up at school after rehearsal for Gypsy.”

  “I look forward to it,” he said, smiling down at me.

  The street curved, following the shoreline, and ahead I could see that one of the tents was about three-quarters assembled. We crossed at the corner, and as we got closer to the boardwalk, I caught sight of Burtis Chapman and Mike Glazer.

  Burtis was built like an offensive lineman, with wide shoulders and huge, muscled arms. His skin was weathered from working outdoors and his hair was snow-white in a Marine Corps brush cut. He was extremely well-read, I knew, but was happy to play the uneducated hick if it suited him.

  Mike was about the same height, only leaner, with sandy blond hair cropped close and a couple days’ stubble. In his black wool commando sweater and gray trousers, he looked like a city boy.

  “I just think we’d be better served with something from this century,” he was saying, pointing at the tent. He didn’t look happy. “And a lighter fabric—a polyester or nylon.”

  I remembered Maggie rolling her eyes in exasperation as she’d described Mike as a festering boil on the backside of life. It was about as close to swearing as Mags got.

  For all that Mike seemed to be arrogant and condescending, I knew he could be kind of personable as well. He’d spent some time in the library the previous morning, walking around looking at the large collage panels that told the history of the building.

  “Could I help you?” I’d asked, walking over to the magazine section, where he’d stood.

  He’d smiled and shaken his head. “Thanks, no. I was just taking a trip down memory lane. These photos are incredible.”

  “Take your time,” I’d said. “There are more panels hanging in the computer room.”

  He’d checked his watch and frowned. “I wish I could, but I have to get going.” He shrugged and looked around. He seemed a little sad. “Maybe Thomas Wolfe was right; you can’t go home again.”

  “I prefer The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” I’d said.

  Mike had frowned, not getting the reference.

  “There’s no place like home.”

  He’d nodded his head with just a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  Burtis was standing silently, holding a sledgehammer in both of his large hands. His expression was unreadable, until I got close enough to see his eyes. There was a hint of menace in them. If the rumors I’d heard about Burtis were even partly true, I knew he wasn’t a man to get on the bad side of.

  “Well?” Mike said impatiently.

  “My turn to talk now, is it?” Burtis said, looking at the younger man as though he were something Burtis had just scraped off his shoe. “First of all, boy, both these tents here are just a couple of years old. That canvas is water-repellent, mildew-resistant and flame-retardant. My tents don’t sag when they’re wet and they don’t blow over. When my boys put a tent up, it stays up.” There was a challenge in his body language and his tone.

  Mike Glazer shook his head and made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Forget it. I’ll talk to Liam.”

  He walked away, heading for a group of people standing over by the retaining wall between the river and the boardwalk. Burtis caught sight of us. He nodded to Marcus and smiled at me. Whatever anger had been there just the moment before was gone.

  “Hello, Kathleen,” he said. “When are you comin’ to have breakfast with me again? I don’t have to wait for you to fall over another body, do I?”

  We’d had a lot of rain early in the spring, and all that water had caused an embankment to let go out at Wisteria Hill while I was standing on top of it. The collapse had uncovered remains that had turned out to be those of Roma’s long-lost father. Burtis had known the man. They’d both worked for Idris Blackthorne, who had been the town bootlegger back in the day. I’d had breakfast with Burtis early one morning, looking for any kind of information that would answer the questions Roma had about what had happened to her father.

  “No, you don’t,” I said. I could feel Marcus’s eyes watching me. “But does it have to be at six o’clock in the morning?”

  “Now, don’t be telling me you need your beauty sleep.” Burtis grinned. “Because nobody’s gonna believe that.” He turned and, with one hand, swung the heavy sledgehammer up into the back of the one-ton truck parked at the curb. Then he looked at me again. “C’mon over to Fern’s some morning. I’ll tell you all about the good old days. Peggy makes some damn fine blueberry pancakes.” His eyes darted over to Marcus for a moment. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I got work to do.” He headed for the half-finished tent.

  For a moment neither Marcus nor I said anything. Then he cleared his throat. “You’ll notice I’m not asking you why you were having breakfast with Burtis Chapman,” he said.

  “I appreciate that,” I said. Before I could say anything else, Mary Lowe came around the side of the half-finished tent. Mary worked at the library when she wasn’t baking the best apple pie I’d ever tasted or practicing her kickboxing. She was state champion in her age and weight class.

  Her gray hair was disheveled and she looked exasperated, but she smiled as she drew level with us. “Hello, Kathleen, Marcus,” she said. She made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “Welcome to the circus.”

  I knew she didn’t mean the tent.

  “Problems?” Marcus asked.

  “Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she said, her gaze flicking over to where Mike Glazer was standing by the river wall. “Oh, and I’m probably going to drop-kick that boy’s backside between those two light poles before we’re done here,” she said. “Just so you know.”

  2

  “Should I go get my handcuffs?” Marcus asked. I could tell by the gleam in his eye that he wasn’t serious.

  Mary folded her arms over her chest. “Teaching that young man some manners would be a public service, not a crime,” she said tartly. “But, no, I promise I’ll behave.” She gave me a cheeky grin. “Not that I couldn’t take him on if I wanted to.”

  “I have no doubt about that,” I said. And I didn’t. I’d seen Mary compete. I’d also seen her dancing onstage in a feathered mask and corset to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” during amateur night at the Brick, a club out on the highway, last winter, but I was trying to get that image out of my head.

  “I need to go light a fire under Burtis,” Mary said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kathleen.” She gave Marcus a little wave. “Good night, Detective.”

  “She wasn’t serious, was she?” Marcus said, as Mary disappeared inside the tent.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so. But trust me; Mary would be perfectly capable of drop-kicking Mike Gla
zer between those two light posts”—I pointed at the streetlights along the boardwalk—“if she felt like it. Just like a football through the middle of the uprights.”

  He opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, then closed it again and gave a little shake of his head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I was just thinking that you know a lot of interesting people,” he said, a hint of a smile on his face.

  I was saved from having to answer because Maggie was cutting across the grass to us. Years of yoga and tai chi had given her excellent posture, and she moved with a smooth gracefulness, not unlike my cats.

  “Hi, guys,” she said. She looked from Marcus to me and she was almost grinning. “What are you two doing down here?” She was wearing the T-shirt I’d brought her back from Boston—I Matt Lauer. The black fabric looked good with her fair skin and short blond hair, but she would have worn the shirt even if it hadn’t. Mags had a longtime crush on the morning-show host.

  “We just came to see if the tents were up,” I said.

  She blew out a long breath. “We’re getting there. Mike isn’t sure this is the correct type of tent. He’s been discussing it with Burtis.”

  That was probably the conversation Marcus and I had caught the end of.

  “What about the art show?” Marcus asked. “Is it going to be in one of the tents?”

  Maggie shook her head. “No. They’re both for food. We’re in the community center.” She gestured over her shoulder to the building across the street. “There’s more space and more light. Not to mention a roof. Liam thought it was a better idea. People can come back and forth.”

  Liam was Liam Stone, part-time bartender and full-time grad student in psychology. He was also the main organizer of the group that had put together the pitch to Legacy Tours. Maggie and I had met Liam the previous winter, when we’d been cruising the bars up on the highway, looking for information about who had run down former school principal Agatha Shepherd. (It was the same night I’d seen more of Mary than I had ever wanted to.)

  Maggie had charmed Liam to the point that for a moment he’d struggled to make words into sentences. They’d been going out casually for months. She insisted it was nothing serious.

  “Where is Liam?” I asked. I didn’t see him anywhere. He was well over six feet tall, so he was hard to miss.

  “He’s just gone over to River Arts to get some backdrops to use with a few of the booths. Mike didn’t think the ones Burtis brought were ‘classy’ enough.” Maggie hunched her shoulders and stifled a yawn with one hand. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m tired and I haven’t had supper.” She looked inquiringly at Marcus. “Have you two eaten yet?”

  Maggie wasn’t usually much for subtlety—getting or using—but I knew by the gleam in her green eyes that her question was a fishing expedition. She was trying to find out if Marcus and I had had dinner together. Maybe she’d picked up some sneakiness from Owen. The cat’s adoration for Maggie rivaled hers for Matt Lauer. I got a mental picture of Owen in an I Maggie Adams T-shirt and almost laughed.

  “Yes,” I said, sending her a slit-eyed glare. “And so has Marcus.”

  “I’ll walk back to Eric’s and get you something,” he said. “What would you like?”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Maggie said, running a hand through her curls.

  “I want to.” He smiled at us, and for a second I forgot what we were talking about. “Tea, right?” he asked. “And maybe some kind of sandwich?”

  “Okay,” Maggie agreed.

  “I won’t be very long,” he said. He turned and headed back the way we’d come.

  I watched him for a moment and turned back to Maggie. She smirked at me. “He’s just as cute as a bug’s ear,” she said.

  “‘I haven’t had supper. Have you two eaten yet?’” I said, mimicking her voice. “That was very creative of you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, the smirk still firmly in place. “And don’t think I don’t know that the two of you had dinner together.”

  “Yes, we had dinner together. And yes, before you ask, it was fun. But don’t push it. We’re taking things very slowly.”

  She gave a snort of laughter. “Slowly? Fossils form faster than you two move, Kathleen.”

  I made a face. “I’m changing the subject now. Tell me how things are going here.”

  She sighed. “Remember when I called Mike a festering boil?”

  I nodded.

  Maggie glanced back over her shoulder for a moment. “I was too nice. I know that’s mean, but he doesn’t like the backdrops. He doesn’t like the tents. He doesn’t like the art show being across the street in the community center. He’s even picking at who the vendors are for the food tasting.” She took a step closer to me and lowered her voice. “Mike and Liam got into a shouting match a little while ago. They were standing over there by the wall, so I don’t know what it was about. And then Mike started in on Burtis, and for a minute I thought Burtis was going to let him have it with a sledgehammer.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know how much Liam wants this to work.”

  Maggie rubbed her hands on the front of her gray yoga pants. “If this all works out, it could bring a lot of money here every fall. Assuming somebody doesn’t lose it with Mike. You know what I heard Burtis say when Mike was yelling at Liam?”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘Someday, somebody’s gonna turn that boy into a license plate.’”

  “That sounds like Burtis,” I said.

  She nodded. “I know. And I’m afraid that before we’re finished, Burtis—or someone else—is going to do it. Mike puts so much negative energy out into the world. Eventually it’s all going to come back to him and more.” She shook her head. “Okay, I’m done complaining. C’mon. I’ll show you what the tents will look like when we’re done.”

  Maggie walked me around, pointing out where the second tent was going to be set up and how the booths would be arranged. Marcus came back after a few more minutes with a huge turkey sandwich, a take-out container of soup, and tea for her supper. We walked across to the community center, where we found Ruby Blackthorne hanging one of her oversized abstract paintings.

  Like Maggie, Ruby was an artist. She was also a lot more flamboyant. Her hair was currently red on one side of her head and blue on the other, and she was wearing a T-shirt that read Ginger Did It Backward in High Heels. She smiled at me but only nodded at Marcus. Last winter Marcus had arrested Ruby for the murder of Agatha Shepherd. Even though he’d kept working on the case and ultimately caught the real killer, Ruby was still a little cool with him.

  “We’re on for the morning?” Ruby asked as she pulled a couple of chairs over to a folding table pushed against the end wall of the long room. Maggie had offered to share her supper.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Hercules is looking forward to it.”

  We said good-bye and headed back up the street to Marcus’s SUV.

  “What’s Hercules looking forward to?” Marcus asked. “Is Ruby going to give him art lessons?”

  I laughed. “No. He doesn’t do anything that might get him wet or dirty. Although now I have a mental picture of him wearing a little beret with a paintbrush in his mouth.” And standing next to his brother decked out in a Maggie T-shirt.

  “Don’t laugh,” Marcus said, twisting his watch around his wrist. “I’ve seen video on the news of a beagle that paints with watercolors. And I think there was a story last winter about a cockatiel that did something artistic as well.”

  “I remember that. It sang opera,” I said. “You have a better chance of getting Hercules to sing than you do getting him to paint. He does love Barry Manilow.”

  Marcus grinned down at me. “Barry Manilow? You can’t be serious.”

  I stopped, hands on my hips in mock indignation. “Are you suggesting there’s something wrong with loving Barry Manilow music?”

  “No?” he said. “That is the right answer, isn’t it
?”

  “Unless you’re talking to Owen, yes,” I said, as we started walking again.

  “He’s not a fan?”

  “The fastest way to get Owen out of a room is to start playing ‘Mandy’ or ‘Copacabana.’” I touched his arm. “You might want to remember that in case he ever decides to visit you again.”

  “Consider it filed away for future reference.” He looked both ways and we crossed at the corner. “So if Hercules isn’t going to take painting lessons from Ruby, what is he doing tomorrow morning?”

  “He’s posing for her,” I said. “Last spring, Ruby took some photos and then did a pop art painting of Hercules for a workshop she was teaching. He was lime green and Big Bird yellow. Maggie convinced her to hang the painting in the co-op store and someone bought it. For a lot of money. Now Ruby wants to do another painting of Hercules to donate to a fund-raiser for a cat rescue group. So she’s taking more pictures tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s really nice,” he said.

  “Ruby’s a nice person.”

  There was a clunky silence. Then Marcus spoke. “I arrested Ruby based on the evidence.”

  “I know you did,” I said. The SUV was just ahead.

  He stepped in front of me and stopped. “Wait a second. You just agreed with me.”

  “I did.”

  “You aren’t going to argue?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.”

  He pulled his mouth to one side. “What am I missing?”

  I held up my index finger. “Number one, I don’t want to argue with you because I’m having a good time.”

  “So am I,” he said.

  I raised a second finger. “Number two, I know you have to look at facts and evidence. You can’t make decisions based on emotion.”

  He opened his mouth to say something, and I raised my other hand in warning. “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

  A hint of a smile flitted across his face.

  I held up my ring finger with the other two. “Number three, if we argue, I’ll have to stalk off just on principle and I’m tired. I don’t want to walk all the way up the hill.”