Copycat Killing: A Magical Cats Mystery Page 3

  I couldn’t breathe. Gasping and wheezing, I struggled to sit up. I could see Marcus running toward me even as my vision began to go dark from the edges in.

  I.

  Couldn’t.

  Breathe.

  My chest felt like an elephant was sitting on it. I pulled at the front of my sweatshirt, desperate to suck in air.

  Marcus dropped to his knees beside me in the mud. His arm went around my shoulder, his hand against the side of my face as he pushed me forward, stopping me from getting up. “Easy, easy,” he said over and over.

  I slumped against him, eyes closed, concentrating only on not passing out. I caught a breath. And then another one. Then I started to cough. There was dirt in the back of my throat and in my mouth, gritty on my teeth and tongue. I hacked and wheezed, my chest burning.

  Marcus moved his hand to my shoulder, keeping me tight against him, not that my shaking body could have moved if I’d tried. “It’s okay, just breathe,” he said, his face gray with concern. “I’ve got you.”

  I coughed until my throat was raw and finally I could breathe more or less okay. I leaned against Marcus, his arm still tight around my shoulders, and swiped the dirt away from my mouth with one hand.

  “Don’t move,” he said, shifting sideways to reach for his cell phone.

  “I’m all right,” I rasped.

  “No you’re not.”

  I tried to shift myself upright and sucked in a sharp breath against the stab of pain in my left hand as it pushed against a large rock, half exposed in the dirt.

  I held up my hand, rolling it over to see Maggie’s bandage had come off.

  My breath caught in my chest again. I could hear Marcus talking to me but his voice sounded very far away and I couldn’t make sense of the words.

  The cut on my thumb had opened up again. Blood was dripping off the tip…down onto the top of a dirt-streaked skull, lying on the ground.

  3

  “You’re bleeding,” Marcus said, grabbing my arm.

  I tried to gesture with my hand. “There’s a—”

  “—I see it,” he interrupted.

  The skull was lying on what seemed to be a corner of an old piece of canvas. I could see what looked like a clavicle and shoulder bones as well.

  I was shaking. I closed my eyes for a moment in a silent prayer that whomever the remains had belonged to, the person had died after a long, happy life and had been, as Maggie would say, welcomed by the light.

  Marcus reached over and unwound the black scarf I was wearing around my neck under my hoodie, and wrapped it around my hand, pinning my bleeding thumb against my palm. “Can you stand up?” he asked. “We need to get out of the way just in case any more of that bank comes down.”

  Slowly, I got my legs untangled and got to my feet. For a moment the world whirled dizzyingly around me. I held on to Marcus, my fingers digging into his arm, and the feeling passed.

  My left ankle was stiff and it hurt enough that I grit my teeth together so I wouldn’t moan out loud. I put most of my weight on my other leg and leaned on Marcus as we made our way across the uneven ground toward the old house. I was covered with dirt and probably bruises as well, but nothing seemed to be broken and I hadn’t hit my head. My jeans and sweatshirt were wet and caked with mud, but the only thing that seemed to be bleeding was my thumb.

  When we got to the carriage house I looked back over my shoulder. The entire embankment at the edge of the trees had collapsed. For a moment my legs went watery. Marcus’s arm tightened around my shoulders.

  “You okay?” he asked, eyes narrowed with concern.

  I nodded. “I am. Really.” How had I managed to end up with just a few bumps and scrapes? Even my bleeding hand had been injured somewhere else.

  I could see that there had been some kind of stone retaining wall holding up the rise and reinforcing the slope. Could there maybe have been an old burial ground up on the hill? Was that where the skull had come from? No one had ever talked about a Henderson family cemetery out here. Then again, people didn’t really talk about Wisteria Hill much at all.

  We made it to the main house and I sank onto the side stairs. Marcus took a couple of steps away from me and pulled out his cell phone, his entire demeanor shifting into police officer mode. I knew the authorities would have to figure out where the bones had come from.

  I still had dirt and grit in my nose and mouth. I tried to take a deep breath and started coughing again. I leaned forward, arms on my knees, breathing slowly.

  Marcus turned, snapping his phone closed. “Ambulance will be here in a few minutes.”

  It took a second for me to realize he meant for me, not for the remains behind the carriage house. Hacking and wheezing I sucked in an uneven breath and then another. “I’m all right,” I said, hoarsely, starting to get up and then flinching as I put my left hand down without thinking. Not only did the gash on my thumb hurt, it felt as though I’d done something to my wrist, too.

  Marcus shook his head. “No, you’re not all right.” He gestured at the scarf-wrapped hand that I was hugging to my chest. “Your hand’s bleeding. So is your forehead. You’ve probably got a sprained ankle and who knows how many other cuts and bruises. You fell a good ten feet, Kathleen. You need to be checked out.”

  My hand went to my face out of reflex and I squeaked at the pain. The entire right side of my head hurt and there was blood and dirt on my fingers when I pulled my hand away. “Okay,” I said.

  His eyes narrowed in surprise. “Okay? That’s it?”

  I nodded. He’d probably expected me to argue. It was what we usually did; squabble like six-year-olds.

  For a minute we just looked at each other in silence. Then Marcus glanced back toward the collapsed hill.

  “Do you think there’s some kind of graveyard back there?” I asked, tipping my head to one side and trying to shake some of the dirt from my hair. For a moment the movement made the world spin again.

  “I think there’s a pretty good chance.” He made a face and pointed at my hand. “Do you mind? Can I take a look at that?”

  I held out my arm and he unwound one end of the scarf. Blood had soaked all the way through the material. “There was a smallpox epidemic in this area back in 1924,” he said. “I know there’ve been a couple of other unmarked grave sites from that time found in this part of the state.”

  He inspected the cut, made a face and folded the fabric back around my hand. “It doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.” He squinted at my face and then reached over to brush dirt from my forehead.

  I jerked back, involuntarily, and sucked in a sharp breath between my teeth.

  He pulled his hand away. “Sorry. I’ll let the paramedics take care of that.”

  “Could you pull my left boot off, please?” I asked. “It’s full of mud.” I’d been trying to toe off the heel with my other foot but it wasn’t working.

  I held up my leg and Marcus grabbed the bottom of the rubber boot and pulled. It came off with a loud sucking sound and clumps of wet earth fell onto the grass. There was more dirt stuck to my sock. I shook my foot and sent a spray of it into the air.

  Even in the heavy woolen sock I was wearing, my ankle looked swollen. Marcus set the boot down and reached for my foot. “Does this hurt?” he asked, gently bending it forward and back.

  I winced. “A little.”

  “How about this?” His fingers carefully probed my ankle. He had big, warm hands with strong fingers and a surprisingly gentle touch.

  I was pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to be liking this so much. “It’s…um…it’s all right.” I pulled my foot back and reached for the discarded boot.

  He handed it to me as the ambulance arrived, followed by the first police car. I recognized Ric, one of the two paramedics. He’d taken care of me the previous winter when I’d almost been blown to pieces in an explosion out on Hardwood Ridge. He remembered me as well.

  “Ms. Paulson, what happened?” he asked, crouching down in front o
f me.

  I explained about the hill collapsing, while his partner checked my pulse and looked into both my eyes. Once they decided I didn’t have any life-threatening injuries or broken bones, they began bandaging the cut on my hand and cleaning the various abrasions on my face.

  “How’s your cat?” Ric asked as he carefully tweezered bits of gravel from my forehead. “Still sneaking into your truck to ride shotgun?”

  I’d taken Owen with me the day of the explosion. Like me, he’d almost been caught in it. Everyone assumed he’d stowed away in the truck and I’d let the assumption stand.

  Marcus knew the cat didn’t like to be touched by pretty much anyone other than me, but one of the police officers on the scene hadn’t taken his warning seriously. It was a wonder I hadn’t regained consciousness to find Owen shackled in a set of kitty-sized handcuffs for assaulting a police officer.

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Mostly he’s just terrorizing the birds in the backyard.”

  Ric grinned. “He hasn’t gone head-to-head with any more police officers?”

  “Thankfully, no. But he does have a stare-down going with a golden Lab that lives up the street.”

  I flinched as he pulled out a sliver of tree bark embedded in my skin.

  “Sorry,” he said softly.

  I looked over his shoulder, focusing on watching Marcus work to distract myself while Ric continued to gently clean my forehead.

  Marcus was a good police officer—meticulous and very observant. I thought he was too rigid sometimes, and he tended to come across as cold when he was working on a case, something I knew firsthand because I’d gotten tied up in two of his past investigations.

  He’d thought I had no business being involved in either one of them. The fact that I hadn’t wanted to be involved in a murder, or that he’d been investigating people I cared about—and the first time we met, me—didn’t seem to be a good enough reason.

  I wasn’t a police officer. I wasn’t even a lawyer. I was a librarian. I knew about books, grant proposals and the Dewey decimal system. The thing was, because of my parents’ acting careers, I’d seen a lot of subterfuge and I was pretty good at spotting a liar. Plus I had Hercules and Owen who had the ability to stick their furry noses—literally—into places they probably had no business being. Of course, I couldn’t share that with Marcus, or anyone else for that matter.

  I tried to imagine his reaction if I told him that my cats’ talents went beyond being able to hear a can of tuna being opened from a hundred feet away; that Hercules had the ability to walk through walls and Owen could disappear whenever it suited him, which was generally at the worst possible time for me. How could I explain it to anyone else when I didn’t even understand it all myself? At best, I’d end up somewhere having my head examined, at worst the cats would.

  Ric was just putting a gauze bandage on my forehead when Officer Derek Craig came around the side of the carriage house. I’d met the young policeman for the first time the previous summer when I found conductor Gregor Easton’s body at the Stratton Theater. He’d been at the library several times in the past couple of months, checking out books on the law and law school. I wondered if he was thinking about a career change.

  “Is Ms. Paulson okay to go home?” he asked the paramedics.

  Ric nodded. “We’re done.” He turned his attention to me. His partner was already packing their things.

  “I know,” I said, before he could start giving me his list of warnings. “I should see my family doctor. And if my head starts to hurt, or if I have problems with my vision or breathing, I should go to the emergency room right away.”

  “Or if you feel nauseated or start vomiting,” he added. “In fact, you should make an appointment with your own doctor as soon as possible to get checked out. Just to be on the safe side.”

  “I will,” I said. “Thank you.” I leaned around Ric to thank the other paramedic as well. Then I turned to Derek. “I’m okay. And my truck’s right there. I can get home.”

  He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Ma’am, Detective Gordon told me to drive you home. He also said I should use handcuffs if I had to. Do I have to?”

  I didn’t want to leave my truck behind. On the other hand, Marcus wasn’t above having those handcuffs put on me.

  I shook my head. “No you don’t have to. But do you have something to cover the seat?” There was mud on my boots, clumped on my clothes, even some still in my hair.

  “Not a problem,” he said with a smile. “A little dirt won’t hurt anything. There’s been worse in that car.”

  I got to my feet and brushed what dirt I could off my jeans and hooded sweatshirt. I looked around for Marcus. He was at the far end of the field, bent down, clearly studying the bones that had been unearthed by the hill collapse. He turned and straightened up then, almost as if he could feel my eyes on him. I lifted a hand to let him know I was all right and I was going—more or less willingly—with Derek. He raised a hand in return.

  I limped my way slowly over to the police cruiser. My ankle felt a little better now that it was wrapped with a support bandage. Derek hovered beside me and I had the sense that he could and would toss me over his shoulder and carry me the rest of the way if I stumbled. I scraped what mud I could off my boots before I got in the car. He reached across me and fastened the seat belt. I wasn’t sure if he thought I was too banged up to do it myself, or that I might bolt for my truck when his back was turned.

  We crept down the rutted driveway, bouncing over every bump. I knew I had to have a lot of bruises I couldn’t see and I felt every one of them with every lurch of the car.

  At the bottom Derek turned to me. “Where are we headed?” he asked.

  “Mountain Road,” I said. “On the left-hand side, not that far from the top.” I gave him the number.

  He frowned. “Little white farmhouse?”

  I nodded. “That’s it.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence. He pulled into the driveway and before I could tell him not to, he was out of the police car and around opening the passenger door for me.

  “Thank you,” I said, smiling up at him.

  “You’re welcome,” he said with a dip of his head. I was at the back steps before I heard the car pull onto the street again. It was a safe bet that Marcus had told him to make sure I made it safely to the door.

  I pulled off my muddy boots in the porch and unlocked the kitchen door. As if they had some kind of cat radar, Hercules and Owen both appeared in the living room doorway.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said.

  They exchanged glances, almost as though they were engaging in some kind of telepathic communication. Then Herc came across the floor to me. I pulled out a kitchen chair and dropped into it, biting off a groan when my right hip made contact with the seat. The little black-and-white cat sat in front of me, eyes narrowed, and looked me up and down.

  “The bank behind the carriage house let go,” I said, feeling a little foolish explaining myself to a cat. “I’m fine. Marcus called the paramedics, not that I needed them.” I pulled my muddy sweatshirt over my head and dropped it on the floor.

  Hercules recoiled and took a couple of steps backward. He sniffed the shirt, and then he sniffed at me, his face twisting in distaste at the odor.

  “Yes, I know I don’t smell very good,” I said. “Kind of the same way someone did after they got into Rebecca’s compost pile.” I shot a quick glance at Owen.

  Hercules came closer again. He stood on his back legs, put a paw on my knee and gently nudged my re-bandaged hand. “It’s just a little cut,” I said, reaching down to stroke his fur with my other hand. “I actually did that down at the store with Maggie.”

  At the sound of Maggie’s name, Owen bounded over to me. “Maggie’s fine,” I reassured him. He had a major kitty crush on her. “So am I, so you can stop worrying.” Sarcasm was wasted on Owen—he was already poking my sweatshirt with a paw.

  Hercules s
uddenly dropped back onto all four feet, looked at the refrigerator door—where I’d stuck the Wisteria Hill feeding schedule—then turned back to me, tipping his head to one side and meowing quizzically. He might have been asking if we had any sardines in the fridge. Or it was possible he was asking if Marcus was okay. Improbable, but not impossible, since Hercules and Owen weren’t exactly ordinary house cats.

  “Yes, Marcus is fine too, and in case you were asking about sardines and not everyone’s favorite detective, no, there aren’t any open.”

  The answer seemed to satisfy him. He turned to watch his brother still poking at my hoodie. I knew Herc had no intention of touching it. Not only did he dislike having wet paws, he didn’t like having dirty ones either. Owen had found the little purple thingie I’d picked up out at Wisteria Hill. He gave it a swipe with one paw and it slid over the floor like a curling rock, ending up at my feet.

  I bent to pick the thing up before Owen sent it underneath the refrigerator. I still had no idea what it was. A wig for some kind of tiny forest sprite, perhaps? It wasn’t the oddest thing to be discarded out at the old estate. I knew that Harry Taylor and his younger brother, Larry, had found a full-sized, claw-foot bathtub out there in the woods. Being practical guys, they’d loaded it in the back of Larry’s truck and it had eventually ended up in Larry’s bathroom—with the approval of Everett Henderson, of course.

  My entire right side ached and I guessed I was probably turning into a giant bruise all over that part of my body. I needed coffee and a shower and a couple of aspirin.

  I looked at the cats. “I don’t suppose you two know how to work the coffeemaker,” I said. Owen’s head immediately swung in my direction. He knew the word coffee generally meant I’d also be eating something he probably could wheedle a few bites of. “Yes, we’ll have something to eat, too,” I assured him.

  I stood up, stretched and groaned a little, partly because everything hurt and partly for effect. Not only do cats not get sarcasm, they don’t get shameless bids for sympathy either. I set the tiny purple puff on top of the refrigerator, washed my hands, started the coffee and headed upstairs for the shower.