A Case of Cat and Mouse Read online

  “The hypothetical me,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Hercules launched himself onto my lap then. He had been so quiet up to now, eating his meatball, washing every inch of his fur. “Hello,” I said.

  He murped a hello back at me and then moved around until he was settled. He leaned his head against my hand and I scratched behind his ear. His eyes closed and he started to purr.

  I looked across the table at Marcus. “The hypothetical you is probably looking at a window of about two and a half hours for time of death.”

  “How did you come up with that number?” he asked.

  “I found Kassie at approximately eighty thirty, give or take a few minutes. I know from talking to the people at the meeting they probably left around six o’clock.”

  “More or less.” He hesitated. “Kassie made a phone call at about twenty after six.”

  “So more like a two-hour time frame in which her death had to have occurred.”

  Marcus smiled. “Hypothetical me would not argue with that.”

  “Someone killed her,” I said. I felt better saying out loud what I had been thinking for the last twenty-four hours.

  His expression grew serious. “We’re not talking in hypotheticals anymore, are we, Kathleen?” he said.

  “No.” I shifted on my chair again. Hercules opened one eye and shot me a look of annoyance. “I did CPR on Kassie and I didn’t get any response. Her face was purple and blotchy and she wasn’t really warm. She was dead well before the paramedics got there. She was dead before I got there. There was no one else in that building other than Zach, and I’m pretty sure he couldn’t kill a spider. The whole thing doesn’t make any sense. What was she doing at the community center when everyone else was at Eric’s having supper?”

  Marcus raked a hand back through his hair. “Maybe she was hungry and was looking for a snack. Maybe she forgot something and went back to get it.”

  I was shaking my head before he finished talking. “She would have been at that meeting. It was a chance to needle everyone and stir up trouble. That’s the kind of person Kassie Tremayne was. I saw her in action at the meetings I went to.” I put one arm around Hercules as I leaned forward to make my point. “Someone killed her, Marcus. You know that just as well as I do. She wasn’t a nice person but she didn’t deserve that.”

  For a long moment silence hung between us.

  “I know,” he said finally. “That’s why I’m going to catch whoever it was.”

  chapter 6

  It was Wednesday before the medical examiner declared that Kassie Tremayne’s death was a homicide. He had ruled out a stroke, a heart attack, any kind of a seizure and an accidental fall. He’d also discovered lorazepam in her system, which would explain why there weren’t any injuries on her body other than the cut lip. She hadn’t struggled before her death because she had been drugged. I knew lorazepam was prescribed for anxiety among other things, and one of the drug’s side effects was drowsiness.

  Marcus had found no prescriptions for lorazepam in Kassie’s name and no pills on her body or in her things. It suggested that whoever had killed her had planned to do it.

  Elias had made putting together a tribute to Kassie a priority. I knew Richard and Eugenie were both participating, as well as Russell, Caroline and one of the associate producers.

  Filming was done outside along the Riverwalk and inside at one of the baking stations on set. “Kassie would love it, you know,” Eugenie said as we sat in her office Thursday morning, each of us with a cup of tea and a butterscotch oatmeal cookie. “She did so like to be the center of attention.”

  I had traded shifts with Abigail so I could spend all day Thursday at the show. Along with working at the library, Abigail was also a children’s book author. In June she was going on a short book tour and I’d be able to (happily) repay the favor then.

  The show schedule had been adjusted once again and the latest episode was going to be filmed on Saturday and Sunday. It meant the crew would be paid overtime. They all seemed happy about that.

  Eugenie had been tasked by Elias with bringing Peggy up to speed. “I need your help, Kathleen,” she’d said when she had called me Wednesday night. “Peggy doesn’t need to understand all the nuances of the show to film the next episode but she does need to understand a little about the remaining contestants and how we do things.”

  “What would you like me to do?” I asked.

  “Could you put together a basic biography for the six contestants that are still in the competition, please? As well as a bit of background on Richard? We wouldn’t want his nose out of joint because Peggy didn’t know how many celebrities he’s cooked for.” I could picture her smiling on the other end of the phone.

  “I can do that,” I’d said.

  “Here comes the difficult part,” Eugenie had said. “Can you put it all together for tomorrow morning? Elias will pay you double what you usually receive for your research.”

  I didn’t have anything planned after work other than watching Netflix with Hercules. “I can do it,” I said.

  Putting together the biographies turned out to be easier than I expected. I already knew enough about Rebecca and Ray. The newspaper had published an article on the show and talked to Kate and Charles. I discovered Stacey had been profiled by her hometown paper. And Caroline was happy to answer a few questions when I got in touch with her.

  There was plenty of information about Richard online. The problem I had was deciding what to leave out.

  I handed Eugenie what I had come up with now. “Stacey reads poetry to her kindergarten class? How marvelous!” she said as she scanned the pages. “Charles can tap dance?” Her eyes widened in surprise.

  I nodded. When Maggie had invited Charles to our tai chi class he had asked if being a good tap dancer would help. Maggie had thought for a moment and then said, “It couldn’t hurt.”

  I spent more than an hour going over every bit of information with Peggy. She knew Rebecca well, and Ray well enough to get by, which meant she only had to learn the backgrounds of the other four contestants. Eugenie had given us a brief rundown of everyone’s strengths and weakness as bakers: who handled the pressure well—Stacey, Rebecca and Ray—who got overwhelmed—Kate—and who had to be reminded to watch their language when something went wrong—Charles and, surprisingly, Caroline.

  “How do all the contestants practice?” Peggy asked. “Ray and Rebecca live here so they’re okay but what about the others?”

  “All the contestants are living in town while the show is filming,” I explained. “They all have places with fully stocked kitchens and anyone can work in the kitchen here if they want to.”

  Peggy finally slumped against the back of her chair and smoothed both hands over her hair. “There’s a lot to remember,” she said, pushing aside the pages I’d printed.

  I straightened the pile of notes into a neat stack. “Be yourself. That’s what they hired you for.”

  Peggy smiled. “Harrison said the same thing.”

  “Harrison Taylor is a very smart man,” I said.

  She let out a soft sigh. “I keep having the sensation that I’m about to walk out on a stage stark naked.”

  I shrugged. “If you do that, you won’t have to worry about what to say because no one will be paying attention to what’s coming out of your mouth.”

  Peggy laughed and I knew she was going to do just fine.

  * * *

  I had brought my lunch with me and since the sun was shining and the temperature had gone up, I sat on a bench by the water to eat it. That morning was the longest amount of time I had spent working with everyone from the show. I’d spent a few minutes here and there with the bakers, Eugenie and Russell and even Richard and Kassie, but I hadn’t spent much time with the crew. It turned out everyone—from Norman, the PA with the obsession for Eric’s choco
late pudding cake, to the set designer who had happily hung the cat calendar for Eugenie—was so nice, so quick with a smile and an offer of a cup of coffee. I took a drink of the coffee I’d brought out with me. It was the good stuff, from the camera guys’ stash.

  Maybe whoever killed Kassie wasn’t part of the show. I couldn’t think of a single person I seriously suspected. True, no one had really liked her all that much. And no one was really that broken up about her death. Elias had improved security, keeping more lights on in the building at night and installing temporary alarms on the other main-floor doors that would sound if they were opened.

  Harry had replaced Zach in the evening since the latter had been letting people come and go with nothing more than “camera crew” or “backstage crew” for sign-ins. Once those changes were in place people had seemed to settle back in the routine.

  No one seemed to miss Kassie, which left me feeling a little sad. Had her killer just been someone who had managed to get in the building, maybe through one of those other doors, looking for something to steal? Had Kassie just been in the wrong place at the wrong time? No, that didn’t make sense, either. How had she ended up with lorazepam in her system? I realized I liked the idea of the killer being a stranger because it was better than thinking I was working with a murderer.

  I had just finished the applesauce I had brought with me and was wishing that I’d made and frozen more back in the fall, when I saw Russell coming toward me across the grass. He was wearing a yellow T-shirt with his black skinnies and a pair of Mickey Mouse Vans with a pink toe and yellow tongue.

  “Hey, Kathleen, do you have a minute?” he asked as he came level with the bench.

  “Sure,” I said, sliding sideways. “Have a seat.”

  Russell sat beside me, resting his elbows on his thighs and linking his fingers. “Your boyfriend is the police detective.”

  He didn’t phrase the words as a question but I nodded anyway.

  “Ruby Blackthorne says you could probably figure out what happened to Kassie. She says you’ve done it before. She says you figured out who killed her old teacher.”

  I had helped catch Agatha Shepherd’s murderer. I had also almost gotten myself—and Owen—blown to bits in the process.

  “I didn’t know you knew Ruby,” I said, mostly because I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  “Elias introduced us.” Russell was wearing a gold signet ring on the middle finger of his left hand. He played with it, twisting it in slow circles. The ring looked old. I wondered what its significance was.

  I cleared my throat. “I did figure out who killed Agatha, yes,” I said. “But so did the police.”

  “Ruby said people tell you things that they don’t always tell the police.”

  I nodded. “Sometimes they do.”

  “Kathleen, I did something I shouldn’t have done,” Russell said, his eyes fixed on his brightly colored shoes.

  My chest tightened and my mouth was suddenly dry. “What did you do?” I hoped he wasn’t going to say he killed Kassie.

  “That bowl of whipped cream? I’m the one who made it.”

  I looked at him, incredulous. “Why?” I said.

  He finally looked at me. “I was going to use it in a magic trick that sadly would go terribly wrong with Kassie being the beneficiary.”

  “You mean the old pie-in-the-face trick.”

  Russell nodded. “And you don’t have to tell me how juvenile the idea was. I do know.”

  “Eugenie couldn’t have been in on that.”

  “She wasn’t.”

  The breeze lifted a stray strand of my hair and I tucked it back behind my ear. “So you made the whipped cream. Then what did you do?”

  “The dishes. I don’t like messes.” He made a face.

  “Why did you leave the bowl of whipped cream on the table?”

  “Because I heard Eugenie calling my name and I didn’t want her to come into the kitchen. I knew if she saw the whipped cream she’d guess what I was planning. I figured I’d just come back later and get it. Nobody was going to be in the kitchen. Then we all ended up down at the café and I started to think maybe my plan wasn’t such a good idea after all.” He blew out a breath. “You know the rest.”

  “Why did you want to pull Kassie into one of your . . . stunts?” I said. “She didn’t strike me as the kind of person who . . .” I hesitated.

  “Who had a sense of humor?” Russell asked.

  “Who would have wanted to do anything that would have left her looking silly.”

  He put his hands together back to back and interlaced his fingers. “That was kind of the point. To make her look silly.” He looked at me again. “I got tired of the way she took little digs at the bakers. For someone like Charles or Rebecca, well, they’re pretty confident people. They can handle it. But for Kate and Stacey—she made them doubt themselves.”

  Russell wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t think a face full of whipped cream would have changed Kassie’s behavior.

  “Kassie was like a crow,” he said. “She liked to collect shiny things, but in her case the shiny things were bits of information about people. Then she would use what she knew like a little sword to jab the person.”

  His words left me with an unsettled feeling. I remembered what I had heard Kassie say to Richard.

  “What shiny thing did Kassie have on you?” I asked.

  Russell laughed. “See? That’s the thing. She didn’t have anything on me. That’s why I was the person to even the score.” He raised an eyebrow and gave me a cheeky grin. “Lucky for me all of my shiny bits have already been shown to the world, so to speak.”

  chapter 7

  I pulled out my phone and called Marcus. I explained what Russell had just told me.

  “Can he come down to the station now?” Marcus asked. I pictured him sitting at his desk, papers piled everywhere.

  I relayed the question to Russell, who nodded. I said good-bye to Marcus, gave Russell directions to the police station and then walked back to the community center with him so he could get his rental car. I spent the next couple of hours looking ahead at the show’s schedule with Eugenie and making notes on topics she wanted me to research. Dairy and Dessert Weeks were still ahead.

  Maggie poked her head in Eugenie’s office about two thirty. She was carrying a plate with a green flowered napkin on top. “Caroline sent me with these,” she said, setting the plate in the middle of Eugenie’s desk.

  “Wonderful,” Eugenie exclaimed. She peeked under the napkin and then lifted her gaze to Maggie. “Sourdough biscuits?”

  She nodded. “With lemon curd.”

  “I’m going to put the water on,” Eugenie said. “You’ll join us?” she asked Maggie over her shoulder as she went to fill her kettle.

  “I would love to,” Maggie said. She smiled at me. There was a smudge of rust-colored paint on her left cheek. “I saw Peggy. She told me how much help you were to her.”

  “All I did was give her some basic information,” I said. “She’s going to do a good job because of the kind of person she is. Adding her to the show was a good decision on Elias’s part.”

  “Do you think Ruby had anything to do with Peggy getting the job?” Maggie asked.

  “Ruby had everything to do with her getting it,” Eugenie said, coming back in with the kettle. “We needed another judge if the show was going to continue. Ruby suggested Marguerite—I mean Peggy.” She plugged in the kettle and set it on top of the bookcase. “That piece of information came right from the horse’s mouth, Elias being the horse, so to speak.”

  “It was a good idea no matter whose suggestion it was,” I said. I gathered my notes into a pile and set them to one side.

  “There isn’t any problem with the show continuing, is there?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Eugenie said, reaching for a
metal canister on the middle shelf of the bookcase. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I saw Elias leave about half an hour ago. He looked preoccupied. He didn’t speak to anyone. His energy felt off. Usually he comes in to say hello and to see what we’re all working on but this time he didn’t.”

  “As my mother used to say, Elias has a lot of irons in the fire.” Eugenie dropped four teabags into her squat teapot. “I’m sure there’s no problem with the show.”

  * * *

  There was no problem with the show but there was a problem for Elias. Late in the day, Marcus arrested him for the murder of Kassie Tremayne.

  Ruby arrived just as we were finishing the form at the end of tai chi. Her orchid-colored hair was disheveled, she was pale and she kept picking at the front of her sweater as she stood just inside the door waiting for us to finish. As soon as we were done she came across the floor.

  “Kathleen, did you know Marcus arrested Elias?”

  “What?” Maggie said, her green eyes narrowing.

  Ruby nodded. “Just a little while ago.”

  I put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t know, but my phone is in my bag so he probably left me a message.”

  “This is some kind of stupid mistake. Elias couldn’t kill anyone. I know people think he’s some kind of thug because he worked for my grandfather a million years ago, but he’s not that kind of person. He’s filming the Baking Showdown here and he didn’t have to do that, but he did because he cares about this town.”

  Maggie put an arm around Ruby’s shoulders. “Take a breath,” she said.

  Ruby pressed the heel of her hand hard against her breastbone and took a couple of deep breaths.

  Ruby and Marcus had clashed during the investigation into Agatha Shepherd’s death. It had taken her a long time to rebuild a friendship with him. Now it looked like all that work had been destroyed.