Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery Read online

  “And I’d been about to make the same request when I got your text,” he countered. “This was business. My company’s business. You can get it next time.” He turned to Claire. “Would you add a chicken salad sandwich to that, please?” he held out the bill and his credit card.

  “Of course,” she said. “How would you like the sandwich?”

  “Hold the bread, mayo, celery and green onions.”

  Claire frowned but at the same time a hint of a smile played around her mouth. “So what you really want is the chicken.”

  “Yeah,” Gavin said. “I’m trying to take a more minimalist approach to lunch.”

  “Okay,” Claire said, giving up and letting the smile out. “I’ll be right back.”

  He pulled on his leather jacket and grabbed his messenger bag. I told him I’d call Lita and get back to him once I’d talked to her and checked out the library.

  Claire came back with his receipt and a small take-out container that I was guessing held the chicken. Gavin thanked her and passed the cardboard container over to me. “For Owen,” he said. “Guys have to stick together.”

  I laughed. “Thank you. You’ll have a friend for life now.”

  “You can’t have too many of those,” he said. His phone buzzed.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” I said.

  If Owen had been a person, I would have said his eyes lit up when his nose detected the aroma coming from the take-out container. His whiskers twitched and he momentarily forgot about his injured paw as he walked across the front seat of the truck to sniff the box.

  “Are you feeling better?” I asked.

  He immediately sat down, held up his paw and meowed, giving me his sad-kitty face.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. I leaned over and carefully lifted him onto my lap. “You were very brave,” I told him, “and you didn’t try to bite Roma even once.”

  He ducked his head and then looked up at me with his exotic golden eyes. It was Owen’s way of trying to seem modest.

  “I have to go to the library,” I said. “You can stay in the truck or you can come inside if”—I narrowed my gaze at him—“if you stay in the bag.”

  He seemed to consider my words. Then he reached out and put his uninjured paw on the take-out box.

  “You can have a couple of pieces now and the rest after we’re done.”

  That seemed to be okay with him. He climbed down off my lap and looked expectantly at me.

  I fished two slices of grilled chicken out of the container and held them out to Owen. He took each piece from my hand and set it on the seat so he could go through the little ritual of sniffing and checking that he always followed before he ate anything. If there was anything to reincarnation, Owen had probably been some autocratic ruler poisoned by a cadre of disgruntled noblemen, with enough trace memory lingering that he wasn’t going to let it happen again even though in this life he was a small tabby cat.

  “Gavin sent that, by the way,” I said as I pulled away from the curb.

  Owen lifted his head, looked around and gave a loud meow. Sending a thank-you out into the universe perhaps?

  Owen climbed into the cat carrier without objection when we got to the library. For a moment I debated leaving him in the truck, but I knew if he got pissed off he’d just render himself invisible and follow me anyway. An Owen I could see and hopefully corral to some degree was preferable to an unseen cat roaming around the building, poking his furry nose into whatever struck his fancy.

  Hope was waiting for me.

  “I have Owen,” I said, putting one hand on the side of the carrier bag. “I had to take him to Roma and I didn’t have time to take him home after that.”

  “Is he all right?” she asked, eyeing the carrier.

  An indignant “merow” came from inside before I could answer.

  “He got a big splinter between two claws on his paw,” I said. “Roma came to the rescue.”

  Hope made a face. “Sounds painful.”

  Owen gave another loud meow.

  Hope laughed. “I swear that cat knows what you say to him.” She leaned toward the bag. “I’m sorry about your paw,” she said. “I hope you’re feeling better soon.”

  He gave a little murp of acknowledgment and shifted against my hip. It occurred to me that maybe I was worrying way too much about people finding out how much I talked to the cats.

  The book drop was more than overflowing, if that was possible. Two sets of shelves to one side of the circulation desk had been turned sideways and there were bits of dirt and dried grass on the floors. By my standards things were a mess. Still, I felt a huge sense of relief now that I was inside again and could start dealing with it all.

  The exhibit space looked pretty much the same as it had when I’d last been in the building on Thursday night, except that Gavin had created a half wall, maybe four feet high, of Plexiglas panels in metal frames, attached to temporary supports bolted to the walls at each end. I knew Harry Junior had put in the panels, which were actually part of a railing system, and Oren had already assured me he could fix the walls where the supports had been screwed in.

  A middle-aged man in a dark blue uniform was sitting in front of the half wall. He got to his feet. “Good morning, Ms. Paulson, Detective,” he said.

  “Good morning, Curtis,” Hope said, smiling across the room at him.

  I raised a hand in acknowledgment. Curtis Holt was one of Gavin’s security guards. Gavin had e-mailed him my photo so he’d recognize me. The man sat back down and went back to whatever he was reading on his tablet.

  “Did you manage to work anything out as far as reopening?” Hope asked, looking around the space.

  I pushed a stray piece of hair out of my face and set Owen in his carrier on the circulation desk. “I think so,” I said. “Gavin and Lita may have found an out in the contract with the insurance company that will let us get the building open again.”

  “I like him,” Hope said. “He’s a bit of a flirt, but he knows his stuff.” She gave me an appraising look. “He kind of has a bit of a guy thing going with Marcus.”

  “A guy thing?” I said. “You mean a ‘Who’s going to win the cup’, ’Let’s grab a cold one’ thing?”

  She laughed and put a hand on her pocket for a second as if she were checking for her phone. “No. More like ‘Let’s bang our heads together like a couple of big-horned rams on one of those nature shows on PBS.’”

  I’d pretty much known that based on how Marcus had reacted to my breakfast meeting with Gavin. I shook my head slowly.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Hope said. “They mostly stand around puffing out their chests like a pair of lowland gorillas while they try to outdo each other with obscure bits of technical stuff about electronics.” She laughed. “Can you tell I’ve been on a nature documentary binge?”

  “Maybe just a little.” I grinned back at her. “Although I can picture the two of them grunting and pounding on their chests.”

  Because I’d been talking to Hope and imagining Marcus and Gavin acting like a couple of posturing apes, I hadn’t noticed that Owen had managed to work the zipper on the carrier bag from inside, sliding it open so he could work out a shoulder and then his whole body. He climbed out, shook his head and jumped down to the floor.

  “Crap on toast!” I exclaimed. “Owen, get back here. What did I say about staying in the bag?” It was a total waste of words. He listened only if it suited him or he was trying to placate me in some way.

  Owen was making his way purposefully across the mosaic tile floor. He didn’t seem to be having any problem with his paw. He stopped at a spot in the middle of the space, under the domed ceiling with its curved skylight, bent his head and sniffed at something on the floor. He scraped at whatever he’d found and then sat and looked over his shoulder at me.

  “Really bad
thing to do if you want the rest of that chicken,” I said, glaring at the small cat. I reached down to pick him up. He twisted away, put his paw on the same spot on the floor he’d been pawing at and meowed at me.

  “Do you happen to have a cat-size set of handcuffs?” I asked Hope.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I left them in my other jacket.” She frowned at Owen. “What’s he scratching at?”

  “I don’t know.” I crouched down beside the little tabby. He looked at the floor and then he looked at me. I knew that expression. It was his “So do you see it?” look.

  There was something stuck to the tiny square tiles. I scraped the edge with a fingernail. It was a dried pine needle sticky with sap. I held out my finger to show Hope. I was certain Owen had a reason for pointing out this particular bit of dirt, but I couldn’t exactly tell that to Hope. No, that wouldn’t seem at all peculiar, would it?

  “That’s pine sap,” she said. She turned and squinted toward the front entrance.

  I waited. I could tell from her expression that she was making connections in her head. I didn’t need to tell her Owen thought the sticky pine needle was important; clearly she thought it was as well.

  Hope sat back on her haunches. “Kathleen, there aren’t any pine trees out front, are there?”

  I shook my head. “No. There’s one by the loading dock.”

  She pressed her lips together. Owen was watching her intently. “I don’t suppose you know when this floor was last cleaned?” she asked.

  Suddenly I understood why both she and Owen were so interested in the pinesap. “I do,” I said, slowly. “This entire level was steam mopped late last Thursday afternoon.” I picked up Owen, who made no move to wiggle away from me now, although he kept all of his focus on Hope. “Do you think the thief might have gotten into the building through the loading dock?” I asked. Hope got to her feet and so did I.

  “We went over the entire building, but I’m thinking it might be worth a second look,” she said. “My guys wore booties when they were in here, and if the floor was cleaned not too long before the break-in . . .” She held out both hands.

  “Maybe this was tracked in by the person who took the Weston drawing and killed Margo,” I finished.

  Hope looked at me. “Maybe,” she said. She got her camera and took some photos of the spot on the floor as well as of my finger. Then she scraped the sticky pine needle off my finger into an evidence envelope.

  “I should call Marcus,” she said. She peeled off the latex gloves she’d pulled on to collect the sap from my finger, pulled out her phone and called Marcus. The call went to voice mail.

  “Damn!” she muttered almost under her breath. “He’s in a meeting with the prosecuting attorney.”

  While she’d been making the call I’d put Owen back in the cat carrier. He’d climbed in without objection—something he didn’t often do. He seemed to have forgotten about his injured paw.

  Hope dropped her phone back in her pocket. She looked at me and one eyebrow went up. “Do you want to go take a look back there? Off the record?” She blew out a breath. “Way, way off the record.”

  Before I could say anything, Owen answered for me. “Merow!” he said loudly.

  “We’re in,” I said.

  She turned to the security guard. “Curtis, we’re just going to check something outside.”

  He nodded.

  I swung the bag over my shoulder and followed Hope out, stopping to lock up and set both alarms. Owen and I stood on the grass and watched while she examined the loading-dock area and the heavy metal door.

  After a few minutes she pushed her hair back from her face and sighed. “I don’t see any sign that someone broke in through this door,” she said. She looked at the cat carrier. I could see a pair of eyes watching her. “You got any more clues, Owen?” she asked.

  “Murp,” he said.

  Hope came to stand beside us. “I guess I was just grasping at straws,” she said, scanning the area.

  Harry Junior had just started working on the library grounds, collecting small branches that had blown down over the winter and uncovering the shrubs that had been protected from the cold and snowy Minnesota weather.

  Hope was focused on a spot to the side of the loading dock, where the bronze rain chain hung down the side of the building. It looked like a sequence of tiny pots.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “It’s a rain chain,” I said. “It guides the water down to the ground from the gutter.”

  “Why don’t you have a downspout?” she asked without taking her eyes off the side of the building.

  “That was Harry’s idea,” I said. “Kids kept using the downspout to climb up onto the roof over the loading dock.”

  Hope’s eyes met mine then. “Stay right here,” she said. She took a couple of steps forward, her gaze fixed to the ground. Then suddenly she stopped and backtracked.

  “What size would you say Harry’s feet are, Kathleen?” she asked. “Fourteen maybe?”

  I thought about the big black rubber boots he had been wearing when he’d last been working on the library grounds. “At least,” I said.

  Hope looked at me. “I think I know how the killer got into the building,” she said, pulling out her phone.

  8

  “The thief came in through the roof?” Ruby said. “C’mon, Kathleen, tell me Bridget got that wrong.”

  We were in the tai chi studio. Maggie and Ruby were holding mugs of some kind of tea that smelled of orange and spices, and I was wishing I’d stopped for coffee at Eric’s. The current edition of the Mayville Heights Chronicle was on the table.

  I shook my head. “She didn’t.” The latest developments at the library were front-page news. Once again, Mary’s daughter, Bridget, had all the details.

  What Hope had seen on the ground by the loading dock to make her back up so quickly was part of a footprint. A footprint that was smaller than anything Harry would have left in his rubber boots. Not that he would have stepped in a flower bed that was still too wet to work in in the first place.

  It appeared that Margo’s killer had some kind of gymnastic or climbing skills, as far-fetched as that seemed. There was no other way to have gotten up onto the roof without leaving evidence behind. Hope had called in her crime scene team, Marcus had arrived, and any hope I had of reopening the library had evaporated. I’d taken Owen home and then spent the rest of the day at Henderson Holdings with Lita, doing damage control.

  “It sounds like something out of a Tom Cruise movie,” Maggie said, stretching one arm over her head.

  “I didn’t know that skylight even opened,” Ruby said. She’d changed her hair color back to grape-jelly purple.

  I made a face. “I knew it could be opened—in theory. What I didn’t know was that Will Redfern and his crew had left it unsecured.”

  Will Redfern was the contractor who had been in charge of the library renovations that had brought me to Mayville Heights in the first place. Will had been having an affair with the librarian before me, Ingrid, and as far as he was concerned, if I gave up and went back to Boston things would work out just right for him.

  The renovations had been plagued with problems, and in the end the only way we’d managed to have the building ready on time for its anniversary celebrations was to replace Will and his crew with Oren Kenyon.

  Lita had shaken her head when I’d told her about the skylight. “No good deed goes unpunished,” she’d said.

  The work on the library had been Everett Henderson’s gift to the town for the Carnegie building’s centennial. He’d agreed to hire Will for the job because he’d had a good reputation up to that point and because Everett had gone to school with Will’s father. Lita had very strongly advised him not to do it. It was one of the rare times, I was guessing, that Everett had let sentiment and nostalgia influence a decision
.

  “How did the thief get up onto the roof in the first place?” Ruby asked. She drained the last of her tea and set the cup on the table. “You can’t exactly walk around Mayville Heights carrying a ladder. It’s something people would notice.”

  “They think he climbed up from the loading-dock roof,” I said. I wasn’t telling them anything that Bridget wouldn’t be printing in the next issue of the Mayville Heights Chronicle in the morning. She’d had a reporter on the scene while Hope was still securing the library grounds. I was beginning to suspect Bridget had some kind of contact at the police department.

  “Do you think Margo surprised this burglar and he killed her?” Maggie asked.

  I shrugged. “It looks that way.”

  She linked her fingers around her mug of tea. “It’s hard to believe someone would risk that much bad karma over that little drawing.”

  “I don’t think whoever took that drawing was thinking about their karma,” Ruby said. “They were probably thinking about money.”

  Taylor King appeared in the doorway then. She looked in our direction.

  “Excuse me,” Ruby said. “I have something for Taylor.” She headed across the studio.

  Taylor King collected vintage purses and bags. The teenager, who was part of our tai chi class, was becoming quite an expert on them. Ruby had found a small embroidered clutch at a flea market she and Maggie and I had gone to in Red Wing and paid a dollar for it. She was planning on giving it to Taylor as a thank-you for the work Taylor had been putting in, helping get everything ready for a yard sale at the Riverarts building, where most of the town’s artists had studios.

  “Mags, is that Weston drawing really worth that much money?” I asked, linking my hands behind my back and squeezing my shoulders together to loosen the knots that seemed to have settled in at the base of my neck.

  “In the end, a piece of art is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.” She took a sip of her tea. “You saw it, right?”