A Night's Tail

by Sofie Kelly

  Hercules nudged my hand because I had stopped scratching between his ears.

  “Still, I was thinking maybe I should talk to Lita. Or do you think the whole story about what happened last night is pretty much around town by now?”

  Marcus frowned at the popcorn, which was now in a large bowl. He added a sprinkle more salt. “I’d be surprised if the story weren’t all around town by this point,” he said. He gave the bowl a shake and nodded, seemingly satisfied. “You’re right that we can’t set some kind of moral code that people have to meet just to be in business, because I’m pretty sure that would be a small pool, but on the other hand it doesn’t benefit the town to make a deal with someone that no one else will want to work with.” He gave me a wry smile. “Roma is on that development committee, remember? I’m going out to Wisteria Hill tomorrow to help Eddie get some stuff down out of the attic. I’ll tell her what happened—last night and today—and see what she thinks.”

  Roma and I had met when Hercules and Owen followed me home from Wisteria Hill, two little balls of fur that didn’t seem to have a mother. That was back when Everett Henderson still owned the place. Later, Roma recruited me to join her team of volunteers that helped take care of the feral cat colony that lived in the old carriage house on the property. “Coincidentally” she’d paired me with Marcus.

  Roma had married former NHL star Eddie Sweeney this past summer. They were still in the happily-ever-after honeymoon phase and I’d been surprised when she’d agreed to get involved with the new business committee the town had put together. But since I knew she’d be the calm voice of reason I was selfishly happy she’d said yes.

  I got to my feet, gave Marcus a kiss and swiped a handful of popcorn from the bowl. “That works for me,” I said.

  * * *

  I was awakened in the morning by a poke from a furry paw. I opened one eye to find a furry black-and-white face looming over mine. I groaned. Hercules looked from me to my old clock radio and back again. I threw an arm over my eyes. “Yes, I know I wanted to get up early but not this early,” I told him. Despite the fact that the time change meant it was six thirty, to me it still felt like half past five.

  I lay there for a moment and I could feel the cat still lurking. “You win,” I said, sitting up. Hercules dropped to all four feet and headed to the door. He paused in the doorway and gave a loud murp. Hercules liked to get the last word.

  I got dressed and went down to the kitchen to make the coffee and feed Owen and Hercules their breakfast. I was leaning against the counter, both hands wrapped around my coffee mug, when Ethan wandered in, bare-chested, wearing just a pair of blue plaid-flannel pajama pants, his dark hair standing on end just the way it had when he was a little boy.

  “How about a T-shirt?” I said, grabbing a mug from the counter and offering it to him. “No one wants to see that first thing in the morning.”

  He reached for the coffeepot, poured a cup and then grinned at me. He rubbed a hand over his belly. “I haven’t had any complaints so far.”

  I made a face at him. “Way, way more information than I need to have.”

  Ethan just continued to smirk as he added cream and sugar to his mug.

  I scrambled three eggs with some spinach and we ate them with the muffins I’d made the day before. Ethan told me about the band they’d gone to hear and I told him about the samurai movie. It seemed the movie had been a lot better than the music.

  We headed down to the hotel about quarter to nine.

  “So this is Old Main Street?” Ethan said when we turned the corner at the bottom of the hill.

  I nodded. “Which is not the same as Main Street.”

  “How the heck did that happen?”

  “Would you believe I’m not sure?” I said. I’d gotten confused more than once, trying to find my way around town when I’d first moved to Mayville Heights from Boston, mostly due to the way some of the streets and buildings were named—and sometimes renamed. For instance, Old Main Street followed the shoreline from the Stratton Theatre, past the library and the St. James Hotel all the way to the marina. Main Street continued from the marina to the edge of town, where it joined the highway. Having two Main Streets made giving directions to visitors a little complicated, compounded by the fact that the St. James Hotel had reverted to its original name after a decade of being just the James Hotel.

  It struck me that maybe the question about the streets was something Harrison could answer in his next talk.

  “How far does that walking trail go?” Ethan asked, gesturing at the Riverwalk.

  For me, one of the best parts of the downtown was the Riverwalk, which ran along the waterfront with all the tall black walnut and elm trees that lined the shore. “The trail begins up by the old warehouses at the point,” I said. “Then runs past the downtown shops and businesses, all the way out beyond the marina.”

  If Lewis Wallace made a deal with the city, one of those warehouses would be home to his company.

  Derek was waiting out front of the St. James with his guitar. He looked tired, with sooty dark circles under his eyes and lines pulling at the corners of them. There was a tiny bit of stubble on his chin that he’d missed shaving.

  “How’s the song coming?” I asked.

  “Umm, slowly,” he said.

  “You want me to take a look at what you have so far?” Ethan asked.

  Derek shook his head. “Give me a little more time to chew on it.”

  Ethan shrugged. “No problem.”

  Melanie Davis was waiting for us at the front desk. Melanie and I had originally met when I’d had to collect an intoxicated Burtis Chapman—Brady’s dad—and Marcus’s father, Elliot Gordon, from the hotel bar, where, lubricated with a fair amount of alcohol, they had been entertaining the customers with their vocal skills. When she joined the library board I was glad to get to know her in less embarrassing circumstances.

  “Melanie, this is my brother, Ethan,” I said, “and you already know Derek Hanson.”

  She smiled. “Ethan, it’s good to meet you, and Derek, it’s good to meet you in person.” Melanie was about my height, curvy with smooth brown skin, dark eyes and gorgeous corkscrew curls to her shoulders.

  “It’s good to meet you, too,” Ethan said.

  Derek simply nodded.

  Melanie turned to me. “Kathleen, do you mind me showing Derek and Ethan their meeting room first and then we can go to my office?”

  “That’s fine with me,” I said.

  She led us across the lobby and down a hallway to the left. Derek had his guitar. Ethan carried his own guitar and a messenger bag I knew was full of papers. We stopped at a door at the end of the hall. I knew the room had big windows that overlooked the garden in the back of the hotel and would fill the space with light. It would be a great place for the workshop.

  Melanie pulled out a set of keys. “These are the original doors.” She raised an eyebrow. “They add ‘character,’ so there’s a key as well as a code. Once we check the setup of the room I’ll input a temporary code the two of you can use for the day to secure the room at lunchtime if you want to leave for a while.”

  “Thank you,” Ethan said.

  “I should warn you that there are no security cameras in this part of the hotel. They’re coming once the renovation work makes it to this floor.”

  “You’re upgrading the entire building,” I said.

  She nodded. “Right now, they’re working on the floor above us. I actually have a temporary office on this main floor.” She pointed north down another corridor. “My office and several others are getting a face-lift. All the executive offices will be together and we’re getting two renovated washrooms. And eventually all of these old doors will be replaced with a keycard system.”

  “You’ll lose a little character,” I said.

  “The downside of updates,” she said. She
gestured at the meeting room door. “The tables and chairs are set up the way we talked about and there’s a big whiteboard,” Melanie continued. “We can also get you a couple of smaller portable ones if you think you’ll need them.”

  “Umm, no, one should be fine,” Ethan said.

  “One of the kitchen staff will bring hot water and coffee about fifteen minutes before you start,” Melanie continued as she put the key in the lock. “They’ll bring more hot water and fresh coffee before you begin your afternoon session.” She glanced over her shoulder at us. “In my experience people like to get a cup of coffee or tea before they get started.” She swung the paneled door open and then froze in the open doorway, her breath catching in her throat. I took a couple of steps closer to see what was wrong with the meeting room.

  The problem wasn’t the room. The problem was Lewis Wallace slumped at one of the tables. Even from where I was standing it was pretty clear he was dead.

  chapter 4

  The color had drained from Melanie’s face. “We have to do something,” she said, taking a step forward. I caught her arm and she turned to look at me, clearly confused. “Kathleen, that’s . . . that’s . . .” She stopped and swallowed hard. “I know him. His name . . .” She cleared her throat. “His name is Lewis Wallace.”

  “He’s past our help,” I said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s going on?” Ethan asked, a frown creasing his forehead. He leaned sideways a bit and because he was taller he could see Wallace’s body. He swore softly under his breath. “Kathleen, is that . . . ?”

  I nodded. “Call nine-one-one,” I said. “Please.”

  “Are you positive he’s . . . dead?” Ethan asked. “Someone should make sure.”

  “I’ll uh . . . I’ll check.” The way Wallace’s body was slumped over at the table, the mottled color of the skin on the side of his face that was visible told me he’d been dead for a while, but I made my way over to him and felt for a pulse at his neck. As I’d expected, I didn’t find one. This wasn’t my first dead body.

  I glanced back over my shoulder at Ethan and shook my head.

  He nodded, took a few steps away from us and pulled out his phone.

  I took a quick look around the meeting room. There was a box from Sweet Things on the table. A chair was overturned and I saw pieces of a broken glass on the floor next to Wallace’s feet. Had Wallace done that or had there been some sort of struggle with someone else?

  Across the room I spotted what looked like an orange-capped pen against the leg of the whiteboard stand. Nothing else seemed to be out of place. I stepped back and pulled the door shut.

  Melanie seemed to have regained her composure. She swallowed a couple of times and stood up a little straighter. “I’m sorry, Kathleen,” she said. She cleared her throat and stared at the closed door. “I’ve just never seen a dead body before.”

  I gave her arm a squeeze. “It’s okay,” I said. She’d said she knew Lewis Wallace. I wondered what their connection was.

  As if she’d read my thoughts, she turned her gaze back to me. “I . . . worked with Lew, briefly, years ago. Before he showed up here at the hotel a few days ago I hadn’t seen him in years.”

  Ethan walked back over to us. “The police are on their way.”

  “Someone should meet them at the front entrance,” Melanie said. “This is going to be upsetting for some of the guests. I, uh . . . I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to tell them.”

  “If anyone asks all you have to say is that a guest was taken ill,” I said. “It’s true as far as any of us know at the moment.”

  Melanie nodded. “That’s a good idea. Thank you.” She looked at the door. “I should probably lock that just to be safe.”

  “Good idea,” I said.

  Melanie relocked the door. She smoothed her black pencil skirt. “I’m going to wait out front,” she said. “If any of the staff show up just send them out to find me.”

  Ethan couldn’t seem to stop moving. He’d been pacing back and forth in the hallway, hands going to the cord bracelet around his wrist, to his phone, raking through his hair, picking at his shirt. He looked at me now. “That Wallace guy, he’s dead dead? For real? Are you sure?”

  I looked at him without speaking and he seemed to remember who he was talking to. “Never mind. I’m sorry. Forget it,” he said, waving one hand in the air as though he were trying to wave the words away.

  Derek was leaning against the wall, his guitar propped next to him. He was so pale I thought he might pass out. “I didn’t want him to end up dead,” he said.

  I nodded. “I know. The man was a jerk but nobody wanted him to die.”

  I turned my attention back to Ethan. It seemed to me that I could feel the nervous energy he was giving off the same way that I could feel the heat from Harrison Taylor’s woodstove when I sat beside it.

  “Do you have a class list and contact information for your students?” I asked.

  He stopped pacing to look at me. “Yes,” he said and it seemed to dawn on him that people were due to be arriving soon. “What am I going to say to them?”

  “Just say that due to unforeseen circumstances you have to cancel the workshop. Apologize for it being last minute and say that you’ll be issuing refunds in the next twenty-four hours.” I slipped my messenger bag onto my other shoulder. “You can do that, can’t you?”

  Ethan thought for a moment but Derek was already nodding. “We can do that.”

  “You probably should get started, then,” I said.

  The two of them bent their heads over Ethan’s phone.

  I rubbed my stomach with one hand. It ached. It was a familiar feeling.

  The responding police officer was Officer Stephen Keller, ex-military, tall, square-shouldered and serious. We’d met under these types of circumstances before. He gave me a quick nod of recognition.

  The paramedics were right behind him. I recognized them as well, Ric Holm and his partner. Ric and I had first met when I’d been injured escaping from a house just seconds before it exploded. I awakened wrapped in blankets on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance with a very pissed-off Owen sitting on my stomach and Ric beside me. It was the first time he’d given me first aid but as it turned out it hadn’t been the last.

  Melanie had returned with Officer Keller and was unlocking the meeting room door.

  “So what’s going on?” Ric asked. He wore navy blue pants that must have had at least half a dozen pockets and a short-sleeved navy shirt with a patch on one shoulder that said Mayville Heights Paramedic. A stethoscope was draped around his neck.

  “There’s a man inside, dead at one of the tables. His name is Lewis Wallace,” I said. I held on to the strap of my messenger bag, running my hand along the tightly woven webbing.

  “Did you check for a pulse?” Ric asked.

  I nodded. “I couldn’t find one. And . . . and I know what someone looks like when they’re dead.”

  Melanie opened the door and Ric and his partner quickly made their way over to Lewis Wallace followed by Officer Keller, who shut the door behind them. The two paramedics weren’t in the room very long. Ric came out, pulling off a pair of blue latex gloves. “Is everyone okay out here?” he asked, looking around.

  “We’re good, Ric,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Take care, Kathleen,” he said. “I hope next time I see you it’s under better circumstances.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  Marcus arrived then. He put a hand on my shoulder. “You all right?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  “We’re all fine,” I said.

  “What’s going on?” He was already pulling a pair of gloves similar to Ric’s from his pocket.

  I explained briefly what had happened, how Ethan and Derek were supposed to be giving a workshop and I’d had a meeting planned with Melanie. She
nodded in agreement.

  “Melanie was just going to let Ethan and Derek into the room—this room—and then the two of us were going to her office to talk about the quilt show,” I continued. “She opened the door and we both saw Wallace. I checked but he was already dead. I’m the only person who actually went into the room.”

  Marcus’s blue eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute. Did you say Wallace? Do you mean Lewis Wallace?”

  I nodded.

  He pressed his lips together for a moment. “Everyone, please, just stay here,” he said.

  There was a long wooden bench in the main hallway in front of an emergency exit and a bank of floor-to-ceiling windows. I sat down. I knew we were going to be a while.

  Things got busy after that. Marcus came back out after a few minutes, talking on his cell. He had more questions for both Melanie and me. He spoke briefly to Ethan and Derek. They hadn’t seen much so that didn’t take very long. By then the crime scene techs had arrived.

  Marcus spoke to one of them and finally came back and stood in front of me. I got to my feet. “You can go home, Kathleen,” he said. “I told your brother and Derek to stay around because I’ll need to talk to all three of you later. You know how these things work.”

  I did know. I wished I didn’t. “We’ll stay at the house,” I said. “Call me when you get a chance.”

  “I will,” he said and his hand brushed mine for a second.

  I promised Melanie that I’d call her and we’d reschedule. I collected Ethan and Derek and we headed home. No one said a word on the drive up the hill.

  “Marcus is going to have more questions for us later,” I warned as I pulled into the driveway. Derek was sitting close to the passenger door. I looked around Ethan. “Derek, why don’t you stay here for a while?”

  He swiped a hand over his face. “Yeah, I think I will. Thanks.”