by Sofie Kelly
“Thank you,” Marcus said. “Actually, all of you will probably be interested in what I came to say.” He was in police officer mode, calm, logical, no emotion. “First of all, Lewis Wallace’s death was not from natural causes.”
“You mean he was murdered,” Ethan said.
“Maybe.”
“Well, which is it? Either he was murdered or he wasn’t.” Ethan’s tone was combative.
“We’re waiting for more information from the medical examiner,” Marcus said.
“How did Wallace die?” I asked.
“Anaphylaxis.”
Milo turned to look at us. “He was allergic to something.” He wore a silver-colored Medic Alert bracelet on his right wrist warning of his own penicillin allergy.
“Yes,” Marcus said. “Lewis Wallace had a peanut allergy. He’d eaten part of a peanut butter and banana muffin.”
Ethan started to cough. Derek reached over and patted him on the back. Ethan held up a hand. “Sorry,” he rasped. “My coffee went the wrong way.”
“He ate something with peanut butter in it?” I said. “Wouldn’t he have tasted it?”
Marcus had been looking at Ethan but he shifted his attention to me. “That’s probably why he only had part of the muffin.”
I remembered the EpiPen on the floor that at first glance I’d thought was just a regular pen. It must have belonged to Lewis Wallace.
“You said you had two things to tell Derek,” I said. “What’s the second?”
Marcus turned to Derek. “We know Lewis Wallace died sometime between ten p.m. Saturday night and two a.m. or so Sunday morning.”
I remembered checking Wallace’s body to see if he could still be alive. The timeline made sense with what I’d observed.
“We already established that you were at the bed-and-breakfast for a big chunk of that time,” Marcus continued. “And we have a witness who can confirm that you were nowhere near the St. James Hotel after that.”
The color drained from Derek’s face. Blindly, he put a hand out behind him and found the counter. “I uh . . . I don’t understand,” he stammered. “I told you I was just walking around.”
“Someone saw you.”
I touched Marcus’s arm and he turned to look at me. “Who?” I said.
“Ian Queen.”
“Wait a minute. Patricia Queen’s son is your witness?”
Ian Queen had been in the library a couple of times, carrying boxes for the quilters. He was in his early twenties, the youngest of Patricia’s children according to Mary, and a lot more laid-back than his mother. I remembered that a few months back Patricia had told me that Ian was working construction and living at home for a semester before going to graduate school in the fall. She was very proud of him.
Marcus nodded. “Ian is a credible alibi witness. He described Derek down to the jacket he was wearing.” He gestured at Derek. “Ian is certain about the time and about his ID because he was at The Brick Friday night. And he doesn’t know you. He has absolutely no motivation to make anything up.”
Ethan came around the table and gave Derek a hug, slapping him on the back. “This is awesome,” he said. “We have to do something to celebrate.” He looked at me. “Hey, Kath, what was the name of that other place you suggested?”
“Barry’s Hat?” I said.
“Yeah, that was it.” He looked from Derek to Milo. “What do you say? Is everybody in?”
They were. Ethan looked at me. I shook my head.
Derek turned to Marcus and extended his hand. “Thank you,” he said. “I . . . I don’t know what else to say.”
“You’re welcome,” Marcus said. “I appreciate the fact that you came and talked to us. It actually helped us confirm where you were.”
I smiled at Derek. “Have fun,” I said. “I’m glad this is over.”
He smiled back. “I will, and I promise, no getting pulled into any fights with drunks.”
“Good plan,” I said.
Owen had wandered in at some point and stationed himself next to the refrigerator. Ethan gestured to him. “I need to find a shirt. Come give me your opinion.”
Owen dutifully followed.
Derek took his coffee cup over to the sink. Milo was telling a story that seemed to have him using that spoon I hadn’t known I’d owned as a lance.
Derek wasn’t a suspect. I didn’t have to poke around in one of Marcus’s cases and I could go back to enjoying my brother’s company. All was well.
So why didn’t Marcus look happier?
chapter 6
The guys left about fifteen minutes later. Apparently, Owen had chosen a dove-gray-and-dark-blue plaid shirt for Ethan. Before he headed out the door Ethan came over to Marcus. “I owe you an apology,” he said. Both hands were shoved in the pockets of his dark jeans. “I kind of overreacted the first time you came to talk to Derek and again tonight. I’m sorry for being such a dick.”
“You’re a lot like your sister,” Marcus said. “Loyal, willing to fight for the people you care about. That’s not a bad thing.” He glanced at me and smiled. “So don’t worry about it.”
They shook hands and then Ethan threw his arms around me. “Love you,” he said.
“Love you more,” I whispered back.
“Let’s roll,” Milo said. He grabbed his black down jacket and wound a long black-and-blue scarf that I recognized was one of Ella King’s creations—probably bought at the co-op store—around his neck.
“Try to stay out of trouble,” I said. I seemed to be saying that a lot.
“But you have bail money, right?” Milo called from the porch.
I laughed. “Just stay out of trouble, please.”
Once they were gone I turned to Marcus again, catching the front of his blue ski jacket, pulling him closer so I could kiss him. “Can you stay for a few minutes?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Did you eat?”
“I had lunch.” He frowned. “At least I think I did.”
I gestured at the table with one finger. “Sit. I’ll warm up some of Ethan’s leftover lo mein.”
“Your brother cooks?” Marcus asked as he shrugged off his jacket.
“We all cook,” I said, going to get a bowl from the cupboard. “My mother says it’s a life skill just like knowing how to swim, how to waltz and how to balance a checkbook. And by the way, he’s a pretty good cook.”
“Ethan’s a good friend, too.”
“He’s not exactly subtle,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Marcus draped his jacket on the back of one of the chairs, sat down and stretched his long legs under the table. “Don’t be. I meant what I said. Ethan’s like you and caring about your friends isn’t a bad thing. I’m just glad Ian Queen confirmed Derek’s story about where he was. I have a feeling this case is going to get messy.”
I got the lo mein out of the refrigerator, filled a bowl for him, and set it in the microwave. “Do you have any idea how Lewis Wallace ended up in that meeting room? He hadn’t signed up for the workshop.”
He raked a hand back through his dark wavy hair, a sign that he was feeling the stress. “I have no idea. There are no security cameras in that part of the hotel and so far none of the staff has admitted letting him in.”
“You know that Wallace seemed to have some problem sleeping?”
Marcus nodded. “I do. And there is security footage of him wandering around other areas of the hotel. Someone from the cleaning staff asked if they could get anything for him but apparently he said he was just walking around until he was tired.”
“I saw the EpiPen on the far side of the room.” It had been lying on the floor against the leg of the whiteboard. Nowhere near Wallace’s body.
Marcus gave me a wry smile. “I’m not surprised. You have very good observation skills.”
“I’m guessing since Lewis Wallace is dead that he didn’t get to use it.”
“That’s a good guess,” he said.
“I also saw the broken glass on the floor and the overturned chair.”
“I assumed you had.”
“Those both suggest there was some kind of a struggle.”
Marcus nodded. “They do.”
The microwave beeped and I set the steaming bowl of noodles, sauce and vegetables in front of him, then got both of us fresh cups of coffee and for myself one of the remaining maple cookies from Eric that I had brought home from the library. I settled in the chair to his left, pulling one foot up underneath me. “So you don’t think Wallace dropped the pen while trying to use it and then it rolled away and he knocked those things over trying to get to it?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.
Marcus tried a forkful of lo mein then gave a nod of approval. “That’s good,” he said, gesturing at the bowl with his fork. “And just between the two of us, no. The hotel building is old but it is solid and I couldn’t get anything to roll that far away from where the body was.”
“Someone else was in the room with him?”
He didn’t say yes but he didn’t say no, either.
“You’re sure the muffin was the source of the peanut butter?” I broke the cookie more or less in half and took a bite. It was good, too.
Marcus reached for his own coffee. “Yes. There was a box of muffins from Sweet Thing on the table. They were peanut butter and banana. The medical examiner found part of one of those muffins in Wallace’s stomach and his throat.”
“The reaction must have happened very quickly if Wallace didn’t even have a chance to use his EpiPen.”
“Wallace had asthma. According to the medical examiner that could explain why the response was so rapid. Probably had something to do with his sleep issues.” Marcus picked up his fork again. “And you’ve had those muffins. You really can’t taste anything besides the banana. He may not have realized what he’d eaten.”
“They’re the ones Maggie likes so much?” I asked.
He nodded.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Owen lick his whiskers. Georgia’s peanut butter and banana muffins weren’t just Maggie’s favorite. They were also Owen’s after half of one fell on the floor one day this past winter. The fact that it landed right in front of Owen was just a happy coincidence according to Maggie, who had actually managed to say that to me with a straight face.
“Why would a man with a severe allergy buy those muffins?” I said. “Georgia is very open about her ingredients. She doesn’t make those muffins very often because they have peanut butter in them and when she does, she uses the kitchen at Fern’s because the Sweet Thing kitchen is peanut-free.”
Georgia shared a kitchen and workspace with the Earl of Sandwich, which ran two lunch trucks that serviced pretty much all the construction sites in the area. (And yes, the owner’s name really was Earl.) They had the main floor of a two-story, blue-shingled house on Washington Street, a couple of streets above Main and two blocks east of the library. Like most of the other buildings on the street, the businesses were on the main level and there were apartments on the second floor.
Marcus shrugged. “It seems someone else bought them. Georgia is in Minneapolis for a course until the end of the week. When she gets back I’ll talk to her.”
I broke the last bit of my cookie in half. “Georgia isn’t actually a suspect, is she?”
“No one is a suspect at the moment,” he said. “We still have a lot of people to talk to.”
I noticed what he’d avoided saying—that Lewis Wallace’s death had been an accident. “You think Wallace was murdered,” I said, watching his face closely for a reaction. I could see he was weighing his words. I waited.
“There’s not much sense in denying it at this point,” he said. “Yes, we do. The medical examiner is taking a bit longer than I would have liked to come to the same conclusion, but I think he’ll rule Wallace’s death a homicide tomorrow. Wallace did take a bite of that muffin but it looks like after that someone shoved it into his face. And there’s no way his EpiPen got across the room of its own volition.”
His answer confirmed what had been niggling at the back of my mind all along. “That’s why you wanted to talk to Derek and why you were happy to hear he had an alibi,” I said.
“Derek had more than one heated encounter with Lewis Wallace. I was glad to cross him off my list.”
“Georgia had an encounter with the man.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “Mayville Heights was a fresh start for her and it almost didn’t work out. I don’t think there’s any way she could lose Emmy now, but Georgia is still skittish. Given that her in-laws tried to kidnap her child, I don’t blame her.”
Marcus reached across the table and caught my hand. “Don’t worry. I don’t think Georgia would be stupid enough to kill someone with muffins she made and then leave the box behind.”
“You’re right,” I said.
“Look, I doubt she even sold those muffins to Lewis Wallace,” he said, “but even if she did, she had no way of knowing he was allergic to peanuts.”
“What about his business partners? They were going to lease some property to a group that wanted to operate a riverboat casino. Maybe they had some kind of disagreement.”
He shook his head. “They were both in New York City with lots of witnesses.”
Owen was still sitting between us hoping to mooch something. He gave Marcus his best plaintive kitty look. I saw Marcus glance down a couple of times at the little gray tabby.
“He’s just trying to play you,” I said. “Ethan has been feeding him who knows what all day.”
Marcus looked down at Owen, shrugged and said, “Sorry.”
The cat shot a cranky look at me, ears going in different directions. I knew that somehow he’d understood every word of the conversation.
A twist of noodle that had been wrapped around Marcus’s fork slipped off just then, landing on the floor at the side of his chair. It had barely touched the floor when Owen pounced on it, quickly sniffed to make sure it was “safe” to eat and then all but slurped it up with a flick of his pink tongue. The look on his furry gray face was a mix of triumph and defiance.
I decided to let him have this one.
Marcus smiled. “I swear I didn’t do that on purpose.”
I smiled back at him, happy to have the subject changed. “I know you didn’t. A certain little opportunistic furball has very fast reflexes.” Owen straightened up, preening just a little. It seemed he took my words as a compliment.
Marcus checked the time. “I’m sorry to eat and run but I really do have to go.” He got to his feet. “Thank you for supper.”
I got to my feet as well and he pulled me close for a kiss that led to a second kiss.
We broke apart very reluctantly. “I really do have to meet Eddie,” Marcus said.
I grabbed my jacket. “I know,” I said. “I’ll walk you out.”
The sky was an endless inky black pierced with brilliant stars overhead. Marcus put an arm around me. I leaned into him and I was anything but cold.
His SUV was parked behind my truck. And there was a small ginger tabby cat standing on her hind legs, looking out of the driver’s window.
Micah.
Marcus stopped in his tracks. He stared at the car. “How the hell did she get in there?” he said. “I swear I checked the backseat. She wasn’t there. This doesn’t make any sense.”
I opened my mouth to explain, and then closed it again. Marcus was in the middle of a murder investigation. This wasn’t the time. It really wasn’t.
His cat seemingly appearing out of nowhere in Marcus’s car did make sense to me. The little ginger tabby—who was missing the tip of her tail—was also a Wisteria Hill cat, although she didn’t share Owen’s and
Hercules’s dislike of being touched by most people. She did, however, share Owen’s ability to disappear. I really didn’t understand how she’d evaded being caught at it by Marcus for so long other than she was a very intelligent cat. Like Owen and Hercules, it certainly seemed as though she understood everything that was said around her.
Marcus shook his head slowly, still staring at the SUV. “I feel like I’m losing my mind sometimes.”
I snaked one arm around his midsection and gave him a squeeze. “You’re not,” I said.
“She’s snuck into the car twice in the last two days,” he said. “No. Make that three times now.” He exhaled loudly, his breath lingering for a moment in the night air. “The second time I was halfway to work before I saw her in the rearview mirror sitting in the middle of the backseat. I don’t know how the heck I missed her before that and I have no idea how she got past me into the car in the first place. I have no idea how she got in tonight.”
My chest tightened as though I’d been picked up and hugged by King Kong. “She is small and . . . fast,” I said, wondering if I sounded as lame to him as I sounded to myself.
Micah was watching us out the window of the SUV, her head cocked to one side as though she was trying to figure out what we were talking about.
Marcus shook his head again. “I’ve gotta start paying better attention. It’s too cold for her to be stuck in the car for so long.”
“You’ve only been here for about half an hour,” I said. “And Micah lived outside before she lived with you. I think she’s all right.”
“I’ll start checking under the seats,” he said. “She’s so little she can fit in some pretty small spaces, and you’re right about her being fast. This morning, for a moment, I actually thought she had disappeared right in front of me.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “I guess that’s what happens when I don’t get enough sleep or enough caffeine.”
Or when your cat has some kind of unexplained magical ability.
Marcus opened the SUV’s door and picked up the little cat. I reached over to stroke her fur and she nuzzled my hand. “No more sneaking into the car,” I said.
