Paws and Effect

by Sofie Kelly

  “Kathleen, when I said that to you I was trying to impress you. I was trying to make what I do sound more like an art than just the facts, ma’am.” He got to his feet, touching my shoulder as he moved behind me.

  “Yes, police work is a process, but it’s also an art,” I pointed out. “It’s as much instinct and feeling as it is observation and fact-finding.”

  “I think instinct and feelings are how you figure things out,” he said as he poured a cup of coffee for each of us, “not me.”

  He was right. The conflict between feelings and facts had been the major source of turmoil between the two of us. It had taken a case that was very personal to Marcus for us to start to see things from the other’s perspective.

  He came back to the table with our coffee. He waited until I had taken a sip, then he spoke. “What else do they have? There has to be more than just those texts. You wouldn’t have come out here this early just for that.”

  “Marcus, where are your extra keys?” I asked.

  “In the bedroom on my dresser.”

  I got up and went down the hall to the bedroom. The keys were in a pottery bowl that he’d told me his sister, Hannah, had made when they were kids. I snagged the keys with one finger. The round metal fob from the drive-in wasn’t attached. Somehow I’d known it wouldn’t be.

  I went back to the kitchen.

  “What is it?” Marcus asked, turning in his seat to look at me.

  I dropped the keys on the table in front of him. He got it immediately. He pressed his lips together for a moment. “Where was it?”

  “Under her body,” I said softly.

  His face twitched. “I wasn’t there. I didn’t—”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my cheek against his hair. It smelled like baby shampoo. “I know,” I said.

  “It must have gotten lost when Thorsten had my keys.”

  “That’s possible.”

  “And someone picked it up.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Marcus eyed me slowly, shaking his head. “You don’t think John or Travis . . . ?”

  “No,” I said. My stomach did a queasy flip. “They have theirs.”

  His forehead creased. “You think it’s a setup?”

  It was the conclusion Hope and I had come to. Someone—the real killer—wanted to make it look as though Marcus had murdered Dani. “Nothing else makes sense,” I said. “We just have to figure out who’s behind it.”

  He twisted around to look at me. “No. I don’t want you involved in this in any way.”

  I took a step backward and folded my arms over my midsection. “I’m already involved. I’m not going to sit around twiddling my thumbs or making stinky crackers for the boys while someone sets you up for murder, so if we’re going to argue about this let’s hear all your arguments now because I have things to do.” I made a beckoning gesture with one hand and waited for him to tell me this was a police matter and I had no business getting involved.

  Instead, he stood up, pulled me against him and gave me a kiss that made me forget—for a moment at least—what we’d been talking about. “I love you,” he said.

  I laid my head against his shoulder. “I love you, too,” I said. I tipped my head back to look up at him. “If this is our new way of fighting about things, I like it.”

  He smiled and kissed me again, on the forehead this time, so I didn’t temporarily lose all my senses. “Somebody is trying to make it look like I killed Dani, Kathleen. This is dangerous.”

  I was starting to see the kisses were more about distracting me than anything else. I broke out of the embrace and took a couple of steps backward so the counter was at my back and there was some air space between me and his broad, muscled shoulders.

  “It was dangerous when Ruby was a suspect in Agatha Shepherd’s murder,” I said. “Remember what happened when Owen and I got locked in the basement of that old cabin?” I felt a fleeting rush of panic as an image of that small dark cellar flashed into my mind.

  “I remember exactly what happened,” Marcus said. He narrowed his blue eyes. “You could have been killed in that basement or you could have died from hypothermia. It was dangerous.” He enunciated each of the three words, biting them off as though they left a sour taste in his mouth.

  “I know that,” I said, struggling not to raise my voice. “I went out there for Ruby, and for Harrison because the papers about Elizabeth’s adoption were out there. I went because I care about both of them.”

  I could see from the stubborn set of his jaw that he wasn’t going to be easily dissuaded. “Ruby is my friend and Harrison is like family. I went out there because I cared . . . care about them.” I was having a hard time keeping the emotion out of my voice. “But what’s between you and I”—I gestured from me to him—“is a lot . . . stronger. I was willing to take a risk so Ruby wouldn’t go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit and so Harrison could meet his daughter. You can’t ask me to do any less for you.” I felt the prickle of tears and I blinked several times so they wouldn’t fall.

  “That’s when I knew,” he said, his eyes locked on my face.

  “Knew what?” I said.

  “That I was crazy about you.”

  “Way back then? You knew then?”

  He nodded. “Uh-huh. I was afraid you were . . .” He cleared his throat. “I was making all sorts of ridiculous bargains with God and when I saw you and Owen through the trees, wading through the snow almost up to your waist, I wanted to dance. I wanted to jump up and down like a kid and high-five everyone in sight.”

  I felt myself tear up again and I had to swallow down the emotion or I wouldn’t be able to say the things I needed to say to him. “I’m trying to imagine you dancing in that big parka you were wearing and all that snow,” I said with a small smile.

  “I came pretty close.” He swiped a hand across his mouth. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Kathleen. You understand that, right?”

  I nodded. “I do. I really do. And I feel exactly the same way about you. The difference is that you’re trying to protect me from something that’s up here.” I tapped my temples with the knuckles of each hand. “From something you think might happen. The threat, the danger you’re in is real. Here. Now. And I won’t stay out of it. I can’t.”

  “I know,” he said.

  There really wasn’t anything else to say.

  * * *

  The medical examiner officially ruled Dani’s death a homicide on Monday. Marcus was put on leave—with pay—and Hope was removed from the case. The chief had decided, given Marcus’s connection to the victim, to bring in an outside investigator. A detective from Red Wing, Bryan Foster, took over the investigation.

  “It could be worse,” Hope said that evening, sitting once again at my kitchen table with Hercules ensconced next to her chair. He seemed to like her and she him.

  “Foz and I go way back. We went to the academy together. He won’t shut me out completely. I can keep tabs on what’s happening in the investigation under the table.”

  “You trust him?” I asked, pulling up one knee and tenting my fingers on top of it.

  She nodded. “I do. He won’t cut any corners and he won’t make any assumptions. He’s going to gather the evidence and follow the facts.” She shrugged. “And so am I.”

  “The chief took you off the case,” I said.

  “Foz is a good cop and he’ll be fair, but we both know that all the evidence so far points at just one person.”

  “Marcus.”

  Hope picked up her cup, took a drink and set it down again. “I can’t sit on my hands and do nothing, Kathleen.”

  “Neither can I,” I said.

  We looked at each other across the table. “Are you sure you’re in?” she asked. “You know what Marcus would say?”

  I nodde
d slowly. “I know what he would say and yes I’m sure I’m in.”

  “Merow,” Hercules said from his place next to Hope’s chair.

  We were all in.

  6

  “So who could have wanted Dani dead?” Hope asked.

  I tucked my hair behind one ear. “That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t know. I met her one time.”

  “Is John Keller still at the library going through those dried plant samples?”

  “Wait a minute. You don’t think . . . ?”

  Hope waved the question away. “No. I don’t think either of Marcus’s friends killed Dani. They both have alibis. Keller was with Rebecca.” She gestured in the direction of the backyard. “And Travis Rosen was in Red Wing at a meeting with someone from the Department of Natural Resources.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “John should be at the library tomorrow, but he’s pretty much done.”

  Hope propped both forearms on the table. “Could you talk to him? See what you could find out?”

  “Okay,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything you can find out about her family. We know she has a brother—Dominic McAllister. I spoke to him, and a grandmother. Did they get along? Is there any other family?”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “See what I can find on Ernie Kingsley.”

  “The majority shareholder in the development company.”

  “Yes,” she said. “How did you know?”

  “Lita,” I said, getting to my feet. “More coffee?”

  Hope shook her head.

  The basement door opened then and Owen appeared. He had the end of a red plaid scarf in his mouth. He passed through the kitchen, giving a muffled meow as he headed for the living room.

  Hope watched the whole thing with an amused look on her face.

  “I have no idea,” I said in answer to her unspoken question.

  She laughed. It was a good sound to hear after the tension of our previous conversation. “I thought maybe you’d taught him to put the laundry away for you.”

  I laughed as well. “I did very briefly wonder if it was possible to teach him how to push the buttons on the washing machine so he could do a load of towels.”

  “Merow!” Hercules interjected loudly.

  Hope looked down at him. “I’m sure you could do laundry, too,” she said.

  After Hope left I got my laptop and went into the living room, curling up in the big chair. Hercules followed, jumped onto the footstool and looked expectantly at me.

  “Yes, you can help,” I said.

  Hercules and I spent the next hour researching Danielle McAllister and her family. Dani’s parents had been killed in a plane crash when she was twelve. She’d been raised after that by her brother, Dominic, almost ten years older, and her paternal grandmother. The McAllisters were very wealthy and very conservative. The family fortune began with shipbuilding, massive wooden boats that took to the sea during the age of sail.

  Dominic McAllister ran McAllister Enterprises, which was made up of, by my best guess, at least half a dozen different businesses including several hotels. I found it interesting that Dani was listed in the company’s annual report as being on the board of directors but, unlike the other members, there was no mention of what she did for a living.

  After a bit of digging going all the way back to her college years, I found some photos of Dani with her brother and her grandmother at several charity events sponsored by her family’s company. I noticed Dani was usually dressed down just a little—no elegant black dresses with four-inch heels for her. And the truth was she was stunningly beautiful in a flowing, gauzy skirt and flat sandals.

  “I’m starting to think Dani’s environmental work may have been her way of rebelling a little. It looks like she may have been the black sheep of her family.

  “Mrr?” Hercules asked, his black-and-white head tipped to one side—mostly so he could view the computer screen without having to move from the spot on my lap where he’d settled.

  “No, I don’t think being a black sheep is anything like being a black-and-white cat,” I said. I had no idea what he’d actually been asking me, but my answer seemed to satisfy him.

  * * *

  John came into the library just after ten o’clock the next morning. Tuesdays were busy, so I’d been keeping an eye out for him and I met him at the door.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” he said. “Is the meeting room free? I just need to go though a few more plant samples that look promising.”

  “The room is still yours,” I said. “I just made a cup of coffee. Do you have time for one?”

  He nodded. “That sounds good.”

  I took John up to the staff room. He sat at the table while I poured coffee for both of us. I thought about all the cups Marcus and I had shared in the same space.

  “Cinnamon roll?” I asked, bringing over the plate Mary had brought in with her. “They’re wonderful, I promise. Mary made them and she has some sort of secret ingredient I haven’t been able to wheedle out of her.”

  I hoped that the combination of coffee and one of Mary’s sweet cinnamon creations would put John in a talkative frame of mind.

  “Hey these are good,” he said, taking a large bite. He chewed and swallowed, gesturing with one hand. “Was Abigail serious when she told me that Mary is a kickboxer, or was she pulling my leg?”

  “She was serious. Mary has been regional and state champion more than once for her age and weight class.”

  “But she looks like Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.”

  I laughed. “And she could take you down faster than the Big Bad Wolf.”

  “I’ll remember that next time I ask to use the printer.” John grinned, then his expression grew serious. “Kathleen, how’s Marcus doing, really? It’s ridiculous that the police are even looking at him as a suspect. He hadn’t talked to Dani—or any of us, for that matter—in years. It was just that we met that morning the two of you walked into the restaurant. And then he kills her? C’mon!”

  “It doesn’t hang together because Marcus didn’t do it.” I hesitated. “John, was there anyone who had a problem with Dani, maybe a conflict over a project or some kind of environmental issue?”

  He slumped back in the chair. “You always get a few crackpots who call us tree-hugging hippies or crunchy granola space cadets but that’s all it’s ever been—words and a couple of times protestors with signs.”

  “What about with this project?”

  He made a face. “When the different groups banded together to stop the Long Lake project Ernie Kingsley requested a meeting. He offered to make a large donation to every group if we’d all drop our opposition to the project.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I take it that didn’t go well?”

  “No, it didn’t. But my point is that Kingsley is a businessman. He solves problems by throwing money at them. Not by throwing a body over an embankment.”

  “What about her family? Could someone have gone after Dani as a way to get to her brother or her grandmother, maybe?”

  John brushed crumbs off the front of his shirt. “I don’t know that much about her family’s business dealings. They own three or four fancy hotels. They’re the largest manufacturer of sails in the world and they also run several wind-turbine farms. Not a whole lot of controversy or reasons to kill anyone there. She was very close to her brother and her grandmother. They were really proud of her work. And if there was any problem I think Dani would have said something to me. We were pretty close.” He held up a hand. “As friend, nothing romantic.”

  I remembered Dani’s bio in McAllister Enterprises’ annual report. If her family was so proud of her work why wasn’t it mentioned? “What about since you all got here?” I asked. “Did you have any run-ins with anyone about the resort plans?” I rubb
ed the space between my eyebrows with one finger where a headache was forming. “I’m sorry for putting you on the spot with all these questions.”

  John leaned forward, putting both hands flat on the table. “Don’t apologize. You’re worried about Marcus. I get that.” He hesitated, opened his mouth and closed it again.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “I don’t want to offend you or give you the wrong impression.”

  “But.”

  “Is it possible someone from around here killed Dani?” Before I could say anything both of his hands came up off the table. “I don’t mean on purpose, Kathleen. I mean by accident. He—or she, I guess—came across Dani working out there, they got into some kind of an argument and things just got out of hand. This kind of project can stir up strong feelings on both sides. I’ve seen it before.”

  I couldn’t tell him what Hope had shared, that Dani had been hit by a car and her body moved. Even though there were strong feelings on both side of the development proposal I just couldn’t believe that anyone in Mayville Heights felt so strongly that they’d run Dani down over it and then dump her body. I knew these people. I knew what they were capable of and it wasn’t murder. Not over this.

  But I didn’t say any of that. All I did was nod and say, “You’re right. It has stirred up a lot of complicated feelings.”

  “I need to get to work,” John said, pushing back his chair and getting to his feet. “Look, from what I’ve seen the police here seem to know what they’re doing. Let them do their job, Kathleen. It’ll work out.”

  He headed for the stairs and I put the dishes in the sink. I hadn’t learned that much about Dani except that based on what John had said, the conclusions I’d made after my online research seemed to be wrong.

  * * *

  I took my lunch outside to the gazebo and called Hope. I told her what I’d discovered. It didn’t take very long.

  “I didn’t find out much about Ernie Kingsley, either,” she said. “Nothing that isn’t part of the public record. His grandfather started Kingsley-Pearson. They made their money with car dealerships. They own fifty-six of them. But other than saying Ernie is a shrewd businessman, no one will say anything else about him.” I heard her sigh. “At least not to me.”