Copycat Killing: A Magical Cats Mystery

by Sofie Kelly

  “Great,” she said, clearly deciding not to pass judgment. “I’m on my way down.”

  I closed my phone and reached for the cat bag. One furry black ear was sticking out the top. “You know what this is,” I said. “Deus ex machina.”

  The entire black-and-white head popped up out of the opening. Herc narrowed his green eyes at me.

  “That’s Latin for ‘God from the machine.’ Or what my mother calls, ‘God in a helicopter.’ You know that moment in a really bad movie where the hero is about to be attacked by a grizzly bear and then the bear remembers the hero dug a splinter out of his paw back when the bear was just a cub and so he teams up with the hero and they take out the bad guys together.”

  Hercules pulled one paw out of the bag, turned it over and looked at it, then looked quizzically up at me.

  “Yes, it could have been a cat instead of a grizzly bear.” He ducked down into the bag and I reached for the strap. I shook my head. Maybe I should spend more time talking to actual people instead of cats.

  Ruby was waiting by the back door in flip-flops and a paint-spattered T-shirt and jeans. Her hair was stuck in three little pigtails, one on each side of her head and one sticking straight up.

  “You’re not looking for Maggie, are you?” she said.

  “No, I was hoping Ray Nightingale was here,” I said.

  She twisted her mouth to one side. “I’m not sure,” she said. “He probably is. He works pretty much every day. We can go see.”

  Hercules decided to announce his presence then with a loud meow. I held up the bag. “Like I said, I have a cat. Do you have a camera?”

  She grinned at me. “Yes. I’m not even going to ask you why you’re carrying a cat around town with you.” She started up the stairs and I followed.

  “Rodent patrol at the co-op,” I said.

  “Yeah, I’m thinking Hercules would probably be better at it than you were,” she said over her shoulder. “He’d at least make sure whatever he caught was dead before he threw it at someone.”

  “First of all, I wasn’t aiming at you,” I said. “Because if I had been, I wouldn’t have missed. And second, how the heck was I supposed to know it wasn’t dead? Check its pulse?”

  I should have known Hercules would meow his opinion at that exact moment. Ruby laughed.

  “No one was asking you,” I said to the top of the bag.

  We stopped at the second floor and Ruby pointed down the long hallway. “That’s Ray’s studio on the right-hand side at the end. It looks like there’s a light on.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We’ll take Hercules upstairs and I’ll come back down.”

  We went up the rest of the way to Ruby’s studio and I set the cat carrier on one of the big tables she had in the middle of the room. Hercules climbed out, shook his head and looked around.

  “I’m not making any promises that he’ll sit still for you,” I said.

  Of course he immediately sat down, tipped his head to one side and gave Ruby an I’m-so-cute look.

  Ruby laughed. “That cat is smart,” she said.

  He did his modest head duck, which pretty much worked on everyone but me.

  “He certainly thinks he is,” I said. “Remember not to touch him, and if you have any cookies, you should be able to get whatever photos you want.”

  Hercules’s head had come back up at the word cookies and he was scanning the room as though he were trying to scope out where they were.

  “Is it okay to give him people food?” Ruby asked.

  Hercules answered with an exuberant yowl.

  “Roma says not to overdo it,” I said. I gestured at the cat. “They don’t agree.”

  Ruby picked up her camera from the other table.

  I ducked my head toward the door. “I’m just going to talk to Ray. I’ll only be a couple of minutes.” I leaned sideways so I was in the cat’s line of vision. “Behave,” I said sternly.

  I hesitated outside the door of Ray’s studio. What exactly was I going to say to him? Hi Ray, were you and Jaeger running some kind of a scam? If he had been, it wasn’t likely he’d confess everything to me. On the other hand, I didn’t really have another approach.

  I knocked on the door. After a minute Ray opened it. “Oh…uh…Kathleen. Hi,” he said.

  “Hi Ray,” I said. “Could I talk to you for a minute?” I was unsure what his reaction was going to be.

  “Sure,” he said, frowning slightly. “Does it have to do with the library centennial?”

  Another of my mother’s favorite sayings came into my head: Always tell the truth, it’s easier to remember. “No,” I said. “It has to do with Jaeger Merrill.”

  One hand came up and slid over his smooth scalp. There were smudges of black ink on his fingers.

  Ink equals pen. I filed the thought away to chew on later.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you, but come in,” he said.

  Ray’s studio was incredibly tidy. One end wall was made up of what looked like commercial shelving units, all painted black. The other wall had several glass display cabinets holding Ray’s collection of vintage ink bottles. There was a long work station in the center of the room and a big drafting table with a couple of stools by the windows.

  He crossed his arms over the front of his body and gave a slight shrug. “So what did you want to know? I didn’t know Jaeger that well.”

  “You went to the Summerhill estate sale with him a couple of weeks ago,” I said.

  Ray shook his head. “No. Why do you think that?”

  “People saw you there.”

  “That’s because I was there. I just wasn’t there with Jaeger Merrill. I think I talked to him for a second. That’s all.” He was good. He didn’t fidget or look away, and if I hadn’t been watching for it, I probably would have missed the slight hesitation in his voice and the equally small change in his tone.

  “To tell the truth, I wasn’t that crazy about Jaeger. He was way too pushy about the sponsorship business at the co-op. He was the kind of person who just didn’t hear no.”

  To tell the truth: Why did so many people who were lying use that expression?

  “Do you know what he was looking for at the sale?” I asked.

  He shrugged and his gaze flicked away momentarily. “He was probably doing the same thing I was doing, the same thing every other artist there was doing: looking for stuff to use in his work.” He studied me, eyes narrowed. “Why all the questions?”

  “I was with Maggie when she found Jaeger’s body. Him being down in the co-op basement doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  “You think he was running some kind of scam.” He gave me a half smile. “I heard about the whole secret identity thing.”

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets, trying to keep both my body language and my voice casual. “It’s crossed my mind, yes.”

  Ray stretched and looked out the long windows to the water. Then he looked at me once more. “If he was, I don’t have a clue what he was doing.” He held out both hands. “Sorry.”

  “Thanks anyway,” I said.

  He opened the door and leaned against the edge of it with one hand on the knob. “If I think of anything, I’ll let Maggie know.”

  “Great,” I said.

  I started back up to Ruby’s studio. Okay, so Ray Nightingale was lying. What exactly was I going to do with that information?

  I could call Marcus and tell him I was certain Jaeger Merrill/Christian Ellis was working some kind of scam—maybe out of the co-op—because I’d found a little purple buffer attachment at Wisteria Hill, and Ray was involved somehow, which I knew because he’d used the phrase, “to tell the truth,” and because his voice had changed while he was talking to me about Jaeger.

  Oh sure, that would convince him.

  I stood in the hallway outside Ruby’s door. If I was going to convince Marcus of anything, I was going to have to figure out what exactly Ray was lying about and what exactly he and Jaeger had been up to. No big
deal. Right?

  Ruby was on her laptop, looking at pictures of Hercules she’d already downloaded from her camera. He was sitting to one side, eyeing the screen and chewing something.

  “That was fast,” I said.

  They both looked up at me, then Ruby smiled at the cat. “Hercules is very photogenic.”

  The look the cat gave me was decidedly proud.

  I crossed to the table and scooped him up. There were crumbs on his whiskers and I caught the faint smell of peanut butter. Clearly the cat had had a peanut butter cookie—or two.

  “What are you going to do with these pictures?” I asked, reaching for the carrier.

  “They’re for a pop-art workshop,” Ruby said, closing the top of her computer. “I’m going to do a pop-art painting of Hercules. I’m thinking lime green and Big Bird yellow.”

  I set Herc in the bag and zipped the top just in case he decided to go look for more cookies.

  “Did you get what you needed from Ray?” Ruby asked, standing up and brushing her hands on her paint spotted jeans.

  “Yes, I did,” I said. I swung the bag up over my shoulder.

  “Thanks Kathleen,” she said. “Maggie says we should be able to have class on Tuesday. I’ll see you there if I don’t see you before.”

  “Oh boy, cloud hands,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I can’t wait.”

  She laughed. I waggled my fingers at her and headed for the stairs.

  Back in the truck I unzipped the top of the bag and Hercules stuck his head out. I reached over to stroke the fur at the top of his nose. “It was very nice of you to pose for Ruby,” I said.

  He made a low rumbly noise in his throat.

  I started the truck, turned and headed for home. “You know, it occurs to me that pen cap you found might have belonged to Ray,” I said. “Is that what you were trying to tell me? Jaeger was up to something and Ray’s tied up in it too?”

  The cat gave a curious murp. It may have meant what are you going to do now? Or he may have been asking, what’s for supper?

  Either way the answer was the same.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  Owen was sprawled on the floor under the kitchen table when we got home. He got up, shook himself and headed for the back door. He liked to prowl around our yard and Rebecca’s every day.

  I put the carrier bag on the floor and the two cats exchanged a long look. I had no idea if it was some kind of cat connection or just a random stare-down.

  The phone rang as I shut the porch door behind Owen. I slid across the kitchen floor in my sock feet, almost doing a header into the refrigerator, while Hercules watched. “Don’t worry, I’ll get that,” I told him. You’d think I would have known by now that the only thing sarcasm got me from the cats was ignored.

  It was Roma on the phone. “How are you?” I asked.

  She paused before she answered as if she needed to consider the question. “I’m all right,” she finally said. “What about you?”

  “I’m all right, too,” I said. “I have some spectacular bruises but my ankle’s okay and so is my hand.”

  “Good,” Roma said. “How were Lucy and the others?”

  “They all came out to eat and they all looked good.”

  She gave a small sigh of relief. “Thank you for taking my shift this morning.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. I sat down on the footstool, stretching my legs out in front of me. “Any time you need someone to feed the cats for you, just let me know.”

  “Actually what I need is for you to come to supper tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said slowly.

  “You’re sure?” Roma asked.

  “Absolutely. What time and would you like me to bring dessert?”

  “Six o’clock and you don’t have to bring anything.”

  “I know I don’t have to bring anything,” I said. “But would you like me to bring dessert?”

  She hesitated. “Truthfully, yes.”

  “Done then,” I said. Hercules peeked his head around the doorway.

  “Kathleen, my mother and father will be here,” Roma said. “I need to ask some awkward questions and I’d uh, just like a little moral support.”

  “You have it,” I said. I looked over at the doorway. Hercules had disappeared back into the kitchen. Or through a wall for all I knew. “I may not be a big, tall, cute hockey player, but I’ll do my best.”

  “Just don’t body check anyone into the furniture and we’ll be just fine,” she said with a laugh.

  “Well, okay,” I said with an exaggerated sigh. It was good to hear Roma sounding more like herself. We said good-bye and I hung up the phone and went back to the kitchen.

  Hercules was sitting by his dish. He looked pointedly from the cupboard where I kept the cat treats to the refrigerator and then meowed loudly in case I didn’t get the point.

  “Yes, I know I owe you,” I said. I patted my pocket. “I’m not sure what the pen top means but nice work on the mouse.”

  He reached over and swatted the side of his dish with one paw.

  “Sardines or kitty crackers?” I asked.

  He immediately went over and put one paw on the fridge door.

  “Sardines. Good choice,” I said, opening the door to get the remains of the can I’d opened the day before.

  Hercules watched intently as I dumped the little fish into his bowl. “Why didn’t you eat the mouse?” I asked him.

  He lifted his head, closed his eyes and scrunched up his nose. “Maybe we should have brought it back for your brother in a—what do you call a doggy bag for cats?”

  Herc dropped his head and went back to the sardines and at the same time he flipped the end of his tail. I was pretty sure the gesture meant the same thing as it did when a person made the motion. That’s what I got for using my best lines on a cat.

  I made lemon coffee cake to take to Roma’s and while it baked I put in a load of laundry and washed the kitchen floor. And since Owen was still outside I played an entire Barry Manilow CD, which meant Hercules followed me everywhere, bobbing his head, grooving to the music. We made a pretty darn good pair of backup singers for a little black-and-white cat and a librarian who couldn’t carry a tune if it came in its own bag with a handle.

  Roma’s small, gray house was at the far end of Mayville, out past the marina. She smiled when she opened the door and she seemed more relaxed.

  “You talked to Eddie,” I said.

  Her cheeks got pink and she nodded.

  Roma’s mother and her father—I couldn’t think of Neil as anything else—were in the living room.

  Neil Carver, even in his seventies, was the type of man who always commanded attention, imposing without being intimidating, if that made sense. His hair was on the longish side, white and waving back from a high forehead and the proverbial steely gaze. His beard was mostly white as well, and closely cropped. And he had a beautiful voice, not surprising since he’d had a long and successful career as a TV journalist.

  Neil got to his feet and we shook hands. “Hello, Kathleen,” he said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you too, Neil,” I said.

  I turned to Pearl. She had the same warm smile as her daughter but other than that they looked nothing alike. Pearl was tiny and wore her hair short, very similar to Maggie’s, with the same kind of beautiful, natural curl. She was soft-spoken and serious and on the two previous times I’d met her I’d gotten the impression that she thought carefully about every word before she spoke.

  “Hello, Pearl,” I said, meeting her smile with one of my own.

  “Kathleen,” she said. “I’m so glad you could join us.” She tipped her head—Roma often used the same gesture—and studied my scraped forehead. “I hope that feels better than it looks.”

  “It does. Thank you,” I said.

  We talked about everything but Wisteria Hill and Thomas Karlsson over supper. Roma had made a chicken and rice dish and salad with lettuce
and tomatoes from her kitchen window garden. Everything was delicious.

  We moved into the living room for dessert. Roma sat on the edge of a brown leather tub chair and I took the matching seat beside her. I’d seen that look of determination on her face before and I knew the conversation was about to get a lot more personal.

  “I know it can’t be easy,” she began. “But we need to talk about my father.” Her gaze went to Neil. “Thomas,” she added.

  “You can ask me anything,” Pearl said. Neil’s hand slid over hers but he didn’t say anything.

  Roma swallowed hard and I wanted badly to do something to make it easier for her. “Did you lie to me about him? About Thomas?” she asked her mother.

  “Yes,” Pearl said, nodding almost imperceptibly.

  “Was there…” Roma cleared her throat. “Was there anyone who would have wanted to kill him?”

  “Yes,” Pearl said again.

  Roma’s eyes never left her mother’s face. “Who?”

  “Pretty much anyone who knew him,” Pearl said.

  19

  The words hung in the air like a fine haze of smoke from a cigar. Pearl edged forward on the sofa. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I shouldn’t have put it so bluntly. It’s just that Tom made a lot of enemies.”

  “What do you mean?” Roma asked. There was no emotion in her voice, but I could see her left hand, against her leg, clenched into a tight, knotted fist.

  “For a while Tom worked for Idris Blackthorne.”

  “Ruby’s grandfather.”

  “Idris Blackthorne was the town bootlegger,” Pearl said. “Tom delivered and drove for him. There was some kind of dispute about money.” She shook her head slowly. “Idris wasn’t the kind of man to take kindly to being cheated.”

  “Who else?” Roma asked.

  “He had some kind of fight—not just words, punches—with old Albert Coyne. Albert had been cutting pulp up beyond Wild Rose Bluff for years. A couple of days later someone put bleach in the engines of every one of his vehicles.”

  “Tom,” Roma said.

  “No one could prove anything, you understand,” Pearl said. “But it was the kind of thing he’d do.”

  Neil picked up his wife’s cup and handed it to her. Then he looked at Roma. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?”