A Midwinter's Tail

by Sofie Kelly

  Marcus reached for the oven mitts. “Okay,” he said.

  “You were supposed to say we’re not going to fight,” I said teasingly.

  He took the meat loaf out of the oven and set the pan on the wire rack. He turned the heat off under the pot on top of the stove and then he closed the space between us in two steps, leaned down, swept my hair behind my ear and kissed me. It would be clichéd to say my heart started fluttering. But it did. “We’re not going to fight,” he whispered against my ear.

  Marcus went back to finishing supper and I sat there for a moment and tried to remember what we’d been talking about.

  “Mmmm, that is so good,” I said after the first bite of the meat loaf. The nutmeg I’d thought I smelled had been sprinkled in the turnip and carrots that had been cooking on the stove.

  “I’ll tell Hannah you liked her recipe.”

  I looked at him sitting across from me. He was an incredibly handsome man. He was kind and loyal and smart. He had integrity and cats loved him. And no one had ever kissed me the way he did.

  I set down my fork. “I’ve been trying really hard not to get mixed up in this case.”

  “I know,” he said. “And I know it’s difficult because people you care about are involved.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Kathleen, I don’t want you to be someone you’re not. I really don’t. It’s just that—” His mouth worked as he tried to find the right words. “I remember what it felt like when you went over that embankment down by the river, and that was just a few months ago. And last year, when you came so damn close to getting caught inside when that cabin exploded in the woods.” His blue eyes locked on to mine. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You’re not going to,” I said. I leaned across the table to kiss him this time. I pressed my hand against his cheek.

  He smiled. “Your sleeve’s in your turnip,” he said.

  I smiled back at him. “Your elbow is in yours.”

  After we’d gotten our respective body parts out of our supper and cleaned the turnip and carrot off our clothing, I told Marcus everything I knew.

  “It feels like some kind of Victorian melodrama,” I said. “I can’t shake the feeling this is all connected to that pawnshop robbery.”

  “I can’t make a case on feelings.”

  I pushed my plate away. “I know,” I said. “But you have to admit it’s odd that Dayna stopped cooperating with the prosecutor’s office, she dropped out of sight and the next thing she shows up here—somewhere she hasn’t been in more than twenty years.”

  “It does seem a little too convenient to be a coincidence,” he said. He got up and cleared the plates from the table. “Banana bread and coffee?” he asked, reaching for the kettle.

  “You made banana bread?” I said.

  He shook his head. “No. I bought banana bread. It’s from Fern’s. Georgia Tepper made it.”

  I shifted in my chair. “That means you went to Fern’s to talk to Burtis and yes, thank you, I’ll have a slice.”

  He laughed. “Okay, yes, I went to talk to Burtis over at Fern’s. Not exactly on the record, but not exactly off it, either.”

  I rolled up my sleeve so the turnip stain didn’t show. “Marcus, do you honestly think Burtis killed his ex-wife?” I patted my chest. “In here, and in your gut.”

  “I don’t do gut feelings,” he said, leaning against the counter and folding his arms over his midsection. “I need facts. I need evidence.”

  “You also have instincts,” I countered. “What do they tell you?”

  I looked at him without speaking.

  Finally, he raked a hand back through his hair and gave me a wry smile. “Okay. My instincts tell me that Burtis didn’t kill his ex-wife.”

  “So, does the evidence point to anybody else?”

  “We’re still investigating,” he said. “We don’t have all the evidence.”

  He was just a second too slow in answering.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “C’mon, Kathleen,” he said, reaching for a knife to slice the banana bread. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  I thought about everything I’d learned so far about Dayna Chapman’s death. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Brady,” I said.

  Marcus’s mouth moved, but he didn’t say anything.

  “It’s Brady,” I repeated.

  Marcus let out a long, slow breath. “She was at his office, and they had words at the reception desk.”

  I shook my head. “It wasn’t Brady.”

  “I didn’t say it was,” Marcus said.

  I thought about the look on Maggie’s face when she’d said Brady’s name.

  “We have to figure out who killed Dayna Chapman.”

  “We?” Marcus asked, his eyebrows going up.

  I nodded. “Uh-huh. You and me.”

  I ate my banana bread while Marcus gave me his “this is a police investigation” speech.

  When he finished I had a sip of my coffee before I answered. “Everything you said is right. But the fact is, people will tell me things that they won’t tell you. Dayna Chapman’s murder touches a lot of people I care about—Maggie, Lita and yes, Burtis.” I took a deep breath. “I won’t do anything stupid, but I’m not going to stop asking questions. If that’s a problem you’re just going to have to arrest me.” I stuck both hands out in front of me, my hands pulled into fists, like I was waiting to be handcuffed.

  Marcus studied me for a moment and then picked up his cup.

  “Too melodramatic?” I asked after another moment of silence.

  He nodded as he got up for more coffee. “Just a little.”

  We didn’t talk any more about the case for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  Both Owen and Hercules were in sulky moods in the morning. Owen flicked his tail in Hercules’s face and in return his brother swiped at it with one paw. A couple of yowls were exchanged before I banged my bowl of oatmeal on the counter, making them both jump.

  “Both of you stop it,” I said sternly. There was silence for a moment and then they both began to grumble under their breath as they sat crouched on the floor. “Hello!” I snapped. “Did I ask for comments from the peanut gallery?”

  I pointed at Owen and flicked my finger toward the back door. “You! Time to go outside. I’ll be out in a minute.” I looked at Hercules, who did a lousy job at not looking guilty. “Go in the living room or go upstairs.”

  They hesitated, eyeing each other. I took one step toward them and they both moved, Owen for the porch and Herc for the living room door.

  “Much better,” I said. I didn’t know if it was the shorter days or maybe the full moon, but both cats were acting crankier than usual. Of course, they could have been thinking the same thing about me.

  After I finished my oatmeal, I went outside to clear the steps and the path around the house. Harry had already been by to clear the driveway.

  Owen bounded around happily in the snow chasing a dried leaf.

  “Let’s go,” I called when I finished. He came across the backyard with a snow beard stuck to his face. “All you need is a red stocking cap and you’d look like Santa Claus,” I said, leaning down to brush off the snow. He went ahead of me up the steps. Hercules was sitting on the bench in the porch. He jumped down and followed us into the kitchen, lifting one paw and shaking it in annoyance when he stepped on a tiny bit of snow that had fallen off his brother’s tail.

  I split the last of the bag of kitty kibble that was still in my old jacket between the two of them. Owen stopped to rub against my ankle and I bent to give him a scratch behind one ear. “Have a good day,” I said.

  Hercules had quickly eaten the dried chunks of cat food and now he was waiting by the door.

  “Are you going outside?” I asked as I pulled on my hat and tucked some stray wisps of hair underneath it. He blinked at me, then craned his neck and looked at the porch door. That seemed to be as much of a yes as I was going to get. Hercules didn�
�t like going outside much in the snow—or the rain or the mud. Usually he had a purpose. I wondered what it was this time. At least the locked door wouldn’t be an obstacle to him getting back in again. That was the one advantage to his “superpower.”

  I let the cat go ahead of me and turned to lock the porch door. When I turned around again Hercules was already following the path around the side of the house. I didn’t have a good feeling about that. By the time I got around to the truck, he was waiting by the driver’s door.

  “No,” I said.

  He looked at me. He looked at the door.

  I bent down and picked him up. I expected at least an angry yowl. Instead he went limp in my arms.

  “Passive resistance,” I said. “It’s not going to work.”

  I stuck him back in the porch and because this wasn’t the first time this kind of thing had happened, I scooped up a couple of handfuls of snow onto the top step. I knew he’d walk through the door, but he wouldn’t walk through the snow.

  I was almost around the end of the house when I heard him. I stopped and turned around. Hercules was coming along the path, stopping to shake a paw every step or two, green eyes narrowed, ears pulled forward, complaining all the way. I went to pick him up again and as I reached for him he darted left, past me, and headed for the truck.

  I turned the corner just in time to see him launch himself from a snowbank onto the hood of the truck. He’d climbed up onto a snowbank? He scrambled to get his balance and for a moment I thought he was going to slide down onto the front bumper. Then he managed to get upright and stable. He shot me a look of victory and walked through the windshield onto the dashboard. Then he shook himself and jumped down onto the seat.

  I opened the door and looked at him. “Why do you do this?” I asked.

  “Murp,” he said, and it seemed to me that he almost shrugged.

  “There’s nothing going on at the library.”

  His response was to turn his head and look out the front window.

  I reached past him and set my briefcase on the floor on the passenger side. “This doesn’t mean you’ve won,” I said as I climbed in.

  He very wisely didn’t point out that I was wrong.

  Surprisingly, considering all the back-and-forth with Hercules, I actually got to the library early. I slung my briefcase over my shoulder and carried the cat in my arms because I didn’t have a bag to put him in. I hoped like heck that no one would see me. Pets did not belong in the building and I’d already heard more than one joke about bring-your-cat-to-work day.

  I took Hercules up to my office and set him down. He immediately jumped up onto my desk. When I set my laptop down beside him, he put one paw on top and meowed loudly.

  I looked at my watch. “Okay, we have a few minutes to see what we can dig up about that pawnshop robbery.”

  I was still convinced it was the key to Dayna Chapman’s murder. It seemed that Hercules was as well.

  The previous librarian, Ingrid, had subscribed to a news service package for libraries. It had turned out not to be that popular with library patrons and when it expired at the end of January I wasn’t going to renew our subscription, but since we still had access for a few weeks I decided to log in and see what I could find on the Minneapolis robbery. All I came up with was a short newspaper article about the sentencing for the young man who had shot Nic Sutton’s father. There was one photo of him being led out of the courthouse in handcuffs. At the time he was only eighteen and his slight build and strawberry blond hair made him look even younger.

  The paper clearly hadn’t deemed the story to be very important. They hadn’t even sent their own photographer to court. The photo was credited to Edwin Jensen, a blogger who covered crime and policing stories in the Minneapolis area. He called himself an “independent journalist.” He might have been independent, but he also seemed to have a bit of a bias against the Minneapolis Police Department. On the other hand, he also had an uncanny ability to be able to find out that a crime had happened and be the first on the scene. His blog had tens of thousands of readers.

  “What do you think?” I asked Hercules. “Is it worth a look?”

  “Merow,” he said decisively.

  A click on Edwin’s name sent us to his blog. Deep in the archives we hit pay dirt. Jensen wasn’t much of a writer, so his stories were always photo-heavy. There were probably two dozen shots posted from the night of the pawnshop robbery, many just slightly different versions of one another. I found one of Dayna Chapman standing talking to a police officer. POLICE TALK TO WITNESSES, the caption said. There was another similar shot with the same caption, and another after that. The only reason I took a closer look at the third image was that Hercules had stuck his head in my way and I’d had to lean closer to the screen. I recognized the face, I realized. But it wasn’t Dayna Chapman in the photograph. It was Olivia Ramsey.

  22

  I slumped against the chair back. “What the heck?” I said.

  Either Hercules had gotten bored or he’d decided his work on this planet was done, because he was sitting on my desk washing his face.

  “We have to talk to Olivia.”

  “Mrr,” he said. It might have been a yes. It might not have been.

  I straightened up and pulled the laptop closer. Buried in a post from three days later, I learned that a teenage witness named Livie West had actually come past the pawnshop after the robbery and shooting had happened. She’d stopped to help with first aid for Nic’s father—and was being hailed as a hero—but she’d been too late to see anything. The only real witness was Dayna Chapman.

  “Livie West,” I said, standing up and walking around my desk. “Olivia was using a different last name.”

  I had to talk to her and I needed a reason. I didn’t want to just barge in and start asking questions.

  I looked at my desk, where Hercules was still washing his face, and realized I had the perfect excuse right there: the thank-yous from the board to everyone who’d worked on the fundraiser. I’d brought them back from my meeting with Lita so I could add my own personal thanks.

  “I could deliver Olivia’s thank-you in person,” I said. I looked at my watch. But first I had to see if Susan and Abigail were downstairs.

  I looked at Herc. “Please, please, please stay in here,” I said. He jumped down onto my chair and sent it spinning lazily in a circle. Hopefully that would keep him entertained for a while.

  It was eleven thirty before I could get away from the library. I’d hoped to sneak Hercules down the stairs and take him home after I stopped at Olivia’s, but there were just too many people around. I left the cat curled up asleep on my desk chair and crossed my fingers he’d stay there.

  Olivia was in the kitchen that Decadence Chocolatier shared with Sweet Thing and the Earl of Sandwich, packing truffles into silver boxes with white embossed snowflakes on the lids.

  “Those are beautiful,” I said.

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  I held up the envelope with the board’s thank-you. “This is just an official thank-you from the library board,” I said.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Olivia said. “My truffles didn’t exactly help you.”

  “That’s not your fault.”

  She peeled off the thin plastic gloves she was wearing and took the envelope, turning it over in her hands.

  “Kathleen, there’s something I haven’t told anybody,” she said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She stared down at the floor for a moment. “Dayna Chapman wasn’t exactly a stranger to me.”

  It was the last thing I’d expected to hear. “What do you mean?”

  Olivia sighed, then looked at me again. “Six years ago I was living in Minneapolis. I was heading home from the comic book store on a Tuesday night and there was a man, lying on the sidewalk bleeding.” She stopped and took a moment to compose herself. “He, uh, it turns out he owned a pawnshop. There was a robbery and he . . . he was shot.”
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br />   “You must have been terrified,” I said.

  She gave me a half smile. “You know, I wasn’t. I was on the first responder crew at school. I just started first aid. Someone had already called nine one one. Five minutes and the paramedics were there and it was over.”

  “Dayna was another witness,” I said.

  “She was the only witness.” Olivia reached over to straighten a row of chocolate boxes on the workspace in front of her. “I got there after everything had happened. I didn’t see a thing. The police took us back to the police station and once they figured out that I didn’t know anything that could help them, they drove me home.” She shook her head. “That was the only time I’d ever seen Dayna until last Thursday afternoon.”

  Afternoon? “You saw Dayna before the reception?”

  Olivia dropped her gaze again. “I know I should have said something.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my jacket.

  “I was scared.” She traced the snowflake design on one of the boxes with a finger. “She was here. We had a connection because of a crime that happened years ago and then she died after eating one of my chocolate truffles.”

  “You didn’t tell the police.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t tell anyone. And I figured no one would make the connection because now I go by Ramsey, which is my stepfather’s name, but back then my last name was West. It was stupid, I know.”

  “Olivia, what did Dayna want?”

  “She wanted me to talk to the prosecutor’s office. She wanted me to be a witness if there was a new trial. She said she couldn’t do it.” She exhaled slowly. “I didn’t even recognize her at first. I told her I couldn’t testify because I’d gotten there too late. I hadn’t seen anything.” She looked up at the high ceiling overhead for a moment. “She wanted me to lie. I said no.”

  Just then Georgia Tepper came in from the front of the old house.

  “Ask her,” Olivia said. “She was here.”