Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery

by Sofie Kelly

  “Thank you,” she said.

  I saw her glance at Margo, who was waiting not so patiently for my answer to her question. She’d crossed her arms over her chest and looked like she was about to start tapping one gray snakeskin high heel on the mosaic tile floor.

  Mia headed for the stairs and I turned back to Margo. “As long as the town council agrees, yes, you can display the town seal Oren has been working on.”

  “Oh, Kathleen, thank you,” she said, a genuine smile of pleasure spreading across her face.

  I smiled back at her. “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m happy that Oren’s talent is going to be recognized.” I knew that the only reason he’d agreed to let the seal be part of the exhibit was that it might bring some attention to the town.

  I didn’t get a chance to call Harrison until quarter to one.

  “How are things going with the museum people?” he asked.

  I exhaled softly. “Busy.”

  “You haven’t coldcocked Margo Walsh with the Encyclopaedia Britannica yet, have you?”

  “Of course not,” I retorted. I paused for a moment for effect. “The encyclopedia is all digital now.”

  He laughed. “That is a tightly wound woman, Kathleen, but if anyone can deal with her, it’s you.”

  “Good to have your vote of confidence.”

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you until tonight,” he said, his deep voice rumbling through the phone. “Looks like my daughter was on her horse this morning.”

  I turned in my chair so I could look out over the water. “You knew,” I said.

  “Course I knew,” he said with a snort. “My children aren’t exactly subtle. I’m guessing Harry came to see you as well.”

  “He did.”

  “You know, Elizabeth’s just as stubborn as her mother was.”

  “She is stubborn,” I agreed. “But the jury’s out on who she got that particular trait from.”

  “I’m not stubborn, girl,” he said. “I’m persistent. Big difference.”

  This time I was the one who gave a snort of laughter.

  “My personal life is none of their damn business,” he grumbled. “You don’t see me meddling in either one of theirs.”

  “I’m putting the phone down now,” I said, “because I don’t want to get any kind of a shock through the line when you get hit with a bolt of lightning.”

  That made him laugh again. We set a date for tea on Friday afternoon, agreeing to continue the conversation then.

  After I said good-bye to Harrison I headed downstairs to see what was going on.

  Susan was at the circulation desk, wearing her black cat’s-eye glasses and a big smile. She reached below the counter and handed me a small red picnic cooler. “Marcus left this for you,” she said. “He has a meeting. He said to tell you, ‘Eat.’” She tipped her head to one side and studied me. “I think it’s so cute the way he made you lunch. He even put in a napkin and a little note.” She held up a hand. “I wasn’t snooping. He was giving me instructions on what needs to be reheated and what doesn’t.”

  Before I could say anything, Gavin Solomon walked through the main doors. The security consultant smiled and raised a hand when he caught sight of me and started toward the desk.

  Having such valuable art in the library meant that we’d needed a temporary upgrade to our security system. Gavin had been hired by the museum. Even though he’d never worked with Margo Walsh before, they seemed sometimes to have a kind of secret code or verbal shorthand that left me confused.

  Gavin was handsome and personable, and he flirted, just a little, with every female over the age of fifteen. He had thick red-gold hair and a close-cropped beard. I wasn’t sure if he actually needed his dark-framed glasses or if he just wore them to look more serious.

  “Hi, Kathleen,” he said. “I just wanted to check in with you to make sure we’re still on track to do one last check of the alarm system tonight.” He glanced over at Susan and gave her a quick smile.

  She beamed back at him.

  I nodded. “We’re closing at six. After that the building is all yours.”

  “Good.” He looked around. “Is Larry here? He had a couple of questions for me about the wiring for the alarm system.”

  “He’s down in the basement,” Susan said.

  “Will you be in your office when I’m done?” Gavin gave me an inquiring look.

  “I will,” I said.

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you in a bit.” He headed for the back of the building.

  Susan handed the plastic cooler over the counter to me. “Go have lunch,” she instructed. “I told Marcus I would nag you to eat, so go do it.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, and her topknot bounced. It looked as though she’d secured it with a red-and-white straw. I was never quite sure if it was because of Susan’s own absentmindedness that so many odd things ended up stuck in her hair or if it was the twins’ handiwork. “I can get spinach into the boys,” she continued. “Don’t make me show you how I do it!”

  Susan’s boys were preschool twins with genius-level IQs and seemingly no fear of, well, anything.

  “I’m going,” I said, picking up the cooler and heading toward the stairs.

  “Warm up the two square containers,” she called after me.

  The two square containers held lasagna and rhubarb crisp. There was also a mason jar of salad, utensils, and the note Susan had mentioned lying on top of a cloth napkin. I poured a cup of coffee and unfolded the piece of paper.

  Sorry I couldn’t join you. I miss you.

  M

  There were no X’s and O’s. That wasn’t Marcus’s style, but that was okay with me. I found the carefully packed lunch romantic enough.

  I’d finished eating and was coming out of the lunchroom with another cup of coffee when Gavin Solomon came up the stairs. “Hi,” he said. “Do you have some time for one last run-through of how everything works?”

  “I do,” I said, gesturing at my office door. “Come in.”

  It took close to an hour for Gavin to walk me, step-by-step, through the complexities of the security measures he’d put in place. We were the only ones, along with Margo, who would have the system’s code, which meant for the ten days of the exhibit I’d have to open up the building and lock up again at night.

  “Are you going to be here tonight while we’re testing the system?” Gavin asked. He was leaning forward, using the edge of my desk as a writing surface, his left arm curled around as he wrote.

  Both Gavin and Margo expected me to be available pretty much twenty-four hours a day. I’d tried turning off my cell phone a couple of times, but they’d both—at separate times—ended up on my doorstep. I wanted the exhibit to be a success. It could be good for Mayville Heights and it could also be very good for Maggie, Ruby and the other artists from the co-op. Still, the merits of one brand of light bulb over another were hardly an emergency. So I was trying to put my foot down when it came to letting the exhibit eat up all my personal time. But I had given Everett my word that I’d do everything I could to make sure things went well, so sometimes it went down a little firmer than others.

  “Do you need me?”

  Gavin shrugged. “I’ll call you if we do. I don’t expect any problems, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be a few glitches. I’d rather have everything worked out before the artwork arrives.” He closed the leather folder he’d been writing in and stood up. “I suppose this all seems a bit like overkill to you.”

  I got to my feet and walked around the desk. “No,” I said. “I understand that some of the artwork is very old and very valuable.”

  He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair where he’d been sitting. “The Weston drawing in particular probably shouldn’t even be out of the museum right now.”

  I walked Gavin downstairs and th
en did a quick look around. Mia was working with Margo, Susan was at the desk, and Abigail was shelving books.

  It was busy for a Tuesday and the afternoon passed in a blur. It seemed like every time I sat down at my desk Margo had another question, and I talked to Lita so many times I was glad she was on speed dial. Everyone who had been invited to the opening of the exhibit had RSVP’d with a yes, and both USA Today and National Geographic Traveler were sending writers.

  “The reporter from USA Today wants to talk to you as well as Margo,” Lita said.

  “Me? Why?” I asked.

  “He wants to do a little background piece on the refurbishment of the library.”

  “That’s easy. I like talking about the library,” I said. I turned in my chair so I could look out the window at the gazebo at the back of the building.

  “And if you can work in what a nice place Mayville Heights is to visit, that would be wonderful,” Lita said. I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “That’ll be easy, too,” I promised. I hung up the phone and looked up to see Susan leaning around my office door.

  “Knock, knock,” she said.

  I motioned at her with one hand. “C’mon in.”

  She was holding a small cardboard box. She came over to the desk and handed it to me. “This came in the mail for you.”

  The box was heavy. I checked the return address. It was from Lise, my best friend in Boston.

  “I have to get back downstairs,” Susan said, pushing her glasses up her nose, “but if that’s food, remember who your favorite staff member is.”

  I smiled sweetly at her. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I would never forget about Abigail.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me and stuck out her tongue before disappearing into the hall.

  I slit the tape on the top of the box and opened the flaps. Inside was something wrapped in bubble wrap and padded with crumpled newspaper. I used my scissors to cut the tape on the bubble wrap and then unwrapped what was inside. It was a small brass cat statue.

  Found this in a little shop in Maine and thought of you.

  Love, Lise

  I felt an unexpected prickle of tears. I swallowed a couple of times and set the little cat next to the photo of my family. Lise had taken that when I’d been home on a visit. I was so lucky that distance hadn’t ended our friendship.

  By the end of the day I was happy to be heading home. I was hungry and I had a headache from smiling and nodding so much. I was just shutting off my computer when Marshall Holmes tapped on my open office door. I sighed inwardly and silently and immediately felt guilty for it.

  Margo was out continuing her search for the “perfect” light bulbs. I came around my desk and met Marshall in the middle of my office.

  “Hello, Marshall,” I said. “If you’re looking for Margo, I’m sorry. She isn’t here.”

  He glanced at his watch. “Are you expecting her back soon?” He was wearing a dark sport coat with a pale yellow shirt and black pants, everything casually expensive.

  “Not before we close,” I said.

  He made a small sound of dissatisfaction. “She had an update on the security system for me.”

  “I have her cell number, if that will help,” I offered.

  “Thank you. I have it,” he said. He looked down at his watch again, and when he looked back up at me his expression cleared. “You must be tired of us all invading your library.”

  I gave him my best professional librarian smile. “I’m happy to have the exhibit in my library. Any inconvenience is worth it.”

  He smiled. “That’s very nice of you to say. Will you tell Margo I was here, please?”

  “I will,” I said.

  He turned to leave and then stopped. “Would you by any chance have a phone book? I mean a real, paper one.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. It was an older flip-phone model. “I’m a little bit of a dinosaur.”

  “Yes, I do,” I said. I moved over to the bookshelves and pulled down the Mayville Heights phone book. “We have the books for the entire state, but no one ever used them so we moved them up here.” I brushed a dust bunny off the top of the directory and gave him a sheepish grin. “As you can see, they don’t get used much up here, either.”

  Marshall smiled. “I know I should get a smartphone with all the features and apps. I’m just not sure I want to be available all the time.”

  He took the phone book from me and flipped through the pages, fishing a pen from his pocket. I reached over and grabbed a pad of sticky notes from my desk, handing them to him so he could write down his number. He stuck the square of paper to his phone and dropped it in his pocket. Then he handed everything else back to me.

  “I’ll tell Margo you were in,” I repeated.

  “I appreciate it,” Marshall said. We shook hands and he left.

  There were no decapitated yellow chickens in the kitchen when I stepped in the back door. Owen and Hercules seemed to have called a truce.

  “I’m home,” I called.

  After a moment there was a distant answering murp from Owen. The basement door was open a crack. I had no idea why he liked to prowl around down there, but I suspected what he was doing was napping in the laundry basket. Maybe there was some way to teach him how to push the buttons with a paw and at least start the washing machine.

  The fact that for a fleeting moment I’d actually considered the possibility proved how tired I really was. Still, I couldn’t help laughing at the mental image of the little gray tabby dragging towels over to the washer in his teeth.

  Hercules peeked around the living room doorway.

  “Hi,” I said, kicking off my red boots.

  Hercules came over to me and I reached down and picked him up. “How was your day?” I asked. “Did you have coffee with Everett again?”

  His whiskers twitched. I knew that was a yes.

  I yawned and he turned his head to one side and studied my face. “Long day,” I said.

  He gave a soft murp of sympathy. I stroked his fur and padded into the living room. There were two banker’s boxes of files sitting beside my coffee table. It was all paperwork pertaining to the exhibit. Margo and I had spent an hour and a half organizing it all a few days before. Strangely, the cats seemed to like her. They were less enthusiastic about Gavin Solomon.

  “I should take those boxes down to the library.”

  Herc looked at the two cartons and then back at me. “Merow?” he asked. Or maybe I was imagining the question in the sound.

  “Okay, I guess I don’t have to take them tonight,” I said.

  He nudged my hand with his head and I began to scratch the space just above his eyes where the white fur on his nose met the black fur on the top of his head.

  Hercules sat by the bedroom closet and I told him about my day as I changed into my tai chi clothes and brushed my hair back into a ponytail. He trailed me into the bathroom when I went to wash my face, making occasional murping comments as I talked. When we came back out into the hallway, Owen was waiting. They exchanged looks and soft meows that made me think of people making polite conversation in some awkward social situation.

  I crouched down and gave Owen a scratch behind one ear. His eyes narrowed to slits and he began to purr. “I don’t suppose you threw in a load of towels while you were in the basement?” I asked. One golden eye fixed on me for a moment as though he were saying, “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “How about some meatball soup for me and some sardine crackers for you two?” I asked, straightening up.

  Hercules had been cleaning his tail, but he lifted his head when I said, “sardine crackers.”

  Owen opened both eyes and gave an enthusiastic meow.

  They followed me downstairs, where I put a bowl of soup in the microwave for myself and set a tiny stack of my homemade crackers in each of the
ir dishes. Hercules immediately ate the top cracker off his pile without knocking it over. Owen, as he always did, picked up one little square, set it on the floor, and sniffed it cautiously before he took a bite.

  Roma and I had speculated about why he always did that. She thought that he’d probably eaten something he shouldn’t have and gotten sick from it in the time before I found him and Hercules as kittens out at Wisteria Hill. She was probably right, but sometimes I thought it was just Owen’s skeptical personality that made him check his food like some paranoid despot.

  My cell phone buzzed in my jacket pocket and the coat shook on its hook. Two furry faces immediately looked at me.

  “I’m not answering that,” I said, getting my soup from the microwave. “I’m having my supper. It’s either Margo or Gavin, and whatever they need can wait.”

  A pair of green eyes and a pair of golden ones continued to regard me unblinkingly.

  I didn’t retrieve my phone until my bowl was empty. There were two missed calls from Margo and three texts from Gavin. I called Margo first, but all I got was her voice mail. I sent a quick text to Gavin and waited a couple of minutes to see if there would be a response.

  Nothing.

  “See?” I said to the boys. “Gavin and Margo both tend to act like everything is life or death, but it never is.”

  In retrospect I probably shouldn’t have said that.

  4

  By the time the library building closed at one on Thursday for the final preparations before the exhibit opening, I’d had probably two dozen texts from Gavin. Margo, on the other hand, was surprisingly laid-back about everything.

  The artwork arrived a little ahead of schedule, just before we closed, but for once Margo took the disruption in stride. She even called me into the workroom so I could see the Weston drawing I’d heard so much about. It wasn’t any bigger than a piece of plain paper. The sketch was beautifully detailed and I understood much better now why Margo worried about something happening to it.

  I’d expected that they’d want me to stay around as they set up, but I was hustled out of my office and the building. Diana Holmes was just coming across the parking lot as I came down the steps. She wore red leather pants and a cropped black jacket, her wavy dark hair in a short shag that I knew from my own experience with short hair took a lot of styling to look so casually tousled.