The Cats Came Back

by Sofie Kelly

  “Do you have any idea who that guy is?” I asked, tilting my head in the direction of the entrance.

  He shook his head. “I was going to ask you if you did.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “Maybe someone associated with the festival?”

  “Let’s hope not,” he said. “The guy’s a dick.” He put a lid on my cup.

  Claire came out of the kitchen with the iced tea. She held up her arm. The redness was already fading. “Thanks, Kathleen,” she said with a smile. “It feels better already.”

  “Good,” I said, reaching for my wallet to pay for Ruby’s tea.

  “Forget it. We’re good,” Eric said, making a shooing motion with one hand.

  I reached for the cup. “Thanks,” I said.

  “Be careful out there.” Eric’s eyes shifted in the direction of the street.

  I knew he meant keep my eyes peeled for the man he’d asked to leave.

  I nodded. “I will.”

  I found Ruby in the front office of the theater, head bent over her laptop. I tapped on the open door and she looked up. “Hey, Kathleen,” she said with a smile.

  I held out the iced tea. “I thought you might be ready for a break,” I said.

  “I am. As my grandfather used to say, I’m as dry as a covered bridge.” She took the cup and had a long drink. A smile lit up her face. “Peach. My favorite. Thank you.” Ruby leaned back in the chair and stretched her arms over her head.

  “What are you working on?” I asked, dropping into a chair just inside the door.

  “A new layout for the final concert program.” She gestured at the screen. “With Emme gone, there are some changes to the lineup.” She brushed some wisps of hair back from her face. “And everyone wants to acknowledge Miranda’s death but not be melodramatic about it, if that makes sense.”

  I nodded. “It does.”

  A tiny frown creased her forehead. “So have you come up with anything yet?”

  I hated to disappoint her. “No,” I said. “I’m still trying to figure out whether the killer was after Miranda or could have mistaken her for Emme.”

  “Do you think someone could have been after Emme?”

  “Maybe. Neither one of them seemed to have any enemies.” I folded my hands around my cup. “What about while they were here for the festival? Did either Miranda or Emme strike up a friendship with any of the other participants? Other than Ami and you?”

  Ruby took another sip of her iced tea before she answered. “No. It was pretty much just the four of us. And Emme and Miranda still had business connected to Emme’s music to take care of, so they were with Nora a lot.” She gestured at me with her cup. “You should talk to Nora.”

  “I’m surprised she’s still here, since her sister’s gone,” I said. “I know that Nora has been helping with promotion and wanted to finish what she started, but she doesn’t really have any ties to the festival.”

  A small smile played across Ruby’s face. “Nora Finley is one of those people who likes things done a certain way. That’s how she ended up volunteering to work on the promo for the festival in the first place. She kept finding problems with the way the volunteer who was doing it was handling things.” The smile turned into a grin. “You know what Mary has to say about her way and the best way? Well, that’s Nora in spades.”

  I grinned back at her. “I understand,” I said. I’d heard Mary say—and not completely in jest—that she wasn’t a perfectionist and it wasn’t her fault that her way of doing things and the best way happened to be one and the same.

  “I think Nora wants to stay in town so she can keep an eye on the investigation into Miranda’s death,” Ruby went on. “She had a lot of questions for Marcus when we went to get clothes from their apartment, and I got the feeling she would have made some suggestions as to where he should be looking if Marcus hadn’t—very diplomatically—shut the conversation down.”

  “He’s good at that,” I said. I shifted in my seat. I really wasn’t learning anything I didn’t already know. “Ruby, did Emme or Miranda have any problems with anyone that you saw?”

  She fingered one of the piercings in her right ear. “I’ve been thinking about that since we . . . since Miranda’s death. Everyone liked both of them. Emme is fun, easy to get along with, the kind of person who shows up for a practice with cupcakes for everyone. And Miranda was just plain nice. She always had Band-Aids and an extra pen in her bag. She never forgot how everyone took their coffee or if they didn’t like coffee at all. I don’t understand why anyone would have wanted to kill either one of them.”

  There wasn’t much more to say.

  “I’ll keep at it,” I told Ruby. “And I can promise that Marcus is doing the same.”

  She gave me a hug and I headed out to walk to the library. Nora Finley was standing on the sidewalk, fishing for something in her purse. The older woman gave me a small smile, and I walked over to join her.

  “Hello, Kathleen,” she said. “I’m glad I saw you. I wanted to say thank you. Ruby told me it was you who spoke to Detective Gordon so we could get into Miranda’s room to get . . . her things.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m glad I could help.”

  She sighed softly. “We’re having a memorial service in a few days back in Chicago. Miranda’s stepbrothers are—” She shook her head. “I’m not sure what they’re going to do.”

  I was guessing that Nora was probably about Roma’s age, but she seemed so much older. I tried to figure out why. Her clothes weren’t particularly old-fashioned—a white cotton shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves and blue capri pants. I couldn’t see any gray in her dark brown chin-length hair. It was her manner, I realized. She was reserved in both her responses and her body language, and she had a tendency to frown disapprovingly over her glasses, the way she’d just done when she’d mentioned Miranda’s stepbrothers. Burtis Chapman had an expression that seemed to apply to Nora—she was older than her birthday.

  We walked to the corner, talking about the weather and how much Nora had enjoyed walking around town, exploring Mayville Heights. “I hope I’ll see you again before I leave,” Nora said as she indicated she was headed up a side street.

  “I do as well,” I said. As she walked away I noticed the lace on my shoe was undone and I bent down to tie it, setting my coffee on the sidewalk. When I straightened up I took another drink, looking idly around. Just ahead of me I saw movement in the bushes. A squirrel maybe? Or someone’s cat? No, I realized as I kept looking. Not unless a squirrel had a camera with a telephoto lens.

  Whoever that was crouching in the bushes, they were spying on Nora Finley. She was too far away to call to, so I eased up behind the bush, unsure of what I was going to do. Swinging my bag at the photographer seemed a bit extreme, but I couldn’t just let this person get away with stalking Nora.

  A bit of coffee slopped out of my cup. That was it, I realized. I leaned forward and poured the last of the coffee on the person hunkered down in the bushes.

  He—it was a young man—jerked upright, swearing and shaking his arms. He swung around to me. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled. He was in his midtwenties, three or four inches taller than my five foot six, I guessed, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. He was of Asian ancestry with spiky black hair and coffee spilled on his shirt.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, lady?” he shouted, swiping at his left shoulder. With his other hand he snapped the lens cap on the camera slung around his neck.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  He pointed a finger at me. “You did that on purpose.”

  “And you were hiding in the bushes on purpose.”

  He pressed his lips together and didn’t answer.

  “Why are you taking pictures of that woman?” I pointed in the direction Nora had gone.

  “I don’t know what you’re tal
king about.” He was a terrible liar. His face flushed and he couldn’t quite look me in the eye.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

  “Hey, what are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m calling the police,” I said.

  He held up both hands. “Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, I was following her. That’s Nora Finley. I was hoping I could get some shots of her sister Emme Finley, the singer. There are a couple of websites back in Chicago that will pay good money for photos of her. Someone tried to kill Emme a few days ago. And she’s just dropped off the grid. Her best friend ended up dead instead. I figured her sister would know where she was.”

  “Why would some website want those photos?” I asked. I really didn’t get it.

  He looked at me like I was stupid. “You’re kidding, right? Emme Finley is the good girl with the bedroom voice and the bad-boy ex. People eat that stuff up.”

  His whole demeanor changed when he talked about Emme, I noticed. He smiled when he said her name. This guy was a fan, not a paparazzo. “Her best friend is dead,” I said. “Emme needs time to deal with that, not have her grief stuck on a website for entertainment.”

  “A couple of pictures aren’t going to hurt anyone. What’s the big deal?” He really did look puzzled, as though he really didn’t grasp how wrong what he was trying to do was.

  Before I could answer, an SUV pulled to the curb on the other side of the street. I glanced at it and realized it was Marcus’s SUV. I wondered what he was doing here as he got out of the car and walked over to us.

  “Hi. What’s going on?” he asked as he took in the would-be photographer’s camera.

  The young man suddenly didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. He jammed them in the pockets of his jeans and then pulled one back out to run it over his hair as he shifted from one foot to the other. “Nothing’s going on,” he said. “Just enjoying the sunshine.”

  I had the sudden urge to laugh at his discomfort.

  Marcus flashed his badge. “Could I see some ID, please?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure.” He fumbled for his wallet, pulled out what looked to be his driver’s license and offered it to Marcus. “Aren’t you gonna ask for her ID?” he asked, eyes flicking to me.

  “No,” Marcus said. He studied the license and then looked at its owner again. “Alec Kane,” he said.

  “That’s me,” the young man said with a forced smile. He held out his hand for his license but Marcus ignored it. He looked at me instead. “Everything all right?” he asked in a low voice.

  I nodded.

  Marcus turned his attention back to Alec Kane. He held up the license. “I’ll be right back.” He headed across the street to his car.

  Alec was fidgeting so badly I thought he was about to bolt up the sidewalk. Suddenly I felt sorry for him.

  “He’s a good guy,” I said, gesturing in the direction of Marcus’s SUV.

  “Easy for you to say,” Alec said, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have fourteen outstanding parking tickets.”

  “What?” I said. Fourteen parking tickets? Had I heard him right?

  Turns out I had. Marcus came back and told Alec he needed to go down to the station with him to straighten things out. A black-and-white pulled in beside the SUV a minute later. After he’d put the young man in the backseat of the police car, Marcus grabbed a cardboard box from the front seat of his own vehicle. I walked over to him. “Want to give me the short version of what that’s all about?” he asked, turning to look at Alec in the backseat of the cruiser.

  “He was following Nora Finley, hoping she’d lead him to Emme.”

  Marcus shook his head.

  “I don’t think he’s any kind of professional,” I said. “More like a fan.” I frowned at the box. “What’s that?”

  He smiled and held it out to me. “It’s for you.”

  I took the carton, eyeing the lettering on the side. “You got me a carburetor?”

  “Open it.”

  Inside the box, in a nest of crumpled newspaper, was a new glass coffee carafe.

  I grinned happily at him. “How did you get this?”

  “We have half a dozen at the station that don’t work with our machine because the guys are always breaking them and then getting the wrong replacement. Don’t worry. I put money in the kitty to cover it.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I stood on tiptoe and gave him a peck on the cheek.

  “Get a room,” I heard a voice mutter through the open window of the police car.

  “I’ll see you later,” I said.

  * * *

  Marcus called late in the afternoon. It turned out that Alec Kane had an alibi for the time of Miranda Moore’s murder. He had been in Chicago, taking photos of a well-known actor whose spray tan had turned his entire body Big Bird yellow.

  I hadn’t really thought that Alec had had anything to do with Miranda’s murder, but I was glad to have my feelings confirmed.

  “Was he the one who took those photos of Emme and Derrick?” I asked, swinging slowly from side to side in my desk chair.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus said. “I didn’t ask, because it doesn’t have anything to do with the murder.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with him, but I kept that to myself. Alec Kane was clearly a fan of Emme. A fan who liked to take pictures of her. Did he have anything to do with those photos of Emme and Derrick at that club? I had no proof those images had any connection with Miranda’s death. But I had no proof they didn’t, either.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Kane arranged payment for those tickets. We’ll be releasing him in about an hour.”

  I took an early supper break and was waiting for Alec Kane when he came out of the police station, holding a large cup of coffee in my left hand as a peace offering of sorts. When he caught sight of me he made a show of taking a step back and holding up his hands for protection. “Are you going to dump your coffee on me again?” he asked.

  “No,” I said, offering the take-out cup to him. “I got this for you. Cream and sugar because I didn’t know how you took it.”

  He took the coffee. “Cream and sugar is fine. And it’s the least you could do considering you got me arrested.”

  “Fourteen unpaid tickets got you arrested,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, there are too many rules about where you can and can’t park in Chicago,” he muttered.

  Alec Kane was more than a bit immature.

  “Are you headed back to Chicago?” I asked.

  “Might as well,” he said. “Coming to Mayville Heights has been a bust. I really was hoping to get a few pictures of Emme but it looks like she left town.”

  I took a gamble. “You’ve made money off Emme Finley before, haven’t you? You took those photos of her with her ex-boyfriend.”

  His eyes slid off my face the way they had when I’d asked about Nora at our earlier encounter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I shook my head. “I hope you don’t play poker, Alec.”

  He made a face. “Fine. I took the photographs. I got a tip to go to the club, and when I got there Emme was all over a guy who sure as hell wasn’t her boyfriend.” He made a face. “And I don’t get what she saw in the guy. She’s beautiful and smart and, man, can she sing. She could do a lot better.” He gave a snort of derision. “Not that Dr. Tightass Professor was much of an improvement.”

  I stifled a smile at the name he’d given to Emme’s ex-boyfriend. Alec definitely had a crush on her, I realized. He got a goofy smile on his face when he talked about her. And he didn’t like her former boyfriend.

  “Why do you sneak around taking pictures of people you don’t know?” I asked.

  “Photographers take shots of people they don’t know all the time.”

  “Those people are professionals and even they cross the line
sometimes, too. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  He shrugged and took another sip of the coffee. “I’m a good photographer. I’ve been taking photos since I was a kid. I even know how to use film. I wanna be a celebrity photographer—in Los Angeles—but I need a portfolio if anyone’s going to hire me. So I’ve been taking pictures of celebrities in Chicago. Sometimes the clubs will buy my pictures for Facebook or their websites because it’s good publicity for them. And I’ve sold stuff to a couple of entertainment websites. All I need is one photo for my big break.”

  “So you took the photos of Emme and her ex at that club. Then what?” I asked. We had started walking in the general direction of Eric’s Place.

  Alec looked away again. It was such an obvious tell. “Nothing happened,” he said.

  “You’re lying again.”

  He scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, well, you make my head itch,” he retorted. “Fine. I got an e-mail from someone who knew I had them and wanted to buy them. I figured it was probably someone at the club, you know, trying to draw some attention to the place. The money was good, so I took it.”

  “So someone else sold the incriminating photos that turned up on the Good Night Chicago website and on the club’s Facebook page? Not you.”

  Alec nodded. “Yeah. Whoever it was bought everything from me.”

  I knew the answer to my next question before I even asked it, but I asked anyway. “Did you meet this person face-to-face?”

  He shook his head. “Uh-uh. The whole thing was done by e-mail.”

  I stopped walking and stared at him. “Did it ever occur to you that you were being used? That someone wanted those photos to hurt Emme in some way?”

  He ducked his head for a moment before giving me a sideways glance. “Not at the time, but later, yeah, it did.”

  “Do you have any idea who you were dealing with?” I asked.

  “Nah,” he said. “I thought maybe someone wanted to break up Emme and that professor guy she was seeing, Elliot Hardison, and if they did, it worked, because he dropped her like a hot tamale.”