The Cats Came Back

by Sofie Kelly

  I leaned forward and peered over the waist-high counter.

  “Did you drop something?” Keith asked.

  “No,” I said. “I was checking to make sure there wasn’t some intruder back there, because the two of you are acting a little off.”

  “Ask her,” Keith said to his daughter.

  “I sort of have to now, don’t I, Dad?” she replied in the aggrieved teenager tone that I heard all the time in the library when some teacher decided the students had to use an actual physical book for a project.

  “I’m applying to the University of North Carolina,” Taylor blurted out. “I want to study pre-med there.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, grinning at her. “The program has an excellent reputation.”

  “It’s kind of competitive and . . . well . . . I was wondering if you would write me a letter of recommendation?” She held up her hands. “You can say no if you want to.”

  Taylor had volunteered for several years with the Reading Buddies program at the library, she’d helped with our fundraisers and she had worked with Ruby on our summer art and reading club. She was friendly, well-mannered and a hard worker. It would be easy to write a reference for her.

  “I’d be happy to,” I said.

  “I told you she’d say yes,” Keith said, a huge smile spreading across his face.

  Taylor rolled her eyes. “Dad, you’re getting annoying.”

  He looked at me. “I’ve been told I’m turning into one of those parents.” He made air quotes around the word “parents.” “You know, the ones who look for any chance to brag about their kid.” I could see how proud he was of Taylor.

  I thought about my own dad, who was always quick to talk up the three of us, even when the accomplishment was, say, not blowing up the school science fair for once—Ethan, by the way, not me.

  “Hey, give your dad a break,” I said. “It’s not his fault there’s so much to brag about.”

  “Exactly,” Keith said. “Not only is she a great student and a hard worker, she’s also a genuinely kind person.”

  Taylor blushed and ducked her head, but I could see how happy her father’s words made her. She and Keith had butted heads in the past and likely would again—Mom and I had. But we were both lucky to have loving families. I felt a twinge of sadness thinking of Emme and Miranda, who had both lost so much of theirs.

  * * *

  As I waited for the traffic to pass so I could turn left out onto the highway from the driveway to Keith’s storage business, I saw Miranda’s stepbrother Brent Pearson go by in an old truck. Why was he still here?

  An idea had been niggling in the back of my mind since Emme had told me Miranda’s bracelet hadn’t been with her body. Had he killed her? Did the bracelet have some significance we didn’t know about? I’d assumed Pearson was better off with Miranda alive. What if I was wrong?

  I hesitated and Owen meowed loudly. Translation: “Go!” So I turned right instead of left. There were a couple of vehicles between Pearson and me, but it was easy to keep the faded red half-ton with the broken left taillight in sight.

  We followed him to a shabby, rundown motel I hadn’t realized existed. The attached bar seemed to be doing a lot more business than the motel. I drove by, turned and came back in time to see Pearson go into a room on the top level of the two-story building. Even though it was late there was still a cleaner, a stocky middle-aged woman, up there doing the rooms. I pulled into a parking spot close to the road.

  “Now what?” I asked Owen. I was very aware that I’d followed Brent Pearson at the urging of a cat.

  “Mrrr,” he said. His golden eyes were glued to the door to Pearson’s room. At least that’s how it seemed. After three or four minutes Pearson came back out. He stopped to talk to the cleaner, effectively blocking her way and standing way closer than he needed to. I could tell from her body language that she didn’t like the man. She was leaning sideways, shoulders hunched in on herself.

  Pearson finally headed down the covered walkway to where another man was leaning against the railing drinking what looked to be a can of beer. After a brief conversation the two men headed down to the bar. The cleaner moved on to Pearson’s room, leaving the door open. She went inside and returned with the garbage cans, which she emptied into the trash bag on her cart. She looked at her supplies. I could see she was almost out of towels. Her shoulders sagged. She made her way down the stairs and started across the parking lot in the direction of the main building, without closing the door.

  I looked at Owen. “This is so wrong,” I said.

  He climbed across my lap, put a paw on the door handle and gave me a pointed look. Wrong or not, it seemed we were doing this.

  I put him back on the passenger side. “Stay here,” I said. I climbed out of the truck and dashed across the poorly lit parking lot and up the side stairs to Pearson’s room. If I found anything, I was going to have a hard time explaining that to Marcus, but now that I was so close, I had to know if Miranda’s stepbrother had her bracelet. I looked around and slipped into the room, just in time to hear a cat sneeze. Owen suddenly appeared in front of me.

  “Why is it you understand the word ‘pizza’ but you don’t understand the words ‘stay here’?” I asked.

  He gave me a blank, unblinking look. It’s hard to win an argument with a cat.

  I looked around the room and saw no sign of any jewelry. I saw no signs of anything much personal at all. Interestingly there were a couple of brochures for new half-ton trucks tossed on the bed. It seemed Brent Pearson was in the market for a new vehicle. I wondered how a man without a steady job was going to pay for it. Was there any chance that Miranda’s death was going to mean some kind of payout for her stepbrother, or was I just grasping at straws?

  I checked the drawers, which were empty, and rummaged through a backpack, which seemed to be the only thing belonging to Pearson in the room. There wasn’t so much as a toothbrush in the bathroom. I even checked the mini-fridge, but all it held was four cans of beer and a half-eaten package of beef jerky.

  Owen stuck his head inside and sniffed the beef jerky. “Focus,” I told him.

  I heard voices then. It was the cleaner thanking someone else for guessing that she was low on towels and folding them for her. Crap on toast! Now what?

  I looked around for somewhere to hide. Owen was just slipping under the bed. There was no way I was joining him. I didn’t want to think what might be lurking under there—dead or alive.

  Outside on the balcony I could hear the maid telling her companion that she could slap Carla for calling in sick again and sticking her with all the rooms. The other woman offered to help her finish.

  I didn’t have a choice. I dove under the bed with Owen.

  The two women quickly finished the room with what Mary would have called a lick and a promise. Since they weren’t doing a very thorough job they didn’t bother to vacuum under the bed. It had been a long time since the space had seen a vacuum. Owen and I were stretched out in what looked like a dust bunny convention. About three inches in front of my nose was what looked like a crumpled receipt. Owen reached out and swatted it with a paw. I glared at him and closed my hand over the wrinkled bit of paper.

  Once the women were gone I rolled out from under the bed and stood up. There was dust on my jeans and dust in my hair. Owen poked his head out and looked around. There was a dust bunny clinging to his left ear.

  I smoothed out the receipt and looked at it. No surprise, it was for beer and pizza from a place in Minneapolis. Dated the night Miranda had been killed. So assuming this was Brent’s receipt—and given the motel’s cleanliness standards, that wasn’t certain—Brent Pearson hadn’t killed his stepsister. That didn’t mean he didn’t know something about her death, though. Marcus would say my gut feeling wasn’t enough, but it was for me.

  Suddenly I heard someone at the do
or. I motioned for Owen to move and we rolled under the bed again. Brent Pearson came into the room. I recognized him from his shoes. Okay, this might be bad.

  He went to the bathroom—thankfully closing the door—without stopping to wash his hands afterward. Then he grabbed all four cans of beer from the fridge and left again.

  I’d been holding a sneeze the entire time and I couldn’t hold it any longer. Owen glared at me. We waited a full sixty seconds but Pearson didn’t come back.

  “We have to get out of here right now,” I told Owen. “It was stupid to sneak around in here in the first place.”

  I went over to the window next to the door and eased the curtain back a crack. Pearson and the other man I’d seen before were leaning on the railing by the top of the stairs, each with a beer, the other two cans waiting at their feet. “This is not good,” I said.

  I looked around, wondering why there wasn’t a second door leading to an interior hallway. Then I realized that there likely was no inner hallway. The parking lot for the bar was on the other side of the wall. The only way out was via the door I was standing next to.

  I pushed away a rush of panic. This wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d ever done, but it was going to make my top-ten list. If I stepped out the door now, Pearson and his friend would see me. But if I didn’t get out soon, he’d find me when he came back. I looked down at Owen, wishing I had the ability to vanish. Then it occurred to me that maybe I didn’t need it.

  I crouched down next to the cat and pointed at the door. “You have to distract them,” I said.

  His response was to swipe at the dust bunny on his ear.

  “I know you understand what I’m saying.” I picked Owen up, nudged the curtain aside again and showed him the two men. I felt a little foolish, but it wasn’t any crazier than the one-sided conversation I was already having.

  “All you have to do is go down there and knock one of those cans of beer through the railing.”

  Since they only had four cans in total, I was banking on them chasing after it.

  “They won’t be able to see you,” I said.

  He swiped at his ear again.

  So this was how it was going to be. “One can of sardines,” I said. “And you don’t have to share with your brother.” I set him on the floor.

  He gave me the same blank, unblinking look he’d given me before. I thought about Owen walking across the hood of the truck, invisible except for the dead vole in his mouth that seemed to be levitating a few inches above the dinged metal surface.

  “This is extortion.”

  His expression didn’t change. I was running out of time and ideas, and the little furball knew it. “A can of sardines and a funky chicken.”

  As quickly as a finger snap he winked out of sight. I eased the door open and after a moment pulled it almost closed again. Then I tugged the edge of the curtain back, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

  The two men were drinking and talking, folded arms propped on the railing. As I watched, Pearson started and brushed at his leg with his free hand. Just as he was about to take another drink he jumped again, slopping beer onto the front of his shirt.

  “Hey! Knock it off,” I heard him say in a loud voice to his buddy.

  What the heck was Owen doing? I wondered. The men were arguing now. Pearson was up in the second man’s face, jabbing his finger at him. All at once I saw one of the two cans of beer sitting by their feet begin to move. Since they were still arguing neither Pearson nor his buddy noticed.

  The can stopped at the edge of the concrete walkway. The other can began to move. Pearson was still punctuating whatever he was saying with jabs from his finger, moving his friend backward.

  “Stay there, stay there,” I whispered.

  Suddenly the second man gave Pearson a shove. At the same time the two cans of beer toppled over the edge.

  Pearson swore and took a swing at his buddy. He didn’t connect. He pushed past the other man and scrambled down the stairs. For a moment his friend just stood there. Then he took the last swallow from the can, yelled something at Pearson in the parking lot below and went down the steps.

  I bolted from the room and ran down the walkway. “Let’s go,” I said as I passed the spot where I thought the cat might be.

  I kept my head down as I hurried down the stairs, but I risked a quick glance to my left as I reached the bottom step.

  Both of the cans of beer had exploded when they’d hit the parking lot pavement, and now Brent and his drinking buddy were yelling at each other, red-faced and angry. A crowd had already started to gather.

  I turned right at the bottom of the stairs and went all the way around the back of the building, through the bar’s parking lot, to get to the truck. As I got closer I could see Owen sitting on the hood. I was so glad he was safe.

  I scooped him up with one hand and pulled out my keys with the other. Then I unlocked the door, dumped Owen on the seat and started the truck while pulling on my seat belt with the other hand. It wasn’t until I was driving down the highway, the motel no longer visible in my rearview mirror, that I let out the breath I was holding.

  I glanced over at Owen sitting next to me. I couldn’t help smiling at him. “As Ruby would say, that was awesome,” I said. He looked at me and I was pretty sure he was smiling, too.

  * * *

  I was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and an apple spice muffin watching Owen dig into his stinky dish of sardines when Marcus called.

  “How was your day?” I asked.

  “It’s not over yet,” he said. “I’m still at the station doing paperwork. And if we’re going paperless, why is there actually more of the stuff?”

  I knew he wasn’t really expecting an answer. “Any chance you’ll be getting away soon?” I asked. “I have apple spice muffins and I’ll rub your shoulders.”

  “Ummm, I like the sound of that,” he said.

  He was probably sitting at his desk, a bit of stubble on his cheeks and his hair mussed from all the times he’d run his hands through it. “So?” I said.

  “Give me half an hour, maybe a bit more.”

  I stretched my legs out onto one of the other chairs. “Before I forget, Miranda’s stepbrother Brent Pearson came into the library. He was using one of the computers.”

  “You’re looking in the wrong place, Kathleen,” he said.

  “He knows something,” I said. “He was evasive and uncomfortable, and all I did was ask about the service for Miranda.”

  “Well, whatever the reason was he was acting that way, it wasn’t because he killed his sister. He has an alibi.”

  I rubbed the space between my eyebrows with my thumb. This didn’t seem like a good time to tell him what Owen and I had done. I settled for “Are you sure?”

  “Very,” he said. “He was in jail.”

  “Jail?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Brent Pearson was arrested for being drunk and disorderly at a pizza place in Minneapolis.”

  So that was his receipt I’d found under the motel room bed.

  “Pearson got into an argument with another customer about the White Sox of all things. Bartender called the police. Pearson was in jail at the time of the murder, sleeping it off. It’s an unimpeachable alibi.”

  “Why is it that every good suspect in this case has an alibi?” I groused.

  “Because they’re all innocent,” Marcus said gently.

  I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. Somewhere out there was someone who wasn’t innocent. How was I going to find them?

  chapter 17

  Thursday made up for the previous day at the library being so quiet. The books I’d ordered for Reading Buddies arrived, we had an unexpected visit from two daycares—probably because it was raining—several tourists came in to use our Wi-Fi and to get out of the rain and ha
lf of Mayville Heights seemed to have run out of reading material.

  At lunchtime Maggie dropped off some photos she’d had printed that had been taken at the tea. She was on her way to the Stratton Theatre to meet Brady for the lunchtime concert. “Bach and Roll,” she said with a smile. “Modern songs that are really variations on classical pieces.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  We spread the photos on the circulation desk and looked at them with Mary. There was a wonderful one of Mary and Sydney. “Could I get a copy of that, Maggie?” Mary asked.

  “Absolutely,” Maggie said.

  Mary smiled. “She’s a great kid.”

  “She is,” I agreed. When Roma and Eddie had broken up, Roma had stayed in Sydney’s life. Sydney in turn had done everything she could to try to get them back together, including telling Roma that she and Eddie being apart was just too traumatizing.

  Maggie glanced at the clock. “I need to get going,” she said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said. Maggie had canceled tai chi because she, Rebecca and I were going out to Wisteria Hill to decorate for the wedding, which was only three days away now. Actually, Maggie and Rebecca were the decorators. I was just the unpaid labor, although Rebecca had promised me a lemon meringue pie.

  It was good to have something happy to focus on.

  * * *

  Maggie picked up Rebecca and me in her Bug after supper. There were three large boxes in the backseat and barely enough room for me to squeeze in and fasten my seat belt. “What’s all this?” I asked.

  Rebecca turned and looked over her shoulder. “Did you get everything?” she asked, blue eyes sparkling.

  Maggie nodded.

  “Even the lights?”

  “Four sets,” Mags said, holding up four fingers as she started to back out of my driveway.