A Case of Cat and Mouse

by Sofie Kelly

  “Come on up when you’re done with Ray,” Maggie said. “I’ll show you next week’s illustrations.”

  I said I would and she headed back to her studio, her long legs taking the stairs two at a time.

  Ray’s space was on the second floor of the building on the right-hand side of the hall at the end. I knocked on his half-open door and after a moment he called, “Come in.”

  The space was incredibly tidy. A huge commercial shelving unit, painted black, filled one end wall. The opposite wall held several glass display cases with Ray’s collection of vintage ink bottles.

  There was a big drafting table next to the window and a long workstation in the center of the room.

  Ray was working by the window. He looked up, surprised to see me. “Hey, Kathleen,” he said. “Are you looking for Maggie?”

  “No,” I said, “I’m looking for you.”

  “What do you need?” he asked. “No offense, but I have a tight deadline on a project and the show has put me behind.”

  I put the printed photo of him and Kassie on the drafting table.

  “So Kassie and I knew each other when we were kids,” he said with a shrug. “We went to the same school in Chicago for a while. We hung out sometimes. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is she’s dead and you didn’t tell anyone you knew her.”

  “I hadn’t been around her in I don’t know how long. We didn’t know each other anymore. Kassie was as surprised to see me as I was to see her.”

  “Did either of you tell Elias you knew each other?”

  “No. Neither one of us wanted it to look as though there had been some kind of collusion between us. She didn’t want to leave the show and why should I? I worked hard to get to be a contestant. Probably harder than she had to be a judge. So we agreed to act like we didn’t know each other. It wasn’t a big deal. So we hung out when we were teenagers. It wasn’t like that gave me an advantage or anything now.”

  He seemed indifferent to the fact that someone he had been friends with had been murdered.

  Ray glanced at the photo again. “Look. It has to have been at least fifteen years since I saw Kassie. We might as well have been strangers. I can’t tell you or the police anything about her. I don’t know anything.”

  “Do you know where this picture came from?” I asked. I reached over and took it before Ray did something to it.

  “I don’t have a clue,” he said. “Maybe she found it somewhere and was going to show it to me and then she didn’t get the chance.”

  I remembered when I’d first met Ray. It was after the murder of artist Jaeger Merrill. Jaeger Merrill had been a mask-maker who could take what other people saw as garbage and turn it into art. He was also a liar and a forger, in essence a con artist. He reproduced religious icons—top-quality fakes. He had fooled some of the best art experts in the world. And he used everyone he met. He and Ray had been friends, as much as someone like Jaeger Merrill had friends.

  Ray had tried to further his career by fudging an endorsement from another artist. Not only had he not thought about the damage it could do to the co-op’s reputation, it had been clear he didn’t care. All he’d seemed to think about were his own self-interests.

  “My work will stand on its own merits. All I’m doing is getting someone to pay attention for a minute,” he had insisted when he was caught.

  There wasn’t anything else to say in respect to his friendship with Kassie. I thanked him and headed for the stairs up to Maggie’s studio.

  One thing I was sure of, Ray had lied to me the first time we’d met and I was certain he was lying now.

  chapter 12

  I found Maggie standing in front of her easel frowning at the drawing that was propped on it. “Hi,” I said.

  She turned and gave me a distracted smile. “Hi,” she said. “How did it go with Ray?”

  I held out my hand and waggled it from side to side.

  “Does this have something to do with Kassie?” she asked. I noticed her eyes flick back to the drawing.

  I ignored the question for the moment and went to stand beside her. I studied the pen and ink drawing and the color swatches Maggie had propped beside it.

  She leaned her forearm on my shoulder. “I can’t get the green right for the kiwi.” She made a gesture over her shoulder toward her computer. “I’ve been looking them up online for the last half hour but the color still feels wrong.” She’d also been running her hands through her hair and her curls stuck up all over her head. Once again I thought she looked like a green-eyed lamb.

  “Mags, just go down to Eric’s,” I said. I tipped my head gently to the side so it bumped the top of hers.

  “I already had supper.”

  “Not for supper,” I said. “You need to look at a real kiwi. Not a photograph of one.” Maggie would have realized that herself if being overworked hadn’t given her tunnel vision. “The grocery store is closed or you could just go buy one, but Eric will have kiwi in his kitchen. Once you see the real thing you’ll be able to get the color right.”

  A smile spread across her face and she straightened up. “Super Librarian to the rescue!” she said.

  I tossed my hair back and pressed a hand to my chest. “I live to serve, one good idea at a time.”

  Maggie threw her arms around my shoulders to give me a hug. “We really need to get you a cape and tights.”

  “I think I would look very good in a cape,” I said.

  She laughed. “I’ll get right on that,” she said. She let me go and studied my face, her green eyes narrowing. “Tell me what happened with Ray. This does have something to do with Kassie’s death, doesn’t it?”

  I handed her the picture of teenage Kassie and Ray.

  She studied the image for a moment then her eyes met mine. “That’s Kassie with Ray. They’re just kids but they’re both recognizable.”

  I nodded.

  Maggie turned the sheet of paper over. “How did you get this?”

  I explained about Eugenie’s request and how Owen had knocked the papers off my kitchen table.

  “It looks like she—or someone—scanned the original photo and then printed the scan.” She handed the page back to me. “What did Ray say? I’m assuming that you asked him if he knew where the image came from.”

  I looked at the picture again. “He said he didn’t know, that maybe Kassie found it and was going to show it to him but didn’t get a chance.”

  “So why did they act like they didn’t know each other?”

  “According to Ray neither one of them was willing to give up their place on the show. They knew it would look bad if anyone found out they had been friends years ago, so they decided to just keep quiet.”

  “You think he’s telling the truth?”

  I made a face. “I think what he told me was true, as far as it goes, but I think there are some things he left out.”

  “That sounds familiar,” Maggie said. I knew she was referring to the forged letter.

  “I need a favor. If it makes you uncomfortable, please just say no.”

  “Okay, now I’m intrigued. What is it?”

  “Could you get me a copy of Ray’s CV?”

  I knew from Maggie and Ruby that an artist’s CV—curriculum vitae—was necessary when submitting work to galleries and exhibitions. Unlike a résumé, which focused on education and experience, a CV highlighted professional accomplishments; awards, exhibitions, publications in which the artist had been featured, collections that held his or her artwork, teachers the artist had studied with.

  Maggie picked up a paintbrush that had been lying on her worktable and turned it over in her fingers. “Do you actually think Ray could have had something to do with Kassie’s death?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I do think he’s lying about how close they were. He was ver
y offhand about any connection between them, almost as if he was trying to convince me it was no big deal—which makes me wonder if maybe it was. Maybe it’s that picture of the two of them, or maybe it’s just a gut feeling, but I think Ray and Kassie were more than just a couple of kids who knew each other and then lost touch. I want to see if they could have connected anywhere else in their lives.”

  “There’s a copy of everyone’s CV available at the store,” Maggie said. “Sometimes a collector comes in with a question about an artist’s background or who they’ve studied with. As far as I’m concerned, that makes that information more or less public.” She set the paintbrush down again and moved over to her laptop. “I can print you a copy.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I watched her connect the computer to the printer. “You don’t trust Ray, do you? You haven’t trusted him since you found out his connection to Jaeger Merrill.”

  Jaeger Merrill had been killed in the basement of the co-op’s store. Maggie and I had found his body floating in several feet of water that had filled the space after some serious flooding in the downtown.

  Maggie hit several keys on the laptop and the printer began to do its thing. She turned around to look at me then. “Ray has worked hard to regain everyone’s trust.”

  “But,” I prompted.

  She shook her head. “But sometimes I think he’s making the effort just to win us all over, not to make up for his mistakes because he understands what he did was wrong. Does that make any sense?”

  “Yes, it does.” It was exactly how I felt. I had never gotten the sense that Ray felt much, if any, remorse for his actions. I thought what he felt bad about was being caught.

  Maggie handed me Ray’s CV.

  “Thank you,” I said. “I need to get going. I still have those papers to sort through.”

  “Let me shut my laptop off and I’ll walk down with you,” she said. “I’m going kiwi hunting.”

  Maggie came over to the truck with me. Her Bug was parked several spaces away. “Don’t work half the night,” I said, giving her a hug.

  She smiled. “Back at you.” We said good night and Maggie headed for her car.

  I laid the photo and Ray’s CV on the front seat of the truck. A large crow flew overhead, cawing at something. I remembered what Russell had said about Kassie, that she was like a crow, but instead of collecting shiny things she collected information on people. I wondered what shiny thing she’d had on Ray.

  chapter 13

  The Mayville Heights Chronicle had been around for more than a hundred years. It was one of a shrinking number of small-town newspapers that was still turning a profit. Much of the credit belonged to publisher Bridget Lowe. Under her watch the Chronicle had won a number of awards for reporting. Not only did everyone in the area read the paper, it also had a significant number of online subscribers from out of town. Including my mother, which is why it didn’t really surprise me when she called about half an hour after I’d gotten home.

  I had almost finished sorting through the envelope of papers. Owen had been content to sit on my lap and keep his paws off the papers, though he occasionally meowed his disagreement over which pile a page ended up in. Most of them were printouts of baking terms, recipe ideas and details about the original version of The Great American Baking Showdown. I realized that Kassie hadn’t known anywhere near as much about baking as any of the contestants had.

  I was happy to get up and stretch when my home phone rang. I carried Owen with me into the living room, dropped into the big wing chair and set him on my lap as I reached for the phone. He would have followed me and hopped onto my lap anyway. I was just removing a step from the process.

  “Hello, sweetie. How are you?” Mom said.

  As always, when I heard my mother’s voice, I felt a sudden pinch of homesickness. My mother made me crazy sometimes, but she loved me with the fierceness and protectiveness of a grizzly bear. She loved all three of us that way.

  “I’m fine,” I said, stretching my legs out onto the footstool while Owen stretched himself out on me the way we’d done too many times before to count.

  “How’s Marcus?” she asked, a teasing note in her voice.

  “He’s perfect, as always.”

  “He has a new case, I see.”

  I was right about why she’d called. “He does,” I said.

  “So what have you unearthed so far?”

  I knew there was no point in trying to pretend or outright lie that I wasn’t involved. Mom had some kind of mother’s instinct that told her when Ethan, Sara or I were lying. She also seemed to know when we were about to come down with a cold.

  “Not a lot. Kassie was sleeping with someone on the show. Don’t ask me who because I’m not telling you.”

  “Well, from what I’ve seen online, that young woman liked the male gender, so that doesn’t leave a lot of choices. It certainly wasn’t Richard, I know that.”

  Owen shifted on my lap and I had to put a hand on him so he didn’t roll off onto the floor. He gave me a slightly embarrassed look. “Hang on, Mom,” I said. “How do you know it wasn’t Richard? You said yourself, women love him.”

  “Well of course they do, sweetie.” I pictured her making a dismissive wave with one hand. “He’s very attractive with those dark eyes and that smile, but Richard has almost always dated the tall, athletic type, with an occasional attraction to a slightly older woman.”

  “No, no, no. We are not going there,” I said.

  On the other end of the phone she was laughing. “Just because Richard was very much attracted to me doesn’t mean anything happened. Your father is the only man for me.”

  I knew she meant that. She wouldn’t have married Dad twice if she hadn’t. They wouldn’t have had so many dramatic fights and so many equally dramatic makeups if they weren’t absolutely wild for each other.

  Owen shifted again so his head was on my stomach. “What’s Richard like, I mean as a person?” I asked. “I’ve barely spent any time with him. I know Eugenie and Russell a lot better.”

  “I don’t think he could have killed Kassie Tremayne, if that’s what you’re asking,” Mom said. “He doesn’t have it in him. And from a purely practical standpoint he would never do anything that might make a mess on his clothes. Have you noticed how particular he is about them?”

  I had noticed. Eugenie had told me that after Saturday’s filming, the body-hugging shirt Richard had been wearing had been sent out to be laundered and ironed so it was fresh for him to wear on Sunday. In his favor, it was the only diva-like behavior I had noticed about him.

  “I did notice,” I said.

  “Richard can be nitpicky, but he never crosses the line into being cruel. And I’m willing to bet, if the online rumors are true, that Ms. Tremayne was coming down hard on some of the contestants, which means Richard would have gone to bat for them. I’ve seen him do something similar in the past. He’s going to be a big star, you know.”

  “He did go out of his way to make sure the change in judges went well.”

  “Sweetie, Richard is a complicated man. He can be harsh one moment and incredibly kind the next. He makes fantastic food and he also has a secret passion for McDonald’s apple pies.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Thanks, Mom. Now tell me how Dad is.”

  “Incredibly handsome and incredibly annoying. Luckily, your father has gorgeous legs in a pair of tights.”

  Mom and Dad were working on As You Like It. He was starring and she was directing. I knew from past experience the play would be fantastic, but sparks—and words—would fly until opening night.

  We talked for a few more minutes. “I love you,” I said. “Give Dad a hug and a kiss from me.”

  “I will,” she said. “I love you, too, Katydid.”

  I finished sorting the papers, put them into labeled envelopes and put all three
of those in my bag. Owen sat on my lap, got down for a drink, got back up for a snuggle and generally made the process go more slowly.

  I kissed the top of his head. “I love you even when you get in the way.”

  He nuzzled my chin. I was pretty sure that was cat for, “Back at you.”

  There was a tap then on the kitchen door and I turned around to see Marcus standing there smiling at me. “Hi,” he said.

  I set Owen on the closest chair, got up and threw my arms around Marcus. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight,” I said after I had hugged him and kissed him twice.

  “I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to see you,” he said. He kissed my ear, my cheek and then the side of my mouth. I had been going to say something but the words seem to float right out of my head.

  Then I realized he was hugging me with only one arm. I pulled back and looked up into his gorgeous blue eyes and had another brief moment of amnesia. Finally I got ahold of myself. “Why do you have one hand behind your back?” I asked.

  One eyebrow went up. “Do I?” he said.

  I pulled on his arm. “Yes, you do. What are you hiding back there?” He wasn’t really trying to resist so it wasn’t difficult to get his arm out where I could see it.

  He was holding a small box wrapped in bright green paper and tied with green and silver ribbons.

  “Is that for me?” I asked.

  “It is.”

  Owen gave what seemed to be a perturbed meow.

  “I didn’t forget you,” Marcus said, pulling a small paper bag from his pocket.

  I recognized from the size of the bag what the contents likely were. “No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. “Please tell me you didn’t bring him a catnip chicken.”

  Marcus put a hand over his heart. “I swear to you that I did not buy Owen a Fred the Funky Chicken.”

  I continued to eye the bag with suspicion. “And no one gave you a Fred the Funky Chicken?”