Sleight of Paw (31 page)

“I think it’s more Eric’s thing than any group’s thing,” I said thoughtfully. “Have you noticed how important loyalty seems to be to him?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, eyes glued to the road. A few flakes of snow were blowing around.

“Look at the staff of the café. He hires the same students in the summer. His regular staff’s been there for years. He’s done the library barbecue forever, according to Abigail. Even the year Susan was pregnant with the twins and couldn’t get out of bed.”

“Good point,” Maggie said.

I sighed and shifted in the seat. I couldn’t wait for Susan to talk to Eric. “Maybe if he understands this is going to help Ruby . . .”

We talked about Winterfest the rest of the way home and how the rumors about Roma and Eddie Sweeney wouldn’t die. But I was really giving the conversation only half my attention. I kept rolling Jamie’s description of Eric’s friend around in my mind. It could have been anyone. Anyone.

So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that I should know exactly who it was?

T
he next morning I was at the table, feeding Owen crunchy peanut butter, when Harry Taylor—the younger Harry—knocked on the back door. Owen was in an extra-good mood because Rebecca had stopped in for a minute to bring my newspaper, which had somehow ended up at her house instead of mine.

“Hi,” I said to Harry. “I was going to call you this morning.” I’d changed shifts with Abigail, so I wasn’t due at the library until lunchtime.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“No. Something might be right. Hang on a second.” I hustled into the living room for the baby-picture fragment. I’d put it in a small envelope. I handed it to Harry. “This is for your father. There’s no way to know for sure, but it’s possible this is a picture of his and Agatha’s child.”

He swallowed a couple of times. Slowly he slid the image from the envelope. “Where did you get this?”

“Ruby ended up with a bag of Agatha’s things. It was inside. It doesn’t seem to be a picture of her son, David; it’s not that old. I asked Rebecca”—I held up a hand—“without telling her why, and she didn’t recognize the child. Maybe—and it’s a big maybe—it’s the baby.”

“Thank you, Kathleen,” Harry said, his voice suddenly husky. “Dad will . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat, then looked at me. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, suddenly feeling my own throat tighten.

Harry shook his head. “I almost forgot myself.” He held out a set of keys. “These are for you.”

“For what?”

“For the truck sitting in your driveway.”

“Harry, I can’t take a truck from you.”

“First of all, it’s not from me; it’s from the old man. And second of all, if you really don’t want it you’re going to have to tell him, because there’s no way I’m doing it.” He swung the keys back and forth. “He wants to do this for you. Do you really want to tell him he can’t?”

“I . . .” I looked at him helplessly. “All right,” I said, holding out my hands in surrender. “But only until I find something for myself.” I took the keys.

“It’s not fancy,” Harry said. “But it runs well and has new tires. You’ll have to call Gunnar about insurance.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

Carefully he slid the envelope with the baby picture into an inside pocket of his jacket. “Thank you for the picture.”

“I hope it helps,” I said. “Thank you for the truck.”

“I hope it helps,” Harry said with a smile.

After he’d gone I pulled on my jacket and boots. I didn’t have to coax either cat to come with me. We walked around the house, and there was the truck in the driveway. It was identical to Ruby’s, sort of an ugly brown color. The only difference was that the right front fender had been replaced and it was primer red. I opened the driver’s door. The inside was sparkling clean—no surprise, since the truck came from Harry’s.

Both cats were craning their necks to see. I bent down and picked up Owen and set him on the seat. When I reached for Hercules he wrinkled his nose. “It’s clean,” I told him. “No Boris cooties.”

I set Hercules on the seat next to Owen, who was alternately sniffing and poking a paw into everything. Then I leaned in and studied the dashboard. What I really wanted to do was dance around the truck, squealing. The truck was a wonderful gift.

I pulled my head out of the inside and checked the tires. They were big with heavy, knobby treads. More than enough for Mountain Road in the snow. Harrison’s generosity made me even more determined to help the old man find out about his child.

“Let’s go,” I said to the boys. Owen came to the edge of the seat, looked at the ground and jumped. “Nice,” I said.

Hercules came to the end of the seat, looked down and looked at me, meowing pitifully. I scooped him up in my arms and shut the door with my hip just as Roma pulled into the driveway.

She got out of the SUV and pushed her sunglasses up on her head.

“Why do you have my old truck?” she asked. Then she stopped, studied the old Ford and said, “It’s not mine, is it?”

“Nope,” I said. “For now it’s mine. Want a cup of coffee?”

“Please.”

We walked around the house. Owen was on the top step. There was no sign of Hercules, which meant he’d decided not to wait. Why wait to be let in when you can just walk through the door?

Inside I poured a cup of coffee for Roma and another for myself and we sat at the table. Owen had disappeared but I could see Hercules’ whiskers as he lurked by the living room doorway.

“So, how do you have one of the trucks like my old one?” Roma asked.

“Harry Taylor. It’s his. He loaned it to me.” I ran my finger around the rim of my cup. “Tell me you found something useful,” I said, although I knew she hadn’t. If she had, she would’ve said so the minute she saw me in the driveway.

Roma shook her head, confirming what I’d suspected. “Nothing. Truck number one is out of state. Truck number two is driven only in the summer—trust me, I saw it. It’s covered in bird droppings. And truck number three has been cut down to drive in the woods. It doesn’t have a roof anymore.” She leaned back in the chair. “It’s covered with a tarp, sitting in a snowbank.”

I squeezed my forehead with my thumb and two fingers. I was so sure I’d been on to something.

“For what it’s worth, I thought we were going to find something.”

“Me, too.”

“Maybe there was another truck?”

“Do you really think so?” I sighed, which sent my bangs airborne.

“Not really.”

I raked my fingers through my hair.

“Rebecca did a great job with your hair,” Roma said.

“Yeah, she did. I can finally get it back into a ponytail. And I admit I’ve eaten the occasional sardine with the cats. Susan claims sardines will make their fur shiny. Maybe it works for my hair.”

Roma made a face.

“Well, I wouldn’t expect you to eat sardines,” I said. “Especially since you’re so hot and heavy with Eddie Sweeney.”

Her face turned a cute shade of pink. “I don’t think there’s a single person in Mayville Heights who hasn’t heard the story of my torrid affair with Eddie Sweeney, the famous hockey player.” She shook her head, drained her cup and set it on the table.

“Winterfest is almost over,” I said. “As soon as Fake Eddie is out of the community center, gossip about you and the real Eddie will stop.”

Roma stood up. “I need to get to the clinic,” she said. “Call me if there’s anything else I can do to help Ruby.”

I promised I would and thanked her for the help. As soon as she was out the door Hercules stuck his head all the way around the living room trim.

“She’s gone,” I said. He walked over to me. “We’re back to square one.”

I pulled my hands through my hair again. Roma was right. Rebecca was a great hairdresser. All I had to do most days was wash my hair and put a little gel in it.

And then it was as though all the little pieces fell into the proper slots. What had the waitress said about Eric’s friend? He was cute. He needed a shave. He was wearing a peacoat and his dark hair was slicked back in a ponytail.

I knew who it was.

I grabbed the edge of the table. I knew who Eric had been with. I knew who’d killed Agatha.

A feeling of dread, like I’d swallowed a concrete block, settled in my stomach.

Not only did I know who’d killed Agatha. I was fairly sure I even knew why.

I
drove to the café. I was a little rusty shifting gears, but I only ground the transmission once and got safely through all the stop signs. I left the truck at the corner, near the alley where Agatha had died, so I wouldn’t have to ease my way out of a tight parking spot when my clutch skills were still rusty.

I’d seen Peter having breakfast a fair number of times at the café. If I was lucky, he’d be there and I could talk to him before I spoke to Eric.

Luck was on my side. Peter was sitting at the same table he’d been at the night Agatha had come into the restaurant. I shook my head at Claire and walked over to him. The leather aviator jacket was hanging on the back of his chair. I wasn’t wrong. It was definitely the jacket I’d seen at Agatha’s house.

“Why did Agatha fire you?” I asked. I probably should have at least said hello, but I was in a hurry.

He looked up at me. “Why would that be any of your business, assuming she did fire me?”

“Was it because you tried to talk her out of leaving all her money to Ruby’s boyfriend?”

“Again, why would that be any of your business?” he said. The only thing that gave him away was the briefest twitch at one corner of his mouth.

“It isn’t,” I said. “But I don’t want to see Ruby go to jail for something she didn’t do, and since I can’t come up with any other reason for you to have been at her get-out-of-jail lunch, I don’t think you do, either.”

He picked up his coffee, took a sip and set the cup down. Then he looked at me again. “Hypothetically speaking, if Agatha
had
come to me, wanting to leave her money to Justin Anders, I would likely have strongly advised her against making that change.”

“Agatha didn’t like to be told what to do.”

“No, she didn’t,” he said.

I stuffed my gloves into my pocket. “And if she went somewhere outside of Mayville to have a new will made—hypothetically, of course—someone would have had to take her. And maybe whoever that was figured out what she was going to do.”

His expression changed as he got what I was suggesting. He looked down at the table, his fingers squeezing the edge of the mug. “Can you prove it?” he asked.

“Not yet,” I said.

“How can I help?”

I shifted from one foot to the other. I needed to talk to Eric before it got busy. “You could call the lawyer Agatha went to see. You could ask if anyone there saw who drove her. And you could call Detective Gordon if you find out anything.”

“I could,” he said.

I hoped that meant he would.

I had to know about the jacket. “Why did you take the jacket?” I asked, gesturing to the back of the chair. “I know it was Agatha’s brother’s jacket. Were you that angry with her?” I waited for him to tell me it was none of my business.

He didn’t.

“I didn’t take the jacket. I asked David for it. The last time I saw Agatha—the night she died—she told me that old peacoat I was wearing wasn’t warm enough,” he said, his voice surprisingly thick with emotion. “She wanted me to go over to the house with her to get this jacket. I . . . I said no.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve wondered since then, Would she have even been anywhere near that alley if I’d gone?”

He shook his head and looked around for Claire. “I have to go. I have phone calls to make.” He gave me an appraising look. “Don’t do anything stupid, Kathleen,” he said.

I walked over to the counter. Eric looked like himself again. His hair wasn’t poking up every which way, his eyes were clear and the dragging tiredness was gone. His face went closed and tight when he saw me.

“I need to talk to you,” I said, deliberately keeping my voice neutral

“Susan told me,” he said. “I don’t have the time right now.”

“I was at the Drink last night,” I said. I didn’t add anything cutesy like, “heard of the place?”

The only thing in Eric’s face that shifted were his eyes. They narrowed and met mine directly for a change. He beckoned Claire over. “Cover for me, please. I need to talk to Kathleen for a minute.”

“Sure,” she said.

I followed Eric into his office, trying not to be too obvious as I looked around for Agatha’s envelope. I didn’t see it.

He faced me in front of the desk. “Kathleen, I know you know that I had a drink—well, a lot of drinks—the night Agatha died.”

“I don’t think you had anything to do with her death,” I said.

“But you think the person I was with did.”

“Yes, I do.”

He shook his head. “You’re wrong.”

“No, I’m not.” I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

He shook his head again but didn’t say anything.

I squeezed my hands together for a moment; then I took a deep breath and said it. “It was Justin.”

The only thing that gave Eric away was the brief flick of his eyes toward the floor. It was enough.

“You and Justin go way, way back,” I said. “Back to when you were teenagers, back to when you were both drinking. Back before Agatha saved you.”

His expression hardened, his lips a tight, thin line.

“Justin was like you. He’d been sober long time, but something made him take that first drink again.” I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “I don’t know why. Maybe it was the stress of trying to get the camp off the ground. Maybe it was the loss of his funding. It doesn’t really matter why he started drinking again.”

I wanted to move, to walk around, but the office was too small. “Eric,” I said. “Agatha died alone in the alley just down the street. She didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”