I thought about Mags, touching Brady’s hand and seconding Marcus’s suggestion that Brady go to the hospital. I was very glad she’d done that.
As we came level with the parking lot, I spied Burtis Chapman’s big black truck in the parking lot with Burtis behind the wheel.
“Abigail,” I said. “I see Burtis over there. I’m just going to go talk to him for a minute.”
She nodded. “I’ll see you inside,” she said, and headed for the stairs.
I made my way across the lot, making a mental note that I needed to get Harry Taylor to spread a little more sand around, and Burtis climbed out of the truck when he saw me coming. He was wearing a heavy navy jacket and a trapper hat with earflaps.
“Hello, Kathleen,” he said as he came around the front of the truck.
I smiled. “Hello, Burtis,” I said. “Were you by any chance waiting for me?”
“Yes, I was. I wanted to say I’m sorry your fundraiser got ruined last night.”
I pulled my hat a little farther down over my ears. The air was sharply cold and the snow I’d known was coming was just beginning.
“Thank you,” I said. “But it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” I hesitated. “I’m sorry about your wife.”
“Dayna hasn’t been my wife in a long time, but I appreciate the thought.” He studied my face for a moment. “You know about me and Lita,” he said. “I know you saw us together, months ago.”
My face flooded with color as I realized Burtis must have seen my swan dive down onto the front seat of my truck the day I’d spotted him with Lita, standing this close in this same parking lot.
“I apologize,” I said, feeling like an awkward teenager. “I was just . . . surprised. I wasn’t spying. I didn’t want to embarrass the two of you.” I gestured with one hand. “So I decided it was better to embarrass myself.”
Burtis laughed. “Don’t worry about it, girl. I knew you wouldn’t be spreading my business all over town, although I wasn’t sure for a minute if you were just trying not to be seen or if maybe you were after a sandwich you’d spied on the floor.”
I laughed. “Could we pretend I was going after a sandwich?” I asked.
“Fine by me,” Burtis said with a smile. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a folded envelope, which he held out to me.
“What’s this?” I said, even though I pretty much knew.
“It’s for your reading program.”
I narrowed my eyes, studying his ruddy face. It didn’t look as though he’d shaved since the previous day, and I noticed lines pulling at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Discovering that his former wife was back in town and then having her die in such a public way had to have been difficult for Burtis.
“You already gave me a check for Reading Buddies when you bought your tickets.”
His expression hardened just a little. “And now I’m giving you another one.”
“Why?” I asked. I still hadn’t taken the envelope he was holding out.
“When someone offers you a check, you’re supposed to say thank you and take it,” Burtis said. There was just a bit of an edge to his voice. He dropped the folded envelope into my pocket.
“You’re the last person I would have expected to give me guilt money,” I said, meeting his dark eyes with the hint of a challenge in my own.
He gave a loud snort of derision. “Really? Do I look guilty to you?”
“Maybe guilty isn’t the right word,” I said. “But I do think you feel something—bad, angry frustrated, I don’t know—because of what happened last night.”
He continued to meet my gaze, never once looking away. “I think what happened last night was a damn shame—for my boys and for your fundraiser.” He fished his keys out of his jacket pocket. “I have to get down to the community center. Thorsten is waiting on me.”
I touched my own jacket pocket. “Thank you for this,” I said. I knew there really was no point in arguing about the money. He’d just do an end run around me and give the check to Lita.
“You should come by Fern’s for breakfast,” Burtis said. “I haven’t seen you there for at least a month. Weekend special this Saturday is the Big Breakfast. Best coffee in town. Don’t tell Eric Cullen I said that.” One eyebrow went up. “And the conversation can be pretty interestin’, too.”
“I might just do that,” I said.
“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” he said. He raised a hand in good-bye and walked back around the front of the big black truck. I trudged across the snowy parking lot toward the front steps of the library. I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and looked at the check inside. It was made out for more money than Burtis’s original donation.
I didn’t know if he really was motivated by guilt or something else. I just knew that first thing Saturday morning I was going to be perched on a stool at Fern’s Diner digging into the Big Breakfast and trying to dig up some answers about how Dayna Chapman had died.
6
There were two furry faces waiting for me when I got home and stepped into the kitchen. Two pairs of feline eyes, one green and one gold, looked up at me. I wasn’t so gullible that I thought the cats had actually missed me. I’d made fish cakes for supper earlier in the week and I’d cooked a little extra fish for them. I had no idea how they knew that. But they did. For all I knew, they both had X-ray vision that let them see inside the refrigerator. It wasn’t totally preposterous, given their other superpowers.
I didn’t really know how else to describe the “abilities” Hercules and Owen had, which was part of the reason why I hadn’t told anyone—not even Marcus. What was I going to say to him? “Oh, by the way, Owen can make himself invisible, and Hercules can walk through walls?”
Cats can’t dematerialize and then rematerialize at will. They can’t walk through several inches of solid wall. Except mine could.
It defied logic and reason and I had no idea why or how they could do what they did. I just knew it wasn’t the kind of information I should share with anyone.
I put my briefcase and my outside things away and then knelt down on the kitchen floor. Hercules put a paw on my knee and almost seemed to smile at me.
“How was your day?” I asked, and reached over to stroke the sleek black fur on the top of his head.
He yawned. Nothing exciting.
“Okay, how was your day?” I said to Owen, reaching over to scratch behind his ear.
His response was to turn away from my hand, shoot a daggers look at his brother and then glare at the refrigerator before finally looking back at me. He meowed loudly.
It wasn’t his “I’m so hungry” meow.
“What happened?” I said.
Owen stalked over to the refrigerator, murping continuously just under his breath. I knew those disgruntled noises meant he was irked about something. He stopped in front of the refrigerator door, sat down and looked at me again. Clearly, I was supposed to know what was wrong.
I looked at Hercules. “What’s wrong with Owen?” I asked.
Hercules yawned again, stretched and joined his brother. He stuck one white-tipped paw underneath the fridge, fished around, and then pulled it back again.
I knew that meant that Owen had lost something under the refrigerator and I had a pretty good idea what that something was.
I got to my feet. “Move,” I ordered, making a shooing gesture with my right hand. Both cats backed up.
I grabbed the wooden spoon I used for mixing up cookie dough, got down on all fours and managed to retrieve the head of a yellow Fred the Funky Chicken stuck underneath the fridge, sending it skidding across the floor, stopping right in front of Owen.