“Oh, he can’t hurt anything,” Rebecca said.
“You spoil him and Owen,” I said, frowning in mock annoyance at her.
Since my attention was diverted, Hercules decided it would be a good time to give the tote a poke with his paw. That was enough for me. I moved to pick him up just as the bag slid down the chair leg and toppled over. A small plastic baggie fell out. Hercules swatted it with a paw and it skidded across the floor, stopping at my feet.
“Very, very bad,” I said to the cat, who didn’t look the slightest bit repentant. I bent down to pick up the baggie. Inside were five chocolate-dipped chocolate chip cookies that I recognized as coming from Fern’s Diner. I straightened up and looked inquiringly at Rebecca.
She didn’t quite meet my gaze.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
There were two spots of color high on her cheekbones. “I don’t suppose you would believe that I don’t know how those cookies got in my bag?” she said. The look on her face reminded me of Owen the last time he’d decapitated a Fred the Funky Chicken and scattered bits of dried catnip all over the living room.
I pointed a finger at Hercules. “There will be consequences.”
He made a soft murp and seemed to shrug, almost as though he were trying to say he didn’t really think so.
I sat down again, setting the cookies on the table, and reached over to catch Rebecca’s hands in mine. “What’s going on?” I asked again.
Rebecca pursed her lips and met my gaze this time. “I’m a weak old woman.”
I shook my head. “You are not old and you most definitely are not weak. You’re one of the strongest women—one of the strongest people I know.”
That got me a small smile. “Do you remember me telling you that my doctor wants me to cut back on the sweets a little? And by the way, my mother had a sweet tooth and she ate cookies until the day she died and she was just fine.” Her chin jutted out just a little. I’d seen that defiant pose before.
I waited without speaking. Rebecca cleared her throat. “I guess that isn’t really relevant,” she said after a minute. “I’m, uh . . . I’m having a hard time following his instructions.”
“You’ve been buying cookies at Fern’s.” I tapped the baggie with a finger.
She nodded. “I can’t make cookies at home. Everett has a nose like a bloodhound. I’ve been getting half a dozen at a time and . . . having them when I’m not home so he doesn’t find out. He’d be so disappointed in me.”
“You can’t really believe that,” I said, giving her hands another squeeze and then sitting back in my chair. “That man is bear-poop crazy about you. You could go downtown right now and rob the Wells Fargo Bank and Everett would say it was their fault for having all that money inside.”
“Bear-poop crazy?” Rebecca said, a smile pulling at her lips.
“Harrison Taylor’s description, not mine,” I said. “But the words are accurate.”
Her expression grew serious again. “I’m disappointed in myself, Kathleen.”
“I get it,” I said. “I really do. I’ve never met a brownie I didn’t like.”
“Merow,” Hercules said, adding his two cents to the discussion.
I smiled. “And Hercules would not want to have to give up sardine crackers. He’s always trying to find a way to sneak a couple more as it is.” And as simple as that, I knew what had happened.
“You haven’t been eating cookies at home, so where have you been eating them?” I asked.
Rebecca blushed again. “I’ve ducked into the co-op store several times as well as the library. I’m sorry. I promise I didn’t touch any books with my sticky fingers.”
Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I got up and put my arms around her shoulders. “How about this weekend we try a couple of cookie recipes with less fat and sugar than what you’ve been sneaking, cookies even your doctor would approve of. I have a couple of new cookbooks at the library.”
“You are a darling, darling girl,” Rebecca said, leaning her cheek against my arm.
I saw her eye the bag of cookies on the table. I reached over and pushed the plate of fruit closer. “It would probably be better if someone else finished those cookies.”
Right on cue, Hercules meowed loudly. Rebecca laughed as I looked down at the cat and said, “Not you.”
After Rebecca left, I changed for work, packed the last of the chicken and dumplings for lunch—along with Rebecca’s cookies—and headed over to Riverarts to tell Maggie what I’d concluded about Rebecca’s furtive behavior in the shop.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie said. I’d found her in front of her easel, working on the sketch she’d shown me the day before.
I looked at her, confused. “For what?”
“For getting you mixed up in this. For thinking, even for a moment, Rebecca would have taken anything. Or Susan for that matter.” There was paint on the tip of her index finger and she scraped at it with her thumbnail. “I’m not so sure that Nic could be the thief, either.”
“Maybe there’s another explanation.”
Maggie nodded. “I like Nic. Maybe it was just a tourist.” She picked at the paint on her finger again. “I don’t like this, thinking the worst of people.”
I tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “I think I’ve told you before that my mother has an expression that involves”—I made a hurry-up gesture with one hand—“getting on with things or getting off the pot.” My mother, Thea Paulson, was an actress and director, with a group of intensely devoted fans thanks to her appearances on the soap The Wild and Wonderful. She could be a little dramatic at times, but she was usually right.
Maggie laughed. “You have told me that before and I get it.”
“So why don’t we get off the pot and go see if Nic is in his studio so we can put an end to this?”
“Good idea,” she said.
The door to Nic’s art studio was open and he was working by the window, cutting some kind of street map out of heavy paper with an X-ACTO knife. He turned and smiled at us when Maggie knocked. “Hi, what’s up?” he asked.
“Did you steal from the store?” Maggie asked before I had time to even move beyond the threshold of the door.
Nic’s eyes widened and his mouth came open a little. He swallowed and set his knife down with a tight, precise motion. “What did I do that makes you have to ask that question, and for the record, the answer is no,” he said.
“You were working at the store a couple of days ago,” I said, “and you were acting a little . . . odd.”
His expression changed then. “Yeah, I was.” He looked at Maggie. “I didn’t want you to know. Until I was sure.”
“Know what?” she said.
Nic smoothed a hand over his closely shaven head. “I’m still not positive, but I think there might be mice in the store.”
Maggie took a step backward and folded her arms over her midsection like she was wrapping herself in a hug. She was afraid of small, furry creatures—mice, rats, moles, voles, even gerbils and hamsters.
I put a hand on her shoulder. “What makes you think so?” I said.
“You know the display shelves where we have the scarves and the placemats?”
I nodded.
“I was straightening things up and I noticed the end of one of the scarves looked a little bit chewed. And I saw some bits of dried leaves on the same shelf with the placemats.” He cleared his throat. “My dad had a problem with mice in his pawn shop and we saw the same thing. I wanted to be sure, though, before I said anything. If word got around that we had mice in the store . . .” He held up both hands. “I didn’t want to say something that would cause the tourists to stop coming, especially if it turned out I was wrong.”