“Isn’t Marlowe Paul Truitt’s cat?” I asked Harry.
“Yes, Marlowe belongs to Paul Truitt. At least, he did.” Harry put a macchiato down on the kitchen table in front of me. He took a deep breath. “Mrs. Griffin found him unconscious yesterday evening in his bookshop. By the time the paramedics got him to the hospital he was gone.”
I’d been reaching for the coffee, but now my hand hung suspended in the air. Harry’s housekeeper stared mutely into the omelet pan, her grief evident in the set of her mouth and the defeated slope of her shoulders. Mrs. Griffin was more than a housekeeper. Harry and I both considered her part of the family. I would have wanted to be there for her.
“Why didn’t someone call me?”
Harry sat down. “You’ve been rather preoccupied with rehearsals.”
That was true. Our stage manager had scheduled several days of long rehearsals, which I secretly welcomed. Shakespeare always intimidated me. I appreciated having extra time to get into my character. I’d even taken to wearing the heavy, cummerbundlike belt our costume designer envisioned for my character, Benedict, every day.
“Are you all right, Jake?”
I nodded, finally taking a sip of my macchiato. “Was it an accident? A heart attack?”
Harry shook his head. “No.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“It looks like Paul was poisoned.”
Although I wanted to know more, one look at Mrs. Griffin’s grief-stricken face kept me silent.
“I know you’re going into tech rehearsals,” Harry’s glance settled on Benedict’s belt, “but I’m hoping you can help me look into this.”
The play would be opening in two weeks. Usually, Harry let up on me right before openings, even though I’m the legman for his Pittsburgh-based law practice and the various investigations he conducts for his rich and famous friends. But this was different. “What do you want me to do?”
“I’ll find out what I can from my sources at the police. Mrs. Griffin said Paul had been distracted lately. See if you can find out what, if anything, was amiss in his life.”
“Does he have any family?”
The housekeeper put the Western omelet down in front of me. “No, there’s no family. I guess I was the closest friend he had.”
She’d met the bookseller when our late aunt, Agatha, sent her to pick up an antique book at Everything Old, Paul’s used bookshop. I suspect Aunt Agatha had wanted to get the two together. Although romance never blossomed, strong friendship did.
“Is Lucy minding the store?” I’d start with Paul’s part-time help.
The housekeeper joined us at the table. “No. The police are keeping it closed for now.”
The omelet was as delicious as always and I took a few mouthfuls before asking, “Paul owned the building, didn’t he?”
Mrs. Griffin nodded. “He did.”
“So what happens to it now?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Harry cleared his throat and looked meaningfully at me. “Well, the fact is, it belongs to Mrs. Griffin.”
I dropped my fork. Mrs. Griffin gasped.
“Paul asked me to draw up a new will a year ago,” Harry said to the housekeeper. “You were his only close friend. He asked me not to tell you. He wanted you to have the building and the inventory — and Marlowe.”
Tears trickled down Mrs. Griffin’s face. I pulled open my unused napkin and gave it to her. “It’s good you were in his life,” I offered. There wasn’t anything else I could think to say and, in truth, Harry’s last words had finally registered. Marlowe was Mrs. Griffin’s cat now.
After breakfast I excused myself and walked back to the carriage house Aunt Agatha had left me upon her death. There was work to do.
The police would be looking for anyone with a motive. Harry would have to tell them about Mrs. Griffin’s inheritance, and she’d become a prime suspect, the only person to gain from his death. As far as we knew.
I opened my laptop and e-mailed Everything Old’s part-time sales clerk. A minute later Lucy messaged me, suggesting we meet at the Starbucks in Oakland, near campus.
When I walked in she waved me over.
“What do you want to know?” Her spiked hair sported purple streaks — a change from the green ones she’d had when I’d last been in the bookshop.
“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me how Paul has been doing lately. Mrs. Griffin thought something was on his mind, but she didn’t know what.”
Lucy thought for a moment. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, had there been any new customers? Someone who seemed odd or suspicious?”
She shook her head. “Just the regulars, and college students, like me.”
I noticed a tear forming at the corner of her eye and, for the second time that morning, I offered my napkin.
Lucy dabbed it daintily, reminding me of an Oscar Wilde heroine, perhaps Gwendolyn or Cecily, despite her hair and a new nose ring.
After waiting another minute I prodded: “Paul’s customers?”
“Oh, yeah. Just what I said. No one new.”
I could tell there was something more Lucy had to say and I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Luckily, she offered it up.
“I guess Jeff Grogan will be happy now,” she said.
“Jeff Grogan?”
“The President of HDC.”
“Of what?”
“The Hayesfield Development Corporation.” Lucy took a sip of her iced drink, then another.
I gave up waiting for her to say more. “Why will Mr. Grogan be happy?”
“He wanted Paul to sell him the bookshop building. They got into a big argument about it last week.” She took another sip.
I fought the urge to do my best stage double take. “Did you tell the police this?”
“I did. Do you think he would have hurt Paul?”
Once, I’d been as innocent as she was. Now I felt every bit my thirty-odd years. In my work for Harry I’d seen apparently good people do very bad things. The reasons why never made sense to anyone but themselves.
Lucy told me where I could find Grogan. “What’s going to happen to the cat?” she asked, her relief evident when I told her he was Mrs. Griffin’s now.
Grogan’s offices, in a newly remodeled two-story building, were only a few blocks away from the bookstore. A receptionist showed me to the small conference room behind her station. A minute later Jeff Grogan bounded in.
I’d been expecting some old, practiced politician, but he didn’t look old or anything like a politician. His opened flannel shirt revealed a Thirty Seconds to Mars tee underneath. Strategically tom blue jeans and nondescript scuffed sneakers completed the campus casual look. Only the deeply etched furrows of his forehead betrayed he wasn’t in college anymore.
After introductions, Grogan shouted to the receptionist for a pot of coffee. He turned back to me. “You have questions about, um, about Paul Truitt?”
He’d sounded saddened over the phone. As an actor, I’d employed those same pauses, hesitations, and inflections to convey my character’s sorrow on stage. They’d come from a lifetime observing others in the throes of grief or regret. Perhaps Grogan was as good an actor, but if not, I thought it best to come right to the point.
“You had an argument with Paul in his shop last week. What was it about?”
I filed away Grogan’s surprised expression for use on stage.
“Yes. I guess Lucy told you.”
There was fondness and hope in the way he’d said “Lucy.” Sadly, I hadn’t sensed the same when she’d spoken Grogan’s name. I hoped I was wrong. Unrequited love could be crushing. I’d been fortunate to play Konstantin Treplev in a summer theater production of Chekhov’s The Seagull and had spent two solid weeks channeling the pain and anguish rejection causes.