“Can I see more?”
“Not tonight, you didn’t come to read poetry,” she said, looking deep into his eyes. “What’s happened?” she said. “What’s the matter?”
“Debbie Kraft. Arrived at midnight. Enough luggage to stay a year.”
She gave him a sympathetic nudge. “Ryan and Clyde don’t need this. You think they’ll let her stay? But she must be devastated, grieving for her mother. No matter what Billy says about Debbie never seeing her.”
“She didn’t sound devastated. She sounded rude and pushy.”
Dulcie was quiet a moment, then, “I was thinking about the fire, about Emmylou prowling in the rubble. About the tin box she apparently took from Hesmerra’s, the Kraft Realty papers. Wilma was talking with Chichi Barbi, and she said Hesmerra applied with her for a job.” Chichi Barbi had, late last year, bought Charlie Harper’s cleaning service, Charlie’s Fix It, Clean It. “Chichi said when she hired Hesmerra, the old woman dickered and argued about locations and hours. Said she was dead set to get on the crew that cleans the house of one of the Kraft Realtors. And then later, the minute the Realtor moved away, Hesmerra quit her job.”
Dulcie gave him a sly smile. “Next thing you know, Hesmerra’s working nights for the firm that cleans the Kraft offices. And now, Kraft papers turn up in her burned house? How does that add up?”
“How indeed,” Joe said. “Particularly when her two daughters are married to the two owners of Kraft Realty?”
“When Wilma suggested Hesmerra used her pull with one of her daughters to get the Kraft job, Chichi said she doubted it. Said those girls aren’t friendly with their mother. And, she said, Kraft has a strict policy about hiring family. She thought the cleaning company didn’t know who Hesmerra was.”
Joe said, “Maybe Erik Kraft put in a word, bent the rules to help her out? Or, again, maybe he didn’t have a clue. And, if she did lift those papers, what did she mean to do with them?” He licked his whiskers, thinking. “First she cleans for one of the Kraft Realtors, then turns up cleaning the Kraft offices. Then she turns up dead. Which Realtor’s house?”
“That Alain Bent woman, the tall elegant one. That painted white brick up on the hill above where Ryan and Clyde bought their last cottage, where so many houses went vacant, that’s her house.” Dulcie rose from the computer. “Alain Bent and Erik Kraft worked together, they were sales partners, like a team, until she left the village. She kept the house, maybe until prices go up. Come on, I’ll show you, their picture’s spread all over.” Leaping down, she pushed open the inner door to the big, echoing reading room.
The high-raftered room seemed vast when it was empty of patrons and lit by only the soft glow of the moon shining in through the tall windows; moonlight threw twisted tree shadows across the reading tables, and across the leather couches that stood empty before the tall stone fireplace.
On the table nearest to the magazine racks, Dulcie had laid out half a dozen brightly colored Molena Point magazines. They were older copies, as if the newest volumes were still on some librarian’s desk. Each was open to a two-page real estate ad, the corners of the pages dimpled by the marks of little cat teeth. The full-color ads, arranged with four elegant residences to a page, included all the best real estate offices in the village, and each ad included a picture of the listing salesperson. In nine Kraft Realty spreads, partners Alain Bent and Erik Kraft were featured together, in their handsome two-agent sales pitch. Both were tall and slim, Alain’s dark hair sleeked back in a chignon at the nape of her neck, her black business suit trim and well tailored. Erik’s black hair was short, neatly trimmed, his sport coat casual and expensive, his open collar showing a deep tan. In one shot he was wearing white shorts and a white polo shirt, his legs and arms tanned and well muscled.
“Nice-looking couple,” Joe said suspiciously. “Debbie’s ex-husband, and his beautiful sales partner.”
Dulcie’s tail twitched, and she smiled a wicked little cat smile. “You’re thinking he could have left Debbie for Alain?”
Joe shrugged. Who knew, with humans?
“So,” she said. “What does this add up to? Erik Kraft and Alain Bent work their listings together. Hesmerra stole papers from the Kraft offices, and was snooping in Alain Bent’s house, then turns up murdered. Emmylou Warren steals the papers. Hesmerra’s two sons-in-law own Kraft Realty. And, to add to the mix, Debbie Kraft arrives in the village just two days after her mother is poisoned.”
Joe rose and began to pace, padding across the magazine pages looking down at them as if the puzzle might be all laid out before him, but not yet making sense. Dulcie had started to speak when she spun around. Together they stared across the room at the tall windows as a scratching sound was repeated, soft but insistent.
A branch swung against the glass where no other branches moved, there was no wind to stir its wild sweeping back and forth; then they saw the dark shape swinging on it, riding the pine limb. The branch went flying as Kit dropped to the windowsill.
She pressed her face to the glass, looking in. When she saw Joe and Dulcie her tail lashed with impatience, and she disappeared again, dropping to the ground. In a moment they heard the cat door swinging, and Kit came bolting through into the reading room. She leaped to the table, sliding on the slick magazines and nearly careening over the side.
“What’s all this? What are you doing? When I couldn’t find you I went to Joe’s house and in on the rafter but you have company, a woman talking and talking real shrill and a whining kid, and when I went in Ryan’s studio Rock and Snowball were huddled up on the daybed so miserable they scared me, and then I saw the picture on the mantel standing up beside a letter and I jumped up and—”
“Slow down!” Dulcie and Joe yowled together.
“Who was that woman?” Kit said, her yellow eyes wide. “I read the letter, what nerve. But—”
Joe said, “You saw the red tomcat, the picture of him.”
“He looks like Misto, only younger,” Kit said. “Red stripes instead of yellow and Misto said his son was that color and his name was Pan and I raced out to find you and they lived in Eugene where that letter came from, too. He looks like Misto and did you see he has exactly the same mark on his shoulder and the letter said he just got lost and they didn’t even look for him, they didn’t try to find him, they didn’t care where he went, they didn’t care if he’s hurt or dead and—”
“Slow down, Kit!” Dulcie hissed, her ears flat.
Kit tried, but she couldn’t contain her excitement. “If he lived in that nursing home we can find him on the computer, there are all kinds of things about cats and dogs in nursing homes and hospitals and—”
“Stop!” Dulcie cried, losing patience; of course Kit was right, she’d seen hundreds of entries about animals in hospitals, cats in a children’s hospital, therapy animals—if she could just find this cat, this particular nursing home. Leaping down, she raced for Wilma’s office, Joe and Kit right on her tail, and the three crowded onto the desk around the computer.
It took her a while, her paws pinched tight as she carefully pressed the keys, pulling up a number of subjects until she’d found the Eugene nursing home and then a clip about their amazing therapy cat. Kit was so fascinated she pawed eagerly at the screen, her eyes widening at the young red tom, who was held in the arms of a white-coated doctor—a strapping red tabby with a thoughtful expression, his knowing look far wiser than that of any ordinary cat. And the pattern on his shoulder was just the same as Misto’s, a clear medallion of concentric swirls narrowing in toward the center. Kit was so excited she was shivering. “We have to tell Misto, we have to go right now and wake him up and show him the picture and—”