I pointed to his paw. “Do I want to know what happened?”
He immediately put his left paw on top of his right and looked at me, blinking his big green eyes.
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “Whatever happens in the backyard stays in the backyard.”
I turned to Owen. “And how was your day?” I asked, reaching over to scratch under his chin. He gave me a blissful if slightly stoned-looking smile, and leaned in to my hand.
After I’d gotten some cat love, I went upstairs, changed into my tai chi clothes and came back down to get supper. I made a grocery list while I ate, making sure I put sardines on the list so I could make the cats’ favorite stinky crackers on the weekend.
When the dishes were done, I realized I had enough time to walk down to tai chi class. I put my shoes and a towel in my bag—after picking out a little clump of black fur—pulled on a sweater and called good-bye to the boys. They had disappeared as soon as I’d started the dishes.
Roma was coming up the sidewalk from the other direction as I got close to the artist’s co-op store. She waited for me by the door. “Hi,” she said. “I heard about this morning. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “And, technically, it was Hercules who discovered Mike Glazer’s body.” We went inside and started up the steps to the second-floor tai chi studio.
“Ruby told me she’s doing another painting of Hercules,” Roma said, running her hand through her sleek, dark bob. “I hope it brings in as much as the last one. Cat People needs the money.”
Cat People was a rescue group that worked with feral cats in this area. The fund-raiser Ruby was donating the painting to was for them.
At the top of the stairs, Roma dropped onto the bench near the coat hooks to change her shoes. I pulled off my sweater and draped it over a hook.
“How did Hercules end up over by the tents in the first place?” Roma asked, tucking her sleek brown hair behind one ear. She slid to the right and I sat down beside her.
“I didn’t have the zipper on the cat carrier closed all the way.” I felt my cheeks getting warm. “He hustled down the street, looked both ways at the curb and made a beeline for the tent.”
“At least he knew to watch for cars,” she said with a smile.
“Roma, do you think he really could have smelled . . . something at that distance?” I asked, swapping one running shoe for one of the purple canvas pull-ons I wore for class.
“It’s possible. A cat’s sense of smell is vastly superior to ours.”
“I know,” I said. “I swear Owen can sniff out a catnip chicken all the way across the backyard at Rebecca’s house.”
“And Owen and Hercules aren’t exactly typical cats either, Kathleen,” she said.
My stomach gave a little lurch. Did Roma know more about my cats’ abilities than she’d let on? “What do you mean?” I asked, as she stood up to pull her sweatshirt over her head.
“Well, they were feral, or at the very least, abandoned as young kittens.” Her voice was muffled a little by the fabric. She pulled the shirt off the rest of the way and shook her head. Her hair fell back into its shiny bob. Even with Rebecca’s expert scissors styling my hair these days, it never quite behaved like that. “And they definitely don’t have a typical house cat’s digestive system,” she added with an eyebrows-raised, sideways glance.
I felt myself relax. Roma didn’t know that Owen could disappear like a rabbit from a magician’s hat or that Hercules hadn’t just walked into Burtis’s tent; he’d walked through it.
“By the way, what was the last treat you gave Hercules?” Roma asked, still eyeing me.
“One of those stinky sardine crackers I make,” I said. “And Ruby gave him a few organic fish-shaped treats this morning, which she said you okayed.”
“Good,” she said, putting her sweatshirt over one of the coat hooks.
We walked into the studio space. Maggie was standing in the center of the room with Ruby and fifteen-year-old Taylor King. Ruby was showing them something on her cell phone. Taylor was the newest student in the class. The teenager smiled when she saw Roma.
The Kings had bought an old horse for their daughter, and Roma had spent a lot of time nursing Horton back to health. Now Taylor was interested in becoming a veterinarian.
“Hi,” Ruby said, holding up the phone. “Want to see which photo I finally decided on?”
“Yes,” I said, leaning in for a look.
“Me too,” Roma added.
Hercules was looking directly at the camera in the photograph. He was standing on Roma’s worktable with his head turned just a bit to the left with what I recognized as his “serious” expression on his black-and-white face.
“That’s perfect,” Roma said, smiling at Ruby. “I can’t wait to see the finished painting.”
“I like it,” I agreed.
“I love your cat,” Taylor said shyly. “Ruby said he came from Wisteria Hill.”
I nodded. “That’s right. So did his brother, Owen.”
“Do they like people?” she asked.
Roma rolled her eyes. “They think they are people,” she said.
Both Maggie and Ruby laughed. “Roma’s right,” I said with a smile. “They do sometimes act like they think they’re people. They just don’t like to be touched for the most part, by anyone other than me. But, yes, both Hercules and Owen like people.” I elbowed Maggie. “Especially Owen. He loves Maggie.”
Mags wrinkled her nose at me. “Which just goes to prove how smart that cat is.”
Everyone laughed at that.
I turned to Roma. “Maybe Taylor could help feed the cats out at Wisteria Hill sometime.”
The teenager’s eyes lit up. “Could I?” she asked.
“That’s a good idea,” Roma said. “We can always use another volunteer.” She pointed to Ruby’s cell phone. “Do you still have a picture of Lucy?” Lucy was the matriarch of the feral cats that lived on the Wisteria Hill estate.
“I think so,” Ruby said, bending her red and blue pigtailed head over the screen. “Let me see if I can find it.”
Maggie narrowed her gaze at me. “Excuse us a second, please,” she said. “I need Kathleen for just a minute and then we’re going to get started.” She caught my arm and all but dragged me over to the small table where she kept a kettle and a selection of herbal teas. “You didn’t tell me you were the one who found Mike’s body,” she said, frowning and propping one hand on her hip.
“It didn’t seem like the kind of thing to share in a phone message,” I said, “and, technically, Hercules found the body.” I smiled at her. “I’m fine, Mags.”
She pulled her free hand through her short blond curls. “You know I didn’t like Mike, but this is awful.”
“What’s going to happen to the pitch for the tour?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Liam’s having a meeting”—she glanced at the clock over the door—“right now with the other people on the committee.” She exhaled, lifting her bangs off her forehead. “They’re hoping that either Alex or Chris Scott—they’re Mike’s partners—will come, but I doubt it. I think they’ll probably go ahead with the food tasting and the art show anyway. There’s been so much work put into it all.”