Owen lifted his head, looked around my legs, then sat down and started carefully washing his face.
“Ms. Paulson,” a voice said behind me. Detective Gordon.
I closed my eyes for a second, pulled in a deep breath and slowly blew it out. Then I turned around, pasting a pleasant, innocent expression on my face.
The detective headed toward us.
“We are not finished,” I hissed to Owen, bending to tug at my shoe as a cover so the police officer couldn’t catch me talking to a cat.
Without really thinking about it, I tucked the piece of fringe into the back pocket of my pants.
“Good morning, Detective,” I said.
He looked at Owen, who continued washing his face. I didn’t think I’d ever seen the cat be quite so meticulous about his face washing in, well, ever.
“Is that your cat?” the detective asked.
“Yes, that’s Owen,” I said.
“Hello, puss.” He held out his hand for Owen to sniff. Owen ignored it and continued his elaborate face-washing routine.
The detective gave a slight shrug and straightened. “Ms. Paulson, I have a couple more questions, if you don’t mind.”
I wondered what he’d do if I said I did mind. Instead I said only, “Go ahead.”
“Tuesday morning, how did you get into the theater?”
“Through the side door.”
“Did you touch the alarm panel?”
“I didn’t know there was an alarm panel.” Why wasn’t he writing this down? Was his memory that good, or was he more interested in my reaction to the questions than my answers? Owen finally finished washing his face.
“Did you turn on any lights?” Detective Gordon asked, pushing his rolled shirtsleeves back a bit more. His forearms were deeply tanned.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Do you remember which lights were on?”
I closed my eyes for a second and let the image of the Stratton fill my head. “There was one light by the side door and several of the stage lights were on. That’s how I noticed that little silver musical note.”
“Is that it?”
In my mind I looked out over the audience seating. “No,” I said slowly. “There was a light—not very bright—at the back of the theater.”
I held up both hands to put the image in perspective. “This side,” I said, wiggling my left fingers. I opened my eyes. “The light was on the left as you look toward the back of the audience.”
He nodded. Did that mean I’d given the right answer?
Owen was still leaning against my leg. I bent down and picked him up. Detective Gordon held out his hand again. Owen shifted in my arms, and his attention focused on something just over my right shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Owen doesn’t like to be touched by anyone other than me. He was feral. Both cats were, actually.”
“From the old Henderson estate?”
I nodded.
“How did you get them to come with you?”
I scratched under Owen’s chin. He rubbed his head against my neck, but I could still feel his body, under his fur, tensed in case he had to defend my honor by—I don’t know—jumping on Detective Gordon’s head, maybe?
“Actually, they followed me,” I said. “They were so small, and I couldn’t find their mother.” Owen licked my chin then. It tickled and I laughed.
“They followed you?” The detective seemed . . . surprised. “I’ve never seen any of the cats out there come anywhere close to a person—not even Dr. Davidson.”
It was my turn to look surprised. “You’ve been out to Wisteria Hill?”
He stared at his feet, his face suddenly tinged with pink. “A few of us have been helping Dr. Davidson.”
He’d been helping Roma. Damn! That made it harder to dislike the man.
Owen started squirming, so I set him on the grass. He headed for the house.
“Detective Gordon, would you like a cup of coffee?” I asked. He was helping Roma. It seemed wrong to hold a grudge. “I made muffins. Blueberry.”
He smiled. “I would love a cup of coffee,” he said. “And I wouldn’t say no to a blueberry muffin.”
We crossed the yard to the back door, where Owen was waiting. He followed us into the kitchen. The detective leaned against the counter while I poured coffee. The cat sat by the refrigerator, eyeing the remaining cat treats still on the wire cooling rack. I handed Detective Gordon a plate and dipped my head in the direction of the muffins. “Help yourself,” I said.
I set the mugs on the table and turned to find him about to pop a sardine-flavored kitty treat into his mouth. I burst out laughing.
He looked at me in surprise, cat cracker halfway to his mouth.
“I meant help yourself to a muffin,” I managed to choke out between laughing fits. “But if you prefer sardine-and-cheese cat snacks, that’s okay, too.”
He dropped the cracker as though it had suddenly ignited.
Owen was across the floor in a flash. He snatched the cat snack and retreated back to the fridge, where he set it on the floor.
“Sorry,” the detective mumbled. “They smelled so good.”
“Yeah, there’s nothing like the smell of sardines in the morning.” I snickered. I reached behind him, set two muffins on the empty plate and put it on the table by his cup.
Owen had already eaten the cracker and licked all the crumbs from the floor. He watched Detective Gordon pull the paper off one of the muffins and break it in half.
Since the detective had taken a break from asking questions, I decided I might as well ask a few of my own. “Detective, did Mr. Easton somehow get into the storage area at my library?”
To his credit, he didn’t even look surprised by the question. “It looks that way,” he said, before taking a mouthful of coffee.
“Was that his blood on the floor?”
“I’m not sure yet. There may be more than one sample.”
I drank from my own cup. “But you found something else that tells you he was there, more than the cuff link.” His mouth was full of muffin now so he just nodded.
I flashed back to the night before as I’d tried to rub my fingerprints off the door like some crazed criminal. “You found his fingerprints,” I said.
“Very good,” he said, brushing crumbs from his mouth.
I needed more coffee. I got up, refilled my mug and leaned across the table to top up the detective’s. “Thanks,” he said.
I sat back down, glancing over at Owen, who had moved a few steps closer to us.
“Do you know yet how he died? Did he have a heart attack?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t a heart attack.”
I gripped my cup tightly with both hands. “That gash on his head. Someone hit him.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say it was natural causes, either. And you wouldn’t still be asking questions if you thought it was.”
He nodded. “True.” He started carefully peeling the paper cup off the second muffin. “Okay, I can tell you Mr. Easton’s death is suspicious.”
I’d kind of already figured that out. “Are you going to arrest me?” I asked.
That question didn’t seem to surprise the detective, either. “No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Excuse me?” He’d been watching Owen out of the corner of his eye.
“Why aren’t you going to arrest me?” I really did want to know. I wasn’t asking just to needle him—well, not for the most part.
“Harry Taylor saw you walking up here at about eight thirty. Mrs. Nixon said your lights went on just as Entertainment Tonight was ending. And Dr. Davidson saw them go off about eleven thirty, as she was leaving Mrs. Nixon’s house.” He ticked off each person on the fingers of his left hand.
I remembered waving to Young Harry, who had passed me as I walked up the road, but I wouldn’t have been able to say if Rebecca’s lights had been on or if Roma’s car had been in her driveway. It was a good thing that they were more observant than I was.