“Merow!” he exclaimed with great enthusiasm, which was probably more for the jar of peanut butter I’d just taken down from the cupboard than for my idea.
Once I had a cup of hot chocolate that was actually hot and a piece of peanut butter toast, I went back to the computer to see what I could find about Marshall and Diana Holmes.
Marshall Holmes was Charles’s only child. He’d taken over his father’s grocery store chain and managed to make the business even more successful, something that often didn’t happen when a business was handed down from parent to child.
Diana Holmes was the senior Holmes’s stepdaughter, the only child of his second wife, Catherine. Charles Holmes had raised Diana from the time she was eight years old and by all accounts considered her to be his child in every way. Diana Holmes ran the Charles and Catherine Holmes Charitable Foundation and had increased its endowment by almost thirty percent in the five years she’d been in charge.
There were so many photos of both Marshall and Diana online. Marshall sweaty and beaming after a marathon, cutting a ribbon at the opening of a new store, and giving the eulogy at his father’s funeral wearing a dark suit and somber expression. There was Diana in a short sequined dress with a ventriloquist’s dummy in a variety show for charity, and serving at a downtown Chicago soup kitchen.
“So we know both Diana and Marshall Holmes are successful,” I said to the cat, letting him lick a dab of peanut butter from my finger. “But what are they like as people?”
He was too busy getting every bit of peanut butter to have an opinion.
I thought about my encounters with Marshall and Diana. They had both been very pleasant and well spoken, but something about the way they had interacted had made me wonder if they were in agreement on how to handle Charles Holmes’s art collection. According to what I was reading online, it had been left equally to both of them.
I lifted my hair and let it fall against my neck. “So. Any ideas?” I said to Owen.
His response was to hop down off my lap and head for the back door. It was a warm evening so I’d left it open. He headed purposefully into the porch. After a moment I heard him meow. Clearly he wanted out and didn’t really care if I learned any more about the Holmes siblings.
“I’m coming,” I said.
Owen was sitting in front of the outside door. I opened it for him, but instead of going outside he just poked his head out, looked across the back lawn and meowed.
“Go if you’re going, please,” I said.
He didn’t move.
“Owen,” I said sharply. “I’m not you’re doorman . . . doorwoman, doorperson, whatever the politically correct term is. In or out.”
He looked up at me, his tail whipping across the floor in annoyance. Then he looked across the yard again and meowed once more.
And then I got it. “I could call Rebecca,” I said slowly. “She might know something about Diana and Marshall Holmes. It’s possible Everett knew Charles Holmes.”
Owen turned and headed back to the kitchen, making muttering sounds all the way. Trust a cat to want to have the last word.
I sat down on the bench by the window in the porch and took my cell out of my pocket.
“Hello, my dear, how are you?” Rebecca asked when she answered the phone.
“I’m well, Rebecca,” I said. “How are you?” Hearing her voice automatically made me smile.
“Well, at the moment I’m beating the pants off Everett at Texas Hold’em,” she said.
“She cheats,” I heard Everett call in the background.
Rebecca laughed. “He’s not losing graciously.”
“That’s because you’re cheating,” he countered.
“I won’t keep you,” I said. “I was hoping you might be able to get a little information for me.”
“Does this have something to do with everything that’s happened at the library?” she asked, lowering her voice a little.
“Yes,” I said, wondering if this was such a good idea after all. I didn’t want to put her in any kind of conflict with Everett.
“I’d love to help, my dear. What do you need? And don’t worry about Everett.”
“How do you manage to read my mind?” I asked.
“It’s my secret power,” she said. I could imagine her smiling as she said the words.
“Well I’m glad you’re using it for good and not for evil,” I teased.
“So how can I help?”
“Do you know anything about Marshall or Diana Holmes?” Owen was sitting at my feet, intently watching my face.
“I know Everett did some business with their father, Charles. That’s how the exhibit ended up coming to the library. I can certainly find out more about them.”
I pulled my free hand down over the back of my head. “I don’t want to put you in a difficult position, Rebecca.”
She laughed, and somehow the warmth of the sound came through the phone at me. “Oh, Kathleen, there’s nothing difficult about playing a nosy old lady. Give me a day and I’ll see what I can find out for you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’m happy to help.”
We said good night and I hung up the phone.
I went back into the kitchen to discover a guilty-looking Owen under the table and the garbage can tipped over on the floor.
“Owen!” I exclaimed.
This wasn’t the first time Owen had tipped over the trash, although he hadn’t done it in a while. The last time, he’d leapt on the can in an ill-advised effort to snag a scarf from the hooks by the door.
He hung his head, but I could see one eye watching to gauge how mad I was.
I set the can upright and sent a stern look in the cat’s direction. “Don’t do that again,” I warned. “Or it won’t be Hercules who’s making your chickens disappear.”
I cleaned up the mess and then went to the sink to wash my hands. I felt a furry body wind around my ankles. I bent down and picked Owen up.
“Merow?” he said, cocking his head to one side.
“I’m still mad at you,” I said.
He leaned forward and nuzzled the side of my face.
“I am,” I insisted. “You can’t jump up onto the garbage can. You’re not one of the Flying Wallendas. Next time I go to the thrift store I’ll get you a scarf.”
His response was to lick my chin. I couldn’t help feeling that somehow I’d just been had.
I set Owen back on the floor and he walked over to the back door and looked in the direction of Rebecca’s little house. Then he turned his wide golden eyes on me.
“She’s in,” I told him. “The game is afoot.”
20
I was just coming around the side of the carriage house in the morning, heading back to my truck and feeling very grateful for my boots because it had rained overnight and it looked like it was going to start again, when Marcus called.
“Hi,” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m up at Wisteria Hill,” I said, wiping my feet on the grass by the front of the old building before walking back to the truck. “I just fed Lucy and the others.”
“Roma’s out of town?” he said. “Where did she go? When did that happen?” He’d suddenly switched into what I thought of as cop mode, for some reason.
“She’s not out of town,” I said, opening the truck door and tossing the bag with the food dishes onto the floor on the passenger side. “She had an early surgery so I volunteered to come up.”
I brushed off my jeans and slid behind the wheel. “Did you need Roma for something? Is Micah okay?”
“She’s fine,” he said. “She swiped part of a piece of toast off my plate this morning, but other than her possible criminal bent, she’s fine.”
It had taken a little persuasion from Roma and me to get Marcus to adopt the small ginger tabby, but they made a good pair. She brought out the softer side of him that a lot of people didn’t always get to see.