“Take care of yourself, John,” I said.
He nodded. “You too, Kathleen.”
* * *
Marcus called while I was on my supper break. He’d stopped in at the house to check on Owen and Hercules and return my stepladder. I told him about my visit with Travis and relayed his message.
“I’ll call him,” Marcus said. “Or maybe it would be better to just go see him. Thanks.” We made plans to check out a flea market after the library closed the next afternoon and I hung up.
I was no closer to figuring out who Dani was as a person. I wanted to know the real woman, not the idealized version that Marcus and his friends had told me about.
* * *
The evening was just as quiet as the rest of the day had been—sometimes Fridays were that way—and I was home a few minutes earlier than usual. I pulled on my sweats, grabbed my laptop and sat at the kitchen table. I’d just turned on the computer when a furry paw poked its way around the basement door and the rest of Owen followed. He looked surprised to see me.
“I live here,” I said. He padded over to me. I picked him up and he planted his two front paws on my chest and peered at my face. “How was your day?” I asked, as I scratched behind his left ear. He made a rumbling sound of satisfaction low in his chest. After a moment he turned to look at the computer screen.
“I wanted to see what else I could find out about Dani,” I said. “Roma pointed out that if I knew more about her as a person maybe I’d be able to figure out why someone killed her.”
Owen wrinkled up his gray tabby face. I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t think much of the idea or because I’d mentioned Roma. He’d had his shots just a couple of weeks earlier and he was still nursing a grudge at her over that.
It took an hour before I found what I was looking for. Owen sat on my lap and watched the screen intently, pawing at the air occasionally as though trying to tell me what to click on next. In the end it was luck as much as it was my good research skills and his suggestions.
American Land Trust had created a memorial page for Dani on their website. As I read the comments I began to get more of a sense of the woman. She had a great sense of humor and a penchant for playing pranks on her friends. She was a big Minnesota Wild fan and it struck me that she would have gotten a kick out of meeting Eddie.
The remembrances were all heartfelt, but one comment made my throat tighten. It was one sentence: The light has gone out of my world. Tanith Jeffery. Dani’s best friend, maybe?
It was an uncommon name, Tanith—the Phoenician goddess of love, I remembered reading somewhere, because those kinds of facts stuck in my head. And maybe in the end it wasn’t luck. Maybe it was that tiny piece of information that twigged something in my brain.
Tanith Jeffery was a jewelry designer, I learned. I found several photos of her eating ice cream and standing, arms linked with three other women, smiling into the sun at Twin Cities Pride. After that it took some leaps, but everything began to make sense.
I went into the living room and called Marcus. “I need to talk to you,” I said.
“I’m just leaving Eddie’s. I can stop in on my way home.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”
I went out to the porch to wait for him. Owen had disappeared again.
Marcus saw me as he came around the house. He waved and then stepped inside the porch, leaning down to kiss me. “What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“Waiting for you,” I said, “looking at the stars, thinking.”
“So what did you need to talk to me about?”
“Sit, please.” I gestured to the bench by the window. I sat next to him, turning so I was facing him. “I know that there was nothing going on between you and Dani when you were in college,” I said. I couldn’t see his face very well in the moonlight that was coming through the window, but it seemed to me that he blanched a little. “Her grandmother was—is—extremely conservative. I think the day Travis caught you two kissing outside her dorm room you were covering for Dani so he wouldn’t find out there was a girl in her room—a girl she was involved with.”
For a moment he didn’t say anything, then he sighed softly. “I wanted to tell you, but like I said, it wasn’t my secret to tell.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“She wasn’t sleeping with Travis. That’s why he was so angry. He thought we’d done what they weren’t doing.” His arms were propped on his legs and his hands hung between his knees. “She really did try to end things with him. Like I said, he was pressuring her for one more chance and her grandmother, who was like mother and father to Dani after her parents died, was pushing her to try to work things out. Dani adored her grandmother but the woman has very rigid beliefs. If she’d known the truth . . .” Marcus shook his head. “I don’t think Dani wanted to take the chance of losing the only family she had left. You saw for yourself what Travis can be like when he’s angry. He would have gone right to her grandmother.”
“Does John know?” I asked.
Marcus shook his head. “How did you find out?” he asked.
I told him about the comment Tanith Jeffery had written online. “It seemed pretty clear she and Dani were close. When I did a little digging I discovered that Tanith was gay. After that it was good research skills and a bit of luck.”
Marcus still looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I found a photo of a dinner at which Tanith Jeffery received a design award. She was at a table of what I take were her friends. Dani was one of them. The look on her face . . . It just didn’t feel like much of a leap to think they were involved.”
I reached over and linked my fingers through his. “I’d seen the same look on the face of one of my sister’s friends when Sara won an award for volunteering at the Boys and Girls Club. It was a mix of pride and love. When I told Sara she thought I was crazy, but I turned out to be right.”
Marcus leaned back until his head was against the wall. “Her grandmother was funding American Land Trust.”
“I know.”
He smiled at me in the near darkness. “I should have guessed you’d figure that out as well.”
“I didn’t,” I said. “Your father did. I have everything he’s come up with so far. I think you should give it to Brady.”
The smile disappeared. “My father?”
I nodded. “He’s trying to help.”
“I went to see him. I told him to go home.”
I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to see that,” he said.
“Do you think Dani was afraid that if her grandmother knew who she really was she’d cut off the money?” I asked.
He nodded. “Her biggest worry was losing what she had left of her family, but yes, she was afraid that if her brother found out he’d use the information against her. He had no idea their grandmother was basically funding everything Dani did. Dani said he wasn’t exactly the tree-hugger type.”
“Did she know you were here—in Mayville Heights? Or was meeting you at Eric’s just something that happened by chance?” Travis, at least, seemed to believe Dani had come to town to see Marcus.
Marcus turned his head to look at me. “I wondered about that, you know. She said she needed to talk to me but she hadn’t known I was here. It was just a coincidence.”
“What did she want to talk about?” I asked.
He put his arm around my shoulder and I leaned against him with my head on his shoulder. “I wish I knew,” he said.