I looked at Marcus again. “I came back here with Ruby to see if Agatha was alive.” I shook my head. “Maggie called nine-one-one, and then she took Ruby back to Eric’s. I waited for you.”
He nodded. As usual he wasn’t writing anything down. “What did you touch?”
“The collar of her coat when I felt for a pulse.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes,” I said.
A police van pulled up next to the police cruiser. Marcus looked back down the alley again. “That’s all for now,” he said. “You’ll be at the library if I have any more questions?”
I nodded.
“Thanks, Kathleen.” He looked at me expectantly. For a second I was confused; then I realized I was being dismissed. He was already shifting into police officer mode. I didn’t think he even realized how cold that could make him seem. Without saying anything else, I turned and made my way back to the restaurant.
Maggie and Ruby were at the table. I sat down opposite them, pulling off my coat and hanging it on the back of my chair. “The police are here,” I said.
Claire came over unasked and brought a new coffee cup for me. As far as I could see, Eric still hadn’t shown up.
I drank from my mug, the warmth from the steaming coffee spreading through my chest. We sat in silence, and finally Ruby looked at me.
Her face was still very pale, but she seemed less distraught, like the initial shock of finding Agatha was wearing off. “Thank you for waiting for the police,” she said.
I gave her a small smile. “It was nothing,” I said. “Detective Gordon is going to want to talk to you.”
Ruby stared down into her teacup. “I thought she was . . . I thought it was a bag of garbage that had blown into the alley,” she said. “I didn’t know it was Agatha until I got right up to her.” She rubbed her finger along the rim of the cup.
Maggie laid a hand on her arm for a moment.
“I don’t understand what she was doing in the alley in the first place.” Ruby said. She picked up her cup and set it down again without drinking.
Claire arrived then with our food. I’d forgotten that we’d ordered. She set the pancakes in front of me, then hesitated. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping,” she said to Ruby. “Eric let Mrs. Shepherd sleep in the back room when it was really cold. I guess she didn’t always have enough money to keep her house warm. Maybe that’s why she was in the alley.” She reached around Ruby and gave Maggie her plate. “If you need anything, let me know.”
I slid the butter pats off the small plate they’d arrived on and replaced them with one of the pancakes and a few slices of orange; then I set the plate in front of Ruby. I waited until she speared a bite of fruit and put in her mouth before I picked up my own fork.
“You know she had a stroke,” Ruby said suddenly. “That’s why she fell. That’s why she was in that rehab center in Minneapolis.”
“Then maybe it was another stroke,” Maggie said. She lifted the lid of her little teapot and looked around for Claire.
“She hated that place,” Ruby said. “Maybe she left too soon.”
Maggie finally managed to catch Claire’s eye. She held up the teapot and the waitress nodded and reached for a carafe of water.
After she’d dropped another tea bag into Maggie’s pot and poured the hot water, I touched her arm. “Claire, could I have two large coffees to go, please?” I said.
“Sure. The usual?”
I shook my head. “No. Double cream, double sugar in one, and could you just add a creamer and a couple of packets of sugar on the side for the other?”
“Not a problem,” she said. “I’ll get them for you when you’re ready to leave so they’ll be hot.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Maggie leaned back in her chair. “Ruby,” she asked. “How did you get to be one of Agatha’s . . .” She hesitated.
“Projects?” Ruby asked.
“Well, I was going to say ‘kids,’ ” Maggie said. “But, yeah, I guess projects.”
“Roma said Agatha was the reason she became a vet,” I said.
“She’s the reason I’m an artist,” Ruby said. “She busted me for tagging—spray-painting graffiti on the side of the school.” She put down her fork. “I couldn’t run as fast as my so-called friends, and it turned out Agatha was pretty fast for what I considered an old lady.”
“She nabbed you.” Maggie said.
Ruby picked up a slice of grapefruit with her fingers and ate it. “By the scruff of my neck, literally. When I wouldn’t rat out the others, she said I could scrub the entire wall myself.” Her smile got a little bigger. “When I tried to argue the artistic value of tagging, she made me write a three-page essay explaining my reasoning. She used that and a painting I’d done to get me a place in a six-week summer art camp.”
“It sounds like she had a way of figuring out what people cared about,” I said.
“Yeah, she did,” Ruby said. “She had a way of looking right inside you, into places you didn’t show any other person. On the other hand, she could be stubborn. She made me scrub that wall until there wasn’t a dab of paint left.”
She ran a hand through her pink, spiked hair, and glanced at her watch. Then she turned to Maggie. “I have to open the store.” The artist’s cooperative both Maggie and Ruby were part of ran a store and gallery in the same building where Maggie taught tai chi.
“Why don’t you let me do that for you today?” Maggie said, setting down her cup.
Ruby studied her hands for a minute. “Thanks, but I’d rather do it. I’d rather be busy than keep thinking about what happened.”
Maggie nodded. “Okay, but why don’t I walk with you? I’m going that way anyway.”
I stood up. “I’m going to get my coffee,” I said. I gestured at the table. “And I’ve got this.”
“You sure?” Maggie said, reaching for her coat.
“Uh-huh. I’ll be right back.” The café was beginning to fill up. As I stood at the counter, waiting for Claire, I overheard conversations around me. The news about Agatha was already spreading.
I paid for breakfast and collected my two cups of coffee. Claire had put a couple of sugar packets, a creamer, and a stir stick into a little waxed-paper bag and rolled down the top. She handed me everything. There was a P on one of the lids.
“That one is just coffee,” she said. “P for ‘plain.’ ”
I thanked her and walked back to the table. Maggie held the cups while I shrugged into my coat and pulled on my hat and mittens. After I slid the strap of my briefcase over my head, she gave me both coffees. Their warmth seeped into my fingers.
As we stepped outside a man cut across the street, dodging cars. “Ruby,” he called. She turned in his direction and her face lit up. When he reached us, he put an arm around Ruby and gave her a quick hug. This has to be the new boyfriend, I thought, which Ruby confirmed when she turned back to us.
“Kathleen, this is Justin,” she said.
“You’re the librarian,” he said.
I nodded. “I am.”
He stuffed the knitted hat he was holding into his pocket and offered his hand, and I held up the two coffee cups to show I couldn’t shake his.
He gave me an easy smile and said, “Nice to meet you.”
He was about average height, with longish dark hair slicked back from a widow’s peak and angular features. He smelled like hair gel.
“You remember Maggie,” Ruby said.
Justin turned to Maggie. “I do,” he said. “Hi, Maggie.”
“Hi,” she said.
“I’m so glad I caught you,” he said. “I found those lights you were looking for.”
He patted the black nylon bag on his hip. He had a couple of elastics around one wrist and a silver skull bracelet on the other.
Ruby pressed a hand to her head. “I forgot all about them. They’re for Maggie.”
He opened the flap of his carryall and handed Maggie a plastic bag.