It was pretty clear that was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t say a word as she clomped up the steps. From what I’d seen it wasn’t bad weather that made people behave badly; they could do that no matter what it was like outside.
7
It snowed on and off all afternoon. It was off when Abigail and I came out of the library at just after five o’clock. She gave me a ride up the hill in her truck. With its oversized knobby tires that truck probably could have driven up out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon. I made a mental note that when I bought a vehicle, I would get tires like that. Whatever the heck they were.
Hercules came into the kitchen as I was hanging up my coat. He twisted around my legs, and I bent to pick him up. “Where’s your brother,” I asked, scratching behind his ear. “He’d better not be sleeping on the footstool. How many times have I told him to stay off it?”
Hercules was suddenly engrossed in something over my left shoulder. I headed for the living room, still carrying the cat, who made garbled noises in his throat like he was trying to clear it.
We found Owen sitting on the rug beside the aforementioned footstool, all round-eyed cat innocence. “I know where you were,” I said.
He looked at the footstool and then back to me, the picture of kitty bafflement.
“And you,” I said to Hercules. “I’m not fooled by that hacking-up-a-fur-ball routine you were doing.” I gave him one last scratch before setting him on the rug. Then I bent down to Owen. “Stay off the footstool,” I hissed.
He licked my chin.
Both cats trailed me while I changed my clothes and heated a bowl of chicken soup I’d made over the weekend. I told them about Agatha, about Ruby, about Harry Taylor. Saying it all out loud helped me sort out things in my mind.
I fished chunks of chicken and carrot out of the pot and shared them with the cats. After I’d eaten about half my soup, I set down my spoon and leaned my elbows on the table. Owen immediately looked up from the piece of chicken he was suspiciously sniffing.
“There’s something off about what happened to Agatha,” I said. Herc looked up from his dish. “Marcus wouldn’t say so, but she didn’t have another stroke.” Owen’s ears twitched. “Yes, he has the case, assuming there is a case.”
Marcus had been at my house several times last summer. He’d tried to win over the cats—at least Owen. Hercules had pretty much ignored Marcus, but Owen, who could be bought for a handful of kitty treats, had been friendly—well, at least as friendly as he got.
I picked up my spoon again. The cats exchanged looks. Sometimes I thought they were in cahoots with Maggie and her efforts to play matchmaker. I reminded myself that they were just cats.
I scooped up a spoonful of noodles. “All right, I admit he’s a good police officer, but he’s a frustrating person.” What I didn’t say was that I’d enjoyed the times during the summer that we’d ended up having breakfast together. Marcus could be funny and charming when he wasn’t being RoboCop. If he wasn’t a police officer maybe we could be better friends.
I ate the rest of my soup while Owen and Hercules finished their chicken and carrots, exchanging glances and soft cat mumbles.
“I’m in the room and I can hear you talking about me,” I said. That didn’t get any reaction. I talked to the cats like they were people, not that I would admit that to anyone. I didn’t want to be known as the Crazy Cat Librarian. Part of it was probably living by myself—well, living by myself except for Owen and Hercules. And part of it was the fact that they weren’t exactly run-of-the-mill house cats.
They’d helped me figure out what had happened to Gregor Easton last summer. And when the house was broken into, Hercules had gone for help while Owen had helped me knock out the intruder. How exactly could I explain that to anyone without coming across as though I were a few kitty treats short of a batch?
“Okay,” I said, getting up to put my dishes in the sink. “Since you like Marcus so much, you’ll be happy to hear I’m going out to Wisteria Hill with him in the morning.”
Hercules, who had finished eating, walked by me without making a sound, although he did flick his tail at my leg.
“Don’t get too excited,” I called after him. “It doesn’t mean I’m going to go out with the guy.” He flicked his tail at me again and disappeared into the living room.
It was snowing lightly as I walked down to tai chi. I rubbed my wrist through the sleeve of my quilted coat. So far it was a better forecaster than the meteorologist on Channel 2, who had predicted clear skies and sunshine through Saturday.
Rebecca was at the top of the stairs outside the studio, changing her boots for shoes, when I got to class. Rebecca was my backyard neighbor, although several feet of snow on the ground meant we couldn’t cut across each other’s yards right now, so I didn’t get to see her as much as I usually did. She smiled and hugged me. I dwarfed her in my huge coat.
“Kathleen, it’s so good to see you,” she said, standing back to give me the once-over. She’d been out of town and had missed the last two tai chi classes.
“How was your trip?” I asked.
“Wonderful.” Her smile got even bigger. “I almost came home with green hair.”
I leaned back and pretended to consider it. “Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “I think blue is more your color.”
She laughed.
“So you got to the hair-products show with your friends,” I said. Rebecca had been a hairdresser before she retired.
“I did. Would you believe orange hair is the thing for spring?”
I made a face.
She leaned forward and tucked an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “Your hair is growing out nicely.”
Rebecca was slowly fixing a disastrous pixie hairdo I’d come to Mayville Heights with last year. A huge fashion error, it had been part of my plan to show I could be spontaneous. I’d learned I could be spontaneous—if I planned for it.
She waited while I took off my outside clothes and changed my shoes, and told me a little more about her visit with several of the women she’d studied hairdressing with.
I got the feeling the green hair was more of a possibility than I’d first thought.
“I almost forgot,” she said suddenly. “I bought a little something for Hercules and Owen.” She fished in the pocket of her coat and handed me a brown paper bag about the size of a school lunch bag.
“I suppose it wouldn’t do me any good to tell you that you shouldn’t have done this.”
“Not in the slightest,” she said, her eyes crinkling with delight.
I stuck the bag in my coat pocket. “Thank you so much, Rebecca,” I said.
“Oh, you’re welcome. I miss the boys.”
I pulled on my left shoe and stood up, shaking down both of my pant legs. “Owen’s been racing around in the snow,” I said. “But you know how Hercules is about getting his feet wet. He such a fussbudget.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d call him fussy,” Rebecca said as we walked into the studio. “I don’t like wet feet myself.”
“True,” I said, giving her arm a squeeze. “But I don’t have to carry you across the lawn if there’s a little dew on the grass.”
Her eyes twinkled again. “Well, Kathleen, I have to say I’ve always been a bit partial to those chairs the ancient Egyptians used to carry the pharaohs around.” She laughed. I loved the sound. Rebecca had a great laugh, and now that she and Everett were together again I got to hear her laugh a lot.
She spotted Roma over by the window. “I need to talk to Roma,” she said. “Come stand beside me in the circle when it’s time.”
I crossed to the table where Maggie and Ruby were standing. “Hi,” I said, touching Ruby’s shoulder lightly with my hand.