“And why do you say he seemed eccentric?”
“Well, maybe that’s not the right word. Just a little absentminded maybe, and the way he was dressed. Kind of rumpled, shoes untied, and he was wearing big wraparound sunglasses.”
She nodded. “He’d had an appointment with his ophthalmologist earlier in the day. His daughter said they had dilated his pupils, so the glasses would have been to protect his eyes. Do you remember what else he was wearing?”
“He had suspenders on because his pants were too big, and they were yellow. And a red beret. His pants were brown, or maybe gray, and his shirt was red. I remember it was a button-down shirt because the buttons were shiny brass and he’d missed a couple.”
“Anything else?”
“No, just the big sunglasses, and he wasn’t at the register when I came in. I had to call him a couple of times before he heard me.”
“Oh? Where was he?”
“In the back, but that’s because he was closed. Or at least he thought he was. He said he should have locked the door but he’d forgotten.”
She made a note in her clipboard. “And how about the cat?”
“There’s a stack of dictionaries in the window. I noticed when I came in it had orange fur on top of it, so I knew there was a cat here somewhere.”
“Did you actually see a cat?”
I sighed. I figured he’d probably have hidden somewhere. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the cat might have been missing, too, but I could tell that’s where she was going. “Just for a split second. I was beginning to think something was wrong, and then the cat came running out of the back office. Mr. Hoskins called him Cosmo.”
“Did you notice if Cosmo was hurt?”
“Hurt?”
She tipped her chin at the counter. I looked closer at the red splotches and felt a shudder go down my spine. The red splotches were cat prints. Either Cosmo was bleeding or …
McKenzie said, “I’m assuming you would have noticed if the cat was hurt.”
I nodded. “I didn’t get a real good look. He ran by like a flash, but cats don’t usually race around like that if they’re hurt. They’re more likely to find a place to hide and hunker down.”
“Where did he run to?”
I pointed to the space under the front counter. “He came from the back and disappeared right under there. I didn’t see him again.”
“Okay. When you say you thought something was wrong, what did you mean by that?”
“Well, like I said, when I first came in there was nobody at the register. I called out a couple of times, but nobody answered. I was beginning to think maybe the place was empty, but I was about halfway through the store when I heard something in the back, and that’s when Cosmo came running out.”
McKenzie was staring at me, almost as if she were boring a hole straight into my brain, and I suddenly realized one of the reasons I got so nervous around her was that she never looked me straight in the eye. Instead, she seemed to focus on a point somewhere in the middle of my forehead.
I tried to keep my train of thought. “So … then I called out a little louder and Mr. Hoskins heard me that time. He said, ‘Be right with you.’”
She nodded. The strand of hair that she’d brushed away had fallen back and was hanging across her face, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“And Mr. Hoskins, was he racing around the store like a flash as well?”
“Huh?”
She pursed her lips together, looked up at the ceiling for a split second, and then looked back down at the middle of my forehead. “You said you didn’t see anyone in the store when you came in, and then you said Mr. Hoskins locked the door right after you came in, and then you said you were midway through the store when Mr. Hoskins called out from the back office. I’m just trying to come up with a reasonable explanation as to how he pulled that off, and your account makes perfect sense if both Mr. Hoskins and his cat were racing around the store like flashes.”
This woman was either an utter bat-case or a complete genius, or more likely a combination of the two, but either way I felt like my head was about to explode. Plus, I was starting to get a little tired of being spoken to like a fourth grader.
I took a deep breath. “Okay. No, I guess I misspoke. Mr. Hoskins was not racing around the store like a flash. He locked the door after he came out from the back.”
She nodded curtly and made another note in her clipboard. “Did he seem nervous or upset?”
“I don’t think so, maybe a little absentminded, and his hands were trembling, but I hadn’t ever met him before, so I don’t know if his hands always tremble or not.”
She studied me for a second and took a deep breath, but I stopped her just in time. I knew exactly what she was about to say. I had just told her I’d been coming here since I was a child, but now I was saying I’d never met Mr. Hoskins.
I held up my hand. “Hold on there, Sherlock. The answer to your question is this: I spent a lot of time here when I was little, but then I didn’t come back for years. In the meantime, the original owner passed away and Mr. Hoskins took over the store. Yesterday was the first time I’d been back since then.”
The corners of her lips rose in a faint smile as she looked over her notes.
I sighed. “Sorry. I guess I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed.”
She closed her clipboard. “It’s alright, I know how you feel. I was up all night on another case. I haven’t been home in twenty-four hours. I barely remember what my daughter looks…” She stopped herself and her cheeks flushed red.
I said, “I’m a little worried about the cat, too. I’m wondering if maybe he got out of the store at some point.”
She finally brushed the strands of hair that had been hanging in her face away again and said, “I rather hope he did.”
I didn’t quite know what to make of that, but it made me wonder if there was something else she wasn’t telling me. My mind felt like it had turned to mush, and I suddenly had an overwhelming desire for sleep. I half considered excusing myself and lying down in my spot under the big claw-foot table, but I didn’t think McKenzie would take too kindly to that.
She led me to the door. “I have a lab unit on the way, so we’ll know soon enough whether the blood on the counter is human or feline, but until then, if you think of anything else, anything at all, please give me a call right away.”
She handed me her card, which wasn’t really necessary. I already had her number in my phone, but I took it anyway. Out on the sidewalk, I looked once again at the stack of dictionaries. Thinking about Mr. Hoskins and Cosmo, that something bad could have happened to them, unleashed all sorts of emotions in me. I was afraid I was about to break down into a sobbing mess right there on the sidewalk, but I held myself together. I had a feeling 99 percent of the deputies in the sheriff’s department already thought I was a certified basket case. I didn’t want to make it any worse.
McKenzie snapped off her latex gloves and took one of my hands in hers. At first I thought she’d noticed something was wrong. I was expecting her to give me a sympathetic smile and ask if I was okay, but instead she just shook my hand firmly and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Why are you here?”
“Huh?”
“Why are you here?”
I was thinking I could easily have asked her the same thing. Mr. Hoskins couldn’t have been missing more than twelve hours or so, and a track of bloody paw prints across a countertop hardly seemed reason enough to launch a full-scale murder investigation, but then again, it was entirely possible McKenzie did know something I didn’t know. In fact, I had a feeling she knew a lot of things I didn’t know.
I showed her my book and flipped it open to the back. “It’s the one I bought from Mr. Hoskins last night. It’s missing a whole section in the end. I just stopped by to tell him.”