Cat Trick

“Oh, good.” She patted her gray curls, which looked as though they’d been lacquered into place with about half a can of extra-strength hair spray. “I swear this whole tour thing is turning out to be way more trouble than it’s worth. Heaven help me for saying it, but there are moments I think Burtis is right; someone ought to smack a little sense into that Glazer boy.”

Susan and I exchanged awkward glances.

Mary saw the look that passed between us. “What?” she asked, blue eyes narrowing. “Something’s up. What is it?”

I exhaled slowly. “Mary,” I began, “Mike is . . . dead.”

“Lord love a duck,” she said softly.

4

I told Mary about discovering the body in the tent. She sighed and shook her head. “He hasn’t been home in years, and now this happens—as if that family hasn’t already been through enough.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as we headed up to the second-floor staff room.

Mary gave me a half smile. “That’s right. You weren’t here when it happened.” Her forehead furrowed in thought. “Let me see. It must be close to ten years ago now. The Glazers lost a son—Michael’s older brother, Gavin—in a car accident.”

“That’s horrible,” I said.

“It gets worse,” Mary said. “His parents were away for the weekend. Gavin hit a guardrail and rolled his car down an embankment. He died in the hospital, and they didn’t make it back in time to say good-bye.”

Susan nodded in silent confirmation.

“That’s why Mike has no family here anymore.” I fished the keys to my office out of my pocket.

Mary slipped her bag down off her shoulder. “He left for Chicago maybe a month or so after the accident. His mother and father eventually moved as well, just to get a little space from their memories, I think.” She shook her head. “No one deserves this.”

I touched her arm. “If you’d like to take the day, Susan and I can handle things here and I can call Abigail to come in.”

Mary gave me a small smile. “Thank you, Kathleen. That’s very thoughtful, but I’m fine.”

Susan patted her canvas tote. “I have a piece of lemon-blueberry coffee cake. Want to split it?”

“Oh, that does sound good,” Mary said. She might have claimed she was fine, but there were tight lines around her eyes and mouth.

“It is,” Susan said, pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose with one hand and linking her other arm through Mary’s. “But I keep telling Eric that I’m not sure so he’ll keep trying the recipe.”

They started down the hall to the staff room. I unlocked my office door, put my things away and then went back downstairs to officially open the building for the day.

It was about ten thirty and I was at the checkout desk, looking at a picture book that Susan had discovered in the book drop with every page covered in glitter glue, when Wren Magnusson came in. She looked around, almost as though she wasn’t sure if she was in the right place, and then she walked over to us.

I didn’t know Wren very well. She’d been away at university, living with her older brother in Minneapolis. Her mother had died suddenly about six months ago, and Wren had taken the fall term off to sort through the things in her mother’s house and spend some time back in Mayville Heights.

Wren was tiny, with white-blond hair and fair skin that seemed even paler this morning. She was twisting her left thumb tightly with her other hand, although she didn’t seem to really be aware of it.

“Excuse me?” she asked in her soft voice. “Is Mary Lowe here?”

“She is,” I said. “I’ll get her for you.”

“Thank you,” she said.

Mary was shelving books at the far end of the nonfiction section. While her hands were working, her thoughts were clearly somewhere else, and she jumped when I came around the end of the metal shelving unit and spoke her name.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Don’t apologize,” Mary said. “I was woolgathering when I should have been paying more attention to what I’m doing.”

“Wren Magnusson is at the checkout desk, looking for you.”

Mary made a face and pressed a hand to her forehead. “I forgot all about the child being back in town. How could I do that? She must have heard what happened.”

Clearly the fact that I had no idea what she was talking about was showing on my face.

“Wren knows”—she shook her head—“knew Mike. She was close to all the Glazers when she was a kid. It’s . . . complicated.”