Cat Trick

Roma slowed down, flicked on her turn signal and pulled into my driveway. She put the SUV in park and shifted in her seat to look directly at me. “Kathleen, I know you’ve seen more than your share of dead bodies since you came to Mayville Heights,” she said. “And none of them were from natural causes.”

“But,” I said.

“But not every death is something suspicious,” she said with a half smile. “Lots of things can cause petechiae: a violent coughing jag, vomiting, certain medications, a blood disorder. By themselves, petechiae don’t necessarily mean Mike Glazer was murdered.”

“I didn’t realize that,” I said. “Thanks.” I smiled and held up a hand with my first and second fingers crossed. “Good luck tomorrow.”

Her smile got wider. “I’ll stop by Maggie’s studio if I can.”

I got out of the SUV and waved as she backed out of the driveway. Then I walked around the side of the house and let myself into the porch. Not only was Roma a very good vet; she also had first aid training. So I believed what she’d said about there being lots of reasons for those red pinpoints on Mike Glazer’s face.

I toed off my sneakers and unlocked the kitchen door. Those marks didn’t mean that someone killed him, I told myself firmly. But I couldn’t stop the thought that it didn’t mean someone hadn’t, either.

6

Hercules was sitting next to the kitchen table like a statue of the Egyptian god Bast. “Hi, Fuzz Face,” I said. I hung my bag on the hook by the back door, and he trailed me into the living room.

I sank into the wing chair and propped my feet on the footstool. Hercules jumped into my lap. His nose twitched and he narrowed his green eyes.

“Hey, I was at tai chi class,” I said. I dropped my head and sniffed, feeling a little foolish because I was checking to see if I was offensive based on Hercules’s cranky face. All I got was the scent of line-dried T-shirt and baby-powder-scented deodorant. “I don’t smell bad,” I told him.

He put a white-tipped paw over his nose. “Yes, I know,” I said. “Cat’s noses.” Satisfied that he’d made his point, he stretched across my chest, resting his furry head just below the hollow of my throat.

Owen came down the stairs then, jumped up and sprawled sideways across my legs so his head was just below my knee and his back paws and tail were mostly on the footstool.

“Everyone comfortable?” I asked.

Owen meowed, rolling partway on to his back. Hercules rubbed the side of his face against my T-shirt and began to purr. The warmth from their two furry bodies somehow chased away that lingering pinch of homesickness I’d felt back in Maggie’s studio. I decided I wouldn’t call Boston after all. Instead, I pulled the phone closer and punched in Marcus’s number.

I got his voice mail. “Hi, Marcus,” I said. “It’s Kathleen. Call me when you have time. Please.” I recited my number in case he hadn’t memorized it, the way I somehow seemed to have done with his.

Both cats were staring at me when I hung up the phone. In Owen’s case, he was looking at me upside down. “I’m not trying to get information,” I said.

Neither one of them so much as blinked.

“I like Marcus,” I said. “I think he likes me. I don’t want this case—if it even is a case—to mess that up before I at least get a chance to kiss him. Plus I didn’t tell him about that bump on Mike Glazer’s head—and why am I explaining all of this to the two of you?”

Hercules lifted his head and cocked it to one side, almost as though he were wondering the same thing. Owen stayed sprawled over my legs, golden eyes fixed on mine, and I would have sworn from the expression on his upside-down face that he was laughing at me.

Marcus didn’t call me until the next morning. I was sitting at the table with a bowl of yogurt, homemade granola, and an apple—the one breakfast neither cat would try to mooch off me—when the phone rang. I left the dish on the table, confident that there was no way it would “accidentally” end up on the floor the way a plate of scrambled eggs and toast would.

“Hi, Kathleen. It’s Marcus,” he said when I answered. “I got your message, but it was too late to call you back last night.”

“Hi,” I said. How was I going to say this?

Suddenly I could hear my mother’s voice in my head. “Katydid, if you have to dance with a bear, put on your best high heels and tango.” It was her colorful way of saying get on with it. So I did.