Cat Trick

I found what I was looking for on the fourth page: Alex Scott wearing the red and black jacket at a fundraiser for the children’s hospital. I enlarged the picture and studied the buttons. I’d gotten only a quick look at the one Owen had found, but these seemed to be the right size and color.

As I sat there staring at the screen, Owen leaped into my lap. He looked expectantly from the computer to me. He was the one who’d discovered the button and gotten the best look at it. Feeling more than a little silly, I pointed to the photograph. “Does that look like the button you found?”

He squinted at the image, his face just inches from the screen, and then he pulled his head back and looked at me kind of cross-eyed. It could have been a yes.

I looked at my watch. It was almost time to leave. “Thank you,” I said. I set him on the floor and he headed for the living room. “And thank you, too,” I told Hercules. “You were a big help.”

He rubbed against my leg and then went through the kitchen door into the porch. I wondered what it said about me that seeing him literally go through a door had just become a regular part of my day. I shut down my computer, put it back in my briefcase and got my sweater from the living room closet.

“I’m leaving,” I called. After a moment, there was a muffled meow from Owen. He was either in the living room closet or looking under the couch for more catnip chicken parts.

Hercules was on the bench by the window in the porch. I stopped to pet the top of his head. “Have a good day,” I said. He jumped down and walked me out, waiting for me to open the porch door instead of just walking through it. With the sun shining and the grass dry, I knew he’d probably walk over and take a nap in Rebecca’s gazebo.

Abigail and Mia were waiting for me by the steps when I pulled into the library lot. Tuesday meant story time, so the first thing we did was get the puppet theater out of the storage room and set it up in the children’s section.

“Could I borrow Mia?” Abigail asked. “I could use an extra set of hands with the little ones.”

“Absolutely,” I said. I figured Mia, with her electric-blue hair, would be a big hit with the preschoolers.

With story time, a group of seniors checking out our meeting room to see if it would work for their Spanish class and what seemed like more traffic than usual for a Tuesday, it was noon before I realized it. I’d worked for Susan a couple of weeks earlier and she was repaying the favor, which meant I could go out to Wisteria Hill for a late lunch with Roma. She was standing by her SUV as I bumped my way up the rutted driveway, and she walked over to meet me as I got out of the truck.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.” She had a grin that matched the sunny day. She held up both hands and looked around. “I still can’t believe this place is mine. I have the urge to jump up and down and squeal. Is that silly?”

I shook my head. “No. I think it’s wonderful that this place isn’t going to be lonely and empty anymore.” I’d worried that Roma might regret her decision to buy the property. After all, her biological father’s remains had been found in the field out behind the carriage house. But putting him to rest—literally and figuratively—had been good for her.

In a misguided attempt to keep Rebecca from learning about her mother’s part in the death of Roma’s father, Everett Henderson had left the old estate unoccupied for a very long time after his mother died and the caretakers of the old house retired. But when Tom Karlsson’s remains were unearthed back in the spring, the truth about Ellen Montgomery had been exposed as well. There were no more secrets to hide. Everett and Rebecca had decided to make their life together in town, and now Wisteria Hill would be Roma’s home.

“Do you want the tour first, or do you want to eat first?” Roma asked as we walked across to the old house.

“Tour, of course,” I said. I’d been inside more than once while I was helping Rebecca clean everything out, but I wanted to walk around with Roma and hear what her plans were.

The house was more than a hundred years old, and like a lot of homes of that vintage, pieces had been added to it over the years. Roma pointed to a small porch on the far side of the building. “That’s coming down,” she said. “Oren said it’s not even on a proper foundation, and the floor is half-rotten anyway.”