Cat Trick

I smiled. “It is.” I set the cups down on the desktop and leaned over to look at the photograph. My friend Lise had taken it when I was back in Boston during the summer. We’d been down on the Common, throwing around a foam football and generally acting like goofy kids. In the photo, Sara and I were tackling Ethan, trying to get the ball while Mom and Dad cheered us on. We were laughing, the sun was sparkling, and looking at the picture, I felt a small ache of homesickness.

“Sara and Ethan are twins, right?” Marcus asked.

I nodded. “I think I told you that my parents were married, divorced and then they got married again. After the divorce, they started seeing each other—no one knew—and then all of a sudden Ethan and Sara were on the way. I was a teenager. I was mortified.” He handed me the frame, and I set the picture back on the desk again. “Mom said she decided it didn’t matter how crazy my father made her; she was just happier with him than without him.”

Marcus picked up his coffee, and I gestured to one of the two chairs in front of my desk.

“I just realized that I don’t know if you have any brothers or sisters,” I said.

“I have one sister,” he said. “She’s younger.”

I waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. I reached for my own cup and sat down. He took the two buns out of the paper bag and set them on the plate I’d brought in.

“So what’s up?” I asked.

“What makes you think something’s up?” he asked. “Maybe I just wanted to bring you a cinnamon roll. You’ve brought me coffee lots of times.”

I leaned over and broke off a piece of one of the buns. It was so good. Better than any cinnamon roll I made. I’d never been able to duplicate Mary and Eric’s secret recipe, and when I asked Mary why that recipe was always so much better, she’d just grin and say, “Because we make them with love.” I always made mine with a couple of cats eyeballing my every move.

“I have gotten you coffee lots of time,” I said. “I just brought you that cup.” I gestured to the mug in his big hands. “And the cinnamon roll is delicious. Thank you. Now, what’s up?”

He smiled and shook his head. “You were right. The button Owen found came from a jacket that belongs to one of Mike’s partners—Alex Scott.”

“He was here in Mayville Heights the day Mike died. I saw him at the library, and he spoke to me on his way out at Eric’s. Do you remember?”

Marcus nodded. “But he wasn’t actually in town when Glazer died.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. He was in Minneapolis at a benefit dinner. There are photos and video online.”

That’s what Maggie had said. Marcus was good. “Alex and Christopher Scott are identical twins,” I said. “One of them could have been at that benefit and the other could have been here.”

“They were both there.”

“Maybe one brother was pretending to be both brothers while the other was here.” It sounded silly even to me.

Marcus pointed at my laptop. “Could I borrow your computer for a second?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

He went around the desk and leaned over the keyboard. After a minute, he beckoned to me. I went to stand beside him. An image of Alex and Christopher Scott, grinning and soaked with sweat, arms around each other’s shoulders, filled the screen.

The two men were the spitting image of each other, down to their close-cropped hair and stubbled chins—except one of them had an elaborate dragon tattoo curling around his right arm.

Marcus held up a finger. “Hang on.” He brought up another photo. This one, I guessed, had been taken at the benefit in Minneapolis. One of the two Scott brothers was standing with three other people, a drink in his hand. He wasn’t wearing a suit jacket, and the cuffs of his white shirt had been rolled back. There was no tattoo.

“That’s Alex,” Marcus said. “And this”—he clicked the mouse pad—“is Christopher Scott.”

It could have been the same person. Christopher Scott was wearing the same dark pants and white shirt. His sleeves weren’t rolled back, but I could see a bit of the dragon tattoo beyond the edge of his shirt cuff.

“So much for wrapping up the case in a nice, neat package.” I moved back around the desk.

“It doesn’t usually work that way,” Marcus said, leaning against the side of my desk.

“There’s something else you should know,” I said, breaking off another bite of the cinnamon roll before I sat down again. I knew Roma had spoken to him, but I didn’t want to keep secrets.

“What is it?”