Cat Trick

When we closed the library at one o’clock, I decided to walk over to Eric’s for lunch. As I came down the steps of the building, I saw Abigail and Georgia on the sidewalk. Georgia looked troubled, dark hair windblown, shoulders hunched, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

Abigail saw me and motioned me over to them. “Kathleen, please tell Georgia that Marcus Gordon is one of the good guys,” she said.

I gave Georgia a small smile. “He is.” There were tight lines around her mouth and eyes. She didn’t look convinced. “Is something wrong?” I asked.

Georgia’s gaze flicked to Abigail, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. Georgia looked at me again. “The police found something of mine . . . in the tent where they found Mike Glazer’s body. It was a little spatula I use for spreading frosting.”

The knife that Oren had found. It wasn’t a butter knife—it was a spatula.

She pulled a hand over her neck. “I wasn’t in that tent. I was over at the community center, where the art show is going to be, but I wasn’t in the tent and I have no idea how that spatula ended up there.”

“How did the police figure out it belonged to you?” I asked.

Georgia looked down at her feet. “My fingerprints,” she said.

That meant her fingerprints were in the system. She might have been no bigger than a piece of dandelion fluff, as Harrison Taylor had described her, but it wasn’t her first encounter with the police.

“Georgia was arrested for assault, when she lived in Chicago,” Abigail said quietly. “The charges were dropped.”

Georgia lifted her head and met my gaze. “They were dropped because I didn’t assault anyone. The thing is . . .” She hesitated. Then she took a deep breath and uncrossed her arms, lacing her fingers together in front of herself. “I changed my name. I’m not really Georgia Tepper. My real name is Paige Wyler.”

I shook my head. “It’s not really any of my business.”

“Everyone’s going to find out,” she said. “I may as well start by telling you.” Her eyes darted for a moment to Abigail. “Abigail says I can trust you.”

“Go ahead then,” I said. “I’m listening.”

“I was married,” she said. “My in-laws didn’t like me—they’d wanted their son to marry someone else—but it didn’t matter as long as he was alive.”

“He died?”

“Our daughter was only six months old. His parents tried to get custody. When that didn’t work, they tried to kidnap her. That’s where the assault charge comes from.”

She was twisting a narrow gold and platinum ring around her right ring finger. I wondered if it was her wedding ring, moved from her left hand.

“I left Chicago in the middle of the night with Emmy—that’s my daughter. We moved around for a while. Eventually we ended up here. The police think I knew Mike because I used to live in Chicago.”

I shifted my briefcase from one hand to the other. “Did you?” I asked.

Georgia shook her head. “But the company my former father-in-law works for has used Legacy Tours; at least that’s what that detective told me.” She held out both hands. “I know it seems like a lot of coincidences, but that’s what they are. I’d never met Mike Glazer before, and I didn’t know about any connection between his company and the one my former father-in-law works for. I haven’t had any contact with my husband’s parents other than through my lawyer.”

She didn’t shift her feet or look away from me. There was no hesitation in her words. I believed her, which is what I said.

“The police are going to check out everything you told them. All they want is to get to the truth. No one is going to try to railroad you.”

She exhaled slowly. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “I really like it here, but . . . I’ve been thinking maybe it would be better if Emmy and I just moved on again.”

I gave Georgia a small smile. “I hope you don’t,” I said. “There are a lot of good people in Mayville Heights.” I glanced at Abigail. “Including Detective Gordon. I’m not going to tell you to relax, because I know you can’t, but I think it’ll be okay.”

Abigail reached over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks,” she said.

“What I don’t understand is how a spatula belonging to me ended up in that tent,” Georgia said, rubbing the back of her head with one hand. “I wasn’t anywhere near it.”

“Maybe someone else borrowed it and then dropped it and didn’t notice,” Abigail offered.

I realized they didn’t know the spatula had been stuck into the ground, not just left in a booth or on the grass. “What’s the last place you were that you were using a spatula?” I asked.