Cat Trick

“You didn’t kill Mike, Wren,” I said. She turned her head. I leaned sideways so she had to look at me again and put a hand over hers. “I swear you didn’t kill him. He didn’t die from a head injury. He was suffocated with one of the backdrops for the booths. Whatever you were going to do . . . don’t. Please, please, please don’t.” I swallowed, but I couldn’t seem to get the lump in my throat to move.

Marcus was standing quietly off to the side. I’d seen him come in a couple of minutes before, and now I turned to look at him. “Could you please tell her?” I said.

His shoulders were rigid and his expression unreadable. For a moment I wasn’t sure he was going to answer my question. Then he gave an almost imperceptible nod. “Mike Glazer didn’t die from a head injury,” he said.

22

Elizabeth pushed her way around the table and wrapped Wren in a hug. Wren looked stunned. She was crying and shaking at the same time.

“Ms. Magnusson, I do need to hear the whole story,” Marcus said. “Officially.” He looked at me.

Harry stepped forward. “We’ll come over to the police station,” he said. “Soon as I line up a lawyer. You understand, Detective. No offense.”

Marcus nodded. “Of course.”

“Thank you, Kathleen,” Harry said quietly as he moved past me. He put one hand on Elizabeth’s back and steered both young women over to another table.

“I’ll need to talk to you too,” Marcus said to Liam, “but that can wait until morning.”

“I’ll be there,” Liam said. He looked at me. “She really was going to . . . hurt herself, wasn’t she?”

I nodded. “She told you, didn’t she? That Mike had been partly responsible for what happened to his brother? It’s what you were arguing about the night he died.”

He swallowed before he answered. “Yes.”

“You were afraid she might be a suspect. That’s why you lied about what time you’d found her with the flat tire.”

“I knew it would hurt a lot of people if the truth came out,” Liam said, swiping a hand over his chin. “Especially Wren. I was friends with her brother. I’ve known her since she was a little kid.” He looked over to where Wren was sitting with Elizabeth’s arm still around her shoulders. “I had no idea she would . . .” He shook his head and looked at me again. “Thank you, Kathleen.”

Maggie gave me a hug. “You done for the night?” she whispered.

“I’m not sure,” I said softly.

“Call me if you need me,” she said before letting go. She touched Liam’s arm. “Let’s get something to go.” They started for the counter and Claire met them partway.

I’d been watching Marcus out of the corner of my eye, but now I turned and looked at him directly. “Thank you,” I said.

He stared at me for a long moment. “We need to talk, later,” he said.

I could tell by the cool tone to his voice and the rigid way he was standing that he was angry. But I knew once he understood that Wren really had been planning to kill herself, he’d also understand why I hadn’t waited for him to call me back.

“I know,” I said. “I’ll be home.”

He nodded and left.

Eric came around the counter and walked over to me. He had a take-out cup in one hand and a paper bag in the other. He held them out to me.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Coffee and cinnamon rolls,” he said. “On the house.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

Eric smiled. “I figure you had a good reason.” He inclined his head toward the street. “Everything okay between you and the detective?”

“I think so,” I said.

Eric glanced over his shoulder. “I have to get back to work,” he said.

I held up the coffee. “Thanks again.”

Eric nodded and walked back to the counter. I headed for the truck.

Hercules was waiting in the porch. The moment I opened the door, he meowed. “It’s all right,” I told him. I set the coffee and cinnamon rolls next to him on the bench and scooped him into a hug. I had a kind of giddy, unsettled energy. “Wren’s going to be just fine.”

He licked my chin and then squirmed to be set down so he could investigate the bag. “Cinnamon rolls,” I said, waggling my eyebrows. There was a loud meow from the other side of the porch door. I reached over and opened it, and Owen came in. He looked from me to his brother and licked his whiskers.

“How did you know?” I asked.

His nose twitched.

“You did not smell cinnamon rolls from out in the yard,” I told him. I grabbed the bag off the bench before Hercules managed to poke a hole in it with his paw.

Once I was settled at the table with the cats at my feet, I brought them up-to-date on what had happened with Wren and Mike Glazer the night he died.