Copycat Killing

9

Hercules was sitting by the back steps when I came around the corner of the house, one paw on a black feather, with an iridescent purple sheen to it. He looked up at me and if a cat could look self-satisfied—and this cat certainly seemed to be able to—he did.

“Score one for the cat,” I said, bending down to pick him up. He nuzzled the side of my face and then looked down at the feather. Hercules was having a little war with, as far as I could tell, one lone grackle. Up until now the grackle had been winning.

“Have you thought about what you’d do with that bird if you actually caught it?” I asked as I unlocked the back door.

Herc tipped his head to one side and seemed to be considering my question. Then he licked his lips.

“Oh sure, you’re going to eat it,” I said, setting him down on the kitchen floor. “You? Mr. I-Don’t-Eat-On-Sale-Cat-Food?”

That got me a snippy meow.

I folded my arms and looked down at him. “Do I have to remind you about the caterpillar?”

Hercules immediately turned away and hung his head. I got the feeling he would have blushed if he could have. He may not have understood all of what I’d said, but he knew the word, caterpillar.

Of the two cats, Owen was the hunter, not Hercules. It’s hard to stalk anything when you don’t like getting your paws wet. One day, early last summer, Owen had caught a fuzzy black-and-yellow caterpillar out in the backyard—mostly because it crawled over a cracker he was sniffing at the time.

Hercules, who had already finished his own food because he doesn’t have to inspect every bite first, poked his head in to take a look at his brother’s prey. First he just sniffed the caterpillar. Then he rolled it over with a swipe of his paw.

Owen tended to see himself like a lion prowling a dusty savannah on an African plain. Which meant the caterpillar was the equivalent of a downed wildebeest—not for sharing.

Paws were raised. Yowls were exchanged. Before I could step in, Hercules swallowed the caterpillar.

And promptly hacked it up again. Because, number one: it was like eating a piece of shag carpeting. Nothing that fuzzy is ever going to taste good. And number two: The caterpillar wasn’t exactly dead.

“You think having caterpillar fluff stuck in your teeth is bad,” I warned Herc, “try picking feathers out.”

I headed upstairs, switched my damp jeans for a pair of yoga pants, and then carefully cut the grubby gauze off my thumb, replacing it with a couple of big adhesive bandages. Then I warmed up the last of the apple pudding cake. Between spoonfuls I told the cats about Maggie and me discovering Jaeger’s body, and Ruby discovering his real identity. Owen’s head jerked up when he heard Maggie’s name and he almost banged it on the bottom of a kitchen chair.

“She’s fine,” I told him. “She’s coming for supper. You’ll see her tonight.” He went back to nosing around for crumbs I hadn’t vacuumed up yet.

Hercules, on the other hand, was giving me his undivided attention, although that might have been because he was hoping to score a bite or two of apple from my bowl.

“Here you big mooch,” I said, reaching for the bag of sardine kitty crackers on the counter and giving him a couple. I handed a couple down to Owen too.

I was just putting my dishes in the sink when the phone rang. I hobbled into the living room to get it. My ankle still ached, but just putting my foot up while I was at the table had helped. It was Rebecca, my backyard neighbor.

“Hello Kathleen,” she said. “I was wondering if this would be a good time to bring over that box of my mother’s things you wanted to look at for the display at the library centennial?”

“Yes, it would,” I said. “Are you sure you can carry the box? I don’t mind coming to get it.”

She laughed. “Thank you, but it’s not that big and—”

“—you’re not that old,” I finished.

“Oh, I am that old,” she said. “It’s just not that far across the lawn.”

“I’ll see you in a few minutes, then,” I said.

When I went back into the kitchen, Owen and Hercules were sitting by the back door. Clearly they were waiting for Rebecca. I had no idea how they knew she was on her way. It was just another one of their “abilities” that I couldn’t explain, and next to walking through walls and becoming invisible, it was pretty mundane.

The coffee was brewing and I had a plate of date squares on the table when Rebecca tapped on the porch door. I figured after the morning I’d had I was entitled to having dessert twice. I let her in and took the cardboard file box she was carrying.

She frowned at my face. “Oh dear, that looks sore,” she said. I noticed that she didn’t ask what had happened.

“It looks worse than it feels,” I said. “Who told on me? Roma?”

A pink flush spread across her cheeks. “I wouldn’t exactly call it telling on you,” she said. “And no, it wasn’t Roma. It was Marcus Gordon.”

“So you decided you’d bring this over”—I patted the top of the box—“and check on me.”

“I was planning on coming over anyway,” she said. “When Marcus told me what happened yesterday, it just seemed like perfect timing.” She looked me up and down. “How’s your ankle?”

“My ankle’s just fine. And Marcus Gordon has a big mouth.”

I glanced down at her boots. They were black with little red ladybugs all over them. “Oh, I like your boots,” I said.

Rebecca stuck out one foot and rolled it from one side to the other. “Thank you. Ami gave them to me.”

Ami was Everett Henderson’s granddaughter. She adored Rebecca and Rebecca was crazy about her.

Rebecca put her foot back on the floor and stepped out of the ladybug boots.

“How about a date square?” I asked as we headed into the kitchen.

“Oh that does sound good,” she said, patting her silver-gray hair. “And don’t think I didn’t notice how you changed the subject away from what happened to you.” She reached into her pocket and handed me a small, brown paper bag. “Spread this on your ankle before bed. It’ll help.”

“Thank you,” I said. I gave her a one-armed hug.

She caught sight of Owen and Hercules then, and moved across the floor to bend over and talk to the cats. For the moment at least, I was spared from having to explain for what felt like the umpteenth time that I was fine. The cats were listening intently as Rebecca spoke softly to them and I could hear the low rumble of both of them purring like twin diesel engines.

The boys really liked Rebecca. Everyone did. Everett was as smitten with her as he’d been when they’d fallen in love as teenagers. Maggie, whom she was teaching about herbal medicine, hung on her every word. Harry Taylor, Senior, shamelessly flirted with her even though he was twenty years her senior.

There was something about Rebecca, maybe it was her innate kindness, that made people care about her, that made them—me included—just a little protective, at which for the most part Rebecca just smiled. On the other hand, underneath that gray hair and angelic smile there was a steel-hard stubborn streak.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” I asked as she came over to the table.

“Thank you, I think I would,” she said, hanging her bag on the back of the chair.

I poured a cup for both of us and then took the chair opposite her, so the box was on the seat between us.

Rebecca picked up her mug and smiled at me. “Did you make a doctor’s appointment?” she asked. “Just to get checked over.”

“I’m going to,” I said, feeling my face flush.

“Why don’t you go ahead and do it right now?” she said. She smiled down at her two furry cohorts sitting beside her chair. “Hercules and Owen will keep me company.”

I hesitated.

“I’ve found it’s best not to put things off.” She still had the sweet smile on her face.

I knew when I was beaten. And I felt a kind of grudging respect for Marcus, who had come up with a pretty good way to do an end run around my dislike of doctors and hospitals.

“Excuse me,” I said.

The doctor’s office had a cancellation for Monday morning. I took it. When I went back into the kitchen, Rebecca was sneaking some of her date square to Hercules. Owen was already sniffing his bite on the floor.

I sat down, giving Rebecca’s box a quick, curious glance.

“Go ahead and take a look inside,” she urged.

I wiped my hands on a napkin and pulled off the lid. Inside were books and papers that had belonged to Rebecca’s mother, Ellen Montgomery. She’d acted as unofficial nurse and midwife in Mayville Heights in her day, using herbal remedies to treat kids, adults, and from what I’d heard the occasional horse, cow and house cat.

I lifted out a thick, handmade book bound with neat, Coptic stitches.

“That’s her plant book,” Rebecca said.

I opened the cover and for a moment I was speechless. The first page was a beautiful watercolor of a dandelion plant. There were notes in black ink and fine block printing along the bottom and up both sides of the page.

I turned the page to an equally beautiful image of a chamomile plant. I looked up at Rebecca. “These are gorgeous,” I said.

She nodded. “My mother was very artistic. There are paintings and sketches of every plant she used in that book.”

I had no idea how I was going to make the book part of a display in the library, but I definitely wanted to use it. I went through the rest of the things in the box—more drawings, a book of herbal remedies with meticulously detailed instructions for making various salves, infusions and poultices, a stack of black-and-white photos tied with a faded blue ribbon and several composition books that I realized had been Ellen’s journals.

“Are you sure about these?” I asked Rebecca, holding up one of the black-covered, narrow ruled notebooks.

She nodded. “Yes, assuming you find anything that’s useful in them.” She took one of the small volumes from me and slowly flipped through the pages. “My mother kept a journal all her life. They were always ‘open books’ so to speak and so was her life.” She looked up, a devilish twinkle in her eye. “I don’t think you’ll find any secrets in these books, sad to say.”

“You sound disappointed,” I said with a smile, as I put everything back in the box.

“Well, Kathleen, there was a time when I entertained the fantasy that I’d been left by pirates and that my real parents would someday come back for me.”

“Pirates?”

“Oh yes.” She picked up her cup again and leaned back in her chair. “In a huge pirate ship like the Jolly Roger, with a monkey in the rigging and flying the skull and crossbones of course.”

“Of course.” I picked up my own cup. “How exactly were they going to come for you?” I asked. “Minnesota isn’t really an ocean front state.”

“By sailing up through the Great Lakes system into Lake Superior,” she said.

I couldn’t keep a straight face. “And when the Good Ship Rebecca made it to Lake Superior, how exactly was it supposed to get to Mayville Heights?”

“Magic, of course,” Rebecca said, laughing. She picked up her fork and took a bite of a date square. “Ummm, these are good.”

“Thank you,” I said, grinning back at her across the table.

Owen and Hercules were still beside her chair, watching her with their mournful no-one-ever-feeds-us look. It was so fake. And it always worked.

Roma was constantly reminding us that Owen and Hercules were cats and should be fed as such—they just didn’t seem to understand that. A couple of weeks ago she’d caught Maggie feeding them grilled tomatoes and mozzarella and had ranted that in a few years the cats were going to be two overweight fur balls with bypass surgery scars. Maggie had simply nodded solemnly and gotten more careful about sneaking them food.

I had stopped feeding the cats pizza, but that was mostly because it gave Owen unholy bad breath and made Hercules burp like a Pepto-Bismol tester. The cats had some decidedly uncatlike abilities and I was beginning to suspect their digestive systems were not exactly those of typical cats, either.

I topped up Rebecca’s cup and her expression grew serious. “Kathleen, what about the cats out at Wisteria Hill? Will they be okay?”

“They’re all right for now,” I said. “Marcus has the carriage house cordoned off, but if the investigation goes on very long”—I shrugged—“it’s possible they’ll have to be relocated.”

“I hope that doesn’t happen,” she said. She smiled down at Owen and Hercules. “Those cats should be able to live out their days where they feel safe.”

She took another sip from her coffee. “What’s the name of the little calico? Lita and I saw her when we were out at the house getting my mother’s journals. She peeked around the side of the carriage house.”

“That’s Lucy,” I said. “She’s kind of the matriarch of the colony.”

“She reminded me a little of Owen,” Rebecca said. He meowed softly at the sound of his name.

“That’s probably because they both walk around like some kind of jungle cat,” I said, smiling down at Owen who was too busy watching Rebecca to spare me even a sideways glance. Hercules, on the other hand, came and leaned against my leg. I reached down to scratch the top of his head.

“You know, you didn’t have to go all the way out to Wisteria Hill just to get those journals for me,” I said to Rebecca as I straightened up.

“Of course I did,” she said. “You’ve worked so hard on the library restoration. I can’t wait for the centennial celebration. And it’s long past time I got my mother’s things from Wisteria Hill. It was good to be out there. I have a lot of wonderful memories.”

I wondered how Rebecca felt about the old estate having been abandoned. Did she know why Everett continued to leave the house empty and neglected? No one else did.

“I hate to see the house looking so lost and forgotten,” Rebecca said then.

How had she known what I was thinking? “Rebecca, you make the best lemon meringue pie I’ve ever had and you’re a whiz with scissors.” I pulled a hand through my hair. “Don’t tell me mind reading is one of your skills, too?”

She tilted her head to one side and gave me a sly smile. “Well, I don’t like to brag.” She picked up her cup and then set it down and her expression grew serious again. “It will probably seem odd to you, but I think it’s nostalgia that keeps Everett from doing anything with the old place.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you know he grew up there, and since my mother worked for Anna, in many ways my brothers and I grew up at Wisteria Hill as well. I was the youngest. I spent a lot of time out there.”

“It’s where the two of you fell in love.”

Rebecca’s cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink again. She always blushed when the conversation turned to Everett’s feelings for her. He’d loved her steadily for most of his life.

“We had a charmed childhood, Kathleen, as clichéd as that may sound. If Everett sells Wisteria Hill, or develops the land himself, that last link to those times will be gone.”

I ran a finger around the rim of my cup. “I’d never thought of it that way,” I said.

“Everett has a sentimental streak,” Rebecca said.

“That wouldn’t be my first choice of words to describe him,” I said with a laugh.

Everett Henderson was a very successful, self-made businessman. He was generous with both his time and his money. He was also hard-nosed and uncompromising. There was nothing soft about the man.

“He’s really a pussycat.”

I looked down at Owen and Hercules. “Are you trying to tell me he has fish breath and sheds on the furniture?” I said.

Rebecca laughed. “Well, he does like my tuna casserole.”

I laughed and Hercules looked from me to Rebecca, probably trying to figure out what the joke was. Hercules took fish very seriously.

“Do you think you’d like to live out there?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Wisteria Hill was a wonderful place to grow up, but my life is in town now.” She smiled at both cats. “I’d miss these two coming across my backyard. I’d miss visiting you. And how could I not be here to see what contraption the Justason boys were building in their backyard?” She held up both hands. “I’d miss the bright lights of Mayville Heights too much.” There was a devilish twinkle in her blue eyes. “And have you ever been out there in the early summer? The mosquitoes are large enough to carry you away.” She looked at her watch. “Heavens, I should get going,” she said.

“Thanks for this,” I said, gesturing to the box as I got to my feet. “And for the salve.”

“Oh you’re welcome,” Rebecca said. “Use whatever you like from my mother’s things. And rest that ankle.” She leaned over and looked from Owen to Hercules. “Come over for tea some morning once things dry out.” Both cats gave answering meows.

I walked her out to the porch door. “Do you mind if I ask Maggie if she has any ideas on how we can display some of your mother’s notes and drawings?”

“Not at all,” Rebecca said. “That reminds me. I was thinking of asking Maggie if she’d do one of her big collages of Wisteria Hill for me. I have some old photographs that have just been sitting in a box.”

“I’m sure she would,” I said. Maggie had created some wonderful collage panels of old photographs for a display during the Winterfest celebrations a few months ago. They were on permanent display now in the town hall.

“At first I thought maybe a painting or a drawing of the place would be nice. When Lita and I were out there, someone actually was sketching the old house.”

There was nothing to stop anyone from being out at Wisteria Hill, other than technically they were trespassing because the land was private property. I had Owen and Hercules because I’d been wandering around exploring out there.

In fact, one day late last summer Harry Taylor—the younger—had discovered a bilious green Volkswagen camper van in the yard and two middle-aged women—as Harry described them, looking like they were on their way to a reunion at Woodstock—picking mint and bouquets of cow parsnip.

“Don’t tell me those two women in the chartreuse microbus stopped by again on their way back to Manitoba?” I said with a grin.

Rebecca grinned back. “No. Though rumor has it that one of them gave Harry her e-mail address. No. I’m not sure who we saw—one of the co-op artists, most likely—he or she was wearing a big sweatshirt with a hood.” She stepped into her ladybug boots. “Now I really have to get going. I’m meeting that young man who works for Eric at the café.”

I looked at her blankly.

“You know,” she said. “The artist. Jaeger Merrill.”