Copycat Killing

22

I thought about everything Pearl had said all the way home. Could Ruby’s grandfather have had something to do with Tom Karlsson’s death? Then there were the men Tom had cheated at poker. Did Tom go back to the game? Did something happen there?

I hoped Roma really would call a lawyer before they went to talk to the police in the morning. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Marcus, it was just that as he himself had pointed out to me back in Roma’s driveway—he was a cop. That wasn’t just what he did; it was part of who he was. I’d seen firsthand that when he was on a case he could be even more single-minded than Owen on the hunt for Fred the Funky Chicken parts.

There was no sign of the cats in the kitchen when I got home. I kicked off my shoes, hung up my jacket and padded into the living room. Owen was the picture of an adorable house cat, sitting next to the big wing chair.

“I’m not fooled,” I said. “I know you were lying on the footstool.” It was his favorite place to nap, which meant I was always vacuuming cat hair off the top. I could just never catch him up there.

I bent down, swept him up, and sank into the chair. He sat on my lap and studied my face. “Guess who showed up at Roma’s?” I said.

“Meow?” he said.

“Uh huh. He wanted to talk to Pearl.” Okay, so Owen hadn’t actually said…err…meowed Marcus’s name. On the other hand, we weren’t actually having a conversation. I told him what I learned from Pearl, turning over each bit of information in my mind. Owen listened intently, or at least pretended to.

“I keep coming back to Tom’s body being buried out at Wisteria Hill and Anna hiding Pearl and Roma at the same time. For those two things not to be connected is a bit of a coincidence.” I was slumped down in the chair, the cat stretched across my chest. “On the other hand, coincidences do happen.” Owen muttered his agreement.

I pictured the dirt-encrusted skull I’d found myself sprawled next to when the embankment had collapsed. It had been caved in, fractured on the left side.

By my estimation, based on the photographs I’d seen of her, Anna Henderson had been more than a foot shorter than Tom Karlsson. “There’s no way she could have hit the man,” I said to Owen. “What did she do? Ask him to wait while she got something to stand on? I don’t think so.”

Plus what reason did Anna have to hurt Tom, I asked myself. She was helping women get away from abusive men, not do away with them. Even if Tom had shown up at Wisteria Hill looking for his wife and daughter, there was no way he could have gotten to them. The Hendersons were the most prominent family in town. Tom would have ended up in jail for any kind of threat against Anna. Assuming he’d survived Carson’s wrath.

I tipped my head to look at Owen, who was lazily washing the end of one gray paw. Or possibly licking a bit of leftover food off of it. “Am I being naïve for not considering the possibility that Pearl had something to do with Tom ending up buried at Wisteria Hill?”

The cat paused, paw in the air, as though he were actually mulling over my question. Then suddenly he turned his head and licked my wrist before going back to his laissez-faire paw cleaning. That could be a no, I decided.

“Okay, let’s say for the sake of argument that Pearl did kill Tom.” Owen’s eyes flicked up to mine. “By accident,” I said, moving my hand so I could scratch behind his ear. “How did his body get all the way to Wisteria Hill? If Anna had helped her—”

Owen lifted his head again, eyes narrowed. For a second it almost seemed like he was following what I was saying. “If,” I said. “If.”

That seemed to satisfy him.

“So if Pearl had killed Tom and if Anna had helped her with the body, why on earth would they have taken it to Wisteria Hill? That makes no sense.”

I shook my head and shifted to scratching behind Owen’s other ear. He gave up on his paw, closed his eyes, and started purring.

“I just don’t think Pearl had anything to do with what happened to Tom,” I said thoughtfully. “I didn’t get any sense that she wasn’t telling the truth tonight. Yes, she lied about Tom so Roma wouldn’t know her father was a deadbeat. But she wouldn’t have killed him. She wouldn’t do that to Roma.”

I closed my eyes. So if the killer wasn’t Pearl and it wasn’t Anna Henderson…I clenched my teeth. I didn’t like the idea, but could it have been…Sam?

It was clear Sam had had a thing for Pearl. Those old photos that hadn’t made it into the Mayville High yearbook pretty much confirmed that.

“So when she showed up at Wisteria Hill with Roma, did Sam go to confront Tom?” I asked Owen.

He didn’t seem to have an opinion.

“No, wait, Tom wasn’t there.”

What had Pearl said? She felt she had time to get away because Tom had gone to Red Wing on a beer run—I was guessing because Idris Blackthorne wouldn’t sell to him. The car had been found abandoned at the side of the highway, out of gas, right by the turnoff to Wild Rose Bluff. It would have been a long walk back to Mayville.

Of course, that didn’t mean Sam couldn’t have come across Tom later that night. Sam would have been big enough to hold his own in a fight with Tom. Tom had been an athlete, but Sam had been working in his father’s landscaping business. He was more than strong enough to swing whatever had fractured Tom Karlsson’s skull.

“Except he couldn’t drive,” I said to Owen. I sat up straighter and slid the cat down onto my lap. “Pearl said Sam had taken a load of old railway ties out to Wisteria Hill for Carson, and run a nail through his foot. He wouldn’t have even been able to drive the truck. It would have been a standard.”

I looked at Owen. “I have to get up.” He made grumbly noises but he jumped down to the floor and trailed behind me into the kitchen. Hercules came through the door from the porch. Literally through. The energy in the kitchen seemed to change somehow and there he was. It still made me jump.

Owen looked at my keys on the table and meowed. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to Tom,” I said to Hercules.

I shook my head at Owen. “No,” I said. “Sam would have been driving one of the Ingstrom trucks—I’m guessing maybe a one-ton. It would have been a standard. He couldn’t manage the clutch.”

I hooked one of the chairs with my foot and pulled it out so I could sit down. I stretched out my left leg and rolled my ankle in big, slow circles. “How about this?” I said to the cats. “Pearl shows up with Roma. Ellen is bandaging Sam’s injured foot. Tom didn’t actually go to Red Wing, so he shows up looking for his wife.”

Hercules interrupted my recitation with a loud meow.

“I don’t know how he knew Pearl was at Wisteria Hill. He just did.”

The cat didn’t raise any more objections.

“Tom shows up. Pearl won’t leave with him. Sam and Tom get into a fight. Sam whacks Tom with one of those railway ties and everyone helps him bury the body out behind the carriage house and never speaks of it again.”

I looked at them. Even cats know stupid when they hear it.

“Okay, so maybe that’s a little too far-fetched.” I stretched both feet out across the floor. “I’m thinking Pearl may be right. Maybe Tom ended up out there because of someone who was connected to Ruby’s grandfather or even that poker game.”

So how was I going to find out more about a dead man and a group of nameless, high-stakes card players from more than forty years ago? I knew Marcus would say it was none of my business, but I also knew Roma needed answers.

“I need to make a phone call,” I said.

I found the small red book I kept addresses and phone numbers in. I went back to the living room, sat down again, and reached for the phone.

Harry Junior answered at his father’s house. “Hi Harry,” I said. “It’s Kathleen. Is your dad around? I was hoping I could pick his brain.”

“Hi Kathleen,” he said and I could hear a hint of exasperation in his voice. “He’s right here, arguing hockey stats with me. Hang on a minute.”

I waited, picturing Harry taking the phone over to his father in his chair by the woodstove, with Boris, his German shepherd at his feet.

“Hello, Kathleen,” Harrison Taylor, Senior said, his deep voice warm in my ear. “My son says you want to pick my brain. I should warn you, the pickin’s are slim.”

“I doubt that,” I said with a laugh.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

I leaned my head against the back of the chair. “Tell me about Idris Blackthorne.”

“Meanest son of a bi-…gun I ever met,” he said.

“Is it true he wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to be on the wrong side of?”

The old man gave a snort of laughter. “No one ever crossed old Idris twice.”

“Was he capable of killing someone…or having someone killed?” I asked.

“Ahh…this has to do with Tom Karlsson, doesn’t it?” he said. “I heard you found what was left of him out at Wisteria Hill. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Harry,” I said. “But I am curious how Roma’s father ended up buried out there.”

“Well, I’m not saying Idris had nothing to do with that,” Harry said slowly, and I pictured him fingering his snowy beard. “But it wasn’t his way. And if he was responsible for what happened, I can’t see him burying the body out at Wisteria Hill. Too close to his business enterprises, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” I said. “I’ve heard about Idris Blackthorne’s business.”

“Then you know he wouldn’t have been doing anything to draw attention to himself.”

I stretched my legs across the footstool. “Harry, did you ever hear about some kind of high-stakes card game going on in a cabin in the woods out behind Wisteria Hill?”

“That was another one of Idris’s business ventures,” he said. I could hear his dog, Boris, sniffing the phone.

“High stakes?” I asked.

“From what I heard. The closest I ever got to a high-stakes card game was nickel poker around the kitchen table on a Saturday night.” He laughed. “My wife thought gambling was a waste of money. Didn’t mean she didn’t clean out my friends on a regular basis though.”

“Do you think it’s possible someone at that poker game did something to Tom?”

“It’s possible,” he said. He was silent for a moment. “You should talk to Burtis Chapman if you want to know more about things to do with Idris. He worked for the man for a lot of years.” Harry lowered his voice. “In fact Burtis took over a small bit of Idris’s business. But you could keep that to yourself.”

“Yes, I could,” I said.

“If you can get down to Fern’s about six tomorrow morning, you’re likely to find Burtis having breakfast. Tell him I told you to talk to him.”

“Thank you Harry,” I said. “I just might do that.”

“You take care of yourself, Kathleen,” he said.

“I will,” I said. “Good night.”

Breakfast with Burtis Chapman was not my idea of a good time. “Maybe Marcus is right,” I said out loud. “Maybe I should just stay out of this.”

The phone rang then. It was Maggie.

“Hi,” she said. “I just wanted to check in and make sure Roma is okay.”

“She’s good,” I said, leaning forward to brush a clump of cat hair off the footstool. “Pearl answered all her questions, but I’m not sure Marcus or anyone else is going to be able to figure out what happened to Roma’s father. It’s just too long ago.” I exhaled slowly. “He showed up after supper.”

“Really?” she said. “Did you have some kind of séance?”

“Not Tom,” I said. “Marcus. He wanted to ask Pearl a few questions. We convinced him to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“I’m glad Roma’s all right. It’s been a rough couple of days for her.”

“For you, too,” I said. “How’s the basement?”

Owen appeared in the kitchen doorway and started across the floor to me. He had some kind of kitty intuition that told him when it was Maggie on the phone.

“Almost dry last time I checked, and Harry took a look at the back wall for me. He’s pretty sure he knows where most of the water came in and he thinks it’s an easy fix.”

“Oh Mags, that would be terrific.”

“It would, because there isn’t very much left in the contingency fund.”

I looked down at Owen whose eyes were fixed on the phone’s receiver. His right paw was over his left one. “Owen has his paws crossed for you,” I said.

Maggie laughed. “Give him a scratch for me. If we were just the same species, he would be the perfect guy.”

I reached down and scratched behind the little gray cat’s ears. He closed his eyes and started to purr.

“Kath, I’ve been thinking,” Maggie said. “Do you think someone from Jaeger’s past could have tracked him down, and convinced him to go back to his old life?”

“It wouldn’t have been that hard,” I said. “I know he changed his name, but he wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile around town—at least not lately. And look where he ended up, in the same small town his lawyer came from.”

Maggie grunted her agreement and I pictured her stretching one arm behind her head, or hanging from the waist with her hands flat on the floor. “His old life was very different from waiting tables at Eric’s and working a few shifts in the co-op store, you know.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I e-mailed one of my old profs,” she said. “Before he got caught—before he went to jail—Jaeger, Christian, was living quite the ritzy life: fancy apartment, gallery openings, the best tables at restaurants—all the clichés.”

“Wait a minute. That doesn’t fit with what Peter told us,” I said. “Remember? He said that Jaeger needed the money to take care of his sick mother.”

Owen jumped onto my lap. I pointed at a tuft of cat hair stuck to the edge of the stool. He looked blankly at me.

“I’m not so sure Jaeger was the person that Peter seems to think he was,” Maggie said.

“Were Jaeger and Ray Nightingale friends?” I asked. Owen kept putting his paw out to the telephone receiver as though he wanted to take it away from me.

“Not as far as I know. Why?”

I shifted sideways a little so I wasn’t sitting directly on one of my many bruises. “Remember when Abigail and I went to that estate sale in Summerhill a couple of weeks ago?”

“Uh huh.”

“Jaeger was out there. Abigail saw him and she says Ray was with him.”

“So what did Ray say? Did you ask him about it?”

“He said he bumped into Jaeger at the sale, that’s all.”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Maggie said, “You don’t believe him.”

I sighed. “No, I don’t.”

“Ray’s not the kind of guy to get mixed up in some kind of scam, Kath. He just isn’t. I’ve known him for years. He was one of the first artists to get behind the idea of the co-op.”

“I didn’t say he was involved in some kind of scam. It’s just…” I hesitated. “When I asked him about Jaeger he didn’t tell me the truth. I know a lie when I hear one, Maggie, and Ray was lying, about something.”

She made a small sound on the other end of the phone. “Do you think I should talk to him?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet at least. Maybe, maybe I’m wrong.” Owen bumped my hand because I’d stopped scratching the side of his head. “Would you like a date square?” I asked.

“What?” she said, clearly confused by the abrupt turn the conversation had taken. It occurred to me I was sounding like Marcus.

“Would you like a date square?” I repeated.

“Umm, okay.”

“Would you like some company with your date square?”

She laughed. “I would. I’m at the studio.”

“I’ll be there in ten,” I said.

Owen jumped off my lap and headed purposefully for the kitchen. “No,” I called after him.

He didn’t alter his path. He didn’t even glance back at me. I got to my feet and followed him. I knew what was in his furry little mind.

He went directly to where the cat carrier bag was hanging next to my jacket and sat underneath it. I stood, arms folded, by the kitchen table. “I know you understand the word no,” I said.

He continued to ignore me and instead tried to swat the bag with one paw. He didn’t even come close.

“You’re not coming with me,” I said.

Nothing. Clearly I was on permanent ignore. I went upstairs and brushed my teeth and my hair, and then I came back down and put half a dozen date squares in a container to take to Maggie’s. Owen was still sitting underneath the bag.

I bent down closer to his level. “Owen, I’m sorry but you can’t come.” He glared at me for a moment then turned his back on me, flipping his tail straight up in the air so I suddenly had a face full of furry kitty backside.

Had I just been mooned by a cat?

I straightened up. “I’m leaving,” I told him. “I won’t be long.”

His response was a slitted-eye glare. Then he headed for the living room and disappeared.

Literally.

I knew he’d sulk for a while and when I came home I’d find bits from one of his catnip chickens all over the kitchen floor.

I was almost at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill when a flash of movement caught my eye, just at the edge of my field of vision. A small white dog darted into the street. I jammed on the brakes and turned the wheel toward the sidewalk as the back end of the truck fishtailed, waiting for a thump and hoping it wouldn’t come.

It didn’t, although there was a noise from the passenger side of the truck and the right front tire bounced off the edge of the curb.

The dog bolted across the empty left lane and disappeared up someone’s driveway.

I put the car in park and leaned my head back against the seat, eyes closed. My heart was pounding a cha-cha rhythm in my chest.

After a moment I opened my eyes again and looked over at the passenger seat. “I know you’re here, Owen,” I said. I waited for him to pop into view, so to speak.

He didn’t.

“I’m not moving this truck until I can see you.”

Nothing.

Okay, so he wanted to play hardball.

“When we get home I’m going to gather up all the cheese and sardine kitty crackers and give them to Harry to take out to Boris.”

Boris was a big and intimidating German shepherd that looked like he ate small cats for lunch. In reality he was, well, a pussycat. However, he’d once woofed in Owen’s face, which made him dog non grata in the cat’s eyes.

I waited, and in a moment Owen winked into view on the seat beside me.