Copycat Killing

24

Maggie looked up over her head and then she looked at me. “If there’s another…furry trespasser up there I’m going to scream.”

I was pretty sure the noise had been caused by a furry trespasser, just not the kind she meant.

“I’ll go look,” I said, reaching for the bag by my feet and slinging it over my shoulder. If I saw—and I did mean saw—the fur ball I was certain had caused the noise, he was going back in the bag and back in the truck.

Maggie took a deep breath and swallowed. “Okay, I’m coming too.”

That would make it hard to grab Owen, assuming he was visible. I thought about coming clean, but Maggie was already resolutely climbing the steps. I started up after her.

There was no sign of the cat in the empty hallway, but a large cardboard box was lying on its side, the contents half spilled on the floor. It had clearly fallen off the stack of boxes pushed against the wall next to the door of Maggie’s studio. I was happy to see there was no squashed cat underneath it.

Maggie made a face. “I think I stacked those too high,” she said.

“Probably,” I agreed, thinking Owen jumping on the pile and rummaging around inside the top box hadn’t helped.

She was already crouched down, gathering papers.

“What are all these boxes doing out here?” I asked, bending down to help.

“Another leak; in the storage space this time. We had to move everything out. And I just brought these things over from the co-op a couple of days ago.”

There were boxes stacked by Ruby’s door and Jaeger’s former studio as well.

“Oren is supposed to come in the morning to see if he can fix it,” she said. She picked up a dark brown leather portfolio that had been partly covered by a couple of her sketches and turned it over, clearly puzzled. “This isn’t mine.”

She reached for the cardboard carton, still lying on its side. Inside among the papers and photographs was a wooden box, with an inlaid geometric design on its lid. Maggie sat pack on her heels with the box resting on her lap. “This isn’t mine, either.” She tipped the box sideways. “I don’t even see how to open it.”

I took it from her. The box was about the size of a small jewelry box, low and flat, made of smooth honey-colored wood. The intricate design set into the cover had been made from several different kinds of wood. There were no hinges and no catch. “It’s a puzzle box,” I told Maggie. I swallowed a couple of times and studied the small box. It was well made.

She reached over and ran her fingers over the top, feeling the design. “It’s very nice work. I thought puzzle boxes were a lot smaller than this.”

“Not always,” I said. I gestured at the leather portfolio on the floor by Maggie’s knee. “Look inside and see if you can figure out who it belongs to. Maybe the same person owns this box too, and just put their stuff with yours by mistake.”

Maggie undid the snap closure and opened the folder flat on the floor. The top piece of paper inside was a sketch for a mask. The page was covered with notes written in a tight, cramped handwriting.

She blew out a breath. “This is Jaeger’s,” she said slowly. She flipped through the papers underneath the top one, nodding her head. “Yeah, this is definitely his.” She looked over at the puzzle box. “Do you think that belongs to Jaeger as well?”

“What are the chances two different people would accidently put something in one of your boxes?” What was the chance even one person would?

“When did you put these boxes in the storage room?” I asked.

“Tuesday night, after the meeting with the town council. Ruby helped me.”

Jaeger had died on Wednesday. “Was Jaeger here?”

“He was in and out,” Maggie said. “Lots of people were.”

It was way too big a coincidence that the puzzle box would belong to anyone but Jaeger Merrill. “Jaeger’s masks were made from metal and found objects, weren’t they?” I said.

She nodded, still shifting through the papers. “They were. He had a great eye.” She pointed at one sketch. “That mask for instance. It was in the store and there was something unsettling about it.” She flipped through the papers underneath that top one, and then suddenly she stopped and turned to look at me. “He did do one piece and the basic face—the base if you will—was made out of wood, several different pieces that he carved and fitted together.”

“It’s possible Jaeger made this,” I said, turning the box over. If he had, he did very fine, meticulous work. “There are hours and hours of work in this.”

“How do you know so much about these boxes?” Maggie asked.

I ducked my head, brushing my hair gingerly off my forehead. “A…friend of mine gave a puzzle box to my dad, and then Dad and Ethan found one at a yard sale and spent an entire weekend trying to get into it.”

I remembered the two of them coming home with their two dollar treasure and I smiled at the memory.

“What is it?” Maggie said.

“I’m just remembering Dad and Ethan, they couldn’t get that box open and pretty soon they were fighting about it. My brother was trying to make this chart with arrows to ‘map the process’ and my father wanted what he called an instinctual approach—in other words, trial and error.” I couldn’t help laughing.

“Finally, my mother came sweeping out from the kitchen—I remember she had some kind of long gold scarf flowing behind her, very dramatic—carrying a wooden meat mallet she’d gotten from who knows where—probably one of the neighbors—threatening to ‘open’ the box herself if they didn’t stop arguing over it.”

Maggie grinned at me. “Did they?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head.

“Did they ever get it open?”

“Someone, uh, opened it for them,” I said. I slid my finger over the end of the box and then pushed on an edge. A small section of the side panel extended itself forward. I pushed it back into place and felt along the bottom edge. It took a couple of tries but finally I managed to slide out a thin bottom panel.

“Oh wow,” Maggie said. “Could I try?”

I handed the box over to her. “Go ahead,” I said. “I don’t know how many moving pieces there are and the trick is that you have to move them in the right order or you won’t get the box open.”

She moved her long fingers over the polished wood, sliding the bottom in and out and moving the side section again.

“We should call Marcus,” I said. I looked over the stack of boxes, wondering where the heck Owen was. He could be sitting on the top watching us for all I knew. Given his massive kitty-crush on Maggie I knew he had to be close.

“Right,” she said, so engrossed in playing with the puzzle box, she didn’t even look up. Then my words seemed to register and her head snapped up. “Wait a minute. Why?”

The portfolio was glove-soft leather. The puzzle box had been beautifully crafted by someone, Jaeger, maybe? I had no way of knowing.

I did know neither item seemed to go with Jaeger’s starving artist persona, although they probably fit right in to Christian Ellis’s more lavish lifestyle that Maggie had described to me.

“Because these things ended up in a box of your things less than twenty-four hours before Jaeger died,” I said. “I don’t know why. Maybe it’s as simple as he stashed them in the wrong box. Maybe he was hiding them. Given that we know it looks like he was up to something hinky, I think Marcus needs to know what we found.”

Maggie laced her fingers and squeezed her palms together. “Kathleen, do you think there was something ‘hinky’ about Jaeger’s death?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe. All I can tell you is, in my experience, it’s not a good idea to keep secrets from Marcus.”

Maggie nodded. “You’re right. I just wish we could call your dad or your brother and maybe get this thing open.”

I gave her the Mr. Spock eyebrow. It’s very impressive. “I didn’t say we couldn’t do that as well.” I pulled out my cell phone. “Do you want to call Peter, first?” I asked, holding it out to her.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Maggie said with certainty. “I’m not going around acting like I need to protect myself when I haven’t done anything wrong.” She dipped her head toward the phone. “Call him.”

I hesitated. While I felt it was important to let Marcus know about the box and the portfolio, I wasn’t sure we should keep Peter out of the loop.

Maggie narrowed her eyes at me and gestured to the phone. “Call Marcus,” she said. “Or I will.”

I punched in the number for Marcus’s cell, which I had memorized for some unknown reason, and he answered on the fourth ring. I explained that Maggie and I had found something at the studio that he needed to see. He didn’t ask what or how or why. All he said was, “I’m about ten minutes away.” I told him one of us would be at the back door to let him in and hung up.

“I’ll go down and wait for him,” Maggie said. She handed the puzzle box to me and stood up, brushing her hands on her pants. “That thing’s worse than Rubik’s Cube.”

She headed down the stairs. After a moment I got to my feet and looked around for Owen. I couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Owen!” I hissed.

Nothing. Where the heck was he?

I looked around all the boxes and then walked to the far end of the hall. “Owen, where are you?” I whispered. Why did he have to pick now to prove I had zero control over what he did?

It occurred to me that maybe he’d knocked that cardboard box off the top of the pile because there was something he wanted me to see inside. Had he been able to somehow smell that the leather portfolio had belonged to Jaeger Merrill? Heaven knows he could smell a catnip chicken over in Rebecca’s kitchen.

I crouched down in the middle of the hall. I heard Maggie letting Marcus in downstairs. “Owen!” I hissed again. “Stop messing with me!”

Almost as fast as a finger snap he was there in front of me, with the same smug smile as the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary, although in this case it was a piece of paper, not a yellow bird. And Owen hadn’t swallowed it. It had just been in his mouth.

He spit the torn piece of paper at my feet and put a paw on it for emphasis.

“I see it,” I said. “Now go get in the bag.” I could hear Maggie and Marcus on the stairs. He looked at the canvas bag on the floor where I’d left it by Maggie’s door. I swear he smirked at me.

And then he disappeared.