Sleight Of Paw

6

“Harry, are you all right?”I said.

It took a second for him to focus on me. “Oh, yes . . . I���m—I’m getting clumsy in my old age.” He started to reach for his cane, but I bent down and picked it up for him.

“Thank you, my dear,” he said. His color still wasn’t good, I noticed as he took the carved, black walking stick from me. He ran a hand over his chin, twisted finger joints pulling at the skin on his hand, which seemed as thin as tissue paper.

“Did I hear you right, Kathleen?” he asked, blue eyes troubled. “Is Agatha Shepherd . . . dead?”

I nodded, putting a hand on his shoulder. I was surprised when he lifted his own hand and put it over mine. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

“Me, too,” the old man said.

His son came in then. “There you are,” he said, a touch of exasperation in his voice. “I went back to the truck and you weren’t there.”

“That’s because I’m here,” Harrison retorted.

“I can see that,” Harry—the younger—said dryly. “I told you to wait in the truck.”

“Well, I’m not six years old,” Harrison said. “And I didn’t want to sit in the truck.”

Harry opened his mouth to say something else, and then it seemed our expressions or maybe the way we were standing registered with him. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and all the aggravation was gone from his voice.

I glanced at the old man first. He met my gaze for a moment and looked down. “It’s Agatha Shepherd,” I began. I gave Old Harry’s arm a gentle squeeze and then let go. “She’s . . . dead.”

The younger man’s face paled. “Dad, I’m sorry,” he said. “You, uh, worked with Agatha. You knew her.”

“I did,” Harrison said. I noticed how tightly he was gripping his cane.

Harry Junior took off his cap and ran a hand over his scalp. He looked at me. “What happened?”

I tried not to think about Agatha’s body lying in that alley, or her and Harry arguing on the sidewalk, the anger between them crackling in the cold night air. “I don’t think anyone knows for sure,” I finally said.

He looked at his father. “You okay?”

“I wouldn’t mind sitting down,” the old man said. “And if that’s coffee,” he gestured toward Abigail’s mug, “I wouldn’t mind a cup of that, either.”

“You’re not supposed to be drinking more than one cup of coffee.”

Harrison fixed his gaze on his son. “If I always did what I was supposed to do, you wouldn’t be here.”

Harry sighed. “You’re a stubborn old far—” He looked at me and caught himself. “Man,” he said instead.

“Go do whatever it was you came to do,” the old man said. “I can stay here with Kathleen. Maybe I’ll poke a few books back on the shelf for her.”

“I can always use an extra set of hands,” I said. I turned to Harry. “Go ahead. We’re fine.”

He hesitated. His mouth worked, but in the end all he said was, “Fine.” Then he turned and went back out the front doors.

“Would you like that cup of coffee now?” I asked Harrison.

“Please,” he said. “Before the Food Police comes back.”

I gestured across the library to the computer room. “There are a couple of chairs by the window. Have a seat and I’ll go get it.”

He smiled at me, and I couldn’t help thinking how much he looked like Santa Claus with his warm, blue eyes and white hair and beard. If I hadn’t seen him arguing with Agatha, I wouldn’t have believed it. There was no way an old man who could pass for Kriss Kringle had any connection to Agatha Shepherd’s death.

He made his way across the tile floor toward the big windows looking out over the water. I turned to the front desk and mouthed Watch him to Abigail, who nodded. Then I went upstairs and poured coffee for Harry. I set the carton of cream, several packets of sugar and a spoon next to the cups on a black plastic tray and carried the whole thing down the stairs.

Abigail was on the phone. “Come get me if you need help,” I whispered. She nodded without looking up.

Harry had taken off his coat and hat. I wondered why he had so much thick hair and his son had so little.

There was a low table under the window. I pulled it closer with my foot and then set the tray on top.

Harry noticed the carton of coffee cream. “Ahh,” he said, approvingly. “The good stuff.”

“I didn’t know how you took it,” I told him, as he poured cream into the cup.

“A little cream and three sugars,” he said, reaching for the paper packets. “Because I’m a sour old coot.”

“You are not,” I said.

He put the sugar in his coffee, stirred and then took a sip. “Mmmm, that’s good coffee.”

“Thank Abigail.” I told him. “She made it.”

“I will,” he said.

I took a drink from my own cup. Harrison was right. It was good coffee. I shifted sideways, watching as he settled himself a little more comfortably in the chair. Some inner resilience had taken over.

Balancing the cup on the arm of the chair, he looked at me. “Are you going to ask me about Agatha?” he said.

I wasn’t really surprised by the question. “It’s not any of my business.”

“Not a lot of secrets in a small place like this.”

I had to smile at that. Sometimes it was annoying how quickly news spread through Mayville. On the other hand, I was growing to like the fact that people knew me, that I was starting to belong.

The old man studied his left hand for a long moment, and I wondered what he was really seeing—some image from the past? Abruptly, he looked up at me again. “You probably figured out that I knew Agatha pretty well.”

The fact that they had been standing on the street in the cold, arguing, did make it pretty clear that Harry and Agatha had been more than casual acquaintances. I remembered Oren saying Harry had coached the juniorhigh hockey team.

“You were friends,” I said.

He took another sip of his coffee. “Years ago, yes. We had a falling-out. We hadn’t spoken in years.”

Okay, I wasn’t expecting that.

“You’re surprised,” he said.

I twisted the mug in my hands. “A little,” I admitted. He didn’t seem the type to stay angry for so long.

“I was stubborn. She was stubborn.” There was regret on his face and sadness, too.

“Is that what you were angry about last night?” I asked. “That same falling-out?”

His expression changed. For a moment it softened. “I can’t tell you what we were arguing about. I can tell you it had nothing to do with her dying.”

I took a long drink from my coffee while I figured out what to say next. “Harry, the police are going to hear about that argument you had with Agatha,” I said finally. “I probably wasn’t the only person who saw you two.”

His jaw tightened. “Kathleen, how did she die?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

He stared at me intently. “There’s something you’re not saying. Don’t humor me because I’m an old man.”

I swallowed and took a moment to set my cup back on the tray. “Agatha was found in the alley that runs behind the back of the buildings on Main Street.”

“Was it her heart, or did she fall?”

I leaned forward in the chair. “I don’t know, Harry. Really, I don’t.”

“But you think you know.”

“I only saw her long enough to see for certain that she was . . . gone.”

“Good Lord,” he muttered. “You think someone . . . I didn’t kill Agatha.”

I reached out a hand to him. “Harry, I know that,” I said. “Maybe . . .” I stopped. I’d been going to say that maybe Agatha had had a stroke. But I didn’t really believe that. I leaned an elbow on the arm of the chair.

“Harry, the police are going to have questions. It’s their job. Detective Gordon is investigating Agatha’s death. He has integrity. Whatever you tell him won’t get spread out around town.”

Harrison shook his head. “I know you mean well, Kathleen,” he said, edging forward in the chair so he could set his own cup on the tray. “But I gave my word and that still means something to me. Agatha isn’t here to release me from that promise, so I intend to honor it.”

I pressed my lips together and didn’t say anything.

“I suppose it seems old-fashioned to you.”

It seemed foolhardy to me, but I didn’t say that. “I didn’t know Agatha,” I said. “But from what I’ve heard, she cared about the people close to her. Roma told me about the kids she helped, how she changed their lives.”

He smiled. “It’s true. She wouldn’t give up on a kid. She was like a dog with a bone.”

“So would she want you to maybe get into trouble with the police because of a promise you made to her? Especially when she isn’t here?”

He slowly shook his head. “It’s not the same thing. Agatha’s word was her bond. I may not have always liked that, but I will honor it.”

I wasn’t going to change his mind. “Then I respect your decision,” I said.

“You still think I’m wrong,” he countered.

“I think you have to do what you think is right.” I reached over and patted his hand. “And I am sorry about Agatha. Truly.”

His eyes were sad again. “The last words we had were angry. I do regret that. Maybe that’s why I feel I have to keep my word to her. I can’t take back what I said.”

Just then there was a sound behind us. I turned. Young Harry was standing there. “Time to go,” he said.

The old man struggled to his feet. I hovered in case he needed any help, but he waved me away. He struggled into his heavy coat, and handed me his cane while he pulled on his hat. “Thank you for the coffee and conversation,” he said.

I smiled. “You’re welcome.” I handed him back his cane. He started for the door.

“Thanks, Kathleen,” Harry Junior said.

“Anytime. I enjoyed the visit,” I said.

Once they were gone I took the tray upstairs. By lunchtime I’d finished the final report on the refurbishment of the library and e-mailed it over to Everett Henderson’s secretary, Lita. Everett had funded the library renovations as a gift to the town.

Kate knocked on my open door midmorning. She was wearing purple-and-black striped leggings with a long purple sweater and black high-tops that she’d jazzed up with glued-on rhinestones. She had an evaluation sheet from her teacher for me to fill out. “You can fax it back to the school,” she said.

I promised I’d get the paperwork to her teacher by the end of the day. I had nothing but positive things to say about her and the work-study program. Kate worked hard, showed up early and was great with the little ones who came to story time. She’d even persuaded me to let her put a camera in the library storage room to shoot pictures of the riverfront for a school art project.

I covered the front desk while Abigail took her lunch, checking out piles of picture books for the four-year-olds who had been at story time. Susan came in about twelve thirty. When she caught sight of me at the desk, for a second she looked . . . guilty? This was the first time she’d missed work, except for a day in the fall when both of the twins had fallen out of the same tree on the same day.

“I’m sorry about this morning,” she said, standing in front of the desk, twisting her wedding ring around her finger.

“That’s okay,” I said, smiling so she’d see I meant it. “How’s Eric?”

“Eric?” She swallowed a couple of times. “Oh, he’s—he’s fine. This didn’t have anything to do with him.” She made an elaborate shrug. “The twins . . . They ate something they shouldn’t have.”

“Oh,” I said. “Do you want to take the rest of the day? Mary’s here and I could get her to stay.”

Susan shook her head, which her set her topknot bobbing. Usually Susan had something stuck in it—a chopstick, a pencil, a swizzle stick—but today it looked as if she’d just grabbed an elastic and quickly piled her hair on her head. A few curls were loose around her face.

“It’s okay, really. The boys are good.” She smiled, but it was forced. “You know how kids are, projectile vomiting one minute and then tearing up the house the next.”

She hesitated for a second. I’d never seen her so fidgety. “So I’ll just get rid of my stuff,” she said. “Do you want me to put the new magazines out?”

“Please,” I said. “They’re in the workroom.”

“Okay.”

I watched her head up the stairs, wondering what was really wrong. Something was making her jumpy and evasive. When she’d been talking to me her eyes kept slipping off my face, and her story about the twins having eaten something that made them sick sounded fishy.

Claire had said that Eric hadn’t come into the restaurant because he’d broken a tooth. Was that true, or was it something else that had Susan acting funny?

Susan was generally sunny and kind of snarky. Eric, in contrast, was serious and intense. I liked them both and hoped things were okay between them.

It occurred to me then that Susan hadn’t said a word about Agatha Shepherd. The alley extended behind the restaurant and on behind the next building. Someone had to have called Eric at home to let him know what happened. Maybe that’s why Susan didn’t seem like herself. Claire had said Eric sometimes let Agatha sleep in the back of the restaurant. Maybe Susan felt bad. Maybe Eric felt guilty for Agatha being in the alley in the first place.

Abigail came through the door then, snow coating her shoulders and scarf. She stamped her feet on the mat and some of the snow fell off. “It’s snowing,” she said. “Again.” She glanced back over her shoulder. “It’s never going to stop, you know.” She looked at me again. “I quit, Kathleen. I’m going to move to some island where I don’t have to put on four layers of clothing before I go outside.”

She grabbed the front of her parka and shook it at me. “I’m a whole person smaller underneath all of this.”

“I can see that,” I said.

“I’m going somewhere where I can wear a grass skirt and a coconut bra,” she continued, kicking the last of the snow off her feet.

“Sounds itchy,” I said.

She shot me a withering look and headed for the stairs. “I got splashed twice—twice—on my way back. What is it about snow that makes people behave like such jerks?”

It was pretty clear that was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t say a word as she clomped up the steps. From what I’d seen it wasn’t bad weather that made people behave badly; they could do that no matter what it was like outside.