Sleight Of Paw

13

My knees went rubbery and I dropped into the chair. “What?” I said.

“They arrested Ruby. She was in her studio.” Maggie’s voice dropped to a whisper. “They put handcuffs on her.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Um, right before I got here, I guess,” she said. “Jaeger Merrill has studio space across the hall. He said it happened ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

What was Marcus thinking? “Mags, does Ruby have a lawyer?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. And her mom and stepfather are on that cruise.”

“I just came from having breakfast with Rebecca and Everett,” I said. “I’ll call and ask him to recommend a lawyer for Ruby. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay,” Maggie said. “I’m at the studio. Call my cell.”

I hung up and dialed Rebecca’s number. “Hello, Kathleen,” Rebecca said when she heard my voice. “Did you forget something?”

I explained about Ruby. “I don’t want to interfere,” I said. “But I doubt Ruby has a lawyer and, Rebecca, she couldn’t have done this.”

“Ruby’s a lovely girl,” Rebecca said. “She wouldn’t hurt a fly, and you’re not interfering.”

“Do you think Everett could suggest a lawyer?”

“He certainly could,” she said. “Wait just a moment.”

She set down the phone and I heard murmuring in the background, and then Everett picked up the phone. “Kathleen, are you certain they arrested Ruby?”

“Yes,” I said. “Maggie said they handcuffed her.”

“I’ll send one of my lawyers to the police station,” he said. “Don’t worry about Ruby. I can’t promise you she won’t have to stay in custody, because it’s Sunday, but her rights will be protected.”

“Thank you, Everett,” I said, struggling to keep the emotion out of my voice. “I owe you.”

“No, Kathleen, you don’t,” he said. “If you need anything else you call me.”

I said I would and hung up.

Owen and Hercules were sitting in front of me, a set of gold eyes and a set of green eyes fixed on my face. “Marcus arrested Ruby,” I said angrily.

Hercules gave his head a vigorous shake.

“I don’t understand what he was thinking.”

I was still wearing my hat and scarf. I took them off and set them on the footstool. “I have to call Maggie back.”

Mags answered on the second ring. I explained Everett was sending a lawyer for Ruby.

“Thank you,” she said. “When I found out Ruby had been arrested, my mind went blank. What are they thinking? Ruby would never hurt Agatha. Never.”

Owen came over and leaned his head against my leg. I stroked his fur. “It’s a mistake,” I said. “Everett’s lawyer will straighten the whole thing out.”

“You’re right,” Maggie said. “This is just some mix-up. Maybe because she was the one who found Agatha. You found Gregor Easton’s body and the police looked at you.”

Marcus had actually suggested I’d been having an affair with the much older and hugely egocentric composer. But he’d learned he’d rushed to judgment, and he’d learn the same thing about Ruby. I felt myself start to relax.

“Got any plans for this afternoon?” Maggie asked. “If we’ve done all we can for Ruby, I need to get my mind off things.” She was starting to sound more like herself again.

“Nothing special.”

“I want to work for a couple more hours, but after that do you want to go skating?”

“Mags, I can’t skate,” I said.

“How can you be such a good hockey player and not be able to skate?”

“Street hockey.”

There was silence for a moment, then she said, “Okay, this is the perfect time to try skating.”

“Of course. Only half the town will be down there; nothing embarrassing about that.”

“Lots of people to help you,” Maggie said.

I lifted Owen into my lap. He nuzzled the phone receiver. “Owen says hello,” I said.

“Hey, Fuzz Face. How are you?” Maggie crooned.

Owen flopped across my lap and started to purr. “You’re such a suck-up,” I whispered to him. “He heard you,” I told Maggie.

“Give him a scratch for me,” she said. “So, are you coming skating?”

“I can’t. I don’t have skates.”

“I can borrow a pair for you. What size shoe do you wear?”

I could stay home and worry about Ruby for the rest of the day, or go watch Maggie skate and maybe try it myself. “Okay, you win.”

I told her my shoe size. She reminded me to bring an extra pair of socks. We settled on the time and I hung up.

I gave Owen a scratch behind the ears. “That’s from Maggie,” I told him. The purring went up a notch.

I went into the kitchen to make more coffee, leaning against the counter while it brewed. I kept coming back to what Marcus had been thinking.

He wouldn’t just arrest Ruby on a whim. He had reasons, evidence. He was clearly interpreting the evidence incorrectly, but he had it. Was it because she’d found Agatha’s body?

I’d been there in the alley, too, and unlike the last time we tangled, I didn’t seem to be a suspect. Was it the money? It looked like that rumor was true.

When the coffee was ready I poured a cup and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs. Owen was roaming around and Hercules wandered in from the porch.

“When I finish my coffee let’s go outside,” I said to them. They exchanged glances but ignored me. “You both could use some exercise and so could I. Maggie’s taking me skating this afternoon.”

Hercules ducked his head and put a paw over his face. Owen yowled as though someone had stepped on his tail.

“Very funny,” I said dryly.

With their little melodramatic display over both cats headed for the living room. I jumped up and stood in the doorway. “I was serious. We’re going outside. And don’t even think about doing an end run around me.”

Both sets of whiskers were twitching.

“It’s not that cold,” I said darkly. “Move your tails.” I went for my coffee without looking at them, and when I was ready, they were sitting sullenly by the outside door.

I widened the path around the side of the house, burning off a little of the anxiety about Ruby being arrested. Owen prowled the yard while Hercules sat on the bottom step, looking annoyed. We spent a half hour outside. When we went back in the cats disappeared and didn’t come out until lunch, when they tried to mooch some of my sandwich.

The sun was still out as I got dressed to meet Maggie. Hercules paced restlessly around the kitchen as I pulled my wool socks up over my snazzy green long underwear and stepped into my snow pants.

“It’s skating, Hercules, not BASE jumping. I’ll be fine,” I said. He didn’t look convinced.

There was a reason I had never skated, I discovered. It was a lot like patting your head and rubbing your stomach—while standing with one foot on a banana peel. At least that’s how it felt to me.

There were quite a few people on the ice when I got down to the marina, mostly little kids and a few adults. Maggie was sitting on a wooden bench with her own skates already laced. I dropped beside her. “Hi,” she said.

I looked out over the ice surface. “I didn’t think there’d be so many people.”

“That’s okay. No one expects you to audition for Stars on Ice your first time out.” She pulled a pair of skates out of the bag at her feet. “They should fit,” she said.

I undid my boots and pulled on the extra socks I’d tucked into my pocket. Maggie laced the skates for me, wrapping the ties around my ankle at the top and double knotting the bow.

We stepped onto the ice and my legs slid out to the side until I was more than halfway down into a pretty decent split. My arms flailed until I could latch on to Maggie and I did, wrapping both my arms around her waist in an awkward bear hug. I managed to pull myself up, but my ankles wouldn’t stop wobbling. The only way to stay upright was to keep a death grip on Maggie and press my knees tightly together. My feet kept trying to slide off in opposite directions. Every bit of coordination I thought I had was gone.

“Take a second to find your balance,” she said.

“It’s going to take more than a second,” I said. I tried to straighten out more, clutching at Maggie’s jacket like it was a lifeline, because it was. I got both feet together and pointed in the same direction.

“Link your arm through mine,” Maggie instructed.

I pried my fingers from the front of her coat, put my arm through hers, and smiled triumphantly.

And then immediately fell on my snow pants.

Maggie, who had somehow known I was going to fall, had let go of me a split second before I went down.

“Ow!” I said, glaring at her.

She pulled me up and had the good sense not to smile. I found my balance again, and this time I didn’t end up on my padding. “Okay, we’re going to try a little skating,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think I’ll stay right here and enjoy the scenery.”

“You can do this.” She tugged on my arm, and for a moment I was gliding across the ice.

Although my brain said forward, my feet decided to move sideways and independently of each other. I windmilled my arms to try to stay upright. But I didn’t.

That was how it was for two turns around the outdoor rink: Maggie alternating between giving me confusing instructions and pulling me back to my feet.

“I have to sit down,” I said finally. I was sweating like a bear in a sauna. and I was pretty sure my feet had tied themselves into knots inside my skates. Maggie was more or less dragging me around while I clung to her, bent at a ninety-degree angle at the waist. It was the only way I could keep my feet from sliding off on a tangent. I pretty much looked like Wile E. Coyote on skates.

Maggie steered me over to the bench and I dropped inelegantly onto it. “Go skate,” I said, waving her away. “Go.”

She went, which meant I could sit and sulk silently for a while.

Mary glided over, stopping with a flourish and a little spray of ice chips. I should’ve guessed she could skate. She held out a thermos. “Hot chocolate?”

“Yes, please,” I said gratefully. Sulking went a lot better with some chocolate.

She sat down beside me, took one of the cups from the inside of the thermos, and filled it about half-full. I inhaled the scent of steaming chocolate.

“Your first time on skates?”

I nodded.

“So what do you think?”

“I think ice is very cold, very slippery and very hard,” I said.

“So you had fun, then?” Mary said, her eyes sparkling over her cup.

I gestured at the rink. “How do you all do that so easily?” Maggie was skating backward. Backward, talking to Claire.

Mary smiled. “Back in the dark ages when I was young, all there was to do here in the wintertime was skate and toboggan. If you stayed home someone would find a chore for you to do.”

I took another sip of hot chocolate. My fingers were starting to thaw.

“My first pair of skates were hand-me-downs from my older brother,” she said. “I had to wear two pair of my father’s woolen socks with them to fit. “

I wiggled my toes in my skates. The feeling was coming back to my feet. I looked at Mary. “Mary,” I said. “If you tell me you skated to school uphill both ways through waist-high snow, I’m going to whack you with a snowball.”

Mary laughed and shook her head. “Of course not,” she said. “Snow was closer to over my head.”

I snatched a chunk of snow from the ground and threw it at her. It disintegrated against the front of her coat. She just laughed harder.

We watched the skaters zip by, and then Mary’s face grew serious. “Kathleen.” She hesitated. “You know about Ruby?”

“That she was arrested? Yes.” I blew on my hot chocolate and took another drink. “Ruby didn’t kill Agatha.”

“The police have evidence,” Mary said. “They found a glove belonging to Ruby with the body.”

“She found Agatha’s body. She was upset. She could have easily dropped a glove.”

Mary studied her skates for a moment. “That’s not the only evidence. Bridget says they have a piece of glass that was found in the alley and paint that matches the paint on Ruby’s truck.”

It struck me that Bridget was doing too much talking, but I didn’t say that out loud.

“The glass is from the kind of headlight Ruby has on her truck and”—Mary cleared her throat—“the headlight is broken.”

She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “And it looks bad that Agatha left all that money to Ruby’s boyfriend,” I said.

“Yes, it does.”

“What it looks like and what the truth is are not always the same thing. I know Ruby didn’t kill Agatha.” I finished my hot chocolate and gave the cup back to Mary. “Thank you,” I said. “This is probably going to sound crazy, but could Agatha have had any enemies?”

Mary twisted the top back on the thermos, then looked at me and shrugged. “She was an old lady. When she was teaching, sure, there were some irate parents and some kids who didn’t like her. She was a pretty strict teacher. But enemies? No.” She banged her skate boots together, knocking off the snow that was clinging to the metal blades. “It had to be an accident.”

“More proof that it wasn’t Ruby,” I said. “She wouldn’t have left Agatha to die in that alley.”

Mary stood up. “I hope you’re right.” She gave me a finger waggle and skated away with the thermos.

Susan and Eric came skating by then. Each of them had one of twins by the hand. The little guys could skate better than I could. They grinned at me and I waved at them.

Susan gave me a quick smile. Her attention was focused on the boys. Eric didn’t look good from a distance and he looked even worse closer. His hair went in every direction around his black earmuffs. His color, even in the crisp, bracing air, was bilious, and he needed a shave. He had more than I’m-a-sexy-bad-boy stubble.

He looked like he’d been on a three-day bender, which wasn’t likely, since I’d never seen him drink so much as a glass of wine. He’d been close to Agatha. Having her die in the alley by the restaurant had to have been painful.

I wondered if Eric had heard about Ruby being arrested. If he hadn’t, he would soon. And when the newspaper went online after midnight, the whole world would know.

I thought about what Mary had said. Ruby could have easily dropped her glove or even have given both of them to Agatha earlier in the day. As for bits of paint, I didn’t know enough about automotive paint to know whether it could be narrowed down to one specific vehicle, although it didn’t seem likely.

And then there was that piece of glass that might have come from the headlight of Ruby’s truck. Was that the sliver of glass that had caught in the fabric of my pants? Was I, indirectly, responsible for Ruby getting arrested?

Even if, big if, the glass had come from Ruby’s truck, it didn’t mean she’d been driving it. She was pretty generous about loaning the truck. Maggie had borrowed it last summer, but it refused to run for her, which is how we’d ended up on our first “road trip” with Roma.

I leaned forward, chin propped on my hands, and watched all the skaters whiz past. I knew that Marcus was just doing his job, but he was wrong. I’d seen Ruby’s face in that alley. I’d seen how stricken she was, knowing that Agatha was dead. That reaction wasn’t faked.

I’d grown up with actors. I’d seen them practice. I’d seen them perform. I’d seen every emotion from joy to depression to grief acted out. I’ve seen it acted well and unbelievably badly. Nothing about Ruby’s grief was made-up.

Maggie waved at me from the far end of the rink. In the clump of people behind her one head stuck out.

Marcus.

For a moment I thought about skating down to him and telling him how wrong he was about Ruby. Because of course once he knew he’d apologize and let her go. It was a nice fantasy. Still, I wanted to talk to him.

Maggie was almost level with me now. I struggled to my feet and, legs wobbling, waved my mitten at her to get her attention. She stopped in front of me with a spray of ice chips, just as Mary had done. I teetered toward her.

“You want to go back out?”

“Yes,” I said, arms flapping as I stepped over the low barrier between the ice and snow. My feet were seesawing in and out. I grabbed Maggie’s arm as though it were a rope and I was going down for the third time.

“Just skate,” I said, through clenched teeth. I willed my feet to go forward and they did. Sort of.

“Okay,” she said slowly.

We started along the ice. I scanned the crowd ahead of me, looking for Marcus. I couldn’t see him, and I knew if I turned around I’d be flat on the ice again. A skater slipped past me on the outside, turning in a smooth arc in front of me.

“Hello, Kathleen.”

Of course it was him. He was skating easily, almost lazily backward, and of course at that moment my feet slid out to the sides and I lost my grip on Maggie. I pitched forward, grabbing air, realizing as I went down that I was going to slide through his legs as if we were playing a game of reverse leapfrog.

Crap on toast!

He was grinning, which added insult to injury. Then just before I hit the ice he reached out and caught me under both arms, the momentum pulling me in against him.

Of course.