Sleight Of Paw

17

I wasn’t quite as confident now about the contents of the envelope, since I’d seen the contents of the bag Agatha had been carrying around. On the other hand, it was all I had.

“You have to get back in the bag,” I said to Hercules. He didn’t move. “You can’t stay here. Too risky. And you wouldn’t want to miss one of Eric’s breakfast sandwiches, would you?”

Hercules jumped down onto the desktop, walked across my files and dropped to the chair, sending it spinning in circles. I leaned over the desk and caught the chair back halfway through the fourth circle.

He looked up at me woozily. I came around to his side and held open the top of the tote. He jumped in and lay down. I closed the zipper and got my coat on again, and we headed back out.

It occurred to me that there was someone else I could ask about that envelope: Peter Lundgren. His law office was just up by the Stratton Theater. “Detour,” I said to Hercules.

There was no one at Peter’s office. It was probably too early. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and Eric will be working,” I said to Herc. Well, actually I said it to the bag slung over my shoulder. Thankfully there was no one on the sidewalk.

As we turned toward the restaurant Hercules shifted in the bag. I stopped and peered through the top panel. Two green eyes looked up at me. “Not a sound,” I hissed. “And no jumping around. The last thing I need is to have to explain why my bag is moving.”

That had happened to me once at tai chi with Owen. Luckily, Maggie had saved me by saying her phone was in my bag, set to vibrate.

The restaurant was almost empty, but Eric was back behind the counter. I resisted the urge to unzip the tote and high-five the cat. Or do a fist-paw bump.

Eric nodded hello when I walked in, but then turned away. He still looked a little ragged, and I wondered how much of that was due to Agatha’s death.

Jaeger, who usually worked weekends for Eric, was wiping down the counter. He was a mask maker. I’d seen him a couple of times in his studio at the River Arts Center when I’d gone to visit Maggie. He smiled and gestured around the room. “Anywhere you’d like,” he said. “I’ll be there with coffee in a second.” I picked a table for two in the far corner under the window, but against the side wall.

When Jaeger came over I ordered a breakfast sandwich and set Hercules by my feet, between the wall and my chair. The top of the bag was open a crack. After I’d taken off my coat, I put cream and sugar in my coffee and took a drink. It was good, hot and strong.

I felt the bag moving between my feet. I looked down just in time to see Hercules wiggle out of the bag and make a mad dash along the wall, disappearing down the hall to the restrooms.

Crap on toast! What was I going to do now? I grabbed the bag and bolted from the table, turning the corner just in time to see the cat go through Eric’s office door, the door with the PRIVATE sign on it. And I did mean “through.”

“Hercules!” I hissed. Waste of time. He was already gone and it wasn’t very likely he’d have listened, anyway.

I stood in the small hallway and took several deep breaths. Hercules was in Eric’s office, yes, but Eric and Jaeger were still out front. All I had to do was not panic, wait until the cat came out, and get him back in the bag. How hard could that be?

I tried not to think about all the things that could go wrong, like Hercules walking through the very solidlooking door just as someone else was on their way to the washroom.

“Hey, Kathleen.”

Or Eric needing to get into his office.

I turned around.

“Is there a problem with the restroom?”

“Um, no,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you in private.”

His expression was instantly guarded. “This really isn’t a good time.”

I took a step closer so he couldn’t go around me easily. Then I pushed the bag behind me with one foot. “You, uh, you look tired,” I said gently. Whatever was wrong with Eric, I didn’t want to make him feel worse.

“Yeah, well, I had a tooth that was giving me problems.” He wiped a hand on his apron. “Like I said, this isn’t a good time.” He moved to go around me.

Maybe being gentle wasn’t going to work. “It’s a heck of a lot worse time for Ruby.”

That stopped him in his tracks. He turned. “Look,” he said. “I’m sorry that Ruby was arrested. And for the record, I don’t think she had anything to do with Agatha’s death. But neither did I.” He pulled a hand over the back of his head and his eyes slid off my face. “Is that what you wanted to know, Kathleen?”

Since he was being direct, there was no reason for me not to be the same. “The night she died Agatha was in here. She was carrying an envelope,” I said. “It was an old brown envelope with a metal tab closure, probably from a report card.”

“If you say so.”

“You argued with her about it.”

“I didn’t argue with Agatha about anything.” His body language said different. He shifted uneasily from one foot to another.

“You weren’t the only one,” I said. “It had to mean something.”

“We didn’t argue,” he said again.

“Call it a discussion, then. Call it whatever you want. I think whatever was inside the envelope might have something to do with Agatha’s death. And now, very conveniently for someone, it’s disappeared.”

Eric looked me in the eye then. “Look, Kathleen. I don’t know what you think you saw, but Agatha and I didn’t fight over an old envelope or whatever might or might not have been inside. You misunderstood what you saw.” He looked away just a little too quickly.

I took a couple of steps sideways, trying to turn Eric away from his office door, and waited, hoping the silence would nudge him into saying more.

“After Agatha had that stroke, she got argumentative over things that didn’t matter, like how many packets of mayo I gave her with her sandwich.”

I shook my head ever so slightly. I knew what I’d seen. Eric hadn’t been arguing with the old woman over mayonnaise.

“And she started collecting things—junk, really—things she tore out of the newspaper, things she found around town.”

I thought of the collection in the canvas bag—the gloves, the postcard. Maybe he was right. Then I remembered how protective Agatha had been about that brown envelope. She hadn’t felt the same way about the bag and its contents because she’d left it behind at the community center. And no matter what Eric was saying now, he had argued with her about that envelope.

Eric crossed his arms and ran one hand up and down his upper arm. “Kathleen, no offense, but you’re not from here, and you haven’t known us that long. You didn’t know Agatha at all.”

You’re not one of us. I’d heard that before. It used to make me feel left out, but this time all I felt was angry. Eric was lying; that was clear by the way he couldn’t look at me for more than a few seconds at a time. He was using the fact that I wasn’t Mayville born and bred to avoid being honest with me.

I felt a faint change in the air, in the energy of a small hallway.

Hercules.

Eric didn’t seem to notice. He was turned away from the office, and over his shoulder I saw Hercules come through the door. The cat blinked, looked around and then disappeared into the bag.

“You’re right,” I said to Eric, my heart pounding with relief. “I haven’t been here nearly long enough to know everyone. But I do know Ruby didn’t kill Agatha and she doesn’t deserve what’s happening to her.” I moved behind him and grabbed the strap of the bag.

“Please think about that, Eric,” I said. I walked back to the table, setting the messenger bag on my chair. “You are in deep, deep trouble,” I whispered to the cat. I could see one green eye watching me through the top mesh panel.

Jaeger had my order ready. I paid and walked back to the library with Hercules slung securely over my shoulder and my hand on top of the bag.

Inside my office with the door closed, I let Hercules out.

“I can’t believe you did that,” I said, pulling off my coat and hat. “Twice in the same morning. How would I have explained why I had a cat in Eric’s restaurant? Huh?”

His response was to poke the take-out bag with a paw. “I’m not surprised you’re hungry,” I said, pulling out the toasted English muffin sandwich and fishing out some of the egg for him. “The life of a cat burglar will do that to you.”

I ate a bite of the muffin, then pulled out a strip of crispy bacon. Hercules spit a piece of paper at me, snatched the bacon from my fingers and jumped to the floor in one smooth motion.

“Hey!” I yelled. He was already under my desk.

I bent down and peered underneath in time to see the last bit of bacon disappear into his mouth. “This isn’t a funny,” I said. “No sardines for you for the rest of the week.”

He licked his lips. The piece of paper he had swiped from Eric’s office had fallen on the floor. I picked it up, straightened it and smoothed it flat on the desktop. There was a rushing sound in my head, like I’d held a seashell up to my ear.

The piece of paper was the top part of an envelope.

An old brown report-card envelope.