“Peter was his lawyer. And maybe there was no secret. Maybe Jaeger changed his name legally. Maybe he was a huge Rolling Stones fan. Maybe Mick Jagger was his idol. Maybe…maybe he had plastic surgery on his nose because he snored too loud and kept waking himself up at night. And he dyed his hair because he wanted to see if blonds really do have more fun.”
Ruby laughed.
I smiled back at her. “Or you could just ask Peter.”
She nodded, still clutching the book with her finger between the pages. “I think I will.”
She walked me down the stairs to the back door. Ray Nightingale, one of the other artists who had a studio in the building, was just coming in. He gave me a quick nod and turned to Ruby. “The police are at the co-op. Do you have any idea what’s going on?”
Ruby pulled a hand over her neck. “There was…there was an accident.” She exhaled slowly. “Jaeger fell…on the basement stairs.”
“What the heck was he doing in the basement?” Ray asked. He was about average height, with a smooth shaven head and a fairly laid-back attitude from what I’d seen.
She shrugged and twisted her bracelets around her arm. “I don’t know.”
He shook his head, blew out a breath. “But he’s okay, right?”
Ruby looked down at the floor. “No. He’s dead,” she said.
Ray stared at us, openmouthed. “What do you mean, he’s dead? You said he fell on the stairs.”
“He drowned,” I said, quietly. “I think he might have hit his head.”
Ray swore and looked away. “That’s awful. I didn’t really know him, but still.” He swiped a hand over his mouth. “Does Maggie know?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes,” I said. I wondered which side Ray had been on over the corporate sponsor issue. He did these large, intricate, acrylic ink drawings that to me seemed like a cross between an elaborate mosaic and Where’s Waldo. In each one, somewhere, there was a tiny rubber duck, no more than an inch or so long, wearing a pair of sunglasses and a fedora. Half the fun of the artwork was looking for the duck, whose name was Bo.
Like the rest of the artists who were part of the co-op, Ray did other things to help pay the bills. He’d designed a poster for the jazz festival in Minneapolis and a postcard for the James Hotel. And he collected and sold vintage ink bottles. He even used some of the old ink in his art. I’d seen him completely engrossed by the contents of an old rolltop desk at an estate sale I’d gone to a couple of weeks previously with Abigail.
Along with working at the library, Abigail also wrote children’s books and she’d wanted my opinion of several of the old picture books in the sale. She’d gotten interested in collecting books after she’d found a box of old, and it turned out valuable, books at the library the previous summer.
Ray slid a hand back and forth over his smooth scalp. “So that means the co-op is pretty much off limits, I’m guessing,” he said. Then he made a face. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive.”
I held up a hand. “It’s okay. And you’re right, the co-op is off limits for the moment.”
“What about Jaeger’s stuff?”
Ruby looked at me. “I don’t know. Kathleen?”
“I can’t see any reason why the police would need to go through his studio,” I said. “I don’t think this building is going to be off limits.”
“That’s good,” Ray said. “All this rain has put me behind.” He looked at Ruby. “If I can help with anything, let me know.” He moved past us and went up the stairs.
“Same here, Ruby,” I said. “If there’s anything I can do, call me.”
“I will,” she said.
I cut through the parking lot, got in the truck and started up the hill.
So Jaeger Merrill was really Christian Ellis, a convicted forger. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to create a new life for himself. Was Ruby right? Had he been working on another scam?
9
Hercules was sitting by the back steps when I came around the corner of the house, one paw on a black feather, with an iridescent purple sheen to it. He looked up at me and if a cat could look self-satisfied—and this cat certainly seemed to be able to—he did.
“Score one for the cat,” I said, bending down to pick him up. He nuzzled the side of my face and then looked down at the feather. Hercules was having a little war with, as far as I could tell, one lone grackle. Up until now the grackle had been winning.
“Have you thought about what you’d do with that bird if you actually caught it?” I asked as I unlocked the back door.
Herc tipped his head to one side and seemed to be considering my question. Then he licked his lips.
“Oh sure, you’re going to eat it,” I said, setting him down on the kitchen floor. “You? Mr. I-Don’t-Eat-On-Sale-Cat-Food?”
That got me a snippy meow.
I folded my arms and looked down at him. “Do I have to remind you about the caterpillar?”
Hercules immediately turned away and hung his head. I got the feeling he would have blushed if he could have. He may not have understood all of what I’d said, but he knew the word, caterpillar.
Of the two cats, Owen was the hunter, not Hercules. It’s hard to stalk anything when you don’t like getting your paws wet. One day, early last summer, Owen had caught a fuzzy black-and-yellow caterpillar out in the backyard—mostly because it crawled over a cracker he was sniffing at the time.
Hercules, who had already finished his own food because he doesn’t have to inspect every bite first, poked his head in to take a look at his brother’s prey. First he just sniffed the caterpillar. Then he rolled it over with a swipe of his paw.
Owen tended to see himself like a lion prowling a dusty savannah on an African plain. Which meant the caterpillar was the equivalent of a downed wildebeest—not for sharing.
Paws were raised. Yowls were exchanged. Before I could step in, Hercules swallowed the caterpillar.
And promptly hacked it up again. Because, number one: it was like eating a piece of shag carpeting. Nothing that fuzzy is ever going to taste good. And number two: The caterpillar wasn’t exactly dead.
“You think having caterpillar fluff stuck in your teeth is bad,” I warned Herc, “try picking feathers out.”
I headed upstairs, switched my damp jeans for a pair of yoga pants, and then carefully cut the grubby gauze off my thumb, replacing it with a couple of big adhesive bandages. Then I warmed up the last of the apple pudding cake. Between spoonfuls I told the cats about Maggie and me discovering Jaeger’s body, and Ruby discovering his real identity. Owen’s head jerked up when he heard Maggie’s name and he almost banged it on the bottom of a kitchen chair.
“She’s fine,” I told him. “She’s coming for supper. You’ll see her tonight.” He went back to nosing around for crumbs I hadn’t vacuumed up yet.
Hercules, on the other hand, was giving me his undivided attention, although that might have been because he was hoping to score a bite or two of apple from my bowl.
“Here you big mooch,” I said, reaching for the bag of sardine kitty crackers on the counter and giving him a couple. I handed a couple down to Owen too.
I was just putting my dishes in the sink when the phone rang. I hobbled into the living room to get it. My ankle still ached, but just putting my foot up while I was at the table had helped. It was Rebecca, my backyard neighbor.
“Hello Kathleen,” she said. “I was wondering if this would be a good time to bring over that box of my mother’s things you wanted to look at for the display at the library centennial?”
“Yes, it would,” I said. “Are you sure you can carry the box? I don’t mind coming to get it.”
She laughed. “Thank you, but it’s not that big and—”
“—you’re not that old,” I finished.