“For you, too,” I said. “How’s the basement?”
Owen appeared in the kitchen doorway and started across the floor to me. He had some kind of kitty intuition that told him when it was Maggie on the phone.
“Almost dry last time I checked, and Harry took a look at the back wall for me. He’s pretty sure he knows where most of the water came in and he thinks it’s an easy fix.”
“Oh Mags, that would be terrific.”
“It would, because there isn’t very much left in the contingency fund.”
I looked down at Owen whose eyes were fixed on the phone’s receiver. His right paw was over his left one. “Owen has his paws crossed for you,” I said.
Maggie laughed. “Give him a scratch for me. If we were just the same species, he would be the perfect guy.”
I reached down and scratched behind the little gray cat’s ears. He closed his eyes and started to purr.
“Kath, I’ve been thinking,” Maggie said. “Do you think someone from Jaeger’s past could have tracked him down, and convinced him to go back to his old life?”
“It wouldn’t have been that hard,” I said. “I know he changed his name, but he wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile around town—at least not lately. And look where he ended up, in the same small town his lawyer came from.”
Maggie grunted her agreement and I pictured her stretching one arm behind her head, or hanging from the waist with her hands flat on the floor. “His old life was very different from waiting tables at Eric’s and working a few shifts in the co-op store, you know.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I e-mailed one of my old profs,” she said. “Before he got caught—before he went to jail—Jaeger, Christian, was living quite the ritzy life: fancy apartment, gallery openings, the best tables at restaurants—all the clichés.”
“Wait a minute. That doesn’t fit with what Peter told us,” I said. “Remember? He said that Jaeger needed the money to take care of his sick mother.”
Owen jumped onto my lap. I pointed at a tuft of cat hair stuck to the edge of the stool. He looked blankly at me.
“I’m not so sure Jaeger was the person that Peter seems to think he was,” Maggie said.
“Were Jaeger and Ray Nightingale friends?” I asked. Owen kept putting his paw out to the telephone receiver as though he wanted to take it away from me.
“Not as far as I know. Why?”
I shifted sideways a little so I wasn’t sitting directly on one of my many bruises. “Remember when Abigail and I went to that estate sale in Summerhill a couple of weeks ago?”
“Uh huh.”
“Jaeger was out there. Abigail saw him and she says Ray was with him.”
“So what did Ray say? Did you ask him about it?”
“He said he bumped into Jaeger at the sale, that’s all.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment. Then Maggie said, “You don’t believe him.”
I sighed. “No, I don’t.”
“Ray’s not the kind of guy to get mixed up in some kind of scam, Kath. He just isn’t. I’ve known him for years. He was one of the first artists to get behind the idea of the co-op.”
“I didn’t say he was involved in some kind of scam. It’s just…” I hesitated. “When I asked him about Jaeger he didn’t tell me the truth. I know a lie when I hear one, Maggie, and Ray was lying, about something.”
She made a small sound on the other end of the phone. “Do you think I should talk to him?”
“No,” I said. “Not yet at least. Maybe, maybe I’m wrong.” Owen bumped my hand because I’d stopped scratching the side of his head. “Would you like a date square?” I asked.
“What?” she said, clearly confused by the abrupt turn the conversation had taken. It occurred to me I was sounding like Marcus.
“Would you like a date square?” I repeated.
“Umm, okay.”
“Would you like some company with your date square?”
She laughed. “I would. I’m at the studio.”
“I’ll be there in ten,” I said.
Owen jumped off my lap and headed purposefully for the kitchen. “No,” I called after him.
He didn’t alter his path. He didn’t even glance back at me. I got to my feet and followed him. I knew what was in his furry little mind.
He went directly to where the cat carrier bag was hanging next to my jacket and sat underneath it. I stood, arms folded, by the kitchen table. “I know you understand the word no,” I said.
He continued to ignore me and instead tried to swat the bag with one paw. He didn’t even come close.
“You’re not coming with me,” I said.
Nothing. Clearly I was on permanent ignore. I went upstairs and brushed my teeth and my hair, and then I came back down and put half a dozen date squares in a container to take to Maggie’s. Owen was still sitting underneath the bag.
I bent down closer to his level. “Owen, I’m sorry but you can’t come.” He glared at me for a moment then turned his back on me, flipping his tail straight up in the air so I suddenly had a face full of furry kitty backside.
Had I just been mooned by a cat?
I straightened up. “I’m leaving,” I told him. “I won’t be long.”
His response was a slitted-eye glare. Then he headed for the living room and disappeared.
Literally.
I knew he’d sulk for a while and when I came home I’d find bits from one of his catnip chickens all over the kitchen floor.
I was almost at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill when a flash of movement caught my eye, just at the edge of my field of vision. A small white dog darted into the street. I jammed on the brakes and turned the wheel toward the sidewalk as the back end of the truck fishtailed, waiting for a thump and hoping it wouldn’t come.
It didn’t, although there was a noise from the passenger side of the truck and the right front tire bounced off the edge of the curb.
The dog bolted across the empty left lane and disappeared up someone’s driveway.
I put the car in park and leaned my head back against the seat, eyes closed. My heart was pounding a cha-cha rhythm in my chest.
After a moment I opened my eyes again and looked over at the passenger seat. “I know you’re here, Owen,” I said. I waited for him to pop into view, so to speak.
He didn’t.
“I’m not moving this truck until I can see you.”
Nothing.
Okay, so he wanted to play hardball.
“When we get home I’m going to gather up all the cheese and sardine kitty crackers and give them to Harry to take out to Boris.”
Boris was a big and intimidating German shepherd that looked like he ate small cats for lunch. In reality he was, well, a pussycat. However, he’d once woofed in Owen’s face, which made him dog non grata in the cat’s eyes.
I waited, and in a moment Owen winked into view on the seat beside me.
23
He didn’t exactly look innocent—that’s hard to do when your fur is all messed up, you have dirt on your nose, and one ear is turned inside out—but he tried.
I glared at him. “You are a very bad cat,” I said in my sternest voice, although it was a struggle not to laugh with his ear like that. “I’m taking you home and shutting you in the bedroom.”
The moment the words were out of my mouth I knew they were a mistake. He just vanished again.
If I couldn’t see him I couldn’t grab him. I knew from experience that even if I lunged over to the passenger side, Owen would just jump out of the way. He wasn’t above meowing and then moving just to throw me off. Not only had I apparently been mooned by a cat; it also looked like I’d been bested by one in a game of wits.
“Fine, you win,” I said, “but if you’re coming with me the least you can do is nose around and see if you can find some kind of clue about what Jaeger Merrill was up to.”
The cat appeared beside me on the seat again. His ear was still turned inside out but his demeanor had changed from faux-contrite to cocky.