Roma looked away and I waited until she looked back.
“Whatever reason Oren had for being gone all night, it had nothing to do with Easton’s death. I know that.”
Roma looked at me and I met her gaze steadily, because I did believe what I had said. Then she reached out and gave my arm a squeeze. “I’m glad Everett hired you, Kathleen,” she said. “Have a safe walk home.”
She turned left and I headed up the hill. I meant what I’d said. Oren didn’t have it in him to hurt anyone, but he was tied up in this mess somehow. And so was I.
I let myself in the back door and stood in the darkness of the porch for a moment. I needed to talk to Oren before I did anything else. And this was the kind of conversation that had to be had in person—not that I was exactly sure what I was going to say. What would I do? Knock on the door and say, “Hi, Oren. I just came by to ask if you did anything to Gregor Easton”?
Well, maybe not that.
I’d left the light on over the stove in the kitchen. No cats. The laundry basket was on one of the chairs. I’d folded everything before I left, but I hadn’t had time to put anything away. It wasn’t that late. Maybe I’d go for a walk to clear my head. And if I happened to end up near Oren’s place, well, that wouldn’t be so bad. I found a pair of socks in the clean laundry so I could change from sandals to sneaks.
I wrapped up half a dozen brownies to take with me—in case I did happen to see Oren. If I was going to accuse him of hiding something the least I could do was give him a brownie. I got my messenger bag to carry the brownies so they didn’t get too warm in my hand. Then I ran upstairs to change from my skirt to a pair of capris.
When I came back down Hercules was looking in the bag. I shook a finger at him. “Oh, no. No, no. We’re not doing this again.”
He put one paw inside the bag.
“No,” I repeated more insistently.
He lifted his other front paw, studied the bottom of it for a moment, gave it a couple of quick licks and then got into the tote and sat down. I loomed over him.
“I’m going to Oren’s. You can’t come. Get out,” I said. I knew he wasn’t going to move. I tipped the bag forward, very carefully, intending to tip him out. He lay down and snagged the front mesh panel of the bag with his claws. I gave it a small shake. It didn’t work.
I bent down. “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Stay in the bag. I’ll take something else.”
I put the brownies in a cloth grocery bag, grabbed my keys and went out into the porch for my sneakers. Hercules came through the door behind me. Literally through the door. I rubbed the side of my head with the heel of my hand.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the cat’s ears twitch. I could put him back in the kitchen, but all he’d do was walk through the door again. It seemed that Owen and Hercules were determined to help me play detective, each in their own way. There was no way to make Herc stay in the house. And he knew it.
But I wasn’t going to fold right away. I put on one shoe, slowly tied the laces and then did the same with the other shoe. Hercules didn’t look at me. I didn’t look at him. I straightened and brushed off my pants. “All right, you can come,” I said. “Get in the bag.”
This time he waited for me to open the kitchen door. Then he climbed in the messenger bag, lay down and looked at me, all innocent green eyes.
“Don’t be smug,” I said, closing the top zipper. I looked at him through the mesh. “And please be quiet.”
I swung the bag over my shoulder, locked up and started up the hill. The closer I got to Oren’s house the more foolish the idea of going to see him began to seem. Hercules scratched at the top of the bag just as Oren’s house came in sight.
“Stop it,” I hissed. That just made him dig harder at the nylon fabric.
I didn’t know why I thought the cat would listen to me. He was a cat, not a dog that had been to obedience school, or a trained monkey in the circus. He was an independent, stubborn cat. Who was about to destroy my favorite bag.
I opened the zipper a couple of inches. Hercules immediately stuck a paw out. “No, no, no! Don’t do that,” I said.
He raked the inside of the bag with his other front paw. Great. Someone was going to drive by and see me talking to my purse at nine o’clock on a Saturday night in front of Oren’s house.
“Fine,” I whispered. “You can have a look around, but then you go back in the bag because we’re going home. And I’m not drinking any more of Ruby’s wine. It puts the ‘stupid’ in ‘stupid ideas.’”
I pulled the zipper open a bit more. I knew mice and cockroaches could squeeze through incredibly small spaces. So can cats, I discovered. Hercules pushed through the small opening, coming out of the bag like water pouring to the ground. He took off across Oren’s yard, disappearing into the darkness.
Crap on toast!
I scrambled across Oren’s lawn and tripped over the bottom step of the verandah. I caught a glimpse of fur heading around the side of the porch. I felt for the railing and followed, hoping I was chasing Herc and not a nosy raccoon or a sidetracked skunk.
“Hercules,” I called in a stage whisper, knowing I was wasting my breath.
Oren’s house was a renovated farmhouse, like mine, with the same steeply pitched roof and bay window. His house had an addition on one side, set back from the front of the main house, with a covered verandah that ran along part of the main house, down the side and all the way across the front of the extension. Hercules paused by the wooden screen door that led into the extension.
“C’mon, puss,” I called. He looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes huge and unblinking. Then he walked through the door and disappeared.
I sagged against the railing and said a word that wellbred librarians didn’t generally say. Now what was I going to do? If Oren came home before Hercules came out, I was, to put it crassly, screwed. There was no way I could explain to Oren how Hercules had gotten into his house. There was no logical, reasonable explanation.
Not that I had a logical, reasonable explanation for why I was at Oren’s house in the first place. Or why I’d brought my cat along. I was going to come off as very peculiar at best, and deranged at worst.
I looked around. No people. No cars. No lights. So far it looked like I hadn’t been seen. I was very grateful that Oren didn’t have motion-sensor lights.
I dropped to my knees by the door. My head hurt, my shoulder ached and Violet’s blueberry tart was rolling in my stomach like the English Channel ferry in a rainstorm.
I called the cat again. Of course he didn’t come. I lifted the strap of my bag over my shoulder and set the bag next to the railing. There was nothing to do but wait and cross my fingers that things didn’t get any worse. I leaned back against the railing, knees pulled up to my chest, and watched the white wooden screen door.
I thought about Gregor Easton. What did I know so far? Easton had been in my library after hours, meeting someone who’d used my name to lure him there. Someone who had a key or access to a key. He’d had a gash on the side of his head. There was blood at the library. Easton had probably been hurt there, but was it deliberate or accidental?
Oren knew Easton. Oren hadn’t been at the Stratton the morning I’d found the body and hadn’t been at meat loaf night the night before. The most obvious inference was that Oren had something to do with Easton’s death.
Tying Oren to Easton’s death was the part that didn’t work for me. I thought about the beautiful sunburst Oren had created. So much care had gone into making that, and so much caring into the idea to create it in the first place.