“ ‘Families are like pieces of art,’ ” I said. “ ‘You can make them from almost anything.’ Mitch Albom.”
Jonas nodded. “Smart man.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement. I glanced sideways as the file folder on the chair between us opened. There was no breeze but I was pretty sure there was a small gray tabby cat sitting on the chair. Owen had gotten in the truck after all. Somehow he had darted back and jumped inside, probably because I’d left the driver’s door open when I’d gotten out to lift him off the hood. He was faster than I’d realized and for once he hadn’t given himself away on the drive out or at the flea market. The little furball was getting sneakier. Had he gotten out of the truck at the flea market? I didn’t want to think about that.
What I needed to do was distract Jonas so he didn’t see the piece of paper that was now seemingly levitating above the flowered seat all by itself.
I set my mug on the table. “Would you mind if I took a closer look at the flower beds?” I asked.
“Of course not,” Jonas said. He set his cup next to mine and got to his feet. I stood up as well and we walked over to the closest bed.
Looking at the paint box of colors, I wished I had more of a green thumb. I pointed at the plant closest to me. “I would say that’s a black-eyed Susan with purple petals but I’m thinking I’d be wrong.”
He smiled. “Those are Echinacea purpurea, purple coneflowers. They attract bees and butterflies and they’re easy to grow.”
I smiled. “My kind of plant.” Behind us the piece of paper was moving, seemingly of its own volition, across the grass. I fervently hoped it and Owen were headed in the direction of my truck.
Jonas and I spent about ten minutes walking around, looking at the various plants. “You’re welcome to come out again for another look anytime you’d like,” he said. “And if you describe pretty much any of these plants to Harry, he’ll know what they are.”
“Thank you for the tour of the garden,” I said as we walked back to the truck. I had no idea where Owen was or what he’d done with that piece of paper. “When I get to the library on Monday, I’m going to be looking for some gardening books.”
“Thank you for bringing out those papers,” Jonas said. “And thanks for offering to help Lachlan.”
I opened the driver’s door, hoping Owen was close by and would hop in. I felt something move across my foot and looked down to see my shoelace was untied. I set my bag by my feet and bent down to fasten it and just under the edge of the truck spotted the piece of paper Owen had swiped.
I didn’t want to leave it there covered in cat drool and I didn’t want Jonas to see me pick it up. Luckily he was checking out the truck and I managed to pick up my bag and the paper and set them on the front seat in one more or less smooth motion.
“Kathleen, where did you get this truck?” he asked. There was something in his expression I couldn’t quite read, an almost wistfulness.
“Harrison Taylor gave it to me. It’s old, but it’ll push through a fair amount of snow and pretty much anything else that gets in its way.”
“Colin, my brother, had one just like it. It brings back a lot of good memories.” He laid his hand on the front fender for a moment and I thought how Lachlan wasn’t the only one who had lost way more than was fair.
I drove away with my fingers crossed that I had a furry—and invisible—stowaway. Once I was down the road beyond the Quinn driveway, I pulled over to the side of the road.
“Show yourself, Owen,” I said.
Nothing.
“Right now. I’m not kidding.”
Still nothing.
Was I wrong? Was he still out prowling around Jonas’s yard? How on earth would I explain that I had left my cat behind?
And then I felt the tiniest brush of something against my right arm. It felt like a piece of dandelion fluff grazing my skin. Or a cat’s tail. I stretched both arms over my head and then shifted sideways and brought my right hand down onto the seat. I had timed it perfectly. I had a handful of invisible cat.
Owen winked into sight and there was something cocky about the look he gave me.
“You’re in so much trouble,” I said, glaring at him. “Jonas almost saw you and you stole one of those pieces of paper.”
He peered at the seat, spotted the piece of paper in question and set one paw on it, looking at me as though he was expecting some kind of praise. As usual, he wasn’t sorry. I reached over and picked the paper up, wondering what it was that had attracted the cat’s attention.
The paper was half of a page from a lined yellow notepad. I’d seen Mike making notes on a similar pad at the library and it was his writing filling the lines.
There were two Punnett squares drawn on the page. Like the notes I’d glanced at earlier, it seemed as though Mike had been trying to work out eye-color probabilities. His handwriting was hard to read. “Leitha” with a question mark was written just above the tear line. What had Mike been trying to figure out and why was Leitha’s name written on the page? I had no idea.
Once again, none of this made sense.
chapter 16
Owen sat next to me all the way home, eyes fixed on the road.
“You’re in trouble,” I said.
“Mrr,” he said.
We both knew I was wasting my breath. First of all, how did you punish a cat with klepto tendencies and the ability to disappear whenever he felt like it? It’s not as though I could put him in a time-out or take away his cell phone. I couldn’t even take away his supply of catnip chickens because they were stashed all over the house in hiding places I hadn’t discovered yet.
I glanced over at him again. He definitely looked cocky.
I spent a good chunk of the evening trying to figure out the Punnett squares that Mike had drawn. It had been a long time since I’d had a biology class, but I remembered more than I’d expected about genetics and I found a couple of texts in the library’s online catalogue.
“ ‘A Punnett square is used to predict which traits offspring will have based on the traits of the parent,’ ” I read to Owen. “ ‘It’s a visual representation of the principle—put forth by Gregor Mendel by the way—that certain traits are dominant over others. It’s not infallible because there can be other factors at work, but the results are a lot better than just making a wild guess.’ ”
Working out eye color wasn’t as simple as we’d once thought it was. At one time geneticists had believed it was controlled by a single gene, which meant, for instance, that blue-eyed parents could never have a brown-eyed child.
“Except they can,” I told the cat. “It’s rare, but it does happen. The idea of just one gene controlling eye color was too simplistic.” I remembered my professor explaining that eye color is an example of a polygenic trait. In other words, it’s controlled by several different genes.
Owen wasn’t the slightest bit interested in genetics. “Did you know that cats with white in their fur are believed to have a mutant gene?” I asked him as he washed his face.
Hercules had just walked into the kitchen and Owen immediately turned to look at him with an inquiring murp.
“Yes, like your brother. And you.”
Hercules gave me a blank look as though he was wondering what he’d just missed. Or not.
Owen disappeared and a moment later the basement door opened a little wider.
I turned back to the computer. Maybe if I could find out what color Leitha’s eyes were, I could sort out what Mike had been doing.