Sleight Of Paw Part 1

Sleight of Paw.

Sofie Kelly.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

Writing is a solitary occupation, but it takes the hard work of a lot of people to create a finished book. Thank you to my agent, Kim Lionetti, and everyone at Bookends LLC. Thank you as well to my editor, Jessica Wade, whose skills make me look good, and to Robin Catalano, who knows more about grammar than I ever will.

Special thanks go to Police Chief Tim Sletten of the Red Wing, Minnesota, Police Department for generously and patiently answering my questions. Any errors in police procedure are due to my playing with reality.

Thank you to all the readers who have e-mailed or written to let me know how much they like Owen and Hercules and to share their own cat stories.

And, as always, thank you to Patrick and Lauren, who make everything better.

1.

It was pretty clear the body wasn't going to go in the back of Roma's SUV. The legs were hanging out, almost touching the driveway.

"Can't we just push him in?" she asked, kicking dirty snow away from the back tires.

"No, we can't just push him in," Maggie said. "That would break his legs." She walked to the other side of the SUV. "Maybe if we put him in feetfirst . . ." She looked at me. "What do you think, Kathleen?"

What did I think? I thought it was freezing. "He still won't fit," I pointed out. "Could we take his legs off?"

Maggie looked at me, aghast. "Take Eddie's legs off? How?"

"I have a hacksaw under the front seat," Roma added oh-so-not-helpfully. Because she was a veterinarian she had a number of things in her vehicle that other people didn't.

I gave her a look. "No, I don't mean saw off his legs," I said. "But don't they detach somehow?"

Wrong thing to say. Maggie laid a protective hand on Eddie's thigh. "Do your legs detach?" she asked me.

I exhaled slowly, watching my breath hover in the air. "No," I said, "my legs don't detach, but I'm a human being and Eddie's a mannequin."

"He's a mixed-media a.s.semblage piece," Maggie said huffily.

The real Eddie Sweeney-"Crazy" Eddie Sweeney-was number 22, a six-foot-four forward for the Minnesota Wild hockey team and the pride of the state, born and bred. Maggie had been commissioned to create a display featuring Eddie for this year's Winterfest. I was pretty sure the Winterfest committee had been expecting Maggie's collage panels, not a life-sized re-creation of Eddie in pads and skates. He looked so real, truthfully, that he had given me the creeps the first time I had seen him dressed and sitting in a chair in Maggie's art studio.

"Could we wrap him in plastic and tie him to the roof racks?" Roma asked.

All I could see were Roma's eyes and nose buried under the hood of her heavy coat.

"Realistically, how far do you think we'd get before someone called the police?" I said.

"Good point, Kathleen," she said.

"We can't leave him like this." Maggie looked skyward. "I think it's going to snow."

"There's a surprise," I muttered.

Winter in Mayville Heights, Minnesota, came in three varieties: About to Snow, Snowing, and Get Out the Shovel. I had to concede, though, that the town looked like something out of an old Currier & Ives greeting card. Snow decorated the tree branches, frost sparkled on windowpanes, and there was a complete snowman in every second yard.

It was my first real winter in town. I'd arrived last year at the tail end of the season to be the new librarian and supervise the renovations to the library building for its upcoming centennial.

I looked at Eddie's backside sticking out of the rear of the SUV. "I have an idea," I said. "Roma, can you grab Eddie's left thigh?"

She pushed back her hood. "With pleasure," she said with a grin. She gave Faux Eddie a pat on the behind and caught him by the leg and the waist. I took the other side and we lifted him out of the back of the SUV. Though he wasn't a real body, he was still heavy.

"Now what?" Roma asked.

"Be careful," Maggie said, hovering behind us.

"Open the pa.s.senger's door," I told her.

"You can't put his feet in the front and his head in the back," she warned. "Once Roma starts driving he'll slide backward and break."

"That's not what I'm doing," I said. "Trust me."

Maggie was my closest friend in Mayville. We'd met when I'd joined the tai chi cla.s.s she taught, and bonded over our mutual love of the cheesy reality show Gotta Dance. She was a talented collage artist, but I'd never seen her so worked up about a commission.

She chewed her lip for a second, then caught herself. Putting both hands on her stomach, she took several slow deep breaths. "Sorry," she said. "This whole project is making me crazy. Do whatever you were going to do." She reached over and opened the pa.s.senger's door.

"What are we doing?" Roma whispered.

"We're putting him in the front seat. You take the shoulders and I'll take his legs," I said. We set Eddie on the front pa.s.senger's seat, legs out to the side.

"Turn him around," I said to Roma. She s.h.i.+fted Eddie to face the winds.h.i.+eld, while I moved his legs, resting his skates on the floor mat. Then I leaned in and fastened the seat belt. "Ta da," I said, backing out of the SUV.

Roma walked around to the front of the vehicle and looked through the winds.h.i.+eld. "He looks so real," she said.

I nodded. "Yeah, he does."

Maggie couldn't help checking the seat belt herself. Roma closed the tailgate, then came around and got in behind the wheel. I climbed in the backseat, sliding over to make room for Maggie.

Roma backed out of the alley and headed down the street. I'd met her at tai chi, too, but the friends.h.i.+p between the three of us had really been cemented last summer when Mags and I had coerced Roma into helping us follow someone, a la Charlie's Angels.

"Thanks for doing this, Roma," Maggie said.

She smiled at us in the rearview mirror. "I don't mind. How often do I get the chance to drive around with a celebrity?" She reached over and patted Eddie's shoulder. "Well, sort of a celebrity."

"Eddie's having the best season of his career," Maggie said. "Forty goals and thirty-five a.s.sists so far."

"Really?" I said, working not to let her see me smile.

"And he's probably in the best shape of his career, as well. Did you know he does extra skating drills on his own after practice?"

"I did not know that," Roma said solemnly.

Maggie pulled off a mitten and reached forward to fix the back of Eddie's jersey. "Every single Wild home game has been sold out this season and it's because of Eddie."

I pulled off my own mittens and fished in my pocket for lip balm. "You know, Roma," I said, "I never thought it would happen, but I think Matt Lauer has some compet.i.tion for Maggie's heart." I saw Roma's face widen into a grin.

"Do you think Eddie can dance?" Roma asked, referring to Matt Lauer's improbable win on the previous season of Gotta Dance.

"Gee, I don't know. He does have some smooth moves."

"Ha, ha, ha," Maggie said. "I don't have a thing for Eddie Sweeney."

"Of course not," Roma said. "He's only tall, strong and gorgeous."

Maggie squared her shoulders. "I'm just a fan of Eddie's athletic abilities-that's all."

"Oh, me, too," Roma retorted. "If I were just a little bit younger . . ." She let the end of the sentence trail away, and grinned.

We turned left at the corner and drove down Main Street under the huge Winterfest banner stretched across the road in front of the James Hotel.

"So, how long has Winterfest been going on?" I asked.

"Since I was a kid," Maggie said. "And before that."

Roma nodded. "It started out as an ice-fis.h.i.+ng compet.i.tion back in the forties."

"I didn't know that," Maggie said.

"Oh, yeah. People came from all over the state." Roma put on her blinker to turn in to the community center parking lot. She shot a quick glance back over her shoulder at Maggie. "Which door?"

"The side one, please," Maggie said, s.h.i.+fting to peer through the winds.h.i.+eld. "Tell me there's a perfectly good reason it looks like no one else is here."

Except for one light I'd noticed at the front entrance, the building seemed to be closed.

"Sam's been on an energy-saving kick," Roma said. "He can go overboard pretty easily."

Sam was the mayor of Mayville Heights, and Roma was right. His efforts to save energy had gone a little bit too far for some people.

She pulled into a parking spot close to the door and shut off the SUV. "Let's get Eddie inside," she said.

We reversed the process of putting Eddie in the pa.s.senger's seat. Maggie went ahead to hold the door for us.

It was locked. "No," she groaned, kicking the door with her heavy boot. "Hey, anybody in there?" she called.

Silence.

"Seven o'clock, Thorsten said. Seven. O'. Clock. Where is he?"

I looked around. Thorsten was the building's caretaker. There were maybe a half dozen vehicles in the parking lot. None of them were Thorsten's.

"Can you hold on to Eddie while I try to find out what's going on?" Maggie asked, pulling out her cell phone.

"Sure," I said. I tucked Eddie's knees against my sides. Roma pulled his body a little closer, wrapping her arms around his chest. I couldn't help wondering what this would look like to anyone walking by.

Maggie punched a number into the phone and took a couple of slow deep breaths while she waited for it to ring on the other end. She made a face. "Voice mail." She waited another moment. "Thorsten, it's Maggie Adams. I'm at the community center and the building is locked. Where are you?" She rattled off her cell number and pressed the END b.u.t.ton. "Who else is on the Winterfest committee?" she asked.

"Rebecca," Roma said.

Maggie made a face. "I don't want to bring her down here in the cold."

Eddie was heavy for a guy that was mostly cotton padding. My arms were starting to cramp. "What about Mary?" I said. Mary worked for me at the library.

"Do you know her number?" Maggie asked.

I recited it to her.

"Thanks," she said, putting the phone up to her ear. We waited, then Maggie let out a breath. She watched it slowly dissipate in the frigid air. "Does anyone answer the phone?"

Eddie's back end was hanging dangerously close to a pile of dirty snow. I tightened my grip on his legs.

"Call Oren," Roma said. "He did some work on the ceiling this week, fixing that leak from the ice buildup. He'll have a key." Oren Kenyon was a jack-of-all-trades. He'd worked on the library renovation last summer as well as getting the Stratton Theater ready for the Wild Rose Summer Music Festival.

"Roma, you're a genius," Maggie said, pus.h.i.+ng b.u.t.tons on the phone.

The cold was seeping up through the heavy soles and fuzzy linings of my boots, and the long underwear I was wearing underneath my jeans.

"Oren," Maggie said. "It's Maggie." Quickly she explained the problem. Then she listened, nodding even though Oren couldn't see her. "Thank you so much," she said. "We'll see you then." She snapped the phone shut. "Oren will be here in about a half hour. Do you guys mind waiting?"

Roma shook her head.

"Why don't we go down to Eric's and have hot chocolate while we wait?" I said.

"Excellent idea," Roma said, her voice partly m.u.f.fled because her face was pressed against Eddie's side. "But what are we going to do with Eddie?"

"Stick him back in the SUV," I said.

Maggie held the pa.s.senger's door open and we managed to get Eddie back in the front seat without dumping him in the snow. We piled into the car, and Roma backed out of the parking spot.

"I know it probably looks like I'm being a little obsessive," Maggie said.

I raised an eyebrow in my best Mr. Spock impersonation.

"I just don't want anything to happen to Eddie. He's the biggest piece ever I've done."