Sleight Of Paw Part 28

"What do you need?" she asked, her voice all business now.

I explained what Harry had told me about the trucks. "Any chance you could help me find out where the other three are?"

"I think so," she said. "I may know where one of them is, and I'll ask around about the other two. Give me a day or so."

I thanked her and hung up. I went back to the kitchen with Owen on my heels. We'd eaten all the toast, and what was left of my hot chocolate was now cold.

I put the feeding schedule for the Wisteria Hill cats back on the fridge. I could feel Owen and Hercules staring at me. I turned around to see them sitting like a couple of statues, one pair of green eyes and one pair of gold eyes locked on me.

"What?" I said.

Nothing. Not a blink, not even an ear twitch.

"You think I should talk to Marcus, don't you?"

Two sets of whiskers twitched.

I folded my arms and stared back at them. "First of all, when did you two become the champions of law and order? And second, what makes you think he'll help?"

They stared.

I stared back.

Never get into a staring contest with a cat, or, even worse, two cats. You can't win.

"Give Roma some time-a couple of days. Then I'll talk to him."

They exchanged looks. Then Owen turned and headed for the living room, while Hercules came over to me and rubbed against my leg. I picked him up.

I'd been thinking about telling Marcus about the trucks since Harry had told me about them. Marcus was so wrong about Ruby, but he wasn't so close-minded a person or a police officer that he wouldn't listen to what I had to say about the trucks. At least I hoped he wasn't.

Carrying Hercules, I went out to the porch to double-check that I'd locked the door. I looked over at Rebecca's house. The lights were on in the kitchen and I could see Everett's car in the driveway. "I'm glad those two are together," I said to the cat. He rumbled his approval. "At least something good came out of that awful mess of Gregor Easton's death last summer."

I picked up my scarf that had somehow ended up on the bench in the porch and took it back inside. "We need a happy ending for Ruby."

Hercules nuzzled my chin. "I want to talk to Susan again," I said. "Before I ask Eric about the envelope."

The piece of envelope Hercules had taken from Eric's office was upstairs with my computer. "You know, maybe we should search the newspaper archives, to see if we can find anything about Eric. Justin said they got into a bit of trouble when they were kids. It might've made the paper back then."

The Mayville Heights Chronicle had been around for more than a hundred years. The archives, going back to the early sixties, were online for subscribers. I typed in my customer number and pa.s.sword.

The search system was a little funky, not at all like the one we used at the library that let readers search by author, t.i.tle, subject, and keywords, and that allowed for minor spelling errors a la Google. The newspaper system required you to first settle on a year and then a category before you could search for keywords.

I did the math in my head and started with the year I figured Eric would've been sixteen. It took two tries to get the category right.

The story had made the front page below the fold. I was a bit surprised the paper had identified the boys. Eric, Justin, and three other young men, whose names I didn't recognize, had been out driving-too fast and without headlights-and pa.s.sing a couple of cans of beer around the car. Along the road that leads to Wisteria Hill, they hit something.

And ran.

What they'd hit had turned out to be a fifty-pound jute bag of apples. But they didn't know that at the time. It would have been hard not to know you'd hit something, but they hadn't known it was a sack of fruit. It could've been a racc.o.o.n. It could've been a dog. It could've been a person. The fact that it wasn't was only luck, and maybe the old saying was true that angels watch out for fools and drunks, and heaven knows those boys were both.

I had to read another paragraph to learn Eric had been the driver and claimed he couldn't remember the accident. He'd had a lot to drink.

My mind raced and my stomach twisted into a knot. I thought about Eric's distracted manner and disheveled appearance the past few days and how Susan had been evasive, not her usual cheery, snarky self.

Was I wrong? Had Eric been drinking? Was he the one who hit Agatha in that alley? Did he have a blackout?

No.

I wasn't going to do that, jump to conclusions about Eric, when all I had was an old newspaper story.

I logged out of the newspaper's Web site and shut off my laptop. I'd talk to Susan in the morning, and after that, well, I wasn't going to think that far ahead.

I would've overslept the next morning if Hercules hadn't lurked over me. I fed the cats, drank two cups of coffee-extra strong-and left early for the library.

Fate or something seemed to be on my side. As I came down the sidewalk I saw Susan cutting across the parking lot, chin buried in the collar of her coat. Moving closer I could see two red plastic take-out forks in the knot of hair on top of her head. She smiled when she saw me, waiting until I caught up with her.

"Coffee?" I asked when we'd stomped the snow from our boots and I'd relocked the library door.

"Please."

I dumped my things in my office and headed down the hall to the staff room. Susan walked around, turning on the downstairs lights even though there was almost a half hour until we opened.

I had the coffee on when she came up. I'd brought the remainder of the granola bars with me on the theory that a little chocolate couldn't hurt.

Susan broke one in half, putting a piece on a blue-flowered plate from the staff room's collection of mismatched dishes and stuffing the other half in her mouth. "These are good," she said. High praise from someone who ate Eric's cooking every day.

"Thank you."

I got the cream, sugar and a couple of mugs and poured the coffee. Then I sat at the table opposite Susan, who inhaled half the cup like a man crawling through the desert who had just come across an oasis.

I was trying to figure out how to start when she looked at me over the top of her cup and said, "Eric said you asked him about Agatha."

"I did. I'm trying to help Ruby. She didn't kill Agatha."

"I know," Susan said. "She was the reason Ruby became an artist. And Eric probably wouldn't have the cafe if it weren't for Agatha Shepherd." She set down her cup, picked up a chocolate chip from the plate and ate it. "Kathleen, you didn't grow up here so you don't know much about Eric when he was younger."

"No, I don't. I do know he got in a bit of trouble."

"Agatha changed his life," she said. "h.e.l.l, saved it, for that matter" She drank from her cup, then set it back on the table. "Short version: Eric's mom and dad were too young and had too many kids. He was feeding the little ones when he was eight years old. And doing a good job of it. And he was running wild from about that time, too." She gave me a brief smile. "Doesn't sound like the man you know, does it?"

"No. Truthfully, it doesn't."

Susan let out a slow breath. "Eric started drinking when he was twelve, stealing beer from his father and other people in the family. When he drank he lost chunks of time. He had a car accident when he was sixteen. He didn't remember being in the car, let alone driving. And he still . . ." She didn't finish the thought.

She picked at another chocolate chip but didn't eat it. "Agatha saw something in him and she encouraged his love of cooking. Kind of melodramatic to say it, but it is true that she changed his life."

She was stalling, dancing around whatever it was she felt she needed to tell me. She flicked the chocolate chip around the plate like a little hockey puck.

I got up and refilled both our cups, trying to give Susan the time she needed.

"Eric hasn't had a drink in a long time. He goes to meetings." Abruptly she straightened. "The thing is, Kathleen, the past few weeks he's been helping someone, I don't know who, but someone he acted as a sponsor for in the past. Whoever it was had started drinking, and had the idea he could control it." She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way, believe me."

"You don't know who it was?" I asked.

"No. Eric said he couldn't tell me. But I know he was worried. I told him if he couldn't tell me, he should talk to his own sponsor."

The silence stretched between us. I wasn't sure if she was going to say it, so I asked, "Susan, did Eric have a drink?"

Her left eyelid began to twitch. She nodded. "The night Agatha was killed. The person, whoever it was, called Eric on his cell. He hadn't been home a half hour. I got the feeling from Eric's side of the conversation that they'd talked earlier in the evening. Anyway, this guy was in a bar; at least I'm pretty sure he was. I was standing right beside Eric when the phone rang and I could hear the background noise. Eric said he had to go." She laced her fingers together and stretched her arms in front of her. "He came home after two in the morning. His coat and hat were all snowy. He'd obviously walked, I don't know how far. And he was drunk."

I reached across the table and laid one of my hands on hers. "I'm sorry," I said.

"I put him to bed," she continued. "In the morning he didn't remember coming home or where he'd been."

"He had a blackout?"

"Yes. I don't know what scared him the most: taking the first drink or the fact that he doesn't remember it."

I wasn't sure how to ask what I needed to ask. "Susan, does Eric know anything about . . . about Agatha's death?"

"No." Her mouth moved, then she said, "I'm not sure. Eric would never hurt anyone, especially Agatha . . . but there's all that time he can't remember."

"And he still won't tell you who he went to meet?"

She shook her head. "No, and believe me, we've been back and forth about it over the past few days. He says the whole program falls apart if you can't trust your sponsor. I don't even know if he's told his own sponsor."

I pushed a stray bit of hair away from my face and tried not to let my frustration show. "Do you have any idea, any hint, who it was?"

"I don't. I'm sorry. I don't. All I can tell you is that it's someone Eric used to know a long time ago when he first stopped drinking." She looked at me, tight lines of anxiety around her mouth. "You believe me, don't you?"

"I do," I said. It was true. I did. Susan was a lousy liar, as I'd seen in the past few days.

"Eric didn't hurt Agatha," she said. "Even if he was having a blackout, he wouldn't hurt another person."

I thought about the news story I'd read. Eric had left the scene of an accident back then. But that hadn't been a person, and Eric had been a kid in a car full of other kids. I could remember what peer pressure was like. "I don't think Eric hurt Agatha, either," I said. "I think Eric would always be Eric even if he couldn't remember."

Susan searched my face and she must've liked what she saw, because she smiled as she stood up. I got to my feet, as well. "Susan, do you remember seeing Agatha with a brown envelope any time before her death? I think it was a report-card envelope at one time."

She thought for a moment. "Yeah, I do. Why?"

I couldn't betray Harry's confidence and I didn't want to tell her that Eric had argued with Agatha over the envelope. "It might be nothing, but Agatha was hanging on to it pretty tightly, and it's disappeared."

"You want me to ask Eric about it? He's really worried about Ruby, you know."

Maybe she'd get further than I had. "Please," I said. "Tell him it's important." At least for Old Harry, I added silently.

She nodded and looked at her watch. "I'll go down. It's almost time to open."

"I'll be right there," I said, gathering the dishes and setting them in the sink. I leaned against the counter.

Eric had had a blackout. I'd meant what I said to Susan. Blackout or not, I didn't believe Eric had killed Agatha. Eric would always be Eric. But the fact was, he'd been drinking. He'd had a blackout. And Agatha was dead.

I needed to know who Eric had been with in the missing time and where they'd gone. The question was, How was I going to find out?

22.

The smell of chicken soup filled the house, thanks to the slow cooker. I sent a mental thank-you to whomever had invented the pot.

"We were right." I told Hercules, who'd kept me company while I changed into my tai chi clothes and got myself a bowl of soup. Owen had wandered in and out with a loopy expression that told me he'd been into funky-chicken parts again.

"Eric was drinking the night Agatha was killed." I set down my spoon. "We have to find out who he was with and where they were. Eric's in that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas mode. You know, kind of like we do with your little superpower." I whispered the last word.

Hercules suddenly got interested in the back door. I picked up my spoon again. "I'm thinking Eric and his friend wouldn't do their drinking here. Someone would have said something by now." I slipped him a piece of chicken. "Susan said it was noisy, so I'm guessing a bar, like she did."

Hercules looked at me and bobbed his head. Which might have meant he agreed. Or he didn't. Or he wanted more chicken. After all, I was talking to a cat. But I did know a real person who could help me.

"Hi, Katydid," my mom said when she picked up.

"Hi, Mom," I said. "I don't have a lot of time, but I'm hoping you can help me with something."

"Sure. What do you need?"

"Do you remember that ch.o.r.eographer you worked with in Guys and Dolls?"

"Chloe Westin," Mom said at once.

"She, uh . . ." I hesitated.

"Was an alcoholic," my mother said bluntly.

"That's the one." Now, how was I going to explain why I wanted to know what I wanted to know? "One of my staff, her husband-"

"Say no more, sweetie," she interjected. "You think he has a drinking problem."

"How do you know for sure?"

"Can you smell it on him?"

"No." I leaned back against the arm of the chair.