Furever After

chapter 1

It was déjà vu all over again.

The body was smack in the middle of my freshly scrubbed kitchen floor. Fred the Funky Chicken, minus his head. Earlier I'd found Ferdinand the Funky Frog, Fred's sibling by adoption, in the middle of the bedroom floor. He'd also been decapitated.

"Owen!" I said sharply.

Nothing.

"Owen, you little furball, I know you did this. Where are you?"

There was a muffled "meow" from the living room. I leaned around the doorway. The cat was sprawled on his back in the big wing chair, a neon yellow feather stuck to the top of his head. He rolled over onto his side and looked at me with the same goofy expression he always wore when he'd gotten into his catnip stash.

I crossed the room and sat down on the footstool. Owen lifted his head to look at me. His golden eyes didn't seem to be able to properly focus on my face. "Owen, you killed Fred," I said. "And then you killed Ferdy. This has got to stop."

He stretched and sat up slowly. Then he put a paw on my knee and tipped his head to one side as he tried to figure out how much trouble he was really in. The yellow feather was still stuck to the top of his head.

I held out my right hand. "Give me Fred's head," I said. The cat looked at me, eyes narrowed, seemingly trying to feign ignorance about what I was asking. "C'mon, Owen, give it to me."

He made a sound like a sigh then and spit what was left of Fred the Funky Chicken's head into my hand. It was a soggy lump of cotton with a stump of feather stuck on the end.

"You have a problem, Owen," I told the little gray-and-white tabby. "You have a monkey on your back." We'd had this conversation many times before. I looked down at the chewed-up chicken head. "Or maybe I should say you have a chicken on your back."

His response was to move closer and nuzzle my chin.

I plucked the feather from the top of his head and stroked his fur. Across the room I heard a soft "murp." Owen's brother, Hercules, was coming down the stairs from the second floor. He glanced over at us and almost seemed to roll his green eyes. Then he headed for the kitchen with a flick of his tail. Hercules was indifferent-or maybe disdainful would be a better word-to the joys of catnip.

I picked up Owen and set him on the floor. He stretched, yawned and began to wash his face. The effort was a little slapdash. I went out to the kitchen and dumped the yellow feather and the chicken head in the garbage can. Then I picked up the decapitated corpse and tossed that in, too. There were bits of dried catnip spread across the floor, a pretty common occurrence in this house. There was no sign of Hercules, which likely meant he was out in the porch, looking through the window, his way of communing with nature. For the most part, Hercules liked outside best when he was looking at it from inside.

Hercules and Owen had been tiny, feral kittens when I'd found them, out at Wisteria Hill, the former Henderson homestead, about a month after I'd arrived in town. They were so small and so determined to come with me, in the end I'd brought them home. Both cats were affectionate with me, but wouldn't allow anyone else to touch them. Any attempt at all ended with claws and yowling-the latter not always from one of the cats. So I had ended up with two roommates that had strong opinions on pizza toppings, catnip and Barry Manilow.

I got the broom and the dustpan and swept up the bits of catnip. Then I went upstairs to finish getting ready for work. When I came back down again Owen was in the kitchen trying to pull open the basement door with a paw. Before I left for work I would leave it slightly ajar for him. The basement was where he kept his stash of catnip chickens and frogs, among other things. It was the cat equivalent to the Batcave.

I opened the door for him, and he meowed a thank-you as he started down the steps.

"No more chickens or frogs up here," I warned.

His response was to flick his tail at me. I knew what gesture that was the cat equivalent to. Then he disappeared. Not just into the darkness of the basement. He literally disappeared. As improbable as it seemed, Owen had the ability to vanish at will, usually when it was most likely to complicate my life. Which, it sometimes seemed, was why he did it.

Owen-and Hercules-were no ordinary cats. Owen could disappear. Vanish. Hercules couldn't, but he could walk through walls. Brick walls, stone walls, walls made of wood and drywall; none of them could stop him. I had no idea where either of their abilities came from, although I'd spent a lot of time looking for answers.

It wasn't the kind of thing I could talk to anyone about. I'd tried to imagine asking my friend Roma, who was also the boys' vet, "Do any of the cats at your clinic become invisible? Can any of them walk through walls?" At best I'd end up somewhere having my head examined. At worst Owen and Hercules would. In the beginning I'd kept hoping I'd discover some reasonable explanation. Maybe it was some kind of genetic mutation. Then to my surprise, slowly over time, I'd gotten used to the cats' skills. More than once they'd even proved useful.

I put on my shoes and jacket and grabbed my messenger bag. As I'd suspected, Hercules was in the porch, sitting on the bench, looking out the window. I stopped to give him a scratch on the top of his head. "Have a good day," I said.

"Mrrr," he replied, which I took to mean, "You too."

It was a beautiful, sunny morning, especially welcome after two straight days of rain. I headed down Mountain Road toward the library. The street gradually turned in toward the center of town as it got closer to the water and the roofline of the library building came into view. The Mayville Heights Free Public Library had been built near the center of a curve of shoreline and was protected from the water by a high rock wall. It was a Carnegie library, built with money donated by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The two-story brick building was topped with a copper-roofed cupola that was just beginning to develop the distinctive green patina.

As much as I loved the library, for me, one of the best parts of Mayville Heights was the riverfront. There were beautiful old buildings like the library and the Stratton Theatre. Huge elm and black walnut trees lined the walking trail that led from the old warehouses out at the point, past the downtown businesses, all the way out beyond the marina to Wild Rose Bluff. You could still see the barges and boats go by on the water the way they had more than a hundred years ago.

I parked my truck at the far end of the library parking lot and walked over to the front door, looking over the outside of the building the way I always did. The library had been renovated and updated to celebrate its centenary several years ago, which was why I'd first come to Mayville Heights. I'd been hired to supervise the restoration work and I had only planned to stay until the project was finished, but I had fallen in love with the town and the people and eventually with one person in particular: Detective Marcus Gordon, who I was going to marry in less than two months. We'd spent an hour the previous night trying cake samples with my friend Georgia, who owned Sweet Things bakery. I had no idea how we were going to pick a wedding cake flavor. Everything Georgia made was delicious.

I turned off the alarm and unlocked the main doors to the library. Then I stepped into the building, turning as I did so to look up above the entrance. A carved wooden sun, three feet across, hung there. Above it were stenciled the words let there be light. That same inscription was over the door of the first Carnegie library in Dunfermline, Scotland. The sun had been made by Oren Kenyon, a talented carpenter and musician, who had worked on the building's restoration.

I had some time before we opened for the day, so I decided to make coffee and try just a bite or two of a couple of the cake samples that Georgia had sent home with me. Maybe that would help me narrow down the choices. I'd put three of the little cupcakes in with my lunch the night before and Marcus had teased that it was just my way of rationalizing eating cake for breakfast.

"I'm not rationalizing anything," I'd told him, as I set the cupcakes on the counter beside my lunchbox-a vintage 1960s metal Batman and Robin lunchbox-which had been a Christmas gift from my sister, Sarah. "This is legitimate research. And as a librarian, meticulous research is important to me. Plus they're for lunch, not breakfast." I'd squared my shoulders, clasped my hands in front of me and tried to look serious.

It hadn't worked.

Marcus had caught my arm and pulled me toward him. Laughing, he'd kissed the top of my head and said, "Research. Right. You keep telling yourself that, Kathleen."

I was about to head up to the second-floor staff room when I saw a faint glimmer of light out of the corner of my eye. I stopped in my tracks. Where was it coming from? I knew there had been no lights left on in the building the night before because Marcus and I had stopped in after the cake testing. I had wanted to check on the book drop. It had been jamming half-shut in the past few days. I had ended up being the last person out of the building. I'd walked around the main floor the way I always did before I locked up, checking to make sure that there was no one still inside, no lights were left on and nothing was out of place. Somehow, I seemed to have missed . . . something.

I switched on the overhead lights and looked around. And then I saw it. I pressed a hand to my chest as my heart began to pound in shock. About twenty feet away from me, in front of a display of new nonfiction books, a body was slumped on the mosaic tile floor. Several of the books had been knocked over and a painting on the wall above the wooden bookshelves was hanging askew. A small flashlight lay about a foot away from the body, next to a pair of needle-nose pliers and a black-handled pocketknife. The flashlight's faint beam was what had caught my attention.

I hurried across the room and crouched down next to the body. To my shock I realized I recognized the person. My stomach lurched and for a moment I couldn't breathe.

It was Will Redfern. His hair was shorter than the last time I'd seen him and flecked with gray now, but it was Will.

I felt for a pulse at his neck with a shaking hand. I couldn't find one. The body was cold and stiff. There was a small stain on his dark sweatshirt that might have been blood, and some kind of injury to his head. Will was definitely dead.

I sat back on my heels and closed my eyes for a moment, pressing one hand to the top of my head. What was Will Redfern doing in my library? He had been the original contractor for the building's renovations. He'd been arrested for assaulting me before the job was finished and ended up in jail. As far as I knew, he'd just gotten out a couple of weeks ago. Will had shown up yesterday, wanting to talk to me, but I had been out of the building. Now, less than twenty-four hours later, he was dead.

I took a couple of deep breaths to steady myself. Then I got to my feet and called 911. I didn't call Marcus because I knew he was in court first thing today. I waited by the front door and avoided looking back at the body.

Officer Stephen Keller was the first person to arrive. He was former military, square jawed and square shouldered. We had met at crime scenes before. I showed him where the body was and then stayed out of his way.

Like I had, Officer Keller checked for a pulse. I was guessing he'd also taken note of the gash on the side of Will's head the same way I had. He looked at the floor around the body then straightened up and did a quick survey of the space.

"Is anyone else here besides you, Ms. Paulson?" he asked.

I shook my head. I explained how I'd first glimpsed the faint beam from the flashlight and then found Will's body.

"Do you know this man?"

"Yes," I said. I swallowed down the sour taste of bile at the back of my throat. Stephen Keller had arrived in Mayville Heights after Will had been sent to jail so he wouldn't have recognized him. I explained who Will was and how I knew him.

"Is there any reason you can think of for Mr. Redfern to be in the building?" Officer Keller asked.

I couldn't think of any good one. "No," I said. "The doors were locked. The alarm was on. I don't understand how he got inside without triggering it."

He nodded. "Ms. Paulson, you know the procedure."

I nodded. I knew it too well. I gestured at the checkout desk. "I'll just stay right here."

"Thank you," he said. He stepped away to call for more assistance.

I leaned against the front desk. I set my messenger bag on top of it and took a sip of my coffee, wrapping both hands around the metal travel mug as Marcus came through the door.

I stared at him in surprise. "What are you doing here?" I asked.