Curiosity Thrilled the Cat Read Online Free PDF Page B

body?”
    “Inside. At the piano onstage.” I said, pointing. “The paramedics are in there.”
    “Ma’am, what are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you involved with the festival?”
    I explained that I was looking for Oren. A car and an SUV pulled into the small lot, followed by a police van. The woman in the car and the man driving the truck had to be police officers, I decided as they got out of their vehicles. They were both dressed in cop shoes—sturdy, heavy-soled black footwear. My father always said shoes are the key to a character. “Nail the footwear and you’ll nail the man.”
    The woman had gotten out of her car, holding a stainless steel coffee mug. She took a couple of mouthfuls and bent to set it back in the car. The man said something to her and grinned. She made a face at him and took one more drink.
    The patrol officer walked over to them.
    There was a wood and wrought-iron bench at the end of the parking lot. I sat down and waited. No one had told me not to leave, but I figured I shouldn’t until someone told me I could. I couldn’t hear what the three police officers were saying, but at one point they all turned and looked at me. I tried to look innocent and not mess with my hair.
    I was still holding the bag of muffins. What was I going to do with them? And where was Oren? Along with the work he was doing at the library, the festival committee had hired him to paint and make some repairs at the theater. He was always on the job by seven.
    The male paramedic came out the stage door, pulling off a pair of purple disposable gloves. He stopped to talk to the three officers. The two new ones had gloves of their own in their pockets. They pulled them on and went inside. More police vehicles pulled into the lot.
    I probably sat on the bench for another ten minutes or so before the officer who had driven the SUV came out of the theater. He walked over to me, pulling off his gloves. He was tall, with dark wavy hair about two weeks overdue for a trim. He had the tanned skin of someone who was outside a lot, which was probably why I’d never seen him in the library.
    “Ms. Paulson?” he said.
    “Yes.” I stood up.
    “I’m Detective Gordon. You found the body?”
    I nodded and tried not to shiver. It was cloudy and not as warm as it had been the past few days.
    “What were you doing here so early?”
    “I was looking for Oren Kenyon,” I said. All of a sudden I felt embarrassed, clutching my paper bag of muffins. “He’s been doing some of the renovation work at the library. I’m the head librarian and I needed to talk to him.”
    “This early?” he asked.
    What did he mean by “this early?” It wasn’t as though I’d wandered down in my nightgown and slippers before the sun was up. “Oren starts work by seven at the latest. I wanted to talk to him before he got involved in something here.” Did he nod, ever so slightly?
    “What’s in the bag?”
    “Muffins.” I handed the detective the bag so he could see for himself. He unrolled the top and looked inside. Then he looked at me again.
    “Ms. Paulson, were you and Mr. Easton involved? Were you two meeting here at the theater?”
    “Involved?” I said, and my voice actually squeaked, I was so surprised. “No. I told you, I came here looking for Oren.”
    Detective Gordon looked around the small parking lot. “Was his truck here?”
    I pulled my hand back through my hair, which probably only made it messier. “Well, no. But I thought maybe he was parked on the other side. The door was unlocked so I went in to see if he was working.”
    Why wasn’t he writing any of this down? I looked at his hands. They were twice the size of mine and callused. He did more than not write down what people told him. No wonder I’d never seen him in the library. “I saw someone at the piano,” I told him. “I thought it might be Oren. I went over and realized it was Mr. Easton.”
    “So you did know him?” the detective said.
    I shook my