Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (10 page)

I watched her go, wondering what I’d ever done to deserve such good friends. It was enough to make you believe in past lives, because there was no way I’d done enough good things in my thirty-three years to have earned what I had.

Then again, what had Eddie ever done to earn what he was getting?

“Negative-income stream, for sure,” I said to myself. Not only was Eddie using cat food and cat litter on a daily basis that he apparently had no intention of paying for, but he also had that habit of destroying paper products.

Plus, I bought him cat treats. And cat toys. Sometimes I even bought him things that weren’t cat toys but were things I knew he’d enjoy playing with. Bath puffs, for one. Felt Christmas-tree ornaments, for another. He seemed especially fond of one I’d found at the thrift store: a Santa Claus head. To me it was a little disturbing to see Eddie fling Santa’s head around the living room, but Aunt Frances found it hilarious.

“All that,” I murmured, “and no financial return. Huh.” I’d have to have a talk with Eddie when I got home. Maybe he’d have some ideas about how to boost his earning potential.

Then again, Eddie’s suggestions probably wouldn’t be very useful, even if he had any. At best he’d look at me, say “Mrr,” rub up against my leg, and purr until I picked him up and snuggled him.

Smiling, I went back to work.

Sure, he was a negative-income stream, but what did you need with money when you had an Eddie?

*   *   *

I was in my office, rearranging the piles of paper on my desk in the vain effort to convince myself that I’d made some progress in figuring out what to do with them, when my desk phone rang.

“Ms. Hamilton, this is Deputy Wolverson from the Tonedagana County Sheriff’s Office.”

I squinted at the ceiling. As if I’d know a Deputy Wolverson from any other sheriff’s office. “Hi. What’s up?”

“We were wondering if you’d have time to drop by for a short meeting.”

A meeting? What could they have to say in a meeting that the deputy couldn’t tell me over the phone? Did they have more questions for me? Or had they found something? Better yet, had they arrested someone for Roger’s death?

But none of that necessitated a jaunt by me to the sheriff’s office. Conversations like that were why phones were invented. So why the summons?

Huh.

“Sure,” I said. “I haven’t had lunch yet.” It was almost two, but I’d been busy. “I can walk over right now.”

“I’ll see you in a little bit, then.”

I hung up the phone and stared at it for a while, wondering. Then I got up, grabbed my coat and purse, and headed out.

*   *   *

According to the clock on the wall of the same small meeting room I’d been in two days before, it was exactly nine minutes after the phone call that Deputy Wolverson came in and sat across from me.

“Good afternoon,” he said.

“Hey.” I glanced at the open doorway. “No Detective Inwood?”

The deputy opened the notebook he’d carried in and didn’t look up. “Hal had to leave.”

So I was left with the junior officer, a guy who wasn’t even a detective yet. Did that mean anything? If it did, I had no idea what it might be.

I sat up straight and clasped my hands on the table. “So, what’s the news?”

Deputy Wolverson looked up at me, and I was suddenly reminded that he was a very good-looking guy, especially if you had an attraction for men in uniform. Which I’d never had. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t acknowledge that particular type of handsomeness.

“Most people call me Ash,” he said. “My first name.”

I blinked. “Okay. Sure.” I could do that. Maybe. But there was no way I’d ever be calling Detective Inwood by his first name. I tried it out in my head.
Morning, Hal. How are you today, Hal?
Nope. Wasn’t going to happen.

Deputy Ash Wolverson was still paging through his notebook with one hand and tapping the table with the pen he held in the other. I mentally tsked at him for not being prepared for a meeting he’d set up. “So, you’ve figured out something about Roger’s death?” I asked.

“In a way.” He flipped another page, paused, flipped another, then went back three pages and poked at it with his pen. “Detective Inwood and I have conducted extensive interviews with Roger Slade’s friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers.”

That sounded like a lot of work to have accomplished in two days, and I said so.

Ash smiled, and it almost took my breath away. I must not have ever seen him smile before, because I
would have remembered how it changed him from a good-looking member of the male species to a drop-dead-gorgeous man that no woman would ever tire of mooning over. How could something so simple as a smile make such a dramatic difference to a person’s appearance? I had no idea, but there the evidence was, right in front of me.

“I had help,” he said, and it took me a moment to remember what he was talking about.

Oh. Right. The interviews.
I nodded for him to go ahead. As quickly as possible, because if he talked, he’d have to stop smiling.

“Detective Inwood and I talked to the key people,” he said, “but we enlisted the aid of other deputies. Anyway, I—we—wanted to let you know that as of today we’ve found no motive for Roger Slade’s murder.” He tapped at his notes. “But while we have no reason, at this point, to believe it was murder, if someone did kill Mr. Slade intentionally, it’s clear that this is a very dangerous person.”

It was such an obvious point that I couldn’t think of a response that didn’t drip with sarcasm, something my mother had always warned me against. “I think I might have been able to figure that out on my own,” I said.
Sorry, Mom.

Ash colored. “Minnie, if there is a killer out there . . .” He stopped, then started again. “I just want you to be careful out on the bookmobile. That’s all.”

I squinted at him. “Are you saying I’m in danger?”

“It’s a very small possibility. Please keep your eyes open and give us a call if you see anyone suspicious.”

While it was refreshing to have someone in the sheriff’s office who was concerned about my well-being, I was pretty sure it was because no one would want the job of figuring out how I’d gotten myself killed. “Thanks,”
I said. “I’ll make sure to keep an eagle eye out for rifles pointed in my direction.”

He looked down, and it was my turn to flush. Once again, my mother’s admonition to think first and be sarcastic in privacy at a later time had gone unheeded. This time I did start to thank him, but he ignored me.

“As we told you before,” he said, “we’ll do our best to find the person who killed Mr. Slade.”

“Sure.” But I couldn’t help thinking how hard it might be. What if the shooter had been a guy from downstate? From out of state? No matter how hard they tried, Ash and Detective Inwood might never catch the guy who was responsible. And if this someone might actually have taken a shot at me . . . ? The skin at the back of my neck prickled.

Nah. There was no way.

Ash flicked at his notepad. “Well, I guess that’s all I wanted to tell you.”

Really? Why on earth hadn’t he just called? Maybe this was part of the reason he was still a deputy and not a detective. Inwood wouldn’t even have bothered to call. “Thanks.” I started to stand. “I appreciate your time.” Even if he had raised the hairs on the back of my neck with his silly remote possibility.

The deputy scrambled to his feet, notepad in hand. “You’re welcome, Minnie. And, uh, if you don’t mind, I have another question for you.”

“Fire away.” I grabbed my purse from the chair upon which I’d tossed it and slung the strap over my shoulder. I smiled at him. “Librarians have the best answers, you know?”

He paused, then looked down at his notebook. “Well, I—”

From deep in my coat pocket came the sound of
Wagner’s approaching Valkyries. Stephen. I reached for my cell phone. “Sorry. It’s my boss. I should probably answer this.”

Ash nodded. “Sure. No problem. I’ll talk to you later.” He opened the door for me.

“Thanks,” I said, thumbing on the phone. “Hello, Stephen. What can I do for you?”

“I’m told you were in the sheriff’s office,” he said. “I’d appreciate an update.”

How Stephen managed to hear about things was a complete mystery. “Walking out the door right now,” I said, doing that very thing. It felt good to be able to tell him the complete truth every so often. “They told me that Roger Slade’s death was most likely an accident.” More or less.

Stephen gave a
hmmph
ing sort of grunt.

“So that’s good news,” I prompted him. “Right?”

“No. As far as Roger’s sister is concerned, her brother is still dead. Her lawsuit doesn’t speak to the manner of death; it simply casts the library as negligent.”

Which didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but maybe that was part of the reason Tammy Shelburt was a wealthy business owner and I was treading financial water as a bookmobile librarian.

By now I was outside, standing on the sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office. I started to ask about the lawsuit, then realized that no one was there, because my boss had, in his Stephen-like manner, ended the call with no good-bye.

I slid the phone into my pocket and stood there, thinking.

As far as Stephen was concerned, until Tammy’s suit was resolved to the benefit of the library, I was still on
the hook. Also at risk, by virtue of my close personal relationship with a very large vehicle, was the bookmobile.

Not to mention . . . well, my life.

Something my dad had once told me about financial planning floated to the top of my brain. “No one,” he’d said gravely, “will care as much about your money as you do.” The police were no doubt doing their best to figure out who killed Roger. But if someone was after me, unlikely as that possibility might be, would anyone care as much as I did?

There was only one answer to that: nope. Which meant it was time for me to get some answers.

I stood there for a moment, thinking, then called the library. Kelsey answered. I coughed and told her I felt like I might be coming down with a bad cold. “Sorry,” I said, trying to sound weak and pathetic and pushing away all feelings of guilt. “But I think the last place I should be this afternoon is the library.”

Kelsey made murmurs of sympathy and told me to get some sleep.

“Good advice,” I said, and it was, for someone who was sick. I could have used some advice regarding finding anyone with a reason to kill Roger Slade, but that wasn’t something I was going to ask Kelsey.

As I walked back to the boardinghouse to get my car, I thought about who I could talk to about Roger. Coworkers. Neighbors. People from his church. Anyone he’d grown up with, except his sister, Tammy, of course. Golfing buddies, if he had any. Poker buddies. Fishing buddies. Roger had been a likable guy; there were lots of people who might be able to tell me something.

It was time to get busy.

*   *   *

“My first attempts at finding a motive for murder were a complete bust,” I told Eddie that night. “No one had anything but nice things to say about Roger. Everyone looked truly upset that he’s dead.” More than that, there was a lot of anger at the guy who’d killed him; if I’d wanted to get up a posse, it would have been easy. But I’d only talked to a fraction of the people I wanted to, and maybe at some point I’d turn over the right rock.

Eddie yawned at my face, whiffing out a distinct odor of cat food.

“What was that?” I asked. “Did you say ‘Tomorrow is another day,’ or ‘Good things come to those who wait’? Neither is useful, just so you know. Do you have anything else to share?”

Eddie stared straight at me. “Mrr,” he said.

“Well, I knew that.”

“Mrr!”

“You’re right,” I told him. “You’re always right. I don’t know why I ever doubt you.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said, and curled up on my lap, purring.

T
he next day was a bookmobile day. With Denise out as a volunteer, I had dragooned Donna into being my temporary assistant.

“You’ll get all the benefits that the regular volunteers do,” I’d promised her the day before.

She’d made a rude noise that was very ungrandmotherly. “And what’s that? A pat on the back?”

“Cookies from Cookie Tom’s,” I’d said. “Still warm.” Last summer Tom had set me up with a deal on cookies and, even better, let me pick them up from the back door rather than making me stand in line.

That had perked her up a little. “Do I get to pick?”

I’d hesitated. Donna had a penchant for licorice flavor, something I wasn’t fond of. I wasn’t sure whether Tom had a licorice-flavored cookie, but did I want to risk it? “Sure,” I said bravely. “Anything you want.”

She’d laughed and shoved at my shoulder a little. One of the reasons Donna worked part-time instead of full-time was her hobbies of marathon running and long-distance snowshoeing. She was only a couple of inches taller than me, but she was much stronger and fitter.

So, when I staggered backward from her shove, I didn’t feel incompetent at having been physically bested by a woman more than thirty years my senior. At least not completely.

“Get me a few of those coconut chocolate chip, and I’ll be your slave for the day,” she said. “Anything special I should bring?”

“A lunch,” I’d said. “And don’t wear anything black.”

She’d winked. Donna knew all about Eddie. “Or white,” she said, nodding. “I have just the thing.”

Now I glanced over at her, still not quite believing what she’d chosen as appropriate bookmobile wear.

She caught my glance and waggled her eyebrows. “It’s what all the best-dressed bookmobile volunteers are wearing, don’t you know?”

I laughed. Donna, from her many years as an athlete, had a closet full of nylon running pants, jackets, shirts, shorts, and, for all I knew, nylon hats and underwear. Today’s clothing of choice included a bright pink jacket over bright pink pants. Her socks were a shocking color of yellowish green, and her shoes had so many fluorescent colors that I couldn’t count them.

“Watch this.” She leaned down, reached through the wire door of Eddie’s carrier, and rubbed her fingers over the blanket that lay on the carrier’s floor. The blanket also happened to be pink, but that had nothing to do with Donna. A boarder of Aunt Frances’s had knit it from an especially soft yarn, and Eddie had instantly bonded with the soft fuzziness. I suspected it was because he shed so much hair on it that it felt like a long-lost sibling, but maybe he just liked pink.

“See?” Donna held a small cluster of cat hair over her pink-clad thigh and let it drop.

Any fabric, from cotton to polyester, would have sucked Eddie hairs tight into its weave, making them near to impossible to extract. With Donna’s running attire, however, the former bits of Eddie fell away, to settle who knew where.

“That’s amazing,” I said, wide-eyed. “I wish I could wear an outfit like that.”

“Why can’t you?” she asked. “Seems like reasonable attire for a bookmobile.”

“Stephen,” I said succinctly. My boss had made it clear that since the bookmobile and I were representing the Chilson District Library, I must always present myself in a professional manner. To Stephen that meant dressing two steps more formally than necessary. It had taken me a month and a PowerPoint presentation to convince him that my typical library wear of dress pants, a jacket, knee-high nylons, and low heels wouldn’t make sense on the bookmobile. Dress pants, a tidy sweater, and loafers were eventually deemed acceptable bookmobile clothes for Minnie.

Donna snorted. “That man needs a serious dose of lightening up.”

I didn’t disagree, but I also wasn’t going to enter into a let’s-beat-up-on-Stephen discussion. Stephen might not be the easiest person in the world to work for, but he was our boss and so deserved our respect.

Most of the time, anyway.

The bookmobile rolled happily over the hills and dales of the glacier-carved terrain. November could be a drab month of rain and unrelentingly gloomy skies, but today the sun was popping through puffy white clouds, sending down slanting light onto bare tree branches.

Donna groused a little. “Perfect day for a nice, long run. What am I doing here, anyway?”

“Participating in the outreach activities of your favorite library,” I told her.

“Really?” She sounded puzzled. “I didn’t know the Grand Haven library had a bookmobile.”

My chin went up. “Hey, that’s—”

Her laugh stopped my outrage. “Joke, Miss Minnie. Joke.”

My chin went down. “Not funny,” I muttered, although it actually was, and Donna knew it.

“I wouldn’t have moved up here from Grand Haven,” she said, “if the Chilson library weren’t the best in the world.”

“That’s laying it on a little thick.” I considered the point. “Although if we had a better collection of local history books and had the staff to hold a few more evening events, we might come close.”

Donna laughed again, and then we were driving into the parking lot of a white-steepled fieldstone church, our first stop of the day.

The first bookmobile stop since Roger died,
I thought, and experienced a quick clutch of fear. The feeling took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized I was nervous about going out again.

I braked gently and parked the bookmobile on the far side of the gravel parking lot, leaving plenty of room for the vehicles that would soon be arriving. That were already coming, since I saw two cars slowing, with their blinkers on.

Donna, unbuckled and out of her seat, laid a hand on my shoulder. “You okay, Minnie?”

I reached up to pat her hand. In spite of the pink running gear and the hardcore hobbies and the determinedly black hair, she had the soul of the most comforting grandmother ever. “I’m fine, thanks.”

And, as it turned out, I was. By the time I recommended
My Father’s Dragon
by Ruth Stiles Gannett to a gentleman who was trying to find a book that would give a young boy a lifelong interest in reading, I was feeling much better. And by the time Donna and I had worked through the morning stops, spreading entertainment, knowledge, and Eddie hair (though not necessarily in that order) across the land, my small attack of whatever it had been was gone.

I ushered Eddie back into his carrier at the end of a stop. “Do you think cats have any concept of time?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” Donna said. “When I bought my first house, I adopted a gray tabby. If I went anywhere for more than a day, he’d break something. When I was gone for a week on vacation, he pushed a Native American pot I’d purchased on my last trip onto the floor, shattering it into tiny bits.” She sounded more entertained than angry.

I got into the driver’s seat and buckled up. “Do you think . . . ?”
Nah.
No way could a cat have connected her new vacation to the pot.

Donna slid, in a whispery nylon way, into the passenger’s seat. “I think it wouldn’t be a good idea to underestimate what a cat might know. Maybe they’re not as smart as we might think they are, but, then again, maybe they’re smart enough to hide their conclusions. Why take the chance?”

I put the transmission into gear and we rolled out toward the county road. We had to wait for a car to go past, and I looked over at Eddie. He’d put the side of his head up against the wire door, which meant half of his whiskers, one of his ears, and most of the fur on that side of his face was sticking out.

Shaking my head, I pulled out onto the asphalt. If that cat was supersmart, he was doing an excellent job of hiding it.

The next few stops were deliveries to homebound patrons. The day before, I’d pulled the requested books, checked them out with a specialty one-month due date, and popped them into plastic bags, all set to go for fast delivery.

In my push to set up this system, one thing I hadn’t happened to mention to Stephen was how road conditions might interfere with the deliveries. Not just snow, but the driveways themselves. Our bookmobile was thirty-one feet long and it wasn’t exactly easy to turn around in tight quarters. I’d become quite good at backing up, but if a driveway was snowy, slippery, hilly, and curvy, I might have a problem.

On the plus side, there was a thing called Google Earth, and I’d been able to take an aerial look at the driveways in advance. So far they’d been easy enough, and I dearly hoped the trend would continue.

Donna had handed out the bags at the drop-off locations while I’d carefully turned the bookmobile around. The last delivery, however, was at a farmhouse with a wonderful circular driveway. “Go ahead,” Donna said, putting her feet up on Eddie’s carrier. “Your cat and I will commune silently with each other in your absence.”

“You think so?” Laughing, I picked up the last plastic bag. “That noise you hear isn’t the engine; it’s Eddie’s snores.”

She gave me a startled look, then leaned around to stare at my furry friend. He’d turned himself around and was doing a face-plant into the pink blanket. His snores had been a quiet, resonating drone for the last fifteen minutes.

Still laughing, I went out into the fresh air, across the yard, and up onto the wooden porch. I knocked on the back door and poked my head in. “Mr. Hadlee? It’s Minnie Hamilton, from the library. I have your books.”

“Come on in,” called a strong male voice. “Did you bring them all?”

I pulled off my shoes and followed the voice, walking in my stocking feet, hefting the bag. “And then some.”

In the living room, I found Mr. Hadlee—a farmer, volunteer firefighter, and freelance photographer—lying on the couch with his legs propped on pillows. He’d fallen off his barn roof the week before, broken two of two ankles, and now had multiple screws in both. His wife, a registered nurse, worked the afternoon shift at a nursing home, and between her job, taking care of him, and taking care of the farm animals, she didn’t have time to make sure he got his desired reading material.

I sat in a nearby chair and pulled each book out of the bag like a magician pulling out rabbits. “
The Guns of August
,
The Peloponnesian War
,
The Coming of the French Revolution, Imperial China 900 to 1800
, and, for a special treat, a brand-spanking-new copy of
Battle Cry of Freedom
.” I created a pile on the table next to the couch and grinned at him. “You have them for a month.”

He laid his hand on the tall stack with what looked almost like reverence. “You are the answer to my prayers, Minnie.”

I started to make a joke along the lines of good things coming in small packages but stopped. The man was serious, and making light of his feelings was completely inappropriate. “Glad we could help,” I said,
suddenly getting a little teary. “What do you want next time?”

When I got back to the bookmobile, I must have had an odd expression on my face, because Donna smirked. “Got you, didn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The delivery.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the Hadlee’s house. “They’re so grateful, it makes you want to cry.”

“I didn’t cry,” I said indignantly.

“No?” Her eyebrows went up. “Then why are you sniffling?”

“That’s from . . . from going in and out of the cold. It’s hard on the nasal passages.”

Donna grinned and made a
hmph
sort of noise. I ignored her, and we headed out.

“Um, Minnie?” Donna asked ten minutes later. “I have a problem the size of a large coffee and two bottles of water. Any chance of a restroom anywhere close?”

When I’d set up bookmobile stops, I’d made sure there was an available bathroom at every other location. With the home deliveries, though, I hadn’t considered the issue. Most people probably wouldn’t mind if we asked to use their facilities, but it didn’t seem right.

“Okay,” I told Donna, thinking hard, trying to see a map of this part of the county in my head, and mainly seeing places that were closed for the winter. There was one place that wasn’t too far, but it was the last place I wanted to be.

I sighed, shaking the map out of my head. It was the only place, and it had to be done. “Hang on,” I said. “We’ll be there in a jiffy.”

“Sorry,” Donna murmured.

“Don’t be,” I said. “Eddie and I will commune silently with each other in your absence.”

She laughed, and in a few minutes we were driving around the back of the gas station where, less than a week ago, I’d waited for Roger Slade. I didn’t know if Donna knew that, but I wasn’t about to bring up the subject. “Go around this side,” I told her, pointing to the side of the building where I hadn’t found Roger.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Take your time.” I unbuckled and stretched. “We’re a little ahead of schedule.”

“Mrr,” said Eddie.

Donna laughed, and as I heard the door open, I leaned over to unlatch Eddie’s carrier. “You been in there a while, haven’t you? Sorry about that. From now on, when we do a bunch of home deliveries in a row, I’ll have to—”

In a flash of black-and-white fur, Eddie zipped past me.

“Hey,” I said. “That’s not way to thank the person who—”

There was a small
thump
, and all was quiet.

I scrambled to my feet. Donna must not have shut the door Eddie tight. He’d pushed his way outside and could already have . . .

I kept my thoughts away from the road out front, and ran to follow my troublesome cat. Outside, the world was brown and gray, nothing like the whiteness of last week. I looked left, the way I’d directed Donna, and didn’t see anything catlike, or even Eddie-like. I looked in the direction I didn’t want to, toward the side of the building where I’d found Roger, and saw a flash of a tail.

“Eddie,” I muttered, and hopped up into a fast trot. When he wanted to, Eddie could run rings around me
at speeds that made me dizzy. The trick was to convince him that he didn’t want to run.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” One of these days I’d remember to put a can of cat treats on the bookmobile. Shaking a cardboard can of treats was my best tactic for attracting a runaway Eddie. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”