Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (20 page)

Though the day outside hadn’t been sunny, the snow had brightened things up enough that the interior of the antiques store seemed dark in contrast. Which was my excuse for almost stepping on top of Pam Fazio, who was kneeling on the floor, arranging a display of . . .

“Are those what I think they are?” I asked, my eyes slowly adjusted to the inside light.

Pam glanced up. “Hello, Minnie. Lunch boxes, yes, but with a twist.” She moved a Wonder Woman lunchbox to the left, edged a Minnie Mouse lunchbox to the right, and positioned a Bionic Woman lunchbox in the center. On nearby shelves were a dozen more vintage lunchboxes, from Barbie to Holly Hobbie to
Charlie’s Angels
.

She bounced to her feet and waved at the display, grinning. “What do you think?”

I studied the attractive, colorful display. “Are lunch boxes an
in
thing?”

“No idea,” she said. “But do you see? Every lunch box features a female. A girl! You could use one of these as a purse, a jewelry box, a cosmetics case, even a lunch box.” Smiling, she reached to reposition Chris Evert. “These are so much fun, I’m not sure I want to sell any of them.”

As I stood there, watching her, I knew I really, really
didn’t want to find any evidence that would implicate her in Roger’s death. Then again, I deeply wanted to find out who’d killed him.

Two wishes, and there was a possibility that they were in complete opposition to each other. Which one did I most want to come true?

I sighed. There was only one true answer to that.

“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie.” Pam was smiling at me. “You look sad. What’s the matter—too many turkey leftovers? I have just the cure.” She beckoned me toward a back corner of her store. The entire place was an eclectic mixture of old and new, familiar and strange, shabby and shiny. Items for sale ranged from a large weathered wardrobe to top hats to leather suitcases to pincushions. Something for everyone, including me, because I often browsed the collection of used books.

“Sit.” Pam said pointed at a ladder-back chair. “Now take your boots off—yes, all the way off—and slip into these.” She brandished a pair of antique shoes. They were black, had a small heel, skinny waxed laces, and tops that went six inches past my ankle. I loved them instantly.

Pam grinned. “Had a feeling you’d like those. How do they fit?”

I wiggled my toes. “Perfect.” I pulled the laces through the eyelets. “Where did you get these?”

“Now, Minnie, you should know better than to ask an antiques dealer that question.” When I started to apologize, she waved me off. “Anyone else, I probably wouldn’t tell, but you won’t say anything. You haven’t spread any gossip about me and Denise, and if you haven’t done that, you’re probably the most trustworthy person in town.”

I started to stammer an objection, but Pam cut me off. “I know this because I hear things you wouldn’t
believe in this store. People think the staff doesn’t have ears, I guess, because it can get worse than a hair salon in here when a group comes in.”

It was something I’d never thought about, and probably should have.

“Anyway,” Pam was saying, “I bought those boots in Kentucky. I was down there on a buying trip a while back, about two weeks before Thanksgiving. I was late coming home because I called my neighbor and she said we were supposed to get eight inches of snow—remember that? So I decided to stay south.” She laughed. “Good thing I did. You wouldn’t believe the things in this barn that I wouldn’t have found if I’d left when I’d planned.”

I was so stupid. If I’d had the sense of a soap dish, I would have found out a long time ago that Pam had been out of town the day Roger had died and thus would have saved myself all sorts of anxiety.

“Tell you what.” Pam was looking thoughtful. “I’ll sell you these boots for ten percent over cost, and you promise to never again try to scam my morning coffee away from me.”

“Twenty-five percent,” I said firmly. “And not a penny less.”

We bargained our way to fifteen percent over cost, and, as I continued my walk back to the library, I realized that my mood had lightened considerably. New boots, even if they’re old, can be a wonderful thing.

*   *   *

My temporarily high spirits crashed that night as I lay in bed, trying to sleep but being all too aware of time ticking away. The court date with Tammy Shelburt was only eight days off and I was no closer to a solution now than I’d been the day I’d met with the library board.

Sleep wasn’t easy in coming, and what rest I did get was haunted by uncomfortable dreams of forgetting my high-school locker combination and missing a flight to Paris.

I spent the next day, a bookmobile day, drinking a lot of caffeine and doing my best to be a cheerful and professional librarian. I faked my way through all the stops, but when Lina was gone and the bookmobile was tucked in for the night, I wasn’t at my alert best.

Eddie, on the other hand, was wide-eyed and awake.

“Mrr,” he said.

“Yeah.” Yawning, I buckled my car’s seat belt. “You said that before. Lots of times.” I started the engine and aimed us in the direction of home. “Over and over. You should work on a broader vocabulary.”

He didn’t say anything. I did, however, hear a scratching noise.

“Eddie, please don’t tell me you’re using your carrier as a litter box.” I was almost begging, which was never a good plan with a cat. They exploited weakness better than anyone. “We’re almost home, and—”

“Mrr.”

That “Mrr” hadn’t sounded the same as the twelve hundred previous versions he’d vocalized in the last three minutes. I glanced over and had a small panic attack. “Eddie! What are you doing out of the carrier?”

He was sitting atop his former abode, looking out the passenger’s window, every muscle in his body at ease. Clearly, he thought he belonged there.

I spent a few quick seconds debating between stopping the car, trying to capture a reluctant Eddie, and shoving him back into the carrier, or just driving carefully and slowly the rest of the way home.

Eddie gave me a look.

“Fine,” I muttered. “You win. But you can bet I’ll double-check that latch tonight.” It was probably my fatigue that had caused me to not secure the latch properly, but there was the odd chance it was broken.

“Mrr!” Eddie inched closer to the window. “Mrr!”

“Yes, my hearing is fine, thank you. Matter of fact, have I ever told you that my family has a long history of keen hearing? There’s a story about my great-great-”—I considered the dates and added one more—“great-uncle Archibald. Back in the day, he—”

“Mrr!” Eddie’s front feet thumped onto the passenger’s door. “MRR!”

I ignored him. “So, back in the day, Uncle Archibald was a cook in a lumber camp. One morning there was—”

“MRRROO!”

Eddie’s normal conversational tones were something I was used to; Eddie howls were quite another. “Are you okay?” I glanced over but didn’t see any signs of impending stomach upset. Thankfully.

My cat ignored me. Still on his hind legs, he scratched at the window, howling and whining.

“What is with you?” I looked past him. “Did you see a chipmunk? A bird?” If he had, it was gone. “Oh, wait. It’s the building, isn’t it?” I nodded at a structure of steel and glass and stone. “Well, you’re not the only one who isn’t fond of the new city hall, but personally, I quite like the design. Form follows function, you know.”

Eddie sat down with a plop and gave me a disgusted look.

“You’re not familiar with Louis Sullivan?” I tsked at him. “Your education has a huge hole. My fault, no doubt.” Thanks to an engineer father who had a lifelong interest in architecture, I’d ended up with more knowledge on the subject than the average bear, and I was
more than willing to share with my cat. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Have you ever heard of Stonehenge?”

The cat carrier made a noise. Eddie had slipped back inside.

“Fine,” I said. “We’ll skip Stonehenge. Let’s talk about pyramids.”

“Mrr.”

“Excellent,” I said, and started Eddie’s first architecture lesson. That would teach him for escaping the carrier.

Maybe.

*   *   *

After I got home, I put on some going-out-to-a-nice-restaurant clothes, stuck Kristen’s latest postcard to the refrigerator
(Key West: fifty percent convertibles. Chilson: fifty percent pickups with snowplow blades.)
and was at the front door when Tucker pulled into the driveway. I hurried out so he didn’t have to come into the Eddie-hair-infested house, and in less than half an hour we were sliding our knees underneath a white tablecloth at Charlevoix’s Grey Gables. When he’d texted me the day before with a round of apologies for not being in touch and a sheepish dinner invitation for that evening, I’d known exactly where I wanted to go.

The waiter took our drink orders, cited the evening’s special offerings, and gave us menus. When he left, I glanced around. The restaurant was mostly empty, as was typical for a weeknight this time of year.

“Something wrong?” Tucker asked.

I faced him, smiling brightly. “Not a thing. How was your day?”

He gave me a look, then started telling a story about a recalcitrant caster on one of the exam-room chairs. Just as he was leading up to the point where I was sure
someone was going to get dumped on the floor in a very public manner, the hostess ushered a hand-holding couple to a nearby table.

The man quirked a smile at me. “Hey, Minnie. Seems as if I’m seeing you everywhere these days.”

I nodded at Jeremy Hull, wondering whether my guilt over telling the police about his car was manifesting itself in any visible way. It was because I remembered his phone conversation that I’d wanted to come here; maybe I’d hear something, see something, learn something that would tell me one way or another if he’d killed Roger and wanted to do the same to Denise. Coincidental location at the time of Roger’s death was bad, but it could be just a coincidence.

Jeremy introduced his wife, I introduced Tucker, and we were on the verge of becoming a jolly foursome when their waiter arrived, took their drink orders, and started reciting the specials.

“. . . And tonight’s creation by the chef,” he said, “is a tenderloin of venison glazed with maple syrup and accompanied by a delectably light cherry sauce. Any questions? Then I’ll be back with your wine.”

I’d been looking in Jeremy’s direction when the venison had been described and had seen him flinch. I caught his eye. “Not a fan of venison?”

He shook his head as he busied himself with unrolling his cloth napkin. “I can’t stand the idea of eating the stuff. Haven’t been able to since I was a kid and my dad took me hunting.”

I could tell where this was going, and I wasn’t sure it was a suitable topic for the dinner table. Quickly, I said, “I’ve heard a lot of stories like that and—”

But Jeremy wasn’t paying attention to me. “My dad
got a deer a couple of hours into the morning. I was maybe twelve or thirteen. I’d never seen anything dead before, not like that.”

His wife reached across the table and took his hand. “Honey, let’s not talk about it, okay?” She sent me a smile.

He pulled away. “You know what my dad made me do? He made me dress that deer. Stood over me and told me, step by step, how to—”

“Jeremy,” his wife said sharply.

He finally looked at her. Looked at Tucker and me. Realized what he’d been about to say and where he’d been about to say it.

“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that ever since that day I haven’t been able to stand guns or venison or the sight of blood.”

As we made murmuring noises of understanding, our waiter stopped by. “Are you two ready to order?” he asked. “Still thinking about the prime rib?”

“Well, actually,” I said, “I think I’ll have the salmon.” Not that beef was venison, but Jeremy’s half-told story was a little too close for eating comfort.

“You know,” Tucker said, “I think I’d like the salmon, too.”

Our long-suffering waiter nodded again. “Instead of the filet mignon you asked about earlier?”

Tucker smiled at me. “Absolutely.”

I smiled back at him, thinking for the first time in weeks that maybe this would all work out.

D
uring my lunch the next day, I hurried out through the start of what was predicted to be three straight days of rain, and drove a box of donation books I’d been collecting up the hill to the middle school.

Rafe and I had regular bargaining sessions regarding exchanges of labor, and last summer I’d agreed to set up recommendations for an after-school reading program if he did the electrical repair of my houseboat. As often seemed to happen, I was still working on his project when he was long done with mine. Whenever I mentioned this fact, he’d give me a white-toothed grin, say he was just more efficient than I was, and that maybe I should take some lessons from him.

“As if,” I muttered, trying to free a hand to open the school’s door. Efficiency lessons from Rafe would be about like etiquette lessons from Eddie.

The secretary’s desk was empty, so I wandered unannounced through the maze of small offices. “Eddie etiquette lessons would all be about what to do with my tail,” I muttered, plopping the box on Rafe’s desk.

“When did you get a tail?” Rafe, looking almost professional in a buttoned shirt and dress pants, craned his
neck, trying to look around to my backside. “Bet wearing pants is a problem. You going to start wearing skirts? Poodle skirts, maybe?” He smirked.

I pointed at the box. “These are donation books that are on the after-school reading list.”

“Hey, cool.” He stood and sifted through the contents. Rafe had applied for a small grant to fund the project and it had been awarded, but he’d received only half the money requested. “This will help a lot.” He picked up a copy of
Arnie, the Doughnut
and started reading.

I cleared my throat. “Thank you ever so much, Minnie. You’re the best librarian ever.”

“Huh?” Rafe turned a page. “Yeah. Thanks, Min. See you later, okay?”

I rolled my eyes and walked out. Though the hallways were quiet, I could hear a distant din from the cafeteria. Lunchtime in a middle school. I shook my head, not wanting to remember those days too clearly. To distract myself, I looked into the classrooms through the small vertical windows in the doors, but it turns out you can’t see very much that way.

A blare of music startled me. I looked around, saw an open classroom door, and poked my head inside.

Don Weller was seated at a desk, peering into a computer monitor and singing along with the lyrics pouring out of his speakers.

“. . . Jingle all the way. Oh, what fun it is to ride in a . . .”

He was so busy singing and working on the computer that he didn’t notice my wave and didn’t hear my hello. I came into the room, saw what was on the monitor, and gasped.

Don spun around. “Hey, Minnie. What’s up?”

I knew he was looking at me, but I couldn’t look away from his computer screen. “Isn’t that Denise Slade’s house?”

He laughed. Or it started out that way; halfway in, it turned into more of a snarl that ended as a sneering sort of sigh. “Yeah. She’s my next-door neighbor.”

I considered what my strategy should be. “Rafe mentioned your fence issue.”

“Wasn’t an issue until Denise felt the need to turn me in.” He whacked at the keyboard. “She could have said something, could have said, ‘Gee, Don, did you know you need a fence permit? Just stop by city hall and talk to the zoning administrator.’” He was snarling again. “‘Doesn’t cost much. Paperwork’s simple. Just make sure you get one, because the penalty is a little fierce.’”

He thumped on his computer’s mouse, changing the screen away from the image of Denise’s house, whacked at the keyboard, thumped some more. “But, no, she didn’t do any of that. What did she do? She waited until I finished putting the dang thing up, then made the call. Freaking tattletale,” he muttered, whacking away.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Hang on . . .” He made a few more thumps and whacks, then shoved his chair back for me to see. “Wait for it.”

The screen went black. As I watched, “We Need a Little Christmas” started playing and lines of large white text scrolled up into view.
Denise Slade, 1038 Ridgeline View, Tuesday, November 25
. The text scrolled up and away; then Denise’s house slowly appeared. The night photo showed a house brightly lit with tiny lights. Red, green, yellow, and blue, the lights outlined every
window, every eave, every corner, and every post on the wide porch. It was attractive, in a showy sort of way, but I was glad I didn’t live next door to it.

“That’s a lot of lights,” I murmured.

Don snorted. “You ain’t kidding. But the thing is, she’s violating the rules.”

“There are rules about Christmas lights?”

“Our subdivision has a homeowners’ association,” he said. “No one is supposed to have holiday lights up before Thanksgiving—no way, no how. That there?” He stabbed at the screen. “It’s a flagrant violation of the rules, and after the fence thing, I swore that if she ever stepped out of line for anything—and I mean
anything
—I’d be on her so fast, her head would spin.”

His head must spin at a very slow rate, because Thanksgiving had been a week ago and his head looked as if it were in the same position it had always been.

I studied the screen and saw that it wasn’t a still image—it was a video, and the lights were starting to blink. “Oh, my,” I breathed.

“Yeah.” He stared at it with a fierce expression. “Right next door. She turns it off at midnight, just like the rules say, but I go to bed at eleven and have to try to sleep with that stuff pulsing away. Doesn’t matter how many curtains we hang up; the lights still get through. By New Year’s, I’m going to be seriously sleep deprived.”

I wished him good luck and walked out, thinking about rules and laws, about expectations and holidays, about families and friends.

And about neighbors.

*   *   *

Boxless and errand-free, I drove down the hill and back into town. I’d hoped to eat lunch at the Round Table
and get the scoop from Sabrina on her new husband Bill’s treatments for his macular degeneration, but there wasn’t time after my conversation with Don.

I snagged a parking spot directly across the street from Shomin’s Deli and five minutes later, I walked out the front door with my new favorite sandwich: green olive and Swiss cheese on sourdough. I also walked out into precipitation. A fairly heavy version. It wasn’t exactly rain, but it wasn’t snow, either. I stepped back into the shelter of the store’s entryway and, one-handed, since my other hand held my lunch, I tried to wrestle my hood out of my coat’s zippered collar.

“Stupid curly hair,” I muttered, wrestling away. Most people’s hair could survive a little wet with no ill effects. Mine would spring into an unshapable mass at the slightest drop.

As I grunted with my hood-raising efforts, an ancient and battered SUV pulled up to the curb. Allison Korthase got out, jogged through the falling slush, and went into the eye doctor’s office next door.

I looked at the SUV, mud covered from bumper to bumper, then at the eye doctor’s. Hadn’t Allison been driving a sedan the last time I’d seen her? I mentally shrugged, and, hood in place, left the shelter of the entryway and started back across the street.

“Minnie?”

I jumped. Allison was standing on the curb, a small white plastic bag in her hand. She looked a little different, and it took me a second to realize the difference was that she was wearing glasses. “Oh,” I said, ever the brilliant conversationalist. “Hi, Allison.”

She nodded. “Thought that was you. Your height and that hair are dead giveaways.”

Which meant that my hair was escaping the hood
and would be a mess the rest of the day. Nice. I nodded at the SUV, catching a glimpse of contents that could have passed for the product line of a nice-sized used-sports-equipment store. Hockey sticks, snowshoes, a bow, a gun case, at least two sets of skis, and what might have been a lacrosse stick crowded up against the window, giving the impression that more layers lay underneath. “I didn’t recognize the vehicle.”

She gave a small grimace. “My husband’s. Mine’s in the shop for some recall thing, so I’m stuck driving his for the day. So embarrassing. I asked him to at least get it washed, but you can see how far that got me.”

I smiled and tried to pull my hood up even farther. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?” Which I should have asked when I’d seen her at the library the other day, but better late than never.

Allison jiggled her bag. “Would have been nicer if my new contact-lens prescription had come in on time. I spent the day having my glasses steam up every time I opened the oven door.”

Yet another reason to be grateful for twenty-twenty vision. Which I hadn’t had since I was ten, but since the idea of corrective eye surgery gave me the willies, I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Happily, my contacts and I got along just fine.

“How about your Thanksgiving?” Allison asked.

I was about to answer when the slush suddenly turned to straight rain and began falling in big fat drops. We both said quick good-byes, and I scampered across the street to my car. A few minutes later, I was at my desk, biting into my sandwich and reading the e-mails that had multiplied during the hour I’d been gone.

Josh sidled into my office. “Hey, Minnie, you got a minute?”

As I was nodding, Holly came in after him. I looked from one friend to the other. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Stephen,” they said simultaneously.

“What’s he done this time?” I asked. “Recommended
Helter Skelter
to a nine-year-old?”

They ignored me. “He knows about Eddie,” Holly said, at the same time Josh said, “I’m positive he doesn’t know about Eddie.”

I put my sandwich down. “Hmm. One of you has to be wrong. I wonder who it is?” They pointed at each other. “Right,” I said. “Josh, you were here first. What’s your proof?”

“It’s like I was saying: I was in his office the other day, checking up on his computer. I pretended to pick a cat hair off my sleeve, see, and said, “Looks like a cat hair. Wonder how that got on me? And he didn’t say a word. Didn’t blink, didn’t move, didn’t do anything.” He grinned. “See? If he’d known about Eddie, he would have said or done something.”

“Oh, please.” Holly rolled her eyes. “This is Stephen we’re talking about. He has the best poker face ever.”

“Yeah?” Josh folded his arms across his chest. “What’s your proof that he knows?”

“Pinterest,” she said. “He has an account.”

“He does?” From what I knew, Pinterest was all about pictures. Pin a picture to your account’s board. Make comments. Make comments on other people’s pictures. It sounded fun, but I was wary of the time-suck factor.

“Yeah, it’s an open network, so it wasn’t hard to find him. He’s pinned a lot of photos of antique cars.”

I ran over the top of the sports-loving Josh’s surprise about Stephen having any interests outside of books. “So, how does Eddie come into this?”

“Stephen pinned a picture of this old car that had a cat sitting on its hood, and made a comment that the owner didn’t deserve to own it if he was going to treat it like that.”

“What kind of car?” Josh asked.

Holly and I looked at him.

“What? I’m just saying it’s important. If it was an antique Aston Martin, or, something like a Duesenberg, I’d have to agree with him.”

“You are such a guy,” Holly said.

He shrugged. “Goes without saying.”

I thanked them for their conclusions, but I wasn’t sure either one had definitive proof. A few weeks ago, I would have been concerned. This week, however, the Secret of Eddie was way down my worry list. Not that I had a list, but if I did, that’s where it would have been.

When I sighed, my friends exchanged glances.

“All right.” Holly dragged over the spare chair and sat herself down. “Tell Aunt Holly what’s wrong. And don’t leave anything out, because I’ll be able to tell if you do.”

I opened my mouth to say I was fine, that everything was fine. But before the first denial was out of my mouth, I knew I couldn’t do it.

“Tammy Shelburt’s negligence suit against the library starts next week,” I said, “and if the sheriff’s office doesn’t arrest Roger’s killer before then, the library board will probably take the bookmobile off the road. The library attorney said it will help the library’s case.”

Holly gasped. “Seriously? I mean, I know you told me they might, but I figured they’d have come to their senses by now.”

“No one has told me anything different.”

“Geez.” Josh shoved his hands in his pockets. “What are you going to do?”

I looked at my computer monitor, which had gone into screen-saver mode and was now showing a slide show of bookmobile photos. “The only thing that will save the bookmobile is figuring out who killed Roger Slade. So that’s what I’m going to do.”

Holly half laughed. “If anyone else told me something like that, I’d laugh in their face. But you know what? I believe that you’ll do it. Right, Josh?”

He nodded. They both smiled at me, and I smiled back, because if they could believe it, then I could, too.

*   *   *

By the time I left the library, the light had completely gone from the day. It was a school night for Aunt Frances, so I was on my own for dinner. She’d left the porch light on for me, and when I opened the front door, I called out, “Eddie? Hey, Eddie?”

No feline came bounding over to greet me. I put my coat in the closet and wandered through the house on a cat hunt. “Eddie? Where are you, pal?” No Eddie on the couch, no Eddie on the dining-table buffet, no Eddie in the kitchen or in the downstairs bathtub.

I went upstairs. No Eddie on or under my pillow, no Eddie on any shoes in my closet. No Eddie in my aunt’s room, and no Eddie in the upstairs bathrooms. I stood at the top of the stairs and called again. “Eddie?” There was no need to get worried—of course there wasn’t—but there was a chance he could have scooted outside when the door was open and no one had noticed. He could have been outside all day. He could be lost, cold and shivering and—

Something thumped me in the back of my knee. “Ahh!” I jumped and yelled at the same time.

“Mrr.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked down at my
cat. “Funny, mister. Very funny. I was calling and calling you. Where have you been?”