Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (3 page)

“You know,” Denise said, “what this bookmobile needs is a decent stereo system. It’s almost Thanksgiving; we should be playing Christmas songs. I just can’t get enough of ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,’ right?” She sang the chorus and tried to start the first verse, but got stuck on the words and went back to the chorus.

I gave Eddie a quick look, but he’d already turned himself around so that his hind end was facing me.

*   *   *

At the end of the day, I couldn’t decide what I’d wanted to do more: hug Denise or put her out by the side of the road.

She’d been both amazingly helpful and incredibly annoying. Once she’d been both at the same time, a feat I hadn’t known was possible.

“This was fun,” she said.

“I’m glad you thought so.” For a moment, I considered launching into the story of the bookmobile’s origin, how Stephen, my boss and the director of the Chilson District Library, had closed the smaller satellite libraries around the county in the name of financial savings, because now that the library offered e-books, he’d said there was no need for the branches’ existence.

I’d felt differently, and had floated the idea of a bookmobile to the library board. They’d smiled at me indulgently, said it was a fine idea, and if I could come up with the money, they’d be glad to approve the program.

A few months later, I had a hefty check in hand from an extremely generous donor, and the surprised board approved the program. Stephen wasn’t so thrilled. And though it was clear he thought that the bookmobile was a waste of my time and the library’s resources, he had little choice but to go along with the board’s decision.

At the time I thought I’d won a great victory. Now reality was setting in. Stephen was continually giving me more to do at the library, a strategy I suspected was designed to take me away from the bookmobile. If I didn’t have time to drive the bookmobile, no one would drive it anywhere, because we had no funds to hire a driver, and then Stephen could sell it and pocket the check in the library’s bank account.

I sighed and decided to keep it all to myself. If Denise was excited about the bookmobile, let her keep that emotion. Maybe she’d spread it across the land, where it would seep into Chilson’s community psyche, and money would fall from the sky. Stranger things had happened, hadn’t they?

“Next left,” Denise said. “We’re the third house on the right. That’s it.”

The week before, I’d told her I could drop her off on the way back into Chilson, since the day’s return route went right past her road. It was a neighborhood of two-story homes on lots that my friend Rafe would call too big to mow and too small to farm. Denise’s husband had dropped her off at the library that morning, and it was easy enough to make a short side trip, especially since her road ended in a cul-de-sac that fit the bookmobile’s turning radius.

“See you Saturday morning,” I said.

“Bright and early.” She unbuckled her seat belt and
reached forward to give Eddie a scratch through the wire door. “See you later, Eddie-gator.”

When she was gone, I looked over at my cat companion. “So, what do you think?”

His yellow eyes blinked in slow motion, but he didn’t say anything.

“That’s exactly how I feel.” I tried blinking the way Eddie did, but blinking slowly was a lot harder than I thought it would be. After two tries I gave it up and dropped the bookmobile’s transmission into drive.

“On the plus side,” I said, “we don’t have to think about her again for four days. So let’s not, okay?”

Eddie’s mouth opened and closed silently, which, since I wanted to think he was agreeing with me, I did.

“Then we’re settled. Time for a new subject.” We moved on down the road, and when we were on the two-lane county highway, I said, “How about what season is best in northern lower Michigan? Spring, summer, fall, or winter?”

I studied the countryside that lay before us. The morning’s snow had long since turned to rain and melted away the half inch of white stuff. Trees that in summer had been covered with leaves were now skeletons, revealing things that were invisible in warmer months. Houses appeared where you hadn’t realized they existed, long views of lakes and hills emerged, and a whole new layer of the world was coming into view.

“It’s like the skin is peeled back,” I said. “In a couple of weeks, the snow will come and cover everything up again, just like in summer the grass and trees cover things. But now, and in early spring before things turn green, the bones are showing.”

I was proud of my insight. It was almost poetic, really. Eddie, however, was snoring.

Until Eddie, I’d never known that cats were capable of snoring. Now I knew better. At least once a week I’d wake from a deep sleep to hear the not-so-dulcet tones of
Felis eddicus
, the species I’d decided was unique to Eddie.

There was still a short drive to town, so I went back to thinking about the seasons. Silently this time.

Winter was fun because of skiing and the sheer beauty of snow. Spring was fun because of watching the world turn green. Summer was fun because of the breathtaking freedom of being outside in shorts and a T-shirt, plus all my marina friends were back and the boardinghouse was full of new people to meet. And then we were back to fall, which was easy to love for its stunning colors and crisp mornings.

“Hey,” I said, waking Eddie. “You know what? I don’t have to decide which season I like best. I don’t have to choose. I can like them all!”

Eddie sneezed and licked his face. “Mrr,” he said.

T
he next morning I left Eddie at home, to his great disgruntlement. Even Aunt Frances noticed his grumpiness.

“What’s with him?” she asked, nodding toward his back feet, which were thumping up the stairs. If past performance was any indication of the imminent future, in a few seconds he would jump on my bed, stand in the middle as he viewed the pillow selection, then flop down onto the one that offered the highest likelihood of Eddie comfort.

I showed Aunt Frances my hands, which were empty except for the mittens I’d just pulled on. “No cat carrier. He’s cranky because he thinks every day should be a bookmobile day.”

She looked up the stairs. “Would some cat treats make him feel better?”

“Sure,” I said, “but then you’d have to give him treats every morning, and he’d follow you around, asking for more, and you’d give them to him just to shut him up and he’d get fat.” I zipped up my coat. “Then we’d have to find a kitty treadmill, find a place to put
it, teach him how to use it, and make sure he got at least thirty minutes of exercise every day.”

Aunt Frances handed my backpack to me. “Much easier not to give him treats in the first place, then.”

“I’m glad you understand. Now, if you could explain that to Eddie, we’ll be all set.” I headed out into the cold morning. Two steps away, I turned around and poked my head back inside. “You know,” I said, “one or two treats would be okay.”

She grinned and, from the pocket of her oversized fleece sweatshirt, pulled out a small canister of cat treats. “Three at the most.”

I left my enabling aunt and my cranky cat to their mutual devices and started my morning commute across town. Bookmobile days, due to the Eddie element, necessitated that I take my car to work, but on library days when it wasn’t pouring down rain or howling with snowy winds, I walked.

My route first took me through streets lined with trees and filled with late-nineteenth-century houses built as summer cottages. People from Chicago had steamed up Lake Michigan to spend the hot city months in the coolness provided by lake breezes. More than a few of the houses were still owned by descendants of the families who’d built them, the walls decorated with the same pictures that had been hung a hundred years earlier.

I walked west, facing the rising wind, and fought the urge to tiptoe as I passed the sleeping houses, shut up tight until spring. A few blocks later, I was out of the historical district and into the section of town where normal people lived.

This was a neighborhood of narrow two-story houses, an occasional ranch house, and large old houses
divided up into apartments; these homes had lights on in the kitchens and cars in the driveways. No sleeping here; there was school to attend and jobs to drive to.

Out on a tiny front porch, a woman was bundled up in a long puffy coat and was drinking from a steaming travel mug.

“Morning, Pam,” I said. “Can I have some of your coffee?”

Pam Fazio, a fiftyish woman with smooth, short black hair, top-notch fashion sense, and an infectious laugh, clutched her mug to her chest. “Mine, mine—every drop is mine,” she growled.

I smiled. Pam, owner of a new downtown antiques store, had an uncanny ability to match product to customer. It could have made entering her shop dangerous to the wallet, but she also had an amazing knack for sensing budgets.

“Are you going to drink morning coffee on your porch all winter?” I asked. Pam had moved to town from Ohio that spring; her long-term tolerance for cold and snow was still a question mark to many.

She took a noisy sip. “Every morning that I went to work in a windowless cubicle at a large company that shall remain nameless, I vowed that I would spend an equal number of mornings on my front porch, drinking my first cup of coffee in the fresh air.”

“No matter how cold?”

“Cold?” she scoffed. “I’m not afraid of the cold. Not when I have coffee.” She put her face into the rising steam. “Ahhh.”

I laughed, waved, and started walking again. From here, downtown was only two blocks away. A left turn and then a right, and I was there: downtown Chilson in all its haphazard glory, an oddly comfortable blend of
old and new architecture that attracted tourists and small-town urban planners from all across the region. But now it was the off-season, which lasted roughly eight months of the year, and business was not exactly bustling.

The only cars on the street were in front of the Round Table, the local diner. All the other storefronts were dark; many had signs taped to their front doors.
CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. SEE YOU IN THE
SPRING
.
Some of the shuttered stores were run by managers for absentee owners; others were owned by people who worked hard all summer long for the pleasure of heading to warmer climes over the winter.

My boots echoed on the empty sidewalks, which weren’t nearly wide enough in summer when all the tourists were in town. I breathed in the fresh air, drank in the view of Janay Lake, looked around at the odd mix of old and new downtown buildings that should not have complemented each other but somehow did, and thought, as I almost always did when walking to work, that I was the luckiest person alive.

I was still thinking that when I let myself into the library, kept thinking it as I logged in to my computer, had it in the back of my mind as I brewed coffee, and let it settle there to keep me company as I got to work.

Two hours later, I was forced to revise my opinion. No way could I be considered lucky if my boss was standing in my office, clutching a sheet of paper and shaking his head.

“Minerva, did you really think I was going to ignore this?”

In a perfect world—the world in which I would continue to be the luckiest person alive—yes, I would have expected him to ignore everything I wanted him to.
Sadly, this was not a perfect world, and I was going to have to work hard to convince Stephen that, even though the grant I’d been promised from an area nonprofit group had vaporized when a major donor had gone bankrupt, there were still other methods of funding next year’s bookmobile operations.

“There are other possibilities,” I said.

“Possibilities of what?” he asked. “Spending even more time and money on efforts to bring a handful of books to a handful of patrons? Tell me how that’s a sensible use of the library’s extremely limited resources. We must think of the greater good, Minnie.”

At least he’d pulled back from calling me by my full name. I took that as a good omen and started marshaling my arguments. They were the same ones I’d written into the memo I’d e-mailed when I’d received the bad news about the grant, but maybe they’d be more believable if I used positive facial expressions, persuasive oratory, and hand gestures that communicated sincerity.

“Exactly,” I said, smiling and nodding. “Just like our mission statement says, we serve as a learning center for all residents of the community.” Life didn’t get much better than when I could back up my ideas with the statement Stephen had written himself.

He fluttered the e-mail again. “I don’t see the connection between that and the loss of the bookmobile funding. And your latest foray into serving homebound patrons is only going to add more cost to your operations.”

My chin started to slide forward into what my mother would have called my stubborn stance. I almost put one hand to my face to push it back. Getting red-cheeked and angry would not help my case. Logic—that’s what I needed.

“All residents,” I reminded him. “We’re supposed to be a learning center for everyone, yet some of our patrons can’t come to the library, especially in the winter months.” I glanced at the window behind me, where a light snowfall had started.
Thank you, serendipity.

“That’s well and good,” Stephen said, “but we cannot operate without proper funding.”

I knew that. Of course I knew that. How could I not, when it was up to me to provide services on an annual budget that was getting smaller and smaller? For a moment, I wished fiercely for the settlement of the late Stan Larabee’s estate. Stan’s will had included a generous bequest to the library, but his relatives were contesting the will, and it was a toss-up if we’d ever see any of Stan’s intended gift.

Worse, Stephen was right. The library simply could not operate in the red. There was some money tucked away, but that was for emergencies, not regular operations. I leaned forward and put my elbows on the desk, interlocking my fingers loosely, doing my best to project confidence and wisdom.

Well, confidence, anyway.

“I’ll find the money,” I promised. “Give me a few more weeks. As you can see from my e-mail, there are a number of possibilities.” Not good ones, but still. And there was always the option of collecting returnable soda cans for the ten-cent deposit. And holding bake sales. Lots of them.

Stephen sighed. “You’re assuming a best-case scenario, and that’s a dangerous expectation.”

Once again, he was right. I took a calming breath, then started to expand on the funding possibilities. Somewhere out there, there had to be a foundation that would like nothing better than to support a
bookmobile program. All I had to do was find it. “I have contacts in library systems across the country, and with—”

Stephen held out a hand. “I’ve stated my reservations. That said, the current budget amounts show approximately six months of funding for the bookmobile. I see no reason why operations can’t continue for that length of time.”

“You . . . don’t?” I blinked. “Thanks, Stephen, I really think—”

“I will also notify the board of my concerns. You can be sure that I won’t be the only one scrutinizing the monthly expenditures.”

I clutched at that a little, but only for a moment. “Don’t worry.” I smiled, happy once again. “It’ll all turn out okay.”

He looked at me straight on. “I certainly hope so.”

A small piece of my ancient lizard brain reared up, shrieking with fear, but I told it to hush and went on smiling. “Six months from now, I’m sure something will have turned up.”

“I certainly hope so.” Stephen folded up my e-mail into small squares and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Because when the bookmobile budget runs out of gas, so does the bookmobile.” Chuckling to himself, he left my office and went up the stairs, heading to his office aerie.

“Very funny,” I said to the wake of his laughter. Stephen occasionally smiled, but he rarely laughed, and the fact that he had laughed worried me, because what it usually meant was that someone was about to get in trouble.

I leaned back in my chair to think, and, in doing so, I dislodged an Eddie hair that had been on my jacket sleeve. It wafted into the air, spun about a few times
lazily—
lazy? How appropriate!
—and eventually dropped in the direction of the floor.

That’s when the penny, in the form of displaced Eddie fur, finally dropped.

Stephen knew about Eddie. Someone had told, and he was chuckling to himself, enjoying the two weeks until the next board meeting, when he would, without a doubt, recommend that I be fired.

“Stop worrying,” I said out loud. But I didn’t quite persuade myself that things would be okay. Stronger measures were in order, and I knew just how to get them.

I pulled my computer keyboard close, typed a quick e-mail with the words
Stephen Strikes Again
in the subject line, added two names, and hit the
SEND
button. I grabbed my coffee mug and made a beeline for the break room.

*   *   *

My best library friends, Holly Terpening, a part-time clerk, and Josh Hadden, the IT department, were waiting for me. Josh was a little younger than I was and Holly a little older, but the three of us had been hired about the same time, and that fact alone had cemented our work relationship into solid friendship.

Soon after our hire dates, we’d developed a pact. We would always support each other after a one-on-one with Stephen. For years I’d shored up Holly and/or Josh, but these days it was different.

“Ever since the bookmobile, I’m his favorite target,” I muttered, leaning back against the countertop.

“Works for me,” Josh said cheerfully. “He hasn’t complained about the network in months, so thanks, Minnie.”

Holly skewered him with a Mom Look. Her two
smallish children had given her the skills to perfect that expression, and she used it both wisely and well. “Josh, we’re supposed to be helping, remember?” A strand of her brown hair had escaped her ponytail, and she pushed it back behind her ear.

“Ah, Minnie knows I’m joking.” He pulled a can of soda out of his cargo pants and handed it to me.

Popping the top, I thanked him and said, “I do know you’re joking. But it would help if we had a hand signal.”

I’d developed a thick skin at a young age, thanks to my efficient stature and my name (though if I never heard another Mini Minnie joke again, I would be okay with that), and had never been hesitant about going to Stephen with issues other library employees would have quailed at. As a matter of fact, I’d become such a Stephen expert that everyone now begged me to take things to the boss.

But I was no longer the golden girl. I was turning into the nearest dog to kick. Or so to speak. Because not even Stephen would kick a dog, would he?

I frowned and considered the question.

Nah. Stephen could be a royal pain in the patootie, but he wasn’t
that
bad.

“Here.” Holly sat at the table and reached for a plastic container. “I made a bunch last night for Anna’s kindergarten class and decided the kids didn’t need all of them.”

Holly’s chocolate-chip cookies were the stuff of legend. I pulled out a chair to sit, took one, hesitated, then took another one. “Thanks. You guys are the best.”

“Yeah, we know.” Josh thumped into a chair and reached out for a cookie. “So, what was the deal today? Too many kids in the library again? He hates that.”

Which wasn’t true—not exactly. What Stephen hated were the crumbs and dirt small children seem to inevitably leave behind. Maybe in a few more years, when the recently renovated building got a little more wear and tear, he’d relax a little. Probably not, but maybe.