Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

“And you,” Kristen said, banging her spoon on her desk and glaring at Kate. “I hear you get headaches from the smell of cooking food. You must be the first in the history of the world. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t . . . I can’t . . .” Kate leapt to her feet and ran out of the room. A few seconds later, the kitchen door slammed.

Kristen half stood, then sat back down. “I’m such an idiot. Sorry, Minnie. I’m used to being able to say whatever I want around you. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I gave my crème brûlée a longing glance, picked the strawberry off the top, popped it in my mouth, and went after my niece.

* * *

The next morning I wasn’t scheduled to work until noon, so I made a Real Breakfast for Kate and me. Omelets—egg and cheese only because that’s all there was—and fried potatoes. I didn’t burn a thing, and Kate ate hers without a single complaint.

The night before, after I’d caught up with her halfway back to the boathouse, she’d agreed to return to Kristen’s only after I convinced her that though Kristen was crusty on the outside, inside she had the proverbial heart of gold. Or if not gold, at least high-quality silver. Kate had dragged her feet all the way back, but once there, Kristen turned on the charm and had her laughing in minutes. She laughed the hardest at Kristen’s stories of a young Minnie’s attempts to play basketball, and I was so glad to see her laughing I didn’t mind the ridicule a single bit.

Now, Kate finished her glass of orange juice and put her dirty dishes next to the sink. “I’m working late,” she said. “Don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“Are you at the toy store?” I asked, turning to look at the whiteboard, but it was blank. “Kate, you didn’t write down—”

“Mrr,” Eddie said, just as the door shut. I felt the deck of the houseboat shift as Kate jumped to the pier and was gone.

“What am I doing wrong?” I asked my cat as I washed the dishes.

He jumped down from the nest he’d made of Kate’s sleeping bag and, purring, bumped my shin.

“This summer isn’t anything like I imagined,” I said, picking him up and giving him a good snuggle, one guaranteed to get Eddie hair all over my clothing.

“Mrr!” He squiggled out of my grasp, jumped to the floor, and pelted down the steps and into my bedroom.

Nice. Even my cat couldn’t stand me. “Love you, too, pal,” I called. I brushed off what feline hairs I could, grabbed my backpack, managed to drop it, picked it up again, and headed out into the sunshine. Rafe had left at oh-dark-thirty for a short fishing trip with some friends, but I looked at the house as I walked by, somehow hoping to catch a glimpse of him even though I knew he was gone.

“Silly,” I murmured, shaking my head at myself. Had I really come to this? That a single day without him was too long to endure? Was this what love could do?

I decided to think about it later and turned my face to the morning sun, the better to enjoy my walk. The last few days, I’d been thinking about John and Nandi Jaquay and how Polly from the chamber of commerce had said they’d seemed intent on putting Rex out of business. Even though I’d passed that information on to Ash, I’d thought of a way that I, as a private and concerned citizen, could learn more about the Jaquays without raising anyone’s suspicions. It could be that Kate’s unhappiness with me was due to associating me with finding a murder victim, and if I could help find the killer, maybe she’d shift from angry adolescent to nice niece.

The alliteration was pleasing, but it wasn’t quite right, so instead of going straight to the front door of the Tonedagana County Building, which was right in front of me at this point, I wandered a bit on the county’s complicated system of sidewalks, thinking about other possibilities. Radiant relative? Kind kin? Friendly family?

“It’s Minnie, right?”

I jumped at the gravelly voice. In the shade of a large maple tree, a man was sitting on a picnic table bench. He was thin, with long, sun-streaked hair and was smiling at me over the innards of a lawn mower. One of Ash’s friends, and last summer he’d helped teach me to water-ski. Sort of.

“Hey, Tank.” I eyed his uniform of dark blue pants and a light blue short-sleeved shirt with a name embroidered on the left pocket. “Is your name really Cecil?”

“Yeah, and if you call me that, I’ll never talk to you again.” He smiled, wiping his greasy hands on a rag.

I laughed. “No worries. I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Maintenance for almost three years, did roofing before that. What brings you to the county building?” he asked.

It occurred to me that my plan of going up to the building department could be revised. I’d met the head of the building department last year and had hoped to expand our acquaintance this morning, but maybe Tank could help me. “Do you know John and Nandi Jaquay?”

Tank’s easy smile faded fast. “Why do you ask?” His voice was wary.

And now was the time to trot out the not-quite-true story I’d dreamed up for the building department. “I have a friend who’s thinking about doing some work for them, but I’ve heard—”

“If whatever you’ve heard is bad, then it’s right.” Tank pulled a screwdriver out of his pocket and leaned forward to replace the lawnmower’s housing. “Those two are why I ended up here at the county. Things came out okay for me, but the roofer I worked for lost his business. Lost his house and his wife, too.”

“That sounds horrible.” I sat across from him. “Do you mind telling me what happened?”

He snorted. “We put a top-of-the-line standing seam metal roof on their house and never got paid because those two said our work was substandard.” He said the word in almost a growl. “Substandard, my . . . my aunt Fanny. We did quality work, the best in the area, and because we finished a week late, they wouldn’t pay.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Tank finished tightening and put the screwdriver in his pocket. “My boss took them to court, but it didn’t do any good. The Jaquays had all these lies the judge believed and we didn’t get a dime. Worse, those two spread the word that our roofing was crap, and before you knew it, business dried up and we were done.”

I stared at him. “That’s awful!”

He nodded. “So tell your friend to stay away.” Standing, he said, “The only people I know to win against the Jaquays were Rex and Dawn Stuhler. They ran this huge social media blitz and got the Jaquays to back down. Of course, now Rex is dead.” Tank shrugged. “You never know, do you?”

I thanked him for his information and time, and left as he pulled the lawnmower to life, but the engine’s roar didn’t drown out my thoughts.

The Jaquays were small-minded, grasping, and vindictive toward more than just ABK Pest Control. On the plus side, Rex and his wife had fought back and won against the Jaquays.

But had the fight cost Rex his life?

Chapter 8

There were still a couple of hours before I needed to show up at the library, so I did a Minnie-size U-turn and aimed myself downtown. If I could manage a few minutes with a detective or two, I’d save myself having to call or e-mail or text. Plus, if I showed up at their front door, it was harder for them to ignore me.

“Now that’s an evil smile,” Pam Fazio said. She was sitting on the front step of her store, which was one of the three places Kate was working. Pam was originally from Ohio, had retired early from a successful corporate career, and was now the successful proprietor of Older Than Dirt, with its eclectic collection of antiques, kitchenware, and shoes.