Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

I bounded out of bed—or more precisely, I slid carefully out from between the sheets in a way that didn’t disturb a sleeping Eddie—and was ready to go in half an hour. At the houseboat’s door, with a laden cat carrier in hand, I glanced at the sky. Still gray. “Kate,” I asked, “do you want a ride to work?”

“Huh?” She was standing at the kitchen counter, a spoon in one hand as she ate a bowl of cold cereal, her cell phone in the other. “Oh. No. I’m good.”

“If you’re sure. See you for dinner.”

The spoon and phone were lowered. “Who’s cooking?”

I was tempted to say me, just to see the expression on her face, but I resisted temptation. “Aunt Frances. I think she’s making fajitas.”

She nodded. “Okay. I should be there just after six.”

“Great. Have a good day.”

My niece shrugged and the phone and spoon went back up.

“You are dismissed,” I muttered as Eddie and I headed to my car. Had I treated my mom like that when I was Kate’s age? Someday I’d have to ask. Although not now, because it was possible I wasn’t ready for the answer.

At Lakeview, I parked in the shade, cracked the windows, and told Eddie I’d be back in ten minutes. “Mrr,” he said, yawning, and rolled over. I eyed him. “It’s great that you’ll be okay, but sometimes it would be nice if you expressed a little concern for me in my absences.”

His mouth opened and closed in a silent “Mrr,” which made me laugh, and I was still smiling when I walked into the facility.

“It’s Miss Minnie!” A white-haired man in a wheelchair, who had been pulled up to a table with a jigsaw puzzle spread across it, zipped over to me. “But what ho? You are bereft of books!” Max Compton made a display of peering at my empty hands. He looked up at me, his face contorted into an expression of horror. “You’ve come with bad news, haven’t you? You’re making a special stop to let me down gently. Just tell me now,” he said, hanging his head. “Rip off the bandage.”

Max was one of my best friends at Lakeview, and he was a huge fan of books by thriller writers, especially thrillers set in the Great Lakes region. Any day a large print John Sandford book was released was a day of celebration for Max, but it was also a day of fear, because Max was never certain he’d live long enough to finish reading the book.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

His thin chest rose and fell as he sighed. “Do it.”

“Okay, then.” I paused dramatically. “It’s about Sandford’s latest book. It’s . . .” And because I have a teensy bit of a mean streak, I paused again. “It’s almost eight hundred pages.”

Max’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Are you kidding?”

“Well, actually, yes. I am.”

He slumped in his wheelchair and put his hand on his bony chest. “My heart . . . my heart . . . I think you’ve pushed me to the brink. The abyss is looming beneath my feet. The chasm is opening . . .”

Though I’d hurried toward him, as he kept talking, I eased back and said, “Max, no one having a heart attack could possibly talk as much as you do.”

He looked at me, still slumped, still with his hand on his chest. “Maybe this is one of those asymptomatic heart attacks.”

“You could be right,” I said. “Just to be sure, let me call nine-one-one. We’ll get an ambulance here in no time and—”

“And I’m suddenly feeling much better,” he said, straightening, and looking for a second like the picture of a younger Max I’d seen in his room, in army uniform, standing with a group of fellow Korean Era soldiers. “The sight of you alone, Miss Minnie, is enough to give an old man palpitations. No wonder I got confused.”

I laughed. “Nice try, Max. But I am sorry I didn’t bring any books.” Then, because he was clearly about to ask me why I was there, I added, “I’m looking for some information and was hoping to talk to Heather.” She was an extremely competent certified nursing assistant and had a wealth of knowledge about Lakeview tucked up inside her head.

“Looking for dirt?” Max grinned and rubbed his hands together. “She’s not going to tell you anything good, you know. All those rules.”

I realized he was right. Privacy rules would no doubt prevent Heather from giving me any of the information I wanted. “Okay. I’ll ask you. If you can keep a secret, that is.”

Max, from his wheelchair, managed to look down his nose at me. “My dear young librarian. I am the soul of discretion. How could you doubt?”

I did doubt, because Max, as my grandfather had said, could talk the hind leg off a donkey, and who knew what he’d let slip? Still, it couldn’t possibly matter that much; anything he knew was almost certainly common knowledge. “Did you know Rex Stuhler?”

“He who was murdered?” Max nodded. “His mother was here for a few weeks after she fell and broke her leg.” He patted his thigh. “Pins and screws and rods all over the place. Rex was the only offspring still in Michigan, and he stopped by every day.”

“Was he . . .” I hesitated, trying to find the right words. “My niece is the one who found Rex’s body. She’s having trouble dealing with it, and I’m hoping that if I can learn more about Rex . . .” I trailed off, since I wasn’t about to tell Max that I was trying to find a killer.

“Looking for closure?” Max snorted. “Not sure what I can tell you. Courtney took Mary home and—”

“Hang on.” I interrupted because sometimes that was the only way to get a word in edgewise with Max. “Mary is Rex’s mom, but who is Courtney?”

“Home health aide,” he said. “Courtney Drew. Skinny kid, long hair in a ponytail so tight she must have an eternal headache. Makes me wince to look at her. She comes in to help move people back home.”

Max kept talking, and I tried to listen, but I was completely distracted by the knowledge that there was a connection between Courtney—she of the spilled pills—and Rex, that Courtney had taken care of Rex’s mom. New information was good, but then there was the big question: Did it mean anything?

Chapter 9

Dinner ended up with girls on one side of the table and boys on the other. Kate, Aunt Frances, and Minnie facing Otto and Rafe. We were in the bucolic backyard of Otto and Aunt Frances’s house. Birds twittering, water bubbling out of a fountain Otto had built, leaves sighing softly overhead, all that. It was a gorgeous summer evening. Peace and contentment reigned. Life was happy and good. All was well with the world.

Except it wasn’t.

Things were a little bit off all the way around the table. Rafe was picking at his food, something so unusual I was afraid he was coming down with something. Kate was, as usual, trying to avoid me as much as possible, and even Aunt Frances seemed to be keeping her distance. Otto was the only one behaving normally, but it was hard for two people to carry a conversation for five.

I ground black pepper on my salad and thought about what to say. It was time to leap into the topic that my aunt had been avoiding the entire meal. I didn’t want to upset her, but I also didn’t want to ignore what was going on. One more bite of salad, I figured, might help, so I forked in a small pile of greens, carrot, cucumber, feta cheese, and unfortunately, an inordinate amount of pepper.

The moment the bite went in my mouth, I started coughing. Which is bad when you have a mouthful of food. I grabbed my napkin and held it to my lips as I hacked away.

Rafe looked up from his plate. “Are you okay?”

Coughing, I shook my head. Definitely not okay.

Aunt Frances turned. “Do you need the Heimlich?”

Tears streaming down my cheeks as I kept coughing, I shook my head again. Definitely did not need the Heimlich maneuver. I’d be fine in a minute; I just had to get that pepper out of my throat . . .