Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

Soap opera drama at its finest. I did not look at Rafe. Did not even think about looking at him, because if I did, I might start laughing, and if that happened, Kate would retreat from me even further and—

My thoughts came to an abrupt halt. I’d gone through that same murder-instead-of-divorce thought process not so very long ago. A different scenario altogether, but I shouldn’t laugh at her for having the same idea I’d had. Especially since, if I remembered correctly, when I’d presented my theory to law enforcement, they’d basically laughed at the notion.

I didn’t want Kate to suffer that, so I thought a moment and said, “That possibility wasn’t mentioned this morning. It might be a little melodramatic, but I’ll pass it along to Ash.”

Kate looked up. “You will? Really?”

“Absolutely.” Maybe not right away, and maybe not as a serious theory, but I absolutely would. Someday.

“Cool,” she said, and smiled at me.

* * *

Early the next morning while crunching my cereal as quietly as possible because Kate was still in her sleeping bag, snoring gently, I spent a few minutes in a text exchange with Deputy Ash Wolverson. Early on, it became clear that he did not want to drag Detective Hal Inwood into another meeting with Ms. Minnie Hamilton, even if it did mean fresh baked goods from Cookie Tom’s.

Ash: Anyway, Hal’s wife wants him to drop 20 pounds.

Minnie: One doughnut isn’t going to make that much difference.

Ash: Try telling Mrs. Inwood that.

Minnie: Isn’t she downstate this week with grandkids?

Ash: She has spies. Don’t do it.

I smiled at that, but the spy thing was probably true, and I would have bet it was the sheriff herself who tattled on Hal. Women in an overly male environment tend to stick together, especially when the health of the men in their lives is involved.

Minnie: OK, but I still want to stop by on the way to the library.

Ash: Hal won’t like it.

Minnie: Didn’t figure he would.

Ash: Do you have something new for the investigation?

Minnie (after a pause): A theory.

But not Kate’s soap opera theory, although it was possible the wispy thoughts I’d woken up with had their roots in her ideas. Then again, it might have been Eddie’s cat food breath in my face half the night. One never knew.

Ash (after an even longer pause): Fine.

I could almost hear the sigh as he typed. Before I could thank him, the dots indicating that he was still typing popped up. Then: I can get you 10 minutes, right when he gets here.

Minnie: When’s that?

Ash: 8, straight up.

Minnie: You’re . . .

I glanced at the clock. It was all of five minutes to eight. I finished the text with: getting as bad as Hal , sent it off, slung a sleepy Eddie off the houseboat’s dashboard and into his carrier, and hurried to my car.

Up at the sheriff’s office, I parked in the shade and jogged into the reception area. Ash was waiting for me, arms crossed. “As bad as Hal?” he asked.

I colored a bit. He hadn’t deserved the comment. “What I meant to say was ‘getting as good as.’ Detective Inwood is a highly competent law enforcement officer, and if you’re like him, that means you’re also highly competent.”

Ash, since he knew me well, ignored all that and led me into the interview room, where Hal Inwood was already seated and sipping a mug of coffee. “Ms. Hamilton, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

I sat in my chair. “Did you notice I asked for an appointment?”

Hal eyed me over the top of his mug. “I’m not sure that texting Ash five minutes ago counts as asking.”

Once again we would have to agree to disagree. But I didn’t want to start our conversation with more disagreeableness than necessary, so I gave him a tiny nod. “What I wanted to talk about was the relationship between the murder of Rex Stuhler”—I took a deep breath, because this was the tricky part—“and the murder of Nicole Price.”

There was no movement from Hal. Or from Ash, either, which could only mean he was getting very close to being an official certified detective. A year ago, there was no way he would have kept a blank face after I’d said something like that.

Finally, Hal slid his small notebook from his shirt pocket. His shoulders rose and fell just once as he flipped pages. “You have reason to believe there is a relationship.”

He didn’t exactly phrase it as a question, but I decided it was close enough and nodded again, more decisively this time. “I’m glad you asked,” I said brightly. Which was pretty much a flat-out lie and I was pretty sure that a lie inside the sheriff’s office was worse than most lies. “No,” I said, sighing. “I’m not glad. I kind of wish you hadn’t. How about if we pretend—”

“Five minutes,” Ash said. I shot him a glance, but he just shrugged. “We have a Region 7 meeting in Gaylord at ten and reports to finish first.”

“I’m not trying to waste your time,” I said, a bit tensely. “But I want to make sure you’re considering the possibility that the two murders are linked.”

“In what way?” Hal asked.

This was the next tricky part, because I had no idea how the murder of a local pest control guy by handgun had anything to do with the strangulation of a downstate teacher. So I gave them what I had: my gut feeling. “One unsolved murder is rare in a county this size. That there could be two unsolved and unrelated murders seems beyond the scope of possibility.”

“Yet here we are,” Hal said, tapping his notebook with the tip of his unopened pen.

Ash glanced at his supervisor, then at me. “Coincidences happen all the time, Minnie. You know they do. This is probably just a really sad one.”

The more they disagreed with me, the more I became convinced I was right and they were wrong. “And what if it’s not a coincidence?” I put my fists on the table. “What if these murders are connected? What if there’s someone running around out there that has already killed twice?”

Finally, Hal clicked his pen on and made a mark in his notebook. “Ms. Hamilton, if you’re concerned that you might be in danger, you should file a report.”

“Me?” I blinked. What was he talking about?

“Yesterday,” Hal said patiently, “you told us you’d been pushed into the path of an oncoming car.”

“Oh.” Right. I’d forgotten already. “That’s not what—”

“Then we’re done here, yes?” Hal stood without waiting for an answer. “Deputy Wolverson, better get on that paperwork if we’re going to leave on time. You know how I feel about being late.”

Ash nodded. “I’ll get right on it. See you later, Minnie.”

“Ms. Hamilton?” Hal ushered me out of the room and in seconds I was outside, staring at the closing door with my mouth opening and closing like a gasping fish.

* * *

The bookmobile day passed quickly, but it was overshadowed by the knowledge of what I needed to tell Julia. More than once I started to, but every time I opened my mouth to say something, the words disappeared, or someone came into the bookmobile, or Eddie needed attention. All of which would be summed up into one explanation: I chickened out.

But it had to be done, so as I closed the cat carrier’s wire door on a snoring Eddie, and as Julia finished tidying after the day’s last stop, I told her we needed to talk.

She eyed me over the top of the reading glasses she’d recently taken to wearing. Since she’d never once squinted at the text of a book or held it out at arm’s length, I was pretty sure the glasses were a new prop she was trying on to see how they fit her Bookmobile Lady persona.