Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

Though I went back to bed, sleep didn’t return, and as the sky brightened, I gave up and headed into the library after leaving what I hoped was a cheerful message for Kate on the whiteboard.

Now my research was done and I wasn’t sure I’d learned anything useful. Yes, thanks to the search capabilities of the county’s website, I had a list of the current property owners and the dates the properties had last been sold. And thanks to Google Earth’s imagery, I could see . . . not much. The satellite had flown over in summer and the only things visible were leaves, leaves, and more leaves. Tree cover that dense could conceal anything from small barns to decent-sized houses, especially if they’d been there a long time.

I sighed and tried to refocus my attention on my immediate surroundings and on the work I should be doing, but my thoughts stubbornly remained elsewhere. Kate needed me to find the killer and I wouldn’t fail her. Would. Not.

So at lunchtime I opened a blank spreadsheet and typed in the ranking numbers Rafe and I had assigned, hoping that a different view of the data would give me some ideas. But at the end of the exercise, I sighed. “This is so not useful.” I slouched in my chair and looked at the names and numbers. “Names,” I said. “Names and numbers and names and numbers and—”

A flash of inspiration struck. If I couldn’t figure out who killed Rex and Nicole, maybe I could figure out who hadn’t, which was almost as good. Little of my theoretical lunch hour had expired, so I grabbed my purse and headed up the hill.

The noon hour at Lakeview Medical Care Facility was a busy place. Visitors were ambling in and out, residents were being escorted to and from lunch, and employees were walking to and from the parking lot on their own lunch hour.

I hurried inside and stopped at the front desk. “Is Heather working today? I have a question for her, if that’s okay.” After a brief consultation with his computer, the receptionist said, “She’s here, but she might be on lunch.”

After thanking him, I pivoted left. Heather’s summer lunchtime spot of choice was outside in a small courtyard, under the picnic table umbrella if it was hot, out in an Adirondack chair if it wasn’t.

I pushed open the door and immediately spotted her sitting in the sun, her face tipped up to its warmth. “Hey, there. Are you awake?”

“Mmm.” She watched with slitted eyes as I dropped into a chair next to her. “Not really. What’s up?”

“How do you feel about tattling on a coworker?” Then, seeing her face darken, I quickly went on. “Okay, that sounded bad. What I should have said was . . .” What, exactly? Once again, I’d jumped in without being prepared. “I’m trying to figure out the movements of some people on the Fourth of July. To help the police figure out who murdered Rex Stuhler.”

Heather’s eyes opened wide. “You think someone here is a killer?”

“Of course not. But it can happen that one person’s movements confirm someone else’s, and that person’s confirms another’s, and so on, if you see what I mean.” I didn’t know exactly what I meant, but either Heather was humoring me or I’d sounded at least vaguely convincing, because she was nodding.

“Sure, I get it. Who are you wondering about?”

“Lowell Kokotovich. Do you know if he went to the fireworks on the Fourth?” I was trying not to get my hopes up; there were a lot of employees at Lakeview, and the odds of her happening to know were—

“His wife did,” Heather said. “I only remember because of that murder. Their youngest is scared of fireworks, so they hadn’t planned on going, but some friends of hers from downstate dropped in unexpectedly, and she went with them.”

“Exactly what I needed to know.” That put Lowell in the clear for Rex’s death, and making a case for Lowell’s wife being a killer seemed beyond far-fetched. “Thanks, and sorry for interrupting your lunch.”

“Glad to help,” Heather said as she clambered out of the chair. “And now I have to go train a new CNA. Hope I can break her of habits she learned when she was a home health aide.”

That was a problem I’d never thought about. “I figure you’re talking about bad habits?”

Heather shrugged. “Every organization is different, and what’s okay in one place is against the rules in another.”

That didn’t make sense to me. “Aren’t the rules about health care the same no matter where you are?”

Heather had been about to open the door, but she paused. “Let’s just say in some places the procedures are more relaxed.”

“Like what?” I asked, frowning.

“Medications are a big one. I hear some places, like assisted living facilities, let CNAs distribute medications, but we certainly don’t.”

“And home health aides? Can they?”

She sighed. “I’m sure it happens.”

“But they shouldn’t?”

“Not in a million years. They shouldn’t be touching any medications, they’re not trained for it. Um, Minnie, are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said automatically. “Just . . . thinking. Thanks for your help.”

The entire time I walked back to the library, all I could think about was Courtney doling out Rupert’s medications. It worried me so much that when I got back to my office, I dug out Rupert’s application for outreach services and called the phone number he’d put on the form.

“Hello,” Ann Marie said.

“Hi, this is Minnie Hamilton, and—”

“Sorry, but we can’t come to the phone right now . . .”

I waited through the message, then left one of my own. To call me as soon as they could.

* * *

At six o’clock sharp I left the library, making the day an occasion of sorts—the first day in recent history I’d actually left work at the time I was scheduled to be done. I’d also traded hours with Donna so I could take most of the next day off, sacrificing my Sunday afternoon for the sake of Friday investigative efforts.

This was not as much a sacrifice as it sounded, because the upcoming weekend forecast of cloudy with a serious chance of rain was not nearly as attractive as the forecast for the next two days, which was abundant sunshine with the ideal summer temperature of seventy-six degrees.

I took the long way back to the marina, skirting downtown and its accompanying crowds. Another couple of weeks and the people would start to thin out, but now it was still full-bore tourist season.

“Huh,” I said out loud. In the six years I’d lived in Chilson and the many summers I’d spent here as a youngster, I’d enjoyed the crowds. Welcomed them, even. The tourists and summer people brought an energy with them. Added excitement. Created an atmosphere that was completely absent in winter. But this summer I’d been annoyed by the masses of humanity.

A broad smile spread across my face. It had taken a while, but I was becoming a local! Not to other locals, of course, because I hadn’t been born in Chilson, but to the unknowing outsider, I would be tagged as Being from Here.

“What do you think?” I asked Eddie, shutting the houseboat’s door quickly to keep him from slipping outside. Of course, if he’d been determined to get out, nothing I could do would prevent that, but I felt a need to make the effort.

My furry friend, who was curled in the middle of Kate’s sleeping bag, lifted his head half an inch. “Mrr?”

I smiled and rubbed the side of his face with my index finger. “What’s your opinion on tourism? A boost for many local businesses and therefore we should do our best to increase the numbers? Or are tourists changing the very fabric of our community and we should do our best to diversify the economy?”

Eddie sighed and sank deeper into his nest.