Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

I knew he wasn’t serious. Ash was too much a part of Chilson to ever move very far away. But I also understood the realities of law enforcement. He and Hal would continue with the murder investigation, but they also had to deal with the immediate needs of the community. Which meant finding the killer could take some time.

Luckily, I had an idea.

* * *

My niece stared at me. “You want to do what?”

It was Saturday morning, breakfast was done, a beautiful summer day stretched ahead, and the first step in my plan was about to commence. “For the two of us to go pick raspberries.”

Kate shook her head and went back to her tablet. “It’s my first full day off in I don’t know how long. I don’t want to do anything. Besides, why go to the trouble of driving to the other side of the county, standing in the hot sun, getting your arms all pricked by those nasty raspberry vines, getting mosquito bit, and driving all the way back here? Because I’m pretty sure you can walk into the grocery store and buy raspberries.”

As I’d often made similar comments about fishing, I should have understood her argument. Instead, I found myself getting stoked up anger-wise, and the conversation I’d so carefully prepared the night before, after Ash left, vacated my brain completely.

“The entire time you’ve been here,” I said, “you haven’t done anything you couldn’t do in Florida. No, don’t talk. Right now I don’t want to hear anything from you. You’re in northern Michigan during a gorgeous summer and you haven’t done a single thing to take advantage of it.”

“I have, too,” Kate said. “Remember the Fourth of July? When I fell on top of a dead guy?”

Right. Well, there was that. But she wasn’t going to dwell on that particular incident any longer, not if I could help it. “All the more reason to get out and do something else.” Which didn’t quite make sense, so I kept going. “You won’t even go swimming in Lake Michigan! Okay, it’s cold, but there are only five Great Lakes in the world, and you haven’t even put your feet in.”

“Don’t see why I need to,” my niece said, shrugging. “It’s just water.”

“‘Just water,’” I repeated incredulously. “Just water? You’re kidding, right?” I asked, in spite of the fact she clearly wasn’t. “That’s it. We’re going to pick raspberries, because the cherries are already done, and then we’re going to the beach. Pack a bag with swim stuff, or I’ll pack it for you.”

Kate suddenly seemed to realize the direness of her situation. “You’re serious.”

“As a tax return. You have five minutes to pack a bag. And get some real shoes.” I nodded at her flip-flopped feet. “Those aren’t going to be comfortable in the raspberry patch.”

“But Aunt Minnie—”

“Don’t ‘Aunt Minnie’ me,” I said, trying not to recognize the timbre of my mother’s voice. “Five minutes.”

Less than ten minutes later, we were in the car and headed out of town.

Kate was slouched in the passenger’s seat next to me, and Eddie was in the carrier in the back seat, a location that he was unfamiliar with and clearly did not like, judging from the howls that were emanating from the carrier every two and a half minutes.

“Why didn’t you leave Eddie at Rafe’s house?” Kate asked. “Or with Aunt Frances?”

I was beginning to wonder the same thing. “Because Eddie and Otto’s adorable little gray cat don’t get along, and Aunt Frances and Otto are driving up to see that historic state park, Fayette, and won’t be there to referee. And I couldn’t leave him at the house because that drywall mud in the downstairs bathroom isn’t dry and you know how Eddie can be.”

Kate sighed, but didn’t protest, because a few days ago she’d left a glass of milk out and woke up in the middle of the night with half of it spilled on her sleeping bag. Eddie could have stayed on the houseboat, but both Eric Apney on one side and the Axfords on the other were having work done on their boats and Eddie was not a fan of power tools. It was easier for everyone if I removed him for the duration.

My niece continued her slouch. A few miles later, she muttered, “Where are we going?”

“To a farm out past Brown’s Road.”

She sat up a little. “Isn’t that the road where the bookmobile stopped that day?”

Frowning, I asked, “How do you know that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because I’m not stupid, even if you think I am.”

What was she talking about? “What on earth makes you think I think you’re stupid?”

“Besides everything?” She made a rude noise in her throat. “Can we drive down that road? Brown’s?”

My knee-jerk reaction was to say no, and my mouth opened to say the word, but before I could say it, I remembered that this was, in fact, the plan I’d come up with last night. Rafe had made me promise I wouldn’t come out here by myself, and I wasn’t. Kate was with me.

“Fine,” I said tightly. “There’s nothing to see, but let’s have at it.”

And I turned onto Brown’s Road.

Chapter 19

Kate and I sat in my car near the same spot the bookmobile had parked less than a month earlier. Deeper in the shade, though, because it was getting hot. We were so far underneath a maple tree’s low-hanging branches that the car was probably invisible to the casual glance. Our activities, however, were far different than that of bookmobile day; my niece was looking through the windshield with no interest in anything and I was texting Rafe.

Me: On Brown’s Road with Kate. All fine, see you soon.

I hit the Send button and immediately turned the phone off, just in case he was paying attention to his own cell and shot off an immediate text of protest.

“There’s not much out here,” Kate commented.

She was correct. There was not. Well, not if you equated structures created by humans with “much.” On one side of us was a lovely northern forest of maples, beeches, and birches, a depth of green that reached as far as the eye could see. On the other side was a field that had once been cleared for farming, but had been abandoned years ago. Scrub trees and shrubs dotted the acreage and it wouldn’t be long before there was little difference between the two sides of the road.

Less than a hundred yards south of where we sat, the field came to an end and the trees closed in, filling both sides of the road. I studied the narrowing roadway and wondered how far it went before it petered out to nothing. The map function on my phone showed it going another half a mile, but my phone’s map had led me astray before.

“We should talk to those people,” Kate said. At my puzzled look, she pointed across the field to an old farmhouse.

I shook my head. “No. It’s—”

She cut me off. “Why not? Oh, wait. I know. It’s because all my ideas are stupid, right? Sure, you called them melodramatic, but I’m pretty sure that’s another word for stupid,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Mrr!” Eddie said from the back seat.

Over my shoulder, I sent him a glare that was meant to convey the message of “Cut that out because I don’t need you adding to my woes right now, thank you very much,” but the effort was lost on him because he’d turned around in the carrier and all I could see was his hind end.

I turned back around and faced my niece. “What I was going to say was that I looked up the ownership of that house and it’s under foreclosure. No one lives there, and hasn’t for over a year.”

“But maybe someone is living there anyway,” she persisted. “Someone could have broken in.”

“Do you see any signs of that?” I asked.

She peered through the windshield. “Well, no, but if anyone was hiding out, it only makes sense they’d try to hide all the signs.”