Лори Касс: Gone With The Whisker

“Kate,” Katrina said.

I blinked. I’d completely forgotten about last night’s name change. “Sorry. Kate.” I made the Terpening introductions, forgoing the description of Brian’s mining job out west, which meant he was gone three weeks out of four, and instead told Anna and Wilson that Kate’s dad worked at Disney World.

Anna’s eyes went wide. “Does he get to ride the rides every day?”

Kate shrugged. “If he wanted to, I guess.”

“Do you get to ride the rides every day?”

My niece shook her head. “I have school and stuff. But we used to go a lot when I was little.”

Wilson started asking questions about Mickey Mouse, and I leaned behind him to look at Holly. “Did you hear about last night?” I asked quietly. “About Rex Stuhler?”

Holly nodded. “I heard a tourist found him. What a horrible thing to happen on your vacation.”

“It was Kate.” I glanced at my niece. “We were leaving the fireworks and she literally tripped over him.”

Holly’s mouth opened, and at first no sound came out. Her jaw went up and down a couple of times before she could say, “The poor girl.” She sent a soft, sympathetic Mom look in Katrina’s direction. “Is she okay?”

Was she? I had no idea, not really. She seemed fine, but how could I possibly know for sure?

“Menus.” Carol, our waitress for the meal, put two on the table. “Not that you need one,” she said, glancing at me. “I’ll bring you coffee. What would you like to drink, miss?”

Katrina/Kate tucked her chin toward her chest. “Coffee, please,” she muttered.

I smiled. “Nicely done. I’ll have you in espresso by the end of the summer.”

“It’s just I’m tired,” she said. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“How come, Kate?” Anna asked. “Was it too noisy with fireworks? Our dog doesn’t like them at all.”

Kate shrugged. “No, I was having night . . .” She stopped, looked at Anna’s open, interested face, and said, “Having silly dreams.”

I desperately wanted to put my arms around her and tell her it would all be okay. There she was, being nice to a child she’d just met, keeping her pain inside, while I’d mostly been wondering why she wasn’t talking to me.

But of course she wasn’t. She barely knew me. Why on earth would she confide in an aunt she saw once or twice a year? And if she was suffering from a boyfriend breakup, that was one less person she could rely upon. Jennifer had said that Katrina/Kate had numerous friends, but not really a best friend. So who was she talking to?

Maybe no one. And that couldn’t be good.

Katrina sighed and rubbed her eyes. “Hope that coffee comes soon. I’m still pretty tired.”

I glanced at the Terpenings, and saw that the foursome was focused on the breakfast-or-lunch decision. Leaning forward, toward Katrina/Kate, I put my hands on the table. “Kate,” I said softly, “I know how you feel. About finding . . . a body.”

“Doubt it,” she said stiffly.

I hitched a little closer. “It has happened to me.” More than once. “Your dad doesn’t know, and neither does your mom or grandparents.” Mostly because I didn’t want to deal with what would surely have been my mom’s overreaction. “But Aunt Frances does.”

“Yeah?” Kate looked me full in the face. “How long did it take for the nightmares to stop?”

“Honest truth?” I asked. She nodded, but I hesitated, not wanting to tell her that I still occasionally woke shouting out for help, still sometimes sat straight up in the middle of the night with my heart beating too fast.

“It gets easier,” I finally said, “when the killer is arrested and put in jail.”

“In jail?” she asked, staring at the table. “You know, that might help.” She spoke with, if not animation, at least interest. “If that guy was in jail, I bet I could sleep. I mean, right now, he’s still out there, when Mr. Stuhler is dead. If the killer was in jail, that’d be a sort of closure, right?”

“Sure,” I said.

Kate looked at me. “How long did it take to arrest the killer?”

That depended on which murder she was talking about. “We found out—”

My niece cut right into that. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

Uh-oh. “Well . . .” I stared at her questioning face, trying to form the appropriate words. “Um.”

“Did you help the police? I bet you did.” She leaned forward, talking fast. “You know the sheriff, don’t you? And that really cute deputy? You know all of them. And I bet you looked into that murder yourself and helped put the killer in jail.”

I patted her hands and smiled. “Not if you ask Detective Inwood.”

“You’re not denying, which means you did.” Kate almost glowed. “You helped out with a murder investigation and got your own closure. The best ever kind of being proactive.”

Um. “That’s one way to look at it.”

Kate grabbed my hands. “So help me get my closure. You’ll help that detective and figure out who killed Mr. Stuhler and . . . and . . .” She blew out a fluttery breath. “And then I’ll be okay to go to sleep again.”

I held her hands tight, because her face was two shades paler than it had been yesterday afternoon, because her fingers were trembling, and because she was biting her lower lip to keep from crying.

“Absolutely,” I said.

Chapter 3

The next morning, the first morning of Katrina’s life as a retail clerk, I bounced out of bed early enough to get us a proper breakfast of doughnuts and bagels from Tom’s, the local bakery. Tom, who had to be the skinniest baker in the history of the world, had a soft spot for the bookmobile and not only gave me a reduced rate on the bag of cookies I picked up every bookmobile day, but in the summer also let me in the back door so I didn’t have to stand in line.

Being the morally upright person I aspired to be, that morning I stood in line like everyone else, and made friends with the people on either side of me. We’d reached the Facebook friend stage and were approaching an exchange of cell numbers when it was my turn at the counter. Five minutes later, I had a bright pink bag in hand, waved good-bye to my new friends, and hurried home.

When I got back to the houseboat, Katrina was in the shower, using far more water than I would have liked. I went all out and put the breakfast options on a plate and even found napkins that didn’t have a restaurant name on them. Eddie had nestled himself into Katrina’s sleeping bag, but when I removed the clear plastic lid from the cream cheese, he opened his eyes a small sliver.

“Not for you, pal,” I said.

Katrina’s hair dryer went on. Eddie’s eyes flipped wide open. In one sudden motion, he leapt to his feet, off the sleeping bag, and onto the floor, where his scrambling feet found purchase on a small rug. The rug crinkled up under him, and for a second he looked like a cartoon cat, feet moving furiously without forward motion. Then his paws hit the floor and he shot forward like a rocket.

Of course, since it was the houseboat, he couldn’t go very far, but he did go as far forward as possible; up on the dashboard, pressed against the windshield, back arched, fur fluffed, and growling the teensiest bit.

I looked at him. “I suppose you don’t want me laughing at you?” Hair dryers did not pair well with my curly mass, and the boardinghouse was big enough that he’d been able to hide from the noise of Aunt Frances’s morning routine, so Eddie had never dealt with up close and personal exposure to the evil things.

“Mrr!”

“Right.” I padded up to him and scratched the side of his head, murmuring soothing phrases like “You’re the best cat this houseboat has ever seen, she didn’t mean to scare you, she doesn’t know hair dryers are the enemy, you’ll get used to it, I’m sure you will.”