Лори Касс - Gone With The Whisker

His fur soon de-fluffed and the two of us were sitting outside on the houseboat’s deck, soaking up the morning sun, when Katrina came out, a glazed doughnut in one hand and a naked bagel in the other. “See you tonight,” she said. “Not sure when I’ll be back.”

“You’re leaving already?” I tried to sit up from the chaise lounge, but Eddie was making it difficult. “I didn’t think you had to be there much before ten.”

After breakfast yesterday, I’d sat down with Katrina/Kate and essentially forced her to write down her work schedule. Which was complicated, what with three part-time jobs and all, but after a while I started to see the pattern. We’d spent the rest of the day in mild accord and I’d been looking forward to chatting with her over breakfast, just like Aunt Frances and I did during the winter.

“Mitchell texted me and said I could come in earlier.” Katrina shrugged. “Not sure I need to learn much more about toys, but I’m awake so I might as well go in.” Then, before I could say another word, she’d hopped off the boat, onto the wood-decked pier, and was gone.

I looked at Eddie. “Now what?”

He jumped off my lap, pawed open the screen door to the houseboat—something I had no idea he was able to do—and slipped inside.

“Well.” I stretched and stood. My intentions when I’d scheduled this as a vacation day had been to spend time with Katrina, but now that she was working, the day was empty of plans. I pushed away the temptation of my To Be Read book pile, wandered inside, and put the remaining parts of breakfast back into the waxed bag.

Five minutes later, Rafe had scarfed down a chocolate-covered doughnut and was slathering cream cheese on a pumpernickel bagel. “How is the teenager formerly known as Katrina doing this morning?”

“Still not talking about it. But she’s not sleeping well.” About three in the morning, her sobbing had pulled me out of a deep sleep. I’d gone up to talk to her, to give her a hug, to make it all go away, but she’d been snoring softly by the time I got there.

I hesitated, wanting to tell him everything, but also wanting to protect my niece’s privacy. “Last night she had bad dreams and I’m sure they’re related to the murder. She slept fine until two nights ago.”

“What are you going to do?” Rafe asked through a mouthful of bagel.

Easy question. “Find out who killed Rex Stuhler.”

Rafe swallowed and grinned, his teeth white against his tanned skin. “Surprised it took you this long to say that out loud. Want some help?”

“Depends,” I said. “Will it be the good kind of help or the interfering kind?”

“Whatever kind you want.” He held out his hand to seal the deal with a handshake, then pulled it back. “On the condition that you talk to your sheriff buddy, or at least your detective friends.”

My buddy the sheriff was Kit Richardson, a woman who seemed to intimidate almost everyone except me. At five foot nothing, I’d inured myself to intimidation early on in my career, otherwise I’d never have managed to achieve any professional goals. My detective friends were Hal Inwood, a sixtyish downstate transplant, and Deputy Ash Wolverson. Ash was a friend of Rafe’s and was training to be a detective. I’d also dated him for a few months, but our relationship had never truly kindled and we’d parted as we’d started—friends.

“Deal.” I extended my hand and Rafe used it to pull me in for a kiss. Which was nice, and went on for some time. But even good things come to an end, and when we eventually went back to the pastries, I told Rafe what little I knew about Rex Stuhler.

“He and his wife own a pest control company.” I swallowed a bite of apple fritter. “He was about fifty, and he grew up around here somewhere, but I don’t think it was Chilson. Petoskey, maybe?”

Rafe reached into the pink bag and pulled out a powdered doughnut. “All that will be in his obituary. It might be on Birtrand’s website already.”

The local funeral home was a few blocks away. I glanced in its direction. “Really? I didn’t know obituaries would go up so fast.”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on the family.”

I frowned. “How do you know this?”

“Because I grew up next door to Birtrand’s. I know more about being a mortician than anyone who isn’t in the business should.”

The idea creeped me out a little, so I nodded and went on. “The only other thing I know about Rex is he was big into bicycling and cross-country skiing. He’d been looking for books about establishing and running nonprofit organizations. He said he was helping create a group supporting a new nonmotorized trail connecting Chilson to Petoskey.”

Rafe looked down at his dark gray T-shirt, which was lightly dusted with powdered sugar. He gave it a halfhearted brush, smearing the white, and said, “None of that sounds like it should have led to murder.”

I sighed. “No, it doesn’t.”

But something had, and my niece was suffering, so I was going to do my best to figure out who had killed Rex. And a good start to doing that was to figure out the why of it.

* * *

I stepped inside the front door of the sheriff’s office and looked around at the lobby. Empty. Was I the only one who ever walked in like this?

The deputy at the front desk slid open the glass door. “Morning, Minnie.”

“Hey, Carl. Still on light duty?”

Carl rubbed his shoulder. “Had to have a third surgery a few weeks ago. If this one doesn’t take, I’m toast. This desk stuff is driving me nuts.” He shook his head, then summoned a smile. “So what’s up with you? Hang on,” he said, tapping his nose. “You were with the kid who found the murder victim during the fireworks. You want to talk to Hal and Ash?”

I nodded. “Are they here?”

“Inwood’s out on a call, but Ash is in the back. Just a sec.” He slid the window shut and picked up the phone. I could see his mouth moving, then, still on the phone, he opened the window. “Go on back, he’ll be right there.”

The interior door made a buzzing sound and I reached for the handle. “Thanks,” I called over my shoulder, and walked down the hallway. I made a right turn into a small windowless room and sat in what I’d long ago come to think of as my chair, in front of a bland laminate-topped table that looked like it had been born in a decade when every man except members of the military sported long hair.

I looked at the ceiling tiles, which for years had been discolored with a water stain that, to me, looked exactly like a dragon. Last fall, however, due to a leak in the fire suppression system, all the tiles had been replaced and the dragon was a thing of the past.

Ash came in, saw me looking up, and laughed. “The ceiling isn’t as much fun now, is it?”

Sighing, I said, “Hard to believe I’m missing a stain.”

“Yeah, sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for.”

More like always. “Thanks for making time for me,” I said.

“No problem.”

He leaned back, and once again I was reminded what an incredibly good-looking man he was. Square jaw, great hair, and the legs of someone who spent his free time running and biking. He was also kind, smart, and funny. Why our short stint of being girlfriend and boyfriend hadn’t sparked was a mystery we’d both shrugged off to the bizarreness of human chemistry.

“Have you or Kate remembered anything else from the other night?” he asked.

I looked at him blankly. Kate? Who was Kate? Oh. Right. “No. At least not yet.” In the last couple of years I’d been entwined with a number of incidents that had introduced me to police investigations. One of the things I’d learned was that most people’s memories worked like mine did, like a filing cabinet that didn’t have folders, wasn’t organized in any way, and had one big label of miscellaneous.