Лори Касс - Booking The Crook

It was a statement of dismissal, but I wasn’t ready to move an inch. “And what have you found out? Don’t say you can’t discuss an active investigation. Surely you can tell me who you’ve talked to at the bank. If you don’t tell me, I’ll go the bank and any teller will let me know.”

Hal gave Ash a nod. “Okay,” Ash said. “Technically, this information is public knowledge, but we’d prefer you keep it to yourself.” When I murmured agreement, he went on. “We talked to Sunny Scoles.”

I frowned. “Isn’t she the owner of that new restaurant halfway between here and Charlevoix?” I couldn’t remember the name.

“That’s the one. She opened up there because it was what she could afford, but it was affordable because it’s not a great location. Apparently she’s doing okay, but wants to buy a food truck to expand.”

“Rowan turned her down?”

Hal stirred. “We can’t give out that information.”

I squinted at the men across the table. “But you talked to her so—”

“Can neither confirm nor deny.”

I turned back to Ash. “Sunny Scoles. Anyone else?”

“The last person we talked to was Baxter Tousely.”

“Baxter . . .” The name sounded familiar. Then my mental lightbulb clicked on. “You mean Bax?”

Ash nodded. “That’s what everyone calls him.”

“Is he about twenty-two?” If I recalled correctly, Bax had been in the same high school class as the Bennethum twins. He hadn’t been a fixture in the library, but I remembered Anya and Collier mentioning his name in a way that had made me assume he was one of their friends.

Hal flicked me a glance. “How many men named Baxter do you know, Ms. Hamilton?”

And back to the not-quite-likable side. “Bax is still in Chilson?” If he’d been a friend of Collier and Anya, I would have thought he’d gone off to college.

“Working for the city,” Ash said. “Public works department. But his dream is to have a post-production video service. It can be a good business, I guess, putting together short movie-like bits for everything from big companies to nonprofits to weddings, but to do it right, you need some expensive equipment up front.”

“And Rowan turned him down for the loan.”

Ash smiled. “What I can tell you is that he’s still working for the city and hasn’t been in the best of moods the last few weeks.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I asked.

“No.” Hal stood. “And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how much we’ve told you already. Good night, Ms. Hamilton. Deputy Wolverson, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He walked out, leaving me with Ash.

I sat back. “Is he getting enough sleep? Eating properly? I worry about the man, especially now that I know his wife is out of town.”

“You’re one to talk about eating right.” Ash stuffed his notebook into his uniform’s shirt pocket. “When was the last time you ate any vegetables?” I opened my mouth, but shut it when he added, “And French fries don’t count.”

“We’re talking about Hal,” I said, “not me. Besides, older people are more fragile than people our age. He should be taking care of himself.”

“Do you want to tell him that?”

The answer, of course, was, “Not a chance.” But since I didn’t want to say so to Ash, I went back to the main topic of conversation. “About these two.” Sunny, the restauranteur. Bax, the wannabe filmmaker. “Do you really think one of them killed Rowan?”

Ash glanced in the direction Hal had gone. Hesitated. “We’re exploring all—”

“Never mind,” I said, sighing. Clearly, Ash now belonged heart and soul to the sheriff’s office. It made sense, it was appropriate, and I understood, but it was going to make life a little harder for me.

Chapter 7

The next day was Saturday, a half bookmobile day, and the morning was filled with mostly happy people and an exceptionally sleepy Eddie.

“Where is the bookmobile kitty?” one small book-holding homeschooled urchin asked. “I wanted to pet him.”

I smiled at the youngster and, after getting the nod from her dad, brought her up front. “Eddie is asleep,” I said, gesturing to the cat carrier. “But next time we’re here, I think he’ll be wide awake and ready for you.”

“But I want to pet him now.” The urchin’s lower lip started to tremble. “Why is he sleepy?”

The correct answer was that he’d been up half the night in the downstairs bathroom, shredding facial tissues and toilet paper and batting around the miniature rubber duckies that lived on the edge of the claw foot tub. Happily, Aunt Frances and I had both slept through the episode, and this morning it had been easy enough to avert my eyes to the mess and mutter that I’d clean it up when I got home.

But I didn’t want to spread the word that Eddie could be a Bad Cat, so I said, “He was up late, watching the sky. He likes to see the stars, so when the clouds cleared off last night, he got up to see the Big Dipper.” I tried to remember the names of any other constellations I was absolutely sure we saw this time of year. “He really likes the Big Dipper,” I said, then pointed outside. “And isn’t it nice to have some blue sky?”

The youngster ignored my distracting gesture. Instead, she leaned over and petted the cat carrier. “Sleep tight, Bookmobile Kitty. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” She gave the carrier one last pat, and marched back to her father with a satisfied look on her face.

It was adorable, and for the millionth time I thought how lucky I was to have this job.

The happy feeling stayed with me the rest of the day, despite the thick clouds that hid the sky by noon and despite Eddie’s snoring, which Julia found immensely amusing. “I had no idea cats could snore. It’s the cutest thing.”

“You wouldn’t think so if it kept you awake at three in the morning.” I was pretty sure that Eddie’s day-long sleep was going to result in another active night, but how did you keep a cat awake during the day when he wanted to sleep? There was no victory for me here. As per usual, the cat won.

It wasn’t until I was stowing Eddie in my car and we were about to head home that I remembered my promise to Rafe.

“Rats,” I said out loud. “Big fat rats.”

“Mrr?” Eddie was lying on his side. He rotated his head so his face was upside down and blinked at me. “Mrr?” he asked again.

I buckled his carrier in. “There’s this one short errand. Do you want me to take you home first, or are you okay in the carrier for a little longer?”

Hearing nothing, I leaned down to look. My cat was, once again, sleeping.

“Carrier it is.” I shut the passenger door and got in on my side. “But I’m sure it won’t take long. I mean, how long can choosing cabinet hardware possibly take?”

Ten minutes later, I was finding out. “No wonder Rafe wanted me to do this,” I said, stunned by the thickness of the catalog.

Jared laughed. “Niswander said you’d say that.”

I knew his name was Jared, because his crisp name tag said so, and that he was the store owner because that’s who Rafe had told me to talk to. The owner of the used bookstore in town was also named Jared, but they were not, in fact, the same person, although they were roughly the same age, which was also mine.

I’d assumed the owner of a hardware store would be approaching geezer age, or would at least have lots of gray hair. Instead, he had nary a gray hair in sight, and the moment I set foot in the door, he’d come up to me and said, “You must be Minnie. I’ve been expecting you.”

After blinking at the oddness of his greeting, I’d grasped what was going on—Rafe had stopped by earlier and prepped the poor guy. I laughed. “Did Rafe also mention what I’m supposed to be doing?”