Лори Касс - Booking The Crook

He was pointing a handgun at me.

Since I was Minnie and didn’t always think before I spoke, I said the first thing that came into my head. “You’re kidding, right?” Because maybe he had one of those weird brain tumors that was making him act out of character. Or maybe he’d banged his head when his SUV had spun into the ditch and thought I was an enemy.

“I’ve been watching you,” Stewart said, his voice sounding just like it had when we were chatting in the library about books. “Ever since you asked about that damage to the principal’s office, I’ve been watching you.”

“You . . . have?” I goggled at him. Not once had I noticed anything unusual. Either I was the worst ever for paying attention to what was going on around me, or Stewart had amazing stealth powers.

“Mostly by proxy,” he said. “Chilson is a small town and it’s easy to find things out if you ask the right people the right questions.”

I desperately wanted to know who’d been blabbing, but it could have been anyone. It could even have been me. I’d been resisting the idea of Stewart as Rowan’s killer, so I’d been cutting him slack all along. During one of our casual talks, could I have given him information he’d been slyly trying to obtain? Yup. No question about it.

“Everybody in town knows you’ve been helping Inwood and Wolverson with the murder investigation,” he said, shifting his grip on the gun.

I knew from my self-defense classes that handguns were heavier than they looked and it took a lot of strength to hold them up for any length of time, especially with one hand. Though there was a possibility I could take advantage of that, the possibility was too slim. He was at least six feet away and the odds were far better that, if he were to pause to readjust his grip, he’d see me coming and simply whack me upside the head with the gun, no shooting needed.

“Oh?” I asked vaguely, trying desperately to form a plan, but not getting any further than . . . well, not getting anywhere, really. “Does everyone know who we were investigating?”

“No, but I do.”

He sounded proud of himself, and I realized he was one of those people who thought he was smarter than everyone else, which always carried with it an accompanying truth: that he must be an incredibly boring dinner companion.

Stewart didn’t wait for a response—another indication of an overly healthy ego—but continued on. “It was easy for me to see,” he said comfortably. “All that time you spent at that restaurant the Scoles kid opened up, when you’d never gone there before? Oh, don’t worry, I haven’t been following you very long. But it’s easy to ask someone questions when you’re the only one in their otherwise very empty restaurant.”

So Sunny had blabbed. No surprise there. I probably would have done the same thing if I’d been stuck by myself for hours on end.

“And Hugh Novak,” Stewart said. “Almost too obvious, with that property he owns, and the fuss Rowan was putting up to a new township hall. I almost suspected him myself, and I’m the one who killed her.” Stewart laughed. “Talk about bullies. He’s a classic, isn’t he?”

How was it I’d never noticed Stewart’s self-absorption? Had his support of the bookmobile been enough for me to forgive deep personality flaws? I hoped not, but what other explanation was there? Well, maybe that he’d been able to hide his true self until he’d committed murder, and that had opened his personal Pandora’s box. Something to talk over with an experienced psychologist, next time I ran into one.

“Anyone else?” I asked, inching away oh-so-slowly. It was so dark, maybe I could run off into the night and make it to Buster’s before Stewart found me.

“What I don’t understand is why you suspected Mitchell Koyne. He didn’t even know Rowan.”

No, Stewart wasn’t nearly as smart as he thought he was. And if there was a way I could use that to my advantage, I would. If only I could think of a way to do that.

“For a while it looked like you suspected Bax Tousely,” Stewart mused. “But that’s ridiculous. The kid can hardly kill a fly, let alone a human being. Tousely’s about the least likely person in the world to kill the woman he keeps hoping will be his mother-in-law.”

Interesting. So he’d missed my suspicions of Land and Neil. Not very useful, but interesting.

Stewart stepped forward, closing the gap between us to an arm’s length and eliminating any possibility of my escape.

I risked a quick glance over my shoulder. The bookmobile looked stable enough, in a tilted fashion, but it was going to take a great big tow truck to get it out of the ditch. Squinting into the dark, I could just make out the fuzzy shape of my cat, who had tucked himself into the corner of the dashboard and was plastering his furry face against the inside of the windshield. Eddie . . . Stewart started talking again and I faced him with my chin up.

“It was only a matter of time,” he said, “before you started pointing your stubby little finger at me. And I can’t have that, so it’s time for you to have an accident. Sorry,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic, “but there’s no alternative.”

My first reaction was to shout that my fingers were not stubby. They were perfectly proportional to my compact frame, and if he couldn’t see that, he needed to pay more attention.

That thought faded as I realized something about Stewart’s basic nature. He punished people he felt had wronged him. Divorced his wife, who’d done little more than save money. Destroyed the office of his high school principal for kicking him off the football team. Was trying to kill me for finding out about Rowan. And had killed Rowan because . . . because why?

I looked past the gun because I couldn’t stand to look at it any longer, and past Stewart’s face, because I certainly didn’t want to see his expression, and fastened my gaze on his hat.

And then I suddenly knew why he’d killed Rowan. Or at least had a good idea.

“Rowan had something you wanted,” I said. “A family heirloom. You couldn’t take it before your divorce, because then you would have had to split its value with your wife. And you had to kill Rowan because . . . because she was the only one who knew what it was worth.”

Stewart shook his head. “You have it all wrong.”

Well, I’d been wrong before. And I’d undoubtedly be wrong again, if I lived through this.

“She never should have had it,” he said. “I only took what was mine by right.” His voice grew increasingly dark and threatening. “And if you hadn’t come along, no one would have known the difference.”

I had no clue what he was talking about, but at this point that didn’t seem particularly relevant, because the direness of my situation was finally sinking into my tiny little brain. Until now, I’d been half convinced that if I could keep Stewart talking long enough, he’d back off with the threats, maybe even laugh about being in a bad mood, and we’d go our separate ways. That merry little scenario, however, was looking less and less likely.

It was time for me to make a move. Unfortunately, I had no idea what that should be.

“You talked about an accident.” I was pleased that my voice was relatively clear and almost free of wobbly fear. “What kind? Because if you’re planning an accident with a gun, that’ll never work. Everybody knows I don’t own one.”

“Everybody? That’s one of the worst things about you millennials.” Stewart snorted. “You exaggerate all the time.”

It seemed to me that what he’d just said was itself an exaggeration, but I managed to keep my mouth shut.

“But no, there won’t be a gun accident,” he said. “Well, not unless there’s an accident.” He laughed. Actually laughed out loud. I did not. “What I have planned for you is far more realistic, with the benefit of being seasonal.”