Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

“Don’t say anything,” Kristen held up two large handfuls of antique cookie cutters. “Unless you want to tell me where these buggers go.”

Without a pause, Pam said, “In a wire basket. It was on the butcher-block kitchen island.”

As Kristen bustled off to display them properly, the owner of the shoe store held up a pair of large dolls and asked, “Pam? How about these?”

She slid off the stool and, within seconds, was deep into the business of directing the placement of the hundreds of items in her store.

I watched for a moment, making sure she was steady on her feet, breathed a short sigh of relief, and then returned to my self-appointed task of sorting the books.

* * *

“What’s missing?” I asked Pam.

We were eating the last of the pizza, and everyone else was long gone. For the past hour, Pam and I had been comparing her inventory list against Trudy’s list and the pictures Kirk had taken.

Pam swallowed a bite of mushrooms and olives and said, “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”

“Bzz! Wrong answer. We’ve worked too hard for that kind of response. Try again.”

She laughed, and I sent up a small prayer of thanks to whomever might be listening for the quick return of her warm laughter. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “What I meant was, I can’t see that anything has been stolen. It looks like this was just vandalism.”

I studied the two lists and murmured, “Another one.”

“That’s right,” Pam said. “You had two up at the library, didn’t you? The book-sale room and the poor bookmobile. Well, they say things come in threes.”

“They also say drinking coffee as a kid will stunt your growth.”

Pam looked at me. “You do drink a lot of coffee.”

“Didn’t drink a drop until I was in college.”

“Then why are you so short?”

“Because you can’t breed midgets and raise giants,” I said, quoting my grandfather, who had also told me to pay attention not just some of the time but all of the time. This was my mother’s father, and she’d learned many of her stock phrases from him, but somehow I’d always found it easier to listen to Grandpa.

And somehow that made me think of something. I went to the back of the store, trying to put myself back in time to when I’d walked in that morning. After a moment, I asked, “Can you pull up the first pictures Kirk took?” Kirk had been my second phone call and, after I’d explained what had happened, he’d been the first to arrive, camera and lighting equipment in hand. He’d set up quickly and snapped away, finishing just as the rest of the troops trooped in.

“Hang on a sec.” One-handed, she clicked open the appropriate computer file. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Three things.” I pointed toward the rear wall, to a display in the middle of the room, and to some shelving near the front door. “What do those look like in the pictures?”

“A mess,” Pam said. “Hard to believe it looked like that a few hours ago,” she said in a wondering tone. “And hard to believe that all those people would drop their plans for the day and help me. I barely know most of them. And you,” she said, her voice cracking. “You’ve done so much for me, I can’t—”

“What you can do is look at those pictures,” I cut in. If she started bawling, I would, too, and soppy tears on top of too much leftover pizza wouldn’t sit well in my stomach. “Really study them. Tell me if you see what I see.” Which sounded a little too much like that Christmas carol, something completely inappropriate in June.

“All I see is a mess,” Pam muttered, but she kept looking. “A big, fat mess. I had no idea I had so much stuff in here. How could I have accumulated so much in such a short time? And what’s—” She stopped abruptly. “Hang on. The hatboxes are on the floor, but they’re close to where they should be. Same with the linens and the wooden puzzles and everything else. There’s only one category of item that’s scattered far from where it should be.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The books.”

* * *

The next morning was Monday, a library day, but I stopped at the sheriff’s office before going into work.

“Good morning, Ms. Hamilton.” Detective Inwood’s greeting was a salute with a powdered doughnut. “If you don’t make any jokes about cops and doughnuts, you’re welcome to a pastry.”

I blinked at the man. As far as I could remember, he’d never before invited me to partake of anything inside the office. Had he had a personality transfer since we’d last talked?

“Take advantage while you can,” Ash said, walking into the interview room, handing me an apple fritter with one hand and a cup of coffee with the other. We brushed hands during the transfer and smiled at each other. “Hal got another grandkid yesterday.”

“Congratulations!” I transferred my smile from Ash to the detective. “Girl or boy?”

“Girl,” he said, beaming. “Emily Grace.”

It was a nice name. I said so, and his smile went a little wider. For a second I was worried that the unaccustomed expression might send his face into spasms that could end up freezing there forever, but it went back to normal as he began to eat.

I breathed a sigh of relief. There was only so much dramatic change I could take in any given time span.

“Have a seat, Ms. Hamilton,” the detective said. “Unless this won’t take long?”

“Sorry to dash your hopes,” I said, sitting, “but I have a new theory.” I’d texted Ash yesterday about Pam’s store, but hadn’t said anything about what Pam and I had both noticed at the end of the day.

True public servant that he was, Detective Inwood didn’t even blink at my statement, even though I was sure he would have been content to never hear another idea from me the rest of his career. He and Ash sat across from me. “One of these days,” the detective said, “you’ll sit on this side.”

I glanced up at the stained ceiling tiles near the doorway. A few months back, when I’d mentioned that I’d thought the stain looked like a dragon, he’d said it wasn’t a dragon at all, that I needed to see it from that side of the room. One of these days, I’d break out of my rut and remember to actually do so.

“So, what’s your new theory?” Detective Inwood asked.

“This first part isn’t the theory,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure you knew about Andrea Vennard’s old high school boyfriend, Steve Guilder. You know she had a personal protection order against him?”

Inwood brushed powdered sugar off his jacket. “Yes, Ms. Hamilton, we’re very aware of the documents issued out of this county.”

I colored the slightest bit. “Well, it was a long time ago. I just thought I’d mention it.”

“We’re exploring all avenues of investigation,” Detective Inwood said, and I almost mouthed the words along with him. “That includes looking into any possible suspects from her business downstate.”

“I heard she owned a business. What was it, anyway?”

The detective popped in the last bit of his doughnut. “The theory?” he asked around it.

I decided not to be miffed that he wouldn’t tell me. There were lots of other ways I could find out. “It’s about books,” I said.

Ash glanced at his supervisor. His supervisor, who was still in the act of taking a pen from his shirt pocket and flipping open a small notebook, didn’t glance back. He also didn’t write anything down.

“What’s about books?” Detective Inwood asked.

I almost said “Everything,” but knew that would earn me raised eyebrows from the detective and a shake of the head from Ash. “The murder. The break-in at the Friends’ book-sale room. The break-in at the bookmobile garage. The break-in at Pam Fazio’s store on Saturday night.”