Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

It was a moral question and an ethical dilemma and, for once, the voice in my head that sounded so much like my mother’s whenever one of these situations turned up was silent.

“I understand why you’re angry,” I said. “If it was me in your position, I might—”

“But you aren’t, are you?” He glared. “You’re the fancy librarian, driving around, making yourself queen of the town, looking down on us little people.”

“I . . . What?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, sneering. “I seen you around, your nose up in the air, acting like you’re better than everyone else. You and your friends with the restaurant and the art gallery and the boats and the big houses. You’re not from here. Why don’t you go back where you came from, you and all your rich friends.”

Clearly, young Shane had no idea how little money a librarian made. Or that at least half my friends had been born in Tonedagana County. Yet he knew so much enough about me that my skin itched.

“I live here,” I said firmly. “This is my home. I’m sorry you resent that I’ve moved to Chilson, but—”

“If you were really sorry,” he snarled, “you’d leave Chilson to the people who belong here.”

He spun and marched off, leaving me to gape after him. I’d run into his attitude before, that only people born here truly belonged, but it wasn’t even close to the majority opinion.

I took in a deep breath, another one, one more, and went back to my shopping. But when I realized I’d started to add a jar of bay leaves to my empty cart instead of basil, I gave up, returned the cart to the front of the store, and headed back out into the sunshine.

Halfway home, my brain began to unscramble and I started thinking again. I mentally walked back through the events of the past couple of weeks and came to an abrupt realization.

“Huh,” I said. Angry Shane Guy had caught me cutting in line two days before the break-in at the bookmobile garage. He clearly knew who I was and where I worked and, just as clearly, he didn’t like me. Was it possible that he was on a one-man mission to rid Chilson of people who hadn’t been born Up North? It sounded bizarre, but the guy’s anger at someone he didn’t even know was also bizarre.

Was it possible he’d made a mess of the bookmobile just to make my life more difficult?

And if he could do that, could he have killed Andrea?

* * *

“So, what do you think?” I asked Eddie.

My cat, of course, didn’t reply. We were on the houseboat’s front deck, and he was busy staring at my plate, which was on my lap. The two of us had started out on separate lounge chairs, but once Eddie had realized I was eating the sub sandwich I’d picked up for dinner at Fat Boys, he’d moved over to my chair. At first he sat at the end, down by my feet. Then he’d inched closer and closer, ever so slowly, and now that I was on the last two bites, he was on my thighs and practically had his chin on the edge of the plate.

I’d tried to gently shove him away and even onto the floor, but when Eddie decided to become an immovable object, no brute force in the universe could possibly dislodge him.

I tossed in the penultimate bite of veggie sub—see, Mom? I am eating properly—and chewed and swallowed. “No comment?” I asked Eddie. “I would have thought for sure that you’d have something to say about my two suspects.”

The last bite of sandwich was still in my hand, and Eddie’s eyes were intent on following its every move.

“There’s Kim, a DeKeyser daughter, who people are saying is about to declare bankruptcy. If we’re going to assume that Andrea was trying to steal something valuable—say, a book—maybe Kim knew what it was and killed her to get it.

“But wait,” I said, popping in the last bite of sandwich. Eddie watched it disappear. When I’d finished chewing and swallowing, I said, “There’s also Shane. For whatever reason, he’s mad at the world and he’s taking it out on the folks he feels have invaded his town. Is he mad enough to break into places he’s never been before? Did Andrea make him mad, too?”

I thought about that for a minute, wondering how I could find out if Andrea and Shane had known each other.

“Ash needs to know about Shane,” I said, petting Eddie and watching a generous collection of cat hair slide off his back and spin away into the air. “Not sure what good it will do, but you never know.”

One white-tipped paw slowly stretched out long, and I let Eddie try to gather up a crumb from the sandwich bun. “Don’t make this a habit, okay? One time only.”

“Mrr,” he said, and reached out a second time.

“Say, you know what else happened on the way home?” I glanced over to the boat next door. No Eric, which was just as well, because I was about to enter the gossip zone. “Remember that construction site downtown, where they’re renovating that old department store into condos and offices? You’ll never guess who I saw hauling bricks in a wheelbarrow.”

Eddie was paying no attention to me, so I pushed the last little crumb of bun his way. It was a bad idea, though, to let him take food off my plate. With Eddie, all it took was once to establish a bad habit. How long it took for him to establish a good habit, I didn’t know.

“It was Mitchell,” I told my uncaring cat. “Mitchell Koyne. You know, tall and loud and typically unemployed?” It wasn’t unknown for Mitchell to take on summer construction jobs, but if he was working at the toy store, why was he doing hard labor? It was very unlike Mitchell, and I was starting to worry that aliens had invaded his body.

“What do you think?” I asked.

But for once, Eddie had nothing to say.

* * *

After I took care of the dishes (meaning I threw away the foam container and napkins, and washed the plate and the fork that I’d used to eat what had spilled out of the sandwich) I debated on what to do with the rest of my evening.

It was a beautiful night, and even though I could easily continue to sit outside and read, I felt a pull to get up and do something. The absence of yard work on a houseboat was usually a bonus, but today I could have used a few weeds to pull.

I considered the social possibilities. Ash was working. Kristen was working, Aunt Frances and Otto were at a concert in Petoskey’s Bay View, Pam was working, Rafe was sanding drywall and being cranky about it, Holly had houseguests for a couple of nights, and, since it was past seven o’clock, it was too late to start calling around and finding out what my other friends were doing.

“What about you?” I asked my furry friend. “Want to go for a bike ride?”

Eddie, who was sprawled across the boat’s dashboard, opened one eye a fraction of an inch, gave me a look of utter disdain, and went back to sleep.

“I take it that’s a no?”

His mouth opened and closed silently.

Smiling, I kissed the top of his fuzzy head and headed outside.

* * *

Five minutes later, I was rolling along on two wheels, the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. Which would turn it into a frizzy mess later on, but I wasn’t out to impress anyone, so who cared?

I pedaled up from the marina, riding around the edge of downtown to avoid the ice-cream-cone and fudge-eating tourists, and thought about who, if she or he had been in town, I might actually want to impress.

There wasn’t a sports figure in the universe that I cared about enough to do more than make sure my shirt was tucked in. Same thing for actors, singers, and politicians. If I could go back in history, I’d have loved to meet Amelia Earhart, but wanting to talk to someone and impressing them were two different things.

No, the only kind of people I’d ever consider trying to impress were authors. Barbara Kingsolver, for one. Louise Erdrich for another. Plus Laurie R. King, John McPhee, Ann Patchett, Malcolm Gladwell, Mary Roach, and lots more. But, again, all those folks were people I wanted to meet more than to impress.