Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

Jared said they hadn’t, at least as far as he knew. He kept talking, and I tried to listen, but what I kept thinking, as I inched farther and farther away, was that I’d just added one more person to the suspect list, because who better than a used-book store owner would know the value of Wildflowers ?

* * *

A few hours later, a different man was smiling at me, and the grin on his face was decades younger than the eighty-five I knew him to be. “Now, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” he asked.

I smiled back. Age and wheelchair notwithstanding, Max Compton was ten times the flirt Jared Moyle had tried to be, and was more than ten times as appealing. “Hey there, Mr. Compton. If I’m looking that good, you need to get out more.” It had been a long day, and I knew I was looking like something Eddie had dragged in.

He gave me a look of mock horror. “Mr. Compton? That’s my dad—God rest his soul. You call me Max, or I’ll start calling you Missy.”

“You have a deal.” I held out my hand and we shook on it, me being careful not to grip too tightly around the elderly man’s arthritis. “Ready for the next couple of chapters?”

Last summer, Cade had spent some time at Lake View Medical Care Facility while recovering from a stroke, and I’d visited often enough that the staff learned what I did for a living. One thing led to another, and in addition to dropping off a rotating selection of large-print books, I’d also ended up promising to stop by Lake View once a month to read aloud to a group of residents. Other volunteers did the same thing, and between us we could read through a book in three weeks. The residents chose the book, and I was curious to see the current selection.

Max pulled a volume from underneath the crocheted blanket that lay across his rickety legs. “Looking forward to hearing you do the voices.”

There was a smirk in his own voice, and when I saw the title, I knew why. “ Animal Farm ? Are you serious?”

“No, he’s not.”

I turned. Heather, a nurse’s aide, walked into the sunroom and handed me a copy of Jan Karon’s These High, Green Hills. “They finished the fifth chapter yesterday—don’t let him tell you any different.”

Max fell against the back of his wheelchair, clutching at his shirt. “I’m having a heart attack!” he croaked. “I can only be saved by hearing a John Sandford book read to me.”

“That’s your stomach,” Heather said, winking at me, “not your heart. And you know darn well that you got outvoted for John Sandford. Better luck next time.”

“Oooh,” Max groaned in fake agony. “My heart . . .”

“Is everything all right?” someone asked from the doorway.

“We’re fine,” Heather said, taking the George Orwell novel from me. “Just a little discussion of book selection, that’s all.”

I glanced over and saw the lawyer I’d met in Rianne’s office, and the guy I’d seen while out running the other morning. “Hi,” I said. “Nice to see you again.” And then, because he wasn’t leaving and I didn’t know what else to say, I asked, “Are you here visiting relatives?”

Heather made a very soft but very rude noise in the back of her throat. He smiled and said, “No, not yet. My parents are hale and hearty. But I have a number of clients here, and I like to check on them every week or two.”

“Well, it was nice seeing you again,” I said.

“Likewise. Say, you still have my card?” He didn’t wait for my reply, but fished one from his pocket and handed it over. “You never know when you might need an attorney.” Laughing, he turned his hand into a pistol and fired off a quick shot at me. “Catch you later.”

As soon as he was gone, Max said, “Now, Heather, you be nice.”

“Is it being mean to state an opinion?” she asked. “Because I can’t stand that guy. He trolls the halls, looking to sign up clients, but when I ask management to toss him out, they say he’s here visiting clients and there’s nothing we can do.”

I looked at the card. Paul Utley. “Why would anyone here need an attorney?”

“Wouldn’t,” Max said succinctly. “Not ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them, anyway. Legal affairs are pretty much wrapped up before you check in.”

“So . . . ?” I gestured after Paul.

“He’s chasing after clients,” Heather said savagely. “Convincing them to sign up for services they don’t need and pay a retainer they can’t afford.”

Max smiled. “Tell us what you really think, Heather.”

“I think he’s the kind of lawyer who gives ambulance chasers a bad name,” she snapped.

“If you weren’t already married,” Max said, “I’d propose to you here and now.”

“And if you did it on one knee, I’d agree, husband or no.” She grinned at the two of us, her lawyer-inspired anger gone as fast as it had come. “Minnie, I’ll go round up the rest of the readers group. Be back in a flash.”

Max and I watched her go. “Is Paul really that awful?” I asked.

“He’s not what I’d call a force for good,” Max said, “but I wouldn’t say he was evil personified, either. In spite of what Heather says, he does help some of the folks here. And not always with legal issues.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his two-day whiskers making a scratchy noise against his hand.

This happened to be a noise that, to me, was the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard, so I quickly said, “What kind of help would he be giving if it wasn’t legal? Do you have a ‘for instance’?”

Max took his hand off his face and pointed down the hall. “Paul’s the one who noticed that Mary what’s-her-name in that room over there can’t breathe right if the closet door isn’t shut tight. He’s the one who realized that Talia DeKeyser was giving away everything she owned to kids she didn’t even know. And without Paul, I’m not sure anyone would ever have known that the reason old Robert Smith was so upset—the poor man hasn’t had his wits about him in years—was because the picture on his wall was hanging crooked.”

Heather bustled in, pushing a woman in a wheelchair, and half a dozen other folks trailed in after her, and I settled down to read about the doings of the day in Mitford.

But even as I read, my mind kept circling around what I’d learned.

So Paul noticed things.

Interesting.

* * *

After I finished reading, leaving the group—and myself—a little on edge on how Father Tim was going to fix things in Mitford, I got back onto my bicycle and headed over to see what Aunt Frances was doing. The traffic was heavy, which, outside of downtown, meant I had to wait for cars at stop signs and had cars passing me on a regular basis. It seemed that one particular sedan passed me more than once, but since I hadn’t been paying that much attention, I couldn’t have sworn to it. But the third time it passed me, I was sure it was the same one. Unfortunately, the windows were tinted and the license plate was covered with mud.

Though there was undoubtedly a reasonable explanation for that, I cut down a side street, then went through an alley and rolled up to my aunt’s place a little out of breath. I leaned my bike up against a handy tree. “Hey, there. Do you want some help?”

My aunt was half buried in the boardinghouse’s foundation shrubs, her front end working hard at pulling out leaves and sticks and who knew what else. I called again, and again she didn’t hear me, so I walked up next to her and tapped the small of her back.

“Yahh!”

She erupted from the bush, eyes wild and arms flailing. It was then that I noticed the earbuds inserted into her ears and the iPod tucked into the pocket of her oversized gardening shirt.