Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

“Minnie!” She pulled the buds from her ears. “You scared me!”

“Sorry,” I said. And I was. It was also a little funny, but I knew how it felt to be startled like that and it wasn’t much fun. “I didn’t realize you were wired up.” I touched my ears.

“Oh. Yes.” Aunt Frances poked at the iPod, turning it off. “It’s Otto’s. Did you know you can download audio books from the library on these things? It’s wonderful! Like having someone read you a story. I don’t know that I’ll ever wash windows again without this little gadget. Talk about taking away the tedium.”

I laughed. “Audio books as an aid to housework. I’ll have to spread the word.”

My aunt smiled. “Of course you know about borrowing audio books. What was I thinking? You have a silly old woman for an aunt.”

“Don’t you talk that way about her,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “She’s the best.”

“And you’re a silly girl.” She returned my hug briefly, then eased away. “Getting this close to someone who’s been doing yard work all afternoon isn’t the best way to keep your clothes clean.”

I looked down at myself. Small clods of dirt and specks of leaves covered my front. “Not only is my aunt the best aunt in the world, but she might also be the dirtiest aunt ever.”

“Not anymore.” She grinned. “I transferred half of it. Now you can’t say I never gave you anything.”

As I did my best to brush off my clothes, I gave Aunt Frances a thorough but secret visual examination. Fatigue was making her shoulders sag and adding some vertical lines around her mouth.

“Say, what do you think about hiring some help?” I asked. “I bet you could get a high school kid. I could ask Thessie to recommend someone.” Thessie, just graduated from high school, had volunteered on the bookmobile last summer. “You don’t need to work so hard.”

“Minerva Joy Hamilton, you are the best niece in the world, but please do not presume to tell me what to do. I am almost double your age, and I know what’s best for me.”

Knocking off the last of the dirt from my shirt, I said, “I was just trying to help.” It came out sounding sulky, so I added, “And you’re not double my age. Just almost.”

“I rounded up.”

For some reason, I found her firm statement funny enough that, despite my best efforts to stay serious, laughter burbled up and out of me. “You’re horrible. Does Otto know what he’s getting into?”

“Probably not.” The expression on my aunt’s face, which had been a smile, faded into a wistful glance across the street. “I just wish . . .”

“What do you wish?” I asked, oh, so gently.

She shook her head. “Nothing. You know what they say about wishes.”

“Beggars and horses?”

“Bingo. And if everyone had a horse, how would all the manure ever get cleaned up?”

I thought about Mackinac Island, where, outside of winter, the only motorized vehicles allowed were emergency types. There were lots of horses and the island cleanup crews took their jobs very seriously, but even still, pedestrians spent a fair amount of time watching where their feet went.

Then again, if everyone had a horse, would there even be pedestrians?

I started to puzzle out the problem to my aunt, but she was headed back into the shrubbery. “You sure I can’t help?” I asked.

“Go play,” she said. “Have fun. Ride your bike along a road you haven’t been down all summer.”

That sounded like an excellent idea, but still I hesitated. “I can stay.”

“Go!”

And so, grinning, I went.

* * *

It was a beautiful evening, and if I went home I would feel compelled to clean the bathroom, so I decided to take my aunt’s advice and ride aimlessly around town. Off in the distance, I heard the tower clock of the Catholic church chime once. Eight thirty, then. At this time of year there was another hour of daylight left, if not an hour and a half, so I had plenty of time to both bike and clean, if I wanted.

Which I didn’t, but if the bathroom went uncleaned for much longer, the ghost of my maternal grandmother would haunt my dreams until I took care of what needed to be done.

But it was hard to care about the cleanliness of bathrooms when the evening sun was golden, when backyards were full of children shrieking with laughter as they played the games children had always played, and when the warmth of summer felt as if it would last forever.

A deep sense of contentment filled me as I cruised the streets of my adopted town. Life was good, would continue to be good, would always be—

“Watch out!”

I braked hard, skidding sideways with a shuddering screech of my tires, trying to avoid hitting the soccer ball that had rolled in front of me.

“Sorry!” A young boy scurried out, snatched up the ball, and ran back to his house. “That wouldn’t have happened,” he called, “if you’d been paying attention!”

Though this was undoubtedly true, his ire seemed a little harsh. After all, I’d never met him.

“I told you I didn’t want to play.”

Ah. The kid was yelling at a girl, who looked about seven years old. I hadn’t noticed her until now because she was standing in the middle of a lovely country flower garden. The garden almost filled the space between two Victorian-era homes and was bursting with blooms, none of which I could identify except for the daisies the girl was clutching in her hand.

“Better not let Mom catch you picking stuff from there,” her brother said.

The girl ignored him and plucked off another white-petaled flower. “It’s Mrs. Talia’s garden, and she told me I could pick any flower I wanted any time I wanted.”

I blinked. Blinked again as I looked at the house next door. Yes, there was the L-shaped front porch. There were the ornamental cornices, fish-scale gable siding, stained-glass windows, and complicated brickwork foundation that Barb and Cade had mentioned. And, if I remembered correctly, Rianne and her family lived in the house now, keeping it in the family for at least another generation.

It was a nice concept and one with a satisfying continuity, but I was glad my family didn’t own a house like that. After all, it was hard enough for me to find the time to clean a single bathroom; how on earth would I have managed a house that, when it had been built, had undoubtedly been maintained with the assistance of daily help?

As I stood there, musing about the social changes in the past hundred years, a rattling pickup truck pulled into Rianne’s narrow driveway. A man with graying hair got out and gave me a hard look. “You got a problem?” he asked sharply.

“What? No, I was just—”

“Yo, Steve!” The front door opened and another man, one I assumed to be Rianne’s husband, came out. “It’s about time you showed up, Guilder. The beer’s going to get warm if you don’t get a move on.” He was carrying a cooler and tossed it into the back of the pickup. “There’s a bunch of guys who said they’re playing tonight. Hope you’re up for seven-card stud.”

So. Not only was Steve Guilder back in Chilson, but he was a friend of Rianne’s husband. Did that mean . . .

No. The police were taking care of this end of things. There was no need for me to get involved. None whatsoever.

I hopped on my bike and pedaled away from the DeKeysers and back toward the marina, where my houseboat and my cat waited for me.

* * *

“Mrr!” my cat said.

I looked at him. “You know, when I was riding back through town just now, I was thinking how nice it was going to be to walk in and be greeted by my loving, furry friend, who was longing to be snuggled and petted and perhaps even kissed by his favorite human. Instead, I walk in and find you there.”