Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

“Oh. Sure.” What, exactly, would Emily Post have recommended in a situation like this? Since I had no idea, I forged ahead on my own. “I’m sure Andrea’s death was a shock.”

“To all of us.” Her voice was a little shaky. “The police told me they’re doing everything they can to find her killer, but I thought I’d ask if you knew how that was going.”

“They’re working on it,” I said, which was weak, but it was all I had. “They told me they were looking into her business. Was there anything you could tell them?”

“Nothing useful.” She sighed. “Our clients are wealthy and they value their privacy. Everything we do for them is confidential. If we breached confidentiality, we wouldn’t have their business any longer. Andrea knew that better than anyone.”

“I’m sure she did.” I thought a moment, then asked, “Did you have any new clients? Someone who might have wound up with the wrong idea about Andrea?”

“That’s funny,” Jayna said. “Your nice detective asked that, too.”

Nice? Detective Inwood? That wasn’t a descriptor I would have used.

“I can’t divulge our client list,” she was saying, “but I can say we had two new clients last month. One is a very nice lady who spends a lot of time in Europe, and I’m not sure Andrea ever talked to her outside of the time she called to hire us. The other is an elderly man who was an executive at one of the car companies. Andrea went out to meet him because he’s not very mobile. She said he was very interesting.”

“Oh?” I asked. “Did she say why?”

“Well, he collected books,” she said. “Old and rare ones. She said his house was more library than house. But it was his cars that interested Andrea.” Jayna had a smile in her voice as she talked about the Duesenbergs the man owned.

I listened and made the right noises in the right places, but I was quietly working the keyboard. A few links later, I was reading about the retired Ford Motor Company executive who had turned from collecting old cars to collecting books, and who had been the last person to purchase a copy of Chastain’s Wildflowers .

I sat back. Finally, I’d established how Andrea could have learned about the value of her great-aunt’s book.

But what was I going to do about it?

Chapter 15

The next morning, after kissing Eddie on the head and getting a sleepy “Mrr” in return, I stopped by the sheriff’s office before heading to the library.

“Let me guess,” the deputy in the front office said. “You’re here to see Inwood or Wolverson.”

I eyed him, not sure if he was trying to be funny, if he was trying to be a smart alec, or if he was merely being factual. “That’s right,” I said. “Is either one of them here?”

“You’re that librarian, right? The one going out with Wolverson?”

It was only natural that Ash’s coworkers knew whom he was dating. A little creepy, but natural in a small town. “Correct.”

The guy’s grim visage lightened, changing him from an intimidating uniformed officer you knew was carrying a handgun to a friendly neighborhood cop. “Okay, yeah. He’s talked about you.”

Even creepier. Sure, I talked about Ash to my coworkers, but that was different. They were library people. “He has?”

“Sure.” The guy leaned forward, putting his elbows on the high counter. “He says he thinks you’ll be doing buoys by August.”

“I will?”

“Not with a short rope of course. That’ll take a while. But as soon as you’re up to speed, he’ll take you through the course. Wolverson figures you’ll take to it easy.” He grinned.

Ah. Water-skiing. That’s what he was talking about.

“Got a competitive streak in you, Wolfie said. Comes from being so short, I bet.”

I smiled politely. “Sorry, but I have to get to work. Is either one of them here?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “Both out on calls. You want to leave a message or anything? I can get you into their voice mails.”

“Even though I’m not very tall,” I said, “I don’t think I’ll fit. But thank you.” I told him to have a nice day and had my hand on the door handle when he started laughing.

“You won’t fit,” he said, chuckling. “That’s a good one. No wonder Ash likes hanging around you.”

Once I was out on the sidewalk and moving along, I pulled out my cell phone and scrolled through the phone list until I found Detective Hal Inwood. As the phone rang, I wondered if he was a Henry kind of a Hal, or if his given name was Hal. Of course, I’d never figured out how Hal had become a diminutive of Henry in the first place, same as Bill from William, or—

“This is Detective Inwood,” said the recording.

I made a face and left a message, which, according to what I’d just heard, would be answered promptly, then called Ash. The same thing happened there.

I’d done what I could, so I went to work.

* * *

Late in the day, my cell, which I’d set in a prominent position on the corner of my desk, started vibrating.

I knew this because the papers that had accumulated on top of the phone started rustling and sliding and were in danger of descending to the floor.

Holding the papers with one hand, I pulled out the phone with the other and looked at the screen. Not Ash and not Detective Inwood. I thumbed it on. “Hey. What’s up?”

“I need you.”

“Of course you do,” I told Kristen. “Why this time? No, wait. Let me guess. It’s my soufflé expertise.”

“Right. That’s about as likely as you needing me to . . . to . . .”

“To come up with an appropriate analogy?”

She laughed. “What are you doing for dinner tonight? If you stop here after seven, I’ll feed you.”

“How about seven-oh-one?”

“Done deal.”

We hung up, I put the cell phone on top of the papers this time, and went back to what I’d been doing.

* * *

After work, I walked home, changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and took Eddie out to the front deck for some fun in the sun. He enjoyed a game of Attack Minnie’s Shoelaces When She Moves, but the wind came up—which, according to Eddie’s glare, was my fault—and he wanted back inside.

“Sorry about that, pal,” I told him, but he wasn’t mollified until I gave him some treats. I watched him scarf down the tender morsels, and wondered if I’d accidentally created a very bad habit that I would never be able to erase.

As I let myself out, I tried not to think about a future that included a constant stream of “Mrr. Mrr. Mrr. Mrr,” whenever Eddie wanted something, and instead tried to think about what I’d learned from Mrs. Panik. I still hadn’t heard back from Ash or the detective, so I hadn’t had the opportunity to hear them pooh-pooh my new theories.

“Hey, Minnie. You in there?”

I jumped and looked around. Rafe was on the steps of his front porch, along with Skeeter and a medium-sized cooler. Skeeter was a marina rat and couldn’t have been much older than I was. Where his name had come from and what he did for a living that enabled him to spend every summer on a boat in Chilson, I had no idea. I’d always meant to ask, but somehow direct conversations with Skeeter were difficult. This made him an ideal companion for Rafe.

“What’s up with you two?” I asked.

“Guess what’s in here.” Rafe slapped the top of the cooler. “Want to bet on it?”

“You’ve spent the day picking strawberries, and now you’re about to start making jam.”

The two men looked at each other. “How did she know?” Skeeter asked, his voice full of artificial wonder.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s either beer or fresh fish.”

“Nope.” Rafe flipped back the cover and reached in with both hands. “It’s both.” He brandished a Miller Lite and what was probably a trout. “Want some?”