Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

“Hi,” I said. “And I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I have a quick nonlibrary question for you.”

Macey appeared and tugged at her mother’s elbow. “Mommy,” she whispered. “I think this is Miss Minnie. She drives the bookmobile.”

Chandra looked down at her daughter. “She does?” She looked back at me. “You do?”

I nodded. “Two or three times a week.”

Macey tugged again. “She has a cat.”

Her mother put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “How nice. But the cat isn’t on the bookmobile.”

“Yes, it is,” Macey said. “His name is Eddie and he makes a noise like this: mrr!”

The kid had it down. She must have been in the second-grade class that had toured the bookmobile a couple of months ago. It had been a fun afternoon, and I’d already decided to do it again in the fall with other elementary schools.

“The bookmobile has a cat?” Chandra looked at me questioningly, and I sketched out the story of Eddie and the bookmobile. “How fun,” she said, laughing. “Almost makes me wish we lived outside of town so we could visit the bookmobile.”

I told her the bookmobile’s schedule was on the library’s Web site and that we’d be happy to see them at any stop. “But I didn’t stop by this evening on account of the library,” I said. “This has to do with the DeKeysers.”

Chandra glanced toward the DeKeyser’s house. “Macey, honey,” she said, “I need you to set the table.”

“But, Mommy—”

“Now, please,” Chandra said firmly. She bent to kiss the top of her daughter’s head. “And I’ll be checking to make sure you got it right.”

“How long do I have?” Macey started walking backward.

Chandra looked at her watch. “Six and a half minutes.”

Macey whirled and ran to the kitchen. “Ticktock, ticktock,” she sang to herself. “Ticktock.”

Her mother smiled after her, then faced me. “So. You’re here about Deke and Talia? I was sorry to hear about Talia’s passing, but . . .” She sighed.

I nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. Death was always a loss, but when tied with a person whose memories had long since gone, the loss wasn’t quite so bitter. “It’s Talia I’m wondering about,” I said. “In her last years, she’d given away many of her possessions, and I wondered if she’d happened to give anything to your family.”

Chandra frowned. “The daughters put her in Lake View because of that, but if you ask me, Talia had every right to give her things away.”

“Even if they were family heirlooms?” I asked. “Things that had been in the family for decades, handed down across the generations?”

“Well . . .” Chandra glanced around her, seeing an antique clock, a framed embroidery sampler, a brass umbrella stand, clearly remembering where they’d come from, who they’d come from, and who she was already intending to give them to when the time came.

“Specifically,” I said, “what I’m wondering about is a book. I’ve been told there was a stack of children’s books on the sideboard in their dining room. There was a book on wildflowers in there, too.”

Chandra’s frown cleared. “Oh, those!” She laughed. “Talia came over last fall and gave them to Macey. They sat on that table over there, but no one ever looked at them.”

I glanced at the table, but it was bare of books. “Do you still have them?” I asked. The question came out as a creaky squeak.

“Gave them away,” Chandra said, casually. “No point in keeping things around that you don’t use, right?”

“Where did you take them?” My words came out so fast they almost ran into each other.

She shrugged. “I could see that some of them were old, so a few weeks ago I dropped them off at the museum.”

* * *

I walked downtown, barely knowing where I was, and certainly not thinking about where I was going, because how could I think about that when I’d just been handed a wonderful answer?

The museum. Chastain’s Wildflowers was in the museum. What a perfect place for it to be. How appropriate! Only, what was the best thing to do with the information? Should I tell the police? Tell the family?

Thinking, I paused in front of Pam Fazio’s store. It was past closing time, but she was in the front window doing something creatively cool to the display. I knocked on the glass, and she pointed to the front door. “It’s unlocked,” she mouthed.

I poked my head inside. “Don’t want to interrupt. I just wondered how you’re doing.”

“As good as can be expected.” She adjusted the propeller of a large wooden model airplane and grimaced. “If I used my broken arm less, I’d be better off, but who has time?”

I nodded at the plane. “That’s really cool. Where did it come from?”

“Walked in the door just last week,” she said. “Closed on a deal for a bunch of fun stuff from . . . Oh, I think you saw me with Kim a while back at Cookie Tom’s, standing in line like the rest of the unwashed masses while you sailed to the front.”

I ignored the good-natured gibe. “Kim?” I asked.

“Kim Parmalee. She and Bob are selling off a slew of things,” Pam said, studying the arrangement.

Yet more evidence that Kim not-a-DeKeyser-anymore Parmalee and her husband were in financial trouble. I murmured good-bye and was out on the sidewalk when things finally went click in my head. The woman I’d seen with Pam was the same woman I’d seen at the bookstore, which was the same woman I’d seen at City Park Grill, arguing with her husband, Bob, about a six-figure sum. The sale price of their house? The size of their debt?

I scuffed along the sidewalk, deep in thought. . . . And suddenly there was Ash’s mother, Lindsey, closing the front door of a wine shop and turning my way. Tonight she wore a simple midnight blue sheath dress, low heels, and a golden necklace hammered thin and wide.

She looked stupendous.

For a short second, I was tempted to dash into whatever store was closest and hide until she passed by, but I shoved away the temptation and said, “Hi, Lindsey. How are you this evening?”

“Ah. Hello, Minnie.” She gave me a quick up-and-down glance, taking in my plain pants, my sensible shoes, my uninteresting shirt, and equally uninteresting jacket. I saw, suddenly and clearly, that though my clothes were eminently suitable for life in the library, they were dead boring.

And, just like that, I went from being the intelligent, competent professional that I was ninety-nine percent of the time to a mumbling preadolescent who knew she would stay an ugly duckling the rest of her life and never come close to being as self-assured as the woman in front of me. “You . . . I–I mean . . . it’s j-just . . .” I sighed and gave up.

Lindsey looked at me. Like I was a germ under a microscope. Or a specimen in a bottle of that stinky formaldehyde. I started to shrink, shoulders sagging, head bowing, but something in me reared up. Yes, Ash’s mom was beautiful and capable and successful and tall, and I was just a short librarian, but that was no reason for her to look down on me.

I lifted my chin and met her gaze straight on. And, after a moment, she smiled.

“It’s time for me to apologize,” she said. “I should have realized what had happened and I am truly sorry I let this go on for so long.”

At some point this conversation would start making sense. “Let what go on?”

“When Ash introduced us at the Round Table, I could tell you were nervous about meeting me. I should have been more understanding. Instead, I went all proper and uptight and made you even more anxious.”

“Well,” I said, “I have to confess that I didn’t expect Ash’s mom to look like she stepped out of a Nordstrom catalog.”