Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

Amelia Singer had grown up in Chilson, moved downstate to attend college, worked as a teacher, married, had two children, worked as a school principal, divorced, worked as a school superintendent, and had recently retired and moved back to the town of her youth. She’d cast around for something to do and, when the museum director said he’d had enough after eleven years, which was one year too many by most accounts, she’d stepped in with both feet.

“Hi,” I said, when she answered. “Minnie Hamilton. How are you?”

“Minnie!” Amelia boomed. She did a lot of that, and I had yet to figure out if she’d always talked that way or if it was a natural result of her career choices. “Couldn’t be better if I were twins,” she said. “How are you?”

One of the first things Amelia had committed to doing was a faster processing of the multitude of donations that poured in. Not once had she said she’d bitten off more than she could chew, but I’d caught her looking at the vast pile of boxes with more than a small amount of loathing. Still, if anyone could turn the Chilson Historical Museum from a dusty, slightly musty, and ill-lit warehouse of castoffs from the town’s attics into a showpiece, it was Amelia.

I pictured her, my height but about twice my weight, her long reddish brown hair rolled up into a bun, her active mind whirring along at a hundred miles an hour. “Got a question,” I said. “How caught up are you with the donations?”

“Humor is the last refuge of the scoundrel,” she misquoted darkly. “And if you ever remind me that I’d vowed to organize this place by the end of my first year as director, I will never speak to you again.”

Laughing, I said, “I would never do that. I value your advice too much.”

“Advice?” She sighed audibly. “If I’d listened to my friends, I would never have become director of the museum. Why is it that we refuse to accept the experience of others?”

“Because we think we’re going to be different.”

“Why are we so often so wrong?”

“It’s a survival mechanism. If we were completely honest about our chances at completing any given task, we’d never get out of bed in the morning.”

Her laugh was deep and contagious. “How did you get to be so smart at such a young age?”

“It’s not me. It’s Alexandre Dumas, Elizabeth Goudge, and Charles Dickens.”

“Elizabeth Goudge,” Amelia mused. “Sad that so few people have heard of her these days.”

I was doing my best to take care of that, but I didn’t want to get too far off topic. Amelia and I could talk books for hours—we’d met at the library when she’d come in to get a library card—but I had a question for her. “Have you had many books donated lately?”

“You are a cruel, cruel woman,” Amelia said.

I smiled. “Not intentionally, honest. I take it you’ve had a few?”

“Tens of boxes. Hundreds of boxes. Thousands of boxes. Millions of boxes. And none of them are going to St. Ives or anywhere, because they’re all in the museum basement.” She sighed again. “I would love to look through them. I crave to look through them, but all I have time right now to do is open the flaps every so often and gaze at the contents longingly.”

The decision about what to do with my knowledge of the likely whereabouts of Wildflowers gelled into action. If anyone from the sheriff’s office called back soon, I’d pass the information on to them, but I couldn’t tell the family, not when parts of the family were suspects. Which left me, a librarian to the core, with only one possible course of action.

“Amelia,” I said, “I have a favor to ask . . .”

* * *

The next day dawned hot and humid. I debated leaving Eddie at home to nap the day away in the comfort of the cooler lakeside air, but he parked himself on the top of cat carrier and stared at me, unblinking, and it was easier to bring him along than to argue with him.

“Good thing I don’t have children,” I said, lugging the Eddie-filled carrier out to my car. “I’m a pushover. They’d be spoiled rotten kids with no manners and a huge sense of entitlement.”

“Mrr.”

“You’re right.” I opened the car door, set the carrier inside, and buckled it in. “Cats are different from kids. There’d be no teaching you table manners.”

Eddie opened his mouth to object, but I shut the door, for once getting in the last word.

* * *

Julia and Eddie and I spent the day trying to find the deepest shade in every parking lot where we were scheduled to stop. Worst was the asphalt lot of a newly constructed township hall whose only shade came from a spindly sapling that looked as if it could use a good watering. Best was the gravel lot of a rural church whose maple trees cast enough shade to cover the entire bookmobile.

Even still, it was a long, hot, sweaty day, and the three of us were glad to return to Chilson, where the ice-cream cones we’d been talking about all afternoon awaited.

I started my car and cranked the air-conditioning while Julia and I lugged crates of books into the library. By the time we were done, my car was cool enough to move Eddie from the bookmobile.

“See you on Tuesday,” Julia said, and, for the first time since I’d met her, she looked limp and exhausted and every one of her sixty-some years.

“Double scoop,” I recommended. “Mint chip.”

She shook her head. “Waffle cone of Mackinac Island fudge.” Then she grinned. “With a vodka martini chaser.”

The thought of drinking a martini made the inside of my throat go dry as overcooked toast. “I’d rather—” But before I could note my preference for a glass of chilled white wine, my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket. Amelia Singer, the museum director.

“See you Tuesday,” Julia said, waving, and off she went.

I thumbed on the phone. “Hey, Amelia.”

“Minnie, I’m so glad you answered.”

Amelia’s usually expansive voice was tight.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

“Me?” She forced a chuckle. “Fine as cotton candy. It’s my granddaughter that’s the trouble. The thirteen-year-old. She was out skateboarding with friends, tried a fancy somersault, and didn’t quite make it all the way around.”

My breath caught as I imagined the scene. “How badly was she hurt? Is she okay?”

“No, no she’s not.” The words were spoken through sniffles. “Long-term she should be fine—her mother won’t let her go to the skate park unless she wears protective equipment—but she broke her femur.”

“Oh no.” I touched my thigh. “Does she need surgery?”

Amelia sniffed again. “They’re waiting for some fancy-pants orthopedic surgeon to get off the golf course and into the hospital.”

“Are you on your way downstate?” I asked.

“No, my daughter just called.” Sniff. “I had to talk to you first. We’d set up tonight for you to stop by the museum to look for your books.”

She was worried about me? “Amelia,” I said, “go home and pack. This can wait.”

“But you said—”

I’d told her the book that might have been donated to the museum might be related to the murder of Andrea Vennard, but none of that mattered when a granddaughter was in the hospital. “It can wait,” I repeated.

“Can you come down right now?” Amelia asked. “I’m still at the museum. I’m locking up, but I can wait until you get here.”

I glanced at my car. “We’ll be there in two minutes.”

* * *

Five minutes later, I was walking down the creaky stairs to the museum’s basement. Amelia had asked if I was familiar with the museum’s layout—I was, thanks to time spent volunteering the summer after my high school graduation—and she’d asked me to cross my heart and hope to die if I didn’t make sure everything was locked up tight when I left.