Лори Касс - Cat With A Clue

When I’d done the crossing and the hoping, she’d given me a long look, full of fear and anxiety. I’d set the cat carrier on the floor and given her a hug. “It’ll be okay,” I’d said. “They’ll take great care of her, and she’ll be up and around in no time.”

Amelia had returned the hug, muttering, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I couldn’t help it; I’d laughed, and, after a moment, Amelia had actually smiled.

Now it was just me and Eddie in the museum, a building that had originally housed a dry goods store. When the owner had moved to Traverse City, about seventy years ago, a hardware store had taken its place. That had gone out of business when the owner had passed away, and a pharmacy had come in next. The pharmacy had lasted until its history-buff owner had retired, and he’d sold it to the museum for far less than it could have brought on the open market.

It was a lovely building. Upstairs were wooden floorboards, hand-plastered walls, and oak trim, but downstairs was a cavernous basement that, for reasons now lost in the mists of time, had a nine-foot ceiling.

“There could be lots of reasons,” I told Eddie, hefting the carrier onto a handy chair. “Some people say this building is where the first-ever city council meetings were held. And while that might be true, that doesn’t explain why the basement was built so big in the first place.”

“Mrr.”

“Well, sure, it’s possible that the first owner wanted a massive basement for his cats to play around in, but how likely is that, really?”

“Mrr!”

I considered the current Eddie situation. If Chastain’s book happened to be in the first box I opened, we’d be out of here in a flash. If it was in the last box I opened, we’d be here for days. The most probable reality was that we’d be here somewhere between those two possibilities. Hours, anyway.

“Promise to come when you’re called?” I peered into the carrier through the wire door. Not that he ever had in the past, but maybe today would be different.

“Mrr,” he said quietly.

“Okay, then.” I unlatched the door and let Eddie roam free. “The door to upstairs is closed,” I told him, “so all you can do is wander around down here. And don’t even think of asking if you can go up, because you can’t. There are too many exhibits that aren’t cat toys.” A bear rug for one, a native American headdress for another. And then there were the lace dresses, the carved pew from Chilson’s first church, and the dugout canoe. “Claw marks in any of that stuff wouldn’t be good.”

“Mrr.” Eddie leaped out of the carrier and onto the concrete floor.

“I agree with you, pal,” I said, blatantly lying. “Claw marks make everything look better. It’s just some of that stuff hasn’t had any claw marks in it for a hundred years or more, and Amelia prefers it that way.”

As I talked, I studied the boxes that were strewn about. Some were labeled; some were not. Some were taped shut; some were not. There were boxes on chairs, boxes on tables, boxes on shelves, boxes in the maze of storerooms that some said had once housed alcohol during the Prohibition years.

I turned around in a small circle, trying to make sense of the arrangement. Amelia had started to explain the sorting system, but I’d shooed her out the door, telling her that I’d figure it out. And I would.

Eventually.

“How about this one?” I asked, but Eddie was nowhere to be seen. When he wanted to, he could make himself smaller than a cat hair–covered washcloth. So, without Eddie’s assistance, I flapped open the first box and peered in.

I hadn’t honestly expected to find Wildflowers in the first box, but when I saw a collection of linens, I was still disappointed. “Rats,” I said, after reaching inside and making sure there were no books tucked into the folds of aprons and tea towels. “So much for serendipity.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked around. “It would have been helpful,” I told my invisible cat, “if the date of the donation had been written on the box.” Amelia had said they kept a log of the donations, who they were from, general contents, dates, and so on, but they hadn’t written any of that nice data on the boxes, since the moment the donations were taken out of the box, it didn’t matter.

This made sense, but it wasn’t very helpful for someone like me, who was looking for something larger than a needle in something that was bigger than a haystack. Then again . . .

“How big is a haystack, exactly?” I asked.

Eddie didn’t answer, of course. I was tempted to whip out my phone and ask my favorite search engine the question, but no. I was here to find a book. A very valuable book. A book that someone had been killed over.

I rubbed my arms, trying to smooth down the goose pimples. “It’s chilly down here. Good thing you have a fur coat, Eddie.”

“Mrr,” came the muffled noise.

And I started opening boxes.

* * *

A while later, I was tired of opening boxes. The day had been long and hot, and I was tired and hungry and in need of a shower. “Can we go home now?”

Eddie had climbed onto a set of shelving in a back room and fit himself between the top box and the ceiling. “Mrr.”

I sighed. “You’re right. This is important, and I shouldn’t give up so easily.”

“Mrr,” he said, and started purring.

“Easy for you to say,” I said, but I went back to the boxes and, as I should have expected, I grew fascinated with things I was finding. It didn’t take long, and I soon lost track of time, forgetting about food and water and sleep and even ice cream.

“Look at this!” I held out a framed photo so Eddie could see. “It’s Abraham Lincoln—I’m sure of it!” The image was a crowd scene, but President Lincoln was front and center, stovepipe hat and all. “I wonder where it was taken?” I looked closely but couldn’t see any identifiers in the photo. “But that guy sitting next to him looks familiar, doesn’t he? If I could figure out who he is, I might be able to figure out when and where this was taken and—”

“Mrr!”

I sighed. He was right. We were here to look for Wildflowers . President Lincoln had waited this long; he could wait a little longer.

“Don’t you get tired of being right all the time?” I asked, reaching for the 1974 newspaper in which the photo had been wrapped. “I mean, being perfect must be exhausting. No wonder you sleep so much.”

I cocked my head, waiting for his response.

Thud.

I frowned in the direction of the noise I’d just heard, which had sounded a lot like someone stepping onto the bottom creaky step. Amelia had said she’d lock the doors, that I just had to let myself out the side door, which would lock behind me. I hadn’t bothered to make sure she’d locked up, and given her state of anxiety, I now realized I should have.

“Hello?” I called out. “The museum is closed.” I carefully set Lincoln back into his box and headed for the storeroom’s narrow door. “Sorry, but the door must have—”

There was a small click .

The basement went black.

I stopped. If given a few minutes, I might be able to think of a dozen reasons why all the lights had suddenly gone out. A power outage, for one.

But combined with that footstep, there was only one reason; whoever was after Wildflowers had figured out what I was doing and had followed me.

“This is so not good,” I whispered to myself.

Because I was now alone with Andrea’s killer.

In the basement of an empty building.

Chapter 18

I edged backward, deeper into the dark, trying to get as far away from the killer as possible, but stopped almost immediately, because the stupidity of that particular action was apparent even to me.