Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

Choosing his left eye to focus upon, I smiled back. “You, too.”

As I turned around in my seat, Lindsey returned. “Is now the time we talk about Ash?” she asked, sitting.

“Sure,” I said. “Although I don’t have any problem talking about him when he’s here, either.”

She laughed. “You two make a great team. Your senses of humor are so similar it’s frightening. Are you sure you’re not my own child?”

“If I’d come out of your gene pool, I’d probably be six inches taller,” I said. “Then all my pants would be too short.”

“Who are you calling short?” Ash asked, sliding into his chair.

“No one,” Lindsey and I said together, and then laughed at the same time.

Ash shook his head in mock sorrow and murmured something about not being able to leave us two alone.

The rest of the meal passed in a similar lighthearted fashion, but underneath, I kept wondering the same thing: Exactly how uncontrollable was Brad Lacombe’s temper?

Chapter 10

The next day, Saturday, was a bookmobile day, but instead of being my normal bright self, I started off the morning yawning and wishing for a couple more hours of sleep.

“Up late last night?” Julia asked. “Did you and Ash go barhopping?”

Barhopping in Chilson wouldn’t have taken very long since there was only one establishment in town dedicated to the serving of alcohol. Half a dozen restaurants had bar areas, but I wasn’t sure if those would count. “We had dinner with his mom and ended up back at her house playing trivia games.”

Julia looked down at Eddie. “What do you think, my furry friend? Could there possibly be a more romantic way to spend an evening?”

“I like Lindsey. She’s funny. And smart.”

“Are you dating her or her son?”

I couldn’t think of any response that didn’t involve sarcasm, and since I’d recently promised my mother that I would try to avoid being sarcastic for at least a week, just to see how it felt, I flicked on the turn signal and said, “Is that Mr. Zonne’s car?”

Julia looked at the church parking lot. “It is indeed. What kind of story do you think he’ll have for us today?”

It was bound to be a good one. After the death of his wife, Lawrence Zonne, a sprightly white-haired octogenarian, had returned home to Tonedagana County from a retirement community in Florida. Mr. Zonne had vision sharper than an eagle’s and a memory that retrieved information faster than Wikipedia and with far more accuracy.

I parked, Julia opened the door to Eddie’s carrier, and we went about getting the bookmobile ready for business, which amounted to flipping open the laptop computers, unstrapping the chair at the back desk, and unlocking the back door.

Mr. Zonne bounded up the stairs. “My dears, I was so sorry to hear about your macabre discovery. What a dreadful thing!” He spread his thin arms wide and gave Julia a massive hug, which then got transferred to me. “More dreadful for Dale Lacombe,” he said into my hair, “but then Dale was a dreadful man.”

“You knew him?” I asked as I was released.

“In a way.” Mr. Zonne paused and squinted at the ceiling. “The rat bast . . . sorry, that miserable son of . . . no, sorry . . .” He pursed his lips. Finally, he said, “Dale Lacombe was the low bid for an addition to our house some thirty years ago. And there was a reason he was low bidder.”

“What’s that?” Julia asked.

Mr. Zonne declined to answer, but after being peripherally involved with Rafe’s home renovation for three years, I could guess. Dale had purchased cheap materials. Or he’d been late starting the project and even later finishing. Or he modified the floor plans without talking to Mr. and Mrs. Zonne. Or his subcontractors were rude. Or he didn’t come back to finish the punch list. Or he didn’t clean up the site. Or it had been all of that and he still demanded full payment.

“Have they arrested anyone for the murder?” Mr. Zonne asked. “No, never mind. I can see from your exchange of glances that they haven’t. And with that particular victim”—he shook his head—“I imagine it’s going to take a long time to winnow down the suspect list to a manageable size.”

That seemed to be the common sentiment from everyone except the widow. Who, now that I thought about it, hadn’t seemed to be suffering from an overabundance of grief.

Then again, everyone grieved in their own way. Maybe Carmen didn’t like to display her sorrow to strangers, which I essentially was. Not that she seemed to have a problem communicating any number of other emotions, notably impatience and irritation, but maybe those were masking the grief.

“Mrr!!”

All three of us turned. Eddie was on the dashboard, standing on his back feet and pawing at the front window.

“What, pray tell, is your cat doing now?” Julia asked.

If he was Lassie, he would be trying to tell us that someone was in danger and we’d spend the rest of the time before the commercial break trying to figure what, where, when, why, and how. But since he was Eddie, other possibilities were far more likely. “He probably thinks that spot on the windshield is a cat toy.”

“Really?” she asked doubtfully. “I’ve never seen him get so excited about a toy. A treat, yes. A toy, no.”

I looked out the window. “New explanation,” I said, nodding. “See?”

Julia and Mr. Zonne caught the direction of my glance, which was aimed at the lot on the far side of the church, where a house was being built. Pickup trucks filled the driveway and men wearing tool belts were hammering away. More to the point, one of the workers was throwing a ball for a golden retriever, who was happily tumbling after it.

“Such a plebeian response,” Julia said, sighing. “I thought better of you, Eddie.”

“Mrr!”

“I think you could be a little more understanding,” Mr. Zonne said, not very seriously. “Not responding to an instinctive response is difficult.”

“You hear that?” I leaned over the console and scooped up my cat. “We need to be more understanding.”

“Mrr!”

He squirmed around, trying to get down. “How about a treat?” I reached for the cabinet that held the canister.

“Mrr,” he said more quietly.

“Okay, how about two treats?” I asked, but before I completed the sentence, he started purring, giving me little choice but to snuggle him close and kiss the top of his head.

Cats. The world’s best manipulators.

• • •

The rest of the bookmobile day went past quickly, as most bookmobile days did. We checked out books to toddlers and to grandpas. We assisted homeschooled youngsters with finding books that would help them write reports and we helped middle-aged folks find everything from a book on the history of Bolivia (“That’s at the main library, but I’ll bring it next time”) to fiction that would help them while away the hours in a surgical waiting room.

“Another fine day,” Julia said, yawning and stretching as we pulled away from the day’s last stop, at a convenience store. The owner kindly allowed us to use his restroom and I, in return, purchased more cat treats. “The husband and I are headed to Petoskey for dinner. How about you?”

“Not sure,” I said, which was mostly true, but not entirely, because all afternoon I’d been thinking about Dale Lacombe and how he’d died and some of the possibilities for why he’d died. I’d come to the conclusion that I needed to call Carmen, and did so the moment after I shut the door to the bookmobile garage.

“Dale’s last job?” Carmen asked. “It’s on Valley Street, a mile or so outside of town. The guys are trying to finish up before Thanksgiving. Why?”