Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

I tossed down another moist tidbit.

“So we have the Boggses and Daphne Raab. As the people who Dale sued to get payment, they should be high on the suspect list. Daphne certainly didn’t have a good word to say about him.” I watched Eddie snuffle up the treat. Ms. Raab had been an unpleasant woman, but unpleasantness didn’t equate to being a killer. Which was a good thing, because I’d met a number of unpleasant people in my life, and if they were all killers, it wouldn’t be long before the human species would murder its way to extinction.

“And then there are the Boggses.” The lottery winners. The couple who skipped from one house to another at the drop of a hat. I made a mental note to see if I could find out how long ago they’d won their pile of cash.

“Plus, there’s Rob Driskell. You know, the building official. The guy with the temper.”

I saw again Driskell’s reddening face and clenched fists. If his anger could flare up so fast against a man who was dead, what could have happened if he and Dale had met face-to-face? A burst of violence seemed possible and even likely.

Eddie bumped the top of his head against my shin.

“And there’s the guy from the car accident.” I needed to call Leese and ask his name. I still couldn’t think of a reason for a twenty-some-year gap between incident and revenge, but anything was possible, I supposed, and—

“Mrr!”

“One more treat,” I said, “and that’s it. Winter’s coming. You don’t get out as much when it’s cold in spite of that fur coat and we don’t need you getting any fatter or especially any sassier.” I dropped a third treat to the floor and remembered what Daphne had said. “And I can’t forget about Carmen. Remember? She and Dale separated not long before he was killed.”

I knew there were statistics about the number of murders committed by spouses, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go in search of them. After all, what did statistics mean for any given for-instance? Well, a lot, really, because they provided odds for any given event happening, but it was hard to think in those terms.

“Everybody thinks they’re going to beat the odds, right?” I looked down, but the only thing that remained of Eddie’s presence was a tiny piece of cat treat on the floor. I looked up and saw the tip end of his tail vanishing through the doorway to the dining room.

“Once again,” I told him, “you were no help at all.”

“Mrr,” he called back, which could only have been cat language for “Whatever.”

“Thanks,” I called. “If I ever have kids, it’s good to know that I’ve had training for dealing with teenagers.”

“Mrr.”

The next day, since I’d scheduled myself to work a stint at the reference desk from midafternoon until the library closed at eight, I slept late and didn’t leave the boardinghouse until almost ten o’clock.

It was one of those picture-perfect autumn mornings that you long for during the sweltering days of August. The air had a fall tang and the leaves still hanging tight to their trees were so brilliantly colored, they almost hurt my eyes at the same time that I couldn’t bear to look away.

The sidewalks were long emptied of the summer tourist traffic, and I knew most of the few people out and about by name. Yes, winter wasn’t too far away, but Chilson once again belonged to its year-round residents. We had our town back. Life was good.

I could practically see the aura of contentment that surrounded me as I walked into the toy store. Before the bells had even stopped jingling, Mitchell popped out of the back room. “Good morning, sorry I was—oh, hey, Minnie.” He grinned. “You back for Sally’s birthday present?”

Someday I’d get used to the hatless, shaven, and socially presentable Mitchell, but today wasn’t that day. It was a good thing that he’d found full-time employment, and an even better thing that he seemed to be enjoying it so much; it was the sudden change that I was having a hard time adjusting to. Who would ever have guessed that the perennially underemployed Mitchell would ever have found a career passion and true love in the same year?

“That’s right.” I leaned against the glass counter. “It’s on Halloween and I’ve promised not to buy her anything black or orange.”

“Gotcha.” Mitchell smoothed back his hair, a gesture similar to the way he’d formerly rearranged his hat. “She’s into horses, right? Does she collect Breyers?”

I frowned. “Isn’t that ice cream?”

He ushered me over to a display of blue and yellow boxes. “And horses,” he said, pointing.

“Huh.” I studied the array of plastic horses, horse-type equipment, horse barns, and other horse-oriented paraphernalia that, since the closest I’d ever come to a horse was the carousel ride at the Ohio amusement park Cedar Point, I hadn’t the least chance of identifying. “I have no idea if she’s into these or not. Let me text my sister-in-law and I’ll let you know.”

“Isn’t your brother an engineer?”

“Sort of.” Matt thought he had the best job in the world, and since he was an Imagineer for Disney, it was possible he was correct. If you were an engineer.

“If that kind of thing runs in the family, how about this?” Mitchell stepped over to another area of the store, the one that displayed models of cars, boats, planes, and tanks, and held up the perfect present for Sally.

“A Visible Horse,” I said softly, struck by the minimalist beauty of the skeletal model. “Mitchell, you’re a genius.”

“All part of the service.” He grinned. “Want me to wrap it? I can ship it for you, too, if you want. I’m pretty sure we have the address on file.”

I grinned back. If Mitchell 2.0 could provide this kind of service, I wasn’t going to mourn the old version another minute. “I like the way you work.”

“Yeah?” He flicked a glance my way. “Seems like you always thought I wasn’t worth much.”

There was enough truth in the statement to make it sting. But it wasn’t the entire truth. “I’ve always thought you are a very intelligent person,” I said honestly. “What I never understood is why you didn’t care about using it.”

Mitchell peeled the price tag off the box and stuck it to the counter. “I guess I can see why you’d think that.” He leaned down and unrolled wrapping paper from a metal rod, giving it a yank to rip it off the roll. “But my dad, he used to work so hard he didn’t have any time for anything else and then he died of a heart attack, sitting in his office chair before he turned forty-five. I didn’t want to be like him, not that way.”

So there it was. The reason why Mitchell had been a slacker most of his adult life. “And it’s different now?” I asked.

“Bianca showed me,” he said. “She works hard, but she leaves time for fun, too.”

The fact that it had taken him this long to figure that out made me question my earlier assessment of his intelligence, but I let it go. “Well, you seem to fit in well here. The owners made a great decision when they hired you.”

He didn’t say anything, but the tips of his ears turned bright red. “Wish I could say the same about your library board,” he muttered as he wrapped the brightly colored paper around the box. “That Jennifer doesn’t fit at all. And don’t ask about me going back to the library, because I’m not going to as long as she’s there.”

When he’d first told me he was boycotting the library, I hadn’t believed it would last more than a couple of days, but he hadn’t set foot inside for more than a week. “What about the bookmobile?” I asked.

His hands hesitated as he folded the last flap of paper, but only for a moment. He shook his head. “Nope. Can’t do it.”