Лори Касс - Pouncing On Murder

“What do you think?” I asked Eddie after opening the front door.

He was sitting on the dashboard, studying the passing seagulls, most of him in the evening sunshine, some of him not, and was apparently too busy to talk to me.

I looked at him. “You know, if you went to the effort of sliding forward three inches, all of you would be in the sun.”

He opened his mouth in a large yawn.

“None of that,” I said through an answering yawn. “There’s work to do.”

“Mrr,” he said, still looking outside.

“Ha.” I walked into the bedroom, texting Tucker, Home at the houseboat cleaning the deck, wouldn’t mind some help and got back a text reading, Love to, but have chance 2 assist on emergency knee surgery. Next time? Smiling, I changed out of school clothes and into grungy apparel, then came back to the kitchen and reached under the sink for the plastic bucket and scrub brush, talking to my cat the entire time.

“Just because you don’t have thumbs doesn’t mean you can’t contribute to the running of this household. Oh, don’t give me that innocent look. I know you’re perfectly capable of cleaning.” Not that I wanted my socks washed with Eddie spit, but he didn’t need to know that. “There are all sorts of things you could do around here and it’s past time that you started doing your share. I mean, did you catch a single mouse for Aunt Frances last winter?”

He turned to stare are me, and once again I was glad that cats didn’t have the power to summon spontaneous combustion.

“Oh, come on.” I added a little soap to the bucket and ran it full of hot water. “I’m just giving you a hard time.” I went to kiss the top of his fuzzy head. “To tell you the truth, I don’t blame you about the mice. They can’t taste very good.”

“Mrr.”

“Better with mayonnaise? You’re probably right.” I lifted the bucket out of the sink. “Ready, Eddie Freddie? It’s time to swab the decks.”

For the next hour, I was on my hands and knees scrubbing the deck clean of the dust and grime it had accumulated while in storage. How a flat surface that was under a tarp and inside a building could get so dirty I didn’t know, but the dark gray color that the water was turning was clear proof.

“Or not so clear,” I said to Eddie, who was supervising from the small table I’d brought out for him to perch upon. I sat back on my heels and pushed my hair out of my eyes for the zillionth time. My hands were encased in thick plastic elbow-length gloves, so my dexterity was limited and I was undoubtedly getting soapy water all over my hair, but Eddie was the only one around to see and he wasn’t overly critical of my looks. “Get it? The water is dirty, so it isn’t clear.”

Eddie blinked at me.

“Not sure what that meant,” I said. “Do you think I’m not very funny, or do you not understand the joke? Because I could explain it again, if you’re not sure about parts of it.”

“More of a pun than a joke, isn’t it?”

I spun around—which is hard to do while you’re kneeling—lost my balance, and flopped over onto my back with a loud thump . From my new position, I could see blue sky and the beginnings of a setting sun. And if I waited long enough, maybe Ash Wolverson would go away and forget everything he’d seen.

“Are you all right?” Ash vaulted the boat’s railing and crouched down beside me. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

So, not going away. “I’m fine.” I rolled onto my side and sat up. “Honest. You just startled me, that’s all.” I felt dirty water seep into the seat of my sweatpants. There was no way I was going to stand up in front of Ash Wolverson with a wet hind end, so I kept talking and tried not to think about my tangled wet hair and the dirty soapsuds on my face. “What brings you down to the marina? Any news about Henry or Adam?”

“Oh.” Still in a crouch, Ash leaned back onto his heels and held his arms loosely across his thighs. It looked like a comfortable position for him, but I was pretty sure that if I tried it, my legs would start screaming at me within seconds. “No, sorry. No news.” He looked at the wet deck. “Detective Inwood did tell me that Mrs. Deering had stopped by, with information about a Seth Wartella. So I’ll be looking into that.”

“Oh. Good.” I almost told him that I hadn’t been able to find a trace of Seth on the Internet, but decided to keep quiet. That might be considered interfering in police business and . . . then I decided to heck with it. “Just so you know—”

But Ash’s words ran over mine. “Minnie, I heard your boyfriend moved downstate a few months ago. It’s not like I was stalking you,” he said hurriedly. “I just happened to hear from a friend. And I’m sorry things didn’t work out between you, but if you’re doing okay and you’re ready to go, you know, go out again, I was wondering if maybe you’d like to go out with me.”

For a moment, the only thing I heard was the soft wash of waves against the side of my boat. A few months ago, when Tucker was still living in Charlevoix, Ash had asked me out and I’d had to tell him I was seeing someone else. And now I had to tell him all over again.

Or . . . did I?

The instant the thought oozed into my head, my mother’s voice chased it out. Minnie, don’t you dare think about cheating on that doctor of yours. You agreed to a long-distance relationship, didn’t you? Well, then you’d best keep that agreement. Hamiltons don’t go back on their word.

Mom’s words zipped in and out of my thoughts in a heartbeat. I looked up at Ash and tried to smile. “Thanks so much for asking, but—”

He stood up fast. “But you’re not interested. Hey, don’t worry about it. I just thought maybe there was a chance. I won’t bother you—”

“Mrr!”

Ash whipped around. “Hey, Eddie. Sorry, big guy, I didn’t see you there.” He scratched my cat behind his furry ears. “How are you doing these days?”

“Just fine, thanks.”

Ash and I turned to see Rafe grinning at us from the dock, his teeth white against a skin that appeared tan even in April. Of course, his distant Native American heritage helped that look, but it still seemed inherently unfair. “How are you?”

I glanced from the slim, black-haired Rafe to the near-movie-star square-jawed looks of Ash. “You two know each other?”

“My man Ash?” Rafe saluted him with an index finger shaped into a pistol. “We go way back. Say, how’s your sister doing?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Still hot as ever?”

“Please tell me you’re here for a reason,” I said. “If you’ll notice, I’m trying to get some work done.” I’d had time to clean the houseboat’s inside before moving, but hadn’t had time to touch the outside until now.

Rafe looked down at the dirty, soapy mess I’d made. “Huh. You know it might freeze tonight, right? Better get that cleaned up or it could be nasty slippery in the morning.” He pointed at Ash again. “You doing anything? Because if we don’t get out of here, Ms. Hamilton here is going to dragoon you into helping her clean.”

Ash almost, but not quite, looked at me. “I was just leaving.”

“Perfect!” Rafe gave him a thumbs-up. “Tell you what. I could use some help drywalling a ceiling. Pizza and a six-pack of whatever you want when we’re done.”

“Sounds good,” Ash said. Then, not quite looking at me: “I’ll, uh, see you later, Minnie.”

“Yeah. Later.”

I stood there, watching them go, listening to their male banter as they went down the dock and onto the sidewalk that would, in a couple of hundred feet, take them straight to the front door of Rafe’s fixer-upper.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.