Лори Касс - Pouncing On Murder

She made a gagging noise. “It’s April. I was glad to have something to do. There’s just one thing,” she said sternly. “Don’t tell a soul I did this. Lie if you have to, but if word gets out that I’ve done something for free, my days are numbered. I mean, it was fun now, when there’s nothing else going on, but in summer I won’t have time for it.”

After vowing to keep her involvement a complete secret, I thanked her, thanked her again, and hung up.

I printed the flyer and tacked it to my bulletin board, which was right next to the portrait of Eddie that Cade had forced upon me as a thank-you gift. For the ten thousandth time, I admired the painting, and then I moved on to admiring Pam’s flyer; not only the design, but also the name of thriller writer Ross Weaver. Yes, indeedy, Ross Weaver was coming to the Chilson Library and yours truly would get to meet him in less than two weeks.

Less than two weeks?

A small alarm of panic went off in my head. There were a million things I had to do between now and the fair date of Friday after next. Flyers to distribute. Authors to confirm. Tent rentals and catering issues to finalize. Make that two million things. What was I doing, just standing there?

I flung myself into my chair and got busy.

• • •

Late in the day, so late you could call it evening, I’d finished as much book fair business as I could get done that day, but I wasn’t ready to walk back to the houseboat. Not by a long shot. The library’s Internet connection was much faster than the marina’s, and there was research to be done.

I pushed up my metaphorical sleeves, typed the name “Seth Wartella” into Google, and hit the Search button. With the faster connection, I wouldn’t stop looking after the top twenty searches. No, indeedy, this time I would keep looking at Seth Wartellas to the end of all the listings. Plus, there was Facebook to try, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and all sorts of other social media sites where I might catch a glimpse of the man.

Maybe he was completely innocent of all wrongdoing, except for that tax fraud thing along with a side order of embezzlement, so maybe I was wasting my time. But if there was any chance of finding evidence that Seth had been in, say, Hawaii, when Adam was almost run over, then I had to try. I’d promised Adam and I’d promised Irene and I’d promised myself.

And on the bright side, at least he wasn’t named Bill Smith. Things could always be worse, right?

I nodded to myself and started clicking.

• • •

The long rays of the sinking sun flared onto my computer screen. Hunger pangs gnawed at me, but those were easier to ignore than the emotion that was creeping into the back of my throat. I swallowed down the feeling and it went into my stomach, where it didn’t mix at all well with the emptiness.

“Not a good plan,” I muttered to myself, and took a long drink of water from my coffee mug. Which helped a little, but not very much.

Sighing, I pulled out my cell phone and made the call. Better to get the task over with now than to stew over it.

“Hi, Minnie,” Irene Deering said.

There was a lot of noise in the background, so I figured she must be at her waitressing job. “Can you talk a minute?”

“Sure. I’m on break. What’s up?”

“I’ve been trying to track Seth Wartella online,” I said. “I’ve been looking at Facebook, Pinterest, all those.”

“What did you find?” Irene asked, her voice tight.

“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“Exactly that.” Suddenly I couldn’t sit still any longer. Phone in hand, I stood and paced around my office. “He wasn’t anywhere. I couldn’t find any sign of him on the Internet at all.”

“You know,” Irene said slowly, “that sort of makes sense. Before he went to jail, he was all over the Internet. That’s part of the evidence they used against him, the timing and content of some of his Facebook posts.”

That did make sense. I stood in front of my office window. It was dark enough now that what I mostly saw was myself looking back at me. “There’s been no trace of Seth Wartella since he walked out of prison.” I pulled in a deep breath and let it out. “He’s vanished.”

Chapter 11

My uneasiness about Seth didn’t dissipate overnight. It didn’t go anywhere as I showered and dressed the next morning and it didn’t go away as I crunched through my cornflakes.

It was only after I’d hauled Eddie’s carrier up the steps of the bookmobile and finished the pretrip checklist that my mood started to shift, because I’d finally looked around and seen that it was going to be a beautiful spring day. Janay Lake was flat calm, the sky was blue, and though the morning was a little chilly, it was supposed to get close to sixty degrees later on, and who could ask for more than that?

“Mrr.”

“It’s April,” I told Eddie as I strapped his carrier into place. “It’s pointless to ask for summerlike weather in April. You’ll doom yourself to disappointment. Can’t you be happy with the blue sky?”

He didn’t say anything, as he was busy rearranging himself on his pink blanket. It had been crocheted for him last summer by one of my aunt’s boarders and he’d taken to the soft fuzzy thing as if it had been a long-lost brother.

“Cats always want more.” Julia laughed as she came up the steps. “Life with a cat is one long negotiating session.”

“No wonder I’m tired all the time,” I said, glancing back at the books. All shipshape and seaworthy. Ready to go, Captain!

Julia slid into the passenger’s seat. “You’re tired because you’re working too hard.”

“Not true. I didn’t go into the library the entire weekend.”

“When was the last time you did that? And when’s the next time you’re going to take off two entire days in a row? Even better, when are you going to take a full week of vacation and get a true rest?”

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

“See?” Julia asked. “I’m not the only one who wonders these things.”

I snorted and turned the key in the ignition. The bookmobile’s engine started with a happy rumbling sound. “Eddie only wants me to take time off so he can get me to let him in and out and in and out all day long.”

“Eddie?” Julia looked down at the carrier by her feet. “Is this true? Are you really that self-centered?”

There was a long pause; then came a quiet “Mrr.”

“Told you,” I said, grinning, and I dropped the transmission into drive, starting another day on the bookmobile.

• • •

At the end of the day, we pulled into the farm drive next to Adam and Irene’s house. “I’ll just be a minute,” I said to Julia. “I talked to Irene last night and she said Adam was on a John Sandford kick.” I picked up a plastic bag that held half a dozen of the thrillers set in Minnesota. “Are you okay here with Eddie?”

Julia unbuckled her seat belt and stretched, which made her look a little bit like a cat herself. “Me, Eddie, and three thousand books.” She smiled. “I think I’ll manage to find something to do.”

The Deerings’ driveway seemed shorter that day, but maybe that was because I was carrying a smaller bag of books. I knocked on the front door and poked my head in. “Adam? It’s Minnie.”

“In the kitchen,” he called. “Come on in.”

Adam was sitting at a square wooden table. Nothing was in front of him; he was just sitting there. He had the look of a man who’d tried to walk a little too far and had dropped into the closest chair available.

I gave his face a quick study. He was pale, but not sweating and not shaking. “Doing okay?” I asked, emptying the bag onto the table.