Лори Касс - Borrowed Crime

“Come on in,” called a strong male voice. “Did you bring them all?”

I pulled off my shoes and followed the voice, walking in my stocking feet, hefting the bag. “And then some.”

In the living room, I found Mr. Hadlee—a farmer, volunteer firefighter, and freelance photographer—lying on the couch with his legs propped on pillows. He’d fallen off his barn roof the week before, broken two of two ankles, and now had multiple screws in both. His wife, a registered nurse, worked the afternoon shift at a nursing home, and between her job, taking care of him, and taking care of the farm animals, she didn’t have time to make sure he got his desired reading material.

I sat in a nearby chair and pulled each book out of the bag like a magician pulling out rabbits. “ The Guns of August , The Peloponnesian War , The Coming of the French Revolution, Imperial China 900 to 1800 , and, for a special treat, a brand-spanking-new copy of Battle Cry of Freedom .” I created a pile on the table next to the couch and grinned at him. “You have them for a month.”

He laid his hand on the tall stack with what looked almost like reverence. “You are the answer to my prayers, Minnie.”

I started to make a joke along the lines of good things coming in small packages but stopped. The man was serious, and making light of his feelings was completely inappropriate. “Glad we could help,” I said, suddenly getting a little teary. “What do you want next time?”

When I got back to the bookmobile, I must have had an odd expression on my face, because Donna smirked. “Got you, didn’t it?”

“What do you mean?”

“The delivery.” She jerked her thumb in the direction of the Hadlee’s house. “They’re so grateful, it makes you want to cry.”

“I didn’t cry,” I said indignantly.

“No?” Her eyebrows went up. “Then why are you sniffling?”

“That’s from . . . from going in and out of the cold. It’s hard on the nasal passages.”

Donna grinned and made a hmph sort of noise. I ignored her, and we headed out.

“Um, Minnie?” Donna asked ten minutes later. “I have a problem the size of a large coffee and two bottles of water. Any chance of a restroom anywhere close?”

When I’d set up bookmobile stops, I’d made sure there was an available bathroom at every other location. With the home deliveries, though, I hadn’t considered the issue. Most people probably wouldn’t mind if we asked to use their facilities, but it didn’t seem right.

“Okay,” I told Donna, thinking hard, trying to see a map of this part of the county in my head, and mainly seeing places that were closed for the winter. There was one place that wasn’t too far, but it was the last place I wanted to be.

I sighed, shaking the map out of my head. It was the only place, and it had to be done. “Hang on,” I said. “We’ll be there in a jiffy.”

“Sorry,” Donna murmured.

“Don’t be,” I said. “Eddie and I will commune silently with each other in your absence.”

She laughed, and in a few minutes we were driving around the back of the gas station where, less than a week ago, I’d waited for Roger Slade. I didn’t know if Donna knew that, but I wasn’t about to bring up the subject. “Go around this side,” I told her, pointing to the side of the building where I hadn’t found Roger.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Take your time.” I unbuckled and stretched. “We’re a little ahead of schedule.”

“Mrr,” said Eddie.

Donna laughed, and as I heard the door open, I leaned over to unlatch Eddie’s carrier. “You been in there a while, haven’t you? Sorry about that. From now on, when we do a bunch of home deliveries in a row, I’ll have to—”

In a flash of black-and-white fur, Eddie zipped past me.

“Hey,” I said. “That’s not way to thank the person who—”

There was a small thump , and all was quiet.

I scrambled to my feet. Donna must not have shut the door Eddie tight. He’d pushed his way outside and could already have . . .

I kept my thoughts away from the road out front, and ran to follow my troublesome cat. Outside, the world was brown and gray, nothing like the whiteness of last week. I looked left, the way I’d directed Donna, and didn’t see anything catlike, or even Eddie-like. I looked in the direction I didn’t want to, toward the side of the building where I’d found Roger, and saw a flash of a tail.

“Eddie,” I muttered, and hopped up into a fast trot. When he wanted to, Eddie could run rings around me at speeds that made me dizzy. The trick was to convince him that he didn’t want to run.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” One of these days I’d remember to put a can of cat treats on the bookmobile. Shaking a cardboard can of treats was my best tactic for attracting a runaway Eddie. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

I ran around the building’s corner, swung wide to avoid the Dumpster’s wood screen, and skittered to a halt. There, nestled up against the building, as if he’d been sleeping for hours, was Eddie.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He opened his mouth in a silent “Mrr.”

“Once again,” I said, “we have solid proof that you are the weirdest cat in the universe.”

Eddie stood, shook himself, and picked up something in his mouth. It was a fairly large something, and he ended up dragging the thing more than carrying it.

I squatted down to see. “A hat. You’ve found yourself a nice winter hat.” I looked at him. “But you’re a cat and you already have a fur coat. What do you need with a hat?”

He ignored me and continued to prance his way back to the bookmobile, towing his new prize.

“Hang on.” I picked up my cat and the hat, almost wishing that the cat had been in the hat, because if you squinted, Eddie could pass for the Dr. Seuss character. “Since you like it so much, I’ll check inside and see if anyone lost it. Maybe they’ll let us keep it.” The hat in question looked to be handmade, with ear flaps and braided yarn lengths that tied under the chin. It was a fun blend of colors—red and yellow and blue and orange—but not in such bright shades that they hurt your eyes. Though it was a little damp from being outside, it was clean enough. With a washing, it would be good as new.

I slid it over Eddie’s head. “We can keep it on the bookmobile,” I told him. “You never know when someone will need a hat.”

“Mrr,” he said, and that seemed to settle it.

* * *

When Donna returned, I secured permission from a shrugging convenience-store employee to take the hat, which both Donna and I agreed was hand knit, and we headed off to finish the day’s bookmobile schedule.

These were the among the first stops I’d ever scheduled, and the first thing all the regulars—especially the family with six children, which was comprised of the statistically impossible three sets of twins—wanted to do was greet Eddie.

“Hi, bookmobile ladies!” Each of the six kids greeted Donna and me as they breezed past on their way to the front of the vehicle, where Eddie had ensconced himself on the top of the passenger’s seat headrest. It was his current preferred position for receiving visitors, and he accepted their pets and coos of admiration with great tolerance.

“Hey, Minnie,” said the children’s father, Chad Engstrom.

In their bookmobile visits over the months, I’d learned that Chad’s wife worked for Tonedagana County as an accountant, that Chad worked from home as a designer of educational video games, and that he homeschooled the children with the help of a retired neighbor who’d once taught high school biology.