Лори Касс - Borrowed Crime

I crossed my arms and waited for their answer. It wasn’t long in coming, and it was about what I’d expected.

Cade laughed, and Barb made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a giggle.

“My dear Minnie,” Cade said. “I know you’ve taken a proprietary interest in my health since you and your bookmobile rushed me to the hospital, and there is no question that your rapid response is what helped me recover from the stroke so quickly, but Barb and I aren’t exactly elderly. Neither one of us is even sixty.”

Barb took her husband’s hand. “Besides, we didn’t drive anywhere while there was snow on the roads. We just stayed home. I read some of those wonderful books you’ve recommended, and Cade finished his painting.” She nodded at the canvas.

“Plus,” Cade said, “our bags are packed and we’re headed for the airport the moment we leave here.”

I gave a mock sigh. “So you’re on the way out of town?”

“Decidedly,” Cade said, smiling a little.

I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. Last summer the McCades and I had become acquainted over Cade’s hospital bed, and it had solidified into a permanent friendship over the use of words that started with the letter D . To have him pull one out now was a top-notch use.

“You’re incorrigible,” I said.

“Are we doing I words?” Barb asked. “Because I’ve always wanted to use the word ‘irrefragable’ in a sentence.”

“You just did,” Cade said. He smartly stepped out of the way of her elbow and smiled at me. “How is that fuzzy feline of yours?” Cade and Eddie had become good friends over the past few months, but I finally had to forbid Cade from bringing him any more treats or cat toys until next spring. Even Eddie could only eat and play so much.

“Fuzzier than ever,” I assured him.

“You can expect the portrait by Valentine’s Day,” Cade said. “I’ll have it crated and freighted direct to you.”

“Oh, wow, you don’t have to do that. Really, you don’t have to—”

Barb cut into my babbling. “Minnie, dear, hush. We’ve been through this before, and you’re accepting Eddie’s portrait. If you don’t, Cade will paint you .”

The threat had been made before and it still sent a shiver of unease down my back.

“Ha,” Cade said. “Look at her face. You’d think I did abstract art with a nasty twist, the way she’s looking.”

“Distraction is in order,” Barb said. “Give her the other news.”

Grinning, Cade rubbed his hands together. “It’s all set, Minnie. The painting the Radles have chosen to donate is scheduled for auction the week after Thanksgiving.”

“It . . . is?” After Cade had been involved in a murder case last summer, he’d told the parents of the murder victim that he’d donate a painting to a charity of their choice. And even though the victim hadn’t been a patron of the Chilson library, her parents had said her favorite times as a child had been spent in their local library. I hadn’t expected the grieving parents to choose a painting until next year, though. “They’re still willing to donate the money to the library?”

Cade nodded. “Every cent.”

I wanted to thank him, to thank Barb, to thank everyone and everything in the whole wide world, but all I could manage to do was nod.

“Look at her.” Cade nudged his wife. “Now, that’s a face worth painting.”

I tried to smile. Couldn’t quite, thanks to the emotions clogging my throat. “You’re irredeemable,” I managed to say.

“Incurable,” he agreed.

“But not irrefragable,” Barb said.

We all laughed, and if I wiped away a tear or two, the McCades were polite enough to allow the fiction that it was from the laughter.

Chapter 10

The rest of the weekend flew past with a number of Aunt Frances–directed trips to the grocery store for Thanksgiving preparations, which included a trip to Mary’s Kitchen Port in Traverse City for whole nutmeg (“You want me to go where? For what?” “You heard me. Get going.”) and an attic search for a box of extra pie plates. There were numerous text exchanges with Tucker, ranging from stilted to friendly to warm, and a Sunday-afternoon phone conversation with Kristen during which I listened to her enthuse about the beach conditions and she listened to me talk about grant possibilities.

Monday was such a busy library day that it wasn’t until Tuesday, a bookmobile day, that I had time to wonder whether I really was spending too much time on the bookmobile. Which was high irony, but I wasn’t sure Eddie saw any humor in it. Donna didn’t, either.

She sat with her feet on either side of Eddie’s carrier and pooh-poohed my angst.

“The reason you didn’t hear about Pam’s hissy fit is because you weren’t in the building. You could have been gone for any reason. It didn’t have to be the bookmobile.”

True, but still. “I should have known.”

Donna yawned, stretching. “You really want to know all the goings-on of the Friends? Maybe get a personal monthly update from Denise?”

I blanched at the thought, and Donna laughed. Then we were at our first stop of the day, Moulson Elementary, and things got busy fast.

Moulson was a new stop for us. The school was on the east side of the county, out in the flatter land where potatoes were grown. There were no other bookmobile stops for miles, but it had taken only a single request for me to justify the mileage.

As soon as Donna lowered the steps, a parade of five-year-olds marched out of the building. At the head of the line was Brynn Wilbanks, the little girl who had called with the stop request.

She bounced up the stairs, smiling widely, energy practically oozing out of her skin. “Where’s the bookmobile kitty?” she asked. “I said they’d get to meet Eddie.”

Recognizing that my place in Brynn’s life was secondary to my cat’s by far, I bowed and made a grand wave toward the front, where Eddie was sitting like an Egyptian statue on the console.

It had been for the sake of Brynn, whose leukemia was now in remission, that I’d brought Eddie onto the bookmobile after his first stowaway episode. And it had been for Brynn that I’d just rearranged the bookmobile’s every-other-Tuesday route to make sure she got her fill of Eddie during the school year.

A young man came up the steps, herding the last of the kids aboard. “Hi. I’m Andrew Burrows. Brynn’s teacher.” He had a stocky build and such a complicated arrangement of facial hair that it made me wonder if he was trying to hide something. He also looked barely looked old enough to have graduated from high school, let alone college.

I introduced myself and Donna. Andrew kept a close watch on his small charges as we talked. I knew there were supposed to be fourteen of them, but it was hard to be sure, since they moved around so much. “You’ll do a quick introduction?” Andrew asked. “About the bookmobile?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll show them—”

I stopped, because Andrew’s polite smile had suddenly turned into an expression of horror. He started to lunge past me. “Brynn! Put him down!”

Before I even turned, I sensed what was happening. “Don’t worry,” I said. “Brynn and Eddie—”

“See, everybody?” Brynn called. She was grasping Eddie around his middle, his front legs draping stage right, his back legs draping stage left. His head was dangling loosely, and the tip of his tail beat the air lightly. “This is my friend, the bookmobile kitty cat. You can come and pet him if you want, but you have to do it one at a time,” she cautioned.

“Brynn,” Andrew said in an anguished voice. “Please put the cat down.”

The little girl looked up at him with her big brown eyes. “Why?”