Лори Касс - Borrowed Crime

When her body stopped shaking, I gave her a hard hug and released her. I searched my pockets, came up with a tissue that probably hadn’t been used, and held it out.

She took it and blew her nose. “That deputy detective wanted to know if I had any enemies, if anyone was angry at me. Can you believe it?”

Um. “What did you tell him?”

She found a dry part of the tissue and blew again. “That anyone who has lived a full life has enemies. Take Shannon Hirsch. She’s hated me for thirty years, ever since I beat her out for the basketball team’s cheerleading squad. You wouldn’t believe the stunts she’s pulled on me since then.”

Denise tried to hand back the tissue, but I shook my head. “Anyone else?”

“I told that deputy I’d think about it.” She dabbed at her nose. “Don Weller is another one. My neighbor. For months he’s done nothing but try to make my life miserable, ever since that fence of his.”

It was a big step from high-school rivalries and neighbor irritations to murder. I knew Don through Rafe—Don taught at the school where Rafe was principal—and couldn’t imagine that cheerful man wanting to kill anyone. Then again, do we ever know what truly motivates another person?

Denise swallowed and took in a few breaths. “If I was the one supposed to die, if Roger died because of me . . .”

I waited, wishing I could help, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do.

“How am I going to tell the kids?” she asked in a whisper, but I had no answer for her. I gave her another hug, told her to call me if she needed anything, and went in to the bright lights of the grocery store.

Inside, I pulled out a small cart and looked back outside.

Denise was still standing on the sidewalk. Just standing and looking at nothing.

“All right, already,” I told my mother, and went out again. “Hey, Denise? Do you have a minute? I could use some help with this grocery list. Aunt Frances made it out for me, and I have no idea where half this stuff is.” I proffered the crumpled sheet of paper.

She wiped her eyes and took the list. “Fennel seeds? You don’t know where fennel seeds are?” She make a clucking noise. “Goodness, you do need help, don’t you? Come on. Did you get a cart? No, not that one, it has a wobbly wheel. This one will do.” She pushed a cart toward me. “Are you coming or not?”

I gave her a crooked smile. “You bet,” I said.

* * *

After I’d dried and put away the last fork from dinner, I hung the dish towel on its wooden rod and went to see what Aunt Frances was doing.

I found her sitting on the end of the couch, her long legs out in front of her, a blanket and a book on her lap. I flopped on the couch across from her and tipped my head to see what she was reading. The First 20 Minutes, by Gretchen Reynolds.

It was a book on exercise, a very odd choice of reading material for my aunt. As far as I knew, she’d never exercised in her life. She stayed active with housework and gardening and spent a lot of time on her feet, but I couldn’t make my brain visualize her in running shorts.

She turned a page. “I like to know what I’m missing,” she said. “And from what I’ve been reading, I’m not missing much.”

Personally, I enjoyed working up a sweat every now and then, but I’d once heard Aunt Frances say that perspiration meant you should stop working so hard. I was pretty sure she was joking, but I also wasn’t sure I wanted to find out and remove all doubt.

I kicked off my shoes and tucked my short legs up underneath me. “I’m surprised Eddie isn’t on your lap.”

“He was,” Aunt Frances said, “but I think my choice of reading material disturbed him. He abandoned me a few minutes ago.”

There was an odd thump, thump, thump noise. Frowning, I turned, trying to pinpoint its origin. “What’s that?”

Aunt Frances flipped another page. “It started soon after your cat left me, so your guess has to be better than mine.” She looked at me over the top of the book. “Do you have a guess?”

We sat there listening to the nonrhythmic thumping. “Not a clue,” I said. “Five bucks says it involves paper products.”

My friend Rafe and I regularly made five-dollar bets on everything from the price of a cup of coffee in Australia to the date the last bit of ice on Janay Lake melted. And I suddenly realized it had been a while since I’d seen Rafe. Since he was a principal, this often happened when school started, but it was almost Thanksgiving.

“No bet,” Aunt Frances said. “I think he’s in the bathroom.”

Where there were all sorts of paper products available for shredding purposes. And “shred” was indeed the word; Eddie didn’t just yank the toilet paper off the holder; he ripped great paper chunks off it all the way down to the core. If there was a newspaper or a magazine handy, he sank his claws into the middle and dragged them out to the edge. And he didn’t just claw at the top tissue that poked out of a box; he reached inside with his slinky paws and pulled out as many small pieces of tissue as he could.

Aunt Frances put her book down as I stood. “Why do you think he shreds that stuff?” she asked. “Is he trying to teach you a lesson?”

I snorted. “If he is, the only thing I’m learning is to be grateful that he hasn’t started ripping up books.”

But as I walked down the hall, getting ever closer to the thumping noise, I wondered. What, exactly, did Eddie get out of clawing and biting apart paper products? Was he sharpening his claws? Was he acting out some kitty aggression?

“Or,” I said, walking into the bathroom, “do you just like making a mess?” The large room was painted in periwinkle blue from the waist up and was white beadboard from the waist down. A Hoosier cabinet held towels and soaps and various Up North memorabilia that the summer boarders had accumulated over the years, but the room’s focal point was the biggest claw-foot bathtub I’d ever seen in my life.

Eddie’s head popped up over the edge of the tub.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Mrr,” he said, and dropped back down.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

I eyed the small stack of magazines on the corner of the Hoosier cabinet’s counter. All were intact. “What do you have in there?” I walked closer. “Because if you’ve taken some of those skipping stones from the jar over here, Aunt Frances is going to have your hide. Those things will chip the porcelain something fierce.”

As I neared, I realized that the sound was more like a roll . . . thump . . . roll . . . thump . . . roll . “Eddie,” I said, looking down, “if you’re not the weirdest cat on the planet, I don’t want to meet any who are weirder.”

My furry friend ignored me and continued to thump a rubber ball against the tub. He’d whack it with his paw, sending it rolling across the tub’s floor, watch it thump against the tub wall, then watch it roll back toward him.

The small red, white, and blue ball had been a giveaway to kids during Chilson’s annual Fourth of July parade, and, until recently, it had been part of the Hoosier cabinet’s memorabilia collection. How a cat could have moved it from the cabinet to the tub was another thing I probably didn’t want to know.

Eddie batted the ball one more time, then looked up at me.

“You know,” I said, “if you don’t pay attention, that ball’s going to—”

The ball thumped Eddie in the foot. He jumped high and fast, his tail fluffing up to three times its normal size.

I shook my head, returned to the living room, and reported to Aunt Frances.

“Hmm.” My aunt got a faraway look on her face. “That tub. For years I’ve thought about enclosing it with a beadboard surround. Lots of room for the bubble bath bottles and soaps. Wouldn’t that be nice?”