Лори Касс - Borrowed Crime

“I’m so glad you came over,” I said. “And you brought flowers—how nice!” I took the bouquet and ushered the new arrival to the living room. “Aunt Frances, this is Otto Bingham, our across-the-street neighbor. Otto, this is my aunt, Frances Pixley.”

Otto smiled at my aunt. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Ms. Pixley.”

Aunt Frances looked at him, put her hand to her hair, and turned the lightest shade of pink. “Frances, please.”

“Only if you’ll call me Otto.”

“You know,” my aunt said, “I’ve always liked that name.” Her face got a little pinker and she started to babble. “Well, what I actually like are palindromes, and especially names that are palindromes. The last one I met was an Izzi. I knew an Anna once, and a Hannah, but I can’t think of any other male palindromes. Too bad, isn’t it?”

I’d never heard her babble like this, not ever. I knew it was because she was nervous, and she wasn’t used to being nervous, but would Otto know that? I clutched the flowers and hoped.

Otto threw back his head and laughed, a deep, rich sound that put me in mind of summer vacation, clear skies, and new books from my favorite authors. Which was when I knew that everything would be all right in the end.

I smiled at my aunt, at Otto, at Tucker, and finally at Eddie. “What do you think of palindromes?” I asked.

Eddie jumped off the couch, padded over to me, and rubbed his chin against my leg.

“Mrr,” he said.

Read on for a preview of the next Bookmobile Cat Mystery,

POUNCING ON MURDER

Coming from Obsidian in December 2015

Throughout the long winter, I’d often dreamed about the month of April. It will be warm, I’d thought. Sunny. There would be baby lambs and fluffy white clouds and daffodils and we’d be able to walk outside without boots and hats and thick coats and mittens.

In the northern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, however, the reality of April was a little different.

I switched on the bookmobile’s windshield wipers. They groaned as they tried to move against the slush spattering the glass, but inch by inch they gained speed and finally arced across, shoving the white stuff away.

“Remember the April eight years ago?” Julia Beaton asked. There was an element of wistfulness in her expressive voice.

“Nope,” I said cheerfully. “This is only my fourth spring in Chilson.” I’d spent many a youthful summer with my aunt Frances, but I hadn’t lived in Chilson until I’d had the great good fortune of being offered the job of assistant director of Chilson District Library. It had been a decision that had taken less than a second to make. A job in my favorite place in the world? In a region teeming with lakes of all sizes? In a land of forested hills, in a small town filled with outstanding restaurants and eccentrically original retail stores, and in a library building lovingly converted from an old school? Sure, there was winter to deal with, a season that could last a solid five months, but I loved to ski, so where was the downside?

“It was the best April in the history of Aprils.” Julia sighed. “The April to beat all Aprils.”

“No snow?” I nodded toward the falling flakes.

“None whatsoever,” she said dreamily, rearranging her long strawberry blond hair into a loose bun. “Blue skies, warm air. It was a page from Anne of Green Gables .”

Right then and there I decided there was nothing better than a coworker who knew the same children’s books that I did. Julia was the perfect bookmobile clerk and I would be forever grateful to my aunt for finding her.

Back in December, the library had received a large donation to fund the bookmobile operations. I’d immediately advertised for a part-time bookmobile clerk, and the sixtyish Julia had been my happy hire. Born and raised in Chilson, she’d moved to New York City right out of high school to find fame and fortune as a model. That particular career path hadn’t worked out very well, but her fall-back career as an actor had worked out just fine. She’d found a satisfying amount of Broadway fame, saved her money, and waved good-bye to the bright lights as soon as the offers for leading roles slowed to a trickle. These days she taught an acting class at the local college, turned down every community theatre role that came near, and was always looking for ways to spend her considerable energy.

My aunt Frances, who taught woodworking classes at the same college, had made a paper airplane of the clerk’s job description and sailed it into her classroom. Julia, one eyebrow raised, had unfolded the paper and scanned the text. When she started to nod, Aunt Frances had smiled and walked away, dusting off her hands at a job well done.

I grinned, not taking my attention off the road. “If you don’t like winter, maybe you should consider moving to Hawaii.”

“Winter I like just fine,” she said. “It’s April that’s the trouble. No matter what temperature it is, you always want a little bit more.”

“Except for eight years ago, you mean.”

She ignored my teasing and looked at the large plastic carrier snugged up next to her feet. “What does Eddie think about April?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Julia leaned forward and over, looking into the cat carrier through the wire door. “Good morning, young sir. How do you feel about the current weather conditions of cold, slushy, and wind tossed?”

“Mrr,” said my black-and-white tabby cat.

Eddie and I had been together for almost a year. It had been an unseasonably warm day in April that had lured me from my inside chores to take a long walk outside that ended at the local cemetery. Which sounds odd, but this particular cemetery had an outstanding view of Janay Lake and beyond to the bulk of massive Lake Michigan.

I’d been sitting on a bench next to the gravestone of one Alonzo Tillotson (born 1847, died 1926) and had been startled by the appearance of a large black-and-gray cat. He’d followed me home, whereupon I’d cleaned him up as best I could, turning him black-and-white. I dutifully ran an ad in the newspaper and was relieved when no one claimed him. Because of my father’s allergies, I’d never had a pet. Eddie was my first, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ever lived without my opinionated pal.

“Eddie, you must,” Julia told him, “learn how to enunciate more clearly. Theatergoers in the top rows will never grasp your nuances unless you work on the consonants.”

“Mrr!”

Julia sighed and settled back. “He does not take advice well, does he?”

The interviewing process for the bookmobile job had included a tour of the bookmobile and an introduction to Eddie, because Eddie had been part of the bookmobile from the beginning. He had stowed away on the maiden voyage and quickly become an integral part of the services we offered. Books, magazines, DVDs, video games, and Eddie hair, not necessarily in that order.

For months I’d felt the need to hide the feline presence on the bookmobile from my follow-the-policy-or-else boss, Stephen Rangel, but it had turned out that Stephen had known about Eddie’s adventures from the very beginning.

I really should have known better.

And I really should have known to stop interviewing after I’d talked to Julia. She was the best candidate for many reasons—and had the added bonus of being eight inches taller than five-foot-nothing me, making the job of reshelving the top rows of books easy to delegate—but the butter-cream frosting was how she’d immediately started talking to Eddie, the same way that I did, which was as if he understood what she was saying.

We both agreed that this was ridiculous, of course, but still, there were times when his comprehension of human speech seemed to go far beyond his name and the word “no.” Not that he paid any attention to either, but the twitching of his ears gave away that he heard us.