Лори Касс - Tailing A Tabby

It was a good sell, so good that I almost wanted to go out there myself, but Mitchell was shaking his head.

“Leave Michigan?” he asked. “Leave God’s country? Leave all of you? Not a chance.” He reached out with both of his long arms and enveloped Holly and me in a big hug. My face was mushed up against the top of Holly’s shoulder, and her chin was digging into the side of my head.

“It wouldn’t be the same without you,” I said, and escaped down the hall with as much grace as I could muster. Holly came along with me, whispering in my ear, “I’ll see if I can get Josh to help. Sometimes he has really good ideas.”

And sometimes his ideas were horrible, but right now I was willing to listen to anything.

• • •

“What I really need,” I said to Eddie that evening, “is a magic wand. Wave it, say some really long words, and we’ll find out who really killed Carissa. Wave it again and the boarders at Aunt Frances would get straightened around. One more wave and Mitchell would find something productive to do with his life. What do you think?”

Eddie didn’t say anything.

“Yeah.” I patted the top of his head. He squinched his eyes at every pat, but he didn’t move. “I kind of figured that’s what you’d say.”

We were sitting on the roof of the houseboat, watching the sunset. At least I was watching the sunset; Eddie was still looking for the sparrow that had lured him onto the roof in the first place. Fifteen minutes ago, we’d been sitting on the chaise longues, me reading, him gently purring. Then the bird had zipped past.

Eddie exploded into action. He tore after the low-flying bird, jumped up onto the railing in hot pursuit, then launched himself onto the roof.

I’d put my book down and watched the activity with bemusement. When the bird flew into the wild blue yonder, Eddie had looked down at me.

“Mrrwr.”

“You got yourself up there,” I’d told him. “You can get yourself back down.”

“Mrrwwrr!”

I could have left him there to figure out his own way, but I didn’t want the entire marina and half of Chilson to suffer the yowls of an unhappy Eddie. Muttering about the uselessness of cats, I’d borrowed a ladder from the marina office and climbed up onto the roof.

“You know what?” I asked Eddie now. “If I don’t figure out a solution to the Mitchell problem, Stephen might fire me. We’ll be out on the street with no job in sight. Aunt Frances doesn’t have room for us in the summer, and Kristen’s living above the restaurant, so I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want a cat in there. We’d be homeless. What do you think of that?”

“Mrr.” He butted his head against my cell phone. I’d brought it up onto the roof with me, just in case.

“And ‘mrr’ back at you.” I ran my hand along his long tail. “For a cat who might be out on the street soon, you don’t seem… Hey!”

He was still butting his head against the phone, and the furry action had turned on the calendar function.

“Cut it out.” I dragged the phone out from underneath him. He gave it a swipe with his paw as I pulled it away, and the calendar rolled to last week. “Stop that, will you?” His white paw snaked out again, but I held the phone out of his reach.

“Leave it alone.” I turned the phone off. “This is way too expensive for a cat toy.”

He gave me a but, Minnie, those are the best kinds of cat toys look.

“Not this time.”

“Mrr.”

“Or ever.”

“Mrr.”

I gave up. It’s hard to get the last word when you’re having a conversation with a cat.

Chapter 8

“Who’s going for lunch today?” Donna asked late the next morning.

“I went last week,” Kelsey said.

“Pretty sure I went the week before.” Josh kept his hands in his pockets, dodging the list that Donna was trying to pass to him.

Over the last couple of months, the library staff had fallen into the habit of ordering Wednesday lunch from the Round Table. Whoever happened to be at the main desk took orders, and the fetching task rotated among everyone else.

I was pretty sure that Josh had no idea about the last time he’d walked down for the orders, but I was very sure that the topic wasn’t worth pursuing. “I’ll go. It’s a beautiful day.”

Donna grinned and handed me the paper. “It’s all yours, toots.”

Toots? I looked down at the lengthy list. “All right, who’s ordering onion rings? You know how Stephen hates the smell of onions in the library.” I kept reading the list. “Four orders of onion rings? Are you kidding me?” I looked up, but they had already scattered.

“Weenies,” I called. “You’re all a bunch of weenies.” Laughter came back to me and I shook my head, smiling. They were weenies, but I didn’t know what I’d do without them.

I headed out into the warmth of a July day. In the not so far distance, Janay Lake was dotted by sailboats and powerboats with long tails of white-edged wake. Here in town, cars lined every street within three blocks of downtown. Ah, summer.

As I walked, I played the license plate game. Mostly Michigan plates, of course, but once I got to the main drag I hit the mother lode. An Ohio plate. New York. Missouri. California. Wisconsin. Colorado. And two Illinois for a total of eight out-of-state plates in a five-minute walk. A new record for Minnie!

I walked into the Round Table. Since it was summer and it was lunchtime, the place was packed with people I didn’t recognize. Instead of the familiar faces I saw September through May, I saw sun-kissed cheeks and windblown hair and felt the infectious high spirits that people get when they’re on vacation and having a good time.

“You’re here for the library’s order, right?” the young woman at the cash register asked. “It’ll be up in just a couple minutes. You want to pay now?”

I handed over the bills that Donna had given me along with the list and smirked a little on the inside. “Keep the change.” It would serve them right for the onion rings.

“Hello, Ms. Hamilton.”

Behind me were Detectives Devereaux and Inwood, the two police officers I’d dealt with a few weeks ago. Though we’d started off on the wrong foot, and then found that the other foot was also wrong, we’d ended up… well, perhaps not actually liking each other, but with grounds for mutual respect.

I nodded at the men. Both were in their late fifties; both had graying hair and tired looks. Then the similarities ended. I’d had trouble remembering which detective was which until a smart young deputy had told me about the letters. Detective Inwood was tall and thin, like the letter I. Detective Devereaux was shorter and rounder, exactly like a D, making him the embodiment of a D word.

“Detectives.” D words, everywhere you looked. “How are you this fine day?”

Inwood grunted noncommittally. “So, how long have you known Russell McCade?”

“I know Barb a lot better.” Which was true and didn’t exactly answer his question, but I was okay with that.

“So you’ve known the McCades for some time?”

I put my chin up in the air, the better to stare him straight in the eye with. “Is this an official questioning?” I asked. “Because as I recall, Mr. McCade was released the other night. Seems to me that Daniel Markakis wouldn’t take kindly to this line of questioning, not after what the medical examiner’s report showed.”

Detective Devereaux chuckled. Inwood sighed. “Ms. Hamilton, we’re doing our job. All avenues have to be explored.”

“Seems to me this one’s a dead end,” I said. It came out a little snappy, but these two had a gift for bringing out the snark in me. “There must be other streets to go down.” I smiled, trying to be jovial. “Lanes, even. Alleys. Courts. Roads.”