Лори Касс - Tailing A Tabby

Greg, who had been tickling Eddie’s toes, glanced over at Brett. “Carissa,” he said. “I knew of her, I guess. But I didn’t know her know her if you know what I mean.”

Sort of. “Where did you meet her?” I asked.

“Don’t really remember. Ready to head out, Brett?” Greg stood, and so did his friend. “We need to get going,” Greg said. “Chris Ballou sent me over here to look at a boat, and these pictures aren’t quite what I wanted, so I need to get some more. See you later, okay?” He sketched a quick wave and walked briskly toward the parking lot.

“Well, that was weird.” I scooped an unresisting Eddie into my arms and we headed back. “If he’s going to take more pictures of that boat, he’s headed in the wrong direction.”

“Mrr.”

Then we were at the bookmobile. I had to introduce Eddie to a new circle of admirers, and I put the odd conversation to the back of my mind.

• • •

After an early dinner, Eddie and I hung out on the front of the houseboat, watching the boats cruise past and enjoying the gentle breeze and sunshine that was just starting its evening slant.

I picked up the newspaper and watched as the sports section slid out down to the deck. Convenient for me, since I never read the sports section. “Say,” I asked Eddie, “did you see the look on Thessie’s face when I told her I’d been talking to Greg Plassey? I think the girl was a wee bit starstruck.”

One of Eddie’s ears twitched, but other than that, he didn’t seem to care about retired Major League Baseball players.

“That conversation with Greg was a little weird, wasn’t it?” I asked. “Kind of makes you wonder. It was almost as if—oof!”

Eddie’s leap from his chaise longue to mine ended in a wild sprawl halfway across my lower abdomen and all over the newspaper. The now-crumpled newspaper.

“Jeez, cat,” I said, pulling the newsprint out from underneath him. “You could have given me some warning. I know that kind of thing isn’t part of your genetic makeup, but maybe you could evolve a little? Just for me?”

He rotated one and a half times, settled onto my legs, and started purring. Which I’m pretty sure was cat for Not a chance, but it’s cute of you to ask.

I muttered about rotten cats, gave him a few pets, then tried to uncrumple my paper. I wasn’t one of those people like my father, whose day could be ruined by a newspaper that wasn’t pristine, but even I preferred my printed news to be on sheets that didn’t have peaks and valleys in every paragraph.

“You know,” I told Eddie as I smoothed the pages, “you could have jumped on the end of the chaise and walked up. That way you wouldn’t have crinkled anything. Okay, I know, I know. The way you did it was much more fun for you, and that’s what really counts.”

Outstanding. Not only was I talking to my cat; I was also answering for him. The habit was getting a little out of hand and—

“Huh,” I said. “Would you look at that?”

Given his body language, Eddie wasn’t going to look at anything except the insides of his eyelids, but I kept going anyway.

“There was a boat explosion a couple of weeks ago, remember?” I was sure I’d read the short article to him. “That big one that blew up out on Lake Michigan? Well,” I said, scanning to the end of the article, “it turns out that the guy on the boat was Hugo Edel, can you believe it?”

Eddie apparently did, because he sighed and settled down deeper into my lap. I kept reading.

“This says Edel was out on the big lake alone. He was thrown from the boat in the explosion. Then another boat zoomed over to the site and picked him up.” Except for Edel’s name, that much had been in the newspaper before. Eddie started moving around, but I kept sharing my stream-of-consciousness thoughts.

“Anyway, the investigation is over and they’re saying it’s an accident. I wonder how close that boat explosion was to Carissa’s murder, timingwise. Which kind of makes you wonder if the two things are related somehow. And I wonder if Faye has called the sheriff’s office about Edel. Do you think I should—”

“Mrr-rrrooww.”

I lowered the paper and looked at my cat, who was now lying along the length of my shins with his chin propped over the tip of my right flip-flop. “Was that a yawn,” I asked, “or is your dinner disagreeing with you?”

“Mrr.”

“Back at you, pal.” I dropped the newspaper and pulled him onto my lap for a good snuggle. “Back at you.”

Chapter 10

Sunday passed as my Sundays often did, with morning chores, a few hours at the library, and dessert with Kristen. Monday I didn’t have to work at all, so of course it started out cloudy with a spattering of rain. Then, just as I was gathering my dirty clothes to haul to the marina’s coin laundry, the sun broke through the clouds. What had been a gray day of mild summer gloom instantly transformed into an outstanding morning.

Eddie, who had been following me, twining around my ankles and criticizing my cleaning efforts as only a cat can, spotted his favorite square of sunshine and settled down in the middle of the kitchen floor with a purring sigh.

I looked at the piles of laundry, looked out at the enticing blue sky, looked at my cat. “What do you think, Eddie? Should I be a responsible adult and do the chores that need doing, or should I skip out into the sunshine and play the rest of the day?”

He opened one eyelid, gave me a brief look, then went back to sleep.

Play. He’d clearly said play. No doubt about it.

I ate a quick lunch of peanut butter and jelly, scrawled my vague plans on the kitchen whiteboard as I promised my mother I would always do, and headed out.

• • •

“So much for playing,” I said. Or that’s what I would have said if I’d had the breath to talk. The hill up which I was riding my bike was far steeper than any hill had a right to be. And I had a feeling that the hill wouldn’t seem nearly as precipitous when going the other way. How a hill could be twice as steep riding up as riding down, I didn’t know, but it was one of those harsh realities of life.

After leaving the snoring Eddie, I’d decided a bike ride was a good idea and hauled my bicycle out of my marina storage unit. Then I’d decided it would be an excellent idea to take a look at Carissa’s house. I used my cell to call Jari for the address, then set off. Then up. As in serious amounts of up.

At long last, I topped the hill and turned onto a tree-lined street. The houses on the right were set back from the road, perched on the edge of the hill with a fine view of Janay Lake. These were old homes, built in the early nineteen hundreds by upper-middle-class people come north from Chicago or the Detroit area for the summer. Lots of clapboard, lots of gingerbread trim, lots of porches and swings and irrigated lawns.

The houses on the left were a little different. Most were ranch houses set close to the road, and looked as if they’d been built in the last thirty years. Nice enough, but none had anywhere near the class of their across-the-street neighbors.

I had slowed to the point of wobbliness while reading the house numbers. Carissa’s address was half of a duplex. The left side of the house had curtains drawn across every window, so I swung down my bike’s kickstand and walked to the front door on the right, where the windows had half-open blinds. On a Monday morning in July, the people who lived here were probably at work.

Knocking on the door, I imagined a young family renting this place while trying to save money for a down payment on a house. I had started visualizing their dog as a golden retriever when the front door was flung open.

“What do you want?” The man barking at me was tall and wide and hadn’t shaved in at least two days.