Лори Касс - Tailing A Tabby

“I’m sure her husband would appreciate the sentiment,” I said.

Rafe was impervious to the sarcasm. “Yeah, he probably would. I mean, who wouldn’t like to have a hot wife?”

He went on about the happiness of hotness, but I’d gone backward a little, to thinking about neighbors. “Hey, Rafe?”

“What’s that?”

One nice thing about Rafe was that he didn’t mind switching topics in the blink of an eye. Did that come of working with middle school kids? Or was it his innate ability to do so that made him good with the kids? I pushed the questions away. “Do you know a Rob Pew? He lives in a duplex up the hill, in the unit next door to where that woman was killed a few weeks back.”

“Pewey Lewey?” Rafe grinned, his teeth showing white against his skin, which, since it was late summer, was a deep burnished red. “Sure. He’s one of my hunting buddies, come November.”

Ha. I knew what “hunting” meant for any group of guys that included Rafe. It meant a week of staying up late, playing cards, imbibing copious amounts of adult canned beverages, sleeping late, then waking up and doing it all over again. “When was the last time you actually got a deer?”

Rafe’s grin went even wider. “Need-to-know basis, Miss Minnie. Anyway, what about Pewey?”

I started to frame my question, but Rafe was still talking. “Wonder if Pewey’s going to make it up to deer camp this year. He works nights for what’s their names, that company making interior panels for cars. They got a big new contract and Lewey’s been signed up for double shifts, afternoon and midnights for over a month now.” Rafe squinted at a green wire. “Nuts, if you ask me, but he’s trying to save money for a log cabin up near Newberry. Why do you want to know?”

So there was no way Rob Pew could have killed Carissa. And so much for that gut feeling of imminent danger that I’d had when he answered the door in such a surly fashion. All I’d been reacting to was the man’s response to extreme sleep-deprivation, just as Abby had said. Still, I was glad I’d corroborated with a second knowledgeable source. “Does anyone call him Rob?”

Whistling, Rafe picked up his wire cutters and stripped off the end of a yellow-coated wire. “Not even his mother.”

• • •

At noon the next day, I pushed back from my desk and looked at what I’d accomplished so far.

I’d moved Stephen’s notes on employee handbook revisions from one side of my desk to the other. I’d tidied up the books sent to the library for donation purposes and for which thank-you letters should be sent. I’d scrawled out a short list of possible Thessie Replacements, made a few phone calls, and subsequently had to draw a line through each of the names.

So, how much had I accomplished that morning? Basically nothing. Clearly, what I needed was a hefty dose of caffeine.

My empty Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services mug and I made our way to the break room, which was also empty. Odd, for noon, but I reminded myself that I wasn’t there to socialize. No, indeedy, I was there for fluid replenishment and to stretch my legs.

Still, I took my time, sipping at my coffee until it was half-gone, then filling the mug again slowly. I watched the dark liquid stream down, watching its smooth texture, thinking about the long history of coffee, wondering how far these particular beans had traveled, guessing that they’d come much farther than I’d ever gone and—

“Hey.”

My arm jerked, coffee spilled, and a small brown puddle spread itself across the counter. “Hey, Josh.” I put the carafe back on the burner and yanked a paper towel out of the holder. “How was your weekend?”

I heard a male grunt followed by the whir of a dollar bill being sucked into the soda machine followed by the thunk of a can dropping out of the machine. I tossed the sodden paper towel into the garbage and got out a fresh one.

“That good, huh?” I asked Josh. “I thought it was the big second date with Megan. Weren’t you going up to the Side Door?” The Side Door Saloon in Petoskey, with its multiple televisions, was a hot spot for the sports-minded. It had excellent food, too, but I wasn’t sure Josh cared much about that.

Megan was a neighbor of Holly’s, and ever since Megan had stopped by to talk to Holly about babysitting Holly’s children, Josh was smitten. He’d been casting goo-goo eyes at her for months, and we’d all cheered when he finally found the gumption to ask her out.

Josh shoved the can of diet soda into an outside pocket of his baggy pants and whirred another dollar into the machine.

I finished cleaning the counter and turned to face Josh. “Are you okay?”

The second soda can dropped down. He picked it up, popped the seal, and slugged down half the contents. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We got talking about baseball.”

Josh was a big football fan, but he was a huge baseball fan. Huge with a capital H, U, G, and E. He cared about things like spring training and openly pitied anyone who didn’t understand the infield fly rule. He could recite baseball statistics from before he was born and was too much of a purist to consider putting together a baseball fantasy league.

“You know,” I said, “it’s okay if she doesn’t like baseball. Some really smart, funny, and good-looking people don’t know much about the sport.” I tossed my hair back, but he wasn’t catching on. “Maybe you could teach her. Maybe—”

“She likes baseball just fine.” Josh upended the soda can, tapped its rim against his lower teeth, then tossed the empty can into the box of returnables.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” I tried to imagine a scenario in which having a baseball-fan girlfriend would upset Josh. Remembered one of his rants and dredged up a comment. “She’s not a fan of the designated hitter rule, is she?”

“She’s a White Sox fan,” he snapped.

I almost choked on the coffee I’d been swallowing. Josh was a true-blue die-hard Detroit Tigers fan. Listening to him talk about his team often brought to mind the reality that the term “fan” was short for “fanatic.”

“Her parents are from Chicago.” He shoved his hand into his pants pocket and extracted another dollar bill. “She said going to the old Comiskey Park is one of her earliest memories.”

I watched him jab the dollar into the machine and made a mental note to call the vending guy for an early refill. “Well,” I said lamely, “at least she’s a baseball fan.”

He pounded the machine’s plastic button with his fist. “The White Sox,” he muttered. “I can’t believe it.”

I couldn’t believe he was so upset over what was essentially just a game, but I also knew better than to say so. Of course, I’d once broken up with a boyfriend after a heated debate about the usefulness of a public library system in the age of the Internet, but that was much different.

Since Josh was obviously determined to wallow in his bad mood, and I wasn’t quite ready to go back to work, I wandered out of the break room with the intention of chatting with Donna, this morning’s front desk clerk.

I was barely halfway there when Stephen barked out my name. “Minnie!”

Through a combination of sheer luck and exquisite hand-eye coordination that no one except me would ever appreciate, I did not spill the contents of my coffee mug. I pasted on a polite smile and turned to face my boss. “Good morning, Stephen. How’s the report progressing?”

One of Stephen’s pet projects was a multipage saga presented to the library board on a quarterly basis. He would have loved to present one at every monthly board meeting, but they’d kindly told him that his time was valuable and could be better spent directing the library, and that a quarterly report was fine. Annual might be even better.