Лори Касс - Tailing A Tabby

“Hi, Ivy,” I said pleasantly. “What can I do for you?”

There was a short beat of silence, and then she said, “My daughter wound me up and pointed me in your direction, so here I am.”

“And I hope I can answer whatever question you have.” I smiled. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

A tiny line appeared in the middle of her forehead. Not quite a frown, but not nearly the smile of a moment ago. “Didn’t Barb tell you I’d be here this morning?”

Light dawned in a great blinding flash. I blinked from its intensity. “You’re Barb McCade’s mother?” This woman didn’t look anywhere near old enough to be the mother of someone in her fifties. Maybe she was a stepmother. Sure, that was it.

She laughed. “Had Barb when I was twenty-five. Give you a piece of advice, Minnie. Slop on that sunscreen and stay active.”

I looked her up and down, admiration plain on my face. “I’ll take that into serious consideration.”

“The best day of my life was when I turned seventy,” she said. “Around here, they practically give you ski passes for free at that age. Do you ski?”

“A little.”

“Keep it up. Do squats every day,” she recommended. “Even if you don’t have time to do anything else, everybody can find a minute to do twenty squats.”

And this was the woman I’d been afraid would be too frail to help out on the bookmobile. Then again, there were other things to consider. “How are you with computers?” All the books got checked out and in through a laptop. If Ivy wasn’t computer-savvy, we had a problem.

“Spent the last twenty years of my career teaching computer programming to inattentive college students,” she said. “As long as you don’t want me to work in Java, I’m okay.”

I was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about coffee, so I moved on to the next question. “Do you get along with kids?”

“Love ’em.”

I looked left and right, then leaned forward. “How about cats?” I whispered.

“Have three of my own,” she whispered back. “They love it at Barb and Cade’s place.”

Which settled the deal. I told her to meet me by the bookmobile garage early the next morning and advised her to pack a lunch. She nodded, sketched a wave, and headed off to whatever her next appointed task might be.

I watched her go, thinking that I suddenly had a new role model for what to be like in retirement.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Stephen standing in front of the desk, his hands on his hips.

“I would like a progress report regarding The Situation,” he said.

Meaning Mitchell. But since I’d made no progress, there wasn’t much of a report to give him. I hesitated, then asked, “In a case like this, what would you do?”

“I,” Stephen said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “would give the problem to the person who was hired to take care of such things.”

“Oh,” I said. Then I remembered I wasn’t afraid of Stephen and bucked up. “To tell you the truth, I don’t see it as a real problem.”

“What you don’t see,” Stephen snapped, “is the bad side of anyone or anything. Take care of this, Minnie.”

I watched him go, wondering why being optimistic was such a horrible thing. Then the phone rang, I was asked about the origin of the ampersand, and the Moratorium on Mitchell went to the back of my brain.

• • •

“What’re you doing, Minnie?”

I looked away from the computer screen to see Mitchell’s hands flat on the front of the reference desk. Classic Mitchell: on the edge of rude, but not so far over the edge that you had to say something.

“Research,” I said, pushing back from the computer. And I’d been at it way too long. Not only was it more than an hour past my scheduled work time, but it was past my stomach’s preferred suppertime. I started to stand.

“What are you researching?” he asked, leaning around to look at the screen.

“Grants,” I said. “I’m looking for operational funds for the bookmobile.” I’d also been trying to find anything that might help prove Cade’s innocence, but that wasn’t something you could put into a search engine.

Mitchell didn’t appear to be interested in the bookmobile problems. “Say,” he said, “know what I found out?”

“No idea.” This time I stood all the way up.

“Let me show you.” He came around and sat in the chair I’d just left.

I sighed. “Mitchell, you can’t use the reference desk computer.”

“Hang on, this will just take a second.” He tapped rapidly at the keyboard. “Remember I said the police were going to arrest Carissa’s boss? Well, looks like the real killer was someone else.”

Surprise, surprise. “Mitchell, you really can’t—” I stopped. The Web site materializing on the screen was Cade’s Facebook page.

“See this guy?” Mitchell pointed. “What I hear is that he’s the one they’re tagging to be the killer.”

“How did you hear that?” I asked, so fiercely that the patrons sitting at nearby tables turned to look. I smiled. When they turned away, I turned back to Mitchell. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “I hear things.”

I’d just bet he did. Sometimes I wondered if he and Rafe were related. Closely. “Sorry to break this to you,” I said, “but Cade has an alibi.”

“He does?”

“A solid one.” At least I hoped so.

“Well, shoot.” Mitchell squinted at the screen. “Here I thought I was going to help the police by seeing something in this Cade guy’s Facebook posts.”

“His wife is the one who puts up the pictures and writes the posts.”

“How do you know?” Mitchell asked.

“I hear things,” I said, grinning, but Mitchell just nodded.

“Sure, you probably hear lots of stuff, being a librarian and everything.” He was scrolling down through Cade’s page. “And out on the bookmobile, you…” He stopped at a photo. “Say, that’s Carissa, isn’t it? With that guy? Huh. He’s a lot older than I would have figured.” Mitchell clicked the button to read all of the comments that had been posted regarding the picture. “Uh, Minnie? Did you see this?”

We both read the comment. “One down, one to go,” it stated.

For a second I couldn’t breathe.

“Um…” Mitchell’s voice cracked. “Is that the killer?”

“Maybe,” I said, and I was happy that my own voice was steady. Mostly, anyway.

“Hey,” Mitchell said. “If the killer’s posting on Facebook, that’ll help the police find him, right?”

I looked at Cade’s number of Facebook fans. Eight hundred forty-five thousand, nine hundred and fifteen. No wonder his agent had pushed for a social media presence. “Look at the name. ‘John Doe.’ That’s probably not on the guy’s birth certificate.”

“Oh.” Mitchell deflated. “Still, the police are probably figuring something out from the guy’s Facebook identity.”

I thumped him on the shoulder. “You know something? You could be right.”

And I sincerely hoped he was.

• • •

The next morning, as the sun was heaving itself up over the Chilson skyline, I gave Ivy a lesson on the inner workings of the bookmobile. She was a fast learner, and we had time for a stop at the back door of Cookie Tom’s before we hit the road. Earlier in the summer, that wonderful man had promised me a discount rate and speedy service anytime the bookmobile wanted to stop for provisions on the way out of town. Sometimes there were even cookies left over for the patrons.

Ivy peered into the bag. “Lovely. Nothing like coconut chocolate chip.”

“I’m glad you’re okay with cookies,” I said. “My other volunteer has become so health-conscious that I feel guilty eating anything as horrible as oatmeal raisin.”