Лори Касс - Tailing A Tabby

“Yeah,” I murmured, “I know. The odds seem against it, don’t they? And…” Another piece jiggled into place. “And I’m sure that Greg Plassey was holding something back about Carissa. What if he had been involved with her in some way? What if his accident had something to do with her death? What if all of them did?”

Maybe I was wrong, but maybe I was right, and that meant someone would have to find out more about the relationships between these men and Carissa.

“That someone being me,” I said, and for some reason that got Eddie purring and settling into my lap as if he had no intention of ever moving.

My thoughts went darker.

Suppose that Greg’s, Trock’s, and Hugo’s accidents weren’t truly accidents. Maybe, somehow, they had something to do with Carissa’s death. Maybe someone was out to get all the men Carissa was linked to.

Not only did I have to make sure Cade didn’t go to jail; I might have to save them all from being killed.

Eddie deepened his purr and curled up into a tight furry ball.

“Then again,” I said, “I might be wrong about all this. Maybe one of these guys is actually the killer.”

Eddie stopped purring and reached out with one paw to bat me on the back of my hand.

“Sorry.” I started petting him. “How many strokes would you like, Sir Eddie? Two? Three?” I paused. “An infinite number?”

That’s when he started purring again.

Chapter 14

The next morning I looked up the phone number for Faye, the cookbook lady, and called as soon as the first flurry of library activities was over.

“Good morning,” I said. “This is Minnie from the bookmobile and—”

“Those books can’t be overdue already, can they?” she asked. “I’ve only had them just over a week. Were they a short-term loan? I am so sorry!”

I laughed. “Faye, don’t worry. It’s more than a week until we come back to your stop. At the speed you go through books, you’ll have plenty of time.”

She sighed her relief into the phone. “You had me worried for a second.”

“No need. Matter of fact,” I said, “I was a little worried about you and that’s why I called. You seemed a little upset about your cousin on the last bookmobile run, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“That’s so sweet,” she said.

I winced at myself a little, because I was calling under mostly false pretenses. Sure, I had been a little concerned about her, but I was mostly interested in her cousin, the one who’d known Carissa. If I could get her name, maybe I knew her, or maybe I could call her and find out a little more about Carissa.

“Thanks so much,” Faye said, “but I’m fine now, pretty much.”

“It was your cousin that you were concerned about, wasn’t it?” I asked.

“What a good memory you have! Yes, I’d been a little worried about Randall. It must have been so frightening, to have the police come talk to him like that.”

I stared out my office window but didn’t see anything. “Your cousin’s name is Randall?”

“Randall Moffit,” Faye said. “First cousin on my mother’s side.”

Why had I assumed her cousin was female? I tried to remember exactly what she’d said that day, but it was long gone out of my head.

“Anyway,” Faye was saying, “somehow the police knew that Randall had dated Carissa for a little while.”

I sat up straight. “He had?” How had I not known this?

“It was a long time ago,” Faye assured me. “Even still, I’m so glad he had a nice, solid alibi for the night she was killed. He was downstate to a Tigers game with some friends. They’d dressed up silly with blue paint and whatnot. They were shown on television and it’s hard to get a better alibi than that.”

“How nice,” I said faintly.

“You are a sweetie, aren’t you?” Faye laughed. “So Randall’s safe, and I don’t have to worry about him a bit.”

I hung up and continued to stare at nothing. So the detectives were indeed looking for other suspects. As they’d said that day at the Round Table, they were doing their job.

But if Faye wasn’t worrying any longer, I still was. Because what suspect was ever going to look better than the man who’d been at the crime scene with the murder weapon in his hand?

• • •

That evening, I watched with concern as Tucker rubbed his nose. It was a beautiful Wednesday evening, and we were about to take our first official bike ride as a couple. The plan was for a shortish ride, then a return to his car for a picnic supper, then another ride. On the way home from work, I’d stopped by a downtown deli for sandwiches, pasta salad, and chips. It all fit nicely into the wooden-lidded picnic basket I’d originally used for an Eddie carrier—recycling at its finest—and I’d been adding bottled water when Tucker had arrived.

“Hey there.” He’d knocked on the screen door and let himself in. “Is that dinner? Looks good.”

I’d laughed and given him a hug. “The lid is closed. You can’t possibly know what’s inside, so how can you say it looks good?”

He’d picked it up. “A full picnic basket is a good picnic basket, so—” He’d gotten a funny expression on his face, dropped the basket back onto the counter, buried his face in his shoulder, and started sneezing.

Now, as we fiddled with unloading the bikes from the top of his car’s rack, I eyed him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“That was a pretty nasty sneezing fit you had back there. You’re not coming down with something, are you?”

“Nope.” He flipped my bike off the rack and thumped its tires on the ground, bouncing it a little.

I moved over to take it from him. “Don’t they say that doctors make the worst patients?”

“They do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t diagnose myself.” He reached up and started unlatching his bike. “The good news is that Dr. Kleinow says I’m fine.”

“And the bad news?”

“Is that we have only two and a half hours before the sun sets.” He turned and grinned over his shoulder.

When he did that, he was downright gorgeous. My skin tingled a little. This smart, gorgeous man was all mine for the evening and—

An electronic noise sounded from Tucker’s belt. Eee-ooo , eee-ooo.

“Is that… ?” I nodded at his cell phone. The ring tone had sounded a lot like an ambulance siren.

“Yeah. It’s the hospital. But I’m not on call, so…” He put the phone to his ear. “Dr. Kleinow.” As he listened, he gave me a long glance. Then he reached up to refasten his bicycle. “Yes,” he told whoever was on the other end. “I can be there in half an hour.”

He thumbed off the phone, turned to me, and took my hand. “Minnie, I am so, so sorry, but I have to go.”

“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re a doctor. I understand.”

He kissed the back of my hand, and my skin tingled again. “This shouldn’t have happened,” he said, “but there’s been a multicar accident and they need all hands.” He blew out a breath and looked at my bike. “I’ll take you home, but then I have to—”

“No, you don’t.”

“What?” He blinked at me. “Of course I’ll take you home.”

But I was already rolling my bike out of the way of his car. “You get to the hospital. They need you and I can take care of myself. Been doing it for, oh, three or four days now without any problems.”

He smiled briefly. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to leave you.”

“Don’t be a mother hen.” I threw one leg over my bike. “I ride by myself all the time. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?”

“Get going,” I said. “And don’t forget to eat your sandwich.”