Лори Касс - Lending А Paw

“Miss?”

I shrieked, Eddie yowled. I shrieked again as Eddie’s claws sank into my thighs. He yowled again as I scrambled to my feet. He detached his claws from my skin and launched himself across the console, onto the passenger seat, and into the back corner of his cupboard.

The sheriff’s deputy who had started the chain of unfortunate events stood there, dripping rainwater onto the carpet. “Minnie Hamilton?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said as politely as I could while enduring level seven pain. The agony created by cat claws would drop soon, but there was going to be some teeth-gritting in the interim.

“I’m Deputy Wolverson. Sorry if you didn’t hear me come in. I have a few questions for you.”

What I minded was the water he was leaving on the new carpet. I reached for the roll of paper towels. “Would you like to dry off a little?”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” I tossed the roll to him and he had little choice but to catch it. “You’re dripping all over the inside of a very expensive bookmobile and the humidity’s going up and it’ll take forever for the carpet to dry and every wet spot will collect dirt like crazy and I’ll have to hire someone to clean the carpet and I don’t know where that money is going to come from, because we don’t have anything like that in the budget for months and . . . and . . .” My mouth kept opening and shutting for a little while, but I’d run out of words.

“Ms. Hamilton, why don’t you sit down?” he asked. “Is your cat okay?” He gestured at the cabinet.

“He likes it in there.” I sat down with a thump. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scold you, it’s just . . .” But I didn’t know where to go from there. Fortunately, Deputy Wolverson did.

“Shock takes people different ways,” he said, ripping a handful of paper towels off the roll. “Some cry, some get mad, some go quiet, others talk. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

I studied him as he toweled off his hands and face. About my age, maybe a little older. Not movie star handsome, but appealing. No beer gut, seemed intelligent. And no wedding band.

Hmm.

He used a second handful of paper towels to dry off his hat and shoes. “Thanks,” he said, and tossed the wads into the wastebasket. “I have a few questions to ask. Do you feel up to it?”

I nodded. “There’s a chair in the back, if you want.”

The chair had a bungee cord that held it in place en route. Wolverson deftly unhooked the cord and rolled the chair forward. He sat down with an athletic grace and took a small notepad out of his front shirt pocket.

“Minnie Hamilton, employee of the Chilson District Library, right? Can I have your address and phone number? . . . Okay, thanks. So you found the gentleman in the house at what time?”

“About an hour and a half ago.”

“You were parked here? Why did you go to the house?”

I glanced at Eddie’s cabinet. “My cat. He ran out of the bookmobile. I followed him to that farmhouse and that’s when I found Stan.”

“Stan?” Wolverson glanced up. “You know the victim? What’s his last name?”

Maybe he wasn’t as intelligent as I’d thought. “You mean you don’t know?”

The deputy’s polite face suddenly didn’t look quite so friendly. “We found no form of identification on the victim’s body. If you have information, please share it.”

The victim. A wave of spotted black filled my vision. I grabbed the edge of the seat and held on tight. No fainting. There weren’t any smelling salts on board, and anyway, I’d read they were nasty. “It’s Stan Larabee.”

Deputy Wolverson’s sudden intake of breath wasn’t exactly a gasp, but it was close. “The Larabee Development Stan Larabee?”

And Larabee Enterprises and Larabee Realty and Larabee Limited. Before I’d gone to Stan with my proverbial hat in hand, I’d done my research to make sure he was as rich as everybody said. It turned out he had more money than anyone had guessed.

I nodded, and the deputy thumbed his shoulder microphone. “Dispatch, this is two eight seven. Victim was male and approximately seventy years old. Identification is . . .” He looked at me. “You’re sure it’s Stan Larabee?”

“Definitely.”

He went back to his microphone. “Identification is confirmed. Cause of death is homicide, repeat, homicide.”

The microphone popped and crackled. “Roger that, two eight seven.”

Deputy Wolverson flipped his notebook shut and gave me a straight look. “Is there anything else we should know?”

Homicide. Stan was murdered. I’d known that as soon as I’d seen that small, horrible hole, but hearing the word spoken out loud was doing disturbing things to all sorts of emotions. “I can’t think of anything,” I said. “Do you know . . .” No, stupid question. The deputy had only been there a few minutes. Of course he didn’t know who’d killed Stan.

The deputy waited for me to finish my sentence. When I didn’t, he said, “The department’s detectives will be investigating the incident.” He tucked the notebook into one shirt pocket and pulled a business card from another. “But if you remember anything important before they contact you, here’s my name and phone number.”

I reached for the card and saw that my fingers were trembling. I made a quick open-and-shut-and-open fist, then took the card. DEPUTY ASH WOLVERSON, it read. “Um, I really don’t have any idea what might or might not be important.”

“Use your best judgment.”

My fingers started quivering again. I sat on them. “Um, I’m sure you noticed that the back door on the house was broken open.” He nodded. For some reason I nodded back. “And that car across the parking lot is probably his.” Stan was a car collector. Every time I saw him driving, it seemed he was driving something different.

He turned, noted the location of the car, then took some notes. “Anything else? No? Well, thanks for your help, and you have my card if you remember more.” He stood, opened the door, letting in the sound of pounding rain and the scent of wet earth, and left.

“Stan,” I whispered. “Oh, Stan.”

Eddie’s head popped out of the cabinet. He sniffed left, sniffed right, then jumped down and made his way over to me. He stood directly in front of my toes and looked up at me, yellow cat eyes intent on mine.

I patted my thighs.

He continued to stare at me.

“Oh, fine.” I leaned forward, scooped him up, and deposited him on my lap. He clunked the point of my chin with the top of his head and started purring.

“Murder,” I said quietly. “Stan was murdered. That’s so . . . wrong.”

Eddie stomped around. Either he was working on a new dance step or he was trying to make my lap more comfortable for himself.

“How could it be murder? And why?” But even as I asked the second question, I knew the answer. Stan was rich. Incredibly rich. You didn’t have to look very far to figure a motive for this one.

“But why here?” Sure, Tonedagana County had more remote places than this; there was a state forest not far away. And the next township south of here didn’t have even a village inside its borders.

Eddie found whatever it was that he wanted in a lap and flopped down.

“Could Stan have been looking at the property, thinking about developing?”

“Mrr.”

I nodded and started scratching his ears. “You’re probably right. Developing anything out here would be nuts.” The closest expressway was more than an hour away. Even the closest two-lane state highway was half an hour away. Not exactly easy access.

“Besides,” I said, “that day I picked up the check, he said he was done with developing. Time to spend money instead of making it.” He’d laughed as he’d said it, though. Where had his laughter come from?