Лори Касс - Lending А Paw

Since he didn’t say no, I herded the bits into a pile and dumped them into the wastebasket. “I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t mistake those for your litter box.”

Eddie gave me a look that was obviously meant to say I should be grateful for a lot more than that.

I slid on undergarments, shorts, and a T-shirt and chucked him under the chin. “I’m always grateful for your presence, pal, but especially tonight. Did you see Gunnar’s face?” I giggled. “Mr. Big Shot Consultant Don’t Mess with Me or I’ll Sic My Lawyers on You is scared of cats.”

Eddie yawned, showing his sharp teeth. I grinned. If Gunnar had seen those, he would have run for his life.

“And that’s his style,” I said, pulling my fingers through my wet and unruly hair. “Lawyers. If someone gets in his way, he’d hire a battalion of attorneys to fight for him. He wouldn’t do any fighting himself.” My fingers caught on a snarl and I yelped as I tugged through. “Still, did you hear what he said about Stan?”

Another yawn came from the Eddie quarter. He jumped down, made a beeline to the wastebasket, and started rubbing the side of his face against it.

“Cut that out,” I said. “I just filled that. With your mess.”

He rubbed harder and the wastebasket tipped over, sending small bits of paper halfway across the carpet.

“Oh, good job.” I knelt down to clean it up a second time. Eddie sat tall as an Egyptian cat statue and watched me work. “I’m spending twice as much time cleaning up this research as I did doing it.”

“Mrr.”

“Yeah, well, thanks for your comments, but the suggestion box is closed. Try again next . . .” My voice tailed off as I looked at the piece of paper in my hand. It was the only piece still intact and it was kind of a flowchart I’d made of names. I’d added circles and arrows and scrawled questions that had led to no answers whatsoever.

I remembered how I’d stared at it, thinking of previous generations and families and long-ago loves and hates and deaths and motivations.

“You know,” I said slowly. “Gunnar looks guilty as all get-out, but maybe . . . maybe the reason behind Stan’s death isn’t a recent reason. Maybe it came from a long time ago. Maybe . . . I wonder . . .” All those sisters. What were the chances that one of them had murder lurking in her heart? Were the police looking into their alibis? Then again, Stan had been seventy. How likely was it that his sisters were still hale and hearty?

“You know what?” I mused out loud. “I need to know more about Stan’s past.”

My cat catapulted himself onto my shoulder and clonked his forehead against the side of my skull. “Ow! Eddie, jeez, what’s with you?” He started purring loud enough to rattle my teeth. I reached up to pet him. “You are such an Eddie.”

“Mrr,” he said, and purred some more.

Chapter 14

I rolled out of bed early the next morning and trotted up to the library as the sun was creaking over the hilltops. No one else would be in for at least two hours, so I had a nice slice of time to start my research into Stan’s past.

Though many of the old local newspapers had been microfilmed, microfiched, or scanned, many had not. The grant I’d obtained had paid for archiving about half of the library’s newspapers. After long debate, we’d decided to start with the most recent issues and work our way backward. It was a decision I now regretted. Deeply.

We’d shoehorned the unarchived papers into the local history room. I turned on the overhead lights, shocking the sleeping books, and went straight to the narrow drawers that held seventy-year-old copies of the Chilson Gazette .

There were a lot of newspapers.

A lot .

“Well,” I said out loud. This project could possibly take longer than I’d hoped it would. But was there any other way to get the information I needed? Any easier way?

I couldn’t think of one. So I scraped out a chair, sat down, and got to work.

• • •

In the end, it didn’t take as long as I thought it might. I knew the year Stan was born, so all I had to do was find the page of the newspaper where the births were typically printed and hunt through the papers until I found the right announcement.

“Stanley Warren Larabee,” it read, “born at home to Silas and Belinda Larabee. Seven pounds, ten ounces. Mother, infant, and his six older sisters are doing well.”

“Onward and upward,” I said, and put that newspaper away. Next was high school. Back in Stan’s day, Chilson was the location of the only high school in the county. The library didn’t have a complete set of old yearbooks, so the paper was the next best source. I had no idea if Stan had played any sports, been a member of any clubs, or excelled at anything that might have been considered newsworthy fifty-odd years ago, but I had to look. Who knew what I’d find?

What I found, after an hour and a half, was nothing. Maybe Stan had been too busy on the family farm. Maybe he didn’t care about sports, maybe he hadn’t wanted to join the debate club. Maybe—

“Oh, my,” I breathed. “My, my, my.” I’d found the edition of the newspaper with pictures of the graduating seniors from Chilson High School. There, in black and white and gray, was a photo of a young Stanley W. Larabee. I could see no resemblance between the Stan I’d known and this young man, but there was his name, and there was the picture right above it. And since there were only thirty-seven kids graduating, it wasn’t likely that the paper had gotten the names mixed up.

“Wow,” I said. “Stan was gorgeous .” Saying the words out loud made me cringe. Somehow, admiring the youthful looks of a murdered elderly man felt downright weird. And a little creepy, to boot.

For a moment, I wondered if I was being disrespectful. I couldn’t see it, but maybe it was another moral question for my mother. One of these days I should write them all down and actually ask her.

Idly, I paged through a few more editions. What I’d hoped for hadn’t materialized. I’d hoped to find evidence of sport- or activity-oriented friendships, hoped that I could find some of the friends, hoped to ask a few questions that would lead me to something that would lead me to—

And there it was. Black and white and no gray, this time, because it was a short text-only announcement. Extremely short. Like one sentence short.

“Marriage license to Stanley W. Larabee, 18, and Audry M. Noss, 17.”

Audry. That was the name of the woman in the bookmobile, the one who’d been helping out at Maple View. Her name had been Audry. And how many Audrys roughly seventy years old could there be in Tonedagana County? What were the odds that my Audry and Stan’s were the same?

I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

• • •

“Here’s a nice table for you two,” the hostess said, grinning from ear to ear. “Here are your menus and this is the wine list.” She aimed the latter in Tucker’s direction. “The wine steward will be with you in just a moment.” She winked at me broadly and left.

I sighed. “This may not have been a good idea.”

“No?” Tucker picked up the wine list but didn’t open it. “I’ve wanted to eat here ever since I moved up north. Everyone says it’s great.” He studied me. “Have you had a bad experience here? Because we don’t have to stay. We can—” He stopped and looked up. “Hello,” he said politely.

“Good evening,” Kristen said, grinning wide. “My name is Kristen and I’ll be your server tonight.”

I stared at her. “You will not.”

She opened my menu and slid it in front of me. “I can think of nothing I’d like to do more than help you plan your dinner.”