Лори Касс - Lending А Paw

Instead, he leaned down. “Minnie,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

The kiss was gentle and tender and soft and warm, everything you could want in a first kiss. Except for one thing.

“Hey, Minnie-Ha-Ha!”

We broke apart as Chris Ballou shouted out a second time. He was on his little Boston Whaler, coming in after an evening’s fishing. “Hey, you two aren’t doing anything I wouldn’t do, are you? Hah! Say, Min, I got an idea on how to fix your electricals. You know, that problem you been having with your bilge? Tell Rafe to stop by.”

There it was again, the odd noise Tucker had made when we were walking back to the marina. I looked more carefully this time. “You’re laughing,” I said in surprise.

“Of course I am.” He got the words out between what were now obviously bursts of uncontrollable laughter. “Your bilge? Of all the ways to ruin a kiss, that’s got to be in the top ten.”

The funny side of the evening finally hit me. I grinned. “Maybe even the top five.”

“Next time,” Tucker said, “let’s go somewhere out of town.”

His good-bye kiss was the classic peck on the cheek, but inside my heart was singing. There was going to be a next time!

• • •

The next morning I made a quick phone call to Gayle Joliffe of Maple View AFC. Out of thin air I conjured up a story about a book title that her assistant Audry and I had been trying to remember. I told Gayle I’d found the book, and if I had Audry’s last name, which I’d been told but couldn’t remember, I could look her up and give her a call.

“Oh, honey, you don’t need to go to all that trouble.” Gayle rattled off her phone number.

I hung up, thinking that the impossible had happened. Someone had been too helpful. What I really wanted was Audry’s last name. With that, I could do some library research magic and find out if this Audry and Stan’s Audry were the same person. But all I had was a first name and a phone number.

Of course, I had a phone number. And a computer with multiple search engines.

Minutes later, I had Audry’s last name (Brant), her address (17981 Valley Road), a map to her house, and enough information about her to confirm that, yes, she’d been married to Stan. Privacy? What was that?

I thought about what to do next as I finalized the July employee schedule, thought about it at lunch when I went out for a walk with Holly, thought about it all afternoon while I staffed the research desk, and thought about it while we ate dinner. “We” being Eddie, who was eating cat food, and me, who was eating take-out sesame chicken.

“What do you think?” I asked Eddie.

Since his face was in his food bowl, he paid no attention to the question.

I waited until he sat down and was licking his paw and swiping it across his face. “So, what do you think? Go talk to her? Or do I just ask around?”

Eddie picked up his head, gave me a look, then went back to concentrating on his cleaning efforts.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Asking around could take forever. The fastest way is just talk to her, I suppose. A few questions is all I have, see if she knows anything about the family feud that Aunt Frances talked about. Do you think I should call, or should I drive out there?”

Eddie put his right front paw down and picked up his left one so he could wash the other side of his face. Eddie the Clean.

“You’re no help,” I muttered.

“Mrrr.”

Since the evening had three hours of daylight left to it, I decided to take a drive out to Audry’s house. And her husband’s, I supposed, since she wasn’t using Larabee or her maiden name.

The thought of a husband slowed me down in my walk to the car. Maybe he was a huge hulking man who won arm-wrestling contests all over the country. Or maybe he was one of those militia guys and had high gates circling the property, owned lots of guns, and was prepared to shoot trespassers on sight.

“Don’t be stupid,” I told myself. If I saw any signs of that, I’d drive by, that’s all. Same if there were big growling dogs or chickens. Large groups of chickens scared the snot out of me, and by large groups I meant any number more than zero. They’d peck me to death, given half a chance, I just knew it.

By the time I turned onto Valley Road, I’d imagined Audry’s house as a ramshackle 1960s ranch with aluminum siding that had needed replacing for twenty years and a roof that was rough with age and stained with pine needles. There’d be no porch, just concrete steps, and the garage would be so crowded with junk that the cars—a rusted pickup with bullet holes in the side and an ancient Oldsmobile that didn’t run most of the time—would be parked outside.

Which was why I drove right past Audry’s house. I was so intent on finding the horrible picture I’d imagined out of absolutely nothing that it wasn’t until I saw the mailbox numbers were in the 15000s that I stopped and turned around.

House number 17981 was far from a broken-down ranch. It was an old farmhouse with a Centennial Farm sign out front. The roof was new and white trim set off the warm clapboard siding’s yellow paint. The wide porch that ran across the front of the house held a set of wicker furniture, swing included, with flowered cushions. The window boxes were filled with happy red geraniums that bobbed in the light breeze. And there, in the front yard, was Audry on her knees, weeding an exuberant flower bed.

Since there was no sign of a hulking husband, firearms, or any other sort of weapon, I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car.

Audry stood, putting her hands to the small of her back and wincing. “It’s the bookmobile girl,” she said, smiling. “What brings you out my way?”

“Stan Larabee,” I said simply, and watched her smile change to wariness. “Once upon a time,” I went on, “you were married to him. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Why?” she asked.

I saw a shadow of stubbornness starting to form on her face, but I also saw what looked like a question. And something that might have been sorrow.

“He was my friend,” I finally said.

She looked at me the same way I’d looked at her. Then, “Come on up.”

• • •

We sat on the front porch, glasses of lemonade in our hands, drinking in the view. This part of Michigan had been carved out by glaciers ten thousand years ago. Ice a mile thick had scoured the land underneath, then retreated, leaving high hills running north and south with valleys and lakes between. Audry’s house was nestled in the flat of one of those valleys, looking north across the valley’s expanse and up the length of the hills.

I sat there, enjoying the view, while Audry assembled lemonade and cookies. She set a tray on the small table between the two cushioned porch chairs. “Here we go. Yes, please go ahead and pour.” She settled into the empty chair and took the filled glass I offered. “So, you know about my first marriage. Odd that a stranger should know when everyone else has forgotten. Bill and I have been married for so long I’d bet even my brothers don’t remember I was married before. How did you find out?”

In a few short sentences I’d told her about my hunch that Stan’s death had to do with his past, and my searching into the newspaper archive. She nodded, then asked, “You say you were Stan’s friend? How did that come about?”

I explained about the budget situation at the library, the closings of the small outlying libraries, the idea of the bookmobile as a solution, then Stan’s donation and his wish to be involved with the planning and purchase of the bookmobile.

She settled back, the white wicker creaking about her. “Sounds like Stan. He always had to be in the thick of things.”