Cat With a Clue (19 page)

“Minnie,” she said, frowning at my obvious stupidity, “I told you already. They're on that list.”

“But you can't tell me which ones?”

“Are you nuts? Of course I can't. Maybe you have time enough on your hands to waste it doing that kind of paperwork, but I have better things to do.”

Don't take it personally,
I told myself.
She's like this with everyone
.

“Take last week,” Denise was saying. “Not only did I have to help my neighbor down the street move around a load of dirt, but I ran into Kim Parmalee downtown, and she was all in a tizzy about a bunch of new furniture. She couldn't decide on fabrics for some upholstery, and if there's one thing I know, it's furniture, so I dropped everything to help her. And if that wasn't enough, my son called and said he was wondering about his dad's power tools.” Denise made a
whuff
sort of noise. “So I had to go down to the basement and do an inventory of everything. My son said I didn't need to, that a couple of pictures would been enough, but I know better.”

She rolled her eyes and though I was tempted to roll mine, too, I maintained my polite, if stiff, smile.

“I absolutely know better,” she said. “First it's pictures, then it's what brand, then what model, then he'll want to know how old everything is. Better off just to do the work now and take care of it at the front end.”

Absently, I nodded, which provided her with enough conversational fuel to move to her next topic: the recently appointed city councilman. Denise had nothing good to say about him—surprise!—and wanted to make sure I knew about his vote regarding the purchase of a new snowplow truck.

“Brand new,” she said. “Do you know how much those things cost? Why can't they buy a used one? I mean, does that make any sense?”

But I wasn't listening, not really, because I was back at the fabric part of the conversation, when Denise had said that Kim Parmalee, née DeKeyser, a woman who'd been rumored to be close to bankruptcy, was shopping for furniture.

*   *   *

Every time I had a spare moment the rest of the morning, I called someone on Denise's list. I ended up leaving messages at most of the numbers, and every time I did, I wondered if the exercise was a complete waste of my time. The odds of learning something useful felt slim to slimmer.

Still, it was something I could do. I'd considered giving the list to Detective Inwood or to Ash, but they were busy and this wasn't real investigative work; it was just narrowing down the names. I was saving them time and would tell them so if they found out what I was doing and tried giving me The Look, the one that meant I should leave law-enforcement work to the law-enforcement officers. And I would do that, as soon as there was a true law-enforcement task to get done.

All of which meant that I worked through noon and didn't realize until about two in the afternoon that I hadn't had any lunch.

“No wonder I'm hungry,” I said out loud. I'd eaten a small breakfast and had no snack, because I still needed to do my grocery shopping. If I didn't get some food into me soon, I was going to be cranky all afternoon.

So I snatched up my backpack—holder of my wallet,
cell phone, and a spare book, among numerous other things—and headed out to the lobby.

“Hey, Holly?”

My friend looked up from the computer and put her index fingers to her forehead in a parody of concentration. “I'm reading your mind,” she said. “You've finally realized you haven't had any lunch, and now that your stomach lining is starting to digest itself, you're going to get some food before you keel over from low blood sugar.”

“I was more worried about getting irritable.”

“As you should be,” she said, crossing her arms.

Whenever she did that, she looked like she could be a close blood relative to Denise. But I'd long ago vowed to keep that thought to myself. I smiled and started to walk backward as I said, “I'll be back in half an hour, if not less.”

Holly's eyes went wide. “Minnie, you—”

“Twenty minutes, then,” I said, still walking backward. “If anybody wants anything from Shomin's, call me on my—”

Bam!

My body thumped into something and my backpack went flying. I staggered, my breath leaving me with an
oof
. My arms wheeled around in circles as I instinctively tried to keep my balance, but it was a lost cause and I dropped to my knees on the tile floor with a wincingly loud
crack!

“Good afternoon,” said a resonant male voice.

I looked up and saw the president of the library board. “Oh. Hi, Otis. Sorry about barging into you. I was just . . . uh. . . .” I glanced around. There were three other people standing there: two library board members and a fortyish man in a jacket and tie.

The contents of my backpack were strewn across the lobby floor; I must not have zipped it closed when I'd grabbed it out of my office. Still on my knees, I scrambled to gather everything without looking like an idiot. It was far too late for that, of course, and I knew it, but since my head boss, my vice-boss, a subsidiary boss, and a possible supervisor were all looming above me, it made sense to make an attempt.

“Here,” said a male voice. “Let me help.”

I looked, startled, at the guy who might be the new Stephen. He'd crouched down to my level and was gathering up my scattered possessions. “Thanks,” I said, accepting a small spiral-bound notebook, a handful of pens, and a set of fingernail clippers and shoved it all into the backpack, along with the things I'd already added.

“Is this yours?” The guy held out a packet of Eddie treats.

“Thanks,” I said again, taking the treats. As we stood, me to my five feet of height and him to his not-quite six feet, Otis said, “Graydon, this is Minnie Hamilton, assistant director of the library. Minnie, this is Graydon Cain, one of the candidates we're interviewing for the directorship.”

Graydon's face went from politely kind to frozen. He stared down at me. “You're Minnie Hamilton?”

I blinked. Somehow I'd thought he'd known who I was. Somehow I'd figured he'd seen my mishap and understood that these things can happen to competent and intelligent people who sometimes didn't pay quite enough attention to where they were going.

“Yes,” I said, lifting my chin. “I'm Minnie.”

He nodded but didn't say a word. At least not to me. Instead, he looked at Otis and the other two board
members. “Shall we get started? I don't want to take up any more of your time than is necessary.”

They walked away without a backward glance.

I watched them go, getting a sick feeling deep in my stomach that my professional future was not as rosy as it had been ten minutes earlier.

T
he next day was a bookmobile day. We were in the southeast part of Tonedagana County, and driving the curvy, hilly, narrow roads kept my mind too occupied to tell Julia the tale of the previous afternoon. I'd started to talk about it at the first stop, but we were stampeded by too many children in search of books for me to be able to finish. The moment I started braking for the second stop, however, Julia was pumping me for the rest of the narrative. I obliged, and was to the part where I was walking backward in the lobby, when a carload of white-haired ladies pulled into the parking lot.

“Have to finish this later,” I told Julia, nodding at our incoming visitors. “It's the softball team.”

Julia's face, which had started to droop, perked up. “All of them?”

I peered out the window. “No, but more than half. Pitcher, catcher, shortstop, left fielder, center fielder.”

“Oh, excellent.” Julia beamed. “I love these ladies. What shall we give them today?”

A few months earlier, we'd stopped for lunch at a small café in the tiny town of Peebles. The waitress
had noticed the mammoth vehicle parked at the curb and asked us about the bookmobile. When I said the phrase “thousands of books,” she'd grinned and said, “I have to tell my mother-in-law about this. Do you happen to have a copy of your schedule?”

Since I always carried a few copies, I pulled one out and handed it over.

“Perfect,” she said, scanning the list. “I bet you'll see them next week.”

“Them?” Julia and I had asked.

The waitress had just laughed and told us that we'd know them when we saw them.

And we did. No question about it.

The waitress's mother-in-law happened to be the pitcher and coach of a local softball team, and the entire team, with the exception of one player, had been playing together since they were in high school. How they'd managed to stay a healthy team was a mystery of immense proportions, but their fifty years of experience—each, not total—pushed them to the top of their league every year. Only the catcher was a newcomer, and that was because the original catcher and her husband had retired to Arizona.

“Still playing ball, though,” Corky Grigsby had said that first day, nodding. “What about you ladies?” She flicked an experienced glance over Julia and me. “No time like the present to join a team. Do you play?”

I'd smiled and said I was more the swimming/hiking/bicycling type, but Julia had looked interested.

Now I looked at her as she unlocked the door and pushed it open. “You know Corky's going to ask if you've joined a softball team.”

“And I have,” she said. “You are looking at the new right fielder for the Chilson Swingers.”

“Really? Did you have to try out or anything?”

“They asked how much I'd played, and I told them.” Julia pulled down an imaginary baseball cap and pounded her fist into an imaginary glove.

“Which was how much?” I asked.

“Gym class, back in high school.” She looked at me and grinned. “I'm going to be horrible, but I'm going to have fun.”

Of that, I was sure. If I hadn't known that Julia was a world-class actor famous in theatrical circles around the world, I would have thought she was a fun-loving party girl who'd never grown up. Of course, it seemed as if there was a lot of overlap between those two things.

Corky and her crew came up the steps into the bookmobile. In a line, they went straight to the front to give Eddie his morning greeting, then came back and stood around Julia and me in a semicircle.

“What do you have for us today?” Corky asked. “And, for crying out loud, don't give us anything that'll make us think. It's summer, you know.”

“Horror,” I said promptly.

The first time the softball team had visited the bookmobile—all nine of them, and I was glad they hadn't brought any of the backup players, because I wasn't sure the vehicle could take it—they'd requested that we give them books they'd never read, or books their mothers would have warned them about, or books that would shock their children. All three, if possible. They'd read
Fifty Shades of Grey
a few weeks ago, and the left fielder said she'd learned only two things, which she thought was pretty good for an old lady.

“Horror? Excellent!” the shortstop said, rubbing her hands together. “This is going to be fun. Give me something that will keep me awake all night. I don't
sleep for beans these days. At least this way I'll have a good reason.” She elbowed the center fielder in the ribs. “And maybe I'll wake up Joe and tell him I need comforting. What do you think?”

The ladies laughed, and I told Julia to get the bag of books I'd stashed behind the back desk. She opened the bag, peered in, and looked puzzled. “
Lord of the Fli
es
?”

“Wait a minute,” Corky said, frowning. “My kids read this book in school. You're not trying to educate us, are you?”

“My kids read this, too,” the catcher said. “It can't be that scary.”

I smiled. “Read the first few chapters late at night when no one else is awake. Then come back and tell me how you felt.”

Squinting with doubt, they took the books as I reassured them they wouldn't be learning a thing. And they probably wouldn't; they'd all lived long enough to know what people could do to each other.

I pushed away the chill of remembered fear that I'd felt upon first reading the book and turned to greet the person who'd arrived while Julia and I had been busy with the team. He was browsing the natural-history books, and was thirtyish, with long hair pulled back into a tidy ponytail. Though I'd never seen him on the bookmobile before, he looked familiar.

“Hi,” I said, stepping forward. “I'm Minnie Hamilton. Is this your first visit to the bookmobile?” Odds were high that it was, but it was also possible that I'd forgotten one face among the hundreds.

“What's that?” The guy looked across the top of my head, then looked down. “Oh. Hi. Yeah. It is. Nice bus you got here.”

He smiled, and I got the itchy feeling that he was trying to flirt with me.

“Thank you,” I said politely. “Is there anything in which you're interested?” Nothing like perfect grammar to turn off a prospective suitor.

His smile went wider. “My name is Jared Moyle,” he said.

The name meant nothing to me, but I nodded. “Nice to meet you, Jared. If you need a library card, either Julia or I can help you with the paperwork. Let me know if you need any help finding a book,” I said, stressing the “book” part ever so slightly.

“Mrr.” Eddie waltzed past me and thumped Jared on the back of the knees.

In the dog stories I'd read, the narrators often gave their canine friends credit for knowing, at a single doggy sniff, whether or not a newcomer was trustworthy. I did not attribute that power of discernment to Eddie. He was mostly likely after one of two things: either Jared smelled like a cat treat or Jared was wearing pants that looked like something Eddie wanted to shed upon.

“Hey, you guys have a cat.” Jared dropped into a crouch and held out his knuckles for sniffing purposes.

“His name is Eddie,” I said.

“We could use a cat at the store.” Jared scratched Eddie on the side of his neck, eliciting a low but steady purr.

“What store is that?”

“I co-own the used-book store in Chilson.” He glanced up. “You been in?”

So that was why the guy looked familiar. “Nice thriller section,” I said. “How are things going?”

“Oh, you know.” He shrugged. “Not great; not horrible. I'm not going to get rich, but it's a way for me to read a lot without spending a ton of money. Plus, I do caretaking for a bunch of summer people. I get by.”
He gave Eddie a last pat, stood, and smiled at me.

“My boyfriend does some of that.” This was loosely true, since his neighbors were seasonal. Ash gave them a neighborly hand with their cottage-opening and cottage-closing chores, and kept an eye on the place through the winter.

Jared nodded. “Lots of that work around these days. Even high school kids are getting into it.” He grinned. “Probably pays a lot better than working at Benton's did. After a couple of summers of that, you'd think I'd stay away from retail, but here I am with my own store.”

I'd been starting to slide away, but stopped. “Jared, I have a strange question for you. Have you had anyone in looking for old books on flowers?”

His forehead crinkled a little. “Not that I can think of. Of course, I'm not there all the time.”

I was about to warn him about the book-related break-ins—after all, if I'd warned Rianne, I was obligated to warn him, and probably should already have done so, if Ash or Detective Inwood hadn't—but I noticed that he wasn't really paying attention to me. No, he was surreptitiously eyeing the bookmobile's natural-history selection. The part that included wildflowers.

Stooping to pick up Eddie, I said, “We've had some recent interest in books about flowers. I just wondered if you were getting the same thing.”

Jared said they hadn't, at least as far as he knew. He kept talking, and I tried to listen, but what I kept
thinking, as I inched farther and farther away, was that I'd just added one more person to the suspect list, because who better than a used-book store owner would know the value of
Wildflowers
?

*   *   *

A few hours later, a different man was smiling at me, and the grin on his face was decades younger than the eighty-five I knew him to be. “Now, aren't you a sight for sore eyes?” he asked.

I smiled back. Age and wheelchair notwithstanding, Max Compton was ten times the flirt Jared Moyle had tried to be, and was more than ten times as appealing. “Hey there, Mr. Compton. If I'm looking that good, you need to get out more.” It had been a long day, and I knew I was looking like something Eddie had dragged in.

He gave me a look of mock horror. “Mr. Compton? That's my dad—God rest his soul. You call me Max, or I'll start calling you Missy.”

“You have a deal.” I held out my hand and we shook on it, me being careful not to grip too tightly around the elderly man's arthritis. “Ready for the next couple of chapters?”

Last summer, Cade had spent some time at Lake View Medical Care Facility while recovering from a stroke, and I'd visited often enough that the staff learned what I did for a living. One thing led to another, and in addition to dropping off a rotating selection of large-print books, I'd also ended up promising to stop by Lake View once a month to read aloud to a group of residents. Other volunteers did the same thing, and between us we could read through a book in three weeks. The residents chose the book, and I was curious to see the current selection.

Max pulled a volume from underneath the crocheted blanket that lay across his rickety legs. “Looking forward to hearing you do the voices.”

There was a smirk in his own voice, and when I saw the title, I knew why. “
Animal Farm
? Are you serious?”

“No, he's not.”

I turned. Heather, a nurse's aide, walked into the sunroom and handed me a copy of Jan Karon's
These High, Green Hills.
“They finished the fifth chapter yesterday—don't let him tell you any different.”

Max fell against the back of his wheelchair, clutching at his shirt. “I'm having a heart attack!” he croaked. “I can only be saved by hearing a John Sandford book read to me.”

“That's your stomach,” Heather said, winking at me, “not your heart. And you know darn well that you got outvoted for John Sandford. Better luck next time.”

“Oooh,” Max groaned in fake agony. “My heart . . .”

“Is everything all right?” someone asked from the doorway.

“We're fine,” Heather said, taking the George Orwell novel from me. “Just a little discussion of book selection, that's all.”

I glanced over and saw the lawyer I'd met in Rianne's office, and the guy I'd seen while out running the other morning. “Hi,” I said. “Nice to see you again.” And then, because he wasn't leaving and I didn't know what else to say, I asked, “Are you here visiting relatives?”

Heather made a very soft but very rude noise in the back of her throat. He smiled and said, “No, not yet. My parents are hale and hearty. But I have a number of clients here, and I like to check on them every week or two.”

“Well, it was nice seeing you again,” I said.

“Likewise. Say, you still have my card?” He didn't wait for my reply, but fished one from his pocket and handed it over. “You never know when you might need an attorney.” Laughing, he turned his hand into a pistol and fired off a quick shot at me. “Catch you later.”

As soon as he was gone, Max said, “Now, Heather, you be nice.”

“Is it being mean to state an opinion?” she asked. “Because I can't stand that guy. He trolls the halls, looking to sign up clients, but when I ask management to toss him out, they say he's here visiting clients and there's nothing we can do.”

I looked at the card. Paul Utley. “Why would anyone here need an attorney?”

“Wouldn't,” Max said succinctly. “Not ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them, anyway. Legal affairs are pretty much wrapped up before you check in.”

“So . . . ?” I gestured after Paul.

“He's chasing after clients,” Heather said savagely. “Convincing them to sign up for services they don't need and pay a retainer they can't afford.”

Max smiled. “Tell us what you really think, Heather.”

“I think he's the kind of lawyer who gives ambulance chasers a bad name,” she snapped.

“If you weren't already married,” Max said, “I'd propose to you here and now.”

“And if you did it on one knee, I'd agree, husband or no.” She grinned at the two of us, her lawyer-inspired anger gone as fast as it had come. “Minnie, I'll go round up the rest of the readers group. Be back in a flash.”