Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (39 page)

“Could I see the book, please?” I asked.

This time, she shook her head.

“Why not?” I asked, fighting a feeling of defeat.

“Don’t have it. It was Cassie’s. She said it was her favorite book when she was a little girl, so it must have been really old.”

Old enough to be out of print? I wondered.

“Do you remember what the story was about?” By this point, keeping my tone of voice matter-of-fact was a struggle.

“Sure. It was all about a bunny named Red Rabbit, who got lost and couldn’t find his way home. So he asked all his animal friends for help....”

I stopped listening. I was too busy listening to the sirens that were going off in my head.
Red Rabbit.
The wheels were turning. Was it possible that
red
matched up with
scarlet—
as in
The Scarlet Letter—
and
rabbit
with the stuffed bunny? Or was my increasing desperation causing me to get carried away?

While it was tempting to go with the second possibility, it seemed worth exploring the idea that whatever Cassandra had been trying to tell us had something to do with the children’s book she’d loved so much that she shared it with the little girl next door. I couldn’t let go of the notion that some element of the story, or perhaps one of the characters, could have been related to her murder—or her murderer.

“Thank you, Maggie Rose,” I told the little girl sincerely. “It sounds like a wonderful story. And I’ll tell you what: Even though it’s probably a very old book, if I find a copy, I’ll give it to you, okay?”

Staring up at me with her huge brown eyes, she asked, “Will you read it to me?”

“Of course.” Suddenly, another thought occurred to me. Turning back, I glanced at Virginia, then asked, “Maggie Rose, do you remember the last days Cassie was still living in the house next door?”

She nodded.

“Did you ever hear loud voices coming from her house? People laughing or playing a game...or arguing?”

I held my breath, watching her screw up her face as she pondered my question.

Virginia answered for her. “Maggie Rose takes a nap in the afternoon. And she’s a deep sleeper. She probably wouldn’t have heard anything. That is, if there was anything to hear in the first place.”

“Thank you both,” I said. “You’ve been really helpful. Especially you, Maggie Rose.”

She grinned shyly. “Don’t forget to bring me that book,” she said. “I really liked the pictures. Especially the ones of Red Rabbit.”

“You got it.”

I got back into my van and headed toward town, energized by the likelihood that the story about Red Rabbit contained the answer to why Cassandra had been murdered—and by whom. I couldn’t believe it was nothing more than a coincidence that its main character had a name that was comprised of two of the three clues she’d left behind. For all I knew, the character routinely wore sneakers, tying in the third clue.

Somehow, I had to get ahold of that book.

Bonnie’s Bookery was an old-fashioned bookstore, the kind that was becoming more and more of a rarity these days. It occupied a small storefront nestled between an antiques shop and a real-estate office. As I walked inside, a little bell tinkled. I paused to inhale the friendly, slightly musty smell of paper and paste, then glanced around.

I was instantly charmed. One entire wall was red brick, which gave the intimate space a relaxed, homey feeling. The other walls were lined with wooden shelves that ran from floor to ceiling and were covered with books. Even though the single room was compact, I spotted comfortable places to sit, including a deep-blue velvet couch in the Romance section and a leather-covered chair in the Business section. A recording of a string quartet played classical music in the background.

The requisite cat lay curled up at one end of the velvet couch. The smoky-gray feline glanced up and blinked lazily, as if saying, “I suppose you can come in...but you don’t mind if I don’t get up to greet you, do you?” A second cat, this one black, peeked out at me from behind a stack of books, then meowed “Hello.”

But Bonnie’s Bookery was an equal-opportunity employer. A large golden retriever lay next to the counter, wagging her tail but also remaining in place. I figured she’d been taught that not all customers would welcome the enthusiastic greeting the breed was famous for.

“Hello,” the smiling woman with short, dark-red hair behind the counter greeted me. The name
Bonnie
was printed on the plastic tag she wore on her blouse. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Actually, I’m looking for a children’s book.”

“We have an excellent children’s section, right over here.” She pointed to the back corner, where the walls were painted bright yellow and large stuffed animals sprawled across tiny chairs or sat on shelves. Most of them held books in their paws.

“There’s a particular book I’m trying to find,” I began. I noticed a little flutter of anxiety in my stomach now that I was confronted with the possibility that the book didn’t really exist—or that even if it did, I wouldn’t be able to find it. “It’s a book about a red rabbit,” I went on, studying her face and bracing myself for a blank look. “He makes friends with all kinds of animals—”

“That sounds like
Red Rabbit Comes Home,
” she said. “Is that the one?”

“I don’t know. I mean, it could be. All I know is that it’s about a red rabbit.”

“This is a classic,” Bonnie told me, going over to a shelf and pulling off a single slim volume. Sure enough, as she handed it to me, I saw that its cover featured a whimsical drawing of a cute bunny rabbit with bright red fur. “I can never keep it in stock for more than a few days, yet it must have come out at least twenty-five or thirty years ago.”

Around the same time Cassandra Thorndike was a little girl, I thought.

I opened the book greedily, as if the answer to the riddle of her murder would leap out of the pages. Instead, I saw only illustrations of the rabbit hopping around a farm and talking to other animals like a horse and a cow and a chicken, all of them a most unlikely color.

“What age group is this for?” I asked.

“Preschool,” Bonnie replied. “It’s a very sweet story about a bunny who gets lost, so he asks all his animal friends how to find the way home. Dotted Dog tells him to follow the smell of cookies baking, Green Goose says he should look for the place with flowers in the window box...in other words, everybody has their own idea of what makes a home. Children love it. In fact, preschool teachers often use it as a way to get a discussion going of what home means to each of us.”

“I can see why it would appeal to kids,” I commented. However, I had no clue about how it could be tied to Cassandra’s murder.

I paid for the book, then said, “Would you mind if I sat here and read it?”

“Of course not!” Bonnie replied. “Just be careful not to trip over our resident pets. That’s Virginia Woof,” she said, gesturing toward the retriever. “Or Ginny, as we call her. And the cats are Dot and Dash, after Dorothy L. Sayers and Dashiell Hammett. Needless to say, only pets with literary names are allowed in a bookstore!”

I laughed. “No problem. I’ve been told I have a way with animals.”

I sat down in the first suitable place I found, a comfortable upholstered chair that reminded me of Papa Bear’s chair. My mouth was dry as I turned to the first page and began to read.

I turned page after page, glancing at the pictures and reading the simple but important story of a red rabbit who finally made his way home by getting advice from all kinds of other animals. At the end of the book, he invited them all over to his house for tea and cookies.

Yet as I read the last page and closed the book, a feeling of disappointment swept over me. While I’d been afraid that I’d be on a wild-goose chase, either not finding the book or learning that it had never even existed in the first place, I now realized there was one more possible outcome I’d neglected to consider. And that was the possibility that I’d find the book, read it, and not know any more about what Cassandra was trying to tell us than I did before.

I let out a loud sigh, causing Virginia Woof to glance up at me. She sighed in return.

If this book really is a clue about the murder, I thought, distractedly petting her head, I have to dig a little deeper. I have to figure out exactly what it meant to Cassandra.

That meant talking to someone who’d known her as a little girl. The good news was that the one person I had in mind also happened to be the only person in her life I felt I could trust.

As I bumped along the Thorndikes’ driveway, I noticed that, as usual, the place seemed oddly quiet. While there were cars parked on the property, there were no actual signs of life. The silence gave me an eerie feeling. Then again, I had to admit that these days I creeped out pretty easily.

I pulled up along the side of the house and got out. As I walked toward the back door, I noticed it was open.

Peering through the screen door, I could see the back of someone’s arm and shoulder.

“Mr. Thorndike?” I called, knocking on the wooden frame. “It’s Jessie Popper.”

“Jessie?” I heard Joan Thorndike say. I thought I heard a note of alarm in her voice but decided she was just surprised by my unexpected visit. “Dr. Popper! What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Gordon.”

“Come in, Jessie,” she said.

As I entered, she glanced up at me from the kitchen table and smiled. But I noticed she looked flustered. Quickly, she gathered up the haphazard array of papers spread across the table, putting them into a pile. Then she stretched her arm across them, as if she was trying to cover them up. She did a good job, too, since I couldn’t see anything aside from the fact that the pages in front of her were legal-size. “I wasn’t expecting anybody.”

“Sorry to bother you.” I craned my neck, trying to get a better look at what she was attempting to hide. No such luck. From what I could tell, the white pages could have been a legal document—or a long, chatty letter or even a bunch of recipes. “Is Gordon home? It’s really important that I speak to him.”

“He’s at the winery,” she told me.

“Thanks.” I hesitated. “Joan, is everything all right?”

“Of course,” she answered quickly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You seem a little distracted, that’s all.”

“It’s been a difficult couple of weeks,” she said. This time, the sad smile she offered up seemed sincere.

As I left the house and got back into my van, I wondered if I’d simply imagined that she was trying to conceal the papers on the kitchen table from me. After all, she wasn’t exactly exaggerating about this being a tough couple of weeks for her and her husband.

Besides, the only person who’d cast any suspicion whatsoever on Joan was Ethan. And I didn’t exactly consider him the last word in trustworthiness.

That dummy of his either.

As I made the turn into Thorndike Vineyards, the sun was low in the sky and the chill of autumn electrified the air. Usually, I love that feeling of crispness. This evening, however, I found myself wishing I’d brought along something warmer than my polyester fleece jacket.

There were only one or two cars in the parking lot. I pulled my van into a space near the main building, then checked my watch as I hurried to the front door. It was 5:30.

My heart sank as I glanced at the sign posted next to the door.
HOURS: Monday through Friday, 10:00 to
5:00.

I tried the door anyway—and was relieved when it opened.

“Hello?” I called as I walked into the cool, somber building. Just like at the house, there were no signs of life. At least, not that I could see. But somebody had to be around, I figured, or else the door would have been locked.

I wandered through the gift shop and back toward the offices. As I slid past the
Employees Only
sign, I saw Cassandra Thorndike staring down at me from her life-size portrait. For a fraction of a second, I got the feeling she was trying to communicate something to me. But paintings were like animals. They never came right out and told you the things you needed to know.

“Hello?” I called. “Mr. Thorndike? Gordon? Anybody here?” As I made my way along the short hallway, I tried all the doors, rattling their knobs but finding every single one locked.

Finally, at the end, I found one last door. It was different from the others. There was no plaque hanging on it, for one thing, to identify the person whose office it was.

But what made it even more distinctive was that it was made of heavy, rough-hewn wood, rather than the same sleek, polished veneer as all the others. Thinking, What the heck, I tried that one too.

Surprisingly, this time the knob turned. In keeping with the same what-the-heck mentality, I pushed the door open. Even though the light was dim, I could see a long flight of stone stairs that appeared to lead down to the basement.

“Hello?” I called. “Anybody here?”

For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence. Then, from somewhere behind me, I heard a footstep.

I was about to turn when I felt a forceful shove against my back.

I let out a yelp, but it was too late. Before I could grab on to the rickety wooden railing, I plummeted forward, watching in horror as the stone steps grew closer and crying out again as my head slammed against something hard.

Chapter 17

“The cat has complete emotional honesty—an attribute not often found in humans.”

—Ernest Hemingway

Uh-h-h...” I let out a dull groan as I dragged myself to a sitting position on the cold stone floor. My head was spinning, not only from the fall but from the collision it had had with the wooden handrail that had specifically been put there to keep people from tumbling down the stairs. But I forced myself to take a quick physical inventory to figure out which body parts actually hurt.

My butt, for one thing. My ribs and the side of my left thigh too, which had borne the brunt of my slide down the sharp edges of the stone steps. My left cheek stung, telling me that one of those rough edges had sliced through the skin. Still, nothing seemed to be broken.