Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries) (5 page)

“You want me to cook breakfast for seven people?” the shocked inquirer would ask.

“Eight,” Aunt Frances would say. “My niece usually shows up.”

Every summer the niece quickly learned whose cooking was good, whose was awesome, and whose should be avoided at all costs. Since another one of Aunt Frances’s rules was that you ate heartily and complimented the cook no matter what, I’d found it was easier to skip the Saturdays likely to include burned bacon and flat pancakes.

This summer, however, Aunt Frances had hit the breakfast mother lode. Everyone from seventy-year-old Zofia down to twenty-two-year-old Harris seemed to have kitchen skills in abundance. The week before, sixty-five-year-old Leo had wowed us with sour cream and blueberry pancakes accompanied by buttery pecan maple syrup. The week before that, fifty-three-year-old Paulette had us begging for more breakfast burritos.

This particular Saturday, having left Eddie on the houseboat sleeping on the floor in a square of sunshine, I walked through downtown, up the hill overlooking Janay Lake, down a street lined with maple trees, and up the wide steps of the porch that ran across the front of Aunt Frances’s century-old home.

The wooden screen door banged shut behind me. The entry, stairway, and spacious living room were all empty, but laughter drifted in from the kitchen. Wooden floorboards creaked under my weight as I passed through the living room, admiring yet again the pine-paneled walls and ceiling, the end tables and coffee tables built from driftwood, the maps thumbtacked to the walls, and the fieldstone fireplace big enough for cooking a side of beef. It was a room full of calm and ease and I always felt that nothing bad could possibly happen here.

A tall, angular woman appeared in the doorway to the dining room. She smiled. “Thought I heard someone. Good morning, bright eyes. You must have had a long day yesterday with your bookmobile. I thought you’d call and tell me all about it.”

I stood on my tiptoes to kiss her cheek. She’d recently turned sixty, but I’d yet to spy a single wrinkle. “Morning, Aunt Frances.” It was a good time to tell her about the events of yesterday. An ideal time, really, but I couldn’t find the words to start the sad story. After breakfast. I’d be ready by then. “I’ll tell you everything after we eat. Who’s cooking this morning?”

“Dena and Quincy. Everyone else has been banished from the kitchen.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Dena and Quincy? But I thought Harris was being matched up with Dena.”

She sighed. “I know, dear, I know. I’m sure it’ll work out in the end.”

Fine words, but she looked a little concerned. And for good reason: Dena was twenty-five and Quincy had recently hit fifty. My aunt had a secret that I’d sworn on a tall stack of paperback mysteries to never reveal unless doing so would save at least ten lives. Aunt Frances only took boarders who were single and in need of a mate. Her extensive interviewing process, ostensibly to determine compatibility for the unusual environment and living arrangements, was in reality a way for Aunt Frances to start the matchmaking process. None of the boarders ever knew they were being set up, and in her fifteen years of taking in boarders she’d never had a failure.

If a pair she hadn’t intended was forming, all her plans would be toast. “Well, you haven’t missed yet, have you?”

“There’s always a first time,” she muttered.

“You said the same thing last year and that turned out fine by the end of the summer,” I said. “You can’t expect August endings in June. Especially early June. Don’t you always say that building a lasting love is like building Rome? That it can’t be done in a day?”

She
hmm
ed a little, thinking it over. “You’re right,” she said. “You’re so right that I think I’ll stop worrying.” She winked, grinning. “No point in it, anyway.”

It was impossible not to smile back; my aunt had a very contagious grin. “There’s lots of time,” I said.

“Time for what?”

I jumped. Aunt Frances turned to Paulette, the boarder who’d been matched with Quincy, and said, “I was wondering if there was time to have another cup of coffee before breakfast. Do you have any idea what those two are cooking up for us?”

The pleasantly plump, tawny-haired woman scowled. “Nobody tells me anything around here.” She stomped off, her pink flip-flops popping loudly with each stomp.

“Bugger,” Aunt Frances muttered.

“No, it’s good,” I said softly. “Paulette is already in love with Quincy. She’s nuts with jealousy.”

“But how does that help with Dena and Harris? And how does it get Quincy to quit pretending he’s twenty-five when he’s fifty?”

“You’ll figure it out. You always do.”

A bell rang, clear and bright. Years upon years ago, the bell from an old train engine had been hauled up into a maple tree outside the kitchen porch. One end of a rope was tied to the top of the bell; the other end was attached to the porch. The sound of the bell meant summer, blue skies, and food.

A dark-haired woman poked her head through the dining room doorway. “Ah. There you are. Good morning, Minnie. Come on in, breakfast is ready.”

“Hi, Zofia,” I said. Seventy, spry, and widowed for five years, Zofia had finally loosed herself from her children’s clutches long enough to scamper north for the summer. “I’ll be staying with an old friend,” she’d told them, lying through her teeth.

“Coffee’s fresh.” Zofia waved us into the dining room and gestured at the wide-planked pine sideboard. “Tea water is hot, orange juice is cold.”

Aunt Frances took her seat at the head of the table. “Zofie, you haven’t been helping, have you? You’ll get your turn next week.”

“What, me, be useful?” Zofia put her palms flat against her collarbone and opened her eyes wide.

With a name like Zofia and her tendency to flowing skirts and dangling earrings, anyone would have guessed her to have been an actress, a Gypsy fortune-teller in a carnival, or at the very least a high school drama teacher. In reality, Zofia had married her childhood sweetheart, stayed home to raise their four children, and supported her husband in his career as a vice president for a major car company.

I took Aunt Frances a cup of coffee and greeted the others as they came in through various doors. Harris, the just-graduated college kid, from the back porch. Leo, whom Aunt Frances had matched with Zofia, came in through the living room, the morning newspaper in his hand. Paulette followed Leo, still stomping.

“And heeeeeere we come!” Quincy pushed open the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room. His mostly bald head was red with heat. “Ready or not!” He held the door open for a willowy young woman who was the triple threat of thin, beautiful, and smart. It was a combination that made me long to hate her, but I hadn’t figured out how to. She was too nice.

Dena smiled up at Quincy. “Thanks,” she said, maneuvering around him. He beamed and I started to share some of Aunt Frances’s worry. Dena was carrying a plate in each hand and another up each arm. She’d learned the trick, she’d told me, while waitressing in college. “Hash browns, bacon baked with maple syrup, fried eggs, and melon slices.” She gave Aunt Frances the first plate. “Nothing burned and nothing raw except what should be.”

After a few moments of pleasurable eating, Aunt Frances turned to Leo. “Did you get the newspaper?”

His mouth full, he nodded.

The paper! I’d forgotten all about it. News of Stan’s death was bound to be on the front page. I had no idea if my name would be in print or not, but it very well could be. I mentally kicked myself for not calling Aunt Frances last night. And Kristen. I really should have told Kristen. And my . . . well, not my mom. I wasn’t ready to deal with her concern. I loved my parents dearly, but Mom’s mothering method involved a lot of what, in my teenage years, I’d called smothering. There was more than one reason I lived a five-hour drive away from my parents.

My aunt piled her fork full of hash browns. “Anything important in the paper this morning? These are outstanding, Dena, by the way.”

“Um, Aunt Frances? Could I talk to you a minute in the kitchen?” The breakfast table didn’t seem like the best place to discuss finding a dead body.

“Hang on, kiddo.” She was watching Leo, who’d picked up the newspaper and was waving it at her.

“A guy was killed out in the east part of the county.”

“Oh?” Aunt Frances’s eyes were going up and down, matching the flapping of the newspaper as she tried to read the headline. “What was his name?”

“Don’t remember,” Leo said. “But he was murdered.”

Surprised murmurs ran around the table.

“Bar fight?” Zofia asked.

“Bet there was a girl involved.” Paulette sniffed.

“Um,” I said.

Leo shook his head and held the newspaper out at arm’s length so he could read it. “He was some rich guy, born and raised here.” He scanned the article. “Says here that he was found by—” He stopped. “By the bookmobile librarian.”

Everyone suddenly focused on me. The silence was so sudden that I thought my ears had stopped working.

“Minnie?” my aunt asked softly. “Is this true? Are you all right?”

Her kindness almost undid me. I nodded and gripped my coffee cup tight. “Ed . . . we’d . . . I’d stopped by that old township hall . . . and . . . and heard something. It was at an old farmhouse. I called 911, but it was too late.”

“Poor Minnie.” Aunt Frances put her hand over mine. “How horrible for you.”

“Yes. And Stan . . .” I swallowed. “I knew him.”

The boarders murmured sympathy. The pressure from Aunt Frances’s hand grew intense. “You knew him? Stan . . . ?”

“Stan Larabee. He’s the one who donated the money for the bookmobile, remember? You said you didn’t know him, last fall when we started planning everything.”

“Yes, I remember saying that.” She released my hand. I stared at my skin, where a white mark showed how her hand had lain.

“You poor thing,” Paulette said, “having to see something like that.”

The others chimed in, asking questions that ranged from who, to how, to why, to when, and to where. All of them asked something, all of them except Aunt Frances, who sat through the remainder of the meal without eating another bite of breakfast.

• • •

I spent the rest of Saturday in the library and barely noticed the passing hours. This was easy to do since the bookmobile’s circulation was separate from the main library and had been shoehorned into a windowless space that had once been the newspaper archives.

My idea had been to get the newspapers microfilmed and donate the print copies to the local historical society to free up the space. Stephen’s objection had been predictable. “Who’s going to pay for the microfilming? It’s not a cheap endeavor, Minnie. Not cheap at all.”

After I’d found, applied for, and been awarded a grant that covered a majority of the costs, Stephen had said, “Even if it’s empty, that room isn’t big enough to house a bookmobile collection.” After I’d found a system of shelving that went floor to ceiling, Stephen had sighed. “Now, Minnie, please don’t take this the wrong way, but height is not one of your sterling qualities.” But I’d been ready for that objection and handed over a catalog of library ladders before he finished his sentence.

The room was high and stark and I loved every inch of it. A few weeks back I’d convinced the janitor—with the help of some fresh doughnuts—to install a tiny drop leaf desk for one of the bookmobile’s laptop computers. I puttered away the rest of Saturday morning, the afternoon, and half the evening, moving from desk to shelves to desk, comparing the main library’s top circulating items against what was checked out on the bookmobile, comparing the checkouts against the lists of top bookmobile books other librarians had sent me, poking around, researching, thinking, and poking some more.

Early on, I tried to call Kristen, but was dumped into her voice mail. I sat there, gripping my cell phone, surprised at the depth of my disappointment. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how much I’d wanted to talk to my best friend. I left a short message to call and went back to work.

The huge breakfast I’d eaten lasted me until midafternoon, and I ignored the gnawing in my stomach until I got a headache. By the time I walked home, took some ibuprofen, and ate cold cereal for supper, I was tired enough to crawl into bed with a book and an Eddie. I drifted to sleep so fast that I didn’t have time to wonder why I’d worked so hard all day.

• • •

Sunday morning, I woke to darkness and rain dripping off the eaves of the houseboat. A morning made for sleeping in. I rolled over, vaguely heard an Eddie-squawk, and closed my eyes.

Bright sunlight in my face woke me. I squinted at the clock. “Half past ten?” I grabbed the clock and pulled it closer. Sure enough, most of the morning was gone. By the time I was showered, dressed, and full of another bowl of cereal, the sky was so blue it was hard to believe it had been pouring rain three hours earlier.

My left-hand neighbor, Louisa Axford, nodded at me as I came out on deck. “Rain before seven, done by eleven,” she said from the comfort of her chaise lounge. “You must be busy up there at your library. I haven’t seen you in days, seems like.”

“Friday was the first bookmobile run.”

“That’s right.” She smiled. Everybody did when you mentioned the bookmobile. “Shakedown cruise. How did it go? Any problems?”