Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries) (9 page)

“We need new blood,” he’d said. “Our most loyal donors are in their seventies and we need to freshen up the pool.”

At the time I’d been appalled at his heartlessness, but now I was beginning to understand the need. I didn’t like it, but I understood. If you’re not growing, thanks to natural attrition you’re shrinking, and having a community’s financial support is a critical part of a library’s success.

Back then, thanks to letters, phone calls, and face-to-face visits, I’d drawn a few new regular donors into the fold. Caroline Grice had not been one of them.

Now I leaned back in my chair and tried to go at the situation in a manner of which Stephen would approve. Action items. You must distill a project into action items. I pictured the agenda.

Goal: Talk to Caroline about Stan, face-to-face if possible.

Proposed Methodology: none.

And the meeting is adjourned. Thanks for coming, folks.

“Research,” I said to myself. “It’s time for research.”

I opened up my computer’s browser and typed Caroline’s name into the search engine: 178,000 results. Huh. I put quotes around her name: 4,658 results. Better, but more than I could drill through during my lunch break. I added “Michigan” to the string and found her husband’s obituary, a press release announcing her husband’s retirement, and her daughter’s wedding announcement.

All the people in the world to research and I managed to pick the only one who wasn’t on Facebook.

I flexed my hands and cracked my knuckles. There had to be some way to find a connection that would give me an excuse, some way to find common ground, some . . . “Got it.” I searched for genealogy Web sites, found one that looked serious, dithered a little about the ethics of what I was about to do, then signed up for a free two-week membership.

Twenty minutes later I found what I needed. And here I’d thought the only benefit to having an extremely common last name was never needing to spell it for other people.

I printed out my brand-new data and opened my phone book to the
G
s. There it was:
GRICE, BRANSON
. Ten years after her husband died and she still had the phone in his name.

I punched in the numbers and waited. “Grice residence,” a polite voice said.

“I’d like to speak to Caroline Grice, please.”

“This is she.”

“Really?” I blurted, then winced at myself. Even the Grice staff must get a day off once in a while.

“I’m quite certain, yes. How may I help you?”

“This is Minnie Hamilton. We spoke a couple of years ago when the Friends of the Library were working on a fund-raiser.”

“Yes, I remember.” Still the polite voice. “Stephen Rangel’s work, if I recall correctly. The man is tireless.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m calling you regarding a different matter. I’ve been doing some genealogy research and I’ve come across an ancestor we might have in common. Would it be possible to meet with you?”

“How interesting.” So polite. “But I’m afraid I must disappoint you. The only relations about which I know anything are my parents and my children. My cousin Richard, however, has been doing extensive research into the family. Shall I give you his number?”

• • •

I dumped my backpack on the kitchen counter. “Hi, honey, I’m home!”

No Eddie came running to greet me. I wandered around, looking.

A faint snore came rattling out of the closet. I slid open the door and found a black-and-white cat nestled in among my shoes. His body lay across my hiking boots and his front paws were wrapped around a blue flip-flop. The right one.

“You are the weirdest cat ever,” I told him.

He opened his eyes to thin slits and opened his mouth in a soundless “Mrr.”

I picked him up. “Come hang out with me, okay?”

We went to the kitchen and I deposited him on the back of the bench seat. I pulled the stack of mail I’d picked up from my post office box out of my backpack. “Junk mail, more junk mail, and a reminder from my mother that Thanksgiving isn’t far away.” Mom was nothing if not aggressive when it came to holiday plans. “Cool note card, though.” I propped the reprint of what the card said was a Diego Rivera mural up on the kitchen counter. “Maybe if you wrote letters, you’d get some mail.”

Eddie’s nose twitched.

“No fish tonight,” I said. “You’re probably smelling the salmon Skeeter gave to Louisa.”

Louisa was, once again, harboring matchmaking tendencies. “There’s plenty for four,” she’d said when I’d seen her at the post office. Though I’d begged off, citing bills to pay and a report to write for work, she had that glint in her eye. She’d had it last summer, too, when she’d tried to pair me up with Rafe Niswander. Great guy, and now a good friend, but no sparks, same as Skeeter, no matter how cute a couple Louisa thought we’d make.

“Where do you think Skeeter got his nickname?” I asked Eddie.

He yawned and starting licking his chest.

“And my first attempt at investigating was a complete failure, by the way.” I leaned against the kitchen counter and explained my brilliant idea of trying to talk to Caroline about mutual Hamilton ancestors. Somehow saying it out loud helped me think it over. “But she’s not into genealogy. So now I’m back to having no ideas.”

Eddie sent me a look that clearly said,
You are so stupid
, and went back to work, now licking his right paw.

I opened the refrigerator door, didn’t see anything worth cooking, and shut it. “Tell me I’m dumb, but when’s the last time you had a good idea?” I opened kitchen cabinets, looking for dinner inspiration. “Maybe eating that salmon would have been a good idea—hey!” I yelped because Eddie had launched himself across the space from bench to kitchen counter, skidded across the plastic laminate, and knocked my mail to the floor.

“What’s the matter with you?” I picked him up, dumped him onto the floor, and stooped down to pick up the mess. “You know you don’t belong up there. If Kristen saw that, she’d . . . oh.”

In my hand was the card from my mother.

And suddenly I knew how to arrange a meeting with Caroline Grice.

• • •

The rest of the week was busy with covering for vacationing library staff and last-minute reshuffling of the bookmobile schedule. On Saturday, the paperwork on my desk had piled so high that I skipped Saturday’s boardinghouse breakfast and went in to work early.

Happily, by Sunday noon I caught up with life in general and left the houseboat with a clear conscience.

I bought a small bag of cookies from Tom, probably the last time I’d do so until after Labor Day when the summer crowds left for home, and headed for the Lakeview Art Gallery.

A couple of blocks later, I walked into the gallery for the first time ever. My mom’s card had reminded me of Caroline’s long-running support for the arts. Thanks to the reporting of the local newspaper, I knew that it was mainly Caroline’s money that had allowed the nonprofit arts association to rent this side street storefront.

Inside, artwork of all shapes and sizes hung on walls painted a light blue-gray. Large landscapes, small portraits, wall sculpture, photographs. Acrylics, watercolors, oils, pastels. The sheer variety made me blink in surprise.

“Welcome to the gallery,” a young woman chirped from behind a jewelry showcase. “I’m Lina. Let me know if you have any questions, okay?” Lina had long flowing honey brown hair and wore a loose top that looked like something hauled out of the back of my mother’s closet, circa Mom’s high school graduation class of 1969.

“Busy today?” I asked.

“Let’s see.” She plopped her elbows on the glass. “The first person who came in wanted directions to the fudge shop, the second person who came in wanted to use our bathroom, and you’re the third person.”

“Sounds a little boring.”

“Dull as fifth-grade math class, some days. Other days it’s pretty cool.” Her thin face grew animated. “Last week? On Tuesday? You’ll never guess who came in that door.” With an index fingernail painted with daisies, she pointed at the door I’d just walked through. “That hot guy from that new show? Everyone’s talking about it.”

She named a cop show I’d heard Josh and Holly discuss, but since I didn’t have a television on the houseboat and watched very little at the boardinghouse, I couldn’t offer a sound opinion on the actor’s hotness.

“That must have been exciting,” I said.

“Yeah, I keep hoping somebody else famous will walk in.” She looked at me hopefully. “I don’t suppose . . .”

“Sorry. I live here in town.”

“Oh.” She deflated. “Have you ever met anybody?”

“Nope. Famous people don’t hang out at libraries very often.”

“You work at the library? That’s pretty cool.”

She didn’t sound sarcastic. “I think so. And I just started driving the bookmobile.”

“The bookmobile?” Her enthusiasm was back, better than ever. “That’s really cool! You really drive it?”

“Forward
and
backward.”

Lina giggled. “I can hardly back up our Mini Cooper without hitting something. You must be a really good . . .” She stopped and looked at me with a changed expression. “Hey, wasn’t it someone on the bookmobile who found that dead guy? Was that you?”

This wasn’t how I’d expected to lead into a conversation about Caroline, but hey, I could adjust. I nodded.

“Wow, that must have been awful.”

“Yes, it was.” Then, “Thank you for saying that. Most people are just curious.”

“Oh, I’m curious.” She grinned. “I just have really good manners.”

I laughed. “My mother always said manners will take you places you can’t get to any other way.”

“Sounds like my mom. So do the police know who killed him?”

“As far as I know, they don’t have any suspects.”

“That’s too bad.” She sighed. “Mrs. Grice is pretty upset about it.”

“I heard they’d been seeing each other.”

“Yeah, for a little while now, but not—” She came to a screeching halt.

“Not what?”

“I shouldn’t say, I really shouldn’t.” She bit at her lower lip.

It was time to bring out my big gun. The Librarian Voice. “Lina,” I said sternly. “If you know something, you have a duty to share it.”

“Yes, but—”

“This is murder. There’s nothing worse.”

She gripped her hands tight. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. It’s just . . .”

“I know,” I said much more softly. “It can be hard doing the right thing.”

“Yeah.” She sighed. “This was like the week before Mr. Larabee died, right? Mrs. Grice stopped by to check out some new art. She’s standing right there”—Lina gestured at a spot on the wood floor in front of a large abstract painting—“and Mr. Larabee comes in the door, all loud and big.”

That was Stan.

“He walked real fast over to Mrs. Grice and started saying something about how she needed to listen to him. Mrs. Grice, she’s always so nice? But she went all cold. She said, ‘If you wish to discuss a personal matter, I prefer that we do it in private.’ So they went in the office and shut the door behind them.”

“So you didn’t hear what they were talking about?”

Lina colored. “I did kind of walk over that way. I mean, Mr. Larabee’s nice and all, but he was so much bigger than Mrs. Grice and I thought if he got mad and she got scared, that I could . . . do something.”

As good a justification for eavesdropping as there could be. “But you didn’t hear anything.”

“Just that Mrs. Grice was talking a lot and Mr. Larabee hardly got a word in.” Lina half smiled. “It was kind of funny until . . .” Her smile fell away.

“What?”

She looked at the office door. “Until they came out. The door opened and Mr. Larabee said something I couldn’t hear. Then Mrs. Grice said, clear as anything, ‘Not if you were the last man on earth. I daresay the next time I see you will be at your funeral.’ And she left. Mr. Larabee stood there a minute; then he left, too.”

Lina hugged herself. “But she didn’t mean it. I mean, that’s just something people say. You never mean something like that. You just don’t.” She looked at me, fear on her face. “Right?”

• • •

I spent most of Sunday night trying to figure out what to do about Lina’s story. The girl flat-out refused to go to the police. “I can’t do that, not to Mrs. Grice. She’s so nice. I’m an art major and working in a gallery is going to look great on my résumé. I mean, if the police go to her, she’d know I told and she’d fire me for sure.” So if the police were going to find out about the incident, they’d have to find out from me.

• • •

Monday morning, the air of the public entry to the Tonedagana County Sheriff’s Office smelled stale and confined and vaguely threatening. I knew it was all in my head, but even still, in the short time I stood there, waiting for someone to come to the window, I decided that if no one showed up in the next ten seconds, I was out of there.

I counted down fast to two and was turning to leave when a woman’s square face appeared in the window and gave me a quick once-over before the glass slid open. “Can I help you?”