Booking The Crook

Praise for the National Bestselling Bookmobile Cat Mysteries

“With humor and panache, Cass delivers an intriguing mystery and interesting characters.”

—Bristol Herald Courier (VA)

“Almost impossible to put down . . . the story is filled with humor and warmth.”

—MyShelf.com

“[With] Eddie’s adorableness [and] penchant to try to get more snacks, and Minnie’s determination to solve the crime, this duo will win over even those that don’t like cats.”

—Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

“A pleasant read. . . . [Minnie is] a spunky investigator.”

—Gumshoe

“A fast-paced page-turner that had me guessing until the last dramatic scenes.”

—Melissa’s Mochas, Mysteries & Meows

“Reading Laura Cass’s cozies feels like sharing a bottle of wine with an adventurous friend as she regales you with the story of her latest escapade.”

—The Cuddlywumps Cat Chronicles

Titles by Laurie Cass

Lending a Paw

Tailing a Tabby

Borrowed Crime

Pouncing on Murder

Cat with a Clue

Wrong Side of the Paw

Booking the Crook

BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

Published by Berkley

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

Copyright © 2019 by Janet Koch

Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

Ebook ISBN: 9780440000990

First Edition: July 2019

Cover art by Mary Ann Lasher

Cover design by Emily Osborne

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Version_1

For all the restaurants everywhere that cheerfully allow writers to sit in their back corners for hours at a stretch. With a special nod to Touch of Class in Central Lake, Michigan. Thank you!

Contents

Praise for the National Bestselling Bookmobile Cat Mysteries

Titles by Laurie Cass

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

About the Author

Chapter 1

I stood at the kitchen window, staring out into the backyard as January’s chill seeped through the glass and into my bones. The cold was making my skin prickle and my teeth chatter, yet I didn’t move. If I stayed, maybe time would stand still. Maybe the morning wouldn’t happen. Maybe if I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head, it would all go away.

“Minnie?” my aunt Frances asked. “What, pray tell, do you see? It’s pitch dark out there.”

She was right. Even though I knew the backyard contained snow-covered maple and beech trees, the only thing I could see was my own self. Whoever had installed the double-hung windows had placed them at a height that forced any five-foot-tall human—in this case, me—to either stand on tiptoes or crouch slightly to see over the top of the lower window. This morning I was standing on my toes and seeing little more than the reflection of a pair of slightly bloodshot brown eyes and too-curly black hair.

“Mrr.”

I looked over at my cat. Eddie was sitting in the kitchen chair he’d claimed as his own and licking his right front paw.

Aunt Frances laughed. “Your fuzzy friend said to sit down and eat your oatmeal.” She put two bowls on the round oak table and slid into the chair across from Eddie.

“More likely he’s asking about his breakfast.” I gave the top of my head one last glance—still a curly mess and likely to stay that way—and sat. “You didn’t have to make me breakfast.”

“Don’t get used to it. However, I thought it only right to commemorate this day.” She dipped her spoon into the bowl and held it up in a toast. “To the new director of the Chilson District Library, whatever his name is. May his reign bring joy to all, but especially to the library’s assistant director, since she’s sitting across the table from me.”

“Graydon,” I said. “His name is Graydon Cain.”

“The poor man. What were his parents thinking? I wonder what his friends call him? Gray?” She raised one eyebrow. “Don?”

“Maybe it’s a family name and they call him Junior.”

Aunt Frances snorted. “Surely your nimble mind has a better suggestion than that. You’re not getting sick, are you?”

“If only,” I muttered, but not loud enough for her to hear. When Graydon had interviewed with the library board a few months back, I’d made the event memorable by walking backward into the then-president of the board, falling to the floor, and strewing the contents of my backpack all across the lobby.

Bad as that had been, it had been far worse to have Eddie hack up a hair ball on the Italian shoes of the woman the board chose as the library’s director. An early—and heavy—October snowfall had sent Jennifer scuttling back south and the board had gone to Graydon, metaphorical hat in hand, and asked him to consider making northwest lower Michigan his new home.

“Well,” my aunt said reasonably, “Graydon can’t be any worse than that frightful woman.”

I sighed. “You’d think so, but I wouldn’t have thought anyone could be worse than Stephen.” My former boss, who’d had the personality of a doorstop and a deep reluctance to agree to any change in anything whatsoever, hadn’t inspired deep loyalty in his staff.

“It’ll be fine,” Aunt Frances said comfortably. Of course, she could be comfortable about the whole thing; she hadn’t had a new boss in ages. Her fall-to-spring job was as a woodworking instructor at the local community college, and the college president was in fine fettle and likely to stay that way. In summer, she opened up the big house she’d inherited from her long-passed-away husband to eight hand-picked boarders. Or rather, that’s what she’d done for years and years. This summer it was all going to be different.

Most of me was thrilled about the upcoming events, but part of me had a kinship with Stephen and his dislike of change. I’d loved the boardinghouse since, starting at age twelve, my busy parents had sent me north from June to August. Every group of boarders was unique and every summer had brought new adventures. I didn’t want the evening tradition of cooking marshmallows in the living room’s fieldstone fireplace to end. I didn’t want the bookshelf full of board games and jigsaw puzzles to be moved. I didn’t want the screened porch off the dining room to sprout new furniture, and I certainly didn’t want anyone to decide the wide pine-paneled walls needed to be covered with drywall and papered over with some floral print.

“Don’t,” my aunt said.

I looked up. “Don’t what?”

“Think whatever it is you’re thinking.” Before I could disagree, she added, “And don’t bother denying that you’re thinking things you shouldn’t be thinking about. If it’s about that Graydon, quit worrying. If it’s about this summer, quit worrying. It’ll all work out, one way or another, and worrying doesn’t help one bit.”

“I know, but—”

“Stop,” she said firmly.

Since Aunt Frances was the sanest person I knew, and since she’d been right the other zillion times in my life when she told me to quit worrying, I said, “You’re right. Again.” I’d stop. Or at least try to.

“There’s a reason you’re my favorite niece,” she said.

“I’m your only niece.”

“Then isn’t it wonderful that we found each other?” She grinned. And since my aunt’s grins were hard to resist, I grinned back.

“Mrr!”

“Yes, Eddie,” I said, patting the top of his head. “It’s wonderful that I found you, too.”

He glanced up at me, and I got the impression that he was mentally switching the pronouns in that sentence. Almost two years ago, on an unseasonably warm April morning, I’d skipped out on cleaning chores and instead wandered through the local cemetery, enjoying the view of the twenty-mile-long Janay Lake and the horizontal blue line of Lake Michigan just over the hills to the west. My quiet walk had been interrupted by a black-and-gray tabby cat who had materialized next to the gravesite of Alonzo Tillotson, born 1847, died 1926.

I’d assumed the cat had a home and tried to shoo him away, but he’d followed me back to town, much to the amusement of passersby. Since I’d known nothing about cats due to my father’s allergies, I’d taken him to the local veterinarian, who said my new friend (a black-and-white tabby once he’d been cleaned up) was about two years old. The “Found Cat” notice I’d run in the newspaper had gone unanswered, and Eddie and I were now pals for life.

“It’s going to be different, that’s all,” I said, letting my hand rest on Eddie’s warm back.

“Different isn’t necessarily bad.” Aunt Frances scraped her spoon against the bottom of her bowl.

“I know. It’s just . . .” I sighed.

“Going to be different.” My aunt nodded. “I understand, my sweet. I really do. You’re getting a new boss. Cousin Celeste is buying the boardinghouse. Otto and I are getting married in Bermuda, I’m moving across the street, and you’re—” She stopped. “What are you doing? Have you made a decision about the houseboat?”

I shook my head. A few years ago I’d been lucky enough to have been offered the assistant director job at the Chilson District Library. The job paid what you might expect, and since housing in the summer resort town of Chilson was not what you’d call affordable, my living arrangements were, by necessity, creative.

October through April, I lived with my aunt in the rambling boardinghouse, but come May, I moved to a boat slip in Uncle Chip’s Marina to spend the summer in the cutest little houseboat imaginable. But this May, someone else other than Aunt Frances was going to open the boardinghouse, and I wouldn’t be moving back here in the fall, or ever again.

“I hear,” my aunt said, “that Rafe is looking for wide walnut planks to do the entry floor.”

“Hmm.” A smile spread across my face. A few weeks earlier, I’d come to the shocking realization that Rafe Niswander—who I’d known since I was twelve years old, who infuriated me on a regular basis, who often displayed the sense of humor of a nine-year-old, and who took every opportunity to display stupidity in spite of his multiple college degrees and successful position as a middle school principal—was, in fact, the love of my life. Happily, this realization almost completely coincided with Rafe’s confession that he’d been in love with me for years, and that he’d just been waiting for the right time to own up.

Which, as it turned out, was during a critical time. Rafe had spent years fixing up an old shingle-style house and his confession had occurred when he’d said he’d been renovating it for me all along, but that it was time for kitchen design decisions and he’d needed my input.

“I haven’t decided,” I told Aunt Frances.

“About the walnut?”

I ignored the question, which had to be rhetorical. She knew perfectly well that I had as much interest in the types of wood Rafe bought as I did in kitchen design, which was to say none.

“About selling the houseboat,” I said. “If I sell it, I could pay off my last student loan, but once it’s gone, it’s gone, like oatmeal on a snowy January morning.” I reached across the table for her empty bowl. “Thank you for making breakfast. I appreciate the celebration and hope the day deserves it.”

Aunt Frances watched as I carried the dishes to the sink. “Celeste sent me an e-mail last night. Shall I read it to you?”

“Yes, please.” The e-mails from Celeste Glendennie, the cousin in Nevada buying the boardinghouse, were terse, choppy, informative, and often very funny. My parents claimed I’d met her at a family reunion, but I couldn’t summon up a single memory.

My aunt reached out for her cell phone, which was sitting on the kitchen counter. After a few screen taps, she said, “Quoting: Is boardinghouse one word or two? Inquiring minds want to know. Mine does, too.” Aunt Frances put down the phone. “She’s going to be here the last week of April to get started. Are you planning on being gone by then?”

“Yep.”

“If I recall correctly, your houseboat doesn’t have central heating. Did you ask Eddie how he feels about living in below-freezing temperatures?”

I glanced at my furry friend, who was now standing with his back feet on the seat of his chair and his front feet on the windowsill, staring at an outside that would be dark for another hour. “Rafe says the house will be done by mid-April.”

Aunt Frances hooted with laughter. “And you believed him? Don’t look like that, dear heart. I’m sure he thinks he’s being realistic, but my money’s on October.”

“Can’t be October,” I said. “I ran into Chris the other day and Uncle Chip himself has decided it’s time to update the marina. They’re going to pull out all the piers and put in new ones right after Labor Day.” Though Chris was part owner and manager of the marina, his great uncle was the marina’s patriarch, and his wish was Chris’s command.

My aunt put a hand on my shoulder. “Poor Minnie. What are you going to do with all this change being foisted upon you? How will you endure?”

“With luck and grace,” I told her. “And if that can’t happen, with fortitude and a smile. But even without any of that, I’ll endure with—”

“Mrr.”

As per usual, he was right on cue. “With Eddie.”

• • •

An hour later, the outgoing library board president, octogenarian Otis Rahn, looked at me over the top of his glasses. “Now, Minnie, I have every confidence in you, but I want you to promise that this year will be a rousing success.”

It wasn’t easy for me to keep from doing a fidgety squirm, and I tried to forget how much I disliked making promises regarding things that were primarily out of my control and instead focused on how much I loved my job.

“Of course, Otis,” I said, smiling and nodding at the two new faces.

Graydon, our new director. Trent, our new board president. Two names out of an East Coast prep school alumni directory and they had the looks to match. Both had thin faces and smooth hair cut to a professional length. Both wore slacks, jacket, and no tie—clothing completely appropriate for a formal Up North meeting in January. Both had greeted me with firm handshakes and friendly smiles.

There was no reason for me to dislike them. None whatsoever. But I would have preferred a hint of awe in their demeanor. Not at me, of course, but at our surroundings. For decades, the Chilson District Library had been stuffed into a concrete block structure that had the aesthetics of a bunker. With the magic of an easily passed millage vote, a historic—and empty—elementary school had been lovingly renovated into a building that was a point of pride for the entire community.

The architects had taken advantage of the building’s Arts and Crafts style and had revitalized its miles of interior wood trim. They’d added large square tile flooring to the lobby and wide hallways. The reading room had a fireplace and window seats. Colored metallic tiles highlighted everything from drinking fountains to directional signs. What had been the school gymnasium now housed the bulk of the library’s books, with custom-made oak tables and lamps that invited people to sit and stay. Every time I walked into the building, its beauty almost took my breath away.

Even now, the view from the second-floor boardroom of picturesque downtown Chilson and Janay Lake was gorgeous. Sure, everything was covered with a fresh layer of snow and the lake was frozen, but if you lived in northwest lower Michigan year-round, your mental health depended on finding beauty in winter.

“Looking forward to working with you,” Trent Ross said politely.

“Likewise,” Graydon said. The only person I’d ever heard use that word in conversation was a long-ago college professor who had tried to teach me statistics, and hearing it from my new boss did not summon happy memories. “And I’m looking forward to having more meetings,” he said, nodding.

Otis gazed at him. “My boy, don’t make the board regret hiring you.”

Graydon laughed. “I was being a bit facetious. It’s this room.” He nodded at the wood-paneled walls, the long corporate-looking table, and the blotters placed in front of every chair. “It makes me feel that important things are being discussed. It makes me feel dignified.”

I smiled, because I felt the same way about the boardroom. Rather, I’d come to feel that way once I’d recovered from being intimidated by its atmosphere. Now that I was a mature thirty-four years old, I was over being intimidated by pretty much anyone or anything. My knee-jerk reaction regarding Graydon started to ease.

“So. Tell me about the bookmobile,” Trent said, sitting back and steepling his fingers.

“Do I have a time limit?” I asked, smiling.

Otis laughed. “Minnie Hamilton can talk about the bookmobile for hours. I’ve heard her.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Trent glanced at a band of electronics strapped to his wrist. “Ten minutes should be plenty.”

The man was delusional. That wasn’t anywhere near enough to tell the story of the bookmobile. How it got started, why it got started, its many successes, its few failures, and how we were using it to bring more outreach into the county’s many rural communities, none of which had a bricks-and-mortar library.

And what was his hurry, exactly? We’d been told Mr. Trent Ross was a retired attorney, recently moved up from the Chicago area. What could possibly be more important to him than learning about the bookmobile?

I tried to hitch my thoughts together into a cohesive heap. “Well, the bookmobile came about because—”

“Sorry,” Trent interrupted, looking again at his wrist. “My ten o’clock appointment is early.” He stood. “Minnie, it was nice meeting you. Graydon, Otis.” He nodded at the men and left.

As Otis drifted into regaling Graydon with tales about past library boards and off-color stories about past board members, my thoughts drifted into worry, in spite of my recent commitment to stop doing so. The bookmobile was my pride and joy, and keeping it funded was a constant preoccupation. If the new board president was anti-bookmobile, how long would it take for the full board to start thinking like that? How long would it take them to vote it away?

• • •

I wasn’t all the way into the break room when my coworkers pounced.

“What’s he like?”

“Is he going to be a jerk?”

“Did he say anything about the IT budget? We really need a new server.”

“How did it go?”

Ignoring the questions, I pushed through the group to get to the coffeepot. Once I had a mug full of caffeine, I started answering their questions. To Holly Terpening, a full-time clerk a few years older than myself, I said, “Graydon likes the building, so that’s a good sign.” To Kelsey, a part-time clerk a couple of years younger than me, I said, “He doesn’t come across as a jerk,” then buried my face in coffee.

Josh, our full-time IT guy, shifted from foot to foot until I came up for air. He looked so anxious that I felt a little guilty that I was about to give him the facts of life. Which at thirty-something he should have known, especially since he was now a homeowner, but perhaps he wasn’t raised properly. “We didn’t talk about budgets or major purchases. They weren’t even mentioned.”

I shut my ears to his moan of pain and turned to Donna. I still couldn’t decide who I wanted to be most like when I grew up; right now it was a tie between Aunt Frances and Donna, who at seventy-two was working part-time at the library to support her habits of running marathons all over the country and snowshoeing in faraway mountain lands after being dropped off by a helicopter. “You asked how it went. Well . . .” I took a sip of coffee. Then another one.

The previous library director, Jennifer Walker, had been universally disliked. Though I’d tried valiantly to refrain from criticizing her during her short stay, I hadn’t always been successful. I wasn’t proud of that behavior, and since I was always trying to learn from my mistakes, I framed my response to Donna carefully.

I wasn’t about to lie—not only did I think lying was unethical, immoral, and just plain wrong, but quality fibbing required a prodigious memory, a trait that had not yet emerged in my character—so the truth was my only option. However, there was no reason to tell the whole truth.

“Graydon,” I said, “seems to be an all-around decent guy. He’s from Grand Rapids, and he’s spent a lot of time Up North over the years. Not just in the summer,” I said, forestalling a typical comment from locals regarding downstaters, “because he and his family like to ski.”

Chilson was one of those small towns that was full to bursting from Memorial Day to Labor Day with tourists and summer people up to their lakefront cottages. Old money had come up the Lake Michigan shore on steamers to escape the Chicago heat, and new money was still building houses everywhere else. Tourists included everyone imaginable, and in summer you could see just about anyone on the street, from your third grade teacher to the owner of the biggest tech company in the world.

In winter, though, things were different. Winter was when some restaurants and retail stores closed down completely, because there was no reason to stay open for the two people who might wander in.

On the plus side, winter in Chilson was when you never had to wait in line anywhere for anything. It was when there was never any problem finding a parking space. And when, if your car happened to slide in a ditch, the next car going past would stop and help you get out. Yes, winter was snowy and cold, but it was also full of friends. It was almost a pity that Jennifer hadn’t stayed long enough to understand that.

“Good,” Donna said. “So Graydon has potential to not be a total disaster. How about Trent?”

I’d felt the question coming, so I’d buried my face in my coffee mug to give me more time. Two swallows later, I was ready. “It seemed like Trent and Graydon have a lot in common.” Their commonality might be surficial, but if I kept talking, odds were good that no one would ask for details. “Trent is an Up North newbie, and it seems like he wants to get involved and help make us even better.”

Holly and Josh grinned and bumped knuckles, but Donna gave me a searching look, and I remembered that she had years of experience working with boards of various shapes and sizes.

“Good morning!” Lloyd Goodwin shuffled in the door. Mr. Goodwin was in his late seventies, and if we’d been allowed to have favorite patrons, he would have been in everyone’s top five. Full of good humor and friendlier than a puppy, Mr. Goodwin had a self-professed medical need for morning coffee, and because of this, we’d opened up the staff break room to library patrons. The only bad thing was that Mr. Goodwin and Kelsey both liked coffee brewed strong enough to burn your stomach lining—some mornings it was a race to the coffee grounds.

Mr. Goodwin received a chorus of return “good mornings.” He nodded at everyone and asked, “Do you folks know how to keep Canadian bacon from curling? No?” He smiled. “It’s easy. Take their little brooms away.”

A half second of silence was followed by multiple laughing groans, and I took the opportunity to sketch a smiling wave and head out. It was bookmobile time.

• • •

Fresh-fallen snow blanketed the world. In Chilson there’d been barely an inch of fresh white stuff, but in this part of Tonedagana County at least six inches had come down overnight. I smiled at the sight. New snow transformed the world. Yesterday’s line of dark green cedar trees was now a bumpy white row. The dirty rawness of a local gravel pit had been magicked into a soft hole. And that little five-acre lake was now a field of white. If you didn’t know there was a lake under there, would you know there was a lake under there?

“Don’t tell me you’re smiling at the snow,” Julia said.

“Mrr,” Eddie said in a way that sounded like a Julia echo.

I glanced at the passenger’s side of the bookmobile. My part-time bookmobile clerk was, as per usual, resting her feet on Eddie’s strapped-down cat carrier. Eddie was flopped against the carrier’s door, his black-and-white fur sticking out through the wire in square sections. “The snow likes it when we smile.” I’d texted basically the same thing to Rafe when I was working through the bookmobile’s preflight checklist, and he’d sent back a tiny, one-second cartoon of a stick figure’s head exploding into falling snow. I didn’t know exactly what message he’d been trying to send, but I’d decided to assume kindly humor.

Julia snorted, connoting in that one short noise disbelief and a bit of derision that was covered up with humor. It was a lot to convey with a snort, but if needed, she could have troweled on three additional messages.

Though Julia had been born and raised in Chilson, she’d moved to the big lights of New York City before the ink dried on her high school diploma. She’d intended to find fame and fortune as a model, which hadn’t worked out, so she’d tried her hand at theater. This had worked out far better—as it turned out, she oozed acting talent and had more than one Tony Award to show for it.

At a certain age, however, offers for leading roles tend to slow to a trickle, even for the best of actors. Just before that happened, Julia and her husband moved back to her hometown, where she had too much time on her hands until the bookmobile came along. Now she and her storytelling abilities were woven into the fabric of the bookmobile as much as Eddie’s hairs were.

“Everyone needs a smile now and then,” I said. “Even the snow.”

“Snow is not a sentient being.”

“Maybe. But what if it was? What if it had feelings? Thoughts and dreams for a better future?”

“Mrr.”

Julia tucked her long strawberry blond hair behind her ears and gently tapped the top of Eddie’s carrier with one heel. “I’m pretty sure he said you’re loony tunes and shouldn’t be allowed out in public.”

“I’m pretty sure he said you should stop pounding on his roof.”

When I’d hired Julia, Eddie’s presence on the bookmobile had been a deep, dark secret I’d been trying to keep from Stephen, my then-boss. Eddie had been a stowaway on the vehicle’s maiden voyage, and I’d intended it to be a one-time deal until Eddie’s absence on the following trip had caused the lower lip of Brynn, a young girl with leukemia, to tremble.

There was no way I could deal with her tears, so Eddie had been installed as a permanent passenger. Soon after, the doctors had declared that Brynn’s cancer was in remission, something that Brynn’s mother tended to give Eddie credit for. Now everyone knew the bookmobile cat, and I was pretty sure more people knew his name than mine.

Julia leaned forward against her seat belt’s shoulder strap. “Which of us is right, Mr. Edward? Please indicate with a point of your elegant white-tipped paw.”

Eddie yawned and rolled into an Eddie-size ball, tucking all four of his paws underneath him.

I laughed. That Julia played along with my game of talking to Eddie as if he were fluent in the English language was one of the reasons I hoped she’d work with me forever. “Last stop of the day,” I said, and took a right turn into a convenience store parking lot, which I was glad to see had been plowed clean of snow.

The day hadn’t been a stellar one, as far as the number of patrons went. Though the main roads had all been plowed by the time we were traveling them, many of the side roads were not, and people didn’t tend to make optional trips on unplowed roads, even with four-wheel drive. The few people who had come aboard, though, stayed long and borrowed much, which pleased my librarian’s soul to the core.

I parked and we quickly went through the preparations. Unlatch Eddie’s cage, rotate the driver’s seat to face a small desk, turn on the two laptop computers, release the bungee cord that kept the office chair in the back in place, and ensure that no books, DVDs, jigsaw puzzles, or our most recent loan item of ice fishing poles had jostled out of place.

Eddie took part by jumping onto the dashboard, his current favorite spot. This meant I would later be cleaning paw prints off the dash and nose prints off the inside of the windshield and my arms weren’t long enough to do it easily, but doing the cleaning was far easier than getting Eddie to change his mind.

“Think we’ll have anyone show up?” Julia asked.

“Rowan,” I said. “Thanks to her son, she recently discovered that she likes fantasy. I have a stack of Tad Williams and Ursula K. Le Guin books waiting.”

Julia made a face at Rowan’s name but didn’t say anything.

I knew many people found Rowan Bennethum unfriendly and abrasive, but I tended to find her dryly dark comments funny. Rowan had become a dependable bookmobile patron since last summer when she’d started working from home three days a week. She was a loan officer for the local bank and, thanks to computer magic, had convinced the higher-ups that not only would she get more done at home, but it would be even more secure.

Julia, in her early sixties, was about fifteen years older than Rowan, so her animosity couldn’t be due to high school rivalries. And as far as I knew, they weren’t related. I looked up from the daily chore of picking Eddie hair off the long carpeted riser that served as both sitting area and a step to reach the top shelves. Vertically inflated people, such as Julia, didn’t need the step, but vertically efficient people such as myself found it very helpful.

“Why don’t you like her?” I asked.

After a moment, Julia said, “Personality conflict.”

I was about to drill down and get a real answer out of her when I realized the dashboard was feline-free. “Have you seen Eddie?”

Julia glanced around. “He was here a second ago.”

Cats had an amazing ability to compact themselves into half the volume they should reasonably occupy. I’d found Eddie in places a small squirrel shouldn’t have been able to fit into, including the thin space underneath my dresser and out a window when the window was open maybe two inches.

There weren’t many places he could hide on the bookmobile, but even still, it took us a few minutes to find him tucked behind the 200–400 shelf of nonfiction books.

“What are you doing back there?” I peered at him. His yellow eyes blinked back. “Do you have any intention of ever coming out?” I fully expected to get a “Mrr” in reply, but he was silent. “Are you feeling okay, little buddy?”

“What did he say?” Julia asked.

“Nothing.” I reached in and petted him, expecting to feel a purr, and got nothing.

“He’s not sick, is he?”

“Probably he’s just tired. He only got twelve hours of sleep last night.”

Julia laughed. “The poor thing.”

“Yes, he needs his beauty rest.” I gave him one last pet. “I’m sure he’ll be fine with some sleep.”

But at the end of the stop, he still hadn’t moved. The few bookmobilers who’d shown up couldn’t entice him out to say hello, not even the five-year-old boy who jangled Eddie’s treat can. “He won’t come out,” the kid said. “Can you get him for me, Miss Minnie?”

Since Eddie still had his claws, I had no intention of doing anything remotely like that. “Our Eddie is feeling a little sick.” I took the can of treats away from the child. “When you’re sick, you stay home and sleep, right? Eddie likes to sleep behind books when he’s not feeling well.”

“He’s going to get better, isn’t he?”

“You bet.” I smiled at the boy. “He has a little kitty cold, that’s all.”

But I was concerned. This was not Eddie-like behavior. I’d never known him to have anything other than the occasional sneeze. As we closed up the computers, a low guttural whine issued from behind the nonfiction section.

“Something isn’t right,” I said to myself. But more than one thing wasn’t right, I realized. I looked at the stack of fantasy novels I’d specially selected for today. “Rowan never showed up.”

“She probably got busy and forgot,” Julia said.

Could be. But that wasn’t like Rowan. The only time she hadn’t shown up for her bookmobile stop was last fall, when she’d been downstate for a conference. She’d told me well in advance, and when she’d mentioned that she needed someone to water her plants, I’d volunteered, and now a tiny part of my brain was permanently stuck with the knowledge of the keyless entry code to her house.

It wasn’t like Rowan to order books and then ignore them. Not like her at all.

I looked at Eddie’s shelf, looked at Rowan’s books, and came to a decision. “Let’s go,” I said abruptly.

Julia, who’d been securing the rear chair, looked up. “That didn’t sound like the normal homeward-bound announcement.”

I pulled a suddenly willing Eddie out from behind the books. “We’re going to Rowan’s house.”

“Minnie—”

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” I said, cutting into her objection before it could get started. “And don’t tell her I told you, but Rowan has some sort of heart issue. She takes medication, but still.” I’d discovered this by accident, when I’d run into Rowan at the pharmacy a month or two ago, and she’d been discussing side effects of the medication with the pharmacist.

Julia’s chin took on an obstinate stance as we buckled up. “Isn’t this taking outreach a little far?”

Since I was captain of the ship, I could have ignored the question, but since I liked to have the support of my troops, I said, “Just a quick stop. It’s barely out of our way.”

This was true and Julia knew it, so she refrained from further comment on the subject. Actually, she refrained from any comment at all, something almost as unusual as Eddie refraining from snoring in the middle of the night. I glanced over a few times on the short drive, but each time Julia was studying the scenery out the passenger window with a concentration that telegraphed a clear message that she didn’t want to talk.

I sighed. Julia’s dislike of Rowan was deeper than I’d realized. And after dropping off Rowan’s books, I’d have to find out why. I did not want to have a mysterious issue hovering in the air between us.

By the time we were approaching Rowan’s house, I’d come to the conclusion that Julia was right, that I was going overboard. But with snow piled up on the sides of the road, there was no good spot on this stretch of road to turn the thirty-one-foot bookmobile around, so we were committed.

I was rehearsing both my delivery speech to Rowan (“Ding dong, bookmobile calling”) and my apology speech to Julia (“You were right, I was wrong, and I’m sorry”) when Julia sucked in a sharp breath.

My mouth opened to ask if she was okay, but what came out instead of a question was my own gasp.

“No, no, no . . .” I stammered, staring wide-eyed at the shape lying in Rowan’s driveway. The long, person-size shape.

I’d already started braking, but Julia was flying out the door and into the snow before the wheels stopped turning. Eddie’s howls rose as I set the parking brake and took off after my coworker.

We’d both taken multiple first aid courses and the training kicked into gear. Julia turned Rowan onto her back and checked for a pulse. She shook her head, unzipped Rowan’s winter coat, and started chest compressions. By the time I was on my knees next to Rowan, I’d already pulled out my phone and dialed 911.

“Emergency dispatch,” came the welcome voice. “Where is your emergency?”

I gave the location, then said, “We need an ambulance right away. She fell in the snow. We don’t know how long she was here. She doesn’t have a pulse. She doesn’t have a pulse, she doesn’t—” I heard the panic in my voice, stopped, then started again. “She’s in her driveway, she has a history of heart problems, and I’m afraid that . . . please . . .” I was holding the phone so hard it hurt, but I didn’t want to loosen my grip. If anything, I wanted to grip even harder, so help would arrive faster.

“We’re sending an ambulance right now, ma’am,” said the dispatcher calmly. “They should be there in less than ten minutes.”

“Stay. Alive,” Julia gasped out, the words coming out in time with the compressions. “Stay. Alive.”

“Are you able to perform CPR?” the dispatcher asked.

“Doing it,” I said. “Is there anything else we can do to help?” I looked around wildly, not sure what I was looking for. “There’s a snow shovel,” I said. “She must have been shoveling her driveway.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the dispatcher said. She asked about visible cuts and bruises, and I’m sure I answered her, but my attention was on Rowan and Julia.

“Stay. Alive.” Julia was still talking. “You turned. Down my. Sister’s. Second. Mortgage. She lost. Her house. But don’t. Die. Don’t. Die.”

I stared at Julia. No wonder she didn’t like Rowan. But here she was, doing her best to make sure a woman she had good reason to hate survived a heart attack. My throat tightened and I leaned forward, hands flat and ready. “My turn,” I said, and started compressions as Julia pulled away and sat back on her heels.

We knelt there, switching back and forth, until the ambulance arrived. The EMTs hurried out and took over. In seconds, Rowan was in a gurney with a uniformed EMT walking alongside doing compressions. Then she was inside, the back door shut, and they were off with lights flashing and siren blaring.

“She’s not going to make it, is she?” Julia asked quietly.

I watched the taillights of the ambulance recede into the distance. “No. She’s not.”

Chapter 2

That night I sat on a stool in Rafe’s dining room. Or what would eventually be a dining room. Right now it was partly a room where he was installing crown and floor molding, but mostly it was a storage room for his boxes of stuff. The boxes migrated as he went through renovation phases, and I’d lost count of how many times he’d moved his belongings from one room to another. Why he hadn’t rented a storage unit, or at least moved them to a room he’d declared as renovation-free, I had no idea.

And what any of the boxes held, I was pretty sure he had no idea about that, either, because when he’d moved into the house last summer, there hadn’t been a concerted labeling effort when he’d packed his apartment. The box at which I was staring was a prime example. The only indication of its insides were two words written in Rafe’s distinctive scrawl: “Heavy Stuff.” A half hour earlier, when I’d walked in with dinner, I’d seen the box and asked him what might be inside. He’d said, “Not sure. Could be anything from books to free weights. When we open them it’s going to be like Christmas.” At that point, he’d grinned and slapped his flat stomach. “Hope there’s food inside some of them. Nothing like a two-year-old bag of potato chips to take the edge off.”

That had been when I’d started crying. His look of shock was quickly replaced with concern. He’d immediately taken me in his arms and hugged me tight. “Minnie. Sweetheart. Holder of my happiness. What’s the matter? Just give me the word and I’ll do whatever it takes to fix it. Climb mountains. Slay lions. I’ll even drive downstate and get you those doughnuts you like so much.”

His nonsense made me cry even harder, but my tears eventually dried up and I pulled away. “Sorry about your shirt,” I’d said, wiping my eyes with a napkin I’d brought from Fat Boys Pizza and blowing my nose with another one.

He didn’t even look at the vast wet splotches. “It’ll wash. What’s wrong?”

On some deep level, I recognized how much I loved this man, and how lucky I was that he loved me back. The rest of me was filled with sadness for what had happened that afternoon. I’d started texting him about Rowan half a dozen times, but I’d always put the phone away before hitting Send, not knowing what to say, figuring I’d tell him in person. And now that time was here.

By the time Rafe had finished eating, I’d finished the story, which ended with me stopping at the Charlevoix Hospital and getting confirmation that Rowan had indeed died. I’d tracked down an emergency room nurse that I knew and wheedled out a little more information, primarily that Rowan had most likely been dead long before Julia and I had arrived.

“But that doesn’t make you feel any better, does it?” Rafe had asked.

I’d shaken my head.

“Eat something,” he’d told me. “You probably don’t think you’re hungry, but just try eating, okay?”

Two pieces of pizza and three breadsticks later, I was feeling better. Part of which could be attributed to the massive amount of carbohydrates I’d just ingested, but a full stomach on top of the comfort Rafe had given me was edging me from shocked grief to a dull sadness that only time would ease.

Rafe was now up on a ladder with a putty knife and a can of wood filler. I spent a few minutes admiring the way his broad shoulders tapered to his waist, but since it wouldn’t do to inflate his ego, I asked the obvious question. “Why are you bothering to fill nail holes that are too small to see?”

“Minnie, Minnie, Minnie.” His sigh was dramatic and overwrought, nearly Julia quality. “Haven’t you learned the first rule of home improvement?”

Was he kidding? “I know all of those rules. Number one: It’ll take forever. Number two: Anything you do will cost half again as much as you think it will. Number three: Nothing is ever delivered on time. Number four is—”

Rafe’s voice cut through my recitation. Which was too bad because I could have continued for a long time. “Once again, you have not been paying attention to all that I have been teaching you.”

He was partly right, but not completely. “I know that measuring twice and cutting once is more than just an aphorism. And,” I said proudly, “I know the difference between flat, Phillips, and offset screwdrivers.”

“The first rule of home improvement,” Rafe said, ignoring me, “is to hide things.”

I frowned. “What exactly are you hiding? There’s no room up there to hide anything.”

“Mistakes.” Rafe peered at his handiwork, added a microscopic amount of putty, and peered again. “You have to cover up your mistakes completely or you’ll be staring at them the rest of your life wishing you’d done a better job.”

“Better?” I asked in disbelief. “I’ve lost track of the things you’ve ripped out and reinstalled because they weren’t quite right. How could anything in this place be less than perfect?”

He gave the crown molding one last critical glance and came down the ladder.

That he hadn’t replied to my comment was an unusual occurrence, but there was also a suddenly odd feel to the silence in the room.

A silence that was weighted down with . . . something. The back of Rafe’s head wasn’t giving out any clues, so I started thinking about what I’d said. Started thinking about changes he’d made to the house while my best friend Kristen and I had rolled our eyes about his indecisiveness. Thought about the times he’d asked my opinion about paint colors. Thought about last October, when Rafe told me he’d been renovating the house for me all along. The conclusion was stunningly obvious.

“You kept making changes,” I said slowly, “because you wanted me to be part of the renovation.”

“For someone who’s really smart, you can be pretty stupid sometimes.” He grinned sideways at me, his teeth white against skin that was an attractive reddish brown color, thanks to some key Native American Anishinaabe ancestors, the same ancestors that had bestowed upon him thick black hair. “I should write up a change order invoice and send it to you.”

“I’d love to see that.”

He stopped moving the ladder and turned. “You would?”

“Absolutely. I’ll have it framed. We can hang it right over there.” I pointed to a blank spot. “It’ll look great next to the portrait of Eddie.”

“Nice to hear you getting into the spirit of decorating.” Rafe slathered more wood putty on the knife. “But I’d rather hear you make a decision about hardware for the kitchen cabinets.”

“I don’t like to rush these kinds of decisions. What we need is research.” I hopped off my stool and pulled a book out of my backpack. Hopping back up, I said, “What I have here, courtesy of your local library, is a history of kitchens that I will be happy to read to you. Shall we start with the preface, or the first chapter?”

“How about we start with the section on cabinet hardware?”

Smiling brightly, I said, “The preface it is and I completely agree with that opinion. The author wrote it for a reason and we need to find out what it is.” Disregarding what sounded like a bleat of despair from my beloved, I started to read.

• • •

When I got back to the boardinghouse, Aunt Frances was lying on a living room couch, looking very comfortable. The blanket over my aunt’s legs was covered with Eddie and Eddie fur. A fire was crackling merrily, and the book she was reading, Why We Run, by Bernd Heinrich, was opened at the halfway point. My aunt, who was active throughout the day, had never understood the point of formal exercise. She did, however, have an odd interest in ultraendurance, and had crowed with pleasure when I’d brought the book home from the library.

After my coat and boots were stowed away, I flopped on the opposite couch. “Want to know how he finishes the race?”

Still focused on her reading, she said, “Tell me and you die.”

I didn’t say anything, and she glanced up and immediately put the book aside. “What’s the matter, dear heart?”

The tears that had been absorbed into Rafe’s shirt must have been my allotment for the day, so I was able to tell the story of Rowan Bennethum’s death with only a couple of sniffles.

“It’s so sad,” I finished, blowing my nose with a tissue. The nose-blowing was hampered somewhat by Eddie, who’d heaved himself off my aunt’s lap and trundled over to mine. His purrs were so loud that I could feel them in my inner ear. “Neil’s going to be lost without his wife,” I said, “and the twins have lost their mother forever. Yes, they’re in college and don’t need her like little kids would, but it’s still going to be hard.”

Aunt Frances eyed me. “You’re not blaming yourself, are you?”

“No.” I laid my hand on Eddie’s back. “She was gone before we got there, so—” I stopped. “If we’d arrived earlier. If I hadn’t waited until the end of the bookmobile stop. If—”

“Stop.” My aunt got up and came over to sit next to me. “Don’t go there. Don’t you dare go there. Your overdeveloped sense of guilt may lead you in that direction, but you are not responsible.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said, twisting his head around to glare at me.

I smiled faintly. “It seems to be unanimous.”

“We can widen the sample if you’d like.” Aunt Frances gave me a quick hug. “I can call Rafe. Then I’ll call your parents. Your brother and sister-in-law. Kristen and your college roommates and everyone at the library. They’ll all say the same thing. It wasn’t your fault. And I’m willing to bet if the tables were turned, you’d say the same thing to me.”

“Probably,” I murmured. Then, after thinking about it for a moment, I said, “You’re right. I would tell you that.”

“Then it’s settled.” She gave me a quick hug, patted Eddie’s head, and went back to her couch. “No more guilt. Yes, Rowan’s death was a shock, but you did everything you could.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I saluted her.

“Quit that.” She tucked the blanket around her legs. “Now you can ask about my day.”

I blinked. It was a very un-Aunt-Frances-like statement. If she had something to tell me, she simply told me. “How was your day?”

“The classroom was fine. There’s nothing like the combination of power tools and nineteen-year-olds to get the blood flowing. It’s the other stuff that makes me want to pull my hair out.”

My aunt’s hair looked fine, so whatever it was couldn’t be too horrible. “What kind of things?”

She slumped down. “Wedding stuff,” she said darkly.

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I was holding. Wedding problems were solvable, and my aunt’s wedding problems were ones for me, the maid of honor, to deal with. I sat up and put my shoulders back. If I listened carefully, I might be able to hear the William Tell Overture, a clear indication that someone was riding in to save the day. “Any particular issue, or just in general?”

Aunt Frances sighed and slid a few inches farther down. If I squinted a little, I saw her as she might have looked forty-five years ago in the throes of teenage angst.

“It’s not the wedding so much as the guests.” She crossed her arms and dropped her chin to her chest. “Makes me think we should have just walked to the county building and been married by the magistrate.”

That ship, however, had sailed months ago. She and Otto, who bore a strong resemblance to Paul Newman, had told oodles of people about their plans for a destination wedding. If they changed their minds at this point, they’d be opening themselves up to the public censure a small town could deal out. Aunt Frances would shrug it off, but she and I both knew that Otto, a newcomer, was still figuring out how to fit into the fabric of Chilson life. A sudden change in wedding plans would not help.

“What’s wrong with the guests?” I’d helped my aunt and Otto put together the list and it wasn’t very long, which was part of the point of having a destination wedding in the first place. “Is anyone complaining about having to go to Bermuda?”

The hotel they’d chosen was reasonably priced. And Otto, who was retired but had been a very successful accountant, was subsidizing the cost of the airfare for a few people, myself included. (I’d protested, but not very loudly.)

“It’s not the guests we invited,” Aunt Frances said. “It’s the ones we didn’t. Two teachers at the college asked when their invitations would show up. When we were in Harbor Springs the other day, getting sandwiches at Gurney’s, we ran into my bridge partners from thirty years ago, who wanted to know about their invites. And a few minutes ago, I got an e-mail from an old high school friend who’d heard about the wedding and wanted to know the date so she could make her plans!” she almost wailed.

I slid Eddie off my lap and went over to the other couch. I put an arm around my aunt. “There, there,” I said soothingly. My aunt Frances was the most unflappable person I’d ever met. To see her like this was wholly unexpected.

“You think this is funny, don’t you?” she asked.

I could not tell a lie. “A little.”

“Please don’t tell Kristen,” Aunt Frances said.

My best friend, Kristen Jurek, was a force of nature and was in the middle of planning her own wedding. I was her maid of honor, too, but Kristen was in Key West for the winter and to date my involvement had been limited to confirming Kristen’s choices. “Scout’s honor,” I promised, making the official salute.

“Excellent.” My aunt pushed herself up. “Having her know I’ve gone all bridezilla is not something I want to live down.”

“You’re as likely to be a bridezilla as Eddie is to stop shedding hair. This is your wedding and you have every right to make your own guest list. You two wanted a destination wedding and a small group of friends and relatives attending. It’s your dream and you need to hold fast to it.”

Aunt Frances looked around. “Where’s the soundtrack? That speech should have been scored with harps and violins.”

I shook my head. “Trombones and trumpets.”

“No arguments,” she said severely. “I am the bride, remember?”

“Mrr,” my cat said.

“See? Eddie agrees with me.”

“He would,” I muttered, but on the inside I was smiling, because my aunt’s dark mood had lifted. There was no way that I was going to sleep well because I’d keep reliving that afternoon’s eternal minutes of kneeling in the snow, but at least Aunt Frances had a good shot at it.

• • •

The following week I was in my office, staring bleary-eyed at an article I was writing for the library’s newsletter. Or, more accurately, trying to write. Every sentence I wrote looked stupid, boring, or both. Mostly both.

Frustrated, I banged my computer’s mouse on the desk.

“Problems?” asked a male voice.

“Only with my brain,” I said, looking up in surprise. “To what do I owe the honor?”

The tall man standing in the doorway was none other than Detective Hal Inwood of the Tonedagana County Sheriff’s Office. He was the only fully certified detective the sheriff had at the moment, and the number of hours he worked was showing. He’d retired from a job downstate for a large metropolitan police force and moved north, only to find himself with too much time on his hands. Now he had the opposite problem and the sheriff was doing all she could to keep him happy. Deputy Ash Wolverson, my former boyfriend, was training to become the county’s second detective, but he had almost a year to go. I hoped Hal made it that long.

“Do you have a few minutes?” Hal asked.

“Um, sure.” I stood, picked a towering stack of books and papers up off the guest chair, and dropped them on the floor, where they’d probably stay until spring. “All yours.”

Inwood sat, his long arms and legs folding themselves tidily. “What are you working on?” He nodded at my computer.

I stared at him. In my experience, Hal Inwood was not a small talk kind of guy. It was possible that he had a bet with his coworkers regarding who could talk the least during an investigation, but it was also possible he believed that people were allotted only so many words in a lifetime and he was conserving his for the important things, like ordering pizza and yelling at the television when plotlines went stupid.

“It’s an article for the library newsletter,” I said.

“About what?”

“Why the board made changes to the public computer use policy.” I glanced at the two sentences I’d written. Yup. Still boring. “They want to make sure people know the library is considered a limited public forum.”

He made a hmph-ing sort of noise. “No wonder you’re having trouble. Why aren’t you writing about what’s-his-name, the new director?”

Inwood knew about our new boss? Wonders never ceased. “Graydon’s doing that himself.”

“And you get stuck with the boring article.” Without his face actually smiling, he gave the impression of having smiled. “Guess that’s what happens when you’re assistant director and not top dog.”

My chin went up. Our relationship, which had started with me accusing him of not doing his job and him telling me to stick to the library, had improved over time, but it could also regress.

Besides, if I’d wanted to be director, I most likely could have been. The sticking point had been if I’d moved up to the director’s office on the second floor, there was no way for me to stay on the bookmobile. Though my coworkers had questioned my choice to keep my far lower salary with its heap of routine tasks, I hadn’t regretted the decision for a moment. There was no way for Hal Inwood to know that, but it was also none of his business.

I folded my hands on top of my desk. “What can I do for you, Detective?” I asked politely.

His shoulders slumped a bit, and just for a moment, he reminded me of Aunt Frances. About the same age, both tall with long arms and legs, and both, within a twenty-four-hour period, acting out of character. “This morning I got the final report on Rowan Bennethum’s autopsy, and considering your involvement with the incident, the sheriff thought I should give you this news in person.”

“Okay,” I said slowly.

He sighed. “The results were accompanied by a toxicology report. A targeted report. The full report will be another week or two, depending on the labs.”

I was starting to get a bad feeling about this. “Just tell me,” I said.

“Ms. Bennethum’s death wasn’t the result of heart issues.”

“It . . . wasn’t?” The inside of my mouth was dry and the words came out raw and scratchy.

Detective Inwood shook his head. “Her system was full of stimulants, medications that weren’t prescribed to her and weren’t found in her home. Rowan Bennethum was poisoned.”

Poisoned? The word rolled around in the air, waiting for me to catch it and understand, but before my brain got itself under control, Inwood said it flat out.

“She was murdered.”

Chapter 3

After Detective Inwood left, I stood and went to my office window. Outside, it was one of those thick cloud cover days, when it felt like the sun had never gotten completely out of bed. Though it was almost noon, the daylight was so meager that the parking lot lights had turned on, which made the dim light seem even worse.

I leaned my forehead against the cool glass. “She was murdered,” I whispered.

Someone had intentionally killed the mother of two wonderful young adults. Someone had taken the life of a loving wife. Had destroyed a family, and done who knew what damage to a neighborhood, friends, extended family, and coworkers. The ripple effects could go far. I could almost see them in the falling snow. If one flake was blown north, it would knock into an adjacent flake, which would knock into its adjacent flake. The pattern could be endless.

Well, almost. I hadn’t retained much from high school physics, but I did remember that friction played a factor in pretty much everything. Ripple effects, even on a completely flat lake, eventually phased back to a flat surface, as if nothing had ever happened.

But that was physics, and I could easily imagine the ripples of murder going on forever. One or both of the twins could spiral down into—

No.

I stepped back from the window and stood up straight. No good came out of that line of thinking, so I needed to stop. What I needed was a little bit of caffeine and a hefty dose of camaraderie from my fellow staff members.

With my favorite mug in hand, one I’d picked up at an Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services conference, I made my way to the break room. I’d hoped to talk to either Holly or Donna, but Josh was the only one there.

“Hey,” he said. Or at least that’s what I assumed he said, because his face was buried in a sandwich and his mouth was full. Holly, if she’d been there, would have pointed out that it was rude to talk with his mouth full, but I just said, “Hey,” back, and made a direct line for the coffeepot. “What’s lunch today?”

After Josh had bought his first house last year, many of his habits had changed. Formerly a vending machine soda and take-out lunch guy, he’d shifted to using the library’s coffee for his caffeine intake and bringing a brown bag lunch. And he’d started spending time with the library’s generous selection of cookbooks. It was all very unexpected for a computer guy, and Holly was still wondering who had flipped what switch inside him.

Josh eyed his sandwich. “Not much. Chicken I heated up in the microwave and put on that bread. You know, the one that starts with an F? Plus some baby spinach, a little bit of pesto, and Swiss cheese.”

“Did you happen to make an extra one? That sounds really good.”

He took another bite. “Bring your own lunch.”

I had, but my peanut butter and jelly suddenly didn’t sound very appealing. The news about Rowan might have had something to do with my loss of appetite, but usually the will of my stomach was stronger than that of my emotions. Or my brain.

With a longing look at Josh’s meal, I took my sad little sandwich out of the refrigerator and sat across from him. I had no desire to discuss Hal Inwood’s visit, so just in case Josh had seen him in my office, I preempted the conversation. “What do you think about Graydon?”

Josh shrugged. “Seems okay.”

“Really?”

He swallowed. “You sound surprised.”

“Well, your disapproval rate of the last two directors was roughly one hundred percent.”

“You make it sound like I was the only one,” Josh said. “Everybody hated Jennifer, and she doesn’t count since she was barely here long enough to do laundry. And Stephen was such a tool. Maybe he kept the library in decent financial shape, but that was the only good thing about him.”

“Sure, but two weeks ago you were all doom and gloom about having to break in a new director.”

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged again. “Graydon could be okay. It seemed like he was really listening when I explained the reasons we needed a new server. It’s the new board president, Trent What’s-his-name, that’s making me wonder.”

“Ross,” I said. “His last name is Ross. Makes you wonder about what?”

“Oh. Well.” He shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth, then held up a finger.

His sudden concern about etiquette tweaked my radar. “Wonder about what?” I asked again, putting my sandwich down on the table and staring him down.

He got up to rip a sheet of paper towel off the roll and wipe his mouth. “Holly told me not to tell you, but I think you should know.”

“Know what?” This time my question came out a little loud. “If you don’t tell me now, I’ll keep bugging you until you do, so you might as well save us both some serious time and energy and talk.”

“Don’t tell Holly I told, okay?”

I kept my eye roll internal. Sometimes those two acted more like sister and brother than coworkers. “Promise.”

“When you’ve been out on bookmobile runs, Trent has been in here asking questions. He’s been talking to staff, members of the Friends of the Library, people in the reading room. Everybody.”

It was a little weird, but maybe he was just trying to learn about the library, about the community, about the wants, needs, and desires of the staff. If you looked at it that way, Trent’s actions were commendable, and I told Josh so.

“Yeah? Would you say that if almost all his questions were about the bookmobile?”

“About . . .” I didn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t, really.

“You heard me. Our bookmobile.” He sounded angry, but I knew he wasn’t mad at me. “It doesn’t sound good.”

“It’ll be fine,” I said. “Trent’s new. He’s asking questions to understand, that’s all.”

But Josh wasn’t reassured, and neither was I.

• • •

“He said what?”

On the computer screen, Kristen’s eyes went wide. My best friend spent April through October in Chilson, as owner and manager of Three Seasons, one of the best restaurants in the region, but in November she lit out for Key West, where she divided her time between lying in a hammock and tending bar. Well, that used to be her schedule. This winter she’d flown up to New York City a few times for the same reason her Key West days had been occasionally interrupted, a reason otherwise known as Scruffy Gronkowski.

The ironic label of Scruffy had been bestowed upon him in his clean-cut childhood by his father, the well-known Manhattan-based television chef Trock Farrand (not his real name). The expansive and larger-than-life Trock owned a summer place near Chilson, and due to an odd set of circumstances, we’d become good friends. A spin-off of this was the engagement of his son and my best friend, and every time Trock and I got together, we congratulated ourselves on the match. Not that we’d really done anything, but that didn’t seem to matter when Trock got on a roll.

“Rafe said,” I repeated, “that I need to make a decision about kitchen cabinet hardware.”

Kristen shook her head in disgust, flipping her long blond ponytail from side to side. “The unmitigated gall! He knows not what he asks. He cannot.”

He did actually, and Kristen knew that he knew one of my secrets, which was that I had an abject fear of hardware stores. There were many things in them that I didn’t understand, and I always felt small, uncertain, and inadequate when hardware store guys—who always seemed to be judging me—asked if I had everything I needed. Rafe said my parents had woefully neglected to provide me with a basic life skill, and my counterargument that I’d often shopped at home improvement centers carried no weight with him whatsoever. “Apples and oranges, Minnie,” he’d said. “Maybe even apples and car tires.”

“I can’t put him off much longer,” I told Kristen now.

“You might enjoy it,” she said.

“Not the point.” I sighed, and she peered at me through the miles of electronic connectivity.

“What’s wrong? And don’t say it’s the idea of walking into hardware land. You don’t really care about that. What’s up? Is it your new library director, what’s-his-name? Talk, Minnie Hamilton.”

Sometimes having a best friend you’d known since childhood and who understood the motivations behind every twitch in your face had its drawbacks. “Can I say I don’t want to talk about it?”

“You can, but it won’t get you anywhere. Spill.”

I made one last effort. “We’re supposed to be talking about your wedding. Making plans and . . . stuff. We need to figure out what weekend you’re going to come up here, because some decisions need to be made sooner rather than later and—”

Kristen leaned forward, her face filling my screen in an alarming manner. “Talk!” she ordered.

Since I was left with little choice, I talked.

I told her about finding Rowan in the snow, about doing CPR and calling 911, about the ambulance showing up, about the shared glances of the EMTs who took over from Julia and me, and about watching the ambulance’s taillights fading from view as they took Rowan away.

“There’s something else.” Kristen’s voice was gentle, but I knew if I didn’t tell her everything, she would keep at me until I did. “Yeah.” I sighed. “Rowan was murdered.”

“She . . . what?”

“Murdered,” I repeated. “Hal Inwood told me. She was poisoned. Given something that triggered her heart condition, a medication she hadn’t been prescribed and wasn’t in her house.”

Instead of murmuring a familiar platitude, Kristen said nothing. I was grateful for her noncomfort, which from her was more soothing than an “I’m so sorry, but there was nothing you could have done.” I had Aunt Frances for that; what I needed from Kristen was something exceedingly different.

“That stinks,” she said.

I almost smiled at the immensity of her understatement, but I knew she was doing her best. There were no appropriate responses to this kind of situation. “Yeah. Big time.”

“Do they know who killed her?”

“No.” I replayed the conversation with the detective in my head. “They’re just starting the investigation.”

“What are you doing to help?”

“I told Hal everything I could remember,” I said. “Other than that, there’s not much I can do.”

Kristen scoffed. “Says the woman who’s helped the cops more than once. I assume they’re still understaffed? I assume they’re overworked, even in January when only insane people live in Chilson?”

“Hard as it is for you to believe, some people like winter.”

She passed over that comment. “No matter what your aunt Frances or I or anyone else says, you’re going to feel guilty about Rowan’s death. That if you’d shown up earlier, she might have recovered. Which, from what you’ve said, is ridiculous, but I know how your brain works. To keep yourself from drowning in guilt and self-loathing, you need to help find the killer. So, like I said, what are you doing?”

“Hal and Ash are professional law enforcement officers,” I said. “The last thing they need is for me to butt into an official police investigation.” Before she could launch into a recitation of the times I had, in fact, helped with a police investigation, I firmly turned the conversation to wedding planning.

After a few attempts to circle the conversation back to murder, Kristen rolled her eyes, sighed heavily, and let me talk about photographers. When the last item on my list of wedding plans had been crossed off, I said, “Sorry, I really have to get going. Things to do and places to go,” and before she could point out how little there was to do in Chilson during winter, I gave her a cheery wave and closed down the call.

I felt a little bad about cutting her off, but not that bad. Resisting Kristen’s will was exhausting even when she was almost two thousand miles away. If I got exhausted, I’d be far more likely to get sick, and getting sick was nowhere in my future plans since I had no alternative driver for the bookmobile.

Every so often I tried to talk Julia into taking a course to get a commercial driver’s license, but to date, she’d resisted. Though the state didn’t require a CDL to drive a vehicle the size of the bookmobile, the library’s policy did require one. I’d added it myself, partly to placate my then-boss, and partly because I thought it was a good idea. Which it was, but the difficulty of finding a backup driver hadn’t been one of my considerations, and it probably should have been.

“Soon,” I said out loud, then replaced my shoes with boots, put myself into my coat, hauled on my hat, and pulled on my mittens. My technical quitting time had slipped past almost two hours ago—my talk with Kristen had lasted roughly half an hour, so the library had once again made money on me. Not that I kept track, but I also wasn’t about to feel any guilt for using the library’s computer and high-speed Internet connection for a bit of personal use.

I padded out to the lobby, waved to Donna, who was working until the library’s eight o’clock closing, and was about to head into the cold when someone said, “Minnie? Do you have a minute?”

Turning, I saw a young woman toying with her long lovely auburn braid. A young man, with his hand on her shoulder, looked at me with question marks in his eyes.

Stepping forward, I gave first Collier Bennethum, then his sister, Anya, long hugs. “I’m so sorry about your mom.” I wanted to apologize for not being able to do anything to help Rowan, but at the last second I held back from blurting out my own guilt. A confession from me wouldn’t help the twins deal with their mother’s death; I needed to deal with my feelings on my own.

“Thanks.” Anya sniffed down a sob. “It’s been hard.”

Collier put his arm around his sister. “We wanted to thank you for all you did that day.”

I murmured something about doing what anyone would have done.

“I don’t think so,” Collier said. “Most people would have maybe called nine-one-one, but you tried CPR and kept trying, and . . .” He swallowed. “Anyway, we wanted to say thank you. In person.”

Anya nodded. “Dad says thanks from him, too.”

Responding with, “You’re welcome,” didn’t seem appropriate, so I simply nodded. Then I took a closer look at the twins. Both were, of course, far taller than me, with dark-haired Collier close to the six-foot mark and Anya a few inches less. They were both college seniors, Anya at Central Michigan University and Collier at Northern Michigan. The first year I’d worked in Chilson, I’d had the fun of helping them complete high school term papers, and I’d enjoyed hearing Rowan tell me about their college acceptances and exploits.

I’d seen Collier over Christmas, and he’d still been bursting with happiness over the fact that his girlfriend had said yes to his Thanksgiving marriage proposal. Now his face was pale, his expression bleak, and Anya didn’t look much better.

I longed for words that would make things easier, but I knew no such words existed. Time was the only thing that could soften their pain, and that would likely be a long time coming. Still, I wanted to say something. I opened my mouth to do what people do, which was to offer any kind of help they needed, but Anya started first.

“You’ve helped others,” she said softly.

Collier edged closer. “Leese Lacombe. Over Christmas we heard you helped her find out who killed her dad.”

“And Dana Coburn,” Anya added. “Dana’s parents are summer customers, you know how we run errands for people? Dana told us about your research into the DeKeyser family and how that helped you figure out who killed that lady.”

Dana was a twelve-year-old who possessed more brains than three Minnies put together. Leese Lacombe was a good friend and an attorney specializing in elder law. I made a mental note to respectfully ask both of them to keep their mouths shut about my past involvements in murder as it wasn’t a reputation I aspired to. And since I could see where this conversation was going, I jumped in ahead of their request.

“The sheriff’s office,” I said, “is working very hard on your mom’s investigation. What I did those other times was more a matter of circumstance.” I echoed what I’d been told before by numerous people. “Let the police do their job. They’re professionals and they know what they’re doing.”

“But—”

I shook my head. “Your hearts are in the right place, but there’s nothing I can do that the sheriff’s office isn’t doing already.” Plus they actually knew what they were doing, but I didn’t say that out loud.

“At least think about it?” Anya begged.

I glanced at Collier, who was staring at the floor, his face vacant of . . . anything. It was an expression I recognized, that of too much pain. Too much sorrow.

“Sure,” I said, “maybe I could think about it.” Collier lifted his head and a small spark of life flitted across his eyes. I gave them both another hug. “I’ll let you know, okay?” And then, coward that I was, I hurried out before either twin could say another word.

• • •

“Mrr.”

I looked at my cat. “Are you aware that you bear a striking resemblance to a vulture?”

Eddie blinked, but didn’t say a word. He was sitting up straight in a new spot—the top of the low bookcase that was jammed full of jigsaw puzzles and board games—and peering down at me in a manner that was a bit unnerving.

“Cat got your tongue?” I asked. This was an old joke between us, and just like all the other times I’d said it, I laughed and he didn’t. “Oh, come on,” I said, “it’s funny.”

A double yellow-eyed gaze drilled a hole in my head.

“Really? Not even a giggle?”

His shoulders heaved as he sighed a little kitty sigh. Back in my pre-Eddie days, I’d had no idea that cats could sigh, sneeze, yawn, or snore. “Thanks to you, my horizons have expanded immensely,” I said, getting up off the couch. “And to show my appreciation, I’m going to give you a big snuggle.”

I swept him off the bookcase and gave him a gentle squeeze. Most times, Eddie enjoyed a good hug. This was not one of those times. He squirmed out of my grasp and made a Herculean lunge back to the shelf. I watched his wake of cat hair tumble in the air and make its way to the floor.

“Nice,” I said. “Do you realize I need to clean up all of that unwanted fur?” Preferably before Aunt Frances got home from her night class. “How does it feel to have someone tidying up after you at every turn?”

“Mrr!”

“I’m right here, pal. No need to yell.”

“MRR!”

I winced, hoping my eardrums healed quickly. “Now what did I do wrong? Not enough treats? No, wait, it’s too cold outside? Or is there too much snow? Maybe there’s not enough snow? I know—you’ve suddenly decided you like Otto’s adorable little gray cat and want me to take you over there to play with her?”

Eddie glared and jumped to the floor. Before reaching the floor, however, he landed on a board game that was a bit too big to fit all the way into the bookcase. This created a spectacular crash of board games and jigsaw puzzles and decks of cards. Dice, cards, puzzle pieces, and poker chips scattered and rolled across the living room floor.

“Someday,” I said, “this will be funny.”

“Mrr.”

It didn’t sound like an apology, and the set of his tail as he trotted up the stairs didn’t look embarrassed.

Cats.

Sighing, I crouched down and swept together a deck of cards older than I was and started counting to make sure I had all of them. I sorted the cards into suits, counting the hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, and suddenly there it was.

The ace of spades. What some called the death card.

Fingering the card’s corner, I thought about death. About Rowan. About the right thing to do. About the kind of person I wanted to be. About how easy it would be not to do anything.

I slid the deck of cards into its box and stood. My cell phone was on the coffee table, and I reached for it before I changed my mind.

Tomorrow, I texted Anya and Collier. I’ll start doing what I can to find your mom’s killer.

Chapter 4

The next morning, instead of dawdling over breakfast with my aunt, I sucked down a bowl of cold cereal, hurried into boots, coat, hat, and mittens, and scuffed through three inches of new snow to the sheriff’s office.

The deputy on front desk duty slid open the glass window. “Hey, Minnie. How you doing?”

“Morning, Carl,” I said, stomping my feet on the mat and brushing snow off my sleeves. “Never been this good. And yourself?”

“Wouldn’t a better question be how is the sheriff doing?”

I grinned, but only on the inside. “You make an excellent point.” A few months of dating a deputy had given me a partial glimpse into the inner workings of the office and how much the staff felt intimidated by the boss. Personally, I’d always found Sheriff Kit Richardson to be smart, funny, and approachable, but then I’d seen her in a ratty bathrobe while cuddling a purring Eddie.

As I shoved my mittens in my coat pockets, I asked, “What did you do to get stuck up front?”

He grimaced. “Wrenched my shoulder a couple of weeks ago. I’m on light duty until the doctor says I’m fit for active. What can I do for you?”

“Would Ash have a few minutes?”

“Dumping Rafe already?” Carl leaned toward me, batting his eyes. “You know I’m single, right?”

I nodded thoughtfully. “So this is how rumors get started. I always wondered.” Carl laughed and I said, “Ash or Hal. To me they’re interchangeable.”

Carl picked up the phone. “Can’t wait to spread that one around.” After a short conversation, Carl buzzed open the interior door and I was ushered into a small room, one that I’d visited so many times that, during the long periods when I’d sat alone at the battered table, I’d considered carving my initials into the tabletop. Not a very strong consideration, because vandalism was wrong and the table was metal, but still.

I pulled out a paint-chipped chair and thought about purchasing a plaque instead. Next to the door would be a good spot as it would cover that big gouge in the drywall. Or maybe directly across from where I usually sat; looking at a plaque would entertain me far more than flat beige paint.

As I considered the possibilities, two men came in. Detective Hal Inwood first, followed closely by the man I’d for a short period of time thought might be the guy who would accompany me into old age. Deputy Ash Wolverson was an amazingly good-looking guy and one of the nicest people I’d ever met. But no matter how hard we’d tried, we couldn’t get a single romantic spark to flare up. It had been like hanging out with my brother. We’d started as friends, parted as friends, and happily were still friends.

“She hasn’t noticed,” Hal said.

Ash pulled a bill out of his pants pocket and handed it to his superior officer. “I am deeply disappointed in you, Minnie.”

“What are you talking about?” I glanced from one to the other. Hal looked exactly the same as he had the day before. Ash looked the same as he had last time I’d seen him, which was the previous week when Rafe and I had gone bowling with Ash and his mom. “No haircuts, no new clothes.” I glanced under the table. “No new shoes.” Or even new shoe polishing, but I didn’t say that part out loud.

Hal Inwood sat down and spread out what had formerly been Ash’s one-dollar bill.

“Do I get a hint?” I asked.

Ash sat across from me and glanced at the ceiling. “Just one.”

“Okay. What is it?”

Detective Inwood smiled and fingered his dollar. Ash sighed. Neither said a word.

Time ticked away, but eventually I clued in to Ash’s clue and looked up. I stared, wide-eyed. “You fixed the ceiling!” When I’d been in the room before, I’d often entertained myself by seeing shapes in the water stains on the ceiling tiles. Hal and I disagreed, of course, on the identities of the shapes, but there would be no more debates because there were new tiles, all an even flat white.

“A by-product,” Hal said, “of a leak in the fire suppression system. Never would have happened otherwise.”

“You didn’t replace them for my sake?” I put a hand over my heart. “I’m truly hurt.”

Hal did what I figured he’d do, which was ignore my comment. He took a memo pad from his shirt pocket. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence this morning?”

The night before, I’d actually thought through how this meeting would go and had continued texting Anya and Collier for some time. “It’s about Rowan Bennethum. I have some information that might be helpful.”

My former boyfriend looked at me. “I just lost a dollar of my hard-earned cash because I thought your powers of observation were keen. Since that’s clearly not the case, do you really think you have some information that will help us?”

“Apples and oranges,” I said.

He grinned and took out his own memo pad. “Give us something good and Hal might not remind you of the ceiling thing the rest of your life.”

That was incentive, so I led with the second best point I had. “Did you know that Rowan had recently started a strict diet? One that didn’t allow her to drink anything except clear liquids?”

Hal looked up from his notebook. “You didn’t mention this earlier.”

Since I’d learned it from Anya the previous night, I couldn’t have. But I wasn’t about to blab that Anya—and apparently Neil, Rowan’s husband—hadn’t thought to mention it, so I shrugged and said, “Well, I’m mentioning it now.” I wasn’t sure how much difference it made, but as the detective had told me many times in the past, you never knew what was going to be important until you knew what was important. As a circular argument, it was one of the best ever.

“Anything else?” Hal asked.

I shifted. Last night, lying in bed, I’d remembered something about Rowan. At the time it had seemed significant, but suddenly I wasn’t sure. “You know the twins are away at college and Neil started working in Lansing last year and is home only on the weekends?” Both Hal and Ash nodded; I nodded back like a delayed bobblehead. “Right. Well, in mid-September, Rowan started a walking routine. She kept to it religiously, never missing a day no matter what the weather conditions.”

Ash’s pen stopped scribbling. “Is that it?”

Hal glanced over. “Look at her. Does she look like she’s done?”

“Well . . .” Ash studied me. “No. She’s leaning forward. Her eyes are open wider than normal and her chin’s up a little.”

Nice to know I gave away so many hints. I made a mental note to work on a poker face. Then again, I’d made that mental note in the past and done nothing to change my behavior, so why burden myself?

“Exactly,” Hal said. “So what would have been a better approach to an interviewee than asking, ‘Is that it?’”

Ash flushed, which was slightly adorable. “It depends on the situation. I could have said nothing and waited for the interviewee to start talking again. Or I could have asked for clarification. Or I could have asked something like, ‘What else can you can remember?’ Or restated what I’d just been told, because that often jogs things loose.”

“Fit the interview style to the interviewee. Always,” Hal said, giving a tiny nod. “Minnie, do you have anything else?”

Hal was writing something on his memo pad, which might mean that his full attention wasn’t on me, making this the perfect time to slide in the question I most wanted to have answered. “Who are you considering as possible suspects?”

“Ms. Hamilton,” Hal said. “How many times have I said we won’t discuss an active investigation?”

I grinned. “Doesn’t hurt to try, does it? Besides, I gave you some good information. Can’t you give me something? I’m not asking for specifics, just some broad generalities.”

Hal put down his memo pad. “Let me guess. So you don’t duplicate our efforts while you conduct your own amateur, unofficial, and completely unsanctioned investigation?”

Put like that, it sounded bad. “On the contrary,” I said primly. “It’s more like making sure law enforcement has all the help it can get. Aren’t you always saying the sheriff’s office is overworked and understaffed?”

Ash winked at me with the eye farther away from his boss. “She’s going to find out anyway,” he said. “We might as well tell her.”

Hal grunted. “I hate small towns.”

Taking that as permission to speak, Ash said, “We’re looking into the bank where Ms. Bennethum worked. Coworkers, of course, because you never know, but also loan applicants she might have recently turned down.”

I frowned. “How would killing Rowan help anyone get a loan?” It didn’t make sense to me. If one loan officer turned down a loan, wasn’t the next one likely to do the same thing?

“Money is a critical factor in many murders,” Hal said. “Add an element of anger and the result can be lethal.”

“So you’re talking about revenge as motive?” I asked.

“All avenues of investigation, Ms. Hamilton.” Hal tucked away his notepad. “Now, unless you have something else, Deputy Wolverson and I have work to do.”

Seconds later, I was out on the sidewalk, walking to the library with my head down against the gusting snow. Hal was right, all avenues did need to be investigated, but revenge? For a denied loan? When there were other banks in town, and dozens more not far away?

It didn’t make sense to me. Not a single bit.

• • •

That night, Rafe and I met up at Fat Boys Pizza to grab a quick dinner. We hadn’t seen each other in a few days due to some night meetings he’d needed to attend, and I was surprised at the rush of happiness I felt when I walked into the restaurant.

He was sitting sideways in a booth, back against the wall, long legs up on the bench, talking to the couple at a nearby table. A cold whoosh of air came inside with me and he turned around. When he saw me, he smiled, and my insides turned to happy mush. I’d felt mushy on the inside before and thought it was love, but now I knew better. This mush glowed. It warmed me from dawn to dusk and made me want to give the whole world a hug. This kind of mush was making me a better person and maybe that’s what true love was all about.

Rafe slid himself off the bench and stood. He gave me a quick hug, whispered, “Hey,” in my ear, and helped me divest myself of hat, mittens, and coat. “What’s it like out there?” he asked.

“Like January.” I sat and pulled my coat over my lap to keep any drafts out of my bones. “Good thing snow is white. Just think what it would be like if it was brown. Or pea soup green.”

I’d made the comment before, but I liked to say it out loud every so often, especially in public where I could be overheard, so other people could get the benefit of a pro-snow point of view. Come April I could get tired of the stuff, too, but no matter what the circumstances, snow had fairy-tale qualities. It hid raw ugliness and added beauty to the most mundane landscape. Toss in the basic gorgeousness of Tonedagana County’s lakes and forested hills, and you had sheer magic with every snowfall.

Rafe glanced outside. “A light blue might be okay.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “It would clash with the color of the snowplows.”

“Huh. Guess it’ll have to stay white. I already ordered food, by the way. Hope you’re okay with what we’ve had every week for the last three months, except for the week of Christmas.”

“It’s not just men whose hearts can be won through their stomachs.”

“You mean it wasn’t my charm, winning personality, and immense intellect?”

“All on the list.” I pulled a pile of napkins out of the holder and split them between us. The sub sandwiches here were exceptionally good, but notoriously messy. “I know you’re busy with end-of-the-semester stuff, but there’s news about Rowan Bennethum’s death. Have you heard?”

Rafe reached out to hold my hands. “I heard it was murder. I should have called you.”

“No, it’s all right.” My response was a reflex, but accurate. Immediate sympathy could have made my reaction worse. Sometimes not talking about things was okay. “Truly.”

I lifted his hands, gave them a light kiss, and extracted myself. “Anya and Collier are all torn up. They stopped by the library last night—they’re home for a week or so.”

Rafe pushed one of the two glasses of water on the table over to me. “Didn’t Collie get engaged over Thanksgiving to some hot blonde from college?”

“Don’t call him that,” I said automatically. “He says it makes him feel like he should be wearing a leash.”

“Considering the circumstances, I won’t call him Collie until summer.” Rafe touched the rim of his glass to mine. “Scout’s honor.”

I wasn’t sure Rafe had ever been any kind of a scout, but I let it go. A vow for a temporary ban on the nickname was win enough. “Ash says hey, by the way.”

“When did you see him?”

“Stopped by the sheriff’s office this morning to—”

“Heads up, kids, dinner’s here.” Brendan, the evening manager, deposited our food. “Eating along gender lines, I see. Meatball sub for him, veggie for the lady. A bit boring, don’t you think?” he asked me.

“My mom likes it when I eat vegetables,” I said. “There are lots in here.”

Brendan looked at my sandwich, which I loved mostly because it had as much dairy product as vegetables, thanks to my habitual request for triple cheese. “More than in the fish and chips,” he said, after considering.

I beamed. “There you go. Mom will sleep happy tonight.”

“You two are the perfect couple,” Brendan muttered. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Did you hear that?” Rafe picked up his sandwich. “We’re the perfect couple. If anyone knows, Brendan does. He’s been married four times.”

Though I wasn’t sure that was proof of romantic expertise, and in many ways thought it proved the opposite, my mouth was too full of food to discuss the point. When I was swallowing and getting ready to start a good-humored argument, Rafe asked, “Why were you at the sheriff’s office? Did they have more questions now they know it was murder?”

Um. “Sort of, but not really.”

Rafe gazed at me over his sandwich, clearly waiting for me to expand.

“I remembered a couple of things I figured they should know,” I said, “but also Anya and Collier asked me to help figure out who killed their mom.”

Dark brown eyes blinked at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No.” I got ready to take another bite of cheesy goodness.

“Don’t we have a professionally trained sheriff’s office to take care of that kind of thing?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“And wouldn’t professionals get annoyed by amateurs trying to do things they aren’t equipped for?”

Rafe often annoyed and frustrated me but I couldn’t think of a time when he’d elicited the emotion that was creeping up inside me: sheer and unadulterated irritation. “It’s not like I’m going to walk around tapping potential killers on the shoulder and asking, ‘Gee, did you kill Rowan? If so, let me know so I can tell the police. Thanks, have a nice day.’”

“No? Because that sounds exactly like something you’d do.”

I glared at him. “You really think I’m that stupid?”

“I think trying to find a killer could be the definition of stupid.” He glared right back. “He killed once, he can kill again, and you’re . . . you’re little.”

My anger blew hot and red, but I kept my voice quiet. “Just because I’m short doesn’t mean I’m weak. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself. I’m not stupid enough to think I’d win a physical contest with a man, but all I have to do is be smarter, which most of the time is pretty easy to do!”

By the end, I’d lost my low and controlled volume, but I didn’t care. A while back, I had taken self-defense courses, and I was also the new owner of a concealed pistol license and, under Ash’s watchful eye and with a handgun I borrowed from him, practiced regularly at a local firing range. Only my aunt and Rafe knew about this, but that was part of the point. The fewer people who knew my capabilities, the safer I’d be because of the surprise factor.

Rafe sat back and crossed his arms. We stared at each other. Then stared at each other some more.

“We’re fighting,” he finally said. “I don’t like it.”

My anger seeped away. “I don’t, either.”

“How about we stop?”

I fiddled with my napkin. “I promised Anya and Collier I’d do what I could and I intend to keep that promise.”

“Does it matter that I don’t like it?”

“Of course it does. It’s just . . .” I looked up at him. The expression on his face was one I couldn’t ever remember seeing before. “What’s the matter?”

For a second he didn’t say anything. Then, “I’m not sure. This must be what I look like when I’m worried about someone.”

“Huh.” I examined him closely. “You could be right. Let me take a picture so we can immortalize the moment.” It was a weak joke, but he smiled anyway.

Our attention went back to the food, and we both allowed the talk to turn to other things, but when I snuggled up with Eddie that night in bed, I thought about what Brendan had said, that Rafe and I were the perfect couple.

“Pretty sure we’re not,” I murmured into Eddie’s fur.

Eddie, in reply, started to snore.

• • •

The bookmobile’s windshield wipers flicked back and forth on high speed, but they couldn’t keep up with the precipitation. “The weather guy didn’t mention anything about this,” I said.

There was no return comment, which wasn’t a huge surprise, since I’d already dropped Julia off at the restaurant where she was meeting her husband for dinner. Dropping Julia off at various locations throughout the county had become a regular practice, but that particular meeting spot seemed questionable.

“Are you sure?” I’d asked, glancing around at the dark storefronts in the teeny tiny town of Chancellor. In summer, the sidewalks teemed with pedestrians and the adjacent lake offered serene vistas with convenient benches for anyone’s viewing pleasure. In January, however, ninety percent of the businesses were closed, and it would take some serious snow shoveling to clear off a bench, even if you wanted to sit outside, which seemed unlikely. “It’s only four thirty,” I said, “and you said he was meeting you around six.”

“My dear,” Julia said in a very upper-crust English accent. “I have a book. If he’s an hour late, it will not matter a whit.” She waved a copy of Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, put up the hood of her coat, and skipped down the bookmobile’s steps.

I’d waited until she was inside the restaurant, then dropped the bookmobile into gear and eased away. Now it was ten minutes later and what had been gently falling snow was turning into . . . something else.

For approximately the millionth time, I wished the bookmobile had an exterior temperature sensor. Newer models came equipped with them, which I liked to think was a direct result of my numerous e-mails to the manufacturer, but that was no help to me now.

“It’s not snow,” I said. “But it’s not rain, either.” The technical difference between sleet and freezing rain was not something I kept in my head. “I’m pretty sure this is what Josh calls ‘snain.’” The word was a fun one to say, so I said it out loud a few times.

“Mrr!”

“Not quite,” I said. “More of the S sound. And try making the M sound more like an N.”

“Mrr.”

“Nice try, buddy, but without human vocal cords, I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to—”

My attention, which had been ninety-five percent on the road and five percent elsewhere, was suddenly one hundred percent on driving.

The bookmobile had slid. The bookmobile never slid, not like that.

“Hang on, Eddie,” I whispered. Not that he had anything to hang on to except the soft pink blanket a summer boarder of my aunt’s had made to replace the ratty towel that had previously been in his carrier, but the warning was all I could do.

Snow was easy enough for the bookmobile to deal with. The vehicle’s weight and its tires made the typical northwest lower Michigan winter a metaphorical walk in the park. Freezing rain, however, was a different matter. “Hate this stuff,” I muttered. To me, freezing rain was like mosquitoes—absolutely no redeeming qualities.

One swipe of the windshield wipers and my vision was clear; another swipe and the road ahead was a translucent fuzz. I instantly took my foot off the gas and turned the defroster on high. A few swipes later, the windshield cleared enough for me to see what I least wanted to see. Ice was already coating the world, covering mailboxes, trees, houses, and power lines with a skim coat of freezing rain, a layer that was getting thicker and thicker every second.

“We have to get off the road,” I said. The day had never been very bright, and dark was coming down fast. Leaving the bookmobile on the side of the road for someone to slide into was not an option. I had to find a safe place to park until the salt trucks could get out. The only question was where?

My grip on the steering wheel went tight as I considered the possibilities. At this point on the route there were no churches, township halls, gas stations—or any type of commercial establishment—for another ten miles. And none of the public parks in this part of the county were plowed in the winter.

There was no choice left but to slip into the widest driveway I could find and hope I wasn’t inconveniencing the property owner whose driveway I’d just blocked. I scanned the roadside left and right. The few driveways in sight were either unplowed or narrow or both; I wouldn’t risk driving the bookmobile into a driveway that might require a tow truck to get us out.

The freezing rain pelted the windshield in a furiously fast tempo, and the windshield started to glaze over. I reached out to the defroster, but it was already as high as it would go.

“This is seriously not good,” I murmured. We were driving so slowly the speedometer barely registered. I turned on the four-way flashers in spite of the fact that I hadn’t seen a car in miles and wasn’t actually sure there was anyone else on the planet. Dark ahead of us, dark behind us, dark all around—

Eddie howled, a low rumbling whine of the sort that made me want to make sure he was on a hard surface, the easier for cleaning up afterward.

“Are you okay, pal?” I wanted to glance over, but didn’t dare take my attention off the road. “You haven’t sounded like that since . . .”

Since the day we’d found Rowan.

On the same route we were driving that very minute.

I breathed out a soft “Hallelujah,” because Rowan’s driveway was not only bound to be empty, but was nice and wide and only half a mile away, and one of the twins had mentioned that their dad was hiring the driveway plowed the rest of the winter.

Oh-so-slowly, I steered us in that direction, and in relatively short order, the bookmobile slid to a slippery halt. “How do you feel about breaking into a house?” I undid my seat belt and leaned over to release the strap that kept Eddie’s carrier in place.

“Mrr.”

“I’m glad you’ve recovered from whatever was making you make those horrible noises.”

“Mrr.”

“Really? Well, how about I keep an eye on you. Any more of that and I make an appointment with Dr. Joe.” I pulled out my phone, scrolled through the contacts, and sent a group text to Neil, Anya, and Collier: Caught out by your house in freezing rain with the bookmobile. OK if I use the code to go inside and wait it out?

Ten seconds later, I got texts from the twins. Anya: All yours. Heat’s down, though. Collier: Stay overnight if u need 2—don’t use Anya’s room it’s a mess. Anya’s next text was an image of a sticking-out tongue, which I assumed was to her brother. I decided not to wait for Neil’s permission, texted a thank-you, and picked up the cat carrier.

Eddie retreated to silence as I tried to open the bookmobile’s door. It didn’t open and didn’t open and I finally put the carrier on the floor and put all my weight into the effort. With a tinkling crash of ice breaking, the door flew open wide and a blast of wind whooshed in. I climbed down the stairs carefully and reached back in for Eddie’s carrier.

“Hold on tight.” I closed the bookmobile door and, head down against the wind, shuffled toward the house, knees bent and my free hand out for balance. Every step was a risk, but at least the freezing rain was falling on an inch of fresh snow. Once each footstep broke through the crust of ice, there was something for my boot to grab on to. Even still, twenty feet had never seemed so far.

What felt like an eternity later, I touched the corner of the house and then we were in front of the door that entered into the garage. I tucked my right hand under my left elbow, pulled off my mitten, and entered the five-digit code. Blessedly, the battery was still working. The deadbolt slid open and we were inside, out of the wind and rain.

“Safe,” I said, gasping a bit because for a while there I hadn’t been completely sure things would work out.

“Mrr.”

“It’s good to know you weren’t worried at all. Nice to know that you have that kind of confidence in me.” I opened the door into the house and set Eddie’s carrier on the floor. “Promise to be good?”

My cat blinked up at me, but didn’t say a thing. Which was just as well because, even if he’d promised, I wouldn’t have believed him.

“Here you go.” I opened the wire door. Eddie, who had been lying on his pink blanket, leapt to his feet and pranced into Rowan’s kitchen.

Oak cabinets with brushed nickel drawer pulls and cabinet knobs. Off-white tile countertops with a comfortable clutter of coffeepot, dry goods canisters, and cookbooks. Rowan had been close to fanatic about keeping things clean, but she hadn’t minded a little clutter, especially if the clutter was family heirlooms. She’d told me she had a number of them because she was the oldest grandchild. “None of it is worth a penny,” she’d said, “so the term ‘heirloom’ is a bit of a misnomer, but calling the kids to dinner with the cowbell from the last cow my grandparents owned makes me smile every time.”

In a sudden rush, the full impact of her death wrapped around me. She was gone forever. No more of her dry humor, a type of humor that many people interpreted not as humor at all, but as being cold and distant. My father had a similar tendency, so I’d found it easy to laugh at her comments. The absence of her wry observations was a hole in my life, and it would never be filled, not completely.

I sat on a handy bench and, after I’d finished crying and wiping my eyes, pulled off my boots and put them on the mat next to boots left behind by other Bennethums. I unzipped my coat, but didn’t take it off. When Neil and the twins had left the house, they’d turned the heat down to a level that would have been chilly without an outer layer, even over my bookmobile sweaters, which were long and warm and pocketed, the better for carrying cat treats.

“Eddie?” I called. “Where are you?”

“Mrr!”

Though I didn’t see him, I heard the pitter-patter of Eddie paws as they thumped up the stairs.

“Nothing up there for you to see,” I called. There was nothing upstairs but bathrooms and bedrooms, including the very empty master bedroom. At some point, Neil would open the closet and have to make decisions about Rowan’s shirts, pants, dresses, and shoes. Or would he ask Anya to do the sad task?

I tried to remember Rowan’s sibling situation, but couldn’t quite. Though she’d talked about brothers and sisters and cousins, she’d also had a tendency to drop the term “in-law” and talk about Neil’s blood relatives as if they were hers.

Eddie thundered down the stairs and cantered into the kitchen.

“Why would anyone kill her?” I asked, standing to look at the collection of magnets on the refrigerator. Hal and Ash’s theory about a revenge murder because of a denied loan seemed like a stretch, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

My fuzzy friend galloped around the kitchen table and back into the living room.

Of course, why anyone would kill was a mystery to me, unless your life or the life of someone you loved was in danger. And the idea of Rowan being a dangerous threat to anyone seemed beyond unlikely.

“Then again,” I said, “what defines a threat might be a relative concept.”

“Mrr!” Eddie said as he ran back into the kitchen. He started to take another lap around the table, but he miscalculated his speed. Centrifugal force tipped him over and he slid into the row of boots, knocking footwear everywhere.

Before I could get to my feet, he was up on his, trotting around as if he was proud of his stunt.

“You must have been at the back of the line when the gift of grace was handed out.” I went over to, once again, clean up after my cat. “Or maybe you’re just getting older. You’re four now, if Dr. Joe was right about your age. That’s what, college age for a cat? Not that you would have studied enough to get into any college. And if you’d managed to get admitted, I can see you flunking out after . . . huh.”

I was down on my hands and knees now, and had seen a small flat rectangle on the floor, way behind the boots and underneath the bench. Since I was an unexpected guest, it was my duty to do some chores, so I reached out for the whatever-it-was.

My fingers recognized the shape and texture of an empty sugar packet before my brain caught up.

A sugar packet? But that made no sense at all.

I brought the object into the light and put it on the kitchen table.

Sugar. Rowan hated extra sugar in anything. She’d considered it responsible for death, disease, and general disorder in the world. She’d been a bit of a fanatic about it.

I poked at the thing, reading its print. This particular packet was maple flavored, something put out by a local company. Even still, there was no way Rowan would have bought it and no way she would have allowed it in her house. There was absolutely no reason for it to be there.

Except one.

I backed away from the sugar packet, not wanting to touch it, not wanting to even see it any longer.

My fingers fumbled for my phone. “Hey, Ash? There’s something you need to see.”

Chapter 5

At breakfast the next morning, I held my aunt spellbound while I told the tale. Or at least partially spellbound, because some of her focus was on keeping Eddie off the table.

“But Hal and Ash didn’t think the sugar packet was important?” she asked.

“They’re reserving judgment until it can be analyzed.” My instinctive leap had been to the conclusion that the sugar packet had contained whatever it was that had killed Rowan. There, in her kitchen, I’d seen the scene unfolding. Someone at the front door. Rowan inviting her or him inside. An offer of coffee. Two coffee mugs brought to the kitchen table. Then a request for something not handy. Rowan would have turned away and the killer would surreptitiously have added the poison, with the cover of an innocuous sugar packet if Rowan had happened to see the movement.

I’d envisioned it so clearly that I’d been shocked when Ash and Hal hadn’t seen it along with me. Looking back, I realized that I might have been a little sharper with them than I’d needed to be. I’d been tired, hungry, and worried about getting the bookmobile back home, and during the three hours I’d waited before they showed up—the time it took for the road commission’s salt trucks to get to Rowan’s road—my confidence that the packet had contained poison had grown to one hundred percent.

Eddie, who had abandoned his efforts to get on top of the table, jumped onto his chair. He sat upright with his chin just level with the tabletop.

I spooned up the last of my oatmeal. “And it’s possible I told Detective Inwood and Deputy Wolverson that waiting a week for the lab analysis would be a waste of a week and wasn’t time of the essence in a murder investigation?”

Aunt Frances half smiled. “More like you said they were nuts to ignore what was right in front of their faces.”

“Well.” I grinned. “That sounds more like me, doesn’t it?”

My aunt nodded. “Yup.”

“Mrr.”

• • •

The previous day’s freezing rain had been covered with a fresh two inches of snow overnight. While the main roads were clear, most of the side roads were still exceedingly slippery. Schools were closed and events were being canceled all over the county, but the library had never closed for weather in the history of the library, so I slipped a set of handy-dandy ice grips over my boots and headed out.

My normal morning walking route took me through the tree-lined residential streets of Chilson, zigged to hit the core downtown blocks, and zagged back up to the library. Today, however, I took the route of safety and made a beeline for the main road.

The city’s sidewalk plow had made a pass and dropped a mix of sand and salt, but the footing was still variable, so like a responsible adult, I kept my head down and my attention on my boots. Which was why, when my name was called out, I jumped and almost lost my balance.

“Sorry about that. You okay?” Mitchell Koyne looked down at me. Way down. I understood that my own compact and efficient height was not the norm, and every time I met up with Mitchell, it was very clear that he was on the opposite end of the human height bell curve.

“Fine. And nice work on your sidewalk.” I nodded at the stretch in front of the toy store, shoveled and scraped down to the concrete, even though it was almost two hours until the store opened.

Until last year, Mitchell had been one of those guys who bounced from seasonal construction job to seasonal ski resort job, making ends meet in the shoulder seasons of spring and fall by selling firewood and not eating much. He’d worn untucked and raggy flannel shirts over T-shirts of questionable condition, jeans worn to white at the knees, and shoes held together with goo and sometimes duct tape.

He was also very intelligent and insatiably curious, but only in a sporadic sort of way. That, paired with his complete lack of ambition, had created his life of unparalleled laid-back Up North–ness. But everything had changed for Mitchell when he’d started dating Bianca Sims, one of the most successful real estate agents in the region.

The high-powered and energetic Bianca pairing with Mitchell was not a combination anyone ever would have expected, but it was working so well for them that Mitchell was essentially living with her. Which was a relief to Mitchell’s sister and brother-in-law, in whose attic bedroom he’d been living.

I’d often wondered what Mitchell might have done with his life if he’d been born into a family that valued education. Looking at him now, though, it was hard to imagine him anywhere else or doing anything else other than managing Chilson’s toy store. A more natural fit was hard to imagine, and it was all due to Mitchell wanting to improve himself in order to win Bianca’s love.

“Doubt you’ll get much business today,” I said.

“There’s always something to do.” Mitchell set down the bag of salt he’d been holding and shoved his bare hands into his coat pockets. “Say, Minnie, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, it’s a personal question.”

Silence reigned. I waited, waited some more, and finally said, “Okay. I can deal with personal.” At no point had any of my college professors warned me that librarians could become surrogate therapists, but as a librarian, and especially as a bookmobile librarian, I’d been asked to give career recommendations, about the right time to have children, and what I’d do if I’d been offered a big promotion a thousand miles away. “Go ahead.”

“Well.” He shifted again. “It’s Bianca.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Is there a problem?” Every time I saw the two of them together, they looked happy. Laughing, holding hands, all that.

“Well, it’s just . . .” He hung his head. “I want to, you know, take things to the next level, and I’m not sure how to do that.”

Alarmed, I started backing away. No way was I going to give Mitchell Koyne advice on the physical aspect of his relationship with his girlfriend. “Um, Mitchell, this isn’t something—”

“I mean, how do I know if she wants to make us a permanent thing? What if I’m reading things wrong? Because the last few weeks things have been a little weird. It’s like she’s impatient with me. And at Christmas she seemed really disappointed with her present.” He sighed. “I thought about it a lot and figured she’d really like what I gave her, a set of framed pictures for her office, of historic houses from all around here.”

It sounded like a great present, and I said so.

“Yeah, well.” He shrugged. “She acted happy and everything, but things haven’t been right since then.”

I relaxed. This was familiar territory. Every few months Mitchell went through a “What does she see in me?” phase. Oddly, Bianca seemed to occasionally suffer the same internal debate. “You’re not reading things wrong,” I assured him. “If you want a forever future with Bianca, why don’t you talk to her about it?”

He hesitated. “There’s this friend of mine. He took his girlfriend downstate to a baseball game last summer, the Tigers, and had them put his proposal on that big screen. Everyone was watching, and she . . .”

“She said no,” I said quietly. The video had been all over the Internet for days. I’d felt awful for the poor guy; I just hadn’t realized Mitchell knew him.

“Yeah. After, he told me he’d been so sure she’d say yes. So even if everything seems good between me and Bianca, how can I know for sure?”

I wanted to reassure him, but he had a point. How did anyone ever know for sure how someone else felt? About anything, really?

“Can you help me?” he asked. “Figure out how she feels? About me, I mean?”

What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t help? Not that Mitchell and I were friends exactly. But we were more than acquaintances, and if I could help out, I should.

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks, Minnie!” He grinned a wide Mitchell smile, and I was suddenly very glad I’d agreed to help. He slapped me on the shoulder and I staggered. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I forget sometimes how little you are. One more thing, don’t let Bianca know I talked to you about this, okay?”

I smiled a bit grimly. “I’ll do what I can,” I said again and, all the way to the library, wondered what on earth that might possibly be.

• • •

I spent the morning doing the post-bookmobile chores I should have done the day before but hadn’t because we hadn’t made it back to the library until long after closing time. At the time, my priority had been to get Eddie and me back to the boardinghouse safe and sound. After all, I was the only one who would care if I didn’t lug all the returned bookmobile books back into the library and process them, and I was willing to give myself a pass from having to do it on nights we didn’t get back until ten o’clock.

Bringing books, DVDs, and CDs back home to the library always made me happy. The only thing better than checking them back in was checking them out, sending them on their temporary way to a new loving home. Truly, I had the best job in the world, because I got to help people find what they wanted every day.

I ran all the returned materials through the computer, put them on a rolling rack, and, whistling, started to put them back into their proper places. Some would go straight back onto the bookmobile; others would stay here in the library until someone requested one of them, or until I decided to rotate them into bookmobile circulation. I was gaining more experience with what bookmobilers liked, but what I was mostly learning was that I really needed a magical crystal ball to predict what people wanted.

For instance, just yesterday Mrs. Portz, who had in the past been interested only in reading cookbooks and biographies of U.S. presidents, had asked for “one of those steamy books my granddaughter goes on about,” and once I’d realized that she was talking about steampunk, I’d been happy to oblige.

A light knock made me look up. Graydon stood in the doorway.

“How are you this fine morning?” I asked cheerfully.

“Very happy that I didn’t have to drive more than three miles to work. And I’m glad you made it back safely last night. That freezing rain must have been frightening, especially in the bookmobile.”

My new boss was showing concern for the bookmobile? For me? What was the world coming to? “The weight makes it easier than you’d think,” I said. “The worst thing was trying to keep the windshield clear.”

He nodded. “Well, I’m glad you texted me. Let’s make that standard operating procedure in bad weather.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” One of these days I was going to finish revising the library policies regarding the bookmobile. Before my former boss had approved the purchase of the bookmobile, I’d been required to put a number of policies in place. There had to be two library staff members on board at all times. That the driver must have a commercial driver’s license. And on and on. I’d done the best I could, but now that we’d been on the road for a year and a half, it was time to adjust things. I also wanted to rewrite the job descriptions for the driver and the assistant, adding core competencies. And the pre-run and post-run checklists could stand an update. Now that winter had dug in, I was a little nervous about the rear door’s keypad access working in extreme cold. We didn’t use the rear door, which was the handicapped entrance, all that much, but when we did need it, there was no substitute. “I’ll run the revised policy past you when I get a draft done.”

“This week?”

“Um . . .”

Graydon smiled. “Trent is reviewing all of the library’s policies. As the new board chair, it makes sense. But if we’re going to make changes to the bookmobile policy, it would be best to have it in front of him as soon as possible.”

I did the best I could to hide my complete and utter dismay. Policy revision was not my favorite task. In fact, it was near the bottom of my Least Favorite library chores and was another reason I’d decided against applying for the director position. “In that case, I’ll move policy revision to the top of my list.”

Graydon seemed satisfied and went away, but my happy mood had shifted and I realized that I was going to have to resort to serious measures to get it back. I was going to have to ignore the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’d brought for lunch and go to Shomin’s Deli instead.

• • •

No one else wanted to go back out into the weather, so I left the library solo. I carried a book with me wherever I went, just in case I had to spend more than ten seconds waiting for anything ever, but off season I preferred to eat my meals with someone. In winter, Chilson’s population dropped by ninety percent, and most of us year-rounders tended to huddle together, especially in January.

“Well, hello there, Miss Librarian!” Pam Fazio, owner of Older Than Dirt, a retail establishment that was partly antiques, partly shoes, partly kitchen wares, and all fun, waved at me from a booth. “Come sit with me.”

I didn’t even bother looking at the chalkboard menu. “Hey, Mike,” I said to the twenty-something behind the counter. “Swiss cheese and olives on sourdough, please, with root beer.” After paying, I slid into the booth across from Pam. “I almost didn’t recognize you,” I said.

Pam looked down at herself. “Same clothes. Same haircut. What do you see as different?”

This was true. Same short black hair, same top-notch fashion sense, even in January. However, there was one massive change. “Might be the only time I’ve seen you without coffee in your hand.”

She glowered. “Stupid doctor. Just because I’m ‘of a certain age,’ I’m suddenly supposed to start thinking about my caffeine intake? Why now?”

“Because you can only get away with abusing your body for so long before it catches up to you?”

“Wait your turn,” she said darkly. “Hit fifty and you’re in a whole new demographic. It’s all different.”

“Didn’t you turn fifty two years ago?”

“Three, but who’s counting?” She grinned, but it slipped away as something across the room caught her attention. “That’s odd. I thought he was gone.”

I turned and saw Neil Bennethum, Rowan’s husband, place an order with Mike. “Is it okay if he joins us?” I asked. At Pam’s nod, I got up and invited Neil over. After a pause, he nodded. “Thanks.”

The three of us settled down, Pam and myself on one side of the booth, Neil on the other. “I thought you’d gone downstate,” Pam said. “Back to work.”

Neil picked at a hangnail. “I tried, but couldn’t concentrate. They gave me a leave of absence so I’m headed down to Chicago to visit my brother and his family. Then . . . we’ll see.”

“I’m so sorry,” Pam said.

“Yes. Well.” Neil seemed to shrink. “I can’t sleep at the house. I tried, but . . .” He shook his head. “The last couple of nights I stayed with my sister in town.” He gave a wan smile and tapped his rounded midsection. “You know what’s funny? For years my doctor was on my case to lose fifty pounds. Now I’ve dropped ten in the last week. Who knew there could be a benefit to something like this?”

I inched forward. “Neil, did you see my text? I was at your house yesterday.”

“You were?” He stared at me blankly. “My phone . . . so many people are texting me about Rowan.” He looked at the table and muttered, “I haven’t been looking at it much lately.”

Pam and I exchanged a glance. The man was not doing well. “Your house,” I said brightly, “was a port in the storm,” and explained about the bookmobile and the freezing rain. Then, after a quick moment, I told him I’d found something odd and called the police.

“What did you find?” he asked.

Of course he asked. How could he not? But I hesitated. “I’m not sure I’m supposed to talk about it. Part of the investigation.”

Neil made a rude noise. “What investigation? I told Hal Inwood exactly who killed Rowan, but does he do anything about it? No. All they have to do is arrest him. They tell me it’s all under investigation, but I don’t see anything happening. Another reason it’ll be good for me to leave town—if they don’t arrest him soon, I might do something to him myself.”

Pam and I exchanged glances. “You know who killed her?” Pam asked.

“The week before Rowan died,” Neil said, his face flushing, “she and Land had a huge fight. A big blowup. She fired him and he threatened her. Said she’d regret firing him, and soon.”

“Land Aprelle?” I asked. But it had to be. There weren’t many men named Land wandering around the world. For decades he’d been a contractor, putting up houses and pole barns and anything else people hired him to build. Now that he was in his sixties and had had a knee and a shoulder replacement, he’d shifted to handyman and caretaking services. He was a longtime library patron and had happily taken advantage of the bookmobile the first week it was on the road. People who used the library and bookmobile weren’t guaranteed to be upright and honest citizens, but in my mind the odds were better.

“Rowan hired him to do chores after I started working downstate,” Neil said. “She wanted me to have real weekends, not weekends working on the house. She said we could afford it, that it would give us more time together, that—”

He stopped. Swallowed. “If I hadn’t taken that job, I would have been home. She never would have hired him. She wouldn’t be . . .” His voice trailed off and a vast silence filled the booth.

My heart ached for him. I wanted to give him a hug, or at least hold his hand, but we were barely more than acquaintances and I didn’t want to weird him out. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly, because there wasn’t much else I could do.

“Thanks,” he said. “Rowan really liked you. Both of you,” he said, finally looking up at us. “She didn’t like everyone, but she liked you two.”

“And I liked her. Her sense of humor was just like my dad’s.” I swung around to face Pam. “And yours, too, come to think of it.”

Pam laughed. “So that’s why the three of us got along so well. A warped worldview.”

“Lots of folks didn’t get when she was making a joke,” Neil said. “She got on the wrong side of people for that.”

The back of my neck tingled. “Anyone in particular?”

“Besides half of her own family?” Neil almost smiled, then stared off into space. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Hugh Novak couldn’t stand her. Hated everything she stood for and believed in, politically speaking.” His face hardened. “I wonder where he was that day.”

Mike showed up with our food, and as we ate, we talked of other things. As soon as the sandwiches were gone, Neil left and I moved around to the other side of the booth. “I don’t see Land Aprelle as a killer,” I said.

“Me, either.” Pam picked at her potato chips. “Who’s Hugh Novak?”

I knew the name, but couldn’t summon a memory of what he looked like. “If I remember right, he’s from Chilson. An insurance adjuster, but I hear he’s getting into developing real estate.”

Pam looked in the direction Neil had gone. “It’s weird knowing someone who was murdered.”

It certainly was. “I don’t think Neil has any idea who killed Rowan,” I said. “Do you?”

Pam shook her head, but in agreement. “He just wants her killer found.”

It was what we all wanted. And I was going to do everything I could to make it happen.

• • •

When I got back to the library, I went straight to my office. I sat down, fired up my computer, strong-mindedly avoided looking at my e-mail in-box, and focused completely on updating the bookmobile policy.

After ten years in the workforce, I’d come to the conclusion that there were two types of tasks. The kind that took longer than you expected and the kind that didn’t take nearly as long as you expected. Tasks that took exactly as long as you anticipated were as rare as a pair of my pants that didn’t have any Eddie hair.

As it turned out, revising the bookmobile policy took only a couple of hours as opposed to the full day I’d anticipated. “Maybe I’m getting better at this,” I said happily as I e-mailed it off to Graydon. For half a second, I toyed with the idea of diving straight into checklists and core competencies, but decided after two solid hours of sitting that what I needed was to stand up for a few minutes.

I sent a group text to all the staff who were working that I was about to brew a fresh pot of coffee—half caffeine in light of the fact that it was three in the afternoon—and headed to the break room. Three minutes later, Holly came in, followed by Josh, Kelsey, and two library patrons, Stewart Funston and the elderly Mr. Goodwin, who’d repeatedly told me to call him Lloyd.

Today I cheated and said a blanket hello to everyone. First to the coffeepot was Stewart. “Just so you know,” I said, “it’s half caffeine and half decaf.”

He smiled. “Exactly what I wanted. How did you guess?”

Stewart was one of our library regulars. Just shy of six feet tall and on the edge between sturdy and stocky, and with graying brown hair in dire need of a haircut, he was in his late forties and worked for a local manufacturer designing electronic doohickeys of some sort. He telecommuted from home and from the library on a regular basis. I’d once asked him for details on what, exactly, it was that he designed, but then he’d told me and at the end I was no wiser than I’d been before the explanation started.

“Working today?” Josh asked Stewart.

Feeling like a mother robin putting worms into upturned baby bird beaks, I poured coffee into the mugs held out in front of me.

“The plant isn’t open,” he said. “But here’s the problem when you can telecommute; there’s never a time when you can’t work.”

We all laughed. Stewart was a personable guy, and he’d also been an early supporter of the bookmobile, so I was automatically inclined to like him. I would always remember the people who’d spoken up back when I was trying to convince the library board that a bookmobile was needed in an age of digital everything.

“Thanks for brewing an afternoon pot, Minnie.” He set his mug on the table and reached for his wallet. “For the fund,” he said, pulling out a five-dollar bill.

I stuffed it into the mug Holly’s kids had decorated with stickers and glitter that tended to get on everything within a five-foot radius. “Thanks, Stewart. We really appreciate it.”

“Can’t have my library staff going without coffee,” he said. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

Kelsey made a face at her mug. “You call this stuff coffee?”

“Better than the sludge you make,” Josh said. “Do you even care that no one else drinks the pots you make?”

“You can always add water,” Kelsey said.

It was an old argument and winning was impossible due to the subjective nature of the topic. In spite of the no-win reality, it felt like both Kelsey and Josh were gearing up for another round. I tried to think fast for a less divisive topic—politics? religion?—but Holly spoke first.

“Stewart, how is your family doing?” she asked. “It was all so sad. I hear there’s going to be a memorial service in summer.”

“Late May,” he said. “Neil wants to wait until the kids are done with school, but not wait so long that hotel rooms will be expensive for the people who have to travel.”

“You’re related to the Bennethums?” I asked. Just when I thought I was used to running across connections in a small town, up popped a family tie that surprised me.

Stewart sighed. “Rowan and I were first cousins. Her dad and my mom are siblings. She was the first grandchild, but I was the first grandson, the first one born to carry on the name,” he said, sounding proud.

For some reason, I’d never once considered that Rowan’s parents would still be alive, but I should have. Rowan was in her late forties, so her parents were likely around seventy, an age that used to sound ancient to me, but I now knew numerous people in their eighties who put my energy and activity level to shame, so I’d revised seventy in my head as nothing to fear.

Stewart picked up his coffee mug, then set it back down. He put his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a sugar packet. “Has anyone tried this? It’s maple-flavored sugar. A company north of town started making it a few months ago. I’m not a huge fan of sugar in coffee, but this stuff is—” He glanced at me. “Minnie, are you okay? You look a little funny.”

“Fine,” I said vaguely. “I was just . . . thinking.” But I’d looked funny because the sugar packet Stewart was holding in his hand was a twin to the one I’d found the night before in Rowan’s house. I gestured. “Where did you get that? It sounds like something Kristen should be using at the restaurant.”

“Christmas present,” he said. “Don’t remember who, though. My best present was from my son. He gave me this amazing new kind of hat that no one around here has. It’s a wool felt fedora with earflaps I can fold down. What’s revolutionary is the design. Four-and-a-half-inch crown height is typical, you see, and it’s brilliant to make it lower for winter, when the winds are stiffer.”

“Sounds cool,” Josh said. “My brother and his wife gave me a set of kitchen storage containers.” He rolled his eyes.

Mr. Goodwin asked Josh about purchasing a new tablet, a conversation that Stewart joined in, and Holly and Kelsey started talking about their respective children. I let the voices wash past me and thought about three things.

Cousins.

Sugar packets.

And poison.

Chapter 6

The walk home that night was, physically, far easier than the morning trip. It hadn’t snowed all afternoon and the plows had been busy. Mentally, however, I was having a hard time.

Land Aprelle as a killer? Not a chance.

Stewart Funston as a killer? Not a chance.

Hugh Novak? I’d never heard anything against him other than Neil’s diatribe, so I inched his name toward the “not a chance” side of my mental spreadsheet.

I wanted to shy away from imagining scenarios in which any of the three might have wanted to kill Rowan, but I took a deep breath of cold air and went at it.

Land. A builder turned handyman/caretaker; had thick gray hair with a streak of white straight down the middle. Years ago, he’d fallen off a ladder, been knocked out, and hadn’t woken up for three days. Afterward, he was fine except for that white streak of hair. He also was clean shaven in summer and grew a bushy white beard in winter because, with the addition of pillow stuffing and a costume, he transformed from a guy who hardly talked to the area’s best Santa Claus.

Maybe that was why I was having a hard time imagining him as a killer. But I also had a hard time seeing him in a shouting match with Rowan, and that had apparently happened. Could Land have killed Rowan because of an argument? Or should the question be, what kind of argument could have led to murder?

Hal Inwood’s favorite motives were money or love gone wrong, with the most powerful motive being a combination of the two. Could Land and Rowan have been having an affair? Could Land have been stealing from the Bennethums?

I had no idea and had no idea how to find out. Hal and Ash knew about Neil’s suspicions, though, so they were most likely looking at Land, no matter what Neil thought.

On to Stewart Funston. Who, unbeknownst to me, was a cousin of Rowan’s. I made a mental note to ask my aunt about the Funston family tree. No, wait. Stewart had said his mom and Rowan’s dad had been siblings and I’d never known Rowan’s maiden name. Another note went onto my mental list—librarian, start your research!—and I carried on with my cogitating.

What reason could Stewart have to kill his cousin? Using the second of Hal’s classic motives, love, was too impossibly icky, but some other kind of love could be at play. Could there be some weird competition for parental love? Was it possible that either Rowan or Stewart had been raised in the other’s family and was harboring resentment for not being treated as full family? Possible, but why would that kind of anger come into flower now, so many years later?

The other reason was money. Rowan and Neil seemed comfortable enough, but there was no ostentatious display of wealth. No big boat, no fancy vacations, a house they’d owned for years, and two kids in college.

I blew out a breath, creating a soft ball of steam that disappeared as quickly as it had formed.

Hugh Novak. Since I didn’t know the man, I felt myself wanting him to be the best candidate on my very short list. It was intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible, and I was ashamed of myself the moment I realized it. Yet there it was.

I let myself in the front door and called out my normal greeting. “I’m back!” From upstairs came a sleepy “Mrr.” Eddie was in serious winter mode, and unless I shook his treat can, it was unlikely he’d venture off my bed anytime soon.

As I began to divest myself of outerwear, I almost hoped that Aunt Frances was out. Though she was the best aunt ever and I loved her dearly, I could feel a mood descending, a mood with a capital M. It would pass, but a night on the couch with Eddie and Netflix might make it pass even quicker.

“Hello, Minnie. How are you this evening?”

“Oh, hey, Otto.” I glanced behind my aunt’s fiancé. “Where’s the beloved relative?”

“Someone called about selling some bird’s-eye extremely cheap and she was out of here before I could figure out why she could possibly want bird eyeballs.”

I laughed and my mood started to evaporate. Maybe human companionship was what I needed, not a burrowing in. “It’s a relatively rare kind of hard maple that looks swirly.” I glanced around and found some. “Like this.” I pointed at an end table’s drawer front. “See? Swirly. And please don’t ask me what causes it because I have no idea.”

Otto nodded and tapped the end table. “Did you know that your aunt doesn’t want to take any of this furniture across the street when we get married?”

“No, but I’m not surprised.” I spread my arms wide, gesturing at the room. At the entire house. “This furniture has been here for years. Decades. Taking away even one piece could change the magic recipe.”

“You sound like Frances,” he said.

I flopped down on a couch. “Well, there are reasons for that. And I’d name some, but you just sounded the teensiest bit grumpy, so I won’t.”

“Thank you.” He sat on the couch across from me. Even in jeans and a zip sweatshirt, he still looked as if he’d stepped out of a magazine advertisement for what the elegant senior gentleman should look like. “I recognize that Celeste will need the bulk of the boardinghouse furniture, but I think not taking anything is a mistake.”

“Why’s that?”

“I want the house across the street to be our home. Ours together. I don’t want her to think of it as my house, a place she just happened to move into.”

Smiling at him fondly, I said, “If she changes her mind about marrying you, I wouldn’t mind being second choice.”

“Dear Minnie. Rafe Niswander would have my guts for garters.”

I laughed at the English expression. “Then we’ll have to leave things as they are.”

“Except for the furniture,” he said. “I fully expected to donate half my furniture to the church’s resale shop. She needs to bring something from the place she’s lived in for so many years.”

“Does Eddie hair count?” I picked a few examples off my sleeve.

Otto, sensibly, ignored me. “Could you talk to her? Tell her I’m thinking of our future, that I don’t want her to resent living in a house that doesn’t feel like hers. Please?”

It sounded as if he’d already made his arguments and that she’d already rejected them. Still, he had a point. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. But I can’t promise it’ll change her mind.”

He smiled, looking satisfied. “I know you’ll do your best, and that’s all anyone can ask. Thank you, Minnie.”

But I knew he was wrong. Doing your best wasn’t always enough. Sometimes it wasn’t anywhere near enough.

• • •

After Otto went home, I ate a dinner of leftovers—hardly any dishes to wash, how handy!—and carried Eddie downstairs to help me watch a couple episodes of Detectorists. It was a BBC show that amused me immensely, and now I had a mission, to see if anyone on the show ever said ‘guts for garters.’

Though I didn’t hear anything about garters, the show made me laugh and distracted me nicely, so it was a surprise when I spent the night tossing and turning so much that Eddie abandoned me. Come morning, I found him on the dining room buffet. “Really?” I asked. “That’s where you spent the night? Perched on a hard piece of wood? Sleeping there was better than snuggling with me?”

My cat looked at me and didn’t say a thing.

“Love you, too, pal,” I said, planting a kiss on the top of his head as I went past.

In the kitchen, Aunt Frances was a whirlwind of activity. Coffee was brewing, her lunch was on the counter only half made, and the microwave was counting down to zero.

“Morning.” I went to the silverware drawer for spoons. “How was the bird’s-eye?” I’d already been in bed when I’d heard the front door. “You were out late. What did you do, start a project with it already?”

“Good morning,” she said. “Could you get the oatmeal? Thanks. The wood is wonderful, but I need to move it right away. Death in the family, house is sold, and if I don’t get it out before the closing date, it’s the property of the new owners.”

“Would they even want it? Maybe they’d be fine giving you an extra week or two.” I was no woodworker, but even I knew that moving wood was a laborious process.

“Don’t know, and I don’t want to ask. It’s bird’s-eye.” She spoke almost reverently.

“Do you have any place to store it?”

She nodded. “There’s room in my storage unit. I just have to move a few things.”

My aunt’s storage unit was on the north side of town and contained nothing but wood. Rough-sawn wood, planed and milled wood, stumps, bits of specialty woods from faraway places, and even some pedestrian two-by-fours. I’d been there only a handful of times, and though the contents changed, the volume always seemed the same. Packed to the gills. I tried not to think about it because there was an inevitability about the fact that someday I would have to deal with the contents.

Trying to be a good niece, I asked, “Do you need any help?” Since I’d scheduled myself for the noon to close shift at the library that day, I could give her a hand. I had other plans, but if she needed me, of course I’d change them.

“You are a kind soul and thank you, but no. I have some students who volunteered to help if they could walk away with some bird’s-eye of their own.”

It sounded like an excellent plan and I told her so.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Or it will be as long as we can get the door to the storage unit open after that freezing rain.”

“Hot water,” I said promptly. “Take a thermos of hot water and pour it along the door’s seal.”

My aunt stared at me with frank admiration. “Brilliant. I am proud to be related to you.”

“Voice of experience is all. The bookmobile’s garage door sticks sometimes in winter and that works fast. Just make sure to dry off that rubber seal.”

Aunt Frances laughed. “You are a treasure trove of practical knowledge. Do your parents know this about you?” She got up from the kitchen table, having eaten her oatmeal so fast that pouring it might have been slower.

“No one is a prophet in her own home.”

“Is that a quote?”

I thought about it. “Not as far as I know, but then I read a lot.”

“Well, I’m off.” She bagged up her lunch and grabbed an empty thermos. “I’ll get this filled at the school when I’m picking up the kids. See you tonight!”

A few seconds later, the front door shut. “I hope she slowed down enough to put on her boots,” I said to Eddie, who had wandered into the kitchen. “A coat would be good, too, since it’s only twenty degrees out there.”

“Mrr,” he said, jumping onto his chair.

“I’m sure you’re right. She probably slid right into those nice wool-lined duck boots without breaking stride.” I scraped up the last of my oatmeal. “And if you see Otto, could you please tell him this morning wasn’t the right time to talk to her about the furniture?”

“Mrr!”

That hadn’t sounded like agreement, but I could have been wrong. “Cool. Thanks.”

I washed the dishes, patted Eddie on the head, and headed out for my first self-imposed chore of the morning.

• • •

The sign at the road was mostly covered with snow, but enough was visible for my brain to fill in the bottom part. Maple Staples. This was the company that sold the sugar packet I’d found at Rowan’s. Well, technically, Eddie had found it, but I wasn’t about to tell that to my friends in law enforcement. They barely tolerated my ideas; letting them know some of them came from a cat wasn’t going to get Hal or Ash to take the ideas more seriously.

The building was a typical Up North manufacturing facility; large pole barn with metal siding and an office tacked on the front. The parking lot, thankfully, was plowed reasonably well and held half a dozen vehicles. I parked between a four-wheel drive pickup and an all-wheel drive SUV and went in.

“Hello.” From behind a wooden desk worn at the corners, a twenty-something man with long hair and an even longer beard smiled at me. “Can I help you?”

Smiling back, I said, “I certainly hope so,” and went ahead with the truth-stretching story I’d concocted early that morning. With any luck it would sound just as solid now as it had at 3 a.m. “You’re the folks that make that maple-flavored sugar, right? Well, it turns out that stuff is basically addictive and I have this friend who would love me forever if I could track down a case of it. He can’t find it anywhere and . . .” I stopped, because his smile had turned rueful and he was shaking his head.

“Sorry. We sold the last box a month ago to a restaurant in Traverse City.”

“What restaurant?” I asked. “Maybe they still have some and—”

Again the head shake. “Nope. It’s all gone. They called last Friday and asked for more.”

Huh. Maybe the stuff really was addictive. “That’s too bad.” Sort of. I didn’t really care if I bought any; I just wanted to know more about the product and how it might have ended up in Rowan’s house. “It seems very popular. I’m surprised I haven’t seen it before now.”

“We’ve only been in business a couple of years,” the guy said. “My boss and her husband are really into beer, but Bob can’t stand the smell of wort—that’s beer before it ferments—so beer was out when they started thinking about a startup company. But you know how some craft breweries have lots of short runs?”

In a general sort of way. I nodded.

“That’s what we’re doing with our maple syrup. Lots of different products, smaller production quantities. We make things from that sugar to ice cream to a barbecue glaze.” He spread his arms. “And it’s all local.”

“Really?” I’d known Michigan was a big producer of maple syrup, but I’d never thought about added-value products. Yet another reason I was never going to be an entrepreneur.

“And like some craft breweries,” he said, “we’ve decided to relabel products every year. The contents don’t change, but the labeling does. That’s why you might not have seen that sugar packet before—last fall was the only time it was made.”

I hesitated. “Doesn’t that make brand recognition harder for your customers? I mean, what if they really liked that particular flavor of whatever, and think the new label is something different and get, um, maybe irritated?”

“Yeah, we’re getting some of that.” He leaned back in his chair. “I think we should do a longitudinal data analysis and figure out the spikes, both up and down, for correlations and see what we can do to maximize the positives. Don’t you think that makes sense?”

“More data is often useful,” I said, looking for the middle-of-the-road response to what was clearly a very pointed question about a topic. Plus I’d mostly stopped listening when he’d said “longitudinal,” so I wasn’t completely sure what he was talking about.

“Exactly.” He nodded. “That’s what I keep telling Robbie and Bob. You know what? I’m just going to do it. Easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?”

I smiled. “Thanks for your time. I appreciate it.”

“No problem. Say, if you’re interested in the sugar, I can put you on a waiting list. Bob started a sheet right after Christmas.” He rooted through the piles of papers on the desk. “Here you go,” he said, handing me a clipboard. “Robbie wants to expand into birch syrup, too. The sky’s the limit with this place. Of course, we’d have to change the name.”

But for the second time in two minutes, I’d stopped listening. Because at the top of the list of names and e-mail addresses was one I recognized.

Hugh Novak.

• • •

Since I’d estimated the driving time out to Maple Staples and back poorly—to the dry road travel time I’d only added twenty-five percent instead of the fifty percent I should have to properly compensate for the snow that was falling from the heavens—I didn’t have time to make the other stops I’d planned. I arrived at the library a few minutes early, but I hadn’t had lunch, since I’d also planned a return to the boardinghouse to eat.

I stopped in the break room on the way into my office and peeked in the refrigerator. There was always a chance that I’d left something in there and forgotten about it—yogurt? leftovers? anything?—but I came up dry. The offerings in the vending machine were heavy on the sugary side. I made a face at the bag of peanuts I was pretty sure had been there since the machine had been installed and wondered if there was any chance I’d left a can of soup in the bottom drawer of my desk.

“Minnie, you’re just the person I was hoping to see.” Graydon was in the doorway, buttoning his navy peacoat. “Do you have lunch plans?”

“Nothing that my mother would call a meal.” I tapped the vending machine. “College students, yes. Mom? No.”

Graydon laughed. “Lunch is my treat, if you have time.”

I blinked. Never in the history of my working life had a boss ever taken me out to lunch. There’d been the occasional group outing, but those had been separate checks for all and didn’t count. “That would be nice. Thanks.”

“I’ll defer to your local expertise for a restaurant choice,” Graydon said. “I have no allergies and like almost everything except cottage cheese.”

Since I’d just eaten at Shomin’s and didn’t feel Fat Boys Pizza was a suitable place to take Graydon, there wasn’t any other affordable place open this time of year except the Round Table.

A short walk later, I led the way past the SEAT YOURSELF sign and paused. Sitting in a booth with my boss, a seating arrangement that implied intimacy, would be too weird. Of course, sitting at a table would be weird, too, since the only time I did that was in summer when all the booths were full. Still, a table it was.

“Hey, sunshine.” The diner’s forever waitress, Sabrina, put down glasses of ice water. “Who’s your new friend?”

Graydon held out his hand and introduced himself. “I’m the new library director.”

“Hmm.” Sabrina shook his hand. “Well, you can’t be any worse than the last two. Don’t know that I ever saw that Jennifer in here, and Stephen?” She rolled her eyes. “Chicken sandwich with mayo, chips, and water, every time. Never tipped more than fifty cents. I’ll be right back with a menu.”

I hadn’t had time to ask how her husband, Bill, was doing, but since she was her normal sparkling self, I was pretty sure he was doing okay. He and Sabrina were in their mid-fifties, but Bill was already suffering from macular degeneration. Special treatments down in Traverse City seemed to be slowing the symptoms and maybe even halting them, and we were all hoping he wouldn’t get any worse.

After we ordered—ham and cheese with fries for me, a club sandwich and cup of chicken noodle soup for him—Graydon sat back a little. “Do you mind if I ask a few questions?”

“Fire away,” I said, mirroring his movement. “But just so you know, I’m horrible at mental math.”

He smiled. “Not that kind of questions. Library questions.”

“Way easier. What do you want to know?”

“For one, how long do you think Donna will keep working?”

I laughed. “She works to support her habits. Turns out that traveling to Africa to run marathons and to Norway to snowshoe is expensive. She’s in great shape for any age, let alone someone who’s in her early seventies. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s going to work for another decade.” I thought about it for a moment. “And I wouldn’t be surprised at two.”

It would be a sad day when Donna left her part-time job. She was intelligent, capable, and could be extremely funny. I didn’t like to think about the library without her.

Sabrina slid our plates in front of us. “Cookie’s rolling them out fast today. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you,” Graydon said. “This looks great.”

“Absolutely.” I took hold of the malt vinegar bottle and shook it lightly over my fries. “And tell Cookie thanks, too.”

“The speed isn’t for your sake,” Sabrina said. “He overcooked Otis’s bacon this morning and he’s still trying to recover.” Smirking, she pulled a pencil out of her graying hair bun and went to take orders from a table of EMTs.

“Otis Rahn?” Graydon asked. “The past library board president?”

Nodding, I sprinkled salt on my fries. Cookie never added enough for my taste. “For years and years.” I was about to say how much I missed him, but decided that might not be in my best professional interest.

Graydon took in a few spoonfuls of soup. “What do you think about Kelsey?”

I kept my face blank and wondered what this was all about. “Personally or professionally?” I tacked on a smile at the end of my question because I was afraid it might have come out a little snarky.

“Whatever you feel comfortable telling me.”

To delay giving an answer, I picked up my sandwich and took a bite. It was so good that I took another. Graydon, by this time, had started eating his. “This is very good,” he said.

“Cookie graduated from the culinary program at Northwestern Michigan College. He worked in Chicago for a while, but came home a few years ago.”

“His name isn’t really Cookie, is it?”

“I honestly don’t know.” And I didn’t want to know, either. I enjoyed thinking of him as Cookie. My earlier liking for my new boss was turning to something else. I put my sandwich down. “About Kelsey. And anyone else you might ask about. I’m perfectly comfortable giving you professional assessments, that’s part of my job. But if you want me to—”

Graydon’s cell phone buzzed. “Sorry,” he murmured, looking at the screen. “It’s Trent. I should take this.” He stood and went to the far corner of the room, turning his back to me.

I finished my speech to the back of his head. “But if you want me to spy on my coworkers and report back, that’s not going to happen.”

“What isn’t going to happen?”

I looked up. And smiled at Rafe, who had materialized out of nowhere and was sitting himself at the table. “Curing the common cold in our lifetimes,” I said. “What do you think isn’t going to happen?”

“Right now, I’m concerned that it’s getting hardware for the kitchen cabinets.”

Oh. That. “Um . . .”

He sighed so heavily that hyperventilation was a mild concern. “The one thing I ask you to do. One thing.”

I pushed my plate toward him. “Have some fries. They’ll make you feel better. What are you doing here anyway?”

“Picking up lunch for the admin office.”

“Then you don’t need any of my fries, do you?”

“‘Need’ is such a subjective word. Your fries are hard to resist because you always add the perfect amounts of malt vinegar and salt.”

“It’s one of my proudest accomplishments. And keep your hands off Graydon’s food,” I said as I saw him eyeing the potato chips. “He’s back there, on the phone.”

Rafe turned briefly. “Ah, I could take him.”

A forty-ish man who was either bald or regularly shaved his head, I’d never been able to determine which, dropped a bulging plastic bag on the front counter. “Hey, Niswander. Your order’s up.”

“Thanks, Cookie.” Rafe leaned over to give me a kiss and stood. “See you tonight?”

“I have one stop after work, but that’s it.”

“You’re finally going to stop at the hardware store to look at drawer pulls?”

“Aren’t you cute.” I smiled at him fondly. “See you later.”

He sighed again, but there was a grin in there, so I knew the hardware decision could be put off a little longer.

I turned my attention back to my food. Graydon, however, was still on the phone. What could he and the new library board president be talking about? Okay, any number of things, probably, but what could be so critical that Trent needed to interrupt Graydon’s lunch? From the expression on Graydon’s face, the conversation was not completely positive.

A slightly twitchy feeling started to form in my stomach. I tried to ignore it, or to think it was the result of too much fried food in too short a time. And I almost succeeded until my ears picked up the word “bookmobile.” Startled, I glanced up, directly at Graydon, and found that he was looking straight at me. He half smiled and let his gaze drift past, but I was left with some distinctly uncomfortable knowledge.

My boss and the board president were talking about the bookmobile.

And they were talking about me.

• • •

After I locked the library down for the evening—Friday was the one winter weeknight we closed at five—I drove the few blocks to meet with Hal and Ash. The late meeting time had suited them both for various reasons, so I’d stopped feeling guilty about canceling our morning appointment and shifted to feeling guilty about driving such a short distance instead of walking. Some days I could pull off being like Aunt Frances and not feel guilty about hardly anything and, even better, not worrying about anything at all, but today wasn’t one of them. “Tomorrow is another day,” I said as I opened the door to the sheriff’s office.

Hal Inwood was in the lobby, tacking an announcement about keeping mailboxes clear of snow to the glass-covered bulletin board. “Yes, unless the world ends in the middle of the night.”

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.” I stomped my boots free of snow.

“You should meet my wife.” He shut the glass door and locked it. “Unless you two are already good friends. That would, in many ways, explain quite a bit.”

But Mrs. Hal and I had never met. Which was both odd and not odd. Chilson was a small town, but for transplants, which the Inwoods and I both were, if your paths didn’t cross, you could easily never meet. I grinned. “Tell her to stop by the library. We can exchange all sorts of stories, for hours and hours.”

He gave me a pained look as he let me go in front of him into the interview room. “Fortunately, she’s downstate with grandchildren, and it’s possible that when she returns, I’ll forget to mention your kind invitation.”

Right then and there I made a silent vow to get to know the detective’s wife. “How is the testing going?”

“Of the sugar packet? No results yet, and I believe I mentioned at the time that it would take at least a week.”

“You did,” I said, “but I was thinking maybe January is a slow time at the lab and they could get it through faster than a week.”

“Still the funny one, aren’t you,” Ash said as he came into the room. “None of the labs in the state have slow seasons. All they have are busy and really busy times.”

“The poor things,” I murmured, meaning it. How stressful it must be to always be pushing your staff to the limit.

“Job security.” Ash pulled out the chair next to Hal and sat. “Sorry I’m late, I was finishing up a report.”

“That’s what I like best in a detective-in-training,” Hal said, nodding. “Finishing my work.”

I smiled and didn’t say a word, but I was thinking how far the relationship between Detective Hal Inwood and myself had advanced. Not all that long ago he’d barely tolerated my presence and had clearly considered my suggestions an interference. Now he seemed as if he could be almost likable.

“Now, Ms. Hamilton,” Hal said, focusing on me. “You said you have information to share. Please go right ahead. I’d like to get home at some point tonight.”

“Sure,” I said. “Neil Bennethum has already told you some of this, but I have some thoughts, too.”

I told them about Rowan’s argument with Land, and how Neil was so sure that Land had killed Rowan. The two law enforcement officers across the table had both opened their respective notepads and clicked on their pens, but no notes were taken during my little speech.

“You know all this,” I said.

“Looking into it.” Hal glanced at his watch. “At this point we’re still gathering information.”

Well, almost likable. “Right. How silly of me to think I might tell you something useful.”

Hal sighed. “Ms. Hamilton, please. It’s been a long day. What else do you have?”

I told myself to cut the detective a little slack. He was getting up there in age, and he was serving the people of Tonedagana County for a wage that didn’t anywhere near make up for the hassles he had to endure.

“Assuming,” I said, “that the sugar packet was a vehicle for the poison, there are at least two people who use that particular type of sugar. Stewart Funston, who I saw with the same kind of packet just yesterday, and Hugh Novak. He’s on the waiting list at the place that makes the stuff to get a box as soon as they make any new.”

Hal’s and Ash’s pens scribbled away as I talked. When I stopped, Hal asked, “And their connections to the victim?”

He was taking me seriously—hooray! “Stewart is Rowan’s cousin. A first cousin. And though I’m not sure of the details, Hugh couldn’t stand Rowan. They were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, and he never missed an opportunity to disagree with her publicly.” That’s what Neil had implied. I’d confirmed it with Donna, and she was one of my most trusted local sources.

“There’s a lot of that going around,” Ash said. “If people killed each other because of politics, we’d have a lot more murders at Thanksgiving.”

But people did kill each other over politics, and the look Hal gave Ash was one of fatigued reproach. “Thank you, Ms. Hamilton. We’ll take this information into account as the investigation moves forward.”

It was a statement of dismissal, but I wasn’t ready to move an inch. “And what have you found out? Don’t say you can’t discuss an active investigation. Surely you can tell me who you’ve talked to at the bank. If you don’t tell me, I’ll go the bank and any teller will let me know.”

Hal gave Ash a nod. “Okay,” Ash said. “Technically, this information is public knowledge, but we’d prefer you keep it to yourself.” When I murmured agreement, he went on. “We talked to Sunny Scoles.”

I frowned. “Isn’t she the owner of that new restaurant halfway between here and Charlevoix?” I couldn’t remember the name.

“That’s the one. She opened up there because it was what she could afford, but it was affordable because it’s not a great location. Apparently she’s doing okay, but wants to buy a food truck to expand.”

“Rowan turned her down?”

Hal stirred. “We can’t give out that information.”

I squinted at the men across the table. “But you talked to her so—”

“Can neither confirm nor deny.”

I turned back to Ash. “Sunny Scoles. Anyone else?”

“The last person we talked to was Baxter Tousely.”

“Baxter . . .” The name sounded familiar. Then my mental lightbulb clicked on. “You mean Bax?”

Ash nodded. “That’s what everyone calls him.”

“Is he about twenty-two?” If I recalled correctly, Bax had been in the same high school class as the Bennethum twins. He hadn’t been a fixture in the library, but I remembered Anya and Collier mentioning his name in a way that had made me assume he was one of their friends.

Hal flicked me a glance. “How many men named Baxter do you know, Ms. Hamilton?”

And back to the not-quite-likable side. “Bax is still in Chilson?” If he’d been a friend of Collier and Anya, I would have thought he’d gone off to college.

“Working for the city,” Ash said. “Public works department. But his dream is to have a post-production video service. It can be a good business, I guess, putting together short movie-like bits for everything from big companies to nonprofits to weddings, but to do it right, you need some expensive equipment up front.”

“And Rowan turned him down for the loan.”

Ash smiled. “What I can tell you is that he’s still working for the city and hasn’t been in the best of moods the last few weeks.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I asked.

“No.” Hal stood. “And I’m not sure I’m comfortable with how much we’ve told you already. Good night, Ms. Hamilton. Deputy Wolverson, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He walked out, leaving me with Ash.

I sat back. “Is he getting enough sleep? Eating properly? I worry about the man, especially now that I know his wife is out of town.”

“You’re one to talk about eating right.” Ash stuffed his notebook into his uniform’s shirt pocket. “When was the last time you ate any vegetables?” I opened my mouth, but shut it when he added, “And French fries don’t count.”

“We’re talking about Hal,” I said, “not me. Besides, older people are more fragile than people our age. He should be taking care of himself.”

“Do you want to tell him that?”

The answer, of course, was, “Not a chance.” But since I didn’t want to say so to Ash, I went back to the main topic of conversation. “About these two.” Sunny, the restauranteur. Bax, the wannabe filmmaker. “Do you really think one of them killed Rowan?”

Ash glanced in the direction Hal had gone. Hesitated. “We’re exploring all—”

“Never mind,” I said, sighing. Clearly, Ash now belonged heart and soul to the sheriff’s office. It made sense, it was appropriate, and I understood, but it was going to make life a little harder for me.

Chapter 7

The next day was Saturday, a half bookmobile day, and the morning was filled with mostly happy people and an exceptionally sleepy Eddie.

“Where is the bookmobile kitty?” one small book-holding homeschooled urchin asked. “I wanted to pet him.”

I smiled at the youngster and, after getting the nod from her dad, brought her up front. “Eddie is asleep,” I said, gesturing to the cat carrier. “But next time we’re here, I think he’ll be wide awake and ready for you.”

“But I want to pet him now.” The urchin’s lower lip started to tremble. “Why is he sleepy?”

The correct answer was that he’d been up half the night in the downstairs bathroom, shredding facial tissues and toilet paper and batting around the miniature rubber duckies that lived on the edge of the claw foot tub. Happily, Aunt Frances and I had both slept through the episode, and this morning it had been easy enough to avert my eyes to the mess and mutter that I’d clean it up when I got home.

But I didn’t want to spread the word that Eddie could be a Bad Cat, so I said, “He was up late, watching the sky. He likes to see the stars, so when the clouds cleared off last night, he got up to see the Big Dipper.” I tried to remember the names of any other constellations I was absolutely sure we saw this time of year. “He really likes the Big Dipper,” I said, then pointed outside. “And isn’t it nice to have some blue sky?”

The youngster ignored my distracting gesture. Instead, she leaned over and petted the cat carrier. “Sleep tight, Bookmobile Kitty. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” She gave the carrier one last pat, and marched back to her father with a satisfied look on her face.

It was adorable, and for the millionth time I thought how lucky I was to have this job.

The happy feeling stayed with me the rest of the day, despite the thick clouds that hid the sky by noon and despite Eddie’s snoring, which Julia found immensely amusing. “I had no idea cats could snore. It’s the cutest thing.”

“You wouldn’t think so if it kept you awake at three in the morning.” I was pretty sure that Eddie’s day-long sleep was going to result in another active night, but how did you keep a cat awake during the day when he wanted to sleep? There was no victory for me here. As per usual, the cat won.

It wasn’t until I was stowing Eddie in my car and we were about to head home that I remembered my promise to Rafe.

“Rats,” I said out loud. “Big fat rats.”

“Mrr?” Eddie was lying on his side. He rotated his head so his face was upside down and blinked at me. “Mrr?” he asked again.

I buckled his carrier in. “There’s this one short errand. Do you want me to take you home first, or are you okay in the carrier for a little longer?”

Hearing nothing, I leaned down to look. My cat was, once again, sleeping.

“Carrier it is.” I shut the passenger door and got in on my side. “But I’m sure it won’t take long. I mean, how long can choosing cabinet hardware possibly take?”

Ten minutes later, I was finding out. “No wonder Rafe wanted me to do this,” I said, stunned by the thickness of the catalog.

Jared laughed. “Niswander said you’d say that.”

I knew his name was Jared, because his crisp name tag said so, and that he was the store owner because that’s who Rafe had told me to talk to. The owner of the used bookstore in town was also named Jared, but they were not, in fact, the same person, although they were roughly the same age, which was also mine.

I’d assumed the owner of a hardware store would be approaching geezer age, or would at least have lots of gray hair. Instead, he had nary a gray hair in sight, and the moment I set foot in the door, he’d come up to me and said, “You must be Minnie. I’ve been expecting you.”

After blinking at the oddness of his greeting, I’d grasped what was going on—Rafe had stopped by earlier and prepped the poor guy. I laughed. “Did Rafe also mention what I’m supposed to be doing?”

He had, which was why I was sitting in Jared’s office, paging through a catalog thick and heavy enough to require weighing in for a commercial flight. It was a nice office, bright with fluorescent lights and cheery with framed posters of abstract art. Through the open office door, I could see out into the store, a pleasant enough space of utilitarian metal shelving filled with items whose uses were a complete mystery to me.

“You see how the different designs are arranged, right?” Jared asked. “By finish and style?”

“Um.” I returned my attention to the catalog. “Sure. It’s just . . . there are so many.” It was overwhelming and reminded me of the sensory overload I felt in a shopping mall. It made me tired and tended me toward crankiness.

“What kind of cabinets is Rafe building? Knowing that will help you choose a style.”

Jared’s patience seemed extensive, but my own was far more limited. “I don’t know,” I said, sitting back. “Maple, is all I remember.”

“Three panel? Single panel? Beadboard?”

I looked at the man. “Do you seriously think I have any idea what you’re talking about?”

He grinned. “Don’t want to assume you don’t.”

“Excellent attitude,” I said approvingly, “but in spite of my exposure to woodworkers and woodworking for most of my life, very little has stuck in my brain.” This wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough. “What I do know is that Rafe is using a light stain and—” I’d been using my hands to talk and knocked a pile of folders to the floor.

“Sorry about that.” I jumped out of the chair and kneeled down.

“No worries,” Jared said, rolling his chair around and leaning forward to help. “Just a stack of customer account files I was going through, studying buying habits.”

I hadn’t thought about purchasing habits for hardware, but I supposed every business had trends. “You have a lot of customer accounts?”

“Wish I had more.” Jared piled the folders into a tidy heap. “A few people have them, and a few businesses. The city is our best customer by far, but . . .” His voice drifted off.

“But what?” I asked, because his face looked troubled. “Are they starting to buy stuff from Amazon?”

Jared shook his head. “No. At least I don’t think so. It’s just that Bax Tousely—you know him? No? Friendly guy, always comes in with some horrible joke he can’t wait to tell. He was in first thing a couple of weeks ago and didn’t say a word. No joke, no nothing. And he left all of a sudden, without buying a thing. It was weird and I haven’t seen him since. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. “Do you remember what day that was?”

“Sure. It was a Monday. Almost two weeks ago. I remember because it was the first anniversary of when I bought this place. I gave the day’s first customer a gift certificate and Bax was the second guy in the door.”

And it was also the day Rowan had died.

Had Bax gone to the hardware store, ostensibly looking for a piece of hardware, but instead driven to Rowan’s house and killed her? It was possible; surely it was possible. But why?

Jared was looking at me. “I have a suggestion. You’ve looked at too many possibilities. Why don’t you look at some magazines, or watch some home improvement shows. See if any cabinet hardware catches your eye. When you have a couple that you like, come on back.”

“That’s a great idea,” I said vaguely, put on my coat, and headed out to the car, where Eddie was waiting for me.

• • •

Monday morning was very January-like: snowy, cold, and blustery. For a short second I thought about driving to the library, but knew that was a slippery slope to start sliding down. “Get it?” I asked Eddie. “You know, because it’s the middle of winter and pretty much everything everywhere is slippery anyway?”

Eddie, who was roosting on the back of the couch, opened one eye, then closed it again.

“Huh.” I kissed the top of his head. “Since you don’t appreciate my very funny jokes, I’m going to take them to the library for the day.”

“Mrr.”

“I’m going to assume that was shorthand for have a nice walk, do good work, come home to me safe and sound, and I’ll miss you like crazy the entire time you’re gone.”

My cat’s response was a whistling snore.

Smiling, I headed outside. And as I knew would happen, my reluctance to venture out disappeared by the time I reached the bottom of the porch steps. Yes it was snowy, yes it was cold, and yes the northwest winds were blasting my face. But the cold was invigorating and the very fact that I was outside made me feel brave and intrepid. There I was, mushing myself through the mean streets of Chilson, intent on ensuring that everyone had access to the wealth of knowledge and wisdom that resided inside the library walls. Valiant Minnie! Strong Minnie! Dedicated . . .

I winced as a particularly strong wind gust blew snow down the back of my neck.

Bleah. Snow down my neck was almost as bad as snow up my sleeves. Both chilled me, giving me shivers that seemed to last for hours.

I looked up from the study I’d been making of the sidewalk. Ah. I was downtown. And even though it was long before any retail stores typically opened, I could see Mitchell inside, dusting the toys on the top shelf. I stopped and knocked on the front door.

He turned and saw me. “Come on in,” he said, his words barely making it through the glass. “The door’s unlocked.”

Silly me. I opened the door and hurried inside, accompanied by a rush of snow and cold.

“Surprised you walked today. It’s ten below out there, and that’s without the windchill.” Mitchell headed toward the back. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please,” I said through chattering teeth. Ten below? Seriously? I hadn’t looked at the thermometer that morning, something I was suddenly quite sure I would never forget to do again. “Thanks,” I said as Mitchell handed me a plain white mug of steaming goodness. I buried my face in the heat, letting its warmth thaw my nose and cheeks. “This is exactly what I needed. You’re the best.”

Mitchell shuffled. “Well, I remember you like coffee, that’s all.”

I took a sip and ignored the faint blush that was coloring Mitchell’s cheeks. Once upon a time, he’d asked me out on a date and I’d let him down so gently that he’d managed to get the very mistaken impression that I’d been pining for him but couldn’t walk away from an existing relationship without doing serious harm to another man’s soul.

Since there was no earthly reason to discuss any of that, I said, “You asked me about Bianca, so I’ve been doing some investigating.”

Mitchell stiffened. “You’re not talking to her, are you? She’s smart, she’ll figure out what’s going on and—”

“Don’t worry,” I interrupted soothingly. “Not that kind of investigating. I’ve been reading journal articles and relationship books”—Okay, technically what I’d done was glance over the abstracts and conclusions, but that’s where all the good stuff was, so I didn’t feel I was misleading him, not really—“and from what I know of you and Bianca’s relationship, what you have going on is positive, healthy, and sustainable.”

“Yeah?” Mitchell perked up. “What should I do now?” He could have been a human version of a puppy, albeit a very large one.

“If it was me,” I said, “I’d just talk to her.”

“Sometimes I think about doing that.” Mitchell stared at his mug, a chipped version of the one he’d given me. “But then I wonder what if I got this all wrong? I don’t want to be like my buddy at that Tigers game.”

I suddenly got a hint of what it might be like to be a guy—or at least a guy like Mitchell—and I got an inkling of how the possibility of humiliation could shape life decisions.

“Well,” I said, “hang in there. I’ll try to think of something.”

I finished my coffee and headed back into the weather, not at all sure I’d be able to help Mitchell solve his problem.

• • •

That noon, bowing to the needs of my coworkers—plus their vow that if I went out in the snow to get the food, they wouldn’t ever again complain about having to listen to me review the library safety policies, something we did every other month (not that I believed the vow, but it was nice of them to recognize how much whining they did)—I ventured downtown to the Round Table.

Sabrina was at the register when I came in. “How is it you stay so skinny?” she asked, thumping her hip with an elbow. “Me, I’m squishy and soft and I’m doing my darnedest to lose weight.”

“Sorry,” I said apologetically. “I figure it’ll catch up with me in a few years.”

“Huh.” Sabrina pointed with the top of her head. “How about that one? Is it going to get him, too?”

I turned. Ash had just come inside and was still stomping the snow off his boots. “Depends,” I said. “If he convinces someone to marry him, I bet he puts on thirty pounds the first year. If he stays single?” I shrugged.

Ash came up beside me. “Sabrina, you’re looking as lovely as ever.” She glowered at him and whirled away. “What? What did I say?”

“It’s not you,” I said. “Trust me.”

“Okay.” He glanced around. It being January, ten minutes before noon, there was no one else in the restaurant other than the elderly men at the round table in the back of the room. Today there were only three of them, but at times there could be eight, grousing about the state of the world and what should be done to fix it.

As a general rule, I smiled at them politely and stayed as far away as possible. Rafe, on the other hand, said it was his goal in life to be invited to sit at the round table. Sometimes I believed him and sometimes I didn’t. I squinted, trying to envision Rafe next to Bob Dawkins, who I could hear, from thirty feet away, complaining about the crappy way the road commission plowed the county roads, and how much better they did it in Charlevoix County.

“Speaking of trusting you,” Ash said, “we’re moving on those names and . . .”

His voice trailed off.

“And what?” I asked, then realized he was looking out the front window, studying a hatless young man dressed in the dark red coat worn by city workers. The guy had been clearing a fire hydrant, but had stuffed his shovel in a snowbank to help a woman maneuver her double stroller—laden with an infant and a toddler—across the snowy mess that was currently the street. “Who’s that?”

“Bax Tousely,” Ash said.

My attention focused. He had hair as curly as mine and almost as dark. He also had a wide smile and was grinning down at the kids. He didn’t seem likely as a killer, but who did?

Ash and I watched for a moment, then when the stroller was safely across the street and Bax had gone back to shoveling, I asked, “You’re moving on those names? Which ones?”

He got a faraway look. “Well, since I can’t give out information about an ongoing investigation, all I can give you is—”

“Ash Wolverson,” I said severely, putting my chin up, “you give me everything or I’ll tell your mother on you.”

Grinning, he continued, “What I can give you is some general information that you could find out easily enough if you wanted to. Like this. Hugh Novak is an insurance adjuster. He looks at cars all over the region. On the day of the murder, what would you guess about his whereabouts?”

Interesting. I thought a minute and said, “I’d guess he had appointments lined up, but there’s no one who can confirm where he was at the key time.”

Ash grinned. “No need to tattle on me to Mom, right?”

“Not this time,” I said, trying—and probably failing—to sound ominous. “Let me know if anything else turns up, okay?”

Sabrina appeared with the bag that held the library’s lunch order, and I went to pay. It was only when I was outside and halfway up the sidewalk that I realized Ash hadn’t actually answered my question.

• • •

The next morning, I got up early. If I was going to make it to the restaurant owned by Sunny Scoles and back to the library to get the bookmobile out on time, I was going to have to scamper.

“What about breakfast?” Aunt Frances asked. “You have to eat something.”

“I’ll get something at the restaurant,” I assured her.

“Who is it you’re meeting?”

Sort of meeting, anyway. I zipped up my coat and picked up Eddie’s carrier. “Sunny Scoles. Do you know her?”

“Don’t know the name at all.” She frowned. “You sure she’s a good candidate for the catering at Kristen’s wedding?”

“Her name came up,” I said, which was the absolute truth. “I can’t imagine Kristen allowing anyone except her own staff to cook for her wedding, but it doesn’t hurt to talk to a few people, right?”

All true, though intentionally misleading. The entire drive to the restaurant, I kept trying not to think that intentionally misleading was perhaps worse than a lie, and not succeeding. Yet another character flaw to improve. “Add it to the list,” I muttered to Eddie, who didn’t comment.

I parked the car near the front door of the Red House Café. “Be back in a flash,” I told my furry friend. “All I’m going to get is oatmeal, so the car will barely even cool down before I’m back.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said, then yawned and flopped on his side.

The restaurant’s exterior matched its name and was solid red with white trim. It was a jumble of multiple additions, and when I went inside, I was clued in to what the original building had been, and why it was red.

“Oh,” I said softly, smiling at nothing in particular and everything in general. “It was a one-room schoolhouse.” All around me was the evidence. Wooden school chairs served as dining chairs, and penmanship instructions were wall art. An entire gallery of lunch buckets rested on a shallow shelf that circled the room, and a school bell hung from the ceiling, right above the front counter.

“Hasn’t been a school for sixty years.” A woman about my age approached from the back, drying her hands on a towel as she went. “It was a house longer than it was a school, but all it took was a little demolition and there were the bones of the original room.”

Her dark blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore a chef’s outfit of black cotton pants and the nifty white jacket that chefs wear, with the name “Sunny” embroidered on the upper left side.

“This place is great,” I said. “I’ve been driving past it for years, but I didn’t know the history.”

She smiled. “I’m hearing that a lot. You can sit anywhere you’d like. Let me get you a menu.”

“Sorry.” I shook my head. “This morning I don’t have time to sit down. But if I could get a carry-out container of oatmeal, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Walnuts?” she asked. “Pecans? Blueberries? Dried cherries?”

Life was full of decisions, some harder than others, and this was one of them. “I like them all. Pick whatever you like best.”

“A little bit of each it is,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll be back in a jiffy. Do you want some coffee, too?” She bustled away, laughing at my heartfelt answer of “Yes” to the coffee question.

When I heard food-related rattling in the back, I put my elbows on the front counter and sighed. What had I been hoping to learn this morning? That Sunny was a nasty person of the type who looked like a killer, meaning she must be one? When I’d decided to drive down here, it had seemed so sensible. Then again, how many one-thirty-in-the-morning decisions were good ones?

Well, at least I now had a new restaurant to try. Oatmeal was great for a workday breakfast, but it didn’t really count as food.

I wandered to the nearest table, looked for a menu, and stopped short. Right there, in a wire rack right next to the salt and pepper shakers, was a stack of sugar packets. The same kind of sugar packet that Maple Staples had sold out of and that I’d recently added my name to a list to buy when available. The same kind that had been at Rowan’s house.

All my theories about limited access to this very special type of sugar vaporized in a second. Everyone had access to them. Everyone.

I was back to the beginning, and I had no idea what to do next.

Chapter 8

What do you think I should do next?” I asked.

Eddie, comfortable on my lap, which was covered with a fleece blanket, closed his eyes and purred.

“Give me a hint, please? Even a little one would help.”

“Help what?” My aunt plopped herself down at the end of the couch. The movement disturbed Eddie enough that he opened his eyes and picked his head up half an inch. “Now look what you did,” I said. “You disturbed his sleep for almost a second.”

Aunt Frances rubbed the fur on Eddie’s back leg. “Sorry, Mr. Ed. Next time you get up, I’ll treat you to a treat.” She turned her head, listening. “He’s purring. I think he forgives me.”

“Cats aren’t big on forgiveness,” I said, “but they can be bought. At least this one can.” I scratched Eddie alongside his chin and the purrs grew even louder.

My aunt smiled. “Tell you what. I’ll bring cat treats and make popcorn if you tell me why you’re asking the fuzzy one for advice instead of your wise old aunt.”

“That’s easy.” I kept scratching Eddie’s chin. “It’s because I don’t want to tell anyone what I’ve been doing.”

“And that is what exactly?”

I gave her a mock-exasperated look. “If I tell you, I’ll have told someone what I’m doing, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid, see?”

“Why?”

Another easy question. “Because I’ll get scolded for doing things I shouldn’t be doing.”

She laughed. “Dearest niece, I know full well that you’re trying to figure out who killed poor Rowan Bennethum.”

“You . . . do?”

“Please.” She snorted. “How long have we lived together? And how long have I known you? Wait, I remember. All your life.”

“Okay, so maybe I’m more transparent than I thought.” I rested my hand on Eddie’s back. “Do you think Rafe knows?”

“You haven’t told him, either?” Aunt Frances’s gaze zeroed in on my face. “Minnie, are you sure that’s wise?”

Right now I wasn’t sure about anything, and I said so.

“Part of being an adult,” my aunt said, nodding. “Which I recognize isn’t reassuring, but at least it’s honest.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “But I don’t see why not telling Rafe about this is a big deal. All I’m doing is a little extracurricular research, that’s all. Just an extension of being a librarian, is how I see it. Why does he need to know?”