Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery

Chapter 20

“So, the bookmobile is financially safe and sound?” Aunt Frances asked.

I beamed at her. “Thanks to Cade’s painting. It’s not enough to create an endowment, but it’ll keep us on the road for a long time.” My heart sang with happiness at the idea.

“And Stephen has known about Eddie all along?” Aunt Frances asked.

Or that’s what I assumed she asked, because she was talking while her mouth was full of popcorn. Bad aunt.

For the twenty-first time in the last three minutes, I pushed Eddie’s head away from the popcorn bowl. “That’s what he said.”

I still found it hard to believe. If he’d known the whole time, why hadn’t he just said so? I’d spent a lot of energy trying to keep Eddie’s bookmobile presence a secret. If I’d known that Stephen had known, I’d have put that time to better use. Maybe I would have finally finished reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. Probably not, but maybe.

“So Eddie and the bookmobile will ride again.” Aunt Frances reached out, pushed Eddie’s head away, and took another handful of popcorn. “I couldn’t have managed it better myself.” She gave me a wink.

I smiled, but it faded as I studied the fire, its orange peaks dancing. Most of what had happened had been luck, both good and bad. Good that funding for the bookmobile had dropped from the sky, but horribly bad for poor Roger.

“Mrr.” Eddie bumped my elbow on his way across my lap.

“Hey!” I pulled his head out of the popcorn bowl. Time twenty-two. “That’s not for Eddies.”

He gave me a disgusted look and slithered up onto the back of the couch.

“Allison Korthase.” Aunt Frances shook her head. “She had so much potential.”

She’d had it all, as far as I could tell. Intelligence, beauty, money—yet that hadn’t been enough for her. She’d wanted more, much more, and had murdered to get it.

Eddie bumped me on the back of the head. Absently, I reach up to pet him, wishing that I’d been smart enough to figure out before Roger had been killed that Allison had had the capacity for murder. How, I didn’t know, but if, for instance, I’d known that—

“Hey!” I saw Eddie’s white-tipped paw snaking down to the popcorn bowl. I batted it away. “This is not cat food. Your bowl is in the kitchen.”

He turned around and sat on the back of the couch with his hind end against my head.

Aunt Frances laughed. “You should see his face.”

“Oh, I have a good idea of what it looks like.” If Eddie had the power to disintegrate me on sight, I would have been a small heap of powder months ago. “You know what else Stephen said?”

My aunt did the one-eyebrow thing. “About the bookmobile or about Eddie?”

“Neither,” I said, then reconsidered. “Or maybe both.”

Aunt Frances looked at my cat. “It’s a pity she can’t be more clear.”

“Mrr,” he said.

“Do you want to hear or not?” I asked.

“Yes, please.”

“Mrr.”

So I told them about Stephen’s not-so-imminent retirement and about his plans for my future.

“You don’t sound overly excited,” Aunt Frances said.

I plunged my hand into the popcorn. Becoming a library director had been my career goal for years. In college, I’d often fallen asleep while dreaming about the library I’d one day direct. Even since moving to Chilson, I’d thought about the changes I might make as director. But in the past year, I hadn’t thought about it much. Hardly at all, as a matter of fact.

“I’m not sure,” I said slowly, “that I want to be library director, if it means giving up the bookmobile.”

Eddie’s tail thumped against the back of my head.

“You are so weird,” I told him.

“Well.” My aunt used the napkin on her lap to wipe her fingers clean of butter. “You don’t have to make the decision today.”

“Not even this month.”

“So no need to worry, right?”

“None.”

“Then I say it’s a perfect time to pop another bowl of popcorn. Just because it’s Monday night doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate.” She stood. “Eddie, you staying or coming with?”

A furry tail whacked my ear.

She squinted. “Was there an answer in there somewhere?”

“Only if you want one.”

She snorted. “You two are a match made in heaven. No, don’t get up. This way, I get to use as much salt as I want.”

Eddie slid down to my lap. “How nice to see you,” I said. “It’s been so long.”

He rotated one and a half times and settled on my left leg. “Why can’t you spread yourself more evenly?” I asked. “You know your weight is going to cut off all circulation to my leg in ten minutes. Do you want me to have to lop off my toes?”

Eddie looked partway up to me and opened his mouth in a soundless “Mrr.”

“Okay, you’re right. I might have been exaggerating a teensy bit.”

He settled onto my lap a little deeper and started purring. Yet another argument won by the cat.

Aunt Frances laughed and picked up the empty bowl. “Back in a minute.”

I gave Eddie long strokes along his back and thought about what Detective Inwood had told me that afternoon when he’d called.

“She’s made a full confession,” he’d said, satisfaction oozing out of every word. “A couple of nights in jail, and she was ready to tell everything.”

Allison had told him that she’d used snowshoes to get to the spot where she’d shot Roger, and she’d admitted to tampering with Denise’s car. “Her intention,” the detective said dryly, “was to cut the brake lines, but she knows nothing about cars. She just popped the hood and stabbed at the biggest hose, figuring it was so big because it was important, and what could be more important than brakes?”

I’d frowned. “Why didn’t she get on the ground and cut the lines from down there?”

“Because,” he said, “Ms. Korthase had just left a meeting. She said she was dressed in dry-clean-only pants and didn’t want to get them dirty.”

The detective then told me that Allison had been following Denise’s tweets and Facebook posts all Saturday. She’d cross-referenced those with the bookmobile schedule I’d posted on the library’s Web site and had calculated when we’d be at the road washout.

“The road commission had put up a Road Closed barrier,” Detective Inwood said, “but she dragged it out of the way just before you came along.”

“I’m glad no one else drove down that road while the barrier was gone.” I winced at the idea. “Someone could really have been hurt.”

“Yes,” the detective said, his dry tone back in full force. “Someone could have.” There was a slight pause. “It was becoming clear that the evidence we’d been gathering against the hunter wasn’t going to be sufficient for prosecution. In all honesty, we were at a loss for new suspects.”

While he wasn’t exactly oozing with gratitude, this was probably as close to a thank-you as I was going to get. “You’re welcome,” I said.

The detective had cleared his throat. “Deputy Wolverson spoke highly of you. He said it was due to your efforts that Ms. Korthase didn’t wound or kill Ms. Slade. He said you kept calm in an emergency situation and, if not for you, things could have turned out much worse.”

What could have been worse was I could have charged up that hill and been shot, something I wasn’t about to tell my mother. Ever. This was definitely a case in which what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and Aunt Frances, who had known my mother long before I came along, had already made a pinkie swear not to share that particular bit of information.

Heavy, male-sounding footsteps came across the front porch and were followed by the double stomp of boots shedding snow and a knock on the door.

“I’ll get it,” Aunt Frances called, hurrying to the entryway. “Minnie, don’t you dare get up and disturb that cat.” She opened the door. “Tucker! I didn’t realize you were stopping by tonight. Come on in.”

“Thanks,” he said, smiling at her and hanging his coat in the closet.

Aunt Frances made her way back through the living room. “Next bowl of popcorn, coming up fast.”

Since I hadn’t known Tucker was stopping by, either, I wondered what was up. “Eddie’s right here,” I said, once again seeing that female hand reach across the cafeteria table. “And so is all his hair and dander.”

Tucker sat next to me. And started petting Eddie. With his bare hand. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “I dosed up before I left the hospital.”

“Oh. Well, if you’re sure.”

“You’re mad, aren’t you?”

I shrugged.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about the other night, but I was having a conference call with some med-school friends of mine, talking about a fellowship opening they thought I should know about.”

“And a fellowship is what, exactly?” I’d heard of them but wasn’t clear on the details.

“It’s more training,” he said. “Specialized medical training that you can get after your residency.”

I frowned. “This is something you want to do? I thought . . .” I’d thought he was happy doing what he was doing. I’d thought he was content.

“It’s a great opportunity,” he said.

“You’d do this in Charlevoix?”

“Well, no. This is a fellowship for sports medicine.” He paused. “At the University of Michigan.”

“But that hospital is in . . .” I tailed off.

“Ann Arbor,” he said. “I could stay with my parents; it’d be a long commute, but it’d be a lot cheaper for me.”

“That makes sense,” I said slowly. “How long would this last?”

“Two years.”

The words were short, but the implication was long. Two years long.

“But it won’t be like it’s two years,” Tucker said. “First off, I may not even get it. Most likely I won’t—there will be a lot of competition. And it’s not that far from Ann Arbor to here, not even a four-hour drive, so we’ll be able to see each other lots of weekends. And this is a research fellowship. I’ll have regular hours, not like now.”

It sounded okay. Not great, but okay. Still . . .

“Why haven’t you said anything?” I asked. “You never even told me you were applying.”

“I wanted to surprise you. I thought you’d be excited about this. It’s a real opportunity.”

It was an opportunity for him, not for me. “I’m not sure I like surprises anymore.”

Aunt Frances came in as I was saying so and plopped the popcorn on the low table.

“Please forgive my niece, Tucker. She’s had a number of shocks today and they’re obviously going to her head.”

Tucker stopped petting Eddie. “Shocks? What’s the matter?”

But I wasn’t going to be distracted so easily. “The other day I stopped by the hospital. It was dinnertime, and I found you in the cafeteria, with . . . with . . .” I couldn’t make myself say the word.

“With Rita.” Tucker nodded. “Sure. She’s a nurse in the ER, one of those people who like to hug everybody in sight. Her husband is a big movie fan, and I was giving her some trivia for her to stump him with.”

Husband. The world brightened into a beautiful place. Silly old me for not being up-front and asking Tucker about her in the first place.

I smiled at him and he smiled at me. My heart started beating a little faster, and I felt myself leaning forward. Behind us, Aunt Frances cleared her throat. “Goodness,” she said, yawning, “it’s almost my bedtime. Maybe I’ll head upstairs to—”

Knock, knock.

Aunt Frances looked at me. “Are you expecting anyone else?”

“Not that I can . . . Oh!” I heaved Eddie onto Tucker’s startled lap and jumped to my feet. Ignoring the questions my aunt was flinging at me, I hurried to the door and opened it to the white night.

“I’m so glad you came over,” I said. “And you brought flowers—how nice!” I took the bouquet and ushered the new arrival to the living room. “Aunt Frances, this is Otto Bingham, our across-the-street neighbor. Otto, this is my aunt, Frances Pixley.”

Otto smiled at my aunt. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Ms. Pixley.”

Aunt Frances looked at him, put her hand to her hair, and turned the lightest shade of pink. “Frances, please.”

“Only if you’ll call me Otto.”

“You know,” my aunt said, “I’ve always liked that name.” Her face got a little pinker and she started to babble. “Well, what I actually like are palindromes, and especially names that are palindromes. The last one I met was an Izzi. I knew an Anna once, and a Hannah, but I can’t think of any other male palindromes. Too bad, isn’t it?”

I’d never heard her babble like this, not ever. I knew it was because she was nervous, and she wasn’t used to being nervous, but would Otto know that? I clutched the flowers and hoped.

Otto threw back his head and laughed, a deep, rich sound that put me in mind of summer vacation, clear skies, and new books from my favorite authors. Which was when I knew that everything would be all right in the end.

I smiled at my aunt, at Otto, at Tucker, and finally at Eddie. “What do you think of palindromes?” I asked.

Eddie jumped off the couch, padded over to me, and rubbed his chin against my leg.

“Mrr,” he said.