Borrowed Crime

Throughout the long winter, I’d often dreamed about the month of April. It will be warm, I’d thought. Sunny. There would be baby lambs and fluffy white clouds and daffodils and we’d be able to walk outside without boots and hats and thick coats and mittens.

In the northern part of Michigan’s lower peninsula, however, the reality of April was a little different.

I switched on the bookmobile’s windshield wipers. They groaned as they tried to move against the slush spattering the glass, but inch by inch they gained speed and finally arced across, shoving the white stuff away.

“Remember the April eight years ago?” Julia Beaton asked. There was an element of wistfulness in her expressive voice.

“Nope,” I said cheerfully. “This is only my fourth spring in Chilson.” I’d spent many a youthful summer with my aunt Frances, but I hadn’t lived in Chilson until I’d had the great good fortune of being offered the job of assistant director of Chilson District Library. It had been a decision that had taken less than a second to make. A job in my favorite place in the world? In a region teeming with lakes of all sizes? In a land of forested hills, in a small town filled with outstanding restaurants and eccentrically original retail stores, and in a library building lovingly converted from an old school? Sure, there was winter to deal with, a season that could last a solid five months, but I loved to ski, so where was the downside?

“It was the best April in the history of Aprils.” Julia sighed. “The April to beat all Aprils.”

“No snow?” I nodded toward the falling flakes.

“None whatsoever,” she said dreamily, rearranging her long strawberry blond hair into a loose bun. “Blue skies, warm air. It was a page from Anne of Green Gables.”

Right then and there I decided there was nothing better than a coworker who knew the same children’s books that I did. Julia was the perfect bookmobile clerk and I would be forever grateful to my aunt for finding her.

Back in December, the library had received a large donation to fund the bookmobile operations. I’d immediately advertised for a part-time bookmobile clerk, and the sixtyish Julia had been my happy hire. Born and raised in Chilson, she’d moved to New York City right out of high school to find fame and fortune as a model. That particular career path hadn’t worked out very well, but her fall-back career as an actor had worked out just fine. She’d found a satisfying amount of Broadway fame, saved her money, and waved good-bye to the bright lights as soon as the offers for leading roles slowed to a trickle. These days she taught an acting class at the local college, turned down every community theatre role that came near, and was always looking for ways to spend her considerable energy.

My aunt Frances, who taught woodworking classes at the same college, had made a paper airplane of the clerk’s job description and sailed it into her classroom. Julia, one eyebrow raised, had unfolded the paper and scanned the text. When she started to nod, Aunt Frances had smiled and walked away, dusting off her hands at a job well done.

I grinned, not taking my attention off the road. “If you don’t like winter, maybe you should consider moving to Hawaii.”

“Winter I like just fine,” she said. “It’s April that’s the trouble. No matter what temperature it is, you always want a little bit more.”

“Except for eight years ago, you mean.”

She ignored my teasing and looked at the large plastic carrier snugged up next to her feet. “What does Eddie think about April?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Julia leaned forward and over, looking into the cat carrier through the wire door. “Good morning, young sir. How do you feel about the current weather conditions of cold, slushy, and wind tossed?”

“Mrr,” said my black-and-white tabby cat.

Eddie and I had been together for almost a year. It had been an unseasonably warm day in April that had lured me from my inside chores to take a long walk outside that ended at the local cemetery. Which sounds odd, but this particular cemetery had an outstanding view of Janay Lake and beyond to the bulk of massive Lake Michigan.

I’d been sitting on a bench next to the gravestone of one Alonzo Tillotson (born 1847, died 1926) and had been startled by the appearance of a large black-and-gray cat. He’d followed me home, whereupon I’d cleaned him up as best I could, turning him black-and-white. I dutifully ran an ad in the newspaper and was relieved when no one claimed him. Because of my father’s allergies, I’d never had a pet. Eddie was my first, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ever lived without my opinionated pal.

“Eddie, you must,” Julia told him, “learn how to enunciate more clearly. Theatergoers in the top rows will never grasp your nuances unless you work on the consonants.”

“Mrr!”

Julia sighed and settled back. “He does not take advice well, does he?”

The interviewing process for the bookmobile job had included a tour of the bookmobile and an introduction to Eddie, because Eddie had been part of the bookmobile from the beginning. He had stowed away on the maiden voyage and quickly become an integral part of the services we offered. Books, magazines, DVDs, video games, and Eddie hair, not necessarily in that order.

For months I’d felt the need to hide the feline presence on the bookmobile from my follow-the-policy-or-else boss, Stephen Rangel, but it had turned out that Stephen had known about Eddie’s adventures from the very beginning.

I really should have known better.

And I really should have known to stop interviewing after I’d talked to Julia. She was the best candidate for many reasons—and had the added bonus of being eight inches taller than five-foot-nothing me, making the job of reshelving the top rows of books easy to delegate—but the butter-cream frosting was how she’d immediately started talking to Eddie, the same way that I did, which was as if he understood what she was saying.

We both agreed that this was ridiculous, of course, but still, there were times when his comprehension of human speech seemed to go far beyond his name and the word “no.” Not that he paid any attention to either, but the twitching of his ears gave away that he heard us.

“Cats aren’t big on taking advice,” I said. “They’d much rather give it.”

I flicked on the turn signal and started braking. It was time for our first stop of the morning, in the parking lot of what had originally been a gas station, and was now a . . . Well, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A store, sure, but a store that defied description. The owner stocked everything from apples to taxidermy supplies. On the surface, it fit the definition of an old-fashioned general store, but there was also a corner with tables, copies of the Wall Street Journal, and free Wi-Fi.

“General stores don’t stock the Wall Street Journal,” I muttered, bringing the bookmobile to a stop.

Julia laughed. “Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, Minnie Hamilton.”

I pretended to sniff the air, then frowned, shaking my head. “I like my stereotypes and I’m going to keep them.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

“You two are quite the pair.” Julia unbuckled her seat belt and reached forward to open the pet carrier’s wire door. “There you go, Mr. Edward. You are free to move about the bookmobile.”

“Mrr.”

“You’re very welcome,” she replied.

Julia and I fired up the two computers, took the holds out of the milk crate we used to haul books from the library to the bookmobile, un-bungeed the chair at the rear desk, and unlocked the doors. Eddie watched our activity from his current favorite perch, the driver’s seat headrest, and made the occasional critical comment.

“What do you think he’s saying?” Julia, who was straightening the large-print books, cast a glance Eddie-ward.

I snorted. “That he wants a cat treat.”

“Maybe,” she said in the tone indicating she was about to get creative, “he’s saying that every day is a gift. That today, especially, is a gift and we should—”

The back door opened and a few sturdy-sounding footsteps later a man came into view. Henry Gill could have been a young-looking eighty or an old-looking sixty, but with his bald head, fit frame, and complete and utter crankiness, he was one of those people you just didn’t think of in terms of age.

“Good morning, Henry,” I said.

The look he gave me as his return greeting made me wonder whether my hair, which was black and shoulder length and far too curly, had gone up in flames without my noticing.

Eddie gave Henry a long visual examination, then jumped down from the console and trotted down the aisle. He bonked Henry’s shin with the top of his hard, furry head, then started twining around his ankles in the cat-standard figure eight.

“What’s that cat doing?” Henry asked.

Intentionally annoying you, I thought. “Sorry about that,” I said, then picked up my cat for a small snuggle. “If you’re in the market for biographies today, we have a new one of Theodore Roosevelt you might like.”

Henry grunted but didn’t nod, so I wasn’t sure whether he’d meant “Why, yes, Minnie, that sounds wonderful. Thank you for being such an outstanding librarian,” or “Whatever.” I gave a mental shrug, patted Eddie on the head, then left Henry alone, or as alone as you can leave someone in a bookmobile.

Other people came on board, and the time passed quickly. Julia and I were kept busy with helping people find books and checking them out, and at the end of the forty-five-minute stop, Henry was the last patron to leave.

I checked his books into the computer and slid them back across the counter to him. “Would you like a plastic bag?”

He picked up the books, shaking his head, then put them back down again. “Here,” he said shortly, reaching into his coat pockets with both hands. He drew out two brown paper bags and handed them to me. “For you and her,” he said, tipping his head toward Julia, then picked up his books and tramped down the steps and outside.

“What are those?” Julia asked.

“No idea.” I gave her one.

“Everyone says Henry Gill has turned a little strange since his wife died,” Julia said, not opening the bag. “Rock, paper, scissors to decides who opens theirs first?”

Patrons bearing questionable gifts were another thing no one had warned me about in college. Before I could scare myself into imagining what could lurk inside, I opened the bag, reached in, and drew out a mason jar filled with a golden liquid.

“Oh, my.” Julia’s voice carried reverence and awe. “It’s maple syrup. I take back every unkind thought I ever had about that man.”

I held the jar up to the light, admiring the liquid gold, and, once again, came up against the reality that we never really knew what goes on inside people’s heads. Henry as a maple syrup Santa? I would never have guessed it. “Who would have guessed?” I murmured.

“What’s that?” Julia asked.

“Henry,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him.”

She nodded. “He could have made a fortune as a character actor. Never would have gone a day without work.”

“You’re probably right,” I said, laughing, although I couldn’t imagine Henry living anywhere but northern Michigan.

“Oh, I am. He has that sparkle.” She held up her hands and used her fingers to make imaginary fireworks. “It’s hidden, but he has a hard kernel of personality that is bedrock and unchanging. A good director would draw that out of him in two rehearsals.”

“So you’ve thought about this.”

“I cast everyone I meet,” she said, sighing. “Occupational hazard.”

“Even him?” I nodded in the direction of our furry friend. At this particular moment he was curling himself up onto the computer keyboard, and I made a mental note to vacuum it at the earliest opportunity.

“Eddie is the levity that every drama needs,” she said. “The humor that allows the tragedy to be felt more deeply. The dose of reality in every fantasy.”

I walked away before she could cover every type of play in existence. Eddie as everyman? Please.

Eddie lifted his head an inch, met my gaze, and winked.