Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery

Chapter 2

The next morning I left Eddie at home, to his great disgruntlement. Even Aunt Frances noticed his grumpiness.

“What’s with him?” she asked, nodding toward his back feet, which were thumping up the stairs. If past performance was any indication of the imminent future, in a few seconds he would jump on my bed, stand in the middle as he viewed the pillow selection, then flop down onto the one that offered the highest likelihood of Eddie comfort.

I showed Aunt Frances my hands, which were empty except for the mittens I’d just pulled on. “No cat carrier. He’s cranky because he thinks every day should be a bookmobile day.”

She looked up the stairs. “Would some cat treats make him feel better?”

“Sure,” I said, “but then you’d have to give him treats every morning, and he’d follow you around, asking for more, and you’d give them to him just to shut him up and he’d get fat.” I zipped up my coat. “Then we’d have to find a kitty treadmill, find a place to put it, teach him how to use it, and make sure he got at least thirty minutes of exercise every day.”

Aunt Frances handed my backpack to me. “Much easier not to give him treats in the first place, then.”

“I’m glad you understand. Now, if you could explain that to Eddie, we’ll be all set.” I headed out into the cold morning. Two steps away, I turned around and poked my head back inside. “You know,” I said, “one or two treats would be okay.”

She grinned and, from the pocket of her oversized fleece sweatshirt, pulled out a small canister of cat treats. “Three at the most.”

I left my enabling aunt and my cranky cat to their mutual devices and started my morning commute across town. Bookmobile days, due to the Eddie element, necessitated that I take my car to work, but on library days when it wasn’t pouring down rain or howling with snowy winds, I walked.

My route first took me through streets lined with trees and filled with late-nineteenth-century houses built as summer cottages. People from Chicago had steamed up Lake Michigan to spend the hot city months in the coolness provided by lake breezes. More than a few of the houses were still owned by descendants of the families who’d built them, the walls decorated with the same pictures that had been hung a hundred years earlier.

I walked west, facing the rising wind, and fought the urge to tiptoe as I passed the sleeping houses, shut up tight until spring. A few blocks later, I was out of the historical district and into the section of town where normal people lived.

This was a neighborhood of narrow two-story houses, an occasional ranch house, and large old houses divided up into apartments; these homes had lights on in the kitchens and cars in the driveways. No sleeping here; there was school to attend and jobs to drive to.

Out on a tiny front porch, a woman was bundled up in a long puffy coat and was drinking from a steaming travel mug.

“Morning, Pam,” I said. “Can I have some of your coffee?”

Pam Fazio, a fiftyish woman with smooth, short black hair, top-notch fashion sense, and an infectious laugh, clutched her mug to her chest. “Mine, mine—every drop is mine,” she growled.

I smiled. Pam, owner of a new downtown antiques store, had an uncanny ability to match product to customer. It could have made entering her shop dangerous to the wallet, but she also had an amazing knack for sensing budgets.

“Are you going to drink morning coffee on your porch all winter?” I asked. Pam had moved to town from Ohio that spring; her long-term tolerance for cold and snow was still a question mark to many.

She took a noisy sip. “Every morning that I went to work in a windowless cubicle at a large company that shall remain nameless, I vowed that I would spend an equal number of mornings on my front porch, drinking my first cup of coffee in the fresh air.”

“No matter how cold?”

“Cold?” she scoffed. “I’m not afraid of the cold. Not when I have coffee.” She put her face into the rising steam. “Ahhh.”

I laughed, waved, and started walking again. From here, downtown was only two blocks away. A left turn and then a right, and I was there: downtown Chilson in all its haphazard glory, an oddly comfortable blend of old and new architecture that attracted tourists and small-town urban planners from all across the region. But now it was the off-season, which lasted roughly eight months of the year, and business was not exactly bustling.

The only cars on the street were in front of the Round Table, the local diner. All the other storefronts were dark; many had signs taped to their front doors. CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. SEE YOU IN THE SPRING. Some of the shuttered stores were run by managers for absentee owners; others were owned by people who worked hard all summer long for the pleasure of heading to warmer climes over the winter.

My boots echoed on the empty sidewalks, which weren’t nearly wide enough in summer when all the tourists were in town. I breathed in the fresh air, drank in the view of Janay Lake, looked around at the odd mix of old and new downtown buildings that should not have complemented each other but somehow did, and thought, as I almost always did when walking to work, that I was the luckiest person alive.

I was still thinking that when I let myself into the library, kept thinking it as I logged in to my computer, had it in the back of my mind as I brewed coffee, and let it settle there to keep me company as I got to work.

Two hours later, I was forced to revise my opinion. No way could I be considered lucky if my boss was standing in my office, clutching a sheet of paper and shaking his head.

“Minerva, did you really think I was going to ignore this?”

In a perfect world—the world in which I would continue to be the luckiest person alive—yes, I would have expected him to ignore everything I wanted him to. Sadly, this was not a perfect world, and I was going to have to work hard to convince Stephen that, even though the grant I’d been promised from an area nonprofit group had vaporized when a major donor had gone bankrupt, there were still other methods of funding next year’s bookmobile operations.

“There are other possibilities,” I said.

“Possibilities of what?” he asked. “Spending even more time and money on efforts to bring a handful of books to a handful of patrons? Tell me how that’s a sensible use of the library’s extremely limited resources. We must think of the greater good, Minnie.”

At least he’d pulled back from calling me by my full name. I took that as a good omen and started marshaling my arguments. They were the same ones I’d written into the memo I’d e-mailed when I’d received the bad news about the grant, but maybe they’d be more believable if I used positive facial expressions, persuasive oratory, and hand gestures that communicated sincerity.

“Exactly,” I said, smiling and nodding. “Just like our mission statement says, we serve as a learning center for all residents of the community.” Life didn’t get much better than when I could back up my ideas with the statement Stephen had written himself.

He fluttered the e-mail again. “I don’t see the connection between that and the loss of the bookmobile funding. And your latest foray into serving homebound patrons is only going to add more cost to your operations.”

My chin started to slide forward into what my mother would have called my stubborn stance. I almost put one hand to my face to push it back. Getting red-cheeked and angry would not help my case. Logic—that’s what I needed.

“All residents,” I reminded him. “We’re supposed to be a learning center for everyone, yet some of our patrons can’t come to the library, especially in the winter months.” I glanced at the window behind me, where a light snowfall had started. Thank you, serendipity.

“That’s well and good,” Stephen said, “but we cannot operate without proper funding.”

I knew that. Of course I knew that. How could I not, when it was up to me to provide services on an annual budget that was getting smaller and smaller? For a moment, I wished fiercely for the settlement of the late Stan Larabee’s estate. Stan’s will had included a generous bequest to the library, but his relatives were contesting the will, and it was a toss-up if we’d ever see any of Stan’s intended gift.

Worse, Stephen was right. The library simply could not operate in the red. There was some money tucked away, but that was for emergencies, not regular operations. I leaned forward and put my elbows on the desk, interlocking my fingers loosely, doing my best to project confidence and wisdom.

Well, confidence, anyway.

“I’ll find the money,” I promised. “Give me a few more weeks. As you can see from my e-mail, there are a number of possibilities.” Not good ones, but still. And there was always the option of collecting returnable soda cans for the ten-cent deposit. And holding bake sales. Lots of them.

Stephen sighed. “You’re assuming a best-case scenario, and that’s a dangerous expectation.”

Once again, he was right. I took a calming breath, then started to expand on the funding possibilities. Somewhere out there, there had to be a foundation that would like nothing better than to support a bookmobile program. All I had to do was find it. “I have contacts in library systems across the country, and with—”

Stephen held out a hand. “I’ve stated my reservations. That said, the current budget amounts show approximately six months of funding for the bookmobile. I see no reason why operations can’t continue for that length of time.”

“You . . . don’t?” I blinked. “Thanks, Stephen, I really think—”

“I will also notify the board of my concerns. You can be sure that I won’t be the only one scrutinizing the monthly expenditures.”

I clutched at that a little, but only for a moment. “Don’t worry.” I smiled, happy once again. “It’ll all turn out okay.”

He looked at me straight on. “I certainly hope so.”

A small piece of my ancient lizard brain reared up, shrieking with fear, but I told it to hush and went on smiling. “Six months from now, I’m sure something will have turned up.”

“I certainly hope so.” Stephen folded up my e-mail into small squares and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Because when the bookmobile budget runs out of gas, so does the bookmobile.” Chuckling to himself, he left my office and went up the stairs, heading to his office aerie.

“Very funny,” I said to the wake of his laughter. Stephen occasionally smiled, but he rarely laughed, and the fact that he had laughed worried me, because what it usually meant was that someone was about to get in trouble.

I leaned back in my chair to think, and, in doing so, I dislodged an Eddie hair that had been on my jacket sleeve. It wafted into the air, spun about a few times lazily—lazy? How appropriate!—and eventually dropped in the direction of the floor.

That’s when the penny, in the form of displaced Eddie fur, finally dropped.

Stephen knew about Eddie. Someone had told, and he was chuckling to himself, enjoying the two weeks until the next board meeting, when he would, without a doubt, recommend that I be fired.

“Stop worrying,” I said out loud. But I didn’t quite persuade myself that things would be okay. Stronger measures were in order, and I knew just how to get them.

I pulled my computer keyboard close, typed a quick e-mail with the words Stephen Strikes Again in the subject line, added two names, and hit the SEND button. I grabbed my coffee mug and made a beeline for the break room.

* * *

My best library friends, Holly Terpening, a part-time clerk, and Josh Hadden, the IT department, were waiting for me. Josh was a little younger than I was and Holly a little older, but the three of us had been hired about the same time, and that fact alone had cemented our work relationship into solid friendship.

Soon after our hire dates, we’d developed a pact. We would always support each other after a one-on-one with Stephen. For years I’d shored up Holly and/or Josh, but these days it was different.

“Ever since the bookmobile, I’m his favorite target,” I muttered, leaning back against the countertop.

“Works for me,” Josh said cheerfully. “He hasn’t complained about the network in months, so thanks, Minnie.”

Holly skewered him with a Mom Look. Her two smallish children had given her the skills to perfect that expression, and she used it both wisely and well. “Josh, we’re supposed to be helping, remember?” A strand of her brown hair had escaped her ponytail, and she pushed it back behind her ear.

“Ah, Minnie knows I’m joking.” He pulled a can of soda out of his cargo pants and handed it to me.

Popping the top, I thanked him and said, “I do know you’re joking. But it would help if we had a hand signal.”

I’d developed a thick skin at a young age, thanks to my efficient stature and my name (though if I never heard another Mini Minnie joke again, I would be okay with that), and had never been hesitant about going to Stephen with issues other library employees would have quailed at. As a matter of fact, I’d become such a Stephen expert that everyone now begged me to take things to the boss.

But I was no longer the golden girl. I was turning into the nearest dog to kick. Or so to speak. Because not even Stephen would kick a dog, would he?

I frowned and considered the question.

Nah. Stephen could be a royal pain in the patootie, but he wasn’t that bad.

“Here.” Holly sat at the table and reached for a plastic container. “I made a bunch last night for Anna’s kindergarten class and decided the kids didn’t need all of them.”

Holly’s chocolate-chip cookies were the stuff of legend. I pulled out a chair to sit, took one, hesitated, then took another one. “Thanks. You guys are the best.”

“Yeah, we know.” Josh thumped into a chair and reached out for a cookie. “So, what was the deal today? Too many kids in the library again? He hates that.”

Which wasn’t true—not exactly. What Stephen hated were the crumbs and dirt small children seem to inevitably leave behind. Maybe in a few more years, when the recently renovated building got a little more wear and tear, he’d relax a little. Probably not, but maybe.

I told them about his comment about the greater good.

“Seriously?” Holly looked at me over the top of her coffee mug. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“Well.” I shrugged. “He’s right.”

Josh snorted. “Quit being so nice, Minnie. The only thing he’s right about is . . .” With a dramatic flourish, he put his hand to his forehead and fake concentrated. “Huh. Nothing that I can think of.”

“A year ago, I did tell him I’d find operations money,” I reminded my friends. “Only Stan Larabee died and that ended that.” Now, I could see that it had been a mistake to put all my bookmobile funding eggs into a basket labeled STAN, and then a second basket labeled GRANT THAT WILL SOLVE YOUR FINANCIAL PROBLEMS FOR AT LEAST A YEAR, but there wasn’t much I could do about it at this point other than to keep searching for new grant possibilities.

I averted my mind from my two lost sources of funding. “Anyway,” I said, “we can’t take money out of the library’s regular budget to fund the bookmobile. That wouldn’t be right.”

“What’s not right,” Holly said, “is that Stephen isn’t supporting the best thing that’s happened to this library in years.”

I grinned. “You mean besides the millage that paid for the renovation of this gorgeous building?”

Holly waved away the multimillion-dollar project. “That’s different. That’s typical Chilson show-off stuff. We have to have a library that’s better than everybody else’s. So of course that millage passed the first time around; we couldn’t let Petoskey have a nicer library than we do.”

I stopped chewing and stared at her. Never once in the three and a half years I’d lived full-time in Chilson had I thought of our wonderful library that way.

“And anyway,” Josh said, “no matter how cool this building is, the bookmobile is way cooler.”

“It is?” I asked.

“Well, sure.” Holly swallowed the last of her cookie. “You’ve shown us the figures. The number of books borrowed is a lot higher for bookmobile patrons than for the people who come here. That’s got to be boosting the overall circulation numbers for the library, right?”

It was, but not as much as she might think.

“Plus,” Josh added, “it’s famous.”

I shook my head to bring my thoughts out of the spreadsheet daze they’d fallen into. “What is?”

My friends exchanged a puzzled glance. “The bookmobile,” Josh said patiently. “Everybody knows about it.”

“They . . . do?”

“Well, yeah,” Holly said. “It’s famous all over the place.”

“You’re like a mobile billboard.” Josh held up an imaginary sign and chugged around the room with it. “No other library in this part of the state has a bookmobile at all, let alone one as cool as ours.”

Ours, he’d said. And Holly had nodded. A warm happiness flooded through me. For months, the bookmobile had been, in Stephen’s words, “Minnie’s little project,” but it had already become part of the greater library family.

“The bookmobile,” I said, “isn’t exactly what I’m worried about.” I looked around. Saw no one but the three of us, but motioned them to move in, just in case. “I think he knows about”—I lowered my voice to a whisper—“Eddie.”

Josh and Holly both sat up straight.

“How could he?” Holly asked.

Josh shook his head. “No way. What makes you think that?”

“Nothing for certain,” I said, “but you’ve heard that little laugh he makes sometimes?”

“Yeah.” Josh grinned crookedly. “He sounds just like a cat would if it laughed right before it jumped on a mouse.”

It was an apt description, but I could have done without the feline reference. “When I said it’ll work out and he said he hoped so, he looked right at me. I mean right at me.” Using my index and middle fingers, I pointed at my own eyes.

“Whoa.” Josh sat back. “Stephen never looks straight at you. Through you, maybe, but never at you.”

Holly laughed. “I think maybe I’d turn to stone if he did. Stephen as Medusa.”

“So, something’s up, right?” I asked. “I’m not imagining things?”

“Not a chance,” Holly said. “The fact that he laughed and looked you straight in the eye? Two signs that something weird is going on.”

Josh smirked. “Or the end of the world is coming.”

“There’s not much we can do about that,” Holly said briskly, “but we can help Minnie find out if Stephen knows about Eddie.”

I’d kept Eddie’s presence a secret even from Holly and Josh for months. Back in August, though, when it had become crystal clear that Eddie was a part of the bookmobile whether or not I wanted him to be, I’d made them raise their right hands, put their left hands on an ancient green Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature that I’d hauled out of the library basement, and swear to keep the Eddie Secret.

“Okay,” Josh said, popping open his second soda can. “I’m in. But how are we going to figure this out? I mean, anyone could have said something on Facebook.”

Holly laughed. “There’s no way Stephen does Facebook. He says social media is a waste of time.”

Which was true. We’d all heard Stephen pontificate on the time-wasting properties of the Internet in general and social media in particular. It had gotten to the point where we could recognize the signs of a pending lecture and slide away with some excuse before he really got going.

Josh shrugged. “Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t use it, not if he could see some advantage.”

Which was also true.

“Well, I don’t think Stephen has any idea about Eddie,” Holly said.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Josh tipped his head back and studied her through narrowed eyes. “How sure are you?”

“Sure enough to bet a double batch of my peanut butter fudge.”

“You’re on.” Josh held out his hand.

“Not so fast, buster,” she said, pulling back. “What do I get if I’m right? You’re about the worst cook in the world, next to Minnie.”

“Hey!” I protested, but neither one of them paid any attention to me.

“Gift certificate to Cookie Tom’s?” Josh asked.

Holly rolled her eyes. “Like I need more baked goods.”

“Gift certificate to Shomin’s, then.”

Shomin’s was a new deli in town, and the library staff members were enthusiastic supporters.

Holly put out her hand, then jerked it back. “Gift certificate big enough to buy two lunches.”

Josh pursed his lips, but we all knew it was a done deal. Holly’s peanut butter fudge was arguably better than her cookies. “Two lunches,” he agreed.

This was all well and good, but I had a question. “So, how are you going to do this without making Stephen suspicious?”

“Easy,” Josh said. “I was going to update some software on his computer on a Saturday, but I’ll come up with some reason to do it on a weekday. I can just rattle off some IT words, and he won’t know the difference. I mean, it’s not like he’s going to leave his office when I do the updates. I could kind of ask him about the bookmobile, maybe act like I think it’s a bad idea, and see what he says.”

“Now you’re talking.” Holly raised her hand for a high five, and we slapped all the way around. “First off, I’ll see if I can find him on Facebook. Then I can check LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter. I’ll even look at Google Plus, Tumblr, and Instagram. If he’s not on any of those, he probably isn’t doing social media at all. And where else would he hear about Eddie? It’s not like he goes anywhere but here.”

“You two are awesome,” I said.

“Ah, it’s nothing.” Josh upended his soda can and slugged down half the contents. “We’d do this for any assistant library director who got the library a bookmobile and had her cat stow away on it.”

“It’ll be fun,” Holly said. “Sleuthing around, trying to find out what’s really going on with Stephen—it’ll be a kick. We should have started doing this years ago.” She grinned.

I looked at them. My coworkers, my companions, my friends. I didn’t know what I’d do without them. “There’s one thing, though.”

“What’s that?” Josh asked.

I hesitated. They’d think I was silly and a worrywart, but it had to be said. “Be careful, okay? Just . . . be careful.”