Cat With A Clue

Chapter 5

“You seem to be making a habit of this,” Officer Joel Stowkowski said, eyeing the mess that had once been a tidy bookmobile.

“Well,” I said, still doing my best not to sit down on the carpeted step and bawl like a toddler, “you know what they say: Bad habits are six and a half times easier to create than good ones.”

Joel quirked up a smile. He was probably fifty years old, and was known throughout town as a good guy. Ash, who had first worked at the Chilson Police Department before moving to the sheriff’s office, said he had a nasty tendency to think puns were the highest form of humor, but so far that hadn’t bothered me. “Six and a half times?” he asked. “You’re making that up.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

Joel peered into the cat carrier, which I’d set onto the bookmobile’s console. “Was he asking the same thing or coming to your defense?”

“He was wondering where his treats went.” I nodded at the empty shelf near Joel’s left shoulder. “They used to be up there. Now . . .” I looked at the thousands of books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines strewn all across the floor and, once again, felt tears prick at my eyes. Buck up, Minnie, I told myself. You can’t fall apart now; there’s too much to do. “He’ll probably,” I said, “turn up his nose at treats that have been handled by a burglar, and demand new ones.”

“Yeah,” Joel said. “Cats are like that.” He reached out and patted the top of the carrier absently. “Well, Minnie, I’ll do what I did yesterday upstairs—take pictures, take a close look at the doors and windows, and take fingerprints in the appropriate places.”

I nodded. If I ever got tired of working at the library, maybe I’d start a forensic-cleaning business. After all, I now had more experience getting rid of fingerprint dust than most people would get in two lifetimes.

“This is probably a stupid question at this point,” he went on, “but do you see anything missing?”

I just looked at him.

He grinned. “Told you it was a stupid question.”

“The computers are still here.” I gestured at the two laptops—one up front, the other at the back. “Of course, they’re bolted in.”

“I’ll take prints on those, too. We already have yours for elimination. Is there anyone else who uses the computers regularly?” After I told him I’d have Julia stop by the police station to get fingerprinted, he said, “Okay, then. Let me get the camera from the car and I’ll get going.”

He turned to go, then stopped and swung back around. His face, normally creased with a smile, was serious. “I have no idea what’s going on here, Minnie, but we will find out. Between us and the sheriff’s department, we’ll figure out who did this and prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”

I swallowed away another round of pending tears. “Thanks, Joel,” I said quietly. “That means a lot.”

“Maybe it was just kids messing around, maybe it was someone else. But no one is going to get away with breaking into our library and our bookmobile.”

“Our library,” he’d said. “Our bookmobile.” Was any librarian ever so lucky as I was? In the guise of scratching my face, I rubbed away my tears. “I believe you.”

He gave me a sharp nod and trod down the steps. I sat heavily onto the passenger’s seat, giving myself three minutes to cry.

When that was done, I started thinking. First, I had to call Julia. Then there were the calls to make to the day’s bookmobile stops, giving them the bad news that the bookmobile wasn’t coming. I hated to do that, but there was little choice. If Joel’s work yesterday at the Friends’ sale room was any indication, he’d be here for a couple of hours. And then all the books needed to be shelved and checked against the computer to make sure nothing was missing.

I looked over at Eddie, who was staring at me. “What do you think?”

“Mrr,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s way past time to install security cameras, isn’t it.”

“Mrr.”

* * *

By lunchtime, I was almost ready to cry again, but this time from the wonderfulness of human beings. I’d called Julia to give her the news, and, without a word of suggestion from me, she, in turn, had called Denise, who had immediately harnessed the tremendous power of the Friends of the Library.

When Joel declared himself done with the documentation of the scene, half a dozen strong-minded men and women wielding vacuum cleaners, spray bottles, and rags went to work. Behind them came another equally strong-minded group who sorted and shelved and called out book titles to the people behind the computers.

“It’s amazing,” I murmured as I peered out my office window. Denise and her crew had banished me to the library, and I’d reluctantly done as they’d asked.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

He’d squeezed himself onto my office’s narrow windowsill and, though he didn’t quite fit, he didn’t seem to mind that half of him was spilling out into the room.

“You look like a dork,” I told him.

He looked at me, and I could almost see the thought bubble rising out of his head. “Whatever,” it said, and he went back to working out how he could morph through the window glass and get at the birds swooping around the back side of the library.

“But it is amazing.” I’d just wandered out for a quick check of the progress at the garage and, with all the hands that had come in to help, they’d be done with the whole kit and caboodle by midafternoon. Which, technically, gave me time to make the last scheduled bookmobile stops of the day. “What do you think?”

Eddie, still at the window, didn’t reply. He was miffed because I was keeping him contained in my office. Yes, libraries across the world had resident cats, but even though Stephen had been gone for weeks now, I couldn’t break away from his policies in a finger snap. Though Stephen had tacitly allowed Eddie’s presence on the bookmobile, the main library was another story altogether.

“Plus,” I told my furry friend as I turned back to work, “I’m only the interim director. That means I’m not the real one. Making drastic changes isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m just keeping the seat warm for the next person.”

“Which should be you.” Holly poked her head into the room. “The library board’s about to start the first interview, you know. Did you turn in your application yet?”

“As soon as you finish cleaning out your garage.” The messy state of Holly’s garage had been a constant lament for months. The possibility of it actually being cleaned out, however, was as real as the possibility of Eddie not shedding for thirty straight seconds.

Holly stuck her tongue out at me. “Do you have plans for lunch? Want to go down to the deli?”

“Sounds good.” I thought wistfully of my favorite sandwich from Shomin’s: olive and Swiss cheese on sourdough with Thousand Island dressing. “But I should eat the lunch I brought to eat on the road. Thanks, though.”

Holly looked at the windowsill. “What about you, Eddie? Anchovies? Sardines?”

“He’s fine with the cat food I brought,” I said quickly. Anything else tended to upset his little kitty tummy.

“See how she is?” A straight-faced Holly asked Eddie. “Strict. Uncompromising. Inflexible. She’ll make a perfect successor for Stephen.”

“Mrr.”

“What did he say?” Holly asked.

“That if you don’t stop insulting me, he’s going to make you wish you’d never been born.”

“Really?” She looked at Eddie with some trepidation.

I laughed. “He’s a cat. He’s probably trying to figure out the most comfortable place to take a nap.”

“He might be smarter than you think.”

“Or not. You do realize that he can’t really understand human speech?”

“If that’s true, why do you keep talking to him as if he knows what you’re saying?”

“Because I like to pretend.”

“Uh-huh.” She looked at me askance. “I’m not sure I believe you. I’ve heard the way you talk to him. Just like he’s another human.”

“He’s used to the sound of my voice—that’s all,” I said. “Have you seen the size of his head? I mean, it’s big for a cat, but compared to a human, it’s tiny, and there’s no way he has the capacity for cognition, not like we have, and—hey, Eddie, don’t—”

A black-and-white shape whooshed past me and past my desk, then eeled through the gap Holly had left between the door and the doorframe, and ran into the freedom of the hallway.

“Eddie!” I called pointlessly. Like he was going to come just because I wanted him to.

Holly laughed. “You sure he doesn’t understand what you were saying?”

“He saw an open door.” I got to my feet. “Cats are opportunists.”

“Doesn’t that take brains?” she asked.

“Instinct. Natural reaction. Doesn’t take any more intelligence than a . . . a horse getting out of a pasture, and I don’t hear you saying that horses understand human speech.”

By this time we were both out in the hallway, scouting left and right for any trace of a runaway feline.

“Hmm,” she said. “Remember that television show, Mr. Ed? Maybe there’s something about the name.”

Right. “I doubt he ran into the main library or the children’s section. All those people would freak him out. Can you check back there?” I nodded toward the front desk and the office spaces behind. “I’ll check the reading room.”

Holly headed off, and I hurried toward the reading room. And though I was doing my best to project nonchalance, I was actually a little worried. If Eddie had been close to an outside door when someone opened it, he could have zoomed out and—

“Stop it,” I said to myself. It was a big library, but there were only so many places a cat could hide. It wasn’t like a house where there were nooks and crannies everywhere. The building was mostly public space without much furniture. There was no place for him to hide in the main stacks, unless . . . My steps quickened.

Unless he squirreled his way in behind a row of books. The shelves were deep enough for a cat to fit behind there, especially a cat wanting to hide from a human companion who had been seriously disrespecting his mental capacities.

Maybe he didn’t know what I was saying, but he certainly understood the different tones in my voice, and he’d been tossed into a brand-new environment just a few hours earlier. Cats like routine, at least Eddie did, and I hadn’t taken enough time to make sure he was happy. I was a horrible cat owner and didn’t deserve Eddie’s friendship and—

“Mrr.”

I stopped dead, just outside the entrance to the reading room. “Eddie?” I called. “Where are you?” I waited, but didn’t hear him again. Which was frustrating, because I hadn’t been able to pinpoint his location from that one little “Mrr.” For the first time ever, I wished he’d start howling.

The reading room, my favorite space in the library, was almost empty. Even on this dark day, natural light filled the space, streaming through the windows that lined one wall. A multitude of seating options were offered through window seats, upholstered couches, chairs, and large ottomans, some of which were clustered around the large tiled fireplace at the far end of the room. The gas fire wasn’t turned on today, but I almost wished it had been, because its heat would have been a sure Eddie magnet.

“Shhh,” an elderly male voice whispered. “If you don’t tell, I won’t. What do you say?”

I should have known.

Smiling, I walked around the back of a large wing chair to see one of my favorite library patrons, Lloyd Goodwin, feeding Eddie small bits of . . . “Is that beef jerky?” I asked.

Mr. Goodwin closed his hand over the meat. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You,” I said, crossing my arms, “are a horrible liar.” Eddie, curled up on Mr. Goodwin’s lap, reached out with one white-tipped paw and patted the closed fist. “Besides, Eddie knows what you have in there, and he doesn’t care if you get caught eating in a room where food is forbidden.”

Mr. Goodwin had noticed Eddie the day I’d walked home from the cemetery with a stray cat on my heels, and the two had met numerous times since, because Mr. Goodwin’s summer walking route went right past the marina.

“That was,” Mr. Goodwin said, “the leftovers from my morning snack that I ate out in the hallway. I would never eat in this room.”

“But you’ll let him?” I nodded at Eddie, who was snarfing down the last bits of jerky from the hand that Mr. Goodwin had opened. “That stuff probably isn’t good for cats.”

“Cats are smart,” Mr. Goodwin said. “They don’t eat what isn’t good for them.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, not in Eddie’s case, anyway. “I need to get him back to my office,” I said. “He’s an escapee.”

“This one?” Mr. Goodwin’s age-spotted hand rested on Eddie’s back. Eddie started purring immediately. “What’s the harm in letting him roam? Pity about the bookmobile this morning,” he added. “Makes you wonder what’s next. And that Andrea Wiley.” He sighed. “I don’t like it when young people die. Such a waste. She had too many years taken away from her. And I’m so very sorry that you had to be the one to find her, dear Minnie.”

That was not something I wished to revisit. “Thanks. Did you know her?”

He began to pet Eddie, eliciting even louder purrs. “My wife was a good friend of her mother’s, so I heard about her until my Mary went away.”

Two years ago, Mrs. Goodwin had gone to the emergency room because she was having trouble breathing. They’d diagnosed a serious heart condition and admitted her immediately for emergency surgery, but she hadn’t survived. It had taken Mr. Goodwin more than a year to come back to being anything close to his former self, and only recently had he been able to speak her name without his voice breaking. I could only guess the depth of his grief, and still hadn’t decided if I wanted to love someone that much. Not that we got the choice. Or did we? Something to wonder about tonight.

“The last time I saw Andrea,” Mr. Goodwin said, “must have been when the library was in the old building.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Now, don’t go trying to confuse an old man,” he said, smiling. “I may not be able to remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I can remember some things.”

I laughed. “You have a better memory than ninety-nine percent of the population, and that includes me. Better eyesight, too. And probably better hearing. Don’t you go running down one of my favorite library patrons.”

Mr. Goodwin arched his eyebrows. “Should librarians have favorites? Shouldn’t they be like parents and claim to love all their children equally?”

Probably, but there was no way I was going to like Mrs. Suggs, who checked out nothing except books on how to improve other people, as much as I liked Reva Shomin, who had small children whose favorite thing in the world was to curl up in the big chair in the children’s section and have their mommy read aloud to them.

“Then you saw Andrea about four years ago?” I asked. “I’d heard that she’d never come back to Chilson after she lit out of town right after high school.”

Mr. Goodwin scratched Eddie’s chin. Whenever I tried to do that, he turned his head away, but here he was, allowing Mr. Goodwin to scratch away and, even worse, purring as if that’s what he wanted all along.

“Metaphorically speaking,” Mr. Goodwin said, “I suppose that’s true. After that trouble with her high school boyfriend, she didn’t come north for years. But eventually she came back for Thanksgiving, Christmas, that kind of thing. Her parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. And”—he ran his hand over the length of Eddie’s long body—“her great-aunt Talia’s funeral.”

All of which kind of put paid to my half-formed notion that Andrea had been killed because it was the first time she’d returned to Chilson in more than twenty years. That was too bad, because I’d already come up with half a dozen scenarios that would have worked, ranging from an unrequited high school love that turned deadly to a long-dormant posttraumatic stress disorder triggered by Andrea’s return. Why her return might have reawakened a trauma, I hadn’t yet determined, but I figured all I needed to do was watch a little more television and something would occur to me.

“Were they close?” I asked.

“Talia and Andrea?” Mr. Goodwin picked up the end of Eddie’s tail and waved it around. Eddie purred. “Not to my knowledge, but that’s not to say they weren’t. My Mary would have known.” He held on to Eddie’s tail a little too long, and Eddie turned around to look at him.

“Mrr,” he said quietly.

Mr. Goodwin smiled. “Apologies, Mr. Edward. I wasn’t taking proper care of you, was I?” He chuckled and patted the top of the furry head. “From what I recall, Andrea was a squarish peg in a round hole. Ambitious in a family of folks who were accustomed to taking what was given them. Full of curiosity when those around her didn’t question a thing. It must have been difficult for her, and moving away was probably the best thing.”

Except that coming back had ended in her death. “Do you have any idea,” I asked, “why she might have been in the library after hours?”

Mr. Goodwin was silent for a moment. “No, I don’t,” he finally said. “I have nothing to offer, and I’ve considered that question thoroughly.” He frowned. “Beyond the appalling tragedy of Andrea’s death, the entire event is extremely puzzling. I’m sure your Deputy Wolverson agrees, yes?” Mr. Goodwin’s white and bushy eyebrows quirked up at me.

I smiled. “He doesn’t talk to me about active investigations, but he has to find it weird.”

And that’s what I kept coming back to. The whole thing was beyond weird. Why had Andrea been in the library? It probably wouldn’t have been that difficult to hide from Gareth for a few hours, but why on earth would she? Had she unlocked a door to let her killer inside? If so, why? She wouldn’t have unlocked the door for someone who was about to kill her, but who would she have unlocked it for? Or could it have been the other way around, that the killer had been hiding in the library and let Andrea inside? Since we didn’t have security-camera video, I wasn’t sure we’d ever know.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

I looked down to find both Eddie and Mr. Goodwin looking at me with concern. “Did you go somewhere?” Mr. Goodwin asked. “You had an odd look on your face.”

“Just thinking,” I said. “Makes my face twist up sometimes.”

Mr. Goodwin laughed. “And I suppose you want to take your feline friend back to your office, yes?” He tried to arrange Eddie into a pickup position, but Eddie knew what was coming and wasn’t having any of it. He went flat, dangling his legs and drooping his head.

“Nice try, pal,” I said, scooping him up from Mr. Goodwin’s bony lap. “Better luck next time.”

“Good-bye, Eddie,” Mr. Goodwin said, waving. “Come back again.”

I held up one of Eddie’s front paws and waved back, then walked out of the room, muttering to my cat. “Come back again? Not in this lifetime. You may be a bookmobile cat, but you’re not a library cat. I’d be a wreck worrying about you.”

“Mrr.”

“Yeah, well, just so you know, some people worry a lot more than I do. I’m a very low-grade worrier, in the general scheme of things.”

“Mrr.”

We were nearing the front desk, and since there was no way to sneak around it, I’d have to barrel through with Eddie in my arms and hope no one took much notice of what I was carrying. “Compare me to some others,” I murmured, trying to keep Eddie’s attention on my voice so he wouldn’t be frightened by all the new things around him. “Do you really think Aunt Frances would let you climb onto the houseboat’s roof? No, she would not. And do you think Julia would be okay with you wandering all over the marina most of the summer? I don’t think so. And—”

“Mrrrrr.”

I slowed my brisk walk. That hadn’t been Eddie’s normal sound. It sounded like a howl, but not really that, either. What it had sounded like was the noise he made just before—

“And the front desk,” boomed a stentorian voice, “is another highlight of our library. We paid a high price for the design and installation, but we think it was worth every penny.”

I stopped stock-still in the middle of the hallway. In front of me was Otis Rahn, president of the library board, along with two other board members, and a sleek woman I didn’t recognize. The small group hadn’t noticed me and, if I was very lucky, they wouldn’t.

Silently, I walked backward and was about to turn and beat a fast retreat to the reading room when Eddie let out a hideous and mournful howl.

“Mrroooooorrrrooo!”

He squirreled out of my arms, started to run, reached the ankles of the group of four, then stopped and arched his back.

I ran forward, reaching out, and just as my fingers touched my cat’s fur, he hurled up all the beef jerky he’d eaten and half his breakfast. Then he took three backward steps, bumped into the ankles of the woman I didn’t know, turned her way, and hurled up the other half of his breakfast onto the toes of her very expensive-looking shoes.

Still crouching, I looked up.

“And this,” Otis said grimly, “is Minnie Hamilton, our interim library director. Minnie, I’d like you to meet Jennifer Walker, our first interviewee for the library director position.”

* * *

Kristen’s laughter echoed off the walls of her tiny office and bounced back into my ears over and over.

“It was not funny,” I said, slumping in my chair.

“Seriously?” she managed to ask. “Eddie puking on the shoes of the person who might be your next boss?” She went off into more gales of laughter. “How could it get more funny?”

I eyed her coldly. “You could have a little more sympathy for my situation.”

“And you need dessert.” She picked up the phone and dialed the kitchen. “Harvey? No, not the crème brûlée, not tonight. What she needs is a piece of the new thing. You know. Thanks.” She replaced the receiver and leaned back in her chair. “Just think: If this Jennifer person turns into the new director, you have nowhere to go but up.”

She had a point, but it was even more likely that Ms. Jennifer Walker would want a new assistant director to replace the one named Minnie, whom she’d fired her first day on the job.

“What did everyone else think about her?” Kristen asked.

I slid down a little farther. “They’re begging me to give the board my application.”

The board had toured Ms. Walker through the building and then taken her upstairs to the boardroom for the interview. The staff had immediately congregated in the break room to discuss the potential boss, and their knee-jerk reactions had been overwhelmingly negative.

“Did you see her face?” Kelsey had asked. “All screwed up tight?”

“Well,” I’d said, “Eddie had just heaved his stomach contents onto her Italian shoes.” Which I’d only known were Italian because she’d told me so when I’d tried to help clean them. “That’s not likely to bring out the best in anyone.”

“She could have asked how Eddie was,” Donna had said. “All she cared about was her stupid shoes. Who wears shoes like that in Chilson, anyway?”

My point that anyone would have expected their shoes to be safe in a public library was ignored.

“It was like she’d never seen a cat before,” Josh had added. “Lots of libraries have cats. She looked at Eddie like he should never have been born.”

The thought had chilled me. If Eddie had never been born, my life would be the lesser for it. He brought me comfort and companionship, and if Ms. Walker became the new Stephen, would she want to ban Eddie from the bookmobile? I’d bit my lip and tried not to worry. She was only the first candidate, after all.

“Minnie,” Holly had said sternly, “you have to apply for the job. Just think if that . . . that witch is our new boss. She’s just like Stephen.”

Heads around the room had nodded, mine included, because from the little I’d seen of her, she might be even more strict and have even less of a sense of humor than Stephen.

“Then it’s settled,” Holly said, dusting off her hands. “Minnie’s going to apply. They’ll have to interview them all, just to say they did, but they’ll hire Minnie in the end.” She’d sent me a brilliant smile.

“But—”

I’d wanted them to know that all I’d been nodding about was that Ms. Walker was Stephen-like, not that I’d apply for the job, but my explanation was lost in the shuffle as everyone left the room, satisfied that life would be good from here on out.

Kristen thumped her long legs up onto her desk. “And are you going to? Apply, I mean?”

“Do you have a date for Trock yet?”

She gave me a look, knowing that I was trying to change the subject, and decided to let me. “Yes. Tuesday.”

“The second Tuesday in July, you mean?”

Kristen’s restaurant was scheduled to appear on an episode of Trock’s Troubles, a nationally syndicated television show hosted by Trock Farrand, who owned a nearby summer home. Trock also had an adult son, Scruffy Gronkowski, who was currently dating Kristen.

Three Seasons had been short-listed for the show before she’d met Scruffy, but it had taken a lot of Trock’s convincing her that the other restaurateurs in the area wouldn’t hate her for being on the show of her boyfriend’s father. “They will love you for it,” he’d said. “After the show, people will come to this adorably quaint town for a weekend, and since they won’t be able to eat at Three Seasons three times a day, they will eat elsewhere, yes? Yes.”

My friend leaned back and yawned. “No, I mean next Tuesday.”

“What?” I squeaked. “Like the Tuesday that’s”—I made a quick count on my fingers—“five days from now?”

“Just like.” She put her hands behind her head, trying to act all nonchalant, but failed completely, since a huge grin was lighting her face from ear to ear.

“When did the date get changed?” Last I’d known, the taping had been scheduled for mid-July, with an October air date. That was unfortunate for two reasons; one, July was the busiest month of the year in Chilson, and tripping over a television crew wasn’t going to help get dinners served any faster, and two, an October air date was worse than useless, because Kristen closed the place down around Halloween.

“Just yesterday,” Kristen said. “A restaurant that was set to be on the show burned to the ground the other night, so they bumped me up.” Her smile faded. “Horrible thing, to have your place burn. I hope they get back on their feet soon.”

Knowing Kristen, she’d start a social-media campaign to support them in their time of need and send a hefty check. “And when will you be on TV?”

Her grin reappeared. “That’s getting moved up, too. Scruffy says he’ll rush the production and get it on the air the second week of August.”

“Hmm.” I squinted at her. “I’m trying to think of better timing, but I can’t think what it could be. What did you do to deserve all this good fortune, anyway?”

“Not a thing,” she said promptly. “Except this.” She nodded behind me, and Harvey bustled into the room, carrying a tray and a tray stand. Smoothly, he set up the stand, settled the tray down, tidied the small arrangement of flowers, straightened the silverware and napkins, and pulled off the silver domes that covered the plates.

“Your desserts, madams,” he said in a suave, butlerlike tone that wasn’t anything like his usual voice, and retreated.

I gaped while Kristen pulled her chair around the desk to sit opposite the tray from me. Four adorable little crepes the size of my palm were stacked with alternate layers of sliced strawberries and whipped cream. A massive chocolate-dipped strawberry topped the creation, and an artistic chocolate drizzle decorated the entire plate. It was almost too pretty to eat, but Kristen would have my head if I didn’t put a fork into it, so I did. If possible, it tasted better than it looked. “You’re a genius,” I said solemnly.

Kristen nodded. “I know.”

I took another bite, then asked, “Say, who should I talk to about the DeKeysers?” Kristen and Rafe, being Chilson born and bred, were my sources for insider knowledge. If they didn’t know the dirt on someone, there was a roughly 99.9 percent chance they’d know someone who did. And since I was convincing myself that Andrea’s death was somehow linked to Talia DeKeyser’s passing, getting background on the DeKeysers was a good starting place.

My friend stared at me. “Does this have to do with Andrea Vennard’s murder? Don’t you dare tell me you’re getting mixed up in that. Remember what happened last time.”

“Yeah, I ruined my cell.” The water resistance of cell phones clearly needed to be improved. Sure, I’d accidentally immersed the thing for nearly twenty minutes, but still.

“And you were almost killed,” Kristen said accusingly.

“Like the man said, the report of my death was an exaggeration.”

“Is that Shakespeare?”

“Mark Twain,” I said, sighing and shaking my head. “See what a PhD in biochemistry got you? An unrounded education.” I finished the last bite of dessert and laid my fork across the plate. “Can I come and watch the filming?”

“Not a chance.”

“Please? I promise I won’t make faces at you.”

She snorted. “Now, that’s a promise that you can’t possibly keep. See? You’re making a face right now.”

I flattened my expression, which felt really strange. Something else I needed to work on. Next week, maybe. “So, who should I talk to about the DeKeysers?”

“No one,” she muttered.

“You might as well tell me. Otherwise I’ll ask Rafe, and he’ll tell me without any lectures.”

Kristen forked in another bite. She swallowed, then said, “Well, if you insist on being stupid about this—”

“I do.”

“—you should talk to Dana Coburn.”

I’d never heard the name. “Is that a female Dana or a male Dana?”

Kristen grinned, her good humor suddenly restored. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Since Kristen wasn’t being helpful, on the way home I stopped at Rafe’s house to get more information. He was in his dining room, up on a six-foot stepladder and installing crown molding.

“Looks nice,” I said, hitching myself up onto a battered wooden stool.

“You think?” He eyed the length of trim he’d just attached. “I wasn’t sure about the proportions. Maybe half an inch more height would be better.”

“Nope. It’s good just the way it is,” I said, exactly as if I knew what I was talking about.

“All righty, then.” Rafe came down the ladder, moved it over a few feet, and went back up with another piece of trim in his hand.

I watched his efficient movements. Out of school, he had a tendency to play up his chosen role as an Up North redneck wannabe, but with only me for an audience, he was mostly himself. With his longish black hair, slim build, white teeth, and cheerful disposition, I wasn’t sure why he didn’t have a girlfriend or a wife, but, then again, maybe all the women in town knew him as well as I did.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“Do you know a Dana Coburn?”

He laughed. “Kristen give you the name?”

“Yes.” Lying was pointless, since if I denied it he’d call and ask.

“Did she tell you anything about Dana?”

“No. Why?”

He laughed again. “Then I’m not going to tell you anything, either.”

“Not even an address? A phone number? How about where she—or he—works?”

“Works?” He snorted.

“Stop that,” I said. “You sound like a pig rooting around for truffles.”

“Yeah? How many pigs have you seen up close and personal, city girl?”

“You’d be surprised what I see out on the bookmobile, Mr. Niswander,” I said loftily. Which was true, although it hadn’t yet included many pigs. But with the bookmobile you never knew.

“And what do pigs eat, Ms. Smarty Pants?”

“Anything they want,” I said promptly.

There was a short silence. “Okay, you got me,” he said. “Let me make a phone call, and we’ll see if I can give you Dana’s address. Hang on a second—my cell’s in the kitchen.”

He clambered down the ladder and scuffed into what I called a kitchenlike area, since it lacked cabinets, dishes, and any silverware other than the ones that came with takeout. What it had was a utility sink, a battered refrigerator, and a hot plate, and I hadn’t yet figured out how Rafe had wangled an occupancy permit out of the building inspector.

I heard a few sentences of muffled conversation, and then the refrigerator door opened and closed. Rafe returned, cracking open a water bottle, another one under his arm.

He handed me the open bottle and I took it, asking, “So? Am I in or out?”

“In, with qualifications.” He tipped his head backward and took a long drink, then went back up the ladder, noisily crimping the empty plastic bottle and tossing it halfway across the room to land in a pile of sawdust and scrap wood. “Hand me that hammer, will you?” he asked.

I slid off the stool and reached for the tool he’d dropped on top of a box as he’d gone into the kitchenlike area. “What are,” I asked, handing up the hammer, “the qualifications of which you speak?”

He turned and blinked down at me. “Oh, right. Dana. You know that house on Fourth Street, the big white one with the columns that’s set back a little ways from the other houses? That’s where Dana lives.”

“Okay.” I’d walked past that house dozens of times on my way back and forth to my aunt’s and had often wondered who lived there. All I had to do was ask someone, but I’d never remembered to actually do so. “You still haven’t told me the qualifications.”

He pulled a handful of small nails from a pouch on his tool belt and put most of them into his mouth. “Stop there anytime tomorrow morning,” he said around the nails. “All you have to do is be interesting.”

I frowned. “It’s hard to hear you when there’s a pound of nails in your mouth. Because I could have sworn you said I had to be interesting, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

“No?” Rafe chuckled. “That’s because you haven’t met Dana.”

And, try as I might to get more details, he wouldn’t say anything else about the mysterious Dana Coburn.

* * *

The next day was Friday. I’d scheduled myself the morning off for an eye doctor’s appointment. I knew she’d want to dilate my pupils for retina-examination purposes, and since my vision was nearly worthless for three hours afterward, there was no way I’d be able to work. I’d planned to go grocery shopping—I was down to condiments and wilted lettuce in my refrigerator—but I eschewed that in favor of tracking down Dana Coburn.

Soon after the appointment, I knocked on the front door of the house on Fourth Street. It was what I’m sure my father, an engineer who should have been an architect, had taught me was a Greek Revival. Columns ran from the porch floor to the bottom of the pedimented gable. There was a heavy cornice over a wide and plain frieze, and, above all, it was perfectly symmetrical. Two windows left of the front door, two windows right. Six columns across the front, with the front door centered between numbers three and four. Even the entry mat was perfectly centered.

The perfection was the teensiest bit disconcerting, and I’d had to make a conscious decision between tiptoeing my way across the front porch so I didn’t ruin the symmetry with a single speck of dirt, and kicking the entry mat to an odd angle. And there was a puddle out on the sidewalk that I’d walked around. What would the house do if I tracked mud onto the porch?

The door suddenly swung open. “Why are you smiling?” a high-pitched voice asked.

I looked ahead and up and then finally down. Standing in front of me, instead of the elderly and wizened person my imagination had assumed a Dana Coburn would be, was someone little more than a child. She—or he—was shorter than my five feet and thin, with lank hair swinging past the jawline, wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt. There were zero indications of gender.

“Hi,” I said. “My name is Minnie Hamilton. Rafe Niswander called yesterday. I’d like to talk to Dana Coburn.” The kid’s gaze didn’t falter. “Is, ah, Dana here?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” the kid said. “Why were you smiling?”

I blinked. Social niceties were clearly not going to be part of this conversation. Which meant I could tell the complete truth.

“It’s the porch,” I said, nodding at the pristine floor. “I was picturing so much mud all over it that the house would want to shake it off like a dog shaking off water.”

The kid stared at me. “Interesting. Ridiculous, but interesting.” She—he?—walked away, leaving the door open. After a short hesitation, I followed.

“You’re Dana?” I asked, hurrying after. There was no reply as we trekked through a large entryway, skimmed around the edge of a massive living room, and marched across a formal dining room. I gained an impression of old money and good taste. At long last, we reached a kitchen that was so clean and white, it almost hurt my eyes.

The kid sat on a stool at the corner of a white granite-topped island and pointed. I sat primly on the stool indicated and waited.

Dana, because I could only assume that’s who it was, peered into my eyes. “Why are your pupils dilated? Are you taking recreational pharmaceuticals?”

“Eye doctor,” I said. “She likes to check for—”

“Retinal detachment.” Dana waved away the rest of my explanation. Not interesting enough, no doubt. “Mr. Niswander told my mother you’d like information about the DeKeyser family.”

I wondered where the mother figure might be, but decided to keep on topic. “Yes.” I looked at her. Him. “Do you want to know why?”

“I have two theories,” the kid said. “One would be merely a spurious interest.”

It took me a second to make sure I knew what the word “spurious” meant. Fake. Not valid. I frowned. “Why on earth would I fake interest in the DeKeysers?”

Dana shrugged. “Not enough information. But the possibility exists.”

This kid had read too many Sherlock Holmes stories. “Okay, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“Then you’re looking to connect the murder of Andrea Vennard with Talia DeKeyser’s death.”

“How did—” I held up my hand, not wanting to hear the kid say “Elementary, my dear Minnie.”

“Never mind,” I said. “You’re right. I want to learn more about the DeKeysers, and I was pointed in your direction.”

Dana gave me a straight, unblinking look. “Don’t you want to know if I’ve made the connection between the murder and Talia?”

“If you had, you would already have told me,” I said confidently. Someone like Dana wouldn’t be able to keep from saying how she—he—had found the answer faster than everyone else. My brother had been like that. Spouting out the answer was practically an involuntary reaction for young folks with that much brain power.

The kid nodded slowly. “You’re right. I would have. How did—” Dana’s head went back and forth. “Never mind. I’ll think about it later and learn from the exercise.”

Why had I never met this kid before? Surely someone like this should be in the library on a regular basis. “I would, however, like to know why you’re the local expert on the DeKeysers.”

“Yes, I can see why you would be curious,” Dana said. “It was a research exercise. I am homeschooled, and my parents wanted me to get familiar with the methods involved in genealogical research. Death certificates, birth certificates, property records, newspaper articles, and similar items.” The kid eyed me. “This was before you were hired as the library’s assistant director. I’ve been told that the new building has much more to offer than the old.”

Old building? This meant the research had occurred at least four years ago. I desperately wanted to ask how old Dana had been at the time of the research, but let it go. “Why did you choose the DeKeysers?”

“I wanted a challenge,” came the prompt reply. “By head count, they’re the largest family in town. Having so many family branches to investigate made the project more interesting.”

Interesting. That word again.

“And you’re interested in Talia DeKeyser,” Dana said. “Would you also like information regarding her husband, Calvin?”

“Yes, please,” I said, and settled myself down to listen.

Dana leaned back on the stool, lifting one knee and cupping it with his—her—hands. “Calvin DeKeyser. Born 1928, died 2013. Would you like the months and days?”

“Not necessary, but thank you.”

The kid nodded. “Talia DeKeyser, born Talia Wiley in 1933. Both Calvin and Talia were born in Chilson, went through the Chilson schools, and graduated from Chilson High School. Talia attended the Michigan Normal School in Ypsilanti, which is now Eastern Michigan University, and subsequently taught school for three years before she married Calvin in 1958.”

At that point in Dana’s precise factual recitation, my tiny little brain adjusted to the concept of a child with the vocabulary and sentence construction of a doctoral candidate. I stopped being amazed at the person in front of me and simply tried to absorb what was being said.

“Benton’s, the general store in the downtown core of Chilson, was one of the first commercial establishments in Tonedagana County. Newspaper accounts indicate that the county seat was settled in Chilson primarily because of Benton’s.”

I started to ask a question, but stopped, not wanting to interrupt the narrative flow.

“Benton was the maiden name of Calvin DeKeyser’s mother,” Dana said. “Elijah DeKeyser married Dorothy Benton in 1920 and they had six children: five daughters and one son. The daughters married into other original Chilson families, and, as there were no Benton males, Calvin eventually came into ownership of the store.”

Yes, folks, primogeniture had been alive and well in northern lower Michigan in the 1900s. I stirred but didn’t say anything. After all, maybe none of the daughters had wanted to run the store.

“Calvin and Talia,” Dana was saying, “also had a large family.” Dark eyes peered at me through long bangs. “Are you interested in Talia’s ancestry?”

“As a matter of general interest, yes,” I said, “but I doubt it’s pertinent in this case.”

“I agree,” Dana said, and I felt an embarrassingly happy rush that a thought out of my small brain matched a thought out of the big one. “Talia had seven children who lived: four daughters and three sons. Would you like their names?”

I quickly pulled out my cell and opened the notes app. “Yes, please.” I typed away as Dana dictated the names and birth dates.

Leslie, born 1953. Kimberly, born 1956. Thomas, born 1958. Kelly, born 1961. David, born 1962. Melissa, born 1965, and Robert, born 1968.

After that, Dana rattled off the names of the spouses, names and birth dates of the next generation of DeKeysers, and the cities in which they were born.

“Do the sons still run Benton’s? Or one of them?” I asked, typing in the last few letters.

“There was a change of ownership after I completed my project,” Dana said. “I don’t have that information.”

Well, stone the crows, as Rafe might have said. There was something the kid didn’t know.

“The DeKeyser family,” Dana went on, “is well respected in the community. There wasn’t a hint of scandal in any of the newspaper articles I read, and none of them has ever died of anything other than natural causes or the typical diseases of their times.”

“Any theories about a connection between Andrea Vennard and Talia?” I asked. “And I’m not talking about the genetic relationship. I’m talking about something that would be a motivation for Andrea’s death. Even a guess might be helpful.”

The kid frowned. “I don’t guess.”

“Dana!”

Both Dana and I turned to see a woman standing at the back door to the kitchen. She was probably a little older than I was, with hair the color of Dana’s pulled back into a ponytail. Her forehead was streaked with dirt and there was a scratch across one cheek.

“Dana, I told you to call me when Ms. Hamilton showed up.” She looked at me apologetically. “Sorry about that. I’m Jenny, Dana’s mother. I was clearing out the backyard. Now that we’re only here in the summers, the spring-cleanup chores don’t get done until June.”

Which explained why I hadn’t met Dana during the school year, but not why I hadn’t come across this amazing human intelligence during the summers.

“Would you like something to drink?” Jenny asked, toeing off her garden clogs and walking stocking footed into the kitchen. “Water, soda, iced tea?”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I need to get going. Dana was very helpful and I’m grateful for”—his? Her?—“the time.”

“Did you get everything you need?” Jenny took a glass out of a cupboard and went to the sink. “The DeKeysers were a pet project of Dana’s a few years ago. I’m sure you were inundated with information.”

I glanced at the kid. “I think I have everything.” Dana nodded. “Thanks again for the help. I really appreciate it.”

“Stop by if you need anything else,” Jennifer said as she walked me to the front door. “Dana could use more human interaction.” She smiled wryly. “Even if it’s just spouting off facts.”

After thanking her again, I walked down the pristine steps thoughtfully.

I now knew all sorts of things about Talia, her husband, and their children. I had numbers and dates, facts and figures, straight data that might or might not be useful. But I didn’t know what kind of people they were. Didn’t know what made any of them tick. Didn’t know what any of them thought important, didn’t know what might move any of them to an act of crime.

* * *

Thanks to Dana’s rapid-fire delivery, I had plenty of time for lunch at Shomin’s Deli. Somehow I’d managed to leave the house without a book in hand, but there was a quick cure for that.

A wide block from downtown, some hopeful soul had recently opened up a used-book store. I went inside, walked around a sixtyish woman haggling with the clerk over a bag of books she wanted to sell, spied a Colin Cotterill book I’d never read, handed over my dollar plus tax, and was out the door in less than three minutes, which had to be a new record for me.

My steps were nearly jaunty. Yes, my library was in turmoil, what with a murder and the unknown leadership issue, and, yes, I had no idea how I was going to keep juggling my interim-director duties and the bookmobile without sliding into permanent sleep deprivation. Yes, the bookmobile, its garage, and the Friends’ book-sale room had all been vandalized, and, yes, my boyfriend’s mother hated me, but I had an unread book in my backpack and almost a full hour in which to read. What was there, really, to complain about?

I hummed a happy little tune as I walked through the first block of Chilson’s downtown. Past the real estate office in an old house, past the shoe store, past the pharmacy with its wood front painted this spring with a fresh coat of a disturbingly bright blue, past the toy store with its display windows filled with rocking horses and pedal cars and—

And Mitchell.

My pace went from Happy Traveler to Grandpa Shuffle. Yes, that was indeed Mitchell Koyne standing in the toy store’s window. If I’d been asked to state a reason why Mitchell would have been in a toy store, I would have laid down money that he’d have been buying something for himself. Beanbags for juggling, maybe, or one of those three-dimensional brainteaser puzzles that would take me hours to figure out, but that my brother could take apart in three minutes flat.

Mitchell, however, wasn’t buying anything. He was wearing the toy store’s signature polo shirt. He had a feather duster in hand, and he was using it to dust. Mitchell was working.

I waved, but his concentration was so focused that either he didn’t see me or he was ignoring me.

Either way, he wasn’t being Mitchell-like.

“Who are you?” I asked softly, “and what have you done with the real Mitchell?”

He didn’t answer, of course, and I moved on, troubled and more than a little sad.