Cat With A Clue

Chapter 9

The next morning I woke up sore in all sorts of odd places. I sat on the edge of the bed.

“Mrr?” Eddie asked.

“Hang on a second. I’m still trying to figure it out.” I stood, not bothering to stifle a whimpering groan, and hobbled around in a small circle. “Worst is probably the backs of my shoulders,” I said. The trapezius? I tried to remember the diagrams from a high school physiology class. No, that wasn’t right. I reached around with my fingers and tenderly poked at the sore parts. “Latissimus dorsi.” I eyed my cat, wondering if he had a corresponding muscle. If he did, would he be able to water-ski? There’d been that video of a water-skiing squirrel; maybe I could make Eddie famous.

“Mrr,” he said, stretching out a long paw.

“Sorry.” I nodded. “Back to the inventory. Shoulders hurt the most; thighs aren’t far behind. And my neck is stiff, although I’m not sure why.”

Eddie flopped over on his side with a soft thump.

“You’re right,” I agreed. “It probably is from that last time I crashed. I hit the water pretty hard.” I rotated my head around, trying to loosen up the muscles. “And all that crawling around on the floor of Pam’s store, sorting out books, probably didn’t help, either.” Or the sleep I’d lost. But, hey, I was young and relatively fit, and I’d be able to catch up on sleep soon enough. All I needed was a hot shower and breakfast.

Eddie yawned and drew himself into a ball that was half his size, a miracle achieved on a daily basis by cats around the world.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” I told him as I headed toward the bathroom. “It’s a bookmobile day, you know.”

His eyes opened wide.

“Would I mess with you about a thing like that?” I asked. “Yes, I might give you a hard time about your snoring, your tendency to sleep draped across my neck, and your complete disregard of the only ultimate demand I’ve ever had of you—you know, that one about staying off the kitchen counter—but I would never joke with you about the bookmobile.”

“Mrr!”

He jumped off the bed, galloped through the bedroom and up the stairs, and only screeched to a stop when he reached my backpack, upon which he sat upright until it was time to leave.

* * *

The bookmobile day was crowded with patrons who wanted information even more than they wanted books. We were making stops in this part of the county for the first time since Andrea’s murder, and by this time, even the people who eschewed newspapers had heard the news.

But even though the concern about a murder was real, what seemed to be upsetting people the most was the attack on the bookmobile.

“It’s all right, isn’t it?” asked seven-year-old Ethan Engstrom. He looked up at me anxiously, his face full of concern.

I’d met Ethan on the first stop of the bookmobile’s maiden voyage, the one upon which Eddie had been a stowaway. Not wanting word of a cat hair–laden beast to get back to my boss, I’d emptied a storage cabinet and encouraged Eddie to stay inside during the stops.

Young Ethan was curious and helpful, and he’d opened the Eddie cabinet in hopes of finding a place to store the things I’d taken out of Eddie’s cabinet and had to put on the floor. Eddie came out of the closet, and life hadn’t been the same since.

“The bookmobile is fine,” I assured him.

“They didn’t hurt Eddie, did they?” asked Cara, the middle of the three Engstrom girls.

“Eddie was sound asleep in bed,” I told her, smiling. “He wasn’t anywhere near the bookmobile when it happened.”

This, apparently, puzzled Emma, the youngest Engstrom girl. Emma was twin to Ethan. Cara was twins with Patrick, and the oldest of the statistically impossible Engstrom twins were Trevor and Rose, now thirteen. Last year Rose had been going through a princess phase, but she seemed to have grown past that and was now into horses.

Their father, Chad, worked from home designing educational video games, and homeschooled the kids with the help of a retired neighbor who’d once taught high school biology. His wife worked for Tonedagana County as human resources director, and one of these days I hoped to actually meet the woman who’d given birth to such a great collection of intelligent young people.

“Eddie doesn’t sleep here?” Emma asked, frowning.

“Not at night,” I said, because denying that he slept in the bookmobile would be ridiculous. Right that very second, for instance, he was sprawled on the dashboard, overdosing on sunshine. “At night he comes home with me.”

“Oh,” she said, her face drooping.

I felt like a heel. I’d obviously just destroyed one of her illusions. Accidentally, but that didn’t matter. No one should have to suffer the destruction of an illusion without some compensatory relief, so I moved closer to her and whispered, “Do you want to know a secret?”

Her lips curled up in a slow smile. She nodded.

“Eddie knocked over a vase of flowers last night,” I said. “Twice.”

She giggled and slapped her hands over her mouth. “He was a bad kitty?” she asked through her fingers.

“The worst,” I said solemnly. “He didn’t even help clean up the mess afterward.”

“Bad Eddie!” She giggled again.

“Hey, now. No laughing,” her father said, mock sternly. “Not unless you share why you’re laughing.”

I shook my head. “It’s a secret,” I told him.

Still giggling, Emma ran off, singing, “Bad, bad, Eddie. Bad, bad, bad.”

Her father watched her go. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked. “A murder, two break-ins at the library, and now another burglary downtown?” His face was serious now, and it wasn’t a look that sat well on him. “Not that I really think crime in Chilson is going to spread over here, but you have to wonder, especially with six kids in the house.”

“The police are . . .” I sighed. “Are exploring all avenues of investigation.”

Chad squinted at me. “You did not just say that.”

“Sorry.” I half smiled. “Would it help if I told you it was a direct quote from the detective working on the case?”

“A little.” He studied me. “But it would help even more if I knew they were close to figuring out what’s happening.”

“You’re not alone,” I said, and went to help Julia help Trevor find a book that would answer his questions about capacitors and inductors.

* * *

As soon as we got back to Chilson, I hurried through the post-bookmobile routine as quickly as I could, even to the extent of leaving some tasks for the next day. Julia said she’d be willing to work late, but I shooed her off, saying it was too nice a night, and locked all the doors behind us, checking them twice. And then three times.

I dropped Eddie off at the houseboat, sent him an air kiss, then hauled my bicycle out of my storage locker and hurried across town.

The parking lot of the Three Seasons was packed with vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Vans, cars, trucks, and SUVs littered the lot with no regard for where the lines had been painted. Black cables thicker than my wrist snaked across the asphalt, a tripping hazard to the unwary, which explained why the lot’s entrance had been blocked off by bright yellow sawhorses.

I leaned my bike against the restaurant’s white clapboard siding and went inside a way I rarely did: through the front door.

People wandered hither and yon, hauling lights and clipboards and rolls of tape. Most of them were younger than I was and were wearing black pants and black T-shirts, looking extremely serious. I spotted two people I knew and made my way toward them.

“Don’t tell me we’re actually going to finish on time,” said Scruffy Gronkowski.

A wild-haired woman in capris, flip-flops, and a tie-dyed shirt nodded. “If we get this last part in the can in less than two takes, we’ll even be early.”

“Lynn,” Scruffy said, “you are a marvel.”

“Ha. It wasn’t me. It was your girlfriend. You sure she’s never done this before?”

“Far as I know, she didn’t even do high school acting.”

“She tried out for a nun in a production of The Sound of Music,” I said, “but it turned out she can’t sing for beans.”

“Hey, Minnie,” Scruffy said, turning toward me and smiling. “You met Lynn last summer, didn’t you?”

“Over pork tenderloin, if I remember correctly.”

Lynn grinned. “And I’m still grateful that you steered Trock away from changing the menu.” A distant voice called her name, a note of panic clear in the single syllable. “What now?” she asked, rolling her eyes. “See you two later.”

I looked up at Scruffy. “How did it go today?”

He picked a piece of invisible lint off his tailored polo shirt. His nickname hadn’t come about because of reality. “Outstanding. And would you please go tell her so?”

“Pulling a Kristen, is she?”

“Perfection is a worthy goal and all, but it’s also an unattainable one.”

Uh-oh. “Are they done in there?” I tipped my head toward the kitchen.

“If you walk fast, you might catch the last take of the sous chef cutting parsley into perfect tiny squares.”

I blinked. “Harvey’s going to be on TV?”

“Kind of,” Scruffy said. “He froze up if he talked or if the camera was on his face, but he was fine with a hands-only shot.”

The world righted itself. Harvey was a great guy, but if I’d been asked to describe his social skills, I would have backed away from the conversation, pleading a dire emergency somewhere else. Harvey was quiet around men and tongue-tied with women, and the concept of his blossoming in front of a television camera was nearly impossible to comprehend.

I went to the kitchen, where bright lights shone everywhere, highlighting everything to the point that I understood Kristen’s recent obsession with cleanliness.

“And that’s it, Harve,” someone called. “We’re good. Thanks.”

“Okay,” Harvey said, continuing to cut parsley.

“Um, we’re all set, Harvey. You can stop now.”

He shook his head, his attention on what he was doing. “It’s for tonight. Kristen wants all this cut up.”

Grinning, I cut through the back corner of the kitchen. That was Harvey in a nutshell. Who cared if there was a national television show being filmed in the restaurant that day, who cared if his hands were going to be broadcast across the land? What mattered was taking care of what Kristen wanted.

I walked along the wide hallway that led to her office, a little surprised to see that none of the boxes and trays and chairs and general restaurant miscellanea that always littered one side of the passage hadn’t been cleared away. Then again, it was just like Kristen not to change anything for the sake of a TV show. I could almost hear her saying, “They can take me or leave me. I’ll clean, but I’m not about to transform myself. If they don’t like who I really am, they shouldn’t have come here.”

Then I actually did hear her say to someone, “You shouldn’t have come here at all.”

A deep voice rumbled back, “Dear lady, you must not judge yourself. Leave that to me.”

I pushed her office door open wide. “And me. I’ve had lots of experience, you know.”

Kristen and Trock Farrand turned to face me. Kristen’s expression was one I’d seen many times before, one that combined anger at herself with deep despair. Trock, on the other hand, was nothing but smiles.

He lumbered to his feet. “Dearest Minerva! I had hoped to see you this fine day.” He leaned forward in a half bow, reaching out for my hand and lifting it to his lips. Postkiss, he straightened his rotund body and released my hand.

“You missed an exceptional day of filming,” he said grandly. “This will go down in history as the episode of Trock’s Troubles that absolutely cannot be missed. From beginning to end it was perfection. Nothing went wrong. The food was exquisite, and the presentation was superb. Kristen here could take over my job without blinking her deep blue eyes. Which,” he added, beaming, “will show up brilliantly. I ordered as many close-up shots as they could manage.”

“Nothing went wrong?” Kristen asked. “What about the strawberries? There was mold. Mold!” she practically shouted.

I winced, knowing that Harvey, poor soul, would have borne the brunt of her anger.

“Piffle.” Trock waved away the problem. “Easy to drop that on the cutting floor, as it were. My dear, the magic of television has an infinite capacity to show what it wishes to show, and I wish to only show the best.”

“Mold,” she muttered. “I can’t believe it. They were fine this morning.” She sat up straight, her chin lifted. “If you want to cancel airing this show, I’d understand completely. I won’t hold you to the contract.”

“Good gad.” Trock blinked. He turned to me. “Is she serious?”

“As a chocolate soufflé.”

Both Kristen and Trock frowned in my direction. “What’s so serious about a chocolate soufflé?” Kristen asked.

I shrugged. “Didn’t want to say heart attack, and I’ve heard a chocolate soufflé is hard to make. Seriously hard, see?”

The twosome stared at me a moment, then went back to their discussion. “My darling restaurateur,” Trock said, “love of my son’s life and highlight of my own, please believe me when I tell you the finished product will be wonderful.”

Kristen crossed her arms across her chest. “Why should I believe you? You exaggerate from morning to night. You probably talk hyperbole in your dreams.”

Which was most likely true, but there was one difference. “Not this time,” I said.

“How can you possibly say that?” she asked.

“Because he never exaggerates about his show.” She started to object, but I held up my hand. “He may talk on and on about a restaurant he’s featured, and he may wax lyrical about a particular entrée that he made, but he never deviates from the absolute truth about an episode of the show itself.”

Kristen’s mouth opened, then shut. She stared at the ceiling and tapped her fingers together. “You’re right,” she finally said.

“Which means . . .” I held my hands out, palms up.

Her smile became a wide grin. “We’re going to be famous.”

“And rich,” I added. The two looked at me again, and I amended my statement. “Well, maybe not rich rich, but you’re certainly going to the most popular fine-dining establishment in northern lower Michigan for months, if not years.”

“Bubbly!” Trock called out at the top of his robust lungs. “We must have bubbly! Scruffy, where are you, son? Get the glasses. Get the champagne. We need to celebrate.”

Kristen laughed as Trock continued to yodel out commands, and I felt myself grinning like a jack o’-lantern, because there was nothing like a friend’s success to make you feel happy inside.

* * *

“It was horrible,” Holly said the next morning. “Just awful.”

I looked at Josh, who nodded.

“She’s right,” he said. “It was horrible.”

“Scary bad.” Holly shuddered.

“What was his name?” I asked.

“Theodore,” she said dolefully.

“Well, he can’t help the name he was born with,” I said. “And Ted isn’t so bad. I have a neighbor named Ted and he’s—”

But Josh was shaking his head. “He doesn’t go by Ted. It’s Theodore.”

He spoke the syllables in a round, full, sonorous tone, and I got a mental image of what Theodore must look like. Which was ridiculous, because who ever looked like their name?

“Minnie!” Donna hurried into the break room. “Did they tell you?”

“About what?”

“About Thee-o-door,” she said. “He was awful. You can’t let the board choose him as the new director—you just can’t.”

Holly and Josh, when grouped together during the morning break time, had a tendency to exacerbate any given situation. I’d been taking their comments about yesterday’s interviewee with a large grain of salt, and had been thinking about stringing them along with hints that the board had thought highly of Theodore. But if Donna was agreeing with the Dual Voices of Doom, I had to take the situation seriously. “Tell me what happened.”

“Thee-o-dore,” Donna said, “was too friendly.”

“Way too,” Josh said. “The guy was creepy. Pretending like he knew us, calling us by our names even though he’d never met us before.”

Okay, that was weird. It meant the guy had done his homework—there were pictures of the staff on the library’s Web site—but it was weird not to let yourself be introduced first.

“And he kept talking about what he’d like to do here,” Holly burst out.

“What’s so bad about that? Any library director will have goals.”

“You’re not getting it,” Josh said. “He was talking about the changes he was going to make.”

That was different.

“Want to know the first thing he’s going to do?” Holly asked. I didn’t, not really, but short of running out of the room and locking my office door behind me, I wasn’t sure how to avoid hearing. “He wants to get rid of the—”

I steeled myself to hear the word “bookmobile.”

“—sculpture garden.”

My mouth dropped open. The library’s sculpture garden was a labor of love for the entire town. Local artists had submitted designs, school art classes had constructed the pieces, and the installations had been celebrated events attended by hundreds.

“He doesn’t know what it means to Chilson,” I finally said. “That’s all. Once he finds out, he’ll change his mind.”

Josh made a rude noise. “He said it was a waste of maintenance dollars.”

I blinked. Gareth, our maintenance guy and my fellow junk-food maven, loved the sculptures. He took care of them on his own time, saying that it was his civic contribution to Chilson. The sole cost to the library was the occasional bolt or small can of paint, and I wasn’t sure Gareth charged even that to the library.

“And,” Holly ruthlessly went on, “he said it would save money to move the sculptures to commercial venues. That we’d be better off with a bigger parking lot.”

“After that,” Donna said into my look of stunned disbelief, “the next thing he wants is to get rid of all the DVDs. Says they have no place in a library.”

“Are you sure he wasn’t just nervous?” I asked. “That could make anyone act unusually.”

“When he walked out,” Holly said, “he was whistling.”

It was hard to imagine a whistle coming out of someone who was anxious. “What was he whistling?” I asked, still trying to find a way to make excuses for this guy.

“The theme music to that last Superman movie.”

Oh, dear.

“Minnie, you have to apply,” Josh said.

“You mean you haven’t?” Donna practically shrieked. “We need you. Thee-o-dore was horrible. What’s-her-name wasn’t much better. I’m not holding out much hope that the other interviewees will be any improvement.”

“If you love us even a little,” Holly pleaded, “put in your application. You have it ready, don’t you?”

“Apply,” Donna said. “Please?”

It was the question mark at the end that got me. Donna wasn’t big on asking for favors, even when she really needed the help. I needed to tell them what I’d decided, and I needed to stop putting it off.

“Sorry, but I’m not going to,” I said. “If I’m director, I can’t drive the bookmobile, and that’s too important to me.”

There was a long silence.

Holly heaved a huge sigh. “I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.”

“I get it,” Josh said, nodding slowly. “But I’m with Holly. I don’t like it.”

I looked at Donna, who grimaced. “Yeah, yeah,” she said. “Same as those two.”

I smiled, glad to have the bad news delivered and done with. “Don’t look so gloomy. Things will work out.”

“Or not,” Donna muttered, but I chose not to hear her comment, and went back to my office.

* * *

At lunchtime, I pushed back from my computer. I’d been staring at the screen for two hours straight and needed a break. Outside, I looked around, smiling at the high white clouds, blue sky, and sidewalks that were beginning to crowd up with the summer folks. It wouldn’t get avoid-downtown-at-all-costs busy until the Fourth of July, but there was enough foot traffic to make it impossible to walk in a straight line.

I stopped outside Pam’s store and peered in. Her clerk was showing off a collection of antique aprons, and Pam herself was at the register, totting up purchases with one hand faster than I could have with two.

When she finished, I popped my head in the front door and waved at her. When she waved back, I asked. “How about lunch?”

She looked around her store. At least half a dozen customers were milling about, and I moved aside to let two more inside. “How about tomorrow?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Bookmobile day.”

One of the women who’d just walked in whirled around. “You have a bookmobile here? How wonderful!” She elbowed her female companion. “Did you hear that, Susie? They have a bookmobile.”

“That settles it,” Susie said. “I’m moving up here next week.”

I laughed. “Hope you like snow.” I looked back to Pam. “Lunch on Friday? No? Saturday is probably too busy for you. How about . . .” I had plans for Sunday, didn’t I? And it seemed as if I had something on Monday. Tuesday was another bookmobile day, which left—

“How about September?” she asked, laughing.

I smiled at her ruefully. “Sounds about right.”

“We’ll figure out a day soon,” she said. “And I’m paying. I owe you big-time for Sunday—don’t think I’m going to let you forget it. All that work, not to mention the hospital trip.”

Susie and her friend, who were still standing close by, looked at the two of us curiously. “Hospital?” Susie asked. She gestured at Pam’s sling. “That’s recent?”

“Fresh as a daisy,” Pam said. “And it’s all thanks to Minnie here that the store is even open today.”

I could see where this was going, and I didn’t want any part of it. “Nice to meet you,” I said to the two women, “but I hear the library calling.” I smiled and hurried off before I was forced to listen to any of Pam’s tall tales about my good deeds.

Outside, I walked past the insurance agency and the shoe store, pausing only to use a stranger’s cell phone to take a picture of said stranger’s family, all of whom were posing under the new clock. As I handed the phone back and listened to their thanks, I eyed the large store across the street. Speaking of deeds, good and bad, there was Benton’s, the store the DeKeyser family owned. And, I’d recently learned through a text from Rafe, still owned through a granddaughter whose name I’d come up with in a minute.

As I crossed the street, I remembered her name. “Rianne,” I said out loud, and earned a sideways glance from a man wearing shorts, a polo shirt, and deck shoes. “Howe,” I added, nodding.

“How do you do?” he asked pleasantly enough, but he kept to the far side of the sidewalk and didn’t slow down.

Since I’d clearly spent enough time that day making tourists uncomfortable, I opened the store’s front door. Once inside, I stopped and did what I always did when walking into Benton’s: just stood there and breathed deep with my eyes closed.

Instantly I was transported back in time, back to the days of stores with wood floors and tin ceilings, when penny candy was sold from glass jars and herbs could be purchased in bunches that hung from a rack.

I opened my eyes and there it all was, from tin ceiling to wood floor, to candy in a jar and hanging herbs. The penny candy cost more than a penny and the herbs were for decoration only, but still.

A few customers milled about in the housewares section, exclaiming over the glass butter dishes and wire fly swatters, just like grandma’s. A young man about twenty years old was standing behind the wooden counter, bagging up a small collection of toys and candy for a girl half his age. “There you go, miss,” he said, pushing the paper bag toward her outstretched hands. “Would you like help carrying that to your car?”

She giggled. “No, thank you. Bye, Brian. See you next week!” She ran past me, flew out the door, tossed her purchases into the front basket of her bicycle, and was pedaling off in seconds.

“Next week?” I asked, coming up to the counter. “She’s a regular?”

“She’s in here once a week through mid-August,” he said, nodding. “Her family spends the summer up here, and this is allowance day.”

“Which is now all gone?”

He glanced at the cash register. “She has thirty-two cents left.”

“Maybe Cookie Tom will give her a cookie for that much,” I suggested.

“When I did the same thing when I was her age, he’d give me two.” We laughed, and he asked, “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Rianne Howe. Does she have a minute?” I gave him my name.

“Hang on.” He picked up the phone, asked my name, and punched a few sleek buttons. The anachronism of a twenty-first-century telephone in a late-1800s general store bothered me a little, so I averted my eyes and studied the massive brass cash register instead.

“She said come on back.” Brian clunked down the phone and nodded to the rear of the store. “See that curtain? Through there. There’s a door on the right—that’s her office.”

I thanked him and made my way past the shelves of office supplies, then past the T-shirts, work boots, and overalls. I glanced at the far side of the store toward the colorful selection of fabric and kitchen supplies and strong-mindedly marched past the books. I pushed my way through the navy blue burlap curtain panels Brian had indicated and knocked on Rianne’s office door.

“Come on in,” she called.

“Hi,” I said, and stopped short. I’d assumed her office to be one of two things: full of the castoffs from a store that had been in existence for more than a hundred years, or city sleek and modernistic. “Wow. This is . . .”

Rianne grinned. She was probably in her early forties, and her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes attractively. “What do you think?” she asked, pushing her reddish brown hair back behind her ears. “I love hearing people’s first impressions.”

“It’s amazing,” I said, soaking it all in. “And I mean that in the best possible way.”

There were wide windows and wood-paneled walls and a high ceiling made of wood. There were built-in cabinets that looked like they’d been designed by a master, and brass light fixtures that harked back to the days of kerosene lamps. There was a wood floor and scattered area rugs and framed diagrams of Janay Lake and Lake Michigan.

But, above all, there was a massive wood ship’s wheel attached to the front of Rianne’s desk. My hands itched to take hold of one of the spoke handles and give it a spin, but since I was working on being a fully functioning adult, I kept my hands at my sides.

“Did you do this?” I asked.

She shook her head. “The only addition of mine is a dent in the desk when I was five, from riding my tricycle too fast. It was the last Benton to own the store, my great-grandfather, who did all this.”

“By himself?”

“Pretty much, or so the family story goes. He’d wanted to go to sea, but as the only male Benton, he was obligated to take over the store. Back then they ran tabs for people and would sometimes trade. One of their customers paid for a full year of groceries with maple planks cut from trees he’d felled on his land. Great-grandpa sold some, but used the bulk of it for this.” She smiled. “Or so the story goes.”

“You don’t believe the story?”

“In my family, the stories get better with every generation, so it’s hard to know the truth.” She tapped the desk. “Take this, for instance. I grew up hearing it had been given to Great-grandpa by President Roosevelt for saving his life during some hunt.”

“Not true?” I asked.

“When I took over the store, I crawled underneath the desk during a cleaning frenzy and found the manufacturer’s label. Made in 1923.”

“Didn’t Roosevelt die just after World War I?”

“In 1919.”

“Hmm.” I studied the desk. “Who made it? Maybe there was some association with the name.”

“The desk?” She looked at it, too. “Something to do with kitchens. Something Furniture. Pot, pan . . .” She snapped her fingers. “Kettle. Kettle Furniture.”

A report I’d written in sixth grade bounced out of my brain. “Kettle Hill,” I said. “The Spanish-American War. Kettle Hill and San Juan Hill were where the big battles took place.”

She considered the possibility for half a second, then shook her head. “Don’t see it. Thanks for trying, though. By the way, I’m Rianne Howe,” she said, standing up and holding out her hand. “You’re Minnie Hamilton, and I’m not sure why we haven’t met before today.” After we shook, she waved me to a chair. “I love libraries, and I think your bookmobile is the best thing that has happened to this town since Cookie Tom opened up.”

I beamed. “We welcome volunteers on the bookmobile. Julia and Eddie and I love to have new folks along.”

“Sounds like adding one more might make it a little crowded.”

“Well, one of us is a cat. He doesn’t take up too much room.” I thought about what I’d said, then added, “Most of the time, anyway.”

Rianne laughed. “So, what can I do for you? I’d love to make a donation to the library, but I’m still trying to figure out how to make sure this store actually turns a profit.”

“You haven’t been running the store very long?” I asked.

“Technically I took over when Grandpa Cal retired six years ago. I was downstate then, managing some big-box retail stores. No one else wanted to run this place, and I couldn’t stand to see it go out of the family, so I said I’d do it.” She looked around the office, smiling. “But we wanted our youngest to graduate from high school first, so I hired a manager. Then when Brian graduated last June, we started making plans to move up. My husband’s an RN. He got a job with Lake View Medical Care Facility, and here we are.”

It wasn’t an unusual story, but there was one part of it I was curious about. “It seems odd that with seven children and who knows how many grandchildren, you were the only DeKeyser who wanted the store.”

“That’s because you don’t know how much work it is. My grandparents were wonderful people, but one of their strongest beliefs was that a strong work ethic made for strong character.”

“Sounds like my mother,” I murmured.

“Each and every DeKeyser relative,” Rianne said, “worked in this store when they were kids. After school, on weekends, through the summer. Probably half the kids in town worked here, too, but it was the DeKeyser kids who had to work harder and better.” She gave a wry smile. “No nepotism in my family. Raises? Not a chance. Holidays off? Not for a DeKeyser. It was our store, and we have to live up to its reputation.”

“I can see how that would sour you on working here.”

“Yet this is where I want to be,” she said. “I even got a degree in retail management. Go figure.”

“It was your fate,” I said, although I wasn’t certain I believed in fate.

“Maybe.” She looked around the room again. “Though it’s more likely,” she said, half smiling, “that I just want to be able to play with the ship’s wheel every day.”

“Every office should have one,” I said, slipping my hands under my thighs so I didn’t reach out to give it a whirl. “But I’m not here for a donation. If you have a couple of minutes, there are a couple of things I think you should know.”

“Sounds serious.”

I sighed. “Sorry, but yes. I assume you heard about the break-in at Pam Fazio’s store the other night?”

“Horrible thing,” Rianne said. “I would have been over to help, but I was downstate last weekend for a wedding. How is Pam doing?”

“Cranky that she’s going to get weird tan lines with a cast on her arm,” I said. “And it’s the break-in at Pam’s store that got me thinking. I’ve talked to the police, but I’m not sure they’re taking it seriously.”

“Haven’t I heard that you’re dating Ash Wolverson? Isn’t he training to be a detective?”

Sometimes this town was way too small. “Yes, and he’s not sure I’m right about this.”

“About what?” Rianne asked.

“I think everything that has gone on the last couple of weeks is all about books. Or maybe even one book.”

“Not sure I’m catching this,” Rianne said, leaning back in her chair.

Yes, folks, it’s true. Everyone in town thinks Minnie Hamilton is a nutcase. Nevertheless, I forged ahead with my theory. “Your grandmother’s funeral—and I’m so sorry for your loss—was what brought Andrea Vennard to town. That’s when—” I looked at her. “Um, I haven’t figured out the relations, exactly. Was Andrea your cousin?”

“She was a great-niece to Grandma Talia, which made her my . . .” She frowned. “Second cousin? Anyway, I knew her more from school than through family, and even then not very well. She was a few years ahead of me.”

I nodded. “Andrea came north for your grandmother’s funeral and was killed in the library. The Friends of the Library book-sale room was vandalized soon after that. Then the bookmobile was broken into, and Pam’s store was burglarized.” I held up the fingers I’d been using to count. “Four incidents that involved books.”

Rianne looked puzzled. “But there was a lot more damaged in Pam’s place than books.”

“Yes, but when you look at the pictures we took of her store before we started cleaning, you can see that it was the books that were tossed around the most. Nothing was stolen from Pam’s. Not one thing.”

“Huh.” Rianne leaned back a little farther and let out a long, slow breath. “That’s downright weird.”

Hurray! Finally, there was someone who understood my concerns. “So, there are two things I wanted to talk to you about. One, if you could think of any possible link between Andrea and your grandmother, something beyond the normal family connection.”

Rianne’s eyes grew distant as she tried to come up with an idea. When I could see that she was coming up dry, I said, “What about books? Did your grandmother have any valuable books? Or maybe a journal?”

“The only valuable thing my family has ever owned is this store,” Rianne said, glancing around fondly.

Another brilliant idea bites the dust. “If you think of anything, will you let me know?”

She nodded. “Sure. What’s the second thing?”

“If this is all about books, you should be extra careful.” I thumbed toward the front of the store. “You have books, too.”

Rianne blinked, then laughed. “Minnie, I appreciate your concern, but I can’t think that our small selection of paperbacks is going to tempt anyone, no matter what this is all about.”

I’d expected that kind of reaction, but I stuck to my theme. “We don’t know what’s going on. Until this is over, please be extra careful.”

“This one be careful?” A tall man entered Rianne’s office. He wore the unofficial summer uniform for Up North male professionals: khaki pants, a polo shirt, and a blazer. “She hasn’t been careful since the day she was born, and probably was a problem to her mother in utero.”

Rianne rolled her eyes. “So nice to see you, Paul. Minnie, don’t ever hire an attorney who used to babysit you. There’s just no respect in the relationship.”

“From either side,” Paul said. “For example, when her attorney asks her to get together the items listed in her grandmother’s will for distribution to the family, she puts the list who knows where and says she’ll look when she has time.” He spread his hands. “And that will be when? October? Back before Cal died, I went through the house myself to put together the list, so I know there’s not much. Meanwhile, the estate remains unsettled and the papers continue to clutter my desk.”

His tone was jocular, but there was an undertone of annoyance. I stood. “Well, I should get going. Thanks for letting me take so much of your time, Rianne.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “I’m glad you stopped.”

Paul held out a business card. “In case you never need an attorney,” he said. “Any friend of Rianne’s is a future client of mine,” he said, laughing.

I smiled. I already had an attorney, Shannon Hirsch, who’d set up my will and advised me on some estate issues. Shannon had been one of the people who’d answered my call to help set Pam’s store to rights. “Thanks,” I said, taking the card and sliding it deep into my backpack. “You never know, do you?”

He grinned. “Nope. That’s why we have insurance and lawyers. You can’t prepare for everything.”

“Sounds like a tagline,” Rianne said. “All you need is a tune, and you’ll have the best lawyer jingle in the north.” She hummed a nonsense tune.

Paul laughed. “Lawyers don’t do jingles. It’s beneath our dignity.”

“Oh yeah?” Rianne challenged. “Didn’t I see you wearing the ugliest holiday sweater in the history of ugly sweaters?”

“That was twenty years ago.” He dropped into the seat I’d just vacated. “Way past the statute of limitations for embarrassment.”

I nodded my good-byes and walked out. As I made a left turn, back into the store, I heard Rianne say in a low voice, “What’s going on with Aunt Kim—do you know?”

Paul gusted out a sigh. “All I can say is, Bob Parmalee hasn’t been in to see me in months.”

“The rest of the family is saying they’re going bankrupt,” Rianne said in a shaky voice. “I keep wanting to call, but you know how they keep to themselves. They spend more time in Petoskey than they do in Chilson.”

“Almost makes me glad your grandparents are gone,” Paul said. “They would have been devastated about a bankruptcy in the family.”

I eased away, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping—Sorry, Mom. I won’t eavesdrop ever again, but if I do, I promise I’ll feel horrible about it afterward—and walked out into the store.

“All set?”

I looked at Brian Howe, latest in the long line of DeKeyser relatives to spend a summer working in the store. “Yes, thanks,” I said, and headed out into the day.

But as much as the sun and the fresh air tried to distract me from my dark thoughts, on the way back to the library, all I could think about was how money was one of the most common motives for murder.