Cat With a Clue

Chapter 16

The next morning, I wasn’t so sure.

Yes, maybe Talia DeKeyser, in her last months of living in the family home, had given away a book about flowers to the little girl next door who had a penchant for picking the things, but what proof did I have?

None whatsoever.

And how seriously would Detective Inwood take this if I toddled down to the sheriff’s office and insisted on talking to him face-to-face since he hadn’t yet bothered to return my phone call?

Not at all.

Which meant that instead of turning my suspicions over to Inwood or Ash, who also hadn’t called back, I flexed my research muscles—I am librarian, hear me type into a search engine!—and thanks to the parcel-search function on the county’s Web site, within minutes, I’d tracked down the name and mailing address of the people who owned the property next to the DeKeysers.

“Nathan and Chandra Wunsch,” I said out loud. The last name wasn’t familiar and it was too early to call my local sources. It wasn’t even eight o’clock; Kristen would be sleeping for another hour, as would Rafe, who slept deep and late the couple of weeks after school was done for the summer. It was tempting to call Rafe anyway, just to annoy him, but he’d be groggy and uncooperative, and any information he gave me would be suspect.

So I pulled the phone book out of the back of my bottom drawer and flipped through the flimsy pages. The names went from Wunderlich to Wyant, no Wunsch in sight. No landline, then.

I looked up and down the column of small print, hoping that maybe the phone book people had made an alphabetizing mistake, but saw nothing helpful.

After uttering a short curse, I tossed the book into the spot from whence it came. Lunch. I’d walk over to the Wunsches’ house during lunch.

* * *

It didn’t happen, of course. By the time I caught up on e-mails, the phone calls started, and by the time I finished with those, there were more e-mails to answer. Lunch came, and only the fact that Donna called back to ask if I wanted an order from the Round Table kept me from going hungry.

It was midafternoon by the time I’d taken care of the library’s immediate needs. I got up, stretched, and, since it was in the neighborhood of the traditional three-o’clock break time, I grabbed my coffee mug and headed for the break room. Huddled together at the table were Holly, Josh, and Kelsey.

I was about to make a comment about an unholy triumvirate when Holly whirled around. “Oh, it’s you,” she said.

This was a little deflating, and I was about to say so, but Josh spoke first.

“If they hire a jerk, it’ll be your fault.”

I blinked at the fierceness of his tone. “‘They’ being who, exactly?”

Holly blew out an exasperated sigh. “The library board, doofus. If we end up with that Jennifer Walker as our boss, I’m dead meat. She hated me on sight—I could see it.”

I frowned, not remembering if Jennifer had been the one Eddie had deposited his stomach contents onto, or if she’d been the one I hadn’t met due to being out on the bookmobile. “What was Jennifer like?”

“She was wearing city clothes,” Kelsey said. “All sleek and shiny.”

The one who’d been Eddified.

Josh got up and started making a pot of decaf. “And if they hire Theodore, I’m giving my two weeks’ notice. No way am I going to work for some guy who thinks he knows everything about IT. He was giving me pointers on how to store data on the cloud. Did I ask for advice? No. But he wanted to give it, so I had to listen.”

My coworkers continued to vent their anxieties, ranging from Josh’s concern that a new director wouldn’t want to fund his full-time IT position, to Holly’s fear that a new boss would move everybody to part-time, to Kelsey’s worry that the most recent hires would be considered unnecessary.

As they talked, I recognized a common theme: all three were afraid of change. It was natural and to be expected, and it was why they’d wanted me to apply for the position. But change was inevitable, and they had to be prepared.

When I told them as much, I received a universally sour expression.

“Don’t want to,” Josh said.

“We wouldn’t have to change if you’d applied,” Holly added.

“Just think,” Kelsey said morosely. “The next director might be worse than Stephen.”

And with that encouraging sentiment ringing in my ears, I headed back to my office.

* * *

Hours later, I walked up the steps to the front porch of the house owned by Nathan and Chandra Wunsch. The porch floor’s wooden boards had been replaced by composite, one of those materials that didn’t have to be painted and wouldn’t need to be replaced for a thousand years.

Rafe railed against the stuff being installed on period homes, saying it was nothing but plastic, that if you didn’t have time to take care of real wood then you shouldn’t buy a period house in the first place. He had a point, but he was so emphatic about it that I’d been compelled to poke at him with a sharp-ended conversational stick. “Okay, but don’t people have the right to do what they want with their own house?”

“Not if what they want to do is stupid,” he’d said.

This had sent us into a long debate about who got to decide what was stupid—Rafe saying that he should be the ultimate arbiter of any stupidity issue, me saying that no man who ever climbed an extension ladder carrying a sixteen-inch chainsaw should be able to judge someone’s stupidity level—and we’d ended up playing rock, paper, scissors for the final decision. He’d tried to cheat, of course, by using the world-destroying-meteor option to win, something I’d banned from the game the year before, so we’d called it a draw.

Remembering all that, I was smiling when I used the lion’s-head knocker to rap on the front door.

It opened immediately, and the little girl I’d seen playing in the garden a few nights before looked up at me. She pushed her long sandy blond hair back behind her ears and said, “I saw someone on the porch and my mommy told me to answer the door. She’s in the kitchen stirring something.”

“Macey?” her mother called. “Who is it?”

The girl squinted at me, then over her shoulder, yelled, “I’m not sure!”

It was so like what I would have done at her age that I almost laughed out loud. “Here,” I said, digging into my backpack for a business card. “Take this to your mommy.”

“Okay.” Macey left me standing in the doorway and scampered back to the kitchen.

There was a murmur of voices, the rattle of pots and pans, and a woman a few years older than me, with hair even curlier than mine, came out of the kitchen and through the living room, drying her hands on a small towel as she walked. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Chandra Wunsch. Sorry, but we don’t get to the library much.”

“Hi,” I said. “And I’m sorry to barge in like this, but I have a quick nonlibrary question for you.”

Macey appeared and tugged at her mother’s elbow. “Mommy,” she whispered. “I think this is Miss Minnie. She drives the bookmobile.”

Chandra looked down at her daughter. “She does?” She looked back at me. “You do?”

I nodded. “Two or three times a week.”

Macey tugged again. “She has a cat.”

Her mother put an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “How nice. But the cat isn’t on the bookmobile.”

“Yes, it is,” Macey said. “His name is Eddie and he makes a noise like this: mrr!”

The kid had it down. She must have been in the second-grade class that had toured the bookmobile a couple of months ago. It had been a fun afternoon, and I’d already decided to do it again in the fall with other elementary schools.

“The bookmobile has a cat?” Chandra looked at me questioningly, and I sketched out the story of Eddie and the bookmobile. “How fun,” she said, laughing. “Almost makes me wish we lived outside of town so we could visit the bookmobile.”

I told her the bookmobile’s schedule was on the library’s Web site and that we’d be happy to see them at any stop. “But I didn’t stop by this evening on account of the library,” I said. “This has to do with the DeKeysers.”

Chandra glanced toward the DeKeyser’s house. “Macey, honey,” she said, “I need you to set the table.”

“But, Mommy—”

“Now, please,” Chandra said firmly. She bent to kiss the top of her daughter’s head. “And I’ll be checking to make sure you got it right.”

“How long do I have?” Macey started walking backward.

Chandra looked at her watch. “Six and a half minutes.”

Macey whirled and ran to the kitchen. “Ticktock, ticktock,” she sang to herself. “Ticktock.”

Her mother smiled after her, then faced me. “So. You’re here about Deke and Talia? I was sorry to hear about Talia’s passing, but . . .” She sighed.

I nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. Death was always a loss, but when tied with a person whose memories had long since gone, the loss wasn’t quite so bitter. “It’s Talia I’m wondering about,” I said. “In her last years, she’d given away many of her possessions, and I wondered if she’d happened to give anything to your family.”

Chandra frowned. “The daughters put her in Lake View because of that, but if you ask me, Talia had every right to give her things away.”

“Even if they were family heirlooms?” I asked. “Things that had been in the family for decades, handed down across the generations?”

“Well . . .” Chandra glanced around her, seeing an antique clock, a framed embroidery sampler, a brass umbrella stand, clearly remembering where they’d come from, who they’d come from, and who she was already intending to give them to when the time came.

“Specifically,” I said, “what I’m wondering about is a book. I’ve been told there was a stack of children’s books on the sideboard in their dining room. There was a book on wildflowers in there, too.”

Chandra’s frown cleared. “Oh, those!” She laughed. “Talia came over last fall and gave them to Macey. They sat on that table over there, but no one ever looked at them.”

I glanced at the table, but it was bare of books. “Do you still have them?” I asked. The question came out as a creaky squeak.

“Gave them away,” Chandra said, casually. “No point in keeping things around that you don’t use, right?”

“Where did you take them?” My words came out so fast they almost ran into each other.

She shrugged. “I could see that some of them were old, so a few weeks ago I dropped them off at the museum.”

* * *

I walked downtown, barely knowing where I was, and certainly not thinking about where I was going, because how could I think about that when I’d just been handed a wonderful answer?

The museum. Chastain’s Wildflowers was in the museum. What a perfect place for it to be. How appropriate! Only, what was the best thing to do with the information? Should I tell the police? Tell the family?

Thinking, I paused in front of Pam Fazio’s store. It was past closing time, but she was in the front window doing something creatively cool to the display. I knocked on the glass, and she pointed to the front door. “It’s unlocked,” she mouthed.

I poked my head inside. “Don’t want to interrupt. I just wondered how you’re doing.”

“As good as can be expected.” She adjusted the propeller of a large wooden model airplane and grimaced. “If I used my broken arm less, I’d be better off, but who has time?”

I nodded at the plane. “That’s really cool. Where did it come from?”

“Walked in the door just last week,” she said. “Closed on a deal for a bunch of fun stuff from . . . Oh, I think you saw me with Kim a while back at Cookie Tom’s, standing in line like the rest of the unwashed masses while you sailed to the front.”

I ignored the good-natured gibe. “Kim?” I asked.

“Kim Parmalee. She and Bob are selling off a slew of things,” Pam said, studying the arrangement.

Yet more evidence that Kim not-a-DeKeyser-anymore Parmalee and her husband were in financial trouble. I murmured good-bye and was out on the sidewalk when things finally went click in my head. The woman I’d seen with Pam was the same woman I’d seen at the bookstore, which was the same woman I’d seen at City Park Grill, arguing with her husband, Bob, about a six-figure sum. The sale price of their house? The size of their debt?

I scuffed along the sidewalk, deep in thought. . . . And suddenly there was Ash’s mother, Lindsey, closing the front door of a wine shop and turning my way. Tonight she wore a simple midnight blue sheath dress, low heels, and a golden necklace hammered thin and wide.

She looked stupendous.

For a short second, I was tempted to dash into whatever store was closest and hide until she passed by, but I shoved away the temptation and said, “Hi, Lindsey. How are you this evening?”

“Ah. Hello, Minnie.” She gave me a quick up-and-down glance, taking in my plain pants, my sensible shoes, my uninteresting shirt, and equally uninteresting jacket. I saw, suddenly and clearly, that though my clothes were eminently suitable for life in the library, they were dead boring.

And, just like that, I went from being the intelligent, competent professional that I was ninety-nine percent of the time to a mumbling preadolescent who knew she would stay an ugly duckling the rest of her life and never come close to being as self-assured as the woman in front of me. “You . . . I–I mean . . . it’s j-just . . .” I sighed and gave up.

Lindsey looked at me. Like I was a germ under a microscope. Or a specimen in a bottle of that stinky formaldehyde. I started to shrink, shoulders sagging, head bowing, but something in me reared up. Yes, Ash’s mom was beautiful and capable and successful and tall, and I was just a short librarian, but that was no reason for her to look down on me.

I lifted my chin and met her gaze straight on. And, after a moment, she smiled.

“It’s time for me to apologize,” she said. “I should have realized what had happened and I am truly sorry I let this go on for so long.”

At some point this conversation would start making sense. “Let what go on?”

“When Ash introduced us at the Round Table, I could tell you were nervous about meeting me. I should have been more understanding. Instead, I went all proper and uptight and made you even more anxious.”

“Well,” I said, “I have to confess that I didn’t expect Ash’s mom to look like she stepped out of a Nordstrom catalog.”

Lindsey laughed. “It’s a hard thing, being a woman, isn’t it? We want to look good, but when we succeed, we can end up intimidating more than impressing.”

“You were trying to impress me?” My eyes went wide.

“Good heavens, of course I was. Ash has talked about you for weeks. I couldn’t possibly meet you wearing old jeans and a T-shirt.”

“Wow. I had no idea.”

“How could you? And then Ash was called away and we were left with each other, and I still felt the need to make a good impression. Which was when you started tripping over your words.”

I thought back. “I did, didn’t I? It’s something I do when I’m . . .” I grinned. “When I’m nervous.”

She nodded. “You weren’t making fun of Ash; you were simply nervous.”

“Making fun?” I stared at her, aghast. “No! Of course not!” No wonder she’d frozen me out—she’d thought I was mocking her son, who had had a severe stutter as a kid. “I’d never do a thing like that.”

“I know that now,” she said. “And that’s why I’m apologizing.” She stuck out her hand. “Friends?”

Smiling, I shook. “Friends.” After the ritual was complete, I asked, “What are you doing in Chilson this fine evening?”

“Working.” She made a face. “You’d have thought financial consultants wouldn’t need to make house calls.”

“Someone win the lottery?”

Lindsey started to say something, then changed it to, “Everyone’s financial situation is different.”

Which was a lot like what Tolstoy had written in Anna Karenina. “‘All happy families are alike,’” I quoted. “‘Each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’”

Lindsey’s eyebrows went up. “That’s what Monica said, not ten minutes ago.”

“Monica?” My brain twitched. It was a Monica Utley who’d switched her stint in the book-sale room with Andrea right before she’d been killed. “Is this the same Monica who volunteers at the library?”

“I couldn’t say.” Lindsey looked at her watch. “And I’m sorry to interrupt our chat, but there’s a roast in the slow cooker at home that’s going to be overdone if I don’t get there soon. Have a good night, Minnie.”

She turned away and I reached into my backpack for my phone. “Aunt Frances? Quick question: Do you know Monica Utley?”

“Not very well,” my aunt said. “She grew up downstate. Met her husband in college—he’s from Chilson—and they moved up here after they got married.”

“What’s her husband’s name?” I was gripping the phone so tight that my hand hurt. “Do you know?”

“Paul. He’s a lawyer.”

“Do you happen to know where they live?”

“In that big pale yellow house a block or so from downtown. At least they do for now,” she said wryly. “I hear they’re having troubles of some sort. Why?”

“Thanks,” I said, and thumbed off the phone as a car with tinted windows drove past.

Slowly.

The skin at the back of my neck prickled unpleasantly. Was someone following me?

“Don’t be stupid,” I told myself, but all the way home, I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure I was alone.