Cat With a Clue

Chapter 19

I screwed my eyes shut and slapped at the light switch. “Leave him alone!” I shouted, then opened my eyes slowly.

I’d turned on the lights in the hopes that the abrupt glare might give me a slight advantage over Utley, but now that I’d followed through on the idea, I wasn’t sure what I’d really hoped to accomplish, other than showing him how small and unthreatening I really was.

Because much as I wanted to smash into Utley, head down and racing fast in my best imitation of a football player trying to make the tackle of his life, toppling him to the ground and smashing his head on the concrete floor to give him a stunning blow that would render him unconscious long enough for me to grab my cat and run us to safety, I couldn’t risk it, not with that knife being so close to Eddie’s . . . to Eddie . . .

I stood like a lumpy rock on the bottom step, swallowing convulsively, so scared for my cat that I could hardly breathe, trying to come up with more ideas that would get Eddie and me out of this alive and unharmed.

“So, here we are,” Paul Utley said, smiling.

It wasn’t a very nice smile—so wide it somehow reminded me of a snake.

I didn’t care for snakes.

“Yes,” I said. “Here we are.”

“Sorry about your cat.” His smile went a little wider, and my heart clutched until a muffled “Mrr” came from under Utley’s arm, where Eddie was being held in place by a firm elbow. The knife must have been in Utley’s other hand, which was hanging low and slightly behind his back.

By this, I assumed Utley didn’t realize that I knew he was armed. I devoutly hoped this gave me some sort of advantage. Too bad I didn’t know what kind of advantage that might be. But I’d play along, see if I could get him talking, see if I could make this spin out long enough for us to get away.

“You scared me,” I told Utley, “turning off the light. If all you want is that book, why didn’t you just ask?”

Utley studied me. “Are you telling me that you’re willing to sell Wildflowers?”

It wasn’t mine to sell, I wanted to shout. The owner, whomever that might be, was the only one who had the right to make decisions about the book. I’d weep myself to sleep if what the owner wanted to do was slice out pages and sell them piecemeal, but it wasn’t my choice to make.

But instead of saying all that, I smiled. “It’s worth a lot of money.”

Utley continued to study me.

“I’ve checked, you know,” I said. “The last time a copy of Chastain’s book sold publicly, it went for almost half a million dollars. There wasn’t much information about its condition, so we’ll have to assume it was pristine. Now, this one was sitting on a sideboard for a hundred years. Not in direct sunlight, which helped keep it from aging, but it wasn’t in a controlled environment, either.”

“There were undoubtedly private sales of the book,” Utley said, still watching me carefully.

“Oh, sure.” I nodded, then did one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life: started walking straight toward him. “But I don’t know enough about private sales to know if the prices would be higher or lower than a public sale.” I raise my eyebrows. “Do you happen to know?”

“No,” he said, moving his knife hand further behind him.

“That’s too bad.” I kept inching slowly forward. “See, what I’ve been trying to figure out is if it makes more sense to sell the pages individually, or if the whole book should be sold at once. Maximizing its value is key.”

“It appears that you’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this,” Utley said, sounding amused.

You have no idea, I thought grimly. “Well,” I said, “working in a library pays the bills, but it’s no way to really get ahead, if you know what I mean.”

Utley grunted. “A lot like being a small-town lawyer, then. Unfortunately, my wife doesn’t understand there aren’t many multimillion-dollar class-action suits running around Tonedagana County. The money this book could bring would solve all my problems.”

It burned me that he was blaming his wife for his own greed, but I pushed that away and stepped even closer. “Say, do you mind letting my cat go?”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Utley’s smile made my insides clench. “I need some insurance, right, kitty?” He jostled Eddie, and grinned at the low growl. “Kitty needs a little work on her manners.”

I willed Eddie to stay quiet and still. “She’s a he,” I said. “And he still has his claws, so be careful.”

Utley chuckled. Clearly, he didn’t have cats. “Kitty and I are just fine. Aren’t we, kitty?” He jostled Eddie again, who gave a drawn-out hiss. “Now, Minnie, you and I need to get down to business. First off, I have to see the book.”

“Great idea. It’s back there.” I gestured at the back room.

“Excellent.” Utley smiled, and I really wished he hadn’t. “Why don’t you go and get it?”

How stupid did he think I was? If I went first, as soon as I laid hands on Wildflowers, he’d stab me in the back with that scary knife, I’d fall to the floor dead, he’d grab the book, and he’d hightail it out of the museum.

“Sure,” I said, starting to edge past him. “It’s right on top, and—”

“What’s the matter?”

“Look out!” I shouted, pointing behind him.

When Utley instinctively turned his head to see what I was shouting about, his attention was off me, and that was all I needed.

I gave him a stiff two-armed push with all my weight and all my might, and hooked my foot around his ankles, just like I’d been taught in the self-defense class I’d taken last summer.

“Hey!” He flailed his arms, dropping Eddie to the ground.

“Mrr!”

Eddie bolted away.

The knife flashed bright.

I kicked at Utley, aiming for his soft private parts, and he went down hard.

The sharp blade spun away across the floor, and I scrambled over the top of the fallen man, trying to get to the knife, sorry that Plan A hadn’t come together, hoping I’d know what to do with the knife if I got hold of it, knowing that Utley could ruin Plan B by getting to it first. Reaching, clawing, grabbing, praying . . .

“Police!” thundered a large voice. “Get your hands away from that weapon!”

A uniformed city police officer, Joel Stowkowski, the wonderful man who’d told me that no one was going to “get away with breaking into our library,” came down the steps two at a time.

Utley, who was lying flat on his stomach, arm stretching out long for the knife, turned his head. “Officer,” he said, putting on an awkward smile, “this is all a big mistake. I can explain everything.”

“Don’t move,” Joel ordered. As he pulled his handcuffs off his utility belt he glanced over at me. “You all right?”

I nodded a little tentatively, then, when that didn’t seem to set off any fireworks, nodded again with more certainty and slowly got to my feet.

“Need an ambulance?”

I shook my head. “I’m fine.” Which wasn’t the literal truth, since I felt banged-up and grimy, but I would feel much better after a long, hot shower.

Joel ratcheted the handcuffs into place, read Utley his rights, and spoke into his shoulder microphone.

“What took you so long, anyway?” I asked.

“You were doing such a fine job,” Joel said, ignoring the quaver in my voice and hauling a protesting Paul Utley to his feet, “that I didn’t want to interrupt. I saw and heard more than enough to put this guy away. You barely needed my help at all, seems like.”

In the distance, I heard police sirens approaching, and even though Utley was already incapacitated and unlikely to cause anyone any physical harm ever again, the sweet sound let me breathe easier.

The tips of two cat ears popped up from behind a box. “Mrr?”

“Of course, I see you had some help.” Joel pushed Utley toward the stairs. “Well done, Eddie.”

I reached out to pull my cat close and covered his ears. “Don’t let him hear that—it’ll swell up his head even bigger.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said. He put up a token struggle, but then let me hug him tight and kiss the top of his head.

“Mrr to you, too, pal,” I whispered. “Over and over and over again.”

* * *

“You did what?” Kristen asked loudly.

It was the next day. It was still hot, and we were sitting on Rafe’s shaded front porch, catching the breeze off Janay Lake. We’d started out on the marina’s concrete patio, but Rafe had called us over, served us cans of soda, and then took off to play golf with some college buddies.

Chilson, on a hot Sunday afternoon in early July, was drowsy with sleep. The weekend tourists had already left, and everyone else was doing their best to avoid getting hot and sweaty. Well, except Rafe and his friends. I leaned back in his chair and propped my feet up on his porch rail, wondering what it was about men that made them do such things.

“You really ran straight toward a guy holding a knife?” Kristen glared at me. “And don’t use that self-defense-class excuse. How could you do such a stupid thing?”

“It wasn’t as dumb as it sounds,” I said, trying not to sound defensive.

“Yeah? How?”

“Lots of reasons.” I could see her mouth start to open, so I jumped in before she could get going. “When I’d gone upstairs to the front door, I’d propped it wide open. In summer, a Chilson police officer makes a walking round of downtown every hour on the hour. With the door open and the light on in the basement, I knew someone would be coming soon.” To forestall Kristen’s next objection, I added, “And I knew it would be less than an hour, because I could see the time on that downtown clock.”

“That’s one,” Kristen growled.

“Another reason rushing Utley wasn’t as stupid as it sounds is that I’d been watching him closely. His grip on the knife was loose, and I was sure I could knock it out of his hand without too much trouble.” Pretty sure, anyway.

“That’s not lots.” Kristen held up her index finger and her middle finger in what I had a feeling wasn’t the V-for-victory salute. “That’s two, and the second one was marginal at best. To reach the ‘lots’ quantity, you need at least four reasons. Give me two more.”

“Okay, how about this: I’m so short it would have taken so long for the knife’s blade to reach me that I could have grabbed Eddie, found the book, and ran to the police station before the downward stroke even started.”

Kristen frowned at me fiercely. “One more answer like that, and I’ll call your mother and tell her what you did last night.”

And she would, too. “How about this? I was so angry that I’d become invulnerable. Nothing short of kryptonite would have hurt a hair on my head.”

“Three.” Kristen snapped up another finger. “And that reason wasn’t much better. The last one better be bulletproof.”

I looked through the leaves of the big maple tree that stood outside Rafe’s house and over at the marina, where I could just see the back end of my houseboat. “Maybe this won’t fight the stupidity allegation,” I said quietly, “but I had to get Eddie away from Paul Utley. At least, I had to try.”

Kristen studied me for an eternal moment, then sighed and got to her feet. “Okay. You got me on that one. Be right back.”

She went inside, and, closing my eyes, I slouched down in the chair.

It had, after all, been a long night. After Paul Utley had been hauled away in the back of a police cruiser, the city police chief had shown up. He’d taken one look at me and at the mess in the museum’s basement, and after I’d made it partway through my explanation of the evening’s events, he’d held up his hand and called the sheriff’s office.

Since I’d known Detective Inwood and Ash were out of town, I wasn’t surprised when the sheriff herself walked in. Sheriff Richardson gave the room and its contents—human, feline, and inanimate—one sweeping glance and said, “Go home and get some sleep. Inwood and Wolverson will be back tomorrow morning. Stop by at ten and we’ll take your statement.”

She’d crouched in front of the occupied cat carrier, reached through the wires to give Eddie a chin scratch, stood, given us a collective nod, and left.

I’d woken Sunday morning to a cat wrapped around the top of my head and a ringing cell phone. Ash, on his way back north, was calling to make sure I was all right. Groggily, I’d said I was fine, and we’d met at the Round Table in time for a quick breakfast before the ten-o’clock meeting at the sheriff’s office.

He’d apologized for not calling me back. “It was part of the training,” he’d said. “I didn’t know until we got there, and I’m sorry about that, but it was what they call an immersion training session. We had to hand over our cell phones when we checked in.”

My mouth was full of French toast, so I couldn’t say anything, but he nodded. “Yeah, I know. I should have called right then and said I’d be out of touch. I really am sorry.”

And, since it was obvious that he was indeed sorry, I’d smiled and forgiven him.

Now I yawned comfortably. My feet were in the sunshine, staying nice and warm, the rest of me was in the shade, staying cool, and Andrea’s killer was in jail. And while waiting for the sheriff the night before, I’d opened one last box and, lo and behold, there was the DeKeysers’ copy of Chastain’s Wildflowers, right on top.

The book was currently in the sheriff’s evidence lockup, where it would stay until the ownership question was solved. Sheriff Richardson had contacted Paul Utley’s partner, who would now be handling Talia DeKeyser’s estate. After recovering from the shock of discovering that his partner had been arrested for murder, he had been, according to the sheriff, flabbergasted to hear that the DeKeysers had owned such a valuable book. The attorney would be contacting the estate’s heirs and it would be interesting to hear who would wind up as the book’s official owner.

Considering the book’s value, there would inevitably be a legal wrangle, but since that didn’t have anything to do with me, I didn’t have to think about it at all.

What Sheriff Richardson had told me was that the local DeKeysers she’d spoken with had gone very quiet when Andrea’s attempted theft was described. “I think Leslie, the oldest daughter, was crying when she got off the phone,” the sheriff had said. “That family sticks together. At least they used to.”

The other thing the sheriff and Detective Inwood had said was that Monica Utley claimed to have absolutely no knowledge of her husband’s activities. Inwood thought Monica was in it up to her teeth; the sheriff disagreed, and it would be interesting to see which one of them was right.

I was glad, however, to have the question of the X-Acto knife answered. Paul Utley, who, as an attorney, should have known better than to talk without representation present, had told Detective Inwood that he’d met Andrea at the library to look for the book together. They’d gotten into a heated argument about when he’d divorce Monica, during which he’d strangled Andrea and then stabbed her with her own X-Acto knife in a fit of rage.

I sank deeper into the chair and sighed. All this, for the sake of money? A life ended, other lives ruined, for what? A new boat? A new car every couple of years? I didn’t understand and didn’t want to. Even thinking about it was making me tired and sick at heart.

My eyes fluttered open at the sound of Rafe’s front door shutting. That noise was accompanied by the tinkle of glassware and I sat up. “What’s that?” I asked.

Kristen set down a pitcher filled with a heavily ice-cubed pink concoction and handed me a glass. “It’s medicinal. Drink up.”

“Alcoholic?”

“Just the right amount. Cheers.”

We tinked the rims of our glasses and drank. At first sip, the sweetness made me shudder, but the second sip went down easier. “This isn’t half bad,” I said.

“You don’t tend bar in Key West and learn nothing. So, what else had happened since I saw you last? Have you saved any small children from drowning? Fended off a nuclear holocaust?”

“I met Bianca Sims.”

Kristen’s eyebrows went sky-high. “Mitchell’s girlfriend? How did that go?”

It had been at the Round Table that morning. Bianca, in real-estate agent mode, had been meeting with clients. I’d waited until they’d left, then slid into her booth and introduced myself.

“It’s weird,” I told Kristen, “but I think it’s going to work out.”

“Hang on. You mean . . . ?” She couldn’t say the word.

“Marriage?” I smiled. “Probably too soon to say, but she really seems to love him. Loves him just the way he is, and wishes he’d stop trying to impress her with all his hard work. She figures it’s just a phase and hopes he’ll go back to being the normal Mitchell soon, because that’s the man she fell in love with.”

“‘Weird’ is right,” Kristen said.

I nodded. “Speaking of love interests, what’s the news from Scruffy? Has he asked you to marry him lately?”

“Actually, no, and it’s a big relief.” But she glanced at the empty ring finger of her left hand as she spoke. I started drafting a mental note to text Scruffy that progress was being made, when Kristen asked, “What about you and Ash?”

I blinked. “What about us?”

“Any chance of wedding bells? You’ve been seeing him for a while now. You must have a good idea of what’s possible.”

“We’ve only been going out for a few weeks.” I shifted my feet, realizing that if I didn’t move them out of the sun soon, I’d end up with a very strange-looking case of sunburn. “It’s too early to say.”

“Sure,” Kristen said.

I checked her expression for sarcasm, but couldn’t detect anything overt. “It’s too early,” I repeated. “But at breakfast, we were talking about skiing this winter.”

“A week out West?” Kristen rotated her glass, making the ice cubes clink.

“What? Oh. No, we were talking about our favorite places to ski up here.” I watched her ice cubes go round and round. “Speaking of ski places, when I was talking to Bianca, I found out how the rumor about Kim and Bob Parmalee going bankrupt got started.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“They have a condo in Colorado. Breckenridge. When their kids were young, they used to spend a lot of family time out there, skiing. Now that the kids are grown and gone, they’re selling it and buying a couple weeks in a time-share instead.”

“Gossip,” Kristen said, rolling her eyes. “The whole bowl contains one grain of truth, but which grain is it?”

“Speaking of gossip, I have a question.”

“And I might possibly have an answer. What’s up?”

“Dana Coburn. Why haven’t I met her before now? I would have thought a kid like that would practically live at the library.”

Kristen looked out at the sparkling waters of Janay Lake, then back at me. “You liked her?”

“I’m annoyed it’s taken me this long to meet her. She’s obviously smart to the genius level, she’s personable, she’s . . .” I stopped, frowning. “What’s so funny?”

“Peas in a pod,” she said, still laughing. “I should have known you two would get along.”

“I’m no genius.”

“No, but I’ll lay down money that you and Dana have more in common than you have differences.”

“Not if she’s not visiting the library.”

Kristen gave me a speculative look. “I kind of don’t want to tell you why.”

“Then don’t.” I slid my toes back into the sunshine. “Especially if it’s gossip, because we know how true that’s likely to be.”

“Not gossip,” Kristen said vaguely. “It’s just, well, Dana has this bizarre condition. She can’t stand being touched. She freaks out if anyone other than her mom or dad touches her, and even that she doesn’t like much.”

“Oh. That’s . . .” I searched for a word, but couldn’t find the right one.

“Horrible,” Kristen supplied.

It wasn’t quite right, but it would have to do.

“Anyway,” she went on, “that’s why she’s being homeschooled, and that’s why she doesn’t go out in public much. Even accidental touches can . . . well, let’s just say it’s not good. If she’s willing to talk to you, that’s great. I’m sure her mom was all over it.”

“She was,” I said, remembering Jenny’s grateful tone and eagerness to have me stop back at the house. Any time, she’d said. An exaggeration, of course, but still. “I like her,” I said. “Dana, I mean.”

Kristen sent me a lazy thumbs-up. “Excellent. You can’t have too many friends.”

We sat for a while, chatting about this and that, me suffering the occasional pointed comment about running headlong into danger every time it came near, her taking my abuse that her perfectionist ways were going to shorten her life by decades, both of us guessing Rafe’s golf score for the day, both of us guessing in the hundreds and laughing ourselves silly.

It was a fine way to spend a hot Sunday afternoon, but eventually, when the pink pitcher was nearly empty and the sun was starting its slide down the far side of the sky, Kristen looked at me. “Is it tomorrow you’ll hear about your new boss?”

“Yup.”

“Do you know what’s going to happen?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Are you going to guess?”

I made a face. “There’s enough of that going around without me joining in.”

She sighed and poured the last of the pink concoction into my glass. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

I grinned. “Have I ever not?”

“Well,” Kristen said, flopping back in her chair, “there was that once. The summer when we were fourteen, remember? When you thought Robby Teller was going to be the love of your life forever and you wrote letters telling him so.”

I did, and the memory still made me squirm, which was why she’d brought it up. “I’m really, really glad he moved to Hawaii.”

“Didn’t you hear?” Kristen peered at me through half-closed eyes. “He’s in town for a family reunion.”

My eyes went wide with horror and my mouth dropped open.

“Gotcha,” my best friend said. “You are so gullible.”

I took a long drink of pink as I tried to plan an appropriate method of revenge.

“You know what?” she asked.

“What?”

“I’m glad you didn’t get sliced up with a big, long, scary knife,” Kristen said softly.

“Yeah,” I said just as softly. “I know.”