Cat With a Clue

Chapter 2

I called 911 straightaway, and the first police officer on the scene was from the Chilson Police Department. He took one look and called the police chief. When the police chief arrived, he took a slightly longer look, then called for the next level up, the Tonedagana County Sheriff’s Department.

“We don’t have the staff or the training for a full-out murder investigation,” the city’s police chief said as we were waiting outside. “To tell you the truth, I’m happy to hand something like this over. Make one mistake and you can get a case tossed out of court. And the paperwork?” He shook his gray-haired head. “Inwood’s free to take this one, with my blessing.”

“Thanks so much.” Detective Inwood said.

How long he’d been standing behind us, I didn’t know. A gift for invisible lurking was probably an asset in his profession, but it creeped me out.

“Ms. Hamilton,” Inwood said, nodding. “You called this in, I hear?”

The detective and I had met a number of times, and while our working relationship had occasionally been strained, we were reaching a point where we could converse without me wanting to yell at him for being narrow-minded. Likewise, he hadn’t called me interfering in weeks. This was all very nice, because Ash, my new boyfriend, was standing next to and slightly behind Detective Inwood at what appeared to be the regulation distance for a deputy who was training to be a detective.

“That’s right,” I said.

Inwood looked at the police chief. “Have you identified the body?”

“Andrea Vennard,” he said. “Found her purse. Driver’s license says she lives downstate. Brighton.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “You want me to notify the relatives, Hal?”

“I’ll take care of it.” Inwood tipped his head in the direction of the library. “Ms. Hamilton, we’re going to have to—”

“I know,” I said hurriedly, not wanting to hear any details. “The whole library is a crime scene, and we won’t be able to open to the public until it’s been . . . cleared out.”

He nodded. “We’ll let you know when you can open.” He shook hands with the chief, opened the library’s front door, and stepped inside.

The police chief glanced my way. “Let me know if I can help, Ms. Hamilton,” he said, and returned to his vehicle.

For a moment, all was quiet. Birds chirped, leaves stirred in a slight breeze, and the sun shone down. It was June in northern lower Michigan, and it was a beautiful day.

“You okay?” Ash stepped close, his handsome square-jawed face frowning with concern.

Of course I wasn’t. I’d just seen a murdered woman on the floor of my library. And, once I’d called 911, it hadn’t felt right to leave her alone, so I’d had time to think about things far more than I’d wanted to, which included wondering how she’d gotten into the locked library. Then I’d wondered how the killer had managed to enter the locked library. This had been followed by the stark realization that the killer might possibly still be in the building, and I’d done the remainder of my waiting outside. On the sidewalk. Next to the street.

“I’m fine,” I said, summoning a smile. “Only, can I use my office? Now, I mean.”

He glanced at the door. “Let me check. I’ll be right back.”

My hand itched for my cell phone, but I’d left it in my office that morning, years ago, before I’d found Andrea. I’d called 911 from the reference desk.

For the moment, there was absolutely nothing I could do, so I sat on a nearby bench and did exactly that. Of course, now that I was sitting, all I could think about was that knife sticking out of that poor woman’s back and the puddle of red that—

“Minnie?” Ash was standing in front of me. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Fine,” I said as I jerked open my eyes. Far better to see the good-looking male specimen in front of me than recall the morning’s earlier sight. “Did you ask about getting into my office? I need to make phone calls.”

“You’re good to go.” He held out his hand and helped me to my feet. “But you’ll have to stay in there until we’re done.”

I held on to his hand for a moment, welcoming the warmth of his skin. He reached out and gave me a half hug with his other arm. My cheek mushed uncomfortably against his badge, but I didn’t mind. “Thanks,” I said, smiling a little as he released me. “I needed that.”

He gave the top of my head a quick kiss. “I did, too,” he said. “Just don’t tell the boss.”

“Detective Inwood or Sheriff Richardson?”

Though he’d half smiled when I said the detective’s name, he blanched when I mentioned the sheriff. “Not her,” he said. “Anyone but her.”

I almost laughed. Kit Richardson was fiftyish and formidable, and everyone except me seemed to be scared of her. Which wasn’t a bad attribute for a sheriff to have, I supposed, but somehow the fear hadn’t made its way to me. “She’s not as scary as you think she is,” I said.

Ash made a fast move and opened the front door for me. “Don’t see how that’s possible,” he said. When we were inside, he turned the dead bolt. “The techs will be here soon. I’ll let you know when we’re done.”

I started to ask how long that might be, but stopped myself. They’d get done when they were finished, and that was all I truly needed to know. “Thanks.” I kept my gaze away from what I knew still lay in the library, and walked purposefully to my office.

Stephen was gone. There was no library director. It was up to me to do what needed to be done.

So I went to do it.

* * *

Three hours later, I’d talked to the library’s board of directors and the entire library staff, touched base with a couple of the major donors, and told the newspaper and both the local television news programs that we were “deeply saddened, and have complete confidence that the sheriff’s office will bring the murderer to justice soon.”

I leaned back in my chair, thinking. Just as I was coming to the internal conclusion that there was no one else I needed to talk to, the phone rang.

For a moment, I debated letting it go into voice mail. For another moment, I wished the library’s budget stretched to caller identification. Then, since I could almost see my mother frowning at me, arms crossed and foot tapping, I reached for the receiver and picked it up. “Chilson District Library. This is Minnie speaking.”

“And you were going to call me when?” a severe female voice asked.

I flopped back into my chair, pulled out a low desk drawer, and put my feet up. “Why didn’t you call my cell if you were so eager to talk?”

“Did,” Kristen said. “A zillion times.”

“It’s so refreshing to talk to someone who never exaggerates.”

“And it’s so nice to know that I’m last on the list of people you’ll call in an emergency.”

“Not last,” I corrected. “That would be my mom.” Because as much as I loved my mother, she wasn’t much help in a crisis. She was great at hugs and sympathetic tears and cooking up comfort food, but for straight-out practical help, not so much.

“True enough.”

I heard a muted thumping noise and knew Kristen was in her restaurant’s kitchen, chopping up who knew what for lunch. Kristen had a PhD in biochemistry and had once worked for a major pharmaceutical company, but she’d chucked it all to come home to Chilson and run a restaurant that specialized in serving locally grown foods.

During the restaurant’s conception stages, she’d been pulling out her long—and straight—blond hair over the lack of local fresh foods available in winter. I’d suggested that since she hated snow anyway, to just close the place in winter. This had given the place its name, Three Seasons, and given Kristen an opportunity to spend the cold, snowy months in Key West, where she did some bartending on the weekends and as little as possible during the week.

“So,” she said now, “are you okay? I heard you fainted dead away when you found the body.”

Frowning, I sat up a little. “Who told you that?”

More thumping noises. “Can’t say. Promised Rafe I wouldn’t tell.”

I slid back down. “Rafe’s making it up.”

“Well, duh. So. Are you okay?”

“Haven’t had time to think about it, really, but—” The library’s other phone line started beeping. “Hang on. There’s another call coming in.” I put Kristen on hold. “Good morning. Chilson District Library.”

“Is it true?” a familiar male voice asked.

“Hang on,” I said, and punched out a sequence of buttons. “Conference call,” I told them. “And Rafe Niswander, I have never fainted in my life.”

“You told her,” he said to Kristen.

“Of course I did. You knew I would.”

“Well, yeah, but you promised.”

I didn’t have to see the six-foot-tall Kristen to know she was rolling her eyes.

“Promises from a girl to a boy don’t have any power over confidences between girls,” she said. “You should know that by now.”

“In theory, yes. It’s reality I have a hard time with.”

Rafe wasn’t the only one having a hard time with reality. I blinked away the memory of what I’d seen that morning and tried to focus on the present. “Sorry—did someone ask a question?”

“For the billionth time, I asked if you’re okay,” Kristen said. “I mean, now that you’ve had time to think about it and all.”

Yes, the last minute of my life had been very meditative. I half smiled, which I knew had been her intention. “I’ll feel better when the police figure out who did this.”

But how had it been done? Detective Inwood had already been in my office, asking about the maintenance schedule (five p.m. to one a.m., five nights a week) and the library’s security system (doors that were securely locked every night). I’d passed on the phone number of Gareth Dibona, our custodian and maintenance guy, and Inwood told me that Gareth had said he hadn’t seen anyone in the building after closing time and that he’d locked up as usual. To Detective Inwood, I’d confirmed that I’d had to unlock when I’d arrived that morning.

The detective’s eyebrows had gone up when I’d told him about the locked doors as security, and I’d felt compelled to explain that a full-fledged security system had been part of the renovation plan, but increased construction costs had made cuts necessary.

If the library ever received the large bequest we’d been promised in the will of the late Stan Larabee, a security system would be installed lickety-split, but the will was being contested by numerous family members and it was a toss-up if we’d ever receive anything.

“No fainting, then?” Rafe asked.

“You sound disappointed,” I said. “Did you bet anyone on it?” Rafe and I had a longstanding practice of making five-dollar bets on everything from which snowflake would make it to the ground first to what year Thomas Jefferson was born.

“Well, it would make a better story,” he said. “You fainting, your knight in shining armor rushing to the rescue, dampening your brow with love-struck kisses, you blinking to life and—”

Kristen made a rude noise. “Have you been watching the Hallmark channel again?”

“Hey, no making fun of Jane Seymour. She’s hot.”

This was undeniably true. And now that I was being reassured that I had good friends who cared about me—even if they were moving on to a discussion of how all actors on the CW network looked alike—I was indeed feeling okay. Or at least a lot better than I had been.

“Thanks for calling, you two,” I said into the middle of a mild argument regarding a plot point of Arrow. “But I need to get going.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Kristen asked.

“She’s fine,” Rafe said, and somehow his saying so made me feel stronger. Of course, that could have been because I wanted to prove him so very wrong about the fainting thing. He could be such a putz.

“Do you think . . .” Kristen paused.

“Let the woman go,” Rafe said. “You heard her: She has things to do. Places to go. People to see. All sorts of—”

“Do I think what?” I interrupted. Rafe would go on like that for hours otherwise.

“That having the library be the place where someone was murdered will be a problem?”

“Not really. Ash figures they’ll be done soon.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Kristen said. “What if the murder hurts the library’s reputation? What if people don’t want to come to a place where someone was killed? I mean, this is safe little Chilson, where nothing bad ever happens, but now . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“It’ll be fine,” Rafe said, but this time his assurance didn’t instill me with confidence. Because Kristen was right, and I was suddenly frightened for my library.

There was a quiet cough. Detective Inwood was standing just outside my office doorway. “Ms. Hamilton? I have questions about library procedures.”

I nodded. “It’ll be fine,” I told my friends, then hung up, hoping it was true.

* * *

It didn’t take long to answer the detective’s questions, and soon after that, he told me I was free to open the building.

“There’s limited value,” he said, “to a deep crime-scene investigation in such a public space.”

I nodded. Evidence that Suspect A had been in the library wouldn’t prove anything unless Suspect A tried to claim that he (or she) had never been in the place, and what was the point of saying you’d never been in a public building?

“You have a bit of a mess over there.” Inwood gestured toward the nonfiction section. “If your maintenance staff is like most, they won’t have any idea how to clean it up.”

“Clean what up?”

“Fingerprint powder. It’s extremely fine-grained,” he said. “I’d vacuum as much as you can, but that won’t get all of it. Try putting a little liquid dishwashing soap into a spray bottle with warm water for what the vacuum doesn’t pick up.”

“Thanks so much,” I said, but I wasn’t sure my sarcasm showed enough, because Inwood said, “You’re welcome,” and then, “Deputy Wolverson will notify you when the victim’s family has been contacted. At that point you can give out Ms. Vennard’s name. I’ll call if I have any questions.”

He strode off. Ash, who’d been standing nearby, sent me a smile that made me go a little mushy inside, then followed him.

When they were gone, I was the only one left in the library. This wasn’t unusual either early in the morning or late at night, but I couldn’t think of a circumstance in which I’d ever been the only person in the library at one in the afternoon.

It was just too weird for words.

I wandered out to the reference desk, picked up the phone to call our maintenance guy, then put the receiver down. Gareth didn’t start work for a few hours. If I asked him to come in now, he would, but it would result in overtime pay, and that particular part of the budget was tight after the recent repairs and cleanup expenses from a big storm.

Happily married and older than me by well over a decade, Gareth was a solidly good guy. We’d become friends soon after I’d moved to Chilson when, during a summer festival, we’d looked up from the opposite ends of a picnic table to see the other eating an identical, horribly delicious junk-food dinner of corn dogs, elephant ears, and cotton candy.

We’d made a pact not to tell a soul—especially Gareth’s nutritionally minded wife and my budding restaurateur of a best friend—and ever since, we’d traded recommendations for restaurants with the best fried food.

So, budget in mind, instead of Gareth, I called Holly Terpening, one of the library’s clerks and my good friend. As I waited for her to pick up, I couldn’t help myself; I glanced over to where I’d found poor Andrea.

“Oh no,” I breathed.

“Minnie?” Holly asked. “Is that you? Are you okay?”

“Fine. Sorry. It’s just . . . I’ve been given the all clear to open the building, so come on in. And, Holly?” I tried not to wince at the vast amounts of fine black powder that covered the bookshelves. “If you have a couple of spare spray bottles, please bring them.”

I made three similar phone calls, then, before anyone else arrived, I jogged upstairs to Stephen’s former office for the mat he’d used for his winter boots. Its black rubber didn’t exactly match the medium gray tweediness of the downstairs carpeting, but it would cover that stomach-lurching dark red stain until I could get some carpet guys in.

Half an hour later, Holly, Donna, Kelsey, and I had managed to clean up the worst of the powdery mess. Josh, our IT guy, another good friend of mine, had volunteered to work the front desk while the women did the dirty work.

“I’m not very good at cleaning,” he said, sidling away.

“Just like a man,” Kelsey called after him.

“Just trying to get to the coffeemaker before you do,” he said, and he slid out of sight.

“He has a point,” Holly said, and Donna and I agreed. Kelsey had a tendency to make coffee strong enough to rule the world and, though I always made the first pot of the morning, every one after that was a race of sorts.

“Someday,” the thirtyish Kelsey said airily, “you young things will grow to appreciate the virtues of real coffee.”

Donna, a seventy-year-old marathoner and snowshoer, said, “Real coffee? The only good coffee is coffee that’s laden with cream and sugar.” Kelsey gave what didn’t appear to be a mock shudder, and we all laughed.

The chatter went on as the cleaning continued, and I knew we were trying not to think about what had happened in that spot a few hours earlier. Maybe we were being shallow and callous, and almost certainly we were being inappropriate, but I was starting to understand why law-enforcement officers joked at crime scenes. There was only so much sorrow you could let yourself feel before it consumed you; humor was a method of keeping the pain at bay.

“I think we’ve got it, ladies,” I said, stepping back and looking over our work. Though, if I looked hard, I could see minute traces of fine black powder in some crevices, we’d cleaned every surface that anyone would touch and we’d made sure the books were spick-and-span. We wouldn’t pass the white-glove test, but, then, a library rarely did. “Thanks so much for helping.”

Donna and Kelsey murmured that it was no problem, and Holly rolled her eyes. “Don’t be such a twinkle toes. Of course we’d help.”

I squinted at her as the other women went to put away the cleaning supplies. “Twinkle toes?”

She grinned. “It’s Wilson’s new phrase.”

Wilson was her eight-year-old son. Her daughter, Anna, was six, and though Holly’s husband, Brian, was currently working out West, all seemed well with the Terpening household. “Where did that come from?”

“Twinkle toes?” Holly shrugged as we walked toward the main desk. “Your guess is as good as mine.” She lightly elbowed me. “Would you look at that?” She nodded toward the stocky thirtyish Josh. “Who knew he was such an excellent desk clerk?”

Josh slid her a look that could kill. The two had recently been at odds over what he saw as interference on her part regarding the decorating of his first house purchase. Josh had ostentatiously ignored each and every one of her suggestions; then, at his housewarming, she’d discovered that the small home was decorated precisely as she’d recommended.

He’d found the whole episode tremendously funny. Though Holly had been thrilled at how well her ideas had turned out, she’d also been annoyed at Josh’s game playing. That had been a few weeks ago, and their respective feathers were only now smoothing down. Now, instead of listening to them go at it like brother and sister, I sent up a very shiny distraction.

“They’re talking about setting up the interviews,” I said.

Both their heads whipped around.

“They?” Josh asked. “You mean the library board?”

“For Stephen’s job?” Holly inched toward me and looked around. No one was close by, but she lowered her voice to ask, “When’s your interview?”

“Yeah,” Josh said, nodding. “You need to tell us so we can help you prepare. I’ll be the board chair.” He dropped his voice an octave. “Ms. Hamilton, please tell us what you think qualifies you for this position.”

Holly crouched down about five inches to mimic my height. She twirled her straight brown hair and said in a voice startlingly like mine, “Mr. Chairman, I worked under Stephen Rangel for four years, and I’m quite sure that anyone smarter than a box fan would be more qualified than he was.”

“Yes, I see what you mean,” Josh said in his chairman’s voice. “Still, we would like to hear specifics about your credentials.”

Holly, still crouching, said, “As you can see from my resume—”

“No, they can’t.”

My friends stopped their playacting. “What do you mean?” Holly asked, standing up and narrowing her eyes.

“Well,” I said, inching away, “I haven’t actually applied for the job.”

“What?”

“Shhh,” I told them, making shushing gestures with my hands. “This is a library. No loud exclamations of surprise allowed.”

“Don’t care,” Josh said. “Why haven’t you applied? What have you been doing the past month?”

“Minnie, you have to apply,” Holly almost wailed. “Who knows what we’ll get if you don’t. Didn’t Stephen practically promise you the job?”

What Stephen had told me was that he was grooming me to be his eventual successor. But that had been before his departure had been accelerated by multiple years. “The library board,” I said, “hires the director, not Stephen. Besides, I’m not sure I want the job.”

Holly pointed her index finger straight at me. “You’re the obvious choice. Don’t mess this up, Minnie.”

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Get to work on your application, or we’ll fill it out for you.”

Holly’s face brightened. “That’s a great idea! I bet we could write up a better one for Minnie than Minnie would.”

“And we’d do a lot better job on her resume, too.” Josh started laughing. “She’d be all accurate about every single freaking thing. No one does that.”

“When you’re done,” I said, “let me know. I’ll have it bound and shelved in the fiction section.” I gave them a bright smile and headed to my office.

* * *

Instead of going home to the marina after work, I walked to the boardinghouse of my aunt Frances. She was sitting on the front porch’s swing and spied me as I turned the last corner.

“Minnie!” She jumped off the white-slatted swing, letting it bounce up and down in its chains. Down the creaky wooden steps she hurtled, then ran the last yards toward me with arms flung open wide.

I braced myself for a jarring thud, but she gently enfolded me in her embrace and, once again, I knew how lucky I was that my father had such a wonderful older sister. Not only had she invited a young Minnie to spend her summers in Chilson, where I’d met Kristen and Rafe and many others, but she still welcomed me back to her home every fall when it got too cold on the houseboat. Come spring, of course, she kicked me out, but I was happy enough to move.

Not that I disliked the people who replaced me; I always liked them very much. No, it was more that I would have been a fifth wheel to the summer boarders and might have messed up my aunt’s careful calculations. This was because, though my aunt’s summer guests didn’t know it, they’d been selected based on compatibility with another guest.

Yes, Aunt Frances was a secret matchmaker, and in all the years she’d been setting people up, she’d never had a flat-out failure. Sometimes the people intended for each other rearranged themselves, but everyone had always ended up happy.

This year, however, was turning out a little different. For the first time since my uncle Everett had died, decades ago, Aunt Frances had a love interest of her own. She and her new across-the-street neighbor, Otto Bingham, had been smiling into each others’ eyes for months now, and I was wondering how that would affect the summer matchmaking.

She gave one last squeeze and released me. “I’m so glad you called this morning. Right after we talked, the phone calls started rolling in, asking if I’d heard the horrible news, if you’d been hurt badly, if I’d heard that you captured a killer.”

Which was why I’d called her. The speed of light had nothing on the speed of gossip, and I’d wanted to give my aunt a heads-up before it hit her full force.

“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s awful that someone was killed, but I’m sure the sheriff’s office will make an arrest soon.”

“I hope so,” she said, turning and linking her arm with mine. Though this was a little awkward for both of us, since I was half a foot shorter than my angular aunt, it wasn’t far to the front porch and the side-by-side companionship was welcome.

We climbed the wide front steps and went inside, the screen door banging gently behind us, and plonked ourselves down in the large living room, a space that oozed relaxation.

The massive fieldstone fireplace hinted that comfy fires and marshmallow toasting were in the near future. Regional maps tacked onto the pine-paneled walls whispered tales of upcoming adventures. A bookshelf stacked with decks of cards and board games ensured that boredom was never possible, and the couches and chairs were populated with cushy pillows and cozy blankets, all promising the ease of a long nap.

Through an open doorway, the dining room was laid with dishes for the upcoming dinner, and beyond that, a screened porch looked out into a backyard so filled with trees, you could imagine that you were in a treehouse.

Something tapped me lightly on the shin. I jerked out of my reverie and looked around. Aunt Frances was sitting diagonal to me, her foot still extended from the kick.

“Sorry,” I said. “Did you ask me something?”

“How you were doing,” she said, her eyebrows raised. “Preoccupied, clearly.”

“Oh, it wasn’t . . .” I stopped. Yes, I’d been thinking about how much I loved this house, but that had undoubtedly been avoidance behavior. I didn’t want to think about the murder. Didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t want to speculate about it, and certainly didn’t want to relive the morning. “I’ll be okay,” I said eventually. “It’ll take a while, but I’ll be fine.”

My aunt scrutinized me, then nodded. “You’ll tell me if you’re having problems.”

“Promise,” I said. “And I’ll tell my mom about it, too. Just as soon as the police put the killer in jail.”

Aunt Frances grinned. She’d known my mom longer than I had and knew how over-the-top her reaction would be. “Sounds like a plan.”

“So.” I slid down on the couch and put my feet up on the coffee table. “How are the summer romances going?” I looked around. “And where is everybody?” I settled down for a long chat, but there was no response from the only blood relative I had within three hundred miles. I asked the question a second time.

“Hmm?” was the response.

“Boarders,” I said a little louder. “Where are they?”

“Oh.” My aunt blinked out of her trance. I’d noted the direction of her gaze, which was fastened upon a book sitting on the corner of the coffee table. Titled Ice Caves of Leelanau County, it was filled with fascinating photos of Lake Michigan ice formations. It had been a Christmas gift to her from Otto. “The boarders are fine,” she said. “Victoria and Welles are on a day trip to Mackinac Island.”

The first time Victoria—widowed, almost seventy, a grandmother of five, and a retired registered nurse—had met Welles, divorced and recently retired from dentistry, romantic sparks had flown high into the sky. Their match was almost guaranteed. I moved on.

“Eva and Forrest?” I asked. They were the young ones, at forty-five and forty-two, respectively. Both were long divorced, both were teachers, neither had children, and both were huge fans of mountain biking. They’d vowed to bike every single mile of trail in the region before they left in August. In the three days they’d been north, they’d already biked a hundred of those miles, so I had full belief that they’d reach their goal.

“Eva?” My aunt’s gaze wandered back to the book. “Forrest. They went down to Bellaire, if I remember correctly. Glacial Hills—is that right?”

It was. “How about Liz and Morris?” I prompted.

They were my favorite intended couple. At fifty-seven years old, Liz was taking a “summer sabbatical” from her life. An extremely successful sales representative for a clothing manufacturer, she’d woken up one morning and been too exhausted to drag herself out of bed. She needed a rest, her doctor had told her, so here she was, not resting all that much, but having a wonderful time.

Her intended match, Morris, was a little different. At fifty-three, Morris was a middle-aged man who’d for years slid from one job to another without a specific career goal in mind. He made a lot of friends but not much money, at least until one of his buddies introduced him to a guy who know a guy who produced voice-over advertising. Morris’s voice was now ubiquitous on radio and television, and he’d made enough money in five years to take a nice, long break.

The two of them had been the summer’s first arrivals at the boardinghouse and, from the second day, had been inseparable. They were spending a lot of time on the multitude of beaches on the many area lakes and had started a blog about their observations.

“Liz and Morris.” My aunt sounded puzzled. “Liz and . . . oh yes.” She smiled. “They’ve gone to a beach.”

I did an internal eye roll. “The matches are going well this summer?”

“Mmm.” She thought a moment. “Well enough, I suppose.”

I peered at her. If I didn’t know better, I would have said she didn’t care about the matchmaking results. Which was odd, because making sure her pairs paired up properly had been the focus of her summers for umpteen years. “Are you feeling okay?” I asked.

“What?” She blinked again. “I’m fine. What makes you think there’s something wrong?”

I held up my index finger. “For one thing—”

She laughed and got to her feet. “Out, favorite niece.” Since I was her only niece, this meant nothing, but hearing her say so still made me feel warm and fuzzy. “Or stay for dinner,” she said, “but you’ll have to eat all your vegetables.”

“Got to go,” I said, jumping up. “Eddie is waiting, and you know how he can get. I’ll see you later.”

I was halfway to the door when Aunt Frances said, “Minnie, I’m sorry about the woman who was killed, but . . .” Her voice caught on itself. “But I’m really glad it wasn’t you.”

Turning back, I gave her a quick, hard hug. “Me, too,” I whispered.

* * *

“What do you think?” I held out a forkful of shrimp pad Thai.

Eddie, sitting across from me, with his chin almost resting on the houseboat’s compact dining table, sniffed at the food, then blew out a quick breath and disappeared. A second later, I heard his feet thump-thump to the floor.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “A little too spicy.” But since this was the only food I had available, other than cold cereal, I forked it in, anyway, alternating bites of pad Thai with swallows of milk. “The take-out place has a new cook,” I said. “I’ll have to be careful next time I order.”

My cat was supremely uninterested in my culinary concerns. He was far more interested in planning his jump to the boat’s dashboard, where he would have an excellent view of the seagulls wheeling about over the lake’s waving waters.

Janay Lake, twenty miles long, was connected to the mass of Lake Michigan by a narrow channel that was just out of sight. Chilson had come into being because back in the mid-to-late 1800s, it had been a transportation hub for logging, favored both for its natural harbor and for the railroad that skimmed around the north shore.

“Did you know that Alfred Chilson was the first postmaster?” I asked Eddie. “That’s where the town got its name.”

Eddie didn’t seem to care about this, either. His body made a long arc in the air and he hit the deck.

“Need something to do?” I asked, getting up from the dining booth. After leaving Aunt Frances, I’d gone back to the library and worked a little longer. By the time I was done, it was far too late to cook anything—how unexpected!—so I’d picked up dinner at the local Chinese-Thai place and patted myself on the back for supporting the local economy.

I ran the water warm and started washing my minimalist dishes. “It was a little creepy,” I said, “being in the library when everyone was gone.” I’d jumped every time the ventilation system had kicked in. “I ended up locking my office door. I felt silly, but you won’t tell anyone, will you?”

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

“And if I’m jumpy about being in the library, I bet other people will be, too.” And that couldn’t be allowed to happen. Libraries were safe places. Havens. Harbors. Refuges. Places to learn. Repositories of knowledge. Locations of possible wisdom. Knowing that the Chilson library—my library—had been violated was an affront to everything I believed in.

Right then and there, I vowed to do whatever I could to help the police find Andrea’s killer and to repair any and all damage to my library’s reputation.

“Mrr.”

That time his voice sounded a little too close. I turned.

“Hey!” I flicked soap suds at him. “Get off the counter! You know that’s not allowed, at least not when I’m home. What are you thinking?”

“Mrr.” He chin-rubbed the corner of the knife block—which had been a joke gift from Kristen, because she’d put bookmarks into the slots instead of the utensils for which it had been designed—one more time and jumped off the countertop.

“Cats,” I muttered, or tried to, because a yawn interrupted the single syllable, turning it into something that sounded more like, “Caaa.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said from the top of the short flight of stairs that led to the bedroom.

“Hold your little kitty horses,” I said. “Humans brush their teeth before going to bed.” I’d heard of people brushing the teeth of their pets, but unless Eddie developed a health problem that threatened to shorten his life, I wasn’t ready to try.

In short order, I was sliding between the sheets. “What do you think?” I asked. Eddie was walking around me, clearly trying to decide which of my body parts he wanted to cut off the circulation to the most. “Jane Austen, Tess Gerritsen, or L. A. Meyer?”

He flopped down on the bed, rested his chin on my right hip, and started purring.

“You know,” I said through another yawn, “you could be right. It would probably fall on my face, smashing some pages in the process, and that’s never—”

Eddie reached out and put his front paw across my lips.

“Eww.” I turned my head. “I know where that paw has been.”

“Mrr,” he said firmly.

“Fine.” I turned off the light and rolled onto my side. Eddie restarted his purr and, despite the morning’s event, I fell into a dreamless sleep.