Cat With A Clue

Chapter 3

The next morning was a bookmobile day—or, more accurately, thanks to my current schedule, a bookmobile three-quarters of a day—and I shut myself up in my office to steam through as much work as I could before hightailing it for Tonedagana County’s lake-strewn, rolling countryside. I even filled my favorite Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services coffee mug with Kelsey Coffee rather than waiting for a fresh pot to brew.

“Brave woman,” Josh said, as I headed back to my computer. “Are you brave enough to send your director application to the board?”

“Working on it,” I said over my shoulder. Sort of.

Back at my desk, I had just set my hands to the keyboard when my phone rang. I was tempted to ignore it. There were few phone calls I got these days that lasted less than fifteen minutes, and time was a-wasting, but my politeness reflex kicked in (thanks so much, Mom) and I picked up the receiver.

“Ms. Hamilton?” asked a warm male voice.

I leaned back, smiling. “Deputy Wolverson. How may I help you this morning?”

“I’m feeling stressed and overworked,” he said. “No, hang on. It’s you that’s feeling stressed and overworked, isn’t it? Either way, I think it would benefit both of us to take the day off and do as little as possible.”

Since I could hear office noises in his background, I knew he was at work and wasn’t about to run off into the sunset with me, but the idea was interesting. “Sounds good,” I said. “How about I pick you up in the bookmobile in two hours? No one will know that I’m not making my appointed rounds.”

“Isn’t that the post office?”

“We have a lot in common.”

He laughed. “I bet you go out in weather the mail carriers wouldn’t touch. But believe it or not, I didn’t call to entice you into an unplanned play day.”

“Well, rats. I’d already shut down my computer,” I said, expecting him to laugh again, and was surprised when he didn’t.

“Sorry.” His voice was sliding into formal cop mode. This was not a deeper voice, but was slower, measured, with sentences that were simple and direct. I’d been told that he’d had a severe stuttering issue as a kid, but I’d never detected a trace of it. “The city police chief,” he said, “has contacted Andrea Vennard’s family. Her name is being released to the press.”

My emotions sagged. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem.”

“Does this mean I’m free to talk about this?”

“Sure,” he said.

I perked up a little; I’d detected a definite move out of cop speak. “Do you have any idea what happened?”

“Minnie . . .”

“I know, I know. You can’t talk about an active investigation.” I thought a moment. “How about this: Is it safe to be alone in the library late at night?” It hadn’t been until last night, when I was working late, that I’d thought about the bad guy coming back. Something else I wasn’t going to tell my mother.

“Safe?” he repeated. “Is anywhere truly safe?”

“Ash . . .”

“I know,” he said. “Most people are good folks, and I shouldn’t assume that bad guys lurk behind every corner.”

It was a conversation that, in the short time we’d been together, we’d already had multiple times.

“Exactly,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean the bad guys aren’t out there,” he pointed out.

“But it also means the vast majority of the corners don’t have bad guys anywhere close by.”

Ash was silent for moment, then said, “But there was a bad guy, Minnie. And he was in your library.”

Yes, he had been. And how icky did that make me feel? Very. “I know.”

After a few beats, he said, “Take care, Minnie. You set for tomorrow morning?”

“Bright and early. And, Ash? Thanks for caring.”

“No problem, ma’am,” he said. “You have a good day, now.”

Smiling, I hung up the phone and picked up my empty coffee mug. How I’d managed to down a full mug of Kelsey’s brew in such a short time, I wasn’t sure.

Holly was in the break room, opening up a plastic tub. “Leftovers from the last day of school,” she said. “Have at it.”

I peered in and pulled out the smallest brownie. Holly’s treats were the stuff of legend, and it wouldn’t do to offend the creator. “Ash called,” I said, after swallowing the chocolatey goodness. “They’re releasing the name of the woman who was killed.”

Holly sat heavily. “I don’t like to think that someone was murdered in our library.”

Neither did I, but we had to move on. “The police are working hard to find the killer. I’m sure it will all be over soon.”

“Will it?” Holly’s face turned to mine. “Will it, really?”

No, and we both knew it. I couldn’t conceive of a time when I wouldn’t look at that aisle of bookshelves and not be reminded of what I’d seen. We would always remember what had happened, and it would always be a part of the library’s history.

I gave her a vague half nod, half head shake, and said, “Her name was Andrea Vennard. She was from downstate. Brighton, I think.”

“No, she wasn’t.”

Holly and I looked up to see Donna walking into the room.

“Andrea was from here,” she went on. “She may have lived downstate, but she was born in Chilson, grew up here, and graduated from Chilson High School.”

“Never heard of her,” Holly said. “Or the name Vennard.”

Donna went to the coffeepot and held it poised over her mug. “Who made this?”

“Josh,” I told her.

She nodded and filled her mug. “Vennard was her married name, though she got divorced a number of years ago. She was a Wiley.”

“No kidding.” Holly sat back. “Why didn’t I know her?”

“Older than you by ten years, I’d say.” Donna shrugged. “And she was Bob’s daughter.”

“Bob, not Rob?”

The two of them dropped deep into a discussion of Chilson genealogy and, within seconds, since I hadn’t grown up in Chilson or been provided with visual aids, I was totally lost. Which was okay, because it was relaxing, in a way, to lean against the counter and let the conversation wash over me. Normal. Everyday. Typical. For a couple more minutes, I could stand here and think about nothing while—

“Wiley,” I said, cutting into something Donna was saying.

Donna glanced at Holly, then at me. “What about them?”

“If Andrea was a Wiley, was she related to the DeKeysers?” I asked, remembering Talia DeKeyser’s obituary.

“Hmm, let me think.” Donna frowned and stared at the ceiling. “Yes,” she finally said. “She must have been a great-niece of Talia’s.”

She went off into an explanation, but this time I wasn’t even trying to pay attention, because my brain was too busy thinking, connecting A to B.

Andrea Vennard lived downstate.

She was a great-niece of Talia DeKeyser.

Talia DeKeyser had recently passed away.

Andrea had, most probably, returned to Chilson for her aunt’s funeral.

So . . . what? Nothing, really, was the conclusion I reached as I reached for another brownie. Because none of those facts answered the question of why Andrea had been in my library.

I waved at Donna and Holly, but they barely noticed my leave-taking. As I walked back to my office, my brain was already on the things I had to finish before the bookmobile could back out of its garage, so when a large voice called my name, I jumped high enough to slop coffee over the side of my mug and onto the tile floor.

“Oh, geez, Minnie, sorry about that. Here, hang on.” Mitchell Koyne, when standing, was well over a foot taller than my five feet. On his knees, using a grimy handkerchief to mop my spill, he was all arms and legs and awkwardness.

Mitchell was my age, but as far as I knew, he’d never held the same job for longer than six months. He bounced from summer construction labor to ski-lift operator to hauling firewood to plowing snow. Last year he’d started his own investigation business, but he’d never had a client and was still living in the attic apartment of his sister’s house. He was clueless about almost everything, so totally clueless that it was easy to dismiss him as an Up North hick who’d never set foot in a real city.

But the thing was, Mitchell was smart. Extremely smart. In his untucked flannel shirt, ratty baseball cap, worn sneakers, and unshaven face, Mitchell would spend hours in the library, reading books and magazines, and I’d once watched him read an encyclopedia. Why he didn’t translate some of that knowledge into useful skills, I did not know.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Checking out books?”

“Not a chance,” I said. “Your overdue fine is still the highest in the library’s history, and just because Stephen’s gone doesn’t mean I’m going to let you start checking out books until your account is down to zero.”

“Doesn’t hurt a guy to ask,” he said, grinning.

“But it’s not even close to noon.” I tipped my head in the direction of the wall clock. “You’re never here before noon. Ever.”

“Yeah.” He took off his baseball hat, scratched his head, and put the hat back on. His hair, I noted, had been cut recently, which was unusual. Mitchell would go for months without a haircut; then he’d go to the barber and get it buzzed close to his skull. Neither the long hair nor the buzz was a good look for him, and it was interesting that his habits were changing.

Very interesting.

“So, Minnie,” he said, “I got a question for you.”

I made a come-along gesture and started walking again. Mitchell’s long legs took two strides to every three of mine. “What’s your question?” I asked. “But, just so you know ahead of time, I can’t say anything about yesterday morning.” More like “didn’t want to” than “couldn’t,” but Mitchell didn’t need to know that.

“Huh?” He peered down at me. “Oh, right. That Andrea Wiley got killed, didn’t she? No, it’s not about that.”

I breathed a small sigh of relief. In the past, Mitchell had tried his best to insert himself into police investigations; that he wasn’t inclined to do so now could only be a good thing.

“It’s about Bianca,” Mitchell said.

Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so horrible if Mitchell could be distracted by a murder investigation. Because if his girlfriend had dumped him, even if it was weeks past the latest guess from the library pool that Josh had started, Mitchell would need serious amounts of distraction.

“How is she?” I asked. Bianca Sims was one of the most successful real estate agents in the area. Blond, attractive, energetic, and outgoing, it boggled the mind that she and Mitchell had gone out on more than one date, let alone been seeing each other for two months. While I understood that Mitchell had his own variety of charm, I’d long held the opinion it was an appeal that was more attractive at arm’s length. Still, there was no accounting for what attracted people to one another, a fact for which I should be grateful.

“She’s great,” Mitchell said gloomily.

I quirked up my eyebrows at his tone. “She’s great, but there’s a problem?”

“It’s not her. It’s me.”

Now, that I could believe, but it didn’t make sense that Mitchell was coming to me for advice on how to change his life. First off, Mitchell was one of those people who never seemed to recognize that improvements needed to be made. Second, while we’d been friends of a sort for years, we’d never shared soul-baring confidences.

“What’s the matter?” We’d reached my office door, and I stopped to look up at him. Talking to Mitchell in the hallway was one thing, but I flat-out did not have time for him to come in and sit for a long, cozy chat.

“You’re like her,” he said. “I mean, you’re short and she’s nice and tall, and you have all that curly black hair and she has that nice smooth blond hair. Plus you read all the time and she’s more fun and—”

“So how are we alike?” I asked, cutting into the brutal blow-by-blow comparison.

He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at the floor. “You’re both smart. Way smarter than me. And you’re both, you know, going places. I’ll never be anything different from what I am right now.”

I blinked at the naked truth of his words. Who knew that Mitchell was so self-aware? Served me right for thinking that I had him all figured out. Once again I realized that we could never truly know what went on inside someone else, and my heart ached for him. “If Bianca likes you,” I said, touching his arm, “she likes you just the way you are.”

“But will she ever, ahh, you know”—he shrugged and kicked at the floor—“love me. Like the way I’m getting to love her.”

Whoa. I was not qualified to give romantic advice. My previous relationship had fallen to bits in less than a year, and before that I’d fallen out of love with the guy I’d become engaged to in graduate school, so slowly it had taken a total lack of interest in bridal magazines to make me realize what had happened.

“Mitchell,” I said, “there are only two people who can help you.”

“Yeah?” He perked up. “Do you have their numbers? Because I’ll take any advice I can get, even if I don’t like it.”

But I was shaking my head. “The only two people who can help are you and Bianca. Talk to her, Mitchell. Tell her how you feel.”

He sighed. “Not going to happen. I use the L word now, and she’ll run for the hills. I need her to love me before I say anything, see?”

“How do you know she doesn’t?”

“Why would she?”

The conversation was starting to circle around. “Do you two have a good time together?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And she calls you to make dates?” He nodded, and I said, “Then she obviously likes you, Mitchell. If you love her, give her time to fall in love with you.”

“But what if—”

“But nothing,” I said firmly. “Give her some time, Mitchell.”

“What should I do while I’m waiting?” he asked.

That I could answer. “Stay busy,” I told him. “Best way to not think about something is to stay as busy as possible.”

He nodded slowly, then more vigorously. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense.” A wide grin lit up his face, almost making me forget about the four days’ worth of beard he hadn’t bothered to shave off before going into public. “Thanks, Minnie. I knew I could count on you.”

I watched him saunter off, the swagger already back in his walk, and wondered what I’d done this time.

Two hours later, I hurried through the back door of Cookie Tom’s. On bookmobile days, I had a standing order for two dozen of whatever he had plenty of, and even though I was running late, I didn’t want to show up at the first stop empty-handed.

“Hey, Tom,” I said, standing at the end of the glass display cases. Though it was late morning, there was still a line of people in the bakery’s main room. Which could only mean that, no matter what the calendar said, it was officially summer. Pam Fazio, a tall travel mug of coffee in hand, was in the middle, listening to a sixtyish woman not much taller than me, who was saying how much she’d like it if Pam would purchase her collection of china cups and saucers. Pam caught my eye and toasted me. “Morning,” she said.

Tom nodded my way. “Hang on, Minnie, I’ll be right with you.” His summer helper, a high school girl, was ringing up orders while he was stuffing white bags and boxes with doughnuts, cookies, croissants, and muffins. I averted my eyes from the custard-filled chocolate long johns and dug the appropriate amount of cash out of my wallet.

A twentysomething man who was standing in line looked vaguely familiar, and I gave him a genial nod, trying to remember where I knew him from. The diner? Maybe. Or did he look like someone I’d gone to high school with? Then again, it could indeed be someone I’d attended high school with, even though I’d lived my early years in the greater Detroit area. Or it could be an actor from a hit movie I’d never seen. In a tourist town like Chilson, you never knew who you might run into.

“Mostly chocolate chip.” Tom plopped a bag in front of me. “Some raisin, some oatmeal. Tossed in some broken peanut butters, too.”

“You are a gentleman and a scholar,” I said, handing over my money. “A prince among—”

“Hey,” the sort-of familiar guy brayed. “Why does she get to cut in line?”

I flicked a glance at Tom. In all the months I’d been getting early dibs on cookies, we’d never once had anyone comment. “Sorry,” I said, “if this—”

“No apologies necessary,” Tom said, smiling at me, then turned to face the complainer. “This is my store, and I get to choose how I do business. Ms. Minnie here drives the bookmobile and she buys cookies for the patrons out of her own pocket. Getting her on her way quickly is my contribution to the bookmobile.”

“Yeah,” the guy said, “but—”

His objection was drowned out by the happy chatter and smiles of everyone else standing in line.

“There’s a bookmobile in Chilson? That’s wonderful!”

“Every time my grandson sees the bookmobile, he wants me to read him a story.”

“Someone told me the bookmobile has a cat. Is that true?”

“Is there any way to make a donation?”

I smiled, handed out some business cards, and said I’d be happy to talk to anyone if they called me during library hours. Angry Guy folded his arms and didn’t say a word. “Sorry,” I murmured to Tom as I picked up the big white bag.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Go forth and deliver books.”

So I did.

* * *

Not much later, I was behind the wheel of a thirty-one-foot-long moving library, complete with more than three thousand books, CDs, DVDs, jigsaw puzzles, and games. Also along for the ride were the sixtyish Julia Beaton, and the thirteen-pound, three-year-old Eddie, who was in the strapped-down cat carrier at Julia’s feet.

“Oh, my dear,” Julia, my part-time bookmobile clerk said, when I finished telling her about Andrea Vennard. “What a wretched thing to have in your memory.”

Her empathic reaction made my eyes sting. Then again, if anyone knew empathy, it was Julia. She’d grown up in Chilson, but had hightailed it for the bright lights of New York City to make it as a model or bust as soon as her parents had given the nod.

Bust as a model she did, but her second-choice career, that of acting, served her to the tune of multiple Tony Awards. However, since she’d stuck to Broadway and never set foot in Hollywood, and with Chilson being Chilson, she’d never achieved much local fame. Julia being Julia, she found this extremely funny and welcome. “Why would I want complete strangers staring at me when I’m not onstage?” she’d asked, and I gave her the point.

I’d looked up reviews of plays in which she’d once starred and read that one of her strengths as an actor was in understanding people, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that she had so quickly sensed what kept returning to my thoughts and too-vivid imagination.

“How did you sleep last night?” she asked.

“Surprisingly well,” I said. “Then again, I had some help from our little pal down there.”

Neither Eddie nor the patrons would have been pleased to have a bookmobile absent of its bookmobile cat, so, after leaving the library that morning, I’d carefully driven the extremely expensive vehicle from the library down the narrow road that led to the marina, sat it temporarily in the parking lot, and run in to fetch Mr. Ed.

Julia leaned forward and reached her long fingers in through the wire door to scratch Eddie under the chin. “You did a fine job, my furry friend. Keep up the good work.”

“Mrr,” he said.

Julia sat up, pushed back her long strawberry blond hair, and laughed. “There are times when I really do think he understands what we say to him.”

“I sincerely hope not,” I said fervently, earning another laugh.

“Just think of it,” Julia mused. “Eddie sees all, understands all, knows all.”

“If so,” I said, “why doesn’t he make himself more useful?”

“That’s not what cats do.”

“What do they do, besides shed and eat and make a mess of the paper towels, no matter where I put them?” Eddie had a penchant for paper products and not in a loving way. He liked to shred them to bits, strewing pieces in every room possible.

“They purr,” Julia said.

I grinned. “They do indeed.” Which more than made up for every cat hair that ever had been or ever would be shed upon my person. “And they’re excellent at convincing people to take naps.”

Julia nodded. “Plus they help keep the mice population down.”

And it was a cat, Eddie in particular, who had brightened the day of a little girl with leukemia the day he’d stowed away on the bookmobile. Brightened it so much, in fact, that he’d become a permanent bookmobile feature. At the time, I’d been intent on keeping Eddie’s presence on the bookmobile a secret from Stephen, who’d been rule-bound to the extreme. But it had all worked out in the end, and Brynn Wilbanks, who was now six years old and attending kindergarten, was in remission and melted my heart with her wide smile every time I saw her.

“You realize, of course,” Julia said, “that the primary reason for the existence of humans is to take care of cats.”

“Eddie has mentioned that.” I glanced down at the carrier. “But I thought he was exaggerating.”

“Mrr!”

Julia laughed. I shook my head and flicked on the turn signal in preparation for our first stop of the day, in the parking lot of a township hall.

In less time than it takes to tell, I’d swiveled the driver’s seat around to face the front desk and readied the computer, Julia had reached up to pop open the ceiling vents—at five foot eight, she could do it without the help of a step stool—and gone to the back of the bus to fire up the rear computer. I unlatched Eddie’s carrier and, after a pause of almost half a second, he leaped out and jumped up on top of his latest favorite perch, the passenger’s-seat headrest.

“Are we all set?” I asked.

“Ready,” Julia called.

“Mrr.”

I patted my cat on the head, watched a few black and white hairs fly in multiple directions, and opened the door.

“Good morning, Bookmobile Ladies!” A woman with short graying hair bounced up the steps. “And how is the Bookmobile Cat today?”

Eddie blinked at the woman, whose name was Faye, and said, “Mrr.”

She laughed delightedly. “You are a treasure. Minnie, if you ever get tired of him, I’ll take him home with me.”

I smiled. “Sorry, but Eddie and I are bonded for life.”

“Mrr.”

Faye snorted out another laugh and patted him on the head. “Oh, Eddie, if only all cats were like you.”

Someone else came stumping up the stairs. “Minnie! Are you all right?” Mrs. Dugan, a matronly woman in her mid-sixties, frowned at me, her firm white curls bouncing a little with the effort. “After what happened yesterday, I can’t believe you’re able to work, let alone drive the bookmobile!”

She flung her arms wide, and I had little choice but to stand up and get the stuffing hugged out of me.

“Poor Minnie,” she murmured. “You’re lucky you’re so strong. I would have been a wreck, just a wreck. I take things to heart, and finding that poor woman would have sent me to bed for a week.”

I murmured a thanks for her sympathy and extracted myself. To fend off further exuberances, I picked up Eddie, unashamedly using him as a shield. I made a mental vow to give him extra treats and asked Mrs. Dugan if she’d known Andrea Vennard.

“She was a Wiley, wasn’t she?” Mrs. Dugan turned to look at Faye.

“Hmm?” Faye was perusing the new books and was just opening the cover of Sophie Kinsella’s latest release.

“Andrea Vennard,” Mrs. Dugan said. “Wasn’t she Bob Wiley’s daughter?”

“Is Bob married to Missy?” Faye asked. She looked up from the book and saw Mrs. Dugan nod. “Then yes, Andrea was a Wiley before she was a Vennard.”

This confirmed what Holly and Donna had said. “How long ago did Andrea leave Chilson?” I asked.

Mrs. Dugan laughed. “That one? She left town right after high school.”

Faye nodded. “Said Chilson wasn’t big enough for her, that she had places to go, people to meet, things to accomplish.”

I looked from one to the other. “And did she?”

“I live next to a high school friend of Andrea’s,” Faye said, “and she says Andrea was too busy to have kids or to get back home. I guess she owned a business downstate. Grosse Pointe? Bingham Farms? One of those fancy suburbs of Detroit, anyway.”

Mrs. Dugan sniffed. “She came back fast enough when Talia DeKeyser died. That was her great-aunt, you know. Probably hoped she was named in the will.”

“What kind of business did Andrea own?” I asked, but Faye didn’t know. I shifted Eddie around a little, trying to ease him into a position that made him weightless. Thirteen pounds isn’t much until you start shooting for the world’s record in the Longest Eddie Hold. “Did Andrea have money problems?”

“Who doesn’t?” Faye gave a crooked smile. “But I wonder what Andrea was doing in the library in the first place. From what my neighbor says, Andrea wasn’t what you’d call the literary type.”

“More a partying type?” I asked. If so, that could open up all sorts of possibilities for murder. I’d tell Ash tonight, and he would find a fast lead to the killer, and soon everyone would forget that the library had—

But Faye was shaking her head. “She was ambitious, mainly. There’s a story about her high school boyfriend, Steve something. He was really serious about her, gave her an engagement ring on prom night. She laughed in his face, and I guess he went nuts. Got so angry that some other guys had to hold him back from hitting her. She got a personal protection order against him and left town the next week.”

I shivered. “He doesn’t sound like a good choice for a long-term relationship.”

Mrs. Dugan snapped her fingers. “Guilder. Steve Guilder, that was his name. Didn’t he move to Texas?”

Eddie, who up until that point had been purring quietly, started struggling to get down. Knowing that the cat always wins, I let him escape to the floor. “What did her folks say about her leaving home so young?”

“Normal stuff. That she was just a kid, that she had a lot to learn, that she didn’t know everything, even if she thought she did.”

So just adolescence, and no long-buried clue to the reason behind her murder. Maybe Andrea, in leaving town at eighteen, had taken her rebellion a step further than most kids, but even that wasn’t too far from of the ordinary. Julia had done the same thing.

“I remember being that young.” Mrs. Dugan sighed. “Life was simpler then, wasn’t it?”

It had also been very limited, both in scope and in size, and fraught with self-doubt and self-esteem issues. “Personally,” I said, “you couldn’t pay me enough to—”

Crash!

I whirled around. “Eddie! What are you doing up there?” My cat had managed to dump a shelf full of books onto the floor. I reached for him, but he slid away from me and jumped in Julia’s direction. “Fine,” I muttered, crouching to pick up the books. “Be that way.”

“Maybe he wants you to read to him,” Faye suggested.

I eyed his selection. He’d dislodged the books in the Dewey decimal five and six hundreds: natural and applied sciences. “You could be right.” I slid the gardening and philosophy books aside and held up Cats: The Ultimate Beginners’ Guide to Raising Healthy Cats for Life! and Think Like a Cat.

Julia’s laugh was loud and long.

“We can take one home,” I told Eddie, who was sitting in the middle of the aisle with his tail curled around his paws. “But only one. I know how short your attention span can be.”

Eddie got to his feet and stalked past me without a glance.

Smiling, I watched him go. There really was nothing like a cat.