Gone With The Whisker

Chapter 11

A few hours later, Rafe held me tight, murmuring soft words of love, support, and calm. When I thought I would be able to stand up on my own, I took a deep breath and pulled away from his warmth. This should have been okay, because the weather had taken a hard turn toward the hot and humid, but even though my skin was pleased to be a teensy bit cooler, the rest of me missed him very much.

As Julia and I had waited for the EMT and law enforcement to show up, I’d texted Rafe that I’d be late for dinner because there’d been a horrible accident, that a woman had died, and that I knew her.

Now I sighed. “It was Nicole Price,” I said.

“How did you know her?” Rafe took my hand and led me to a nearby chair, a wicker one on the porch, since the front porch was as far as I’d made it before I’d started crying into his shoulder. “The name isn’t familiar,” he said.

“No, it wouldn’t be.” I sat, making the wicker creak. “She was summer only, a high school teacher from downstate. Her family owns a hunting cabin near that little lake”—whose name neither Julia nor I could remember but had been told by an EMT it was Stump Lake—“and Nicole spent her summers up here. I only knew her from the bookmobile.”

Rafe pulled a chair up close to mine. “Was she married? Kids?”

“Married,” I said. “Her husband’s name is . . .” I looked at the ceiling, which was painted a slightly greenish blue, and tried to remember. “Dominic. Dom, she called him. He comes up most weekends.”

“Kids?”

I shook my head. “No.” At least I didn’t think so, because never once in any of her trips to the bookmobile had Nicole ever mentioned any offspring.

Rafe hitched his chair closer and held my hand. “What was she like?”

“She was . . .” I let the sentence wander off as I thought about the question. Nicole hadn’t been chatty. She hadn’t talked much about anything, and hardly at all about herself. Even still, a few things had leaked out. “She loved it up here. One of her favorite things was to swim in the lake.”

I closed my eyes against the memory of Nicole’s long hair spread over her shoulders like a dark red fan, but the image didn’t go away. Then I remembered Eddie bumping up against my shin as I called 911, and remembered his purring, and the sharp pain eased to a dull ache.

“Nicole,” I said, thinking back to the few conversations we’d shared, “liked coffee and ice cream. She was left-handed. She loved a good thunderstorm. She liked quirky novels. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was her favorite, but she was a big fan of A Gentleman in Moscow and anything by Alexander McCall Smith. And I introduced her to Jodi Taylor’s books.” I smiled, remembering. She’d loved the Chronicles of St. Mary’s so much that she’d sent me a Christmas card last year.

“So that was where she used to swim?” Rafe asked. “At that little park? You don’t have to answer,” he added quickly, “if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“No, it’s okay.” And, I discovered a second later, it actually was. “Yes, that was her usual swimming spot. Although I thought her normal time was first thing in the morning. And I do mean first thing. She said she liked being out alone, before anyone else messed up the water.”

I frowned, thinking about that. Nicole always went for morning swims. Always. So why had she been out there in the afternoon? And . . . I suddenly felt a shiver at the back of my brain. Both Rex and Nicole had been on the bookmobile that Thursday before the Fourth of July, and now they were both dead. Tragic coincidence? Or could Nicole’s death be related to Rex’s murder?

Rafe reached around and opened a small cooler. He poured me a glass of wine, then popped a can of beer and held it up in toasting position, waiting.

“To Nicole,” I said, then stopped, because I had no idea what else to say.

Rafe tapped his beer can to my glass. “To Nicole. To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

And so we drank to her memory.

* * *

The next day, Saturday, I spent the morning with my niece. Well, to be more specific, we were both on the same houseboat at the same time, and while I spent our quality together time cleaning the bathroom, kitchen, and outside deck, Kate whiled away the morning either poking at her tablet, checking her phone, or commenting on the spots I’d missed.

When I replied back that she could, you know, help, she’d heaved a heavy teenage sigh and flounced off. Since the houseboat was small, her flouncing only lasted as long as it took for her to get out to the deck, but I gave her points for quality.

At half past eleven, she bolted up from one of the deck’s two chaises and ran past me into the bathroom, wailing, “I’m going to be late to work! Why didn’t you tell me how late it was?”

She was showered, dressed, and out the door in ten minutes, which gave her more than enough time to walk up to Benton’s, but from the glare I got as I handed her a brown bag of peanut butter and jelly, chips, and an apple for her dinner, you’d have thought I was responsible for the air’s high humidity, unrest in the Middle East, and the declining population of honeybees.

The next day wasn’t much better, and I breathed an invisible sigh of relief when she declined my invitation to go up to Three Seasons for Sunday night dessert.

“You know what your problem is?” Kristen pointed her custard-laden spoon at me.

“Friends who think they have the answers to my problems?”

Leese Lacombe started to laugh, but changed it into a very fake cough when Kristen pointed the spoon in her direction.

“I’ll get to you later,” she said, then closed her eyes as she ate the custard. “A bit more vanilla,” she murmured. As per always, I thought the creme brûlée was perfect, but I also knew better than to disagree with Kristen on food, especially when we were in her own restaurant eating food she’d prepared herself.

“Right.” Kristen opened her eyes. “So what’s new?” She sent me a meaningful glance.

I focused on getting the perfect ratios of strawberry, custard, and sugar on my spoon. It was a difficult job, but worth doing. “I was hoping to hear when you and Scruffy were scheduling some quality married time.”

“Next week,” she said, “and no changing the subject.”

Leese looked from Kristen to me and back again. “What’s up? Because there’s unspoken subtext going on between you two so loud I can almost hear it.”

Kristen smacked the back of her spoon against the dessert’s thin hard layer of sugar, making a loud cracking noise. “She’s not talking to me,” she said to Leese, tipping her head in my direction. “Is it because I got married? He’s not even in the state, for crying out loud. Why is she holding back?”

“Holding back what?” Leese asked, frowning.

“She’s gotten involved with another death!” Kristen waved her arms about. “Every time somebody in this county dies who isn’t old as the hills, it’s on her doorstep.”

“Well,” I said, “doorstep is a little strong.”

My best friend seared me with an Eddie-quality glare. “You know perfectly well I was using a metaphor and it was a darn good one, if you ask me.”

Leese put down her spoon. “Who died?”

Bowing to the inevitable, I told them about Nicole Price. About her job downstate, her family cabin, and how she’d drowned while swimming. And about how we’d found her.

“You poor thing,” Leese said sympathetically. “But I see Kristen’s point. You do have a tendency to find dead bodies.”

“See?” Kristen gripped her spoon and thumped the table with its handle. “What is it with you?”

I looked from one friend to the other. Though Leese’s concern was obvious, Kristen’s was manifesting itself as annoyance, irritation, and anger. She had a long history of reacting this way and I was used to it.

Well, almost.

My chin went up. “It’s not like I’m trying to find dead people. What am I supposed to do, walk away?”

“Of course not,” Leese said gently. “We just want you to be careful.”

Kristen made a rude noise. “She’s careful enough when she wants to be. It’s just she doesn’t think things through before jumping in.”

I glared at her. “When I want my mother’s advice, I’ll call her and ask.”

“Maybe you—”

Leese cut into the burgeoning argument. “Minnie. It’s just . . . we don’t want you to be next.”

“Next?” I had no idea what she meant. “Next what?” Then it sank in. They didn’t want me to be next to die. I laughed, because the idea of dying was ridiculous, especially in Kristen’s office on a summer Sunday with dessert in front of me. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Then my brain snapped back to that day downtown, that day when I’d tumbled to the street, the day I may or may not have been pushed.

But I didn’t say a word.

* * *

My thoughts were bouncing all over the place as I walked back to the houseboat through the dusky light. I thought about Nicole and her husband, Dom. Then I wondered what kind of mood Kate would be in when I returned. Which led me to thinking about Rex Stuhler. About Fawn Stuhler. About Barry Vannett. About John and Nandi Jaquay. And about everyone else who might possibly be involved with Rex’s death, which included everyone who’d been at the fireworks that night, which got me wondering what kind of progress Hal and Ash had made with Kate’s photos, which led me . . .

Nowhere.

I tried to enjoy the warm quiet of the evening and was hoping for a talk with my niece, but when I arrived at the houseboat, Kate was already tucked into her sleeping bag, earbuds in and tablet on, playing an episode of That ’70s Show.

“Hey,” I said softly.

She muttered something unintelligible, rolled over, and was lightly snoring half a second later. Smiling, I removed her earbuds, shut down the tablet, and went to snuggle with Eddie and a book.

“Mrr,” he said as I slid into bed, disturbing him not even a fraction of an inch.

“I love you, too, pal.” I kissed the top of his head and stared at the pages of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep while I thought about Rex Stuhler and creativity. The next morning, before I did the hard work of hauling out two bowls and two spoons for our breakfast, I asked Kate if she wanted cereal.

“Huh?” She popped her head out of the sleeping bag and blinked at me. “Do I what?”

“Breakfast. Cereal.” I hefted the bowl up. “You?” For weeks, in obedience to her mother’s wishes, I’d done my best to make sure Kate left the houseboat with a full stomach.

“Oh. No.” She yawned and stretched. “I have to be up to Benton’s early. I’d rather get a bagel from Tom’s.”

Yet not that long ago, I’d brought down a bag of bagels and she’d ignored them completely. “Sounds good,” I said. “See you tonight at the house. Rafe said he’d grill.”

My loving niece grunted a response that could have meant anything from “Can’t wait” to “Wild horses couldn’t drag me there.” I had a suspicion it was more the horse thing than the other, but decided not to pursue an interpretation. Some things you’re just better off leaving open.

The walk to downtown under a blue sky decorated with wisps of long clouds cleared my head of niece thoughts (mostly) and I found myself smiling. It was summer in northwest lower Michigan and I wasn’t going to spoil this fantastic time of year by wallowing in worry.

“Have to tell Aunt Frances,” I said out loud. My aunt was forever reminding me that worrying never helped a thing, that it mostly made things worse. Some days her advice was easy to take, other days not so much. But if I could push away the notion that Kate couldn’t stand living with me and that she was secretly plotting to get back to Florida as soon as possible, maybe I was making progress in the non-worrying department.

My phone rang. It was Ash. “Morning!” I said. “What’s up?”

“Make a right turn, please.”

I blinked and looked to my right. I was almost in front of the sheriff’s office, and Ash was standing at the door, waving at me. He thumbed off his phone and said, “Do you have a minute? Hal and I need to talk to you.”

Seconds later, I was sitting in the interview room across the table from Deputy Ash Wolverson and Detective Hal Inwood. “Before you say anything,” I said, “last night I was thinking about Rex Stuhler’s death, and maybe we need to get really creative about—”

Hal cut across my words. “This isn’t about Mr. Stuhler.”

“Oh.” I sat back a little. Please, I thought, don’t let it be about Kate again. “This, um, doesn’t have to do with my niece, does it?”

Ash half smiled. “After her talk with the sheriff, I don’t think that kid will so much as break the speed limit until she’s thirty.”

Though I didn’t agree, his opinion was good to hear. “What’s the matter, then?” Because from the looks on both of their faces, something was clearly not right. It wasn’t as easy to tell with Hal, because his long face had a permanently morose cast, but Ash’s default expression hadn’t yet hardened into cop mode and I could tell he wasn’t happy.

“We have received,” Hal said, “the preliminary autopsy on Nicole Price.”

Since I didn’t know how to respond to that, I kept quiet, because there was obviously more coming.

“Ms. Price was murdered.”

I stared at Hal. “No, she wasn’t. She drowned. It’s sad, but it happens. There are all sorts of reasons she could have drowned. Tell your medical examiner to look again.” I could hear my voice going high and shrill, so I took a short breath. “Look again,” I said calmly. “There has to be a mistake.”

But both Hal and Ash were shaking their heads. “She double and triple checked,” Ash said. “She said there’s no doubt whatsoever. I’m sorry, Minnie, but someone strangled Nicole.”

Hal droned on about the particulars of Nicole’s death, citing all sorts of medical evidence that I understood sort of, but not really. I made a mental note to brush up on my basic knowledge of human physiology, and after he finished talking about the cellular level of something I’d never heard of before, I asked the obvious question. “Do you know who killed her?”

Ash glanced at Hal, who remained impassive. “We’re looking at all possible suspects,” Hal said.

I knew the drill. All avenues of investigation will be pursued, blah blah blah. They’d leave no stone unturned as they went down the avenues of investigation, the roads of investigation, and the streets of—

Streets. I sighed. It was time to tell them about my own street-side experience. “There’s something I should tell you.”

The two men waited.

“It’s possible that . . . I mean it might be . . .” I took a breath and came out with it. “I think someone tried to kill me.”