Lending a Paw

Chapter 14

I rolled out of bed early the next morning and trotted up to the library as the sun was creaking over the hilltops. No one else would be in for at least two hours, so I had a nice slice of time to start my research into Stan’s past.

Though many of the old local newspapers had been microfilmed, microfiched, or scanned, many had not. The grant I’d obtained had paid for archiving about half of the library’s newspapers. After long debate, we’d decided to start with the most recent issues and work our way backward. It was a decision I now regretted. Deeply.

We’d shoehorned the unarchived papers into the local history room. I turned on the overhead lights, shocking the sleeping books, and went straight to the narrow drawers that held seventy-year-old copies of the Chilson Gazette.

There were a lot of newspapers.

A lot.

“Well,” I said out loud. This project could possibly take longer than I’d hoped it would. But was there any other way to get the information I needed? Any easier way?

I couldn’t think of one. So I scraped out a chair, sat down, and got to work.

• • •

In the end, it didn’t take as long as I thought it might. I knew the year Stan was born, so all I had to do was find the page of the newspaper where the births were typically printed and hunt through the papers until I found the right announcement.

“Stanley Warren Larabee,” it read, “born at home to Silas and Belinda Larabee. Seven pounds, ten ounces. Mother, infant, and his six older sisters are doing well.”

“Onward and upward,” I said, and put that newspaper away. Next was high school. Back in Stan’s day, Chilson was the location of the only high school in the county. The library didn’t have a complete set of old yearbooks, so the paper was the next best source. I had no idea if Stan had played any sports, been a member of any clubs, or excelled at anything that might have been considered newsworthy fifty-odd years ago, but I had to look. Who knew what I’d find?

What I found, after an hour and a half, was nothing. Maybe Stan had been too busy on the family farm. Maybe he didn’t care about sports, maybe he hadn’t wanted to join the debate club. Maybe—

“Oh, my,” I breathed. “My, my, my.” I’d found the edition of the newspaper with pictures of the graduating seniors from Chilson High School. There, in black and white and gray, was a photo of a young Stanley W. Larabee. I could see no resemblance between the Stan I’d known and this young man, but there was his name, and there was the picture right above it. And since there were only thirty-seven kids graduating, it wasn’t likely that the paper had gotten the names mixed up.

“Wow,” I said. “Stan was gorgeous.” Saying the words out loud made me cringe. Somehow, admiring the youthful looks of a murdered elderly man felt downright weird. And a little creepy, to boot.

For a moment, I wondered if I was being disrespectful. I couldn’t see it, but maybe it was another moral question for my mother. One of these days I should write them all down and actually ask her.

Idly, I paged through a few more editions. What I’d hoped for hadn’t materialized. I’d hoped to find evidence of sport- or activity-oriented friendships, hoped that I could find some of the friends, hoped to ask a few questions that would lead me to something that would lead me to—

And there it was. Black and white and no gray, this time, because it was a short text-only announcement. Extremely short. Like one sentence short.

“Marriage license to Stanley W. Larabee, 18, and Audry M. Noss, 17.”

Audry. That was the name of the woman in the bookmobile, the one who’d been helping out at Maple View. Her name had been Audry. And how many Audrys roughly seventy years old could there be in Tonedagana County? What were the odds that my Audry and Stan’s were the same?

I didn’t know, but I was going to find out.

• • •

“Here’s a nice table for you two,” the hostess said, grinning from ear to ear. “Here are your menus and this is the wine list.” She aimed the latter in Tucker’s direction. “The wine steward will be with you in just a moment.” She winked at me broadly and left.

I sighed. “This may not have been a good idea.”

“No?” Tucker picked up the wine list but didn’t open it. “I’ve wanted to eat here ever since I moved up north. Everyone says it’s great.” He studied me. “Have you had a bad experience here? Because we don’t have to stay. We can—” He stopped and looked up. “Hello,” he said politely.

“Good evening,” Kristen said, grinning wide. “My name is Kristen and I’ll be your server tonight.”

I stared at her. “You will not.”

She opened my menu and slid it in front of me. “I can think of nothing I’d like to do more than help you plan your dinner.”

“You are an evil woman,” I muttered.

“And you, sir?” she asked, turning to Tucker. “Do you have any questions about the menu?”

“Not the menu, no.” He looked from Kristen to me, then back again. “But I’m getting the impression there’s something going on here that I don’t know about.”

Kristen’s smile went even wider. “Our menu has a considerable depth—it’s one of our trademarks.”

“Something in here is deep,” I said. “Not sure it’s the menu.”

Kristen batted her eyes at me. “Let me treat you to an amuse-bouche. On the house. The smallest of quiches with pesto, cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes. Yes?” She beamed. “Of course, yes. I’ll be back directly with your wine.”

Tucker frowned after her. “But we didn’t order any wine.”

I rarely did, not at Kristen’s restaurant. The day she’d caught me drinking a glass of white zinfandel had been a memorable one. She hadn’t let me near her wine list since.

“Um,” I said. “I should probably tell you that—”

“Hey, Minnie!” Josh appeared, escorting a young woman over to our table. “This is Megan.”

Well, well, well. So after months of soulful sighs, Josh had finally taken Holly’s and my advice and found the courage to ask Megan out. Wonders never did cease. “Nice to meet you,” I said to the girl, and introduced Tucker. Megan’s freckles and open countenance made her look cheerful and warmhearted. I hoped looks didn’t deceive and that she wouldn’t break Josh’s heart.

“Josh says you drive the bookmobile,” Megan said, her tone rising at the end, making it sound like a question. “That must be like the coolest job ever!”

I spared Tucker a glance. While I’d told him I was a librarian, I hadn’t gone into detail. He looked almost as interested as Megan. “Two or three days a week,” I said. “We don’t have the staffing to do more than that.”

She was starting to ask more bookmobile questions when Kristen came back with our wine. With a professional expertise, Kristen shooed Josh and Megan off to their table and presented us with the wine she’d chosen.

“Malbec from the Chateau Chantal label. You’ll enjoy it.” She popped the cork and poured a swallow for Tucker. He sniffed, tasted, and got a happy look on his face.

“As I said”—Kristen filled our glasses to the appropriate height—“you’ll enjoy it. As to your dinner selection, Miss Hamilton here is going to have a simple yet elegant meal of filet mignon, medium rare, with roasted red-skin potatoes and fresh young carrots steamed long enough to be tender yet cooked lightly enough to retain a slight bit of crispness. For you, sir, I’d like to suggest the same. Yes? Yes. Your amuse-bouche is being prepared this very moment by Chef Larry. Enjoy your wine.” She wafted off.

Tucker took another sip of wine and his slightly furrowed brow smoothed. “Is this kind of service typical?” he asked. “I know things are different up here, but even so . . .” He looked at me expectantly.

“Well,” I said, “this restaurant in particular is—”

“Minnie, is that you?” boomed a male voice.

I closed my eyes.

Quincy, I thought. Please let him be with Paulette. If he wasn’t, if he was still infatuated with the much-too-young Dena, Aunt Frances’s summer plans were not in a good place. Aunt Frances was already upset enough over Stan. She didn’t need matchmaking guilt piled on top of that.

“It is you!” Quincy said. “Didn’t you hear me calling? Hey, you all right?”

I opened my eyes. “Hey, Quincy. How are you?” My gaze drifted to his companion. Not Paulette. I smiled. “Hi, Zofia.” I made the introductions.

“Lovely, lovely.” Zofia’s flowing dress billowed as she turned. “Our table’s over there, Quince. Nice meeting you, Tucker. Come on, Quincy.” She tugged on his arm so hard that he almost lost his balance.

Tucker looked at me. “Do you know everybody in this town?”

“I’ve only been here three years,” I said. “That’s not nearly long enough to—”

“Good evening, Minnie,” Mr. Goodwin said, his cane tapping as he drew near. “Are you having a nice dinner?”

• • •

The entire meal went like that. Every time Tucker and I would start a typical first-date conversation—where did you grow up, where did you go to school, sisters, brothers, do you ski/bicycle/hunt/kayak/run?—someone would pause at our table to talk to me or Kristen or Chef Larry would barge in to serve more courses.

The only things I learned about Tucker were that he didn’t have any allergies and that he’d never been to the Grand Canyon. And I’d only learned that because Kristen asked about allergies and because a passing Louisa and Ted Axford happened to mention their spring trip to Arizona.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” I muttered as the restaurant’s door shut behind us and we started walking to the marina.

“What’s that?” Tucker asked.

“Sorry. Nothing. It’s just—”

“Yo! Minster!” Mitchell Koyne called through the open passenger window of his pickup. “Your car break down? You guys want a ride or something?”

“Thanks,” I said, waving, “but we’re good. Nice night for a walk.”

“Sure?” He revved the truck’s engine. “I can get you home in a flash.”

“Thanks, anyway.”

Mitchell roared away and I thought I heard Tucker make an odd noise.

“What’s that?” I asked. “Did you say something?”

“No, it’s just—”

“On your left,” a male voice called. “Oh, hey, Minnie.” Cookie Tom, riding past on his bicycle, braked to a squeaking stop. “I’ve been thinking, if you want cookies for the bookmobile, give me a call and we’ll set something up. Discount rate, and you can come to the back door and not have to stand in line.”

“Tom,” I said, “you are the love of my life.”

“Ah, that’s what they all say.” He waved and was off.

“So,” Tucker said. “Your bookmobile. It’s a new addition to the library?”

“Practically brand-new. It’s only—”

One of the hardworking Friends of the Library waved at me from the other side of the street. “Minnie, hey, glad I caught you. Got a second? Did I hear that you’ve convinced Caroline Grice to do an art show? However did you do that?”

• • •

Almost an hour later, we’d finished walking the route that usually took me fifteen minutes. Between various Friends, library patrons, coworkers, business owners, and marina rats, I was pretty sure we’d been stopped by everyone I knew. As a first date, the evening was a complete bust. Any element of romance that managed to bloom had been squashed within seconds. I would never find someone to date in this town. There were mail-order brides; maybe I could find a mail-order husband.

We came to a slow stop at the dock that ran out to my boat. “Would you like to come in?” I asked without much hope.

“That would be nice,” he said, “but I have to be in the ER early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh. Sure. I understand.”

We stood there, not talking. Boats moved gently in the water, straining against the lines that held them in place. Waves lapped, distant voices murmured, and a boat far out on Janay Lake puttered past. All peaceful, calming nighttime noises, all summer sounds that I loved, but tonight I hardly heard them at all.

A handshake. I’d be lucky to get a handshake, let alone a peck on the cheek. I was doomed to die alone.

I took a deep breath. “Look—”

“Minnie.” Tucker moved close. Took both of my hands. Rubbed the backs of them with his thumbs. “There’s just one thing I want to do right now.”

Go back in time and change his mind about asking me out, probably.

Instead, he leaned down. “Minnie,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

The kiss was gentle and tender and soft and warm, everything you could want in a first kiss. Except for one thing.

“Hey, Minnie-Ha-Ha!”

We broke apart as Chris Ballou shouted out a second time. He was on his little Boston Whaler, coming in after an evening’s fishing. “Hey, you two aren’t doing anything I wouldn’t do, are you? Hah! Say, Min, I got an idea on how to fix your electricals. You know, that problem you been having with your bilge? Tell Rafe to stop by.”

There it was again, the odd noise Tucker had made when we were walking back to the marina. I looked more carefully this time. “You’re laughing,” I said in surprise.

“Of course I am.” He got the words out between what were now obviously bursts of uncontrollable laughter. “Your bilge? Of all the ways to ruin a kiss, that’s got to be in the top ten.”

The funny side of the evening finally hit me. I grinned. “Maybe even the top five.”

“Next time,” Tucker said, “let’s go somewhere out of town.”

His good-bye kiss was the classic peck on the cheek, but inside my heart was singing. There was going to be a next time!

• • •

The next morning I made a quick phone call to Gayle Joliffe of Maple View AFC. Out of thin air I conjured up a story about a book title that her assistant Audry and I had been trying to remember. I told Gayle I’d found the book, and if I had Audry’s last name, which I’d been told but couldn’t remember, I could look her up and give her a call.

“Oh, honey, you don’t need to go to all that trouble.” Gayle rattled off her phone number.

I hung up, thinking that the impossible had happened. Someone had been too helpful. What I really wanted was Audry’s last name. With that, I could do some library research magic and find out if this Audry and Stan’s Audry were the same person. But all I had was a first name and a phone number.

Of course, I had a phone number. And a computer with multiple search engines.

Minutes later, I had Audry’s last name (Brant), her address (17981 Valley Road), a map to her house, and enough information about her to confirm that, yes, she’d been married to Stan. Privacy? What was that?

I thought about what to do next as I finalized the July employee schedule, thought about it at lunch when I went out for a walk with Holly, thought about it all afternoon while I staffed the research desk, and thought about it while we ate dinner. “We” being Eddie, who was eating cat food, and me, who was eating take-out sesame chicken.

“What do you think?” I asked Eddie.

Since his face was in his food bowl, he paid no attention to the question.

I waited until he sat down and was licking his paw and swiping it across his face. “So, what do you think? Go talk to her? Or do I just ask around?”

Eddie picked up his head, gave me a look, then went back to concentrating on his cleaning efforts.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Asking around could take forever. The fastest way is just talk to her, I suppose. A few questions is all I have, see if she knows anything about the family feud that Aunt Frances talked about. Do you think I should call, or should I drive out there?”

Eddie put his right front paw down and picked up his left one so he could wash the other side of his face. Eddie the Clean.

“You’re no help,” I muttered.

“Mrrr.”

Since the evening had three hours of daylight left to it, I decided to take a drive out to Audry’s house. And her husband’s, I supposed, since she wasn’t using Larabee or her maiden name.

The thought of a husband slowed me down in my walk to the car. Maybe he was a huge hulking man who won arm-wrestling contests all over the country. Or maybe he was one of those militia guys and had high gates circling the property, owned lots of guns, and was prepared to shoot trespassers on sight.

“Don’t be stupid,” I told myself. If I saw any signs of that, I’d drive by, that’s all. Same if there were big growling dogs or chickens. Large groups of chickens scared the snot out of me, and by large groups I meant any number more than zero. They’d peck me to death, given half a chance, I just knew it.

By the time I turned onto Valley Road, I’d imagined Audry’s house as a ramshackle 1960s ranch with aluminum siding that had needed replacing for twenty years and a roof that was rough with age and stained with pine needles. There’d be no porch, just concrete steps, and the garage would be so crowded with junk that the cars—a rusted pickup with bullet holes in the side and an ancient Oldsmobile that didn’t run most of the time—would be parked outside.

Which was why I drove right past Audry’s house. I was so intent on finding the horrible picture I’d imagined out of absolutely nothing that it wasn’t until I saw the mailbox numbers were in the 15000s that I stopped and turned around.

House number 17981 was far from a broken-down ranch. It was an old farmhouse with a Centennial Farm sign out front. The roof was new and white trim set off the warm clapboard siding’s yellow paint. The wide porch that ran across the front of the house held a set of wicker furniture, swing included, with flowered cushions. The window boxes were filled with happy red geraniums that bobbed in the light breeze. And there, in the front yard, was Audry on her knees, weeding an exuberant flower bed.

Since there was no sign of a hulking husband, firearms, or any other sort of weapon, I pulled into the driveway and got out of the car.

Audry stood, putting her hands to the small of her back and wincing. “It’s the bookmobile girl,” she said, smiling. “What brings you out my way?”

“Stan Larabee,” I said simply, and watched her smile change to wariness. “Once upon a time,” I went on, “you were married to him. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Why?” she asked.

I saw a shadow of stubbornness starting to form on her face, but I also saw what looked like a question. And something that might have been sorrow.

“He was my friend,” I finally said.

She looked at me the same way I’d looked at her. Then, “Come on up.”

• • •

We sat on the front porch, glasses of lemonade in our hands, drinking in the view. This part of Michigan had been carved out by glaciers ten thousand years ago. Ice a mile thick had scoured the land underneath, then retreated, leaving high hills running north and south with valleys and lakes between. Audry’s house was nestled in the flat of one of those valleys, looking north across the valley’s expanse and up the length of the hills.

I sat there, enjoying the view, while Audry assembled lemonade and cookies. She set a tray on the small table between the two cushioned porch chairs. “Here we go. Yes, please go ahead and pour.” She settled into the empty chair and took the filled glass I offered. “So, you know about my first marriage. Odd that a stranger should know when everyone else has forgotten. Bill and I have been married for so long I’d bet even my brothers don’t remember I was married before. How did you find out?”

In a few short sentences I’d told her about my hunch that Stan’s death had to do with his past, and my searching into the newspaper archive. She nodded, then asked, “You say you were Stan’s friend? How did that come about?”

I explained about the budget situation at the library, the closings of the small outlying libraries, the idea of the bookmobile as a solution, then Stan’s donation and his wish to be involved with the planning and purchase of the bookmobile.

She settled back, the white wicker creaking about her. “Sounds like Stan. He always had to be in the thick of things.”

That, I knew. What I didn’t know was anything about his past. “I hear there was some sort of feud between Stan and his sisters. Do you know anything about that?”

Audry gave me a measuring look.

“It’s not idle curiosity,” I said quickly. “It’s just . . . Stan never mentioned his sisters. I met with him almost every day for nearly a year and I didn’t know anything about his six sisters and the nieces and nephews he must have. The great-nieces and great-nephews, there must be lots more of those. He didn’t have any pictures of them on his desk; he never talked about them at all.”

Audry gave a deep sigh and looked out at the hills. “Ancient history,” she said heavily. “What can it matter now?”

I let the silence sit a little, then said, “Maybe it’s the reason he was killed.”

“After more than fifty years?” She shook her head. “I can see one of his sisters taking a frying pan to him back then, but now? They’re too old for that kind of thing, the ones who are left. We’re all too old.”

“Are you sure?” I asked quietly. “The police haven’t arrested anyone for Stan’s murder. Do you want to take even the smallest chance of letting his killer go free?”

“Of course not.”

“Then . . . tell me.”

She sighed and kept her gaze on the hills.

I waited. Waited some more.

The ice cubes in the lemonade had melted to tiny bits before she started to talk. “Back then,” she said, “no one understood how ambitious Stan was. He’d talk on and on about making pots of money, but everybody laughed at him. He was a farm kid, how was he ever going to make the money to buy all those things he wanted? No, he was going to be a farmer, just like his dad and grandpa before. That was the future everybody saw for him.”

“But it wasn’t the future he wanted,” I said.

“He wanted money,” she said flatly. “He wanted to be lord and master of the manor. He wanted every single person who’d laughed at him in high school for smelling like manure to come crawling to him for money and then he’d turn them down and laugh in their faces.”

I blinked. That didn’t sound like the Stan I’d known. And yet . . . and yet . . . he turned down almost everyone who’d come to him for a loan. He’d bought and renovated that huge house up in the hills, its windows showing little but lake and property that he owned. Lord and master.

“Do you know how he got started as a developer?” I asked.

Audry gave a smile, but it wasn’t a pretty one. “Unfortunately, yes.”

I swallowed. I’d liked Stan. I didn’t want to learn things about him that weren’t nice; I wanted to remember him as my exuberant friend who tried hard to get good things done. “What do you mean?”

“Stan’s mother died when he was in grade school, complications from another pregnancy if you can believe it. His dad died the year he graduated high school.” She looked pensive. “In April, during maple syrup season. He had a heart attack out in the sugar bush. Stan was the one to find him.”

“That must have been hard.”

She gave me a sardonic look. “You’d think, wouldn’t you? By the next spring, Stan had sweet-talked his sisters out of their share of the farm, got it put in his name only, and sold it to a man he’d found from downstate who had big dreams about turning the property into some kind of ski resort. Stan took off for Florida with the money and his sisters never talked to him again.”

My jaw went slack. “Stan stole the family farm from his sisters?”

“That’s not the way he looked at it. He said he’d pay them back. With interest.”

“Did he?”

“Eventually.” She made a gesture that suggested frustration, sadness, and tolerance. “He always needed more money, Stan did. Another property he needed to buy, another building with great potential, another whatever. By the time he got around to repaying his sisters, he had buckets of money to spare, but the damage was permanent. They took the money, of course,” she said with a twisted smile, “but they wouldn’t talk to him. Not even after he bought them houses and who knows what else.”

Just as Caroline had said. “Did you go with Stan to Florida?”

Her merry peal of laughter filled the porch. “No, I didn’t go to Florida. Stan was a good-looking son of a gun, but I got over that two weeks into the marriage. And once he sold the farm? I was done. Smartest thing I ever did was divorce that man and find my Bill.”

“How did Stan take your divorcing him?”

She snorted. “The way I heard it, he found a second wife before he’d unpacked his suitcase down there in Florida. If a man gets money, he can get a wife, easy enough.”

“You weren’t interested in his money?”

She gestured to the stupendous view. “I’ve woken up to this every day for almost fifty years. How could I get any richer? And Stan came back to this, in the end. Who’s to say which one of us was more successful?”

I looked at the green hills and the arching blue sky above, felt the peace and the calm, breathed in the clean air, heard nothing except birds and the rustle of leaves on the trees. Who indeed?

“So,” I said, “the feud started when Stan sold the family farm?”

“I wouldn’t call it a feud, really.” Audry considered her lemonade. “More of an ‘us against Stan’ attitude. His sisters all hated him and taught their children to hate him.”

“And unto the next generation?”

“I imagine.” She sighed.

Up until that point, I hadn’t considered her as old, but she suddenly looked every inch of her seventy years. I knew I should leave, but there were questions I needed to ask. “Are his sisters still alive?”

“Goodness.” Audry squinted at the horizon. “Four of them moved either downstate or out of state years ago. The other two . . . ? I really have no idea. One moved to Petoskey, the other down to Traverse City.”

I studied her, wondering if she truly didn’t know or if she was protecting a friend. “Do you know anything about Stan’s nieces and nephews? The great-nieces and nephews? Do any of them live in Chilson?”

She gave a small shrug. “I know almost nothing about that group. About all I know is that whole family tended toward having lots of children, and they liked naming the children all with the same first letter. Don’t ask me why, it’s just what they did.”

I blinked. “You mean all the sisters had names starting with S?”

“Sarah, Shirley, Stella, Sadie, Sylvia, and Sophie,” Audry recited, smiling faintly.

“There’s a niece named Gwen,” I said, remembering the friend of Aunt Frances.

“One of Sarah’s, as I recall. She had boys named Gordon and Gerard. And one of them used names that started with K. Kevin, Kyle, Karla, and Kendra.” She frowned. “Or was that the next generation down?”

As she’d said, lots of children, all of whom turned a year older every twelve months. Was this the definition of multiplicity? I found it hard enough to keep track of the ages of my brother’s children, and there were only three of them.

“But there is one thing that’s been bothering me,” Audry said slowly.

The weight she was giving to the words made the insides of my wrists tingle. “What’s that?”

“The farmhouse where you found him? That was where he and his sisters grew up.”