Lending a Paw

Chapter 15

I left Audry’s house with one thought and one thought only: Find the closest Tonedagana County sheriff’s detective.

I drove straight to Chilson and parked in the empty sheriff’s office lot. It took a little bit of doing, but I eventually convinced the deputy on duty that tracking down either Detective Devereaux or Inwood would be in everyone’s best interest.

He hung up the phone and looked at me with a schooled expression of blankness. “Detective Inwood was at the grocery store. He said he’ll stop by in about five minutes.”

“Inwood. He’s the short round one, right?”

The deputy actually laughed. “Nope. Devereaux is the short, round one. He looks like the letter D, see? And Hal Inwood is the tall, skinny one. He looks like the letter I.”

Clouds parted and the light shone down. “That’s brilliant,” I said sincerely.

He waved me off to a plastic chair, but he was smiling as he did so, and a few minutes later, Detective Inwood walked in. “Ms. Hamilton. What can I do for you?”

I stood, but didn’t move much closer. He was too tall (like the letter I) to make a face-to-face talk much of a reality. “Sorry to bother you on a Friday night,” I said, “but I just found out something.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” He put an angular elbow on the front counter.

“Well, it’s a couple of somethings, actually.” I gave him a quick summary of the origin of Stan’s fortune. “His sisters were furious when he sold the farm, I was told.”

“Who told you about this?” While Inwood’s pose remained casual, the expression on his face was sharp.

“Oh. Well.” I mentally fast-forwarded through the next part of the conversation and decided it was best to tell the truth now rather than have it dragged out of me later. “Audry Brant. She was Stan’s first wife.”

Inwood reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a small pad of paper. “His first wife, you say.”

I winced. Audry was going to get a police visit and it was all my fault. Sorry about that, I told her silently. “She had no reason to kill him, though. They were divorced about fifty years ago. And anyway, that’s not an important something.”

Inwood used the pencil he’d pulled out of the memo pad’s spiral binding to dot a period. “What is?”

“The farmhouse where Stan was killed? That was where Stan grew up. That was the farm he sold out from under his sisters.”

“Now that is a something.” Detective Inwood nodded, a faint smile lurking around the corners of his mouth. “Ms. Brant give you that bit of information?”

“Yes, so I was wondering. Have you looked at Stan’s sisters? I mean, with him being killed at their old farm, it makes you think there’s a connection, right? They were all older than Stan, but it doesn’t take much strength to pull a trigger.”

But the detective was shaking his head. “All six sisters are accounted for, either passed away or moved out of state decades ago.”

“Oh.” I deflated. “The ones still alive, they have alibis? I mean, I’m sure you checked, but . . .”

“Of the three,” he said, “two are in nursing homes. The other is living in Arizona, and according to the golf course manager, she hasn’t missed her daily game of golf since she moved there fifteen years ago.”

“What about their children? I’ve heard the sisters all had a lot of kids. And the kids probably all had kids. Have all of them been checked out?”

The detective stuffed his memo pad back into his pocket. “The six sisters had twenty-three children. The twenty-three of them have had a total of seventy-two offspring. So, we’re working on it, Ms. Hamilton. Plus, there are other—” He stopped. Gave me a short, assessing look. “We’re investigating all avenues,” he said. “In addition to the family members, Stan Larabee had many friends and business associates across the country. A thorough investigation takes time.”

I nodded my understanding. And I did understand, but I was also pretty sure I knew what that look of assessment had meant—that he’d remembered whom I worked with.

They were still considering Holly a suspect.

• • •

Saturday’s breakfast of omelets made to order was delicious, but since I was scheduled to work that morning, I didn’t have time to get Aunt Frances off into a cozy corner for a chat. I wanted to tell her about Audry and Stan’s sisters and the reason behind the feud, but it would have to wait until the next day.

Sunday morning I decided to stop at the farmers’ market and see if I could find some raspberries to take up to Aunt Frances. While I wasn’t bearing bad news, not exactly, hearing the slightly sordid tale might be easier if the first raspberries of the season were involved.

Even at eight in the morning, the waterfront market was crowded. White tents over the bright colors of produce against the blue of Janay Lake was a feast for the eyes long before the food itself would be a feast for the tummy. I dawdled at the wide selection of lettuces—most of which I couldn’t put a name to, other than lettuce—and so heard Gunnar Olson before I saw him.

“Dear,” he said in a strained tone, “I’m getting hungry.”

I looked up and saw his wife ignoring him completely. A bunch of radishes were dangling from her hand. “Now,” she said to the woman behind the table, “these are organic, right? How organic are they?”

The two women started what was clearly going to be a long conversation about fertilizer and manure and irrigation. Gunnar heaved a huge sigh.

Mrs. Olson, who must have a first name, though she had never made it known to me, glanced my way. “Hello, Minnie, how was your winter? Gunnar, catch up with Minnie a moment, I need to learn more about these radishes.” She turned back to her conversation, leaving me and Gunnar standing face-to-face. My face to his collarbone.

What I needed was a stroke of brilliance in how to deal with a social situation in which one of the parties was a potential murderer. None came. Then again . . .

I put on a polite smile. “When did your wife get into town?”

“Couple of days ago. My dear wife and I had a wedding to attend yesterday,” Gunnar said, booming his voice across the two feet that separated us. The dear wife shot him a look. He put on a smile and waved his fingers at her.

“You know,” Gunnar said, turning back to me, “I’ve been thinking about the importance of libraries in small towns. What would you think about a donation to the Chilson District Library?”

My eyes thinned to the merest of slits. Was this a bribe? My jaw went forward and my chin went up. “What I want is the truth,” I said quietly. A donation would be nice, naturally, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

He sucked in a breath through his teeth. My gaze locked on his. There was no way I was going to be the first one to blink, not if my eyeballs dried up and fell out of my head.

Gunnar looked away. “Half an hour,” he muttered. “The Round Table.”

“Fifteen minutes,” I said.

“Half an hour.” His ruddy skin colored. “Have to help the wife carry the groceries to the boat.”

Minnie: one point. Mrs. Olson: one point. Mr. Olson: a big fat zero. In victory, grace. I nodded. “Half an hour.”

• • •

To hang on to my advantage over Gunnar, I headed for the Round Table straightaway. Let him see me with the remains of my breakfast scattered all over the table; let him think he was late. I could feel my mother shaking her head and saying, “Minerva, aren’t you being a little petty? Take the high road, you’ll feel better about yourself.”

At the front door, I hesitated. Maybe she was right. Maybe I shouldn’t be messing around like this. Maybe I should just—

“Nah,” I said out loud, and went inside.

The Round Table was a diner, Up North style. Walls of wide pine paneling, ceiling of faded acoustic tile. The only thing new in the last twenty years was the flooring, and that was because the regular customers had signed a petition to replace the worn linoleum that had been laid down in 1952.

Vinyl-covered booths lined the walls and tables filled the middle. Small square tables, with the exception of the one round table in the back. This was the table where the elder men of the town congregated on weekday mornings. Opinions were aired, politicians dissected, and decisions were made, whether or not any facts were taken into account.

The whole scenario irritated me, but since it was Sunday, the table was empty. I sat in a booth, triangulating myself into a position equidistant from a couple with small children and a man in the back booth hunched over a laptop.

The waitress, Sabrina, brought me a mug of coffee and a glass of ice water without me saying a word. “Here you go, hon. Cinnamon apple pancakes with sausage links.”

I grinned. “You’re amazing. I haven’t had time to come here since early April. How do you remember this stuff?”

“Here’s your cream.” She took three tiny plastic cups from her apron pocket and set them on the tabletop. The pencil behind her ear got pulled out, was used to scribble down my order, then pushed back into her bun of long graying hair. “How do I remember? Easy.” She winked. “I’m a professional.” She headed off to the kitchen and I was left with my own company.

The direness of the situation suddenly struck me. All by myself for half an hour, and I had no book. I did have my cell phone and a book app, but since I couldn’t remember the last time I’d charged the battery, I’d probably get all of five minutes of reading before the thing died on me.

So, no book. Also no newspaper, and no magazine. I started to get up to grab a booklet of real estate listings from the stack next to the cash register when I recognized the man with the laptop.

Bill D’Arcy.

Mr. I-Don’t-Have-a-Word-to-Say D’Arcy. Mr. Suspect-Through-Sulkiness D’Arcy.

I sat back down, sipped my coffee, and studied him. He didn’t seem to be using the keyboard or touch pad often, but I could tell by his arm movements that he was using one of them regularly. I counted, and every thirty seconds he made another click.

Hmm. Could he be reading? Who did that much reading on a computer? I rubbed at my eyes.

“Here you go, Minnie.” Sabrina put my breakfast in front of me. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Actually, do you have a minute? There’s something I want to ask you.”

“Important, huh? Hang on a sec.” She checked on the other tables, got a “No, thanks,” from both, and came back to slide into the opposite side of my booth. “Okay, lay it on me. Ask me anything except the recipe for those pancakes, because I’m not telling. And eat up. No sense in good food going cold.”

Obediently, I forked into a pancake. With the bite hanging off the tines, I leaned forward and quietly asked, “What do you know about Bill D’Arcy?” I nodded in his general direction.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Not a blessed thing. That man hasn’t the foggiest notion of how to make small talk.”

“No idea where he’s from, why he came up here, anything?”

“Only thing I know about him is he orders whatever the special is every morning, drinks three pots of coffee, most always stays through lunch, orders the lunch special, and stays until we close at three. He stares at his computer the whole time. Tips real good, though,” she said reflectively. “Of course, he’d better, hogging a table like that.”

“He comes here every day?”

“The most regular customer we have.”

We gawked at the rut-bound Mr. D’Arcy.

“But I take it back,” Sabrina said, the booth’s vinyl squeaking at she turned back to face me. “There was one day he wasn’t here at all. About three weeks ago, I’d guess.” She hummed a tune. “Must have been a Friday, because the breakfast special was the Western omelet, that’s his favorite, and he wasn’t here. Cookie in there”—she tipped her head to the kitchen—“figured he must have died, but the next day he was back again, just like normal.”

“Did he say where he’d been?” I asked.

“Eat,” she commanded. It wasn’t until I was chewing that she answered my question. “He didn’t say word one about where he’d been. Just plopped himself down in that booth like he’d never been gone and didn’t unglue his eyes from that stupid computer for hours. Look at him. He’ll reach for his coffee without even looking. Does the same thing with food.”

But I wasn’t thinking about Mr. D’Arcy’s eating habits. “The Friday he was gone,” I said slowly. “Was that the day Stan Larabee was killed?”

She drummed her short fingernails on the table. “You know, I think it was.”

I suddenly felt a large, solid presence next to the table. We looked up and saw a glowering Gunnar Olson looming above. “You must need to talk to Minnie,” Sabrina said, sliding out of the booth. “What can I get you, Gunnie?”

“Coffee,” he growled, dropping into the seat she’d vacated. “And make it quick.”

“Keep your pants on.” She leaned over and whispered to me, “Give me the high sign if you need help with this guy.”

Gunnie? “Thanks, but I’m good.”

We sat there, listening to the occasional click of Bill D’Arcy’s keyboard, listening to the parents struggle to keep their toddlers in line. I listened to myself chew and swallow. Gunnar sat with his arms folded and stared out the front window.

When Sabrina returned with a carafe of coffee and a mug, she asked, “Anything else?” Gunnar sipped his coffee and glared at me. I said, “No, thanks, Sabrina.”

Gunnar waited until she was out of earshot before he pushed his coffee aside and leaned forward, his arms spread wide on the table, the better to intimidate me with. But that kind of domination attempt didn’t work on me. I wasn’t even five feet tall. Everyone was bigger than I was. It was something I was accustomed to and knew how to ignore.

“What did you hear?” he asked. “The other night, when you were eavesdropping. How much did you hear?”

I wanted to say, “Pretty much all of it,” but there was a reasonable chance that the man sitting across from me was a killer. What I needed was to be smart, and to be smart in such a clever way that he didn’t realize I was outsmarting him.

“I told you the truth. I fell in the water because I was trying to keep my cat from falling in.”

“Cats don’t fall,” he said flatly.

“And cats don’t like bread, either, but Eddie loves the stuff.”

“You named your cat Eddie?”

I shrugged.

For some reason, the idea of a cat called Eddie amused him. He snorted out a laugh. “Eddie. What a stupid name for a cat.” He snorted again, then leaned low across the table. “I didn’t kill Stan Larabee,” he said quietly.

I cut my cold sausage into bite-sized pieces. Speared one piece. “Okay.” I popped the bite into my mouth.

“Nothing wrong with a nice grudge between former business partners, is there? But I didn’t kill him.”

Since I was chewing, I held out a hand, palm up, and made a tell-me-more gesture with my fingers.

His nostrils flared as he breathed in and out, in and out. “Twenty years ago, when I was down in Florida for a business conference, a mutual friend introduced me to Larabee. He thought it was funny that I summered where Larabee had grown up. Real funny,” he said, making fists with his hands. “I’m laughing hard enough to hurt myself.”

I swallowed. “So, twenty years ago . . .”

“Yeah. Back then life was good for buying property in Florida, putting in some roads, slapping up modulars, and making a killing. Larabee said he’d come across this sweet property—the owner needed cash and was selling it for a song. Larabee said he was thinking about getting out of the development business, but if I wanted in, we could make a limited liability corporation, each put in half, each get half the profits.” His face was turning a deep shade of red.

“I take it things didn’t go like that?”

“Stan Larabee was a thief,” Gunnar said stonily. “We bought the property, laid out thousands for the engineering, laid out tens of thousands for the infrastructure—then when time came to sell lots, we got nothing but rumors of hidden limestone sinkholes about to cave in, toxic waste dumps, and contaminated water. Didn’t matter what we said, the word was out. Couldn’t sell a single lot.”

“Were there any sinkholes?”

“No!” he shouted, his face now almost purple. “We had geological reports up the wazoo. We had hazardous-materials guys declare the site clean. We had the health department sign off that the water was well within tolerances. It was fine!”

I hoped he wasn’t prone to heart attacks. “Then why the rumors?”

“Stan Larabee was behind it all.” Gunnar spoke through gritted teeth. “He said he was sorry it was turning out this way, said he’d buy back my share.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“Buy back my share for pennies on the dollar. Pennies!” His fist hit the table so hard even Bill D’Arcy looked up. “And you know what happened? The minute Larabee bought the property off me, the rumors disappeared. Vanished.” He flicked his fingers out in a magician-style move. “In the end he makes a bundle with barely more than half the investment he should have put into it. And what do I get? Nothing. Nothing!”

“Did you talk to an attorney?”

“What, you think I’m stupid? Of course I did. He said he’d be glad to take my money, but it’d be a waste. If Larabee did start all those rumors, it’d be a job and a half to prove it and even if I won, I’d probably end up spending more in lawyer fees than I’d recover.” He grabbed his coffee mug and took a hefty slug. “Still, I thought about it. Thought about it hard.”

I eyed him. “All that sounds like an excellent motive for murder.”

He stared back. “I have more money than I know what to do with. I hate to lose, is all. Sure, I was madder than a wet snake over the deal, but not mad enough to kill him. And two things. One, this was over and done with years ago. Two, I didn’t have a car that weekend. What was I going to do, hire Koyne to drive me on a murder gig?”

I blinked. “Mitchell Koyne?”

“Yeah, that’s him.”

Mitchell kept turning up in the oddest of places. Mr. Koyne and I were going to have to have a chat. Soon.

I laid my knife and fork on the side of my plate. Added my wadded-up napkin to the pile and pushed it toward the edge of the table. Gunnar Olson had a nasty temper and he was a misogynist and a bully, but I wasn’t sure he was a murderer. Of course, I wasn’t sure I’d recognize a killer if I met one. They didn’t tend to wear labels.

“Say,” he said, “you didn’t hear what I said about my little spin at the casino, did you? No reason to tell the wife.” He tried a chuckle. “I mean, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, she’s the worrying kind, and I don’t want her worried about nothing.”

If his grip on the handle of the coffee mug hadn’t been white-knuckled and if his other hand hadn’t been trembling, I might have believed him. But that, on top of his rapidly blinking eyes and his fast, short breaths . . . no. I didn’t believe a word of it.

“You know,” I said, “your wife looks like a cat person. How much are you two going to be up this summer? Do you think she’d like to take care of Eddie when I go on vacation? He’d probably like to stay on that big boat of yours.”

The red on Gunnar’s face paled to gray. “Is that a threat?” he asked hoarsely.

“Just thinking out loud.” I slid out of the booth. “Just thinking out loud.”

“Hey, when’s your vacation?”

The completely correct answer would be that I didn’t have one planned. “Later,” I said, giving him a wide smile. “I’ll let you know.” I handed a ten-dollar bill to Sabrina, and left.

• • •

I spent Sunday afternoon with Aunt Frances, sorting through emotions and working through fears, trying to do a clean sweep of it all and not doing a very good job. I told her about the Larabee feud. We cried a little, hugged a little, and talked a lot, but when I left, I wasn’t sure either one of us felt much better than when I’d arrived. Stan was still dead, and Aunt Frances still felt guilty about it.

• • •

Monday wasn’t much better. It was one of those days that everyone on the entire library staff was in a bad mood.

Holly was frazzled, stressed about household chores that weren’t getting done, and concerned about her son’s scratchy throat. I asked if she’d told her husband about Stan and the police. Her teary expression answered my question, and I patted her shoulder while she gulped down sobs, choking out that he was too far away, it would just make him worry.

It didn’t go much better with Josh. When I asked him how the date with Megan went, he shrugged and said it went okay. “But she said she was busy this weekend, so I guess that’s it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He popped the top of his soda can. “She said she was busy, don’t you get it? That’s the same as saying she doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

“Or maybe she’s busy. People are.”

He made a rude noise and stomped off.

And Stephen had holed himself up in his office and did nothing but make grunts of displeasure every time I talked to him. I’d tried to get him to open up about whatever weight was pressing him down, but he’d repeatedly rebuffed my attempts. Even when I told him both Caroline Grice and Gunnar Olson were considering donations, the response wasn’t any different. “Consideration,” he’d said, “isn’t a check in hand.”

In spite of my vows to stay upbeat, perky, and positive, by lunchtime my own mood had been pulled down. At the end of the day, for the very first time, I was glad to escape the library.

• • •

Happily, Tuesday was Bookmobile Day. Thessie was spending the week with her grandparents in the southeast corner of the county and since the day’s route covered that area, I’d told her I’d pick her up and drop her off.

We met in the parking lot of a nearby township hall and the three of us, Thessie, Eddie, and me, headed off into the wild blue yonder to spread knowledge all across the land.

The day was a good one. Maybe it only felt like a good day compared to the horrible yesterday, but everything in bookmobile-land seemed to go smoothly. Eddie stayed on his self-appointed perch on the passenger seat headrest, we found books to suit all the children, and the adults who’d ordered books remembered ordering them. We even paired up a slightly sullen adolescent with a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy I’d accidentally put on a shelf next to the DVDs.

“Maybe there are no accidents,” Thessie said. “My mom says there’s a meaning to everything.”

Thessie’s mom also believed that the earth was under the control of aliens who had to consume people’s blood to maintain their human appearance, but in this case she might actually be right.

I dropped Thessie off at her sagging sedan and headed home. Sort of.

Though I’d logged hundreds of miles in my car while planning bookmobile routes, driving the same route in the vehicle itself was a far different experience. I’d taken into account hills and curves and narrow roads, but what I hadn’t considered enough were the potholes. Thanks to the freeze-and-thaw cycle of late winter and early spring, the roads are full of the little buggers, and some of them aren’t so little. And it quickly became clear that hitting a pothole in a small sedan was a far different experience from hitting the same pothole in a thirty-one-foot bookmobile.

The poor bookmobile didn’t like it. Thessie didn’t like it. The books didn’t like it. And Eddie really didn’t like it.

“Mrrrooowwww!” he’d yell, then give me a dirty look.

After dropping Thessie off, I taped the county map to the dashboard and looked at Eddie. “This isn’t about you, you know. You’re not supposed to be here in the first place. As far as this rerouting is concerned, you don’t exist. This is about the bookmobile and minimizing its maintenance.”

Eddie settled into the passenger seat and closed his eyes. He didn’t believe a word of it.

I patted his head and dropped the gearshift into drive.

• • •

The sunlight was starting to slant low when it happened. I’d wanted to find a new east–west bookmobile route in the middle part of the east side of the county and wasn’t completely happy with any of the three possibilities. I drove over each of the roads three or four times, trying to imagine their surfaces in ice-slick winter, eyeing the cracking asphalt, anticipating future potholes.

“Which do you like best, Eddie?”

Mr. Edward opened his eyes just wide enough for me to see the yellow in his irises, then went back to sleep.

In spite of his lack of interest, I continued to articulate my thoughts. “The county road is probably in the best shape, but that stretch near the potato farm is going to drift over like crazy in winter. If I take the most direct way, that hill—”

BAM!

The bookmobile gave a bucking lurch and started pulling hard to the right. “Hang on!” I yelled to Eddie. The steering wheel tried to spin itself out of my hands.

“MMrrrrrRRR!!!”

But I didn’t have time to calm Eddie—it was taking everything I had to calm the bookmobile. My foot was off the gas, I was pumping the brake lightly, staying out of a skid, I could do this, I could do this, I was doing this, I would—

BAM!

The bookmobile lurched again.

Eddie hissed and howled and spat. “MMrrrrrRRRRRR!!!”

The little control I had over the bookmobile vanished. My mouth tasted of metal as the adrenaline flowed through my body, into my heart, into my tingling skin.

To the right, the road’s shoulder dropped away fast into a hill that rolled down steep to a narrow creek. If I couldn’t keep out of that, if we pulled that way . . . into my head came an image of the bookmobile falling and rolling and tumbling, all the books, Eddie, and me, jumbling together in a broken heap.

“No!” I shouted, and gripped the steering wheel with all my strength and all my might. I kept on pumping the brakes. Was it doing anything? I didn’t know, but I had to think it was helping. I had to try.

My arms quivered with the strain of keeping the vehicle headed straight. We were slowing, but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. My jaw muscles bunched. My lips went dry. “Steady, Eddie,” I whispered. “It’ll be okay.”

The steering wheel was doing nothing. I was doing nothing. My pumps on the brakes were doing nothing. There was nothing I could do except try to steer and try to brake and hope hope hope that something I was doing would do something.

It had to work.

We had to stop.

We had to.

Bare inches from a steep slope that would have carried us off without a second thought, the bookmobile came to a slow screeching stop.

We’d made it.

I sat there, panting, my hands still gripping the steering wheel.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

I blew out a breath and reached out for a cat snuggle. “You and me both, pal, you and me both.” My laugh was a little too loud.

Then my brain started working again. “What on earth happened?” I asked Eddie.

He butted his head against my shoulder. Comforting, but not much of an answer.

“You stay here,” I said, putting him on the seat of my chair. “I’ll be right back.” I opened the rear door and jumped to the ground, stumbling a little at its steepness.

I looked at the back end of the bookmobile. The right rear tire was flat. I looked at the front end. “Oh, jeez . . .” The right front tire was flat, too. How on earth could both tires have gone flat at the same time?

A motor-ish sort of noise came from behind me and I saw the hunched figure of a guy on a four-wheeled ATV, a quad, roar across the road and up a narrow trail. The driver wore dark pants and a dark hooded sweatshirt. Sticking out behind the driver was a rifle strapped to the vehicle’s carrier rack.

A rifle.

I shrank back behind the bookmobile, but poked my head out to see the quad wind up the hill and disappear into a thick tree line. The engine’s roar faded to a dull buzz; then that, too, disappeared.