Lending a Paw

Chapter 16

I climbed back aboard the lamed bookmobile and pulled my cell phone from my backpack. I studied the screen, sighed, and put the useless thing away. There was a certain inevitability to the fact that there was no signal.

The last house we’d passed had been at least a mile back and it had had that abandoned look houses get when they’re unoccupied. I didn’t remember the road ahead well enough to know how close the nearest house might be, but there wasn’t one in sight.

In the cabinet behind me was the emergency road manual, but since I could recite the entire contents from memory, I knew without looking what it said about a situation like this. “Call for assistance.” So helpful. It also said, “Use your best judgment when dealing with emergency situations.”

Well, that would have to do.

I turned on the four-way flashers and kissed the top of Eddie’s head. “I’ll be outside, okay?” He started a light and steady purr. Which wasn’t truly helpful, but it did make me feel a little better.

I headed out and rummaged around for the battery-operated emergency lights I’d bought myself and stored in an outside compartment. Set one on its small tripod stand a little ways in front of the vehicle, set another one a little way behind.

Then I used my hand to brush dust off the front bumper. Sat down, crossed my legs at the ankles, and started waiting.

Waited some more.

Tried to enjoy the sounds of early evening.

Recrossed my legs and realized that summer evening sounds were really the sounds of bugs.

Waited. Thought about going inside and getting a book. Didn’t.

Waited.

At long last, I heard the hum of a vehicle.

I jumped to my feet and stood, a happy and expectant smile on my face, formulating the words of thanks with which I’d shower my rescuer.

The vehicle came closer, closer, and suddenly there it was, small and silver and moving fast. I waved my arms high in the air, flagging the car down, calling for help. The convertible zoomed past. BMW Z4, I was pretty sure, since I’d admired one in the marina’s parking lot all last summer.

I gave its taillights the meanest, nastiest glare I could glare. “Jerk!” I yelled to the driver. “You’re nothing but a big jerk!” The driver hadn’t even looked at me. He’d just ignored me and the poor bookmobile and zipped on his merry way.

People.

I plomped myself down on the bumper.

Waited.

Roughly a year and a half later, a rattletrap of an SUV appeared. I’d heard the sputtering muffler long before it came around the long curve, so I was already standing in the middle of the road, feet spread across the centerline, hands out in a Stop! gesture by the time it came into view.

This time, everything was different. The driver’s window rolled down and a blond head poked out. “Miss Minnie? What’s wrong with the bookmobile?”

I walked up to the ancient Jeep Cherokee. It was Surfette, the young woman who’d been on the bookmobile twice, hunting for a book she wouldn’t let us help her find. “Hi,” I said. “Two flat tires and I’m not getting any cell coverage.”

“Oh, wow. What can I do?”

And they say the youth of today is self-centered. I wanted to hug her. “I don’t want to leave the bookmobile, so if you could find a phone and call our mechanic, that would be a lifesaver.” I gave her the name of the garage that did the bookmobile maintenance.

“You bet. I know the people who live a couple miles up the road. I’ll be right back.”

She took her foot off the brake, but I waved at her to stop. “There’s another phone call to make.” While I didn’t want to scare her, this had to be done. “I need you to call the police.”

“What?” Her mouth dropped open, showing perfectly white teeth. “Why? What happened?”

I gave her as brief a description of the event as possible, and her reaction wasn’t anything close to fear. “Some rotten kid, I bet,” said the girl who couldn’t be much more than twenty. “Stupid jerks. Some of them have nothing better to do than take potshots at anything that moves.”

She eased her vehicle forward a few feet, then braked. “Um, this may sound like a weird question, but is your cat with you?”

My heart did an odd thump-thump. This was Eddie’s real owner. She’d cried buckets over losing him and I was going to have to give him back. I deeply, desperately wanted to lie, but was stopped by an image of my mother shaking her head at me and saying, “Minerva, I am so disappointed in you.”

“Thanks a lot, Mom,” I murmured.

“What’s that?” Surfette asked.

“Eddie’s in the bookmobile.”

She nodded. “Okay, good. Is there anything I can get you?” I shook my head and she pulled away, speckles of rust falling off the wheel wells as she accelerated.

I stood, slump-shouldered, and watched her Jeep vanish into the distance. She was going to take Eddie away from me and I was going to have to be grateful to her for rescuing the bookmobile. And to think I’d started this day happy.

Hands in my pockets, I scuffed my way back to the bookmobile. If I only had a little time left with Eddie, I was going to make the most of it.

I climbed up the steps and found him in the back corner, sitting on a small pile of children’s books he’d pulled off a shelf. Any other day this would have earned him a scolding and a threat of no treats for a week. This time I lay on the floor next to him, stomach down, and laid my head on one arm while I petted him with the other, not thinking, just being.

In what felt like three minutes, I heard the Cherokee’s muffler return. I got to my feet, scooping up Eddie on the way, and sat on the carpeted step to wait.

Surfette knocked on the back door and came on in, all bright smiles and energy. “Your garage guy said he’ll be out as soon as he can. He didn’t see how you’d blown two tires, though. He must have asked me six times if I was sure it was two tires.”

I laid my hand on Eddie’s flank. My friend, my companion. “Did he say how long he thought it would take to get here?”

“Less than an hour, he figured.” She introduced herself as Hannah, thereby blasting the surfer girl image to bits. Surfettes would be named Didi or maybe Jenny. Never Hannah. “He said he’ll bring an extra guy and the big tow truck.”

I nodded. “That’s great. Thanks so much for your help, Hannah. I could have been here all night if you hadn’t come along.”

“Oh, anybody would have stopped,” she said, shrugging. “I must have been the first person by. Just luck it was me.”

Luck. You could call it that. There was a pause that neither one of us seemed in a hurry to fill. “So,” I asked, “do you mind if I ask you a question?” My inquiry came at the same time Hannah asked, “Is it okay if I ask you something?”

We both laughed and I gestured for her to go ahead. “Rescuers get to go first. It’s a rule.”

Hannah giggled and pushed her sun-bleached hair back behind her ears. “You know how I’ve been in here a couple of times looking for a book? Well.” Her voice went low, almost into a whisper. “My fiancé and me, we’re getting married in the fall.”

For the first time, I noticed the diamond ring on her left hand. A very small diamond. Hannah spun it around on her finger, smiling a little.

“Anyway, both our families want this great big wedding. Our parents really can’t afford it, and anyway, Bobby and me don’t want a big wedding. Too much money for one day, and you’re still just as married if you go to a justice of the peace, right?”

My mouth might have dropped open. “Yes,” I managed to say.

She gave a sharp nod. “That’s what I keep telling my mom. I tell her we don’t want them to run up their credit cards for a wedding, but she kind of tells me to go away, that she has to pick out napkins since I haven’t done it yet.” She rolled her eyes. “I mean, it’s our wedding. Shouldn’t we be able to say that we don’t want napkins?”

“Absolutely.”

“So what I was looking for was a book on having a small, cheap wedding. There’s got to be a way.”

I smiled. “I know just the book.”

Her eyes lit up with hope. “You do?”

“Not here, but I’ll put it on the bookmobile as a reserved book and you can pick it up anytime.”

“Really?” She grinned wide. “This is so cool. I thought for sure if I checked out a wedding book, you’d tell my mom—she knows everybody, it seems like. Bobby and me, we’ll figure out a plan first, and then we’ll just, you know, go ahead and do it.”

I looked at her happy smile. It wouldn’t be that easy, but given the firm look in her eye, she probably knew that already. We fell to talking about weddings, easy happy talk that stretched out long.

Finally Eddie gave a wide yawn and said, “Mrrr.”

“Oh, hey.” Hannah snapped her fingers. “That’s another thing I wanted to ask. . . . Um, are you okay?”

I patted myself on the chest, playing at pretending the sharp gasp I’d let out had been something else entirely. “Fine, thanks. What’s the question?”

“Him.” She pointed at Eddie and I thought my heart was going to freeze. “Is he a silver tabby?”

It took me two tries, three, to say, “That’s what the vet said.”

“Cool.” She squatted down in front of Eddie. “He’s a good-looking cat. Bobby and me, we’re breeding boxers, but we’re thinking about doing cats, too.” She squinted up at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

My muffled laughter smoothed out into a wide smile. “Eddie was a stray, and he’s been neutered.”

“Oh.” She made a face. “That’s too bad.”

The honking of a truck startled all three of us. We looked through the bookmobile’s windshield to see my second set of rescuers pile out of the biggest tow truck I’d ever seen.

“Well, guess I’ll get out of your way,” Hannah said.

I have her a quick hug. “Thanks again. I’m glad it was you who stopped.”

She hugged back. “Me, too.” Halfway down the steps she turned. “Hey, you wanted to ask a question, too. What was it?”

“You know, I really don’t remember.” I smiled and hugged Eddie to my chest, holding him tight.

• • •

I was averting my eyes from the sight of the front end of the bookmobile being hoisted onto the tow truck when a sheriff’s cruiser pulled up.

The deputy who climbed out looked familiar and I realized it was Deputy Wolverson, the officer who had dripped rainwater all over the bookmobile the day I’d found Stan.

“Ms. Hamilton,” he said, nodding. “Sorry it took so long for me to get here, but I was on another call. What’s the problem?”

“Thirty aught six, I’d guess,” the head mechanic said. He kicked at the shredded tire they’d removed. When I’d ordered the bookmobile, I’d also ordered a spare rim and tire and had it stored in their garage. Ordering two in case someone attacked the bookmobile had never occurred to me.

Wolverson lowered himself into an easy crouch and studied the remains. “Got it a good one, didn’t he?” He glanced up at me. “You okay?”

“Mad, mostly.”

He smiled. “Healthy reaction. Good for you.” Standing, he walked to the front end and looked at the ruined tire that was still attached. “No damage other than the tires, looks like. Some fine driving on your part, Ms. Hamilton.” He took a small notebook out of his shirt pocket. “How far apart were the shots, timewise?”

We did the question and answer routine for a few minutes. I pointed to where I’d seen the rifle-toting quad rider drive off, and the deputy made extensive notes. When he was done, he lifted his gaze to the distant line of hills. “You know that Larabee’s farmhouse is that way, just two or three miles, right?”

I nodded. Steep and rough miles, but nothing for a quad.

“Maybe there’s no connection between your bookmobile’s tires being shot out and his murder,” he said, “but maybe there is. I’ll take some pictures and do what I can out here, but I’m going to pass this on to the detectives in charge of the Larabee case.”

I’d guessed as much and had actually hoped for it, because at this exact moment Holly was working at the library. Had been, all afternoon. If there was any silver lining to this episode, it was that now Holly would be dropped to the bottom of their suspect list.

• • •

After Eddie and I got home, courtesy of the tow truck’s narrow backseat, I made the dreaded phone call. “Stephen? Sorry to bother you at home. It’s Minnie. I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

At the end of my recitation of the afternoon’s events, Stephen grunted and asked, “The bookmobile will be out of commission for how long?”

“Just a few days, they told us.”

“Us?” Stephen’s voice was sharp. “You had a volunteer on the bookmobile when some maniac with a rifle was shooting at you?”

“No, no,” I assured him. “I dropped Thessie off long before that. By us I meant me and the bookmobile and three thousand books.” I laughed as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Stephen didn’t laugh with me. I tried not to take that as a bad omen, since Stephen had never been prone to breaking into uncontrollable laughter, or any kind of laughter for that matter, but a sick sensation started gnawing at the back of my brain. Stephen hated the bookmobile. He would use any excuse to take it away.

“We’ll be off the road one week maximum,” I said, projecting assurance into my voice. “And the guys said the tires may even get up here in time for Saturday’s run.”

Stephen grunted. “Keep me informed,” he said.

He sounded grumpy, but not the world-class grumpy that he’d been. “Say, Stephen, you’re starting to sound more like your old self. Have you had one of those summer colds?”

“No, it’s my . . .” He stopped. “I’m fine.” A pause. “But thank you for asking.”

Thank you? Stephen had unbent enough to say thank you? It was a day to remember. “One more question,” I said. “Do you know if Holly scheduled the summer book sale with the Friends?” I’d meant to do it myself the day before, but had forgotten and asked Holly to take care of the small chore.

“Holly went home early,” he said. “One of her children was sick, I was told.”

Sighing, I hung up the phone. “So much for Holly being dropped to the bottom of the list,” I told Eddie. While I’d been on the phone with Stephen, Mr. Ed had placed himself exactly in the center of the dining table. By rights, I should be enforcing the No Cats on the Table rule. Somehow, though, I didn’t have the heart. Not tonight.

“Mrr,” he said, then shut his eyes and purred.

Smiling, I scratched him behind his fuzzy ear. He wasn’t so bad for an Eddie.

• • •

The next morning I was hard at work sorting through applications for a new part-time library clerk when the detectives stopped by.

“Can we have a moment of your time?” Detective Inwood asked.

“Sure.” The one guest chair for which my office had room was piled high with books. “Do you want to go into the conference room?”

“No, thanks,” said the short stout detective who was shaped like the letter D. Devereaux. “We just want to get your story about yesterday.” He pulled a small notebook from his jacket pocket. Its cardboard covers were curved slightly, molded to the shape of his body.

As clearly as possible, I related the events of the day before. The lurching of the bookmobile. The second lurch. My sighting of the quad and the rifle. And how the distance from where the bookmobile’s tires had been blown out to the farmhouse wasn’t that far, not cross-country with a quad.

Detective Devereaux flipped his notebook shut. “Bet it was some kid messing around,” he said, chuckling. “Probably he was shooting at a stop sign and missed.” They both laughed.

If I’d been a cartoon, steam would have poured out of my ears. “He came close to destroying a vehicle worth a quarter of a million dollars,” I said.

The laughter stopped. “Yes, ma’am,” said Detective Inwood. “We realize that. We’ll find him. People talk, and kids talk even more. It won’t take long to track him down.”

I nodded, slightly mollified.

“What garage is working on the vehicle?” he asked. I told him and he nodded. “We’ll take a look at the blown tires. Where were you when this happened?” When I gave him directions, he said, “We’ll check it out.”

He was saying the right things, but I sensed that I was losing them. “Do you think there’s any link between Stan’s murder and the bookmobile?” Yesterday I’d spent hours driving up and down the same few roads, trying out routes. The bookmobile was a big thing and didn’t move very fast. Easy enough to follow it, if you wanted.

I didn’t want to come out and ask if they thought my life was in danger, but how could it not be a possibility? I was very attached to my life and I wasn’t keen on it ending any time soon.

The detective smiled. “Ma’am, like I said, we’re investigating every possibility. If there’s a link, we’ll find it.”

And with that, they were gone.

I stared after them, my face red with the effort of restraining my temper. They’d find it? Sure they would. Right after they figured out what really happened to the lost colony on Roanoke Island and right before they tracked down D. B. Cooper.

• • •

“Hiya, Minnie. What’s that you’re doing?”

I jumped. I was doing a stint at the research desk and Mitchell Koyne had done his usual trick of walking up from behind and scaring the living crap out of me. I pushed back from the desk and looked up at him. “Hey, Mitchell. I’ve been meaning to ask you something. You know Gunnar Olson, right?”

“Olson . . . oh, yeah. Big guy, too much money, not enough nice?”

I smiled. Mitchell had pegged it. “He said you did some driving for him a few weeks ago.”

“Yeah. Buddy of mine said a bud of this guy he knows was going to be in town for the weekend without a car and needed somebody to drive him around.” He shrugged. “Paid me decent. Cash, too.”

“Where did you take him?”

“Did more waiting than taking. Don’t know why he didn’t rent a car. I told him so, but he said I was stupid to talk myself out of a job.” Mitchell shrugged. “Hey, I was trying to save him money, but whatever.”

“You drove him around town?”

“What?” He tipped his head the other way to look at my computer from another angle. “In Chilson, you mean? Hardly any.”

My breath stopped, but my heart beat on and on, whooshing air through my veins and arteries so loudly that I could hardly hear anything else. I sucked in air and my ears started working again. “Then where did you take him?” To the farmhouse? The answer to Stan’s murder couldn’t really be so simple, could it? If anyone could have missed a murder happening under his nose, it would be Mitchell.

“Casino.” He pointed at the computer. “You looking to buy some property? I could find you some cheap acreage, if you want. There’s a sweet quarter section I know about, lots of maples you could harvest, probably pay for itself and then some. And the guy who owns an eighty next to me wants to sell.”

I swallowed down a laugh. Me, buy eighty acres of land? Mitchell obviously didn’t know the size of my salary. “Which casino?”

“More like which one didn’t we go to.” Mitchell shook his head. “I don’t get gambling. I mean, sure, maybe you’ll win sometimes, but those places aren’t dumps. You got to figure they’re making money hand over hand.”

Little spin, Gunnar had said.

“You don’t gamble, Minnie, do you?” Mitchell asked.

Not unless you counted waking up every morning. “So you drove Gunnar around to casinos? You didn’t drive him around the rest of the county?”

“Here, you mean?” Mitchell pointed at the map on my computer screen.

I’d been using the county’s geographic information system. This view showed property lines and I’d zoomed into the eastern part of the county. One click on a parcel and up came details like legal description and taxable value. And property owner. I was poking around at the properties near where the bookmobile had been damaged, but I wasn’t reaching any conclusions. I needed more information and I had no clue how to get it.

Mitchell tapped the screen. “Can you move the picture over this way? A little more . . . yeah. This long skinny property here? I was out there cutting trees for some guy a few weeks ago. Ash. Dead from that emerald borer bug. Ever see one? They’re kind of cool looking, for bugs.”

“A few weeks ago?” I echoed. “Around when Stan Larabee was killed?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess. A little before, maybe.” He put his index finger on the screen, guaranteeing a streaky fingerprint I’d have to clean up later. “Is that where that farmhouse is? Can you turn on the picture?”

I clicked a few clicks, changing the base map from property lines to aerial photography. Though the resolution wasn’t anywhere near CSI standards, it was easy enough to make out the straight lines and regular planes of a roof. “There it is,” I said, trying not to see into my memory.

“That’s the place? Huh.” Mitchell rubbed his jaw, which, since it looked like he hadn’t bothered to shave in three days, made a sandpapery sort of noise.

“What?” I asked.

“Sometimes your brain just clicks things together, you know?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what things were rattling around in Mitchell’s head, but I asked anyway.

“Well,” he said. “Two things. That Olson guy. I asked him why he came to Chilson instead of Petoskey or Traverse, and he said his dad used to bring him up here hunting. From what he said, this is the place.” He left another fingerprint on the screen, one that was centered on a property maybe half a mile south of the old Larabee farm. “He said there was this old junky cabin they stayed at. Wonder if it’s still there?”

The back of my neck tightened. “What was the other thing?” I whispered.

“What’s that? Oh, the other thing. When I was out there, cutting that wood, I saw some guy on a quad going up the hill behind that farmhouse where you found Larabee. Pretty sure, anyway.”

“Pretty sure that was the house or pretty sure you saw a guy on a quad?”

“Huh?” He stared at me. “Oh. Both, I guess.”

“You have to tell the police,” I said.

“Why the . . . I mean, why should I?”

I gave him the Librarian Look and started the lecture. “Because Stan Larabee was killed there. Because, not too far from there, someone on a quad shot out the bookmobile’s tires. Because it could be important. Because—”

“Okay, okay.” He reached up and reset his baseball cap. “I’ll stop by the cop shop, uh, later on.”

“Today,” I told him, but to Mitchell, the term was a fluid one. Later, he’d said. That meant he’d stop by the sheriff’s office when he got around to it. Or when he happened to remember. Mitchell-time, Holly called it. There was a reason Mitchell spent so much time at the library reading books and magazines he could have checked out; his overdue fines were nearing the three-figure mark. Right after Christmas, Stephen had laid down the law—no more lending books to Mitchell Koyne no matter how much he begged and pleaded, not until he paid up his fines. And maybe not even then, Stephen had thundered.

But this was too important to leave to Mitchell-time. The police needed to go back to the farmhouse and search for quad tracks. And I needed to tell them about Gunnar. Sure, Detective Inwood had said they were looking at Stan’s business associates, but how many of those associates had hunted near the old Larabee farm? If the cabin was still there, Gunnar could have hidden the quad and walked down to the farmhouse. How that worked with Gunnar’s lack of transportation, I wasn’t sure. Maybe he had a car stashed somewhere at the airport and only hired Mitchell to drive him as a cover and—

“Which reminds me,” Mitchell was saying. “It’s what, Wednesday? Do you want to, maybe, go out to a movie or something with me on Friday?”

Thanks to a good fortune I didn’t deserve, my mouth did not drop open and I didn’t blurt out the first thing that popped into my head. I took a breath, smiled kindly, and said, “Thanks, Mitchell, that’s very nice of you, but I’m seeing someone else right now.”

“Oh, yeah? Anybody I know?”

“I don’t think so. He’s the new emergency room doctor in Charlevoix.”

“Oh.” Mitchell’s shoulders drooped.

My heart ached for him. It was a brave thing to do, to ask someone on a date, and here I’d crushed his ego with one short sentence. He’d be despondent for weeks and—

He raised his head. “Say, do you think your friend Kristen would go out with me?”

I blinked, then smiled, remembering the night she’d barged into my date with Tucker. Paybacks can be glorious. “Why don’t you ask her?”

• • •

Late on Friday morning I decided I couldn’t wait for Mitchell any longer and decided to take matters into my own hands. Besides, I hadn’t taken a break yet and what better way to spend a morning break than at the sheriff’s office?

I passed the front desk, but stopped when I saw Holly, biting her lower lip and staring at nothing. “What’s the matter?” I asked. She shook her head and didn’t meet my eyes. “Hey, are you okay?”

Her head went up and down in a slow-motion nod. “It’ll be fine,” she said. “Right? The police . . .” She stopped, either not knowing where to go or not liking where she was going.

“It will be fine,” I said firmly. “Very fine. Matter of fact . . .” But then I stopped, too. I had no right to give her hope, no right to promise anything.

She turned to look at me. “What?”

Think, Minnie, think! “Matter of fact, I have the perfect thing to make you feel better. What do you think about a cinnamon roll from the Round Table?”

A wan smile came and went. “That sounds nice.”

“If anyone asks, I took a late break. I’ll be back in a few, okay?”

Out in the warming sun, I walked down the backstreets as far as I could, staying out of the heavy pedestrian traffic that was bound to be in the downtown’s core. At the last possible street, I dove into the downtown flow, stepping around a stroller, avoiding a woman talking on her cell phone, slowing down to avoid bumping into a tall, thin man walking with a short, round one who looked as if they’d just come out of the cookie shop.

Tall and thin, short and round. The letters I and D.

Serendipity was my friend. I fell into step behind the two men, then surged forward to split them apart. “Hello, Detectives, how are you this fine morning?”

They came to an immediate halt, one on either side of me. Since even the short detective was taller than I was by a good seven inches, this wasn’t a position of power for Ms. Hamilton. I took a quick step away from them. “I’m fine, thanks,” I said in response to their nonresponse. “Has Mitchell Koyne talked to either of you recently?”

Detective Inwood shook his head. So did Detective Devereaux.

Mitchell-time had struck again. “He said something you should know.” They exchanged a glance that was over my head. Literally over my head, not figuratively. I could guess what that glance was all about. It meant, I bet this is nothing, but we have to listen to her, don’t we? Why, yes, you do. “A few days before Stan was killed,” I told them, “Mitchell was cutting down some trees near that farmhouse. He saw a guy on a quad.”

Their faces, which had been politely blank, stayed that way.

“A quad,” I said. “It was a guy on a quad who shot out the tires on the bookmobile, remember?”

Detective Devereaux said, “Ms. Hamilton, do you know how many quads are in this county?”

I didn’t know and I didn’t particularly care. What I did care about was that the detectives apparently hadn’t followed up on the tire-shooting incident. They’d chalked it up to a kid messing around and hadn’t bothered their pretty little heads about it any further. A sharp anger started to heat up inside me. Somewhere, I heard my mother saying, “Now, Minerva, don’t lose your temper. You know it never helps anything,” but she wasn’t talking loud enough for it to have any real effect.

“It seems to me,” I said, “that you should look for quad tracks near the farmhouse. Maybe the guy cleaned up the tracks close by the house, but maybe there are still tracks nearby.”

Detective Inwood started to say something, but I wasn’t done.

“And you said you were investigating Stan’s business associates. Have you come across Gunnar Olson by any chance?” My sarcasm was starting to show and I knew I needed to dial it down. I released the fists that my hands had become and went on.

“He has a summer slip at Uncle Chip’s Marina and was partners with Stan in a development deal. Gunnar lost out big-time. He still carries a huge grudge. And what I just found out is he used to hunt up in the hills behind the farmhouse. There was a cabin up there.”

This part seemed to matter to them. Devereaux took some notes, and even made sure he had the correct spelling of “Olson.”

“Thank you for the information,” Detective Inwood said. “We’ll follow up on this.”

He made a move as if to go, but I wasn’t done yet. My anger was still too hot. This was when Mom really should have spoken up. “Will you? Will you really?” I asked. “You’re detectives for the Tonedagana County Sheriff’s Office—at least that’s what your badges say—but what detecting have you been doing?”

“Ms. Hamilton,” Detective Devereaux said. “Give us time to do our job. Can we investigate as fast as you’d like? No. But—”

He was patronizing me. I hated that. “But meanwhile,” I cut in, “Stan’s killer is running around free, and innocent folks are suffering because you’re questioning the wrong people.”

“Ma’am, we’re doing the best we can.”

“I’m sure you are,” I said with exquisite politeness. “But the killer isn’t in jail, is he? Maybe it’s time to contact the state police. I’m sure the post in Petoskey would be happy to talk to me.”

“Gaylord,” said Detective Inwood. “The regional post is in Gaylord. There’s not much going on in the Petoskey post these days.”

I stared up at him. He stared down at me. Neither one of us was going to budge a fraction of an inch. We were both going to die in this spot, frozen to death come January.

An electronic ringing sallied forth from Detective Devereaux’s chest. He thumbed on his cell. “Yeah . . . yeah . . . okay. We’ll be there.” He slipped the phone back in his pocket. “Let’s go, Hal. Ms. Hamilton, you have a nice day, now.”

They swung around and headed off.

I stood there, watching them go, my hands on my hips, then started walking in the opposite direction. The detectives were blowing me off. They were ignoring everything I said. Had they done a single thing I’d suggested? No. If they had, I’d surely have known.

Holly was a mess, Aunt Frances wasn’t much better, and the detectives were ignoring the person (yours truly) who was handing them clues on a freaking platter.

Oh, Stan . . .

“Working on it, Stan,” I said out loud, startling a middle-aged couple who were walking toward me, hand in hand.

Not only was I working on it, I was moving it to the top of the list.