Pouncing On Murder

Chapter 16

The next morning I woke up to sunshine.

“Which is the best way to start the day,” I said to my unmoving feline friend. But his inactive state was understandable because slightly over half of his body was lying inside the sunshine and nothing short of an irresistible force was going to get him to relocate.

And since I had the morning off, nothing short of an immovable object was going to keep me from heading off into the wild blue yonder and checking out the timing on a couple of new bookmobile routes.

So as soon as I’d showered, dressed, and breakfasted, I was out the door and into my car, stopping only to get my standard provisions of a can of diet soda and a bag of popcorn.

I timed the possible routes while driving at bookmobile speed, and considering the parking options at three new homebound patrons. “It’ll work,” I said, nodding to myself. How I’d manage to squeeze the new routes into the current schedule was a different question, but it wasn’t one I was going to worry about on this gorgeous spring day full of open skies and sun and trees that were growing leaves as fast as I could watch.

But on my way back toward town, while driving over forested hill and lake-filled dale, my mind circled back to Henry and Adam.

How, I wondered, could I find out if Felix was being truthful when he said he hadn’t been on Henry’s property before Henry was killed? Who would be able to tell me? Was there anyone who might be able to—

A small mental lightning bolt zinged my brain all the way awake. “Duh,” I said out loud, and took the next left. Five minutes later, I was puttering up Irene and Adam’s driveway.

Irene opened the door. “Good morning! Is it a bookmobile day?” She peered outside.

“I was driving around, planning some new routes. I have a question for Adam, that’s all. Will he let me come inside if I don’t have any books?” I spread out my empty hands, palms up.

“No,” he called.

Irene laughed and opened the door wide. “Don’t listen to him. He’s only cranky because the doctor just told him he can’t start working again until the full two months is over.”

Which explained why Irene was here and not at work—she’d taken Adam to the doctor. “It’ll be here before you know it,” I told him. “And then you’ll be complaining that you have too much work to do.”

But the worried glance Irene gave her husband made me rethink my casual statement. Adam was self-employed. If he couldn’t get his clients’ work done on time, they’d go elsewhere, perhaps never to return.

There was nothing I could do about that, though, so I perched on the edge of the couch and said, “Adam, I was wondering. Did you see anyone at all near Henry’s property? Not necessarily the day he died, but any time you were out there. A neighbor, a friend of Henry’s who stopped by, a door-to-door salesman, anyone?”

“Do you mean guys only?” Adam asked. “Because I don’t remember seeing anyone other than that redhead.”

“What redhead?” He’d never mentioned her. “When did you see her?”

“Day before Henry died. So, the first Saturday in April.”

“Was she a neighbor of Henry’s?”

Adam shrugged. “Henry said he’d never seen her before, but he also said a couple of houses on the lake had sold over the winter, so who knows?”

“What was she doing?”

“Not much.” He laughed. “Not the way she was dressed. Wearing those stupid little boots that aren’t really boots at all but heels that go past the ankle. No hat, no gloves, jeans tight as paint, and a short jacket that wasn’t long enough to keep her waist warm, let alone her rear end.”

Irene and I shared a glance. “Sounds as if you got a close look,” Irene said. “She was pretty, too, I bet.”

“Not my type,” Adam said, shaking his head. “Seriously high maintenance. And definitely not the kind of girl who’d be able to take down a tree, let alone a huge one in a certain direction at a certain time.”

I wanted to speak up in defense of womanhood, to say that you never knew what people were capable of, that it didn’t do to underestimate anyone, but Adam was getting that “I need a nap” look, so I thanked him and got up to leave.

“I’ll walk you out,” Irene said.

Outside, clouds were sliding over the sun, so instead of a comfortable chat in the sunshine, we stood next to my car, shivering in a rising wind.

Irene hunched her shoulders and rubbed her upper arms. “There’s something I need to tell you. I know I’m probably being stupid and please don’t tell anyone because it’s probably not true, but I have to tell someone, and you know all about this, so I thought you’d be the one to tell.”

“Okay,” I said, not smiling, because in spite of her run-on sentence she seemed deadly serious. “Tell.”

She blew out a breath. “I think there might have been another attempt on Adam’s life.”

• • •

“Here’s where I figured we’d put the big guy,” Gordon said.

Gordon, whose last name I hadn’t figured out, was the owner of the company who was supplying the tents for Saturday’s book fair. Tent rental had originally been my boss’s idea, and I’d objected to the expense at first, saying that it was a small fair, that we could hold it inside the library, but he’d told me to use my imagination. This had, of course, irritated me no end, since I was the one with the imagination, not him, so I’d stood there in his office and closed my eyes, trying to see what he was seeing.

“Ah,” he said with patronizing satisfaction. “You’re picturing it, aren’t you?”

I was, and it was wonderful. In my head, the library grounds had turned into something between a circus and a medieval fair. White tents with high peaks, colored streamers, vendors hawking their wares, and people milling about everywhere.

“You’re right,” I’d said, opening my eyes. “The tents alone will attract interest.”

“Hmm?” Stephen’s attention had already returned to his computer. “Oh, the tents. Yes. See to it, Minnie, will you?”

And so I did. And I was. Which was why I was walking around the library lawn with Gordon, making last-minute placement decisions that I hoped would turn out okay, because a significant percentage of my brain was still thinking about what Irene had said that morning.

“We were at the hospital,” she’d told me, hugging herself against the wind. “They’re doing all that construction, putting on that big addition, remember? I’d wanted to drop Adam off at the door, but he wouldn’t let me, said he was perfectly capable of walking across the parking lot.”

“Sounds like him,” I’d said, smiling.

Irene hadn’t smiled back. “The problem is, with the construction, the sidewalks are all torn up and they want you to walk all the way around that annex building to get to the front door and I could see that Adam was getting tired, so I made him cut across the grass.”

I’d felt my brow furrowing in the effort to picture what she was talking about. “Doesn’t that mean you were walking through the construction area?”

She’d nodded. “It was shorter by at least a hundred yards—you could see a path where a lot of people had gone that way. And there was no one working there, so I didn’t have a problem doing it. When we left the building, we walked back the same way and”—she’d hugged herself even tighter—“and this huge pile of bricks fell on the grass right next to Adam. It almost hit him.”

“Right over there.”

The male voice brought me back to the here and now. I blinked, and there I was, standing on the library lawn, working out the future location of tents. “I’m sorry,” I said. “What was that? My mind was wandering.”

Gordon nodded, a sideways sort of smile on his face. “I bet. You probably have a thousand things to do between now and Saturday morning.”

Actually things were pretty much set, but it was nice of him to be so understanding. “Thanks. Tomorrow I’ll be out on the bookmobile, so it’s today and Friday to finish up.”

“You run the bookmobile?” His face lit up. “I’ve seen it around, but I didn’t realize that was you.”

I beamed. He had a sympathetic personality and he liked the bookmobile. If he hadn’t been a little too old for me and, if the ring on his finger was any indication, already married, I’d have thrown myself into his arms. “We’ve been on the road for almost a year and I get requests for new stops almost every week.”

“We lived downstate when I was a kid,” he said, “and there was a bookmobile stop practically at my front door. I grew up thinking it stopped there just for me.” He grinned. “Funny the things you think when you’re a kid.”

“I’m not sure that ends when you grow up,” I said.

He laughed. “So, is driving the bookmobile as much fun as it looks like? Please don’t say it’s not. You’ll ruin my last illusion.”

“Not a chance,” I said firmly. “We even have a bookmobile cat.”

“Eddie.” He nodded. “I’ve heard of him.”

My cat, bookmobile ambassador to the world. I made a mental note not to tell him. Catlike, he already had an inflated view of his own importance.

“Which means you knew Henry Gill,” Gordon said.

As non sequiturs went, this was an excellent one. And a little creepy. “How do you know that?”

“Got a cousin Bob who does property management. Used to be in real estate. Well, I guess he still has his license, but he doesn’t use it much anymore.” Gordon shrugged. “Anyway, he takes care of some summer places over near Henry’s, and with Henry being the only year-round guy out there, they’d talk once in a while.”

My guess was that Bob had done most of the talking.

Gordon smiled. “Henry told Bob about the bookmobile and its cat and the nice ladies who helped him find books.”

Sudden tears pricked at my eyes. “So annoying,” I said, “him being nice behind our backs like that.”

“That was Henry all over,” Gordon said, nodding.

A small, but very bright, lightbulb belatedly clicked on in my head. “So, your cousin Bob,” I said. “Does he take care of Cole Duvall’s property? He’s on Rock Lake, practically right next to Henry.”

“Sounds right,” Gordon said. “Big guy, married into money?” He laughed. “Wish I’d done that. This working-for-a-living stuff is getting old. But if you’re looking for a property manager, give Bob a call. He’s okay, even if he is one of my blood relatives.” He said he’d get me his cousin’s phone number, and we moved on to locating the next tent.

On the outside, I was calm and professional and focused. On the inside, however, I was mentally high-fiving it with serendipity.

• • •

Inside the library’s break room, however, there was no high-fiving, no fist bumps, and it didn’t look as if serendipity had a chance of gaining a foothold any time soon.

I looked from Holly to Josh and back to Holly, then at the wall clock. There was only five minutes until our self-mandated mutual break time was over. If I was going to smooth over whatever was going on, I had to leap straight into the fray, no time even for a short bout of recaffeination.

After one longing glance at the coffeepot, I said, “What’s wrong? No, wait, let me guess. Stephen’s going to eliminate the library’s children’s section because the kids are too noisy.” As an opener, I’d had better, but it was better than nothing.

Holly sniffed. “He won’t tell me his new address.”

I glanced over at Josh and he shrugged and took another sip from the coffee mug he was clutching. He’d given me the address a couple of weeks ago and I’d driven past once, just to see. Though it was an older house, it had a reasonably new roof and the windows had been replaced. Not very big, but Josh was a single guy and it should do him just fine.

“I bet he’s told you,” Holly said, narrowing her eyes. “He has, hasn’t he?”

Josh glared at me. It was a clear warning to keep the location to myself.

Now what was I supposed to do? There was only one course of action that could take this little scene in a positive direction. Immediate diversion.

“Remember I told you that a car almost ran over Adam Deering?” They nodded. Reluctantly, but they nodded. “Well, his wife, Irene, says she thinks someone tried to kill him a second time.”

“What?” Holly looked shocked. “That’s horrible! Did she tell the police?”

“Hang on,” Josh said. “If she’s only thinking it, she must not be sure. What happened, exactly?”

I wasn’t sure, either, which was one of the reasons I wanted to talk this over. I passed on what Irene had said, telling them about the construction, the long walk, and about the bricks that had come so close to crashing down on his head, bricks that might have hurt him badly, or even killed him.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Accident or intentional?”

“Intentional,” Holly said.

“Accident,” Josh said at the same time.

Which was just what I’d figured they’d say. I glanced up at the clock. “One minute left. You each have thirty seconds to make your case. Holly, you first.”

“Had to be on purpose,” she said. “If there was no construction going on in that spot, no workers would have been up there. Bricks don’t fall down by themselves. Someone had to push them over.”

Josh made a beeping noise. “Time’s up. And you’re wrong. Bricks can fall over if a pallet isn’t balanced right. All it takes is a gust of wind in the right direction. And it was windy this morning. Plus, how would someone know Adam was going to be walking there? You think some guy is following him around, looking for a chance to make an accident happen?” He snorted. “You’ve been watching too much bad TV.”

Holly pointed at the clock. “And you’ve gone way over your time limit. That means I win and you lose.”

“Minnie makes the call.” Josh knocked back the last of his coffee, made a sour face, and looked at me. “Who’s right?”

But I didn’t know.

• • •

That night, Eddie and I were eating our dinners of cat food (Eddie) and take-out Chinese (me) when my cell phone rang.

“Could you get that?” I asked. “You’re closest.”

Since Eddie didn’t even look away from the bowl of cat food he was eating, I got up myself and got the phone out of my backpack. “Hello?”

“Minnie, it’s Gordon with the tents. Say, I have my cousin’s number if you want it.”

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing a pen and paper out of a kitchen drawer and writing down the numbers. Maybe Gordon didn’t have a last name. Like Sting. “Any potential tent problems?”

“Smooth sailing,” he said. “We’ll have them all set up by midafternoon tomorrow.”

I thanked him again and, as soon as I ended the call, punched in the phone number for his cousin. When he answered, I introduced myself, told him how I got the number, and asked if he took care of the Duvalls’ property.

I planned to start with the easy questions, then slide into the probing character questions. Not that I could ask outright if he thought Duvall could have committed murder, but I was sure I’d figure out something. Of course, it wasn’t as if I had any real reason to suspect Duvall, other than that one potential lie, but my initial reaction when I’d met him had been one of fear. And though maybe I shouldn’t let that single episode guide my current actions, I couldn’t ignore how I’d felt, either.

“Sure,” he said, sounding a lot like his cousin Gordon. Part of me wondered if Bob had a last name, but the rest of me was trying to focus on the topic at hand. “Nice lady, pays right away, usually gives me plenty of lead time for opening up the place.”

“Usually?” I asked.

“Well, not her so much as her husband. Cole, his name is. Nice enough, I guess, but asks a little too much, if you know what I mean. I can’t always jump on what he needs, depending on what else is going on. Sometimes it takes a day or two to get over there. If he calls when he’s on his way up, well, the place probably isn’t going to get to seventy-two degrees when he walks in the door.”

“Was this recently?”

“A week or two ago. Maybe three.”

Or four? “Is there any way you can pin it down?” I asked.

“Well, I guess. I’d have to look it up, at home.” There was a question in his voice, as in why on earth did I want to know?

It was a very good question. And I wished I had a good answer for him. Then inspiration struck. “You know Adam Deering, who was out there the day Henry Gill died? Adam thinks Cole might have helped him call 911 and he wants to thank him. But he doesn’t want to thank the wrong guy.” It was mostly a lie, but it wasn’t a lie of malice, so with any luck it wouldn’t count against me.

“Okay, sure,” Bob said. “When I get home, I’ll look it up and give you a ring.”

I thanked him and thumbed off the phone. “Progress, Eddie. We’re making definite progress.”

“Mrr.”

During the phone call, Eddie had finished his dinner, stretched, yawned, and was now sitting next to the front door, looking at the handle. “Mrr,” he said again.

“You sure you want out?” I asked. “The wind is picking up and you know you don’t like that.”

“Mrr.” He put his head half an inch from the doorframe. “Mrr.”

“You are the weirdest cat ever. Sometimes you seem more like a dog than a cat.” I opened the door. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, okay?”

“I never would.”

I jumped a little, then saw my new neighbor, Eric Apney, standing on the dock between our boats and smiling at me. My very good-looking new neighbor. “Hello,” I said. “But I was actually talking to my cat.”

“Does he talk back?” Eric asked, watching Eddie jump from one chaise to the other.

“All the time.”

Eddie looked back at us. “Mrr,” he said, and settled down on the chaise where I usually sat.

“I see what you mean,” Eric said, nodding. “Do I need his permission to ask you out?”

“He’d probably like you to.” I felt a wide smile building up inside me. “It’s not necessary, though.”

“I know we only met the once,” Eric said, “but I’m new up here, hardly know a soul, and I like your cat and your boat, so what do you think about dinner and maybe a movie?”

Though my initial impulse was to blurt out an immediate yes, I hesitated. This was not the time to say I’d just been through a breakup, but there were questions that had to be asked. “You’re not allergic to cats?”

“Not allergic to anything, as far as I know.”

“And you’re not committed to anyone?”

“Well, my mom and dad, but that’s probably not what you’re talking about.”

Friendly, liked cats, had a good relationship with his parents, and had a sense of humor. Things were looking up for Minnie in the romance department. I smiled at him. “What do you do for a living?” I asked, then laughed. “Let me rephrase that. Just tell me you’re not a doctor. I’m not sure I care what you do, as long as you’re not a doctor.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

All the fun went out of me. “You’re a doctor,” I said flatly.

“Cardiac surgeon.” He frowned. “Is that a problem?”

I sighed. Of all the professions in all the world, why had he picked that one? Even so, I was tempted. He was on vacation when he was up here. He wouldn’t be on call, couldn’t be yanked into the hospital at a moment’s notice. Why not go out for dinner? What could it hurt?

A cell phone trilled. Eric reached into his pocket. “Sorry, that’s the hospital’s ring tone. I have to take this.”

Then again, there were a lot of reasons not to go out with him.

I sent him a polite smile, waved good-bye, and, followed by Eddie, headed back inside.

• • •

A few minutes later, I was feeling trapped on my own houseboat. Eddie, apparently exhausted by his short stint in the great outdoors, had flopped himself onto the dining booth’s seat and was curled into a flattish ball.

I, however, had the itch to get outside and do something in the last couple hours of daylight. The only problem was that Eric the surgeon was still standing on the dock, talking away on his cell phone. He was staring at the lake with a serious expression, and if my experience with Tucker was worth anything, he would either be on the phone for a long time or soon be taking a quick trip downstate.

Not that there was any real reason that I couldn’t have walked out of my own boat, past him, and out into the wilds of Chilson, but I’d just created a socially awkward situation and would have liked to wait a day or two before talking to him again.

Of course, if he was still on the phone, I wouldn’t have to talk to him at all.

I pulled on a light jacket, grabbed my backpack, patted the snoring Eddie on the head, and went out the front door. Eric’s back was toward me—more serendipity!—and I escaped off the boat and down the dock without having to make eye contact.

But once I’d reached the sidewalk, I realized I had no destination in mind. The temperature had dropped and the wind had come up, so going for a walk or a bike ride wasn’t appealing. It was a school night for Aunt Frances. She was teaching a night class in wood turning right that second, and the texts I’d received from Kristen that day had been fraught with restaurant staffing woes, which meant she’d be too busy to talk. I thought about going over to bug Rafe, but I could see his house from here and I didn’t see any signs of light or life.

I could have driven over to talk to Irene and Adam, but I didn’t want to have to see the disappointment in their faces when I told them I hadn’t learned anything new.

Which led me to a conclusion I should have reached far earlier—I needed to learn something new. And suddenly I knew exactly what to do.

• • •

I knocked on the door of the large lakeside home. It looked like a front door, but on lake houses it was hard to know for sure. Because if you had a house on a lake, surely you’d make the prettiest side of the house face the water, and wouldn’t that be the front? Then again, shouldn’t the front door be the door where people first entered the house? It was a conundrum, and once again I patted myself on the back for not having the financial resources to live on a lake. Just think of all the problems I’d avoided.

The door was opened by a middle-aged woman and I mentally breathed a sigh of relief. At least I wouldn’t have to explain myself to Cole Duvall.

“Hello,” the woman said. “Can I help you?” She wasn’t tall, exactly, but appeared tall at first glance because she was solidly built from head to toe. Her brown hair was pulled back into a soft bun and her face, while not one of beauty, was full of a kindly intelligence.

“Hi,” I said. “Sorry to bother you, but are you Mrs. Duvall?” When she nodded, I introduced myself. “I was a friend of Henry Gill’s and—”

“That poor man.” Her face crumpled into sadness. “Oh, bugger. I’m going to start crying.” She pushed the door open. “Come on in and keep me from bawling my eyes out. I just go to pieces every time I think about it.”

By the time we were settled on wicker furniture in a glassed-in porch, I’d learned Mrs. Duvall’s name was Larabeth, that she was Cole’s second wife, and that he was her first husband. “I was just too busy for years working on the stores. Somehow I got to forty before I once thought about getting married. When I looked around, there was Cole,” she said, smiling.

I also learned that Cole hadn’t wanted children—“He and his first wife had a boy and a girl and he said he didn’t want to do that all over again”—and finally that Larabeth was the sole heir to the Dwyer grocery store chain.

“Really?” I almost squeaked. “I love those stores!”

And I did. Dwyer was the name of an extremely successful regional chain of specialty food stores. What made the Dwyer stores different was that each one was customized for its location, carrying not only local produce, but as many local items as possible, from wine to cheese to pasta. And though the main decor of all the stores was similar, each store had personalized wall murals that captured the local flavor. “Are you going to open one in Chilson?”

Larabeth sighed. “Don’t I wish? The town isn’t big enough to support one of our stores, not without taking too much business away from what’s already in place.”

A businesswoman with a conscience? I was so busy putting her into my mental Friend category that my slide into the next phase of the conversation was awkward. “Yes, it’s very sad that Henry’s gone,” I said, “and that’s partly why I’m here. Did you know that there was someone else out with Henry that day?”

“I hadn’t heard that.” She frowned. “Was he hurt, too?”

“Not directly.” I explained about Adam and the heart attack and about the fictional man who’d called 911 on Adam’s cell phone and helped direct the EMT crew to Adam. The story was getting better every time I told it, and I was sorry it wasn’t true.

“Anyway, Adam never learned the name of the man who helped him and I said I’d try to find out. I don’t suppose it was your husband, was it? Adam would love to thank him.”

Larabeth was shaking her head. “Couldn’t have been. Cole flew out West skiing that weekend.” She sighed. “I would have liked to go with him, but there was a grand reopening at the Lansing store and I never miss those.”

We chatted awhile longer, during which she became an ever firmer friend by smiling when I told her that I drove the bookmobile, and when the sun started dropping into the water, I headed home, thanking her for her time.

All the way back to Chilson, I thought about times and dates, about marriages and money.

But I also thought about wooden boats.