Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby

Chapter 13

After dinner at a local sandwich shop, I wandered on home, trying hard not to think about Tucker. It was a pleasant walk punctuated by short stops to chat with numerous library patrons from the cane-carrying Mr. Goodwin to the cookie-baking Reva Shomin to the thriller-reading Jim Kittle.

“Must be the cool weather,” I told Eddie, tossing my backpack onto the dining table’s bench, sliding in next to it, and putting my feet up on the opposite bench. “It’s fooling people into thinking that it’s after Labor Day and the summer people are gone.”

Eddie was again on the houseboat’s small dashboard. In spite of the precariousness of his perch, it was now his favorite place for seagull spying.

At this particular moment, however, the only wildlife Eddie could possibly see was himself, since it was dark outside.

“I can’t believe you’re paying more attention to your reflection than to me.” I slid into a comfortable slouch. “Why is it people have cats, anyway? I feed you, water you, clean up your messes, wear your hair everywhere I go, and what do I get out of it?”

Eddie turned to look at me. Blinked, as if my appearance were a sudden surprise. Then he oozed off the dashboard, hit the floor, sauntered over to me, jumped up on my lap, and immediately started purring.

“Okay.” I patted his head. “You win. Purrs trump all that other stuff, hands down.” I gently picked up one of his front legs and we exchanged a paw-to-palm high five.

He purred a little louder.

There couldn’t be many cats who would let you handle them like that. Eddie didn’t care, however. I could stuff one of his back paws into his ear and he wouldn’t twitch.

I was starting to do just that when my cell phone came to life with a plain old electronic beeping noise, which meant it was a number to which I hadn’t assigned a ring tone. I dug through my backpack and turned it on. “Hello?”

“Minnie, Barb McCade here, and I have the answer to all your problems.”

“You’ve discovered a way to keep all of Eddie’s hairs attached to him? Outstanding.”

“Let me rephrase that. I have the answer to one particular problem.”

“Better than nothing. What do you have?”

“My mother has decided she’s coming north to spend the rest of the summer with us. Mom has more energy than I know what to do with, so I always have a project for her. She is practically giddy with excitement over the possibility of riding along with you on the bookmobile.”

Though I’d never asked, I assumed Barb was in her early fifties, making her mother seventy, at the absolute minimum, and probably older. “Well,” I said slowly, “that’s a wonderful offer…”

“Then we’re settled.” Barb’s voice held a tone that indicated a dusting off of hands after a job well done. “I’ll have Mom drop by the library to get an orientation. Would eleven work?”

I gave up. If Barb’s mother was completely unsuitable, I’d leave her behind at the library and abscond with one of the clerks. As plans go, I’d had worse.

“Of course,” I said to Eddie as I thumbed off the phone, “maybe there’s a good reason Barb is so eager to get rid of her mother.” Frightening images of harridans and shrews pinged into my brain.

Eddie tipped his head up and around so that he was looking at me almost upside down.

“Mrr,” he said.

• • •

The next morning I got up bright and early. That is, if eight thirty on a Sunday morning can be considered early, which I did, in spite of the admonitions of my mother all through my youth. It was a known fact that you weren’t a slug on a Sunday morning until the hour hit the double-digit range.

“Comparatively,” I told Eddie, “half past eight is practically dawn.”

The Eddie-sized lump that was under the comforter didn’t say anything. I leaned close to make sure he was still breathing, then slid out. The poor boy needed his sleep, after all. Yesterday he’d barely had eighteen hours.

I was halfway through a bowl of cereal when my cell rang the Scrubs theme song. Tucker. I would have asked Eddie if I should answer it, but I was in the kitchen and he was still on the bed. I would have flipped a coin, but I didn’t have one handy.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to him, but if he was going to break up with me, I might as well get it over with now. That way I could metaphorically dissect him that night with Kristen.

“Hey,” I said into the phone.

“Hey yourself,” he said. “First off, I want to apologize for yesterday. I was being an inconsiderate jerk and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ignored you like that when Miller and I were talking and I shouldn’t have left you to have dinner with him and that donor.”

Relief sang through my bones, but I pushed it down. I wanted answers. “If you know you shouldn’t have, then why did you?”

I heard him swallow. “Because I’m stupid.”

Don’t laugh, I told myself. Don’t laugh. “Probably,” I said. “But I’d like a little more detail.”

His sigh gusted into the phone. “Because I’m still new at the hospital. I’ve worked so hard for so long to get this kind of job and I’m worried that if I don’t think ‘hospital’ twenty-four-seven that I won’t be taken seriously.” He stopped. “Minnie, are you still there? What are you doing?”

Smiling, actually. “I had no idea that men had self-esteem issues.”

“Of course we do,” he said. “We just don’t talk about them. I’m breaking the Man Code by even hinting that I wasn’t born with a massive ego.”

This time I did laugh.

• • •

“So you forgave him?” Kristen asked.

We were sitting in her office, spooning up crème brûlée. “When he brought over that big bunch of flowers, it wasn’t that hard.”

“Carnations? Daisies?”

I shook my head. “Roses.”

She whistled. “Not bad. This guy might be a keeper.”

“Still too early to tell,” I said. “Say, have I ever told you how good your desserts are?”

“Only every time you eat one.”

“Come on, I tell you more often than that.” I debated telling her about what Scruffy and Trock had said about stopping by the Three Seasons, but decided not to. No point in getting her all excited over something a TV person said. Maybe it was unfair of me to assume they were unreliable, but professions get stereotyped for a reason.

“So, what have you learned about Carissa?” she asked. Only after she swore on a stack of Bon Appétit magazines to keep her lips zipped had I told her about Cade’s short stay at the county jail and my later vow to help him stay out of jail.

Cade had said I could tell her, that anyone I trusted was guarantee enough for him, but the magazine thing was a requirement for me. Plus, it was fun listening to her make the vow.

“Not enough.” I told her everything I’d learned. Unfortunately it didn’t take long.

“All you have is guesses,” she said. “What you need is some proof.”

I looked at her.

“Yeah, yeah.” She grinned. “Like, duh, right?” She spooned up the last of her custard. “How’s it going with trying to kick Mitchell out of the library?”

I toyed with the sprig of mint that had formerly garnished my dessert. “About as well as you’d expect. Stephen’s really out to get me fired this time.”

She leaned back in her chair. “You know, did I ever tell you about the time I had to kick a state senator out of here?”

“You did not.”

“Did, too. Ask Harvey.”

“That’s not proof. Your sous-chef is so infatuated with you that he’d say anything you wanted.”

She waved off that particular truth. “I must have told you about the time a softball team came in to celebrate some championship game. All women old enough to be my mother.”

Now, that story she had told me, and every time she told it I was sure my curly hair was going to go straight. I settled back, smiling. “Make sure you tell the dancing-on-the-tables part. That’s my favorite.”

We spent the rest of the evening sharing stories and laughing. It didn’t get me any closer to a solution to any of my problems, but I did go to sleep with a smile on my face.

• • •

The next morning, I woke up refreshed and perky. Eddie, not so much. The cool weather was still in full force and he seemed much more inclined to nap on the bed than get up and watch me eat a bowl of cereal.

“I’ll let you lick the bottom of the bowl,” I said.

He opened one eye briefly, then shut it again.

“You do realize that tomorrow you’re going to have to be out of bed at this time if you’re coming on the bookmobile.”

He started purring. I wasn’t sure if that meant Of course I’ll be ready to go at this time tomorrow or That’s twenty-four hours away; why are you bothering me with it now?

I kissed the top of his furry head and left him to sleep the day away.

• • •

Monday mornings at the library could be one of two things, frantically busy or quietly slow, and you never knew which one it was going to be until it started happening.

This particular Monday started out quiet, but half an hour after I unlocked the front door, e-mails started piling up, the phones started ringing, and people started pouring inside. It was All Hands on Deck time, to the extent that Stephen descended from his second-floor office to help out.

I was taking a stint at the reference desk, so when I saw Donna talking to a trim, gray-haired woman and point her in my direction, I readied myself for a reference question.

The older woman strode over to the desk and held out her hand. “Good morning, Minnie.” Her smile was wide and calm. “I’m Ivy Bly.”

“Hi, Ivy,” I said pleasantly. “What can I do for you?”

There was a short beat of silence, and then she said, “My daughter wound me up and pointed me in your direction, so here I am.”

“And I hope I can answer whatever question you have.” I smiled. “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

A tiny line appeared in the middle of her forehead. Not quite a frown, but not nearly the smile of a moment ago. “Didn’t Barb tell you I’d be here this morning?”

Light dawned in a great blinding flash. I blinked from its intensity. “You’re Barb McCade’s mother?” This woman didn’t look anywhere near old enough to be the mother of someone in her fifties. Maybe she was a stepmother. Sure, that was it.

She laughed. “Had Barb when I was twenty-five. Give you a piece of advice, Minnie. Slop on that sunscreen and stay active.”

I looked her up and down, admiration plain on my face. “I’ll take that into serious consideration.”

“The best day of my life was when I turned seventy,” she said. “Around here, they practically give you ski passes for free at that age. Do you ski?”

“A little.”

“Keep it up. Do squats every day,” she recommended. “Even if you don’t have time to do anything else, everybody can find a minute to do twenty squats.”

And this was the woman I’d been afraid would be too frail to help out on the bookmobile. Then again, there were other things to consider. “How are you with computers?” All the books got checked out and in through a laptop. If Ivy wasn’t computer-savvy, we had a problem.

“Spent the last twenty years of my career teaching computer programming to inattentive college students,” she said. “As long as you don’t want me to work in Java, I’m okay.”

I was pretty sure she wasn’t talking about coffee, so I moved on to the next question. “Do you get along with kids?”

“Love ’em.”

I looked left and right, then leaned forward. “How about cats?” I whispered.

“Have three of my own,” she whispered back. “They love it at Barb and Cade’s place.”

Which settled the deal. I told her to meet me by the bookmobile garage early the next morning and advised her to pack a lunch. She nodded, sketched a wave, and headed off to whatever her next appointed task might be.

I watched her go, thinking that I suddenly had a new role model for what to be like in retirement.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sight of Stephen standing in front of the desk, his hands on his hips.

“I would like a progress report regarding The Situation,” he said.

Meaning Mitchell. But since I’d made no progress, there wasn’t much of a report to give him. I hesitated, then asked, “In a case like this, what would you do?”

“I,” Stephen said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “would give the problem to the person who was hired to take care of such things.”

“Oh,” I said. Then I remembered I wasn’t afraid of Stephen and bucked up. “To tell you the truth, I don’t see it as a real problem.”

“What you don’t see,” Stephen snapped, “is the bad side of anyone or anything. Take care of this, Minnie.”

I watched him go, wondering why being optimistic was such a horrible thing. Then the phone rang, I was asked about the origin of the ampersand, and the Moratorium on Mitchell went to the back of my brain.

• • •

“What’re you doing, Minnie?”

I looked away from the computer screen to see Mitchell’s hands flat on the front of the reference desk. Classic Mitchell: on the edge of rude, but not so far over the edge that you had to say something.

“Research,” I said, pushing back from the computer. And I’d been at it way too long. Not only was it more than an hour past my scheduled work time, but it was past my stomach’s preferred suppertime. I started to stand.

“What are you researching?” he asked, leaning around to look at the screen.

“Grants,” I said. “I’m looking for operational funds for the bookmobile.” I’d also been trying to find anything that might help prove Cade’s innocence, but that wasn’t something you could put into a search engine.

Mitchell didn’t appear to be interested in the bookmobile problems. “Say,” he said, “know what I found out?”

“No idea.” This time I stood all the way up.

“Let me show you.” He came around and sat in the chair I’d just left.

I sighed. “Mitchell, you can’t use the reference desk computer.”

“Hang on, this will just take a second.” He tapped rapidly at the keyboard. “Remember I said the police were going to arrest Carissa’s boss? Well, looks like the real killer was someone else.”

Surprise, surprise. “Mitchell, you really can’t—” I stopped. The Web site materializing on the screen was Cade’s Facebook page.

“See this guy?” Mitchell pointed. “What I hear is that he’s the one they’re tagging to be the killer.”

“How did you hear that?” I asked, so fiercely that the patrons sitting at nearby tables turned to look. I smiled. When they turned away, I turned back to Mitchell. “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “I hear things.”

I’d just bet he did. Sometimes I wondered if he and Rafe were related. Closely. “Sorry to break this to you,” I said, “but Cade has an alibi.”

“He does?”

“A solid one.” At least I hoped so.

“Well, shoot.” Mitchell squinted at the screen. “Here I thought I was going to help the police by seeing something in this Cade guy’s Facebook posts.”

“His wife is the one who puts up the pictures and writes the posts.”

“How do you know?” Mitchell asked.

“I hear things,” I said, grinning, but Mitchell just nodded.

“Sure, you probably hear lots of stuff, being a librarian and everything.” He was scrolling down through Cade’s page. “And out on the bookmobile, you…” He stopped at a photo. “Say, that’s Carissa, isn’t it? With that guy? Huh. He’s a lot older than I would have figured.” Mitchell clicked the button to read all of the comments that had been posted regarding the picture. “Uh, Minnie? Did you see this?”

We both read the comment. “One down, one to go,” it stated.

For a second I couldn’t breathe.

“Um…” Mitchell’s voice cracked. “Is that the killer?”

“Maybe,” I said, and I was happy that my own voice was steady. Mostly, anyway.

“Hey,” Mitchell said. “If the killer’s posting on Facebook, that’ll help the police find him, right?”

I looked at Cade’s number of Facebook fans. Eight hundred forty-five thousand, nine hundred and fifteen. No wonder his agent had pushed for a social media presence. “Look at the name. ‘John Doe.’ That’s probably not on the guy’s birth certificate.”

“Oh.” Mitchell deflated. “Still, the police are probably figuring something out from the guy’s Facebook identity.”

I thumped him on the shoulder. “You know something? You could be right.”

And I sincerely hoped he was.

• • •

The next morning, as the sun was heaving itself up over the Chilson skyline, I gave Ivy a lesson on the inner workings of the bookmobile. She was a fast learner, and we had time for a stop at the back door of Cookie Tom’s before we hit the road. Earlier in the summer, that wonderful man had promised me a discount rate and speedy service anytime the bookmobile wanted to stop for provisions on the way out of town. Sometimes there were even cookies left over for the patrons.

Ivy peered into the bag. “Lovely. Nothing like coconut chocolate chip.”

“I’m glad you’re okay with cookies,” I said. “My other volunteer has become so health-conscious that I feel guilty eating anything as horrible as oatmeal raisin.”

“Practically health food.” Ivy leaned down and reached her fingers through the wires of Eddie’s cage. “Hey, Mr. Ed. You doing okay in there?”

I glanced over. Eddie was rubbing up against her and I could hear his purring even over the bookmobile’s engine. “If he’s not, it’s his own fault.”

“Oh?” Ivy sat back and rearranged her shoulders, making herself comfortable. “I hear a story coming. Tell all.”

So we drove across the county, west to east, me relating the main story of Eddie the Stowaway and How He Managed to Become a Fixture on the Bookmobile and then the almost as important substory of Why the Library Director Must Never Know.

Ivy was an excellent audience, laughing, gasping, and sniffling in all the right places. When I came to the end, she reached down and gave Eddie another scratch as we drove into the outskirts of the village where our first stop was scheduled. “You’ve created quite a dilemma for Miss Minnie, Mr. Eddie.”

“Mrr,” he said.

Ivy laughed delightedly. “It really does feel as if he knows what you’re saying.”

“He excels at sarcasm,” I said. “Especially when—”

“What’s the matter?” Ivy asked.

There was concern in her voice, but I didn’t look at her. Couldn’t, really, because my gaze was stuck on the sight of two of my aunt’s boarders walking along the sidewalk, hand in hand.

I squinted. Maybe I was seeing things. It was early, after all. Maybe my eyes weren’t all the way awake yet.

“Minnie?”

But no. The sight was undeniable. There was Paulette, whom Aunt Frances had matched with Quincy, side by side with Leo, whom Aunt Frances had matched with Zofia. They were gazing happily into each other’s eyes, goopy smiles on their faces. “Oh, jeez.”

“You’re sure you’re all right?”

This time I spared a glance away from the road and looked at Ivy. “Sorry. I’m fine, it’s just…” The idea of explaining the inner workings of the boardinghouse was daunting. How could I possibly start this story?

“It’s just what?” Ivy asked. “Tell me, Minnie. You look troubled and who better to confide in than someone you barely know?”

I thought about it. In lots of ways, she was right. “Okay. I have this aunt…”

By the time I flicked the turn signal in preparation for the wide right turn into the parking lot of an elementary school, I’d already described the typical boardinghouse summer. I braked the bookmobile to a complete stop, and by the time we opened the doors, I’d pretty much covered everything.

“So you see the problem?” I asked.

“The only problem I see is getting your aunt to stay out of other people’s business.”

She’d spoken with a smile, but it was clear that she thought Aunt Frances’s efforts were misguided. Up until that moment I’d thought Ivy and my aunt could be great friends. Now I realized that it would be best if they never met.

“Any more problems I can help with?” Ivy asked, laughing.

“How about employee relations issues? Any experience there?” Not that Mitchell was an employee, but I didn’t want to tell anyone I had a problem with a library patron.

“Not an ounce. One of the beauties about working for yourself and then teaching college is not having employee issues.” We greeted a young woman and three children coming up the steps; then Ivy turned back to me. “Minnie, I know you’re looking for answers, but sometimes there aren’t any. Sometimes you have to go with your instincts and hope for the best.”

I sighed. “I’m not sure my instincts are up to the job.”

Ivy clapped me on the shoulder. “Now, don’t go all whiny on me. You’re smart and you’ll figure things out.”

“Oh, honey,” the young woman said. “You should have asked first.”

I whipped around. Her little honey had stuffed his mouth full of Kristen’s maple-flavored candies. Candies that had come out of the jar for the guessing contest.

My knee-jerk reaction, which was to shriek at the top of my lungs, warred with my training to take everything in stride. There was a short battle, but my training slid into the lead.

I took the jar out of the child’s hands. “Sorry,” I said politely but firmly, “this candy is for a contest.” I handed out the slips of paper. “Here’s a form for guessing the number of candies. If your guess is closest to the correct total, you win the candy and the bookmobile will come to your house.”

“But Charlie ate some of the candies,” one of his siblings said. “You don’t know the number anymore.”

“Yeah,” said the remaining sibling. “And maybe other people have taken candies, too. How are you going to pick a winner if you don’t have the right number?”

My smile grew more fixed. “We know the number of candies we started with. We’ll count them again and use the average for the winning number.” And after the recount, I’d tape the lid down with half a roll of duct tape.

The kids protested that it wasn’t fair. I nodded, agreeing that it probably wasn’t, introduced them to Eddie, and they immediately went into cat rapture.

I watched, shaking my head. Eddie had saved the day. Wonders truly never did cease.

• • •

“I can’t believe you talked me into this, Minnie-Ha-Ha.”

I looked over at Chris Ballou. We were about to walk through the front door of Crown Yachts, and Chris was still whining. “What I can’t believe,” I said, “is that you’re complaining about talking to some guys about boats.”

At lunchtime, I’d been thinking about what I knew and didn’t know about Greg Plassey and Trock Farrand and Hugo Edel. In pursuit of more information, I’d called Crown to ask Hugo if Carissa had said anything about a professional athlete. And if, during our conversation, he let something slip about the depth of his involvement with Carissa, well, that would be just a little bonus, wouldn’t it?

When I’d been told he was out for the day, I’d had the brilliant idea of getting Chris to come with me to Crown after work. It was my experience that every employee is more forthcoming when the boss isn’t around. Chris could legitimately talk to a salesguy about a boat for Greg, and while he was talking I could show the picture of Carissa around and see what I could see.

At the end of the bookmobile day, I’d dropped Eddie off at home and gone to the marina office to coerce Chris into helping. It had taken the promise of a six-pack of The Magician from Short’s Brewing Company in nearby Bellaire, but he’d eventually agreed.

“It’s not that,” Chris said now. “It’s that you didn’t give me time to get ready.”

“For what?”

“Asking about Crown boats. I got a reputation to keep up. Don’t want these guys thinking I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

I raised my eyebrows and opened the door for him. “A smart guy like you?” I asked. “I’m sure you’ll manage.”

“Yeah, well.” He grinned. “Whatever you got cooking, I can play along. You ever going to tell me what this is all about?”

I smiled but didn’t say a word. If you told Chris anything, it was best to assume the entire town of Chilson, half the county, and a hefty percentage of the region would have the same information within a day. Or faster.

“Good evening.” A middle-aged man came toward us, his hand outstretched. He wore a navy blue jacket, a white polo shirt, khaki pants and… I looked down… yes, deck shoes without socks. “How can I help you?” he asked.

In seconds, he and Chris were deep in a conversation about boats suitable for a former Major League Baseball pitching star, complete with pantomime of a curve ball delivery. At least that’s what Chris said to the guy, claiming he was taught the windup by Greg Plassey himself.

I glanced around the end of a monstrously sized boat and spotted a wall clock. Twenty to six. Thanks to my speedy parking of the bookmobile and a complete neglect of the usual vacuuming of Eddie hair, I had twenty minutes before the place shut down for the night. I eased away from Chris and the salesguy—neither one of them so much as flicked a look in my direction—and went off in search of a talkative employee.

“Hey there.” Another middle-aged guy approached, dressed in a navy blue jacket, red polo shirt, off-white pants, and penny loafers. Not quite twin clothing to the other guy, but close. “Is Rob helping you and your husband?” he asked.

I tried not to make a horrified face. The notion of being married to Chris Ballou made my head want to turn inside out. Nice enough guy, but not husband material. At least not for me. I pulled the obituary picture of Carissa out of my purse and held it out. “Do you remember seeing her in here?”

The guy looked at me. “What are you, some kind of cop?”

I babbled on about Carissa’s death, about being a friend of a friend, and about trying to help her family. When I saw him nodding agreement, I nodded back. “So, you can see what I’m doing here. Just trying to help, right?” I held the picture a little closer. “Have you seen her in here?”

He looked, frowned, then nodded. “Too bad about her being killed and all. I heard a girl died, but I didn’t know it was her.”

“So you knew Carissa?”

“Not by name,” he said, “but she’s a hard one to forget. One of those sparkly people. Shame that she was murdered.”

I slid the picture back into my purse with care. “Yes,” I said. “It’s a great shame.” I waited a moment, then asked, “Was she in here to buy a boat?”

“Now, that I don’t know.” He tipped his head in the direction of Hugo’s office. “She came in and talked to the boss. Not sure what that was all about,” he said, half grinning, “but Annelise didn’t like it at all.”

Annelise. Mrs. Edel. The co-owner of Crown Yachts. The woman who’d felt the need to primp before coming into her husband’s workplace. So Annelise didn’t like another woman talking to her husband. Yet the husband had said it was strictly business.

Hmm.

“So,” I said, “Annelise didn’t like Carissa?”

He was still grinning. “Annelise doesn’t like any female younger than eighty getting close to Hugo. The jealousy thing happens to women, sometimes,” he said seriously. “That change-of-life stuff.”

“Really?”

My sarcasm was clear, but the guy didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. I can tell you stories.” He laughed, then said, “Of course, that boyfriend of hers didn’t like it, either.”

I frowned. “Annelise has a boyfriend?”

“Nah, that Carissa. He came in here all mad about Hugo taking his girl out to dinner, but he came in on a Saturday, and Hugo’s never here on the weekends.”

“What did the boyfriend look like?”

“Ah, I don’t know. Kind of scrawny, but not real scrawny. Had hair the color of a living room wall, if you know what I mean.”

A soft electronic ping went off. The guy looked toward the front door. “Excuse me,” he said, looking at an elderly couple who’d just walked in.

Timing is everything, and this was perfect. I said thank you and good-bye, yanked Chris out of a discussion of trout fishing, and headed home.

• • •

“Hey!” I called through the houseboat’s screen door. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Eddie looked at me. He was sitting exactly in the middle of yesterday’s local paper, which meant he was also sitting in the middle of the dining table, a place where he wasn’t allowed to set foot. At least when I was in the room. What he did when I wasn’t within scolding distance was something over which I had absolutely no control.

More than once I’d walked down the marina’s dock and, through the houseboat’s windows, spotted Eddie sitting on the kitchen counter, napping or idly grooming himself. I’d pound up the dock and burst through the door, reprimands at the ready, only to find my cat sitting innocently on the floor. I had yet to decide whether that whole routine was a coincidence, or whether it was something he planned with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker.

Now I clapped my hands three times—the “Stop that right now!” signal—and watched Eddie slither off the table and onto the bench seat. “You are a horrible cat,” I told him. “And stop looking at me like I’m the stupid one. If you didn’t do the things I tell you not to, I wouldn’t have to yell at you, see?”

Bonk!

“Eddie! Will you cut that out?” I reached for him and snuggled him to my chest, because the loud bonking noise had been his head thumping against the edge of the table. “That had to hurt, you silly thing.” I kissed the back of his furry neck and sat down on the upholstered bench. “You’ll give yourself a concussion if you keep that up.”

His deep purrs indicated that there was nothing wrong, but what did I know about cat head injuries?

I snuggled him again. “You be careful or you’ll end up like Greg Plassey, thinking that getting whacked in the noggin with a golf ball is a perfectly normal occurrence.”

“Mrr.”

“Well, exactly.” Carefully, I gave his head a slow pet. “There’s got to be something seriously wrong with him to shrug something like that off. Just because it’s an accident doesn’t mean he shouldn’t take it seriously.”

Eddie jumped off my lap and back up onto the newspaper. I started to swipe him off the table and back onto my lap, but he reached out with a paw for the newspaper and snagged it with his slightly extended claws.

Rip!

“Oh, good job.” I detached him from the newsprint, slouched, and settled him on my chest. “Don’t tell me that was an accident, buddy boy. I’ve known you long enough to know when something was intentional.”

Eddie stared at me through unblinking yellow eyes.

“Huh,” I said. “I wonder…” But no. The idea was far too far-fetched.

Or was it?

I looked at Eddie. “Am I nuts?” He didn’t say anything, which was probably the safest possible answer. “If I sound nuts, just tell me, okay?”

He dug his front claws into my shirtfront just the slightest bit, then retracted them. I took the action as a reply of “Have I ever held back from telling you that you were being stupid?” To which the answer was, of course “No.”

Since both of my hands were busy with Eddie, I used my elbow to tap the newspaper. “Greg Plassey had that accident with the golf ball. That didn’t make the paper because he didn’t tell anyone, but there were other accidents that we’ve read about in the last couple of weeks.”

Eddie’s eyes opened ever so slightly.

“There was Trock’s bicycle accident, remember?” I ran my hand over Eddie’s back, and his eyes closed again. “He was run off the road by an SUV. And then there was that boat accident, the one where Hugo Edel was almost blown up.” It hadn’t made sense then and it didn’t make sense now, because how could a guy who made and sold high-end boats for a living blow up his boat? Okay, it could have been an operator error of some kind, but from what I knew about Edel, he was as safety-conscious as a first-time mother.

“So that’s three accidents this summer,” I told Eddie, who might—or might not—have been interested in what I was saying. From the sound of his snores, I was guessing he wasn’t, but maybe it was a trick. “Three typical summer accidents, but they all happened within a couple weeks of each other and they all happened to guys about the same age.”

“Mrr,” Eddie said sleepily.

“Yeah,” I murmured, “I know. The odds seem against it, don’t they? And…” Another piece jiggled into place. “And I’m sure that Greg Plassey was holding something back about Carissa. What if he had been involved with her in some way? What if his accident had something to do with her death? What if all of them did?”

Maybe I was wrong, but maybe I was right, and that meant someone would have to find out more about the relationships between these men and Carissa.

“That someone being me,” I said, and for some reason that got Eddie purring and settling into my lap as if he had no intention of ever moving.

My thoughts went darker.

Suppose that Greg’s, Trock’s, and Hugo’s accidents weren’t truly accidents. Maybe, somehow, they had something to do with Carissa’s death. Maybe someone was out to get all the men Carissa was linked to.

Not only did I have to make sure Cade didn’t go to jail; I might have to save them all from being killed.

Eddie deepened his purr and curled up into a tight furry ball.

“Then again,” I said, “I might be wrong about all this. Maybe one of these guys is actually the killer.”

Eddie stopped purring and reached out with one paw to bat me on the back of my hand.

“Sorry.” I started petting him. “How many strokes would you like, Sir Eddie? Two? Three?” I paused. “An infinite number?”

That’s when he started purring again.