Wrong Side of the Paw

Chapter 12

Brad’s sad news about the people sickened by a beer he’d made stayed with me through the day and into the evening, when I called Leese. She’d talked to her stepbrother earlier that day and had tried to get him to go out for dinner with her, but he’d turned her down, saying that he wouldn’t be good company.

“I told him not to be an idiot,” she said, “because he’d never been good company in his life and I certainly didn’t expect him to start doing so anytime soon.” She sighed. “He didn’t laugh even a little. I sent Mia over. Maybe she can help.”

By the end of the workday we’d both heard that of the nine people who’d gone to the emergency room, eight had been treated and released. The one remaining victim, the one Brad had been so worried about, had been diagnosed with appendicitis, not food poisoning, and was resting comfortably after an emergency operation.

But even if no one had been deathly ill, it was still a serious situation, and I didn’t want to think what Brad was enduring, knowing something he’d brewed had caused people harm.

That night I dreamed dreams of falling into vats of beer—a beverage of which I wasn’t overly fond—and being reminded by a swimming police officer not to forget to register before I moved. “It was just weird,” I told Holly and Josh, as I poured myself a third cup of coffee the next morning.

“Sounds more stupid than weird.” Josh shook four sugar packets, dumped them into his mug, and looked at Holly, who was rummaging through the utensil drawer. “Please don’t tell me you think her dream means something.”

“Of course it means something,” she said. “Hah!” She brandished what we all referred to as the Good Knife, and started using it to cut the pan of brownies she’d brought into squares.

“Yeah?” Josh pulled out a chair, making its feet screech against the hard floor, and sat. “What?”

“It means she was having stupid dreams about beer.” Holly levered brownies onto the three paper towels she’d already set out. “Although that’s redundant, since all dreams about beer are stupid because beer is stupid.”

Josh took a brownie. “You’re wrong, but as long as you keep bringing us food, I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Silence of the Josh,” I said, accepting my Holly-made confection. “Who knew it was even possible?”

“Anything’s possible.” Holly smiled broadly. “Even your husband coming home for a month.”

“Hey, that’s great!” Her husband, Brian, had a fantastic job working for a mining company fifteen hundred miles away. It was their hope that Brian would eventually find employment in Michigan, but for now they made due with occasional trips, video visits, and frequent packages sent to their two small children.

Though I’d long feared that Holly might get tired of the long-distance relationship and pack up and move West, she’d recently confessed to me that the idea of moving Out There, as she called it, was something she’d considered and rejected. “My family is here,” she’d said. “His family is here. I don’t want to take the kids away from those relationships.”

Around a mouthful of brownie, Josh said, “If he’s going to be here over hunting season, tell him to give me a call.”

As the two of them talked about Brian’s vacation, I started thinking ahead in the calendar. Soon I’d be moving up to the boardinghouse. Then there’d be Thanksgiving, Christmas, and skiing season. There would be an excellent new crop of books to read and—

“I forgot,” I said out loud.

“Forgot what?” Josh asked. “No, let me guess. About twenty years ago, you forgot to keep growing.”

“No,” Holly said, “she forgot to get married. One of these days she’s going to remember and we’ll get invitations in the mail. I’m already planning what to wear.”

“Wrong and wrong again.” I got up. “I need to talk to Jennifer.”

I heard the groans, but didn’t see any facial expressions since I’d already started to walk out of the room. Temporarily working on the theory that what I didn’t see I didn’t have to deal with, I headed up to Jennifer’s office and knocked on the doorjamb.

“Good morning,” I said. “Do you have a minute?”

My boss, who had rotated her chair to face the window, turned around. “I have an appointment in a few minutes, but until then I’m available.”

An appointment with another library board member, no doubt. “Great,” I said, perching myself on the front edge of one of her abstract guest chairs. “I have an idea to run past you.”

Jennifer’s perfectly plucked eyebrows went up. “Oh? Please don’t tell me you need another bookmobile.”

“Need?” I asked, smiling to hide the sudden burst of annoyance exploding inside my head. “Sure, we could use another bookmobile. Just think of all the people we could reach that we’re missing now.” In truth, buying another bookmobile had never occurred to me. I was having a hard enough time operating one.

Jennifer shook her head. “Not possible,” she said. “I can’t believe you’re even bringing it up. You should know that the library’s budget can’t possibly absorb the cost of another bookmobile.”

I hadn’t brought it up; she had. But instead of wasting my time and energy by pointing that out, I said, “My idea is to set up a lecture series that focuses on the needs of senior citizens. Finances, questions of law, health, nutrition. This morning I talked to the local senior center and they’re not doing anything similar. They thought it was a great idea.”

“More outreach,” Jennifer murmured. “How does this align with the library’s mission?”

This was a question I’d been prepared to hear and I quoted the mission statement’s second sentence. “‘The library serves as a learning center for all residents of the community,’” I said.

“A little vague.” Jennifer turned back toward the window.

Undaunted, I said, “This applies to the first part of the statement, too. This would be a service that helps residents obtain information that meets their needs.”

“One small segment of the population.” Jennifer’s tone was vague and I could tell she’d already lost interest. “I don’t see this as a good use of the library’s resources.”

“It won’t cost anything.” I persisted, since I was determined to make a good case. “All it will take is a little bit of my time to arrange for speakers and the use of the conference room, which is empty most of the time anyway.”

“Your time is valuable.” Jennifer stood and went to the window. “You’re already stretched thin and I don’t want you taking on any new projects.”

She’d said no, but had left a way open. “Would you be opposed to the plan if someone else was in charge of lining up speakers? I’d approve each speaker, but someone else would make all the arrangements.” I leaned forward, waiting for her answer.

“Where are all the people?” Jennifer asked, nodding toward Chilson’s downtown streets.

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The people.” She reached through the venetian blind and tapped the windowpane. “There aren’t any. When I arrived here, there were a lot more cars on the streets. The restaurants were full, the stores were full, there were concerts in the park, and some sort of event every weekend.”

“This is a tourist town,” I said, trying not to overstate the obvious.

“Yes, but that doesn’t explain the emptiness.”

Of course it did. What on earth was she talking about? “There won’t be big crowds again until June.”

Jennifer, never one for unnecessary movement, froze solid. “June?” she asked.

“Well, sure.” When she didn’t say anything, I expanded. “A few of the seasonal folks will hang on until Thanksgiving, then even they will head south for the winter. Some people come back for Christmas, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Presidents’ weekend.”

I smiled, feeling slightly evil and enjoying myself immensely. Bad Minnie. “March and April are the really quiet months. You could roll a bowling ball down the middle of Main Street at high noon and not hit anything except curb.” It was an exaggeration, but not by much.

“But . . .” Jennifer wrapped her arms around her middle. “But there’s skiing around here. Won’t the skiers be coming soon? I was told Chilson was the Michigan version of Vail.”

Not by anyone who’d ever been to both Chilson and Vail. “The ski resorts in this area are nice enough,” I said, “but the best skiing in Michigan isn’t close to the quality of skiing out West. We have hills. They have mountains.”

“I’m not a skier,” she murmured.

“Well, maybe you’ll turn into one,” I said cheerfully. “Finding something you like to do in the snow is the best way to deal with winter.” And since she hadn’t said I couldn’t hand over my new senior talk idea to someone else, I made my exit before she realized she hadn’t said no.

• • •

During lunch, I spent a few minutes looking up information about Gail and Ray Boggs, the other party involved in lawsuits that Dale Lacombe had recently won. The county website’s property information database told me the Boggses had purchased a piece of property five years ago. I clicked on a “Find location on map” link. The aerial photography showed a house sited near a creek and neighbors close enough to be good friends, but far enough to feel private.

The phone book didn’t have a Boggs listing, so after debating the wisdom of heading out to the house of a complete stranger, I walked home, wrote my intentions on a white board as I’d sworn to my mother I would always do when I went somewhere solo, patted a sleepy Eddie on the head, and got into the car.

Though there was still technically an hour and a half before the sun set, so much cloud cover had moved in that I felt compelled to turn on the car’s headlights. I almost turned them off, but sighed and left them on. It would be dark soon enough and it was always better to be seen than not seen.

It was about ten miles to the address, and in spite of the growing murk, I enjoyed the drive over forested hills that opened up to a wide valley. All around were the bright colors of autumn or what would have been bright colors if there had been some sunlight. Even still, the reddish-orange of the maple leaves and the occasional yellow of birches and aspens penetrated the darkening sky with color that was both breathtaking and heartrending with its fleeting beauty.

“Get a grip,” I told myself. It wasn’t like me to wax poetic, especially with a melancholy tone. Maybe what I needed was a dose of Kristen. She’d been too wrapped up with preparations for seasonal closing of her restaurant to make dessert for me the other night, but we were set in stone for the coming Sunday.

I turned right on the road that led to the Boggses’ house and, one mile later, bumped off the end of asphalt and onto gravel. After a half mile of bouncing over washboards and steering around potholes, I saw their house number on a mailbox in a cluster of five.

“Hmm.” I studied the driveways, looked at the map I’d printed from the county’s website, and aimed the car down the middle driveway. It was little more than two tire tracks through the woods, but the tracks were definite enough and I didn’t have any trouble following them down the winding path. The driveway wasn’t in any better condition than the gravel road had been, and as I bounced toward the house, I hoped my car’s suspension would hold up on the return trip.

One last bump around one last corner, and a house came into view.

A dark house.

With a For Sale sign stuck into the front lawn.

I sat there, engine running, staring at the place. Clearly, there was no one for me to talk to. Not only was it dark and for sale, but it had that abandoned air that houses take on when their owners have departed. I hadn’t even considered this possibility; now what was I going to do?

After a moment, I got out of the car, climbed the front steps, and peered in through the window in the door. “Huh,” I said out loud. Dark, for sale, and vacant. The front hall didn’t contain so much as a stick of furniture. The Boggses obviously didn’t believe in staging a house.

I walked sideways down the porch. The only thing in the living room was the grate in the fireplace, and the dining room’s only ornament was a hanging light fixture that was made from either driftwood or deer antlers. In the dark I couldn’t tell, but if I had to guess—

“Can I help you?”

“Yah!” I spun and took a jump away from the voice, bashing my head against the house in the process. “Ow!” I held one of my hands to my chest in an attempt to keep my rapidly beating heart inside where it belonged, and with the other I rubbed the back of my head.

The man standing on the lawn chuckled. “Sorry about that. You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

“Not enough to need an ambulance,” I said, still rubbing. “But houses don’t move much when you bonk into them.”

“If any house would, it’d be this one.”

I stopped my self-ministrations and looked at the guy. He seemed affable enough. Sure, I was looking at him through a half light that was growing darker every second, but his hands-in-pockets pose, along with an easy smile and a baseball hat that proclaimed him the WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDPA, combined for a nonthreatening persona. “What makes you say that? Are you Ray Boggs?”

“Neighbor. Or I was until they stuck that in the ground and headed off.” He nodded toward the real estate sign. “I told them I’d keep an eye on the place, so when I saw your headlights, I came over to make sure that someone wasn’t up to nefarious deeds.”

By this time I’d walked off the porch and stood in front of him. “Minnie Hamilton,” I said, offering my hand. “Assistant director and driver of the bookmobile for the Chilson Library.”

“Fred Sirrine. Retired from Ford Motor Company.” As we shook hands, he asked, “So what are you doing out here? Hope you’re not chasing down overdue fines; the Boggses haven’t been around in weeks.”

“Not today.” I debated how much to share. “A minute ago, you implied the house wasn’t built well.”

He glanced at the structure. “I shouldn’t have said that. All I have to go on is what Ray and Gail told me. Secondhand information isn’t a good way to form an opinion.”

I started to wonder what Mr. Sirrine had done for Ford. “Sometimes secondhand information is the only kind available.”

“The formation of an opinion should wait for solid data,” he said firmly.

“Oh, dear,” I said. “Then I’ll have to take back the opinion I’m already forming that you’re a nice man.”

He laughed. “Point taken. But getting back to my question, what are you doing out here?”

“I’m not looking for overdue fees, but I would like to talk to the Boggses. Do you know where they moved?”

“They had a place in Royal Oak when they built this for a weekend getaway, but they sold that when they thought they’d stay up here year round. After last February, though, they’d had enough of snow and cold. They put it up for sale and rented a condo near Santa Fe.”

“So they’re in New Mexico?” If so, I didn’t have much chance of finding them.

He shook his head. “That was only for the winter. They said they’d be staying at their other place in Michigan, but who knows?” He eyed me. “You going to tell me why you’d like to talk to my former neighbors?”

“Dale Lacombe, the contractor who built the Boggses’ house, was killed two weeks ago.” My new friend nodded, and I went on. “His daughter is a friend of mine and I’m just . . .” Just what? Think, Minnie, think! “Just following up on some of the clients he’d had troubles with.”

Fred eyed me. “Following up,” he said.

“Yes.” It was my story and I was going to stick to it. “I’m trying to help,” I said. “The family is . . . having a hard time.”

“I imagine.” He looked at me, at the house, then back at me. “You do realize that the Boggses and Lacombe ended up in court.”

“Yes, and I was hoping to talk to them about that. To clear the air, if nothing else.”

He pulled his hands out of his pockets and adjusted his Grandpa hat. “If Ray or Gail had been in town when Lacombe was killed, then you’d have some ideal candidates for the murder. They could hardly say his name without spitting. I assume that’s what you’re really doing here? Trying to find out who killed your friend’s dad?”

Was I that obvious? I sighed. “Leese is a lawyer. She grew up around here and moved back home this summer to open her own business and . . . well, she’s having a hard time right now.”

Fred flicked another glance at the house. “Please tell me she’s a better lawyer than her dad was a builder.”

I smiled. “She and her dad didn’t get along.”

“Good to know. Well, good luck to you,” he said. “It’s commendable that you’re trying to help your friend, but take care. Don’t forget there’s a killer out there.”

And with that comforting thought, he gave me one last nod and headed back into the woods.

• • •

The next morning I woke up, put one foot outside the covers, then pulled it back with a yelp. “Hokey Pete! It’s cold out there!”

I carefully reached out for my cell phone, keeping my hand under the sheet, blankets, and comforter until the last possible moment. Even then, my skin went all prickly with the temperature change. I ducked all the way back under the covers, turned on the phone, and opened the weather app, which showed a temperature of twenty-nine degrees.

That couldn’t be right. The weather people had predicted a low in the mid-forties.

I poked at the phone and checked the current temperatures in Petoskey, Charlevoix, Mackinaw City, and Bellaire. All were hovering just below freezing.

“How could they be so wrong?” I asked out loud.

“Mrr,” said Eddie’s muffled voice.

“At least you have a fur coat,” I said, then made a few more taps that resulted in my aunt’s voice saying, “Let me guess. You want to move to the boardinghouse today.”

“Yes, please,” I said meekly. “Very much, please.”

She laughed. “Come on up, dear heart. You know you’re welcome any time.”

Immediately after the bookmobile day ended, the Eddie delivery took place. He studied his surroundings, emitted a very loud “Mrr!” and promptly jumped onto the back of the couch, where he’d spent a large portion of the previous winter. I drove to the marina and started heaving things into boxes.

It wasn’t the most organized of moves, but the unexpected cold snap was motivating and Aunt Frances, Otto, and I hauled the last item out of my car and up the stairs just past ten o’clock that night.

Aunt Frances surveyed the array of boxes, totes, and grocery bags strewn across my bed, the floor of my bedroom, and the hallway. “Do you know where anything is?” she asked.

“Not a single thing,” I said cheerfully. “Except for this.” I hefted the small duffle bag that I used for overnight visits.

Otto looked around. “I’m surprised you could fit this much stuff into that little boat.”

“Cabinets and drawers can hold more than you think. It’s all in the packing.”

“But why do you move everything back here in the winter? Couldn’t you leave most of this down there?” He grinned. “Certainly the kitchen equipment we hauled up won’t get used.”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? I hardly use any of this stuff on the boat. To answer your question, though, the first winter I did leave a number of things in place. Then a squirrel got in.”

“Ah.” Otto nodded. “Thus the moving.”

“Thus.” I pointed at the boxes. “Aunt Frances, I promise I’ll have everything organized and either put away in my room or up in the attic by Sunday afternoon.”

“Take your time,” she said. “That is, as long as you have everything out of the hallway before you go to work on Monday.”

I held up my hand, Girl Scout promise style, and vowed to do so. I’d have to go down to the boat one more time to do what my brother called a Paranoid Check, making absolutely sure one final time I hadn’t left anything behind, but I’d already called Chris Ballou, the marina’s manager, and asked him to get it out of the water.

Otto rubbed his hands together. “All righty, then. I say it’s time, don’t you, Frances?”

“Way past,” she said, and the two turned and started to make their way downstairs. “Minnie, are you coming?”

“Where?” I called after them. “To do what?”

Neither one of them answered. I did hear laughter, but since that didn’t explain anything, I abandoned my unpacking without a qualm—after all, my aunt had invited me to follow them—and I wandered downstairs, curious and mystified.

By the time I reached the living room, where Eddie was still sleeping on the back of the couch, I’d come up with all sorts of theories about what it might be time for. An evening cocktail was a strong possibility, but somehow that didn’t seem to fit. Other ideas ranged from going for an evening walk (a little late, but possible) to making a crank phone call (nine point nine on the unlikely scale of one to ten) to choosing colors for their wedding (about nine point eight on the same scale).

I followed the sounds of voices and tracked down Aunt Frances and Otto in the kitchen, where they were looking into the cupboard that held baking supplies.

“How about red?” my aunt asked.

Otto nodded. “Cheerful, yet not over the top. An excellent choice. Then again,” he said thoughtfully, “with Minnie here, it’s a sort of celebration. Perhaps we should go with gold.”

“Or blue,” my aunt said. “Choosing her favorite color might be appropriate.”

Nope, I had no idea what was going on here. “What are you two doing?”

Aunt Frances glanced over her shoulder. “Picking sprinkles for the Thursday night ice cream, of course.”

I blinked, then started laughing. “You sound like you’re choosing a wine to go with a meal you’re serving the president of the United States.”

“Sprinkles are a serious business,” Otto said with a straight face, which made me laugh even harder.

“When the last boarder left in September,” Aunt Frances said, taking out the canister filled with gold sprinkles, “we had a dish of ice cream. It happened to be a Thursday night, so we’ve had ice cream every Thursday since. I don’t remember why we started the sprinkles.” She looked at Otto, who was getting three small dishes out of the cupboard. “Do you?”

“Already lost in the mists of time.” He opened the utensil drawer and brandished the scoop. “Is it your turn to scoop, or mine?”

“Yours.”

Amused, I watched the ice cream assembly. “You two have quite a tradition going here.”

“One of many,” my aunt said. “I’m sure you and Ash do things that are just as silly. Would you like whipped cream?” She took a closer look at my face. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. And yes, please, on the whipped cream.”

We sat at the round oak kitchen table, ate ice cream, and chatted about nothing in particular, laughing and enjoying each other’s company.

But all the while, part of my mind was far away. Ash and I had fun together, like Aunt Frances and Otto did, but they had something we didn’t. They had sparkle. Together, they were more than the sum of their parts. So much love flowed between them, it was almost visible. Nothing flowed between Ash and me except friendship. We were good friends, but no more than that, and it was time to say so. It wasn’t fair to either one of us to keep on going like this.

“Minnie,” my aunt said, frowning. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“My feet are warm and my tummy is full of ice cream. What could possibly be wrong?” I gave her a bright smile. From the expression on her face, she wasn’t convinced I was telling the complete truth, but she nodded and let it go.

Tomorrow, I told myself. I would have a conversation with Ash tomorrow.

• • •

The next day was just as cold as the previous day had been, and I stopped feeling weak-willed for moving to the boardinghouse early. Aunt Frances didn’t care, the marina didn’t care, and Eddie would yell at me no matter what I did, so why endure a few cold and miserable days for the sake of a self-imposed plan?

At lunchtime, I walked downtown, my head bent against the blustery wind. As I walked, I started composing portions of the long talk with Ash I needed to have as soon as possible.

“You’re a great guy, but . . .”

No. That was a horrible start.

“Ash, we need to talk.”

I winced even as I was saying the words. It might be possible to be more trite, but probably not.

“Do you think something is missing from our relationship?”

Still not great, but better. Satisfied that I had something to work with, I strode forward, head up and eyes forward. Which was why I noticed the efforts of a man wearing a floppy hat trying to maneuver something out of his vehicle. Whatever it was, it was giving him fits. He was yanking at it with great force and threatening it with unimaginative curses. He also looked vaguely familiar.

As I looked at him, trying to remember where I’d seen him before, he gave a loud grunt, a massive tug, and then he and his walker almost fell back into the street when it came free.

“Three Seasons,” I said out loud, hurrying forward. That’s where I’d seen him, the night Ash, his mother, and I had eaten together at the Three Seasons.

The man caught my gaze. “You have a problem?” he asked, practically hurling the words at me.

“Not right now,” I said, smiling and stepping off the curb. He was still struggling with the walker, trying to unfold what looked like, but couldn’t possibly be, seven legs. “Just wondered if you needed a hand, that’s all.”

“I don’t need your help,” he snarled. “What makes you think I can’t take care of myself? Just because I have to use one of these things doesn’t mean I’m an imbecile.”

And just because he had to use one of those things didn’t mean he had the right to be rude to strangers, either.

“My mistake,” I said mildly. Giving him a nod he didn’t return, I mentally shrugged and went back to my main mission, which was hunting down lunch.

Honk honk!

I jumped at the noise and turned to see my friends Cade and Barb in a small SUV, laughing hard enough to hurt themselves.

“You know,” I said, stepping into the street because they hadn’t pulled up to the curb, but were just sitting in the middle of the quiet road, idling, “don’t you both have better things to do than to scare a mild-mannered librarian out of her wits?”

“We do,” Barb said, smiling. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t funny to see you jump like a rabbit.”

I looked across her to Cade, who was still laughing. “Don’t you have a masterpiece to paint? Or at least a greeting card?”

“Ouch,” he said, putting his hands to his chest. “That got me right here.”

“Pish,” said his loving wife. “You don’t seem to have any problem cashing the fat checks from the greeting card people. Don’t go acting as if it’s beneath you.”

“My dear Barbara.” He glared at her, but a smile tricked up one side of his mouth. “Nothing is beneath me artistically. At least that’s what what’s-his-name in New York said.”

“Pish,” she repeated. “Critics are clueless.”

My ears twitched at the repetition of two C words in a three-word sentence. Was this the beginning of a new game? The McCades and I had a habit of randomly choosing a letter and then finding words starting with that letter to fit whatever ongoing conversation was at hand. Winning the game wasn’t quite as much fun as beating Rafe at a five-dollar bet, but at least losing didn’t cost me anything.

Honk honk!

This time it wasn’t Cade; it was the car behind them. I glanced up and recognized the vehicle as Rafe’s. I stepped back. “See you two later,” I said to the McCades. “We’ll get together before you head to Arizona, right?”

Waving and agreeing, they drove off and Rafe rolled down the passenger’s window. “What’s up, short stuff?”

I shook my head sadly. “At some point you’re going to realize that you’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Oh, I know I’m not funny,” he said cheerfully. “But can I help it if other people think I am?”

“Yes.” Then, before he could ask how, exactly, he was supposed to help it, I quickly said the first thing that popped into my head. “I moved up to the boardinghouse last night.”

“Figured that when I didn’t see any lights on in your boat this morning. I had a late meeting last night; otherwise I would have helped.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know what your version of help is like. Supervision from a distance with a beer in one hand.”

He grinned. “Someone’s got to do it. I have to say, though . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Go ahead,” I said, dramatically standing tall and jutting out my chin. “Whatever you have to say, I can take it.”

Rafe smiled. “This may be too much for you.”

“Hah. I come from a long line of strong women. I can take anything.”

“Okay, then.” He shifted his gaze away, and when he looked back, his face was clear of fun and laughter. He looked sincere and serious, which was so unusual that I steeled myself for anything from the worst joke in the world to the news that his mom had been diagnosed with some incurable disease.

“I’ll miss you,” he said quietly.

“You . . . what?” I stared at him, and the world around me shifted.

There was a slight pause, then he said, “Mostly Eddie, of course, but you, too. Who’s going to hand me tools?”

The world righted itself; Rafe was back to joking. “Try thinking ahead,” I suggested. “I hear it can work wonders.”

He grinned crookedly. “Like you’d know?”

I opened my mouth to respond, but a car was coming, so I stepped away from Rafe’s car and waved him away.

Rafe drove off and I watched him go. He missed me. He hadn’t been joking about that; he really missed me. “I miss you, too,” I whispered after him. Because I realized that I did. We spent a lot of time together in the summers, living so close, and I would miss his banter and laughter and . . . him.

“Don’t be stupid,” I muttered. Rafe and I have been friends for twenty years. If there had ever been anything more, we would have figured it out years ago.

With that settled, I took one step in the direction of lunch, then came to a sudden halt. For some reason, meeting up with the McCades had reminded me of a small task that needed doing, and since there was no time like the present, I reversed direction and went into the toy store, the bells attached to the front door jingling merrily.

“Hey, Minnie.” Mitchell, who was standing too close to the top of a stepladder for my comfort, waved at me. “What’s up?”

I tipped my head back to look at him. “You, it looks like.”

“Me? What . . .” Then he laughed. “Oh, I get it.” He reached, readjusted the large hanging model airplane to a slightly different angle, then clambered down the ladder and looked up at his handiwork. “Bet no one dusted that thing in years.”

I could see why, since it was snugged up next to a tall ceiling and no one would ever notice the amount of dust on it, but I was glad Mitchell was taking such a proprietary interest in the store he was managing. “You did a nice job,” I said.

“You’re the second person who said that to me in six months.”

No one should get that little encouragement, and I made a mental note to compliment the library staff more often. “Who was the other one?”

“The contractor I worked for last summer.” He grinned. “The county building inspector was doing his thing, and it was my framing he was looking at. My boss said he couldn’t think of a time when that inspector walked away without writing him up for something.”

My attention went sharp. “Was that Ron Driskell?”

“Yeah, that’s him. My boss couldn’t stand him, but I always figured he was just doing his job. Kind of a crappy one, if you ask me, but I suppose someone has to do it.”

“How did Driskell feel about your boss?” From Mitchell’s puzzled expression, it was clear he had no idea what I meant, so I kept going. “Did they get along? Were they friendly? Did they argue on job sites?”

“Oh, I see what you’re saying. No, they were good, far as I ever saw. Talked about sports a lot. Driskell’s a Lions guy and my boss is a Packers fan, but they were both fans of the Tigers, so it was all okay.”

“Was Driskell like that with most contractors? Get along with them like that?”

Mitchell shrugged. “I only worked for that one builder. All I know for sure is that he’s a black and white kind of guy.”

So Dale Lacombe and Ron Driskell might have had a special—and acrimonious—relationship. Interesting.

“Doing any shopping today?” Mitchell smiled down at me from his six-plus feet of height. “Something for Sally’s birthday next month? If she’s still into horses, I have the perfect thing.”

Another astounding by-product of Mitchell’s new job was the realization that his memory for arcane facts and figures was being put to productive use. My older brother, my only sibling, had two daughters and a son, and Mitchell already knew not only their names but also their birthdays, favorite colors, interests, and current career indications.

“She’s all about horses,” I said, “but I’ll stop by some other time to talk about presents. I wanted to tell you that we have a small stack of books for you. I know Donna called a couple of times and I wanted to make sure you’d received the message.”

Mitchell made a face. “I don’t see myself coming in there for a while.”

“But your fines are all paid up.” I frowned. “You can check out anything you’d like. I even found a copy of Philip Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? for you.”

“Yeah, well.” He blew out a breath. “It’s that new director. Jennifer what’s-her-name. She’s . . . she’s not from here, if you know what I mean.”

Ash’s mother had said something similar about Carmen. “She could be from Timbuctoo and still be a good library director.”

He shrugged. “Don’t care where she’s from. She just doesn’t belong. All she wants to do is change things. Like everything we were doing before was wrong.”

I did agree, actually, but felt compelled to defend my boss. “She’s new and she’s trying to impress the board, that’s all. I wouldn’t take her need to change things as a true criticism.”

“Yeah?” Mitchell’s hands flexed. “Then why did she tell me I shouldn’t be reading stuff like Robert Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy? That I was a grown man and should be reading things to improve myself, not reading science fiction written for fourteen-year-olds.”

“She did?” I asked weakly.

“And she said there was no reason for anyone over the age of ten to spend their time on a jigsaw puzzle, not when there were so many things in the world that needed doing.”

The library’s reading room had a table that was practically dedicated to the assembly of jigsaw puzzles. There was a tall stack of the puzzles up in the Friends of the Library book sale room, and they seemed to wander downstairs on their own.

I couldn’t think of a time when there wasn’t a puzzle going on that table, and there was almost always someone sitting there, putting in a piece or three. It was quiet entertainment for dozens of people and I’d seen everyone from third-shift workers at a local factory to a state legislator doing their bit.

“Well,” I said uncomfortably, “that’s just her opinion. She’s entitled to thinking whatever she wants about jigsaw puzzles. Maybe she had a bad experience as a kid, or something.”

Mitchell gave me a disbelieving stare. “With puzzles?”

“Um.” I searched for a reason; any reasonable reason would do. “When she was a kid, she could have been doing a jigsaw with a great uncle who had a heart attack.” Not a bad reason at all. Nicely done, Minnie! “He’d had a heart condition for years, but that fateful day he clutched his chest, gasping for air, and fell to the floor, right next to Jennifer.” I was feeling quite sorry for the young version of my boss. “She called nine-one-one, but it was too late. He was gone. Maybe since then, she hasn’t been able to look at a jigsaw puzzle without remembering how helpless and how sad and traumatized she felt that day.”

He snorted. “And maybe I’m going to win the lottery. She’s not a nice person and she doesn’t belong here. I’m not going back to the library until she’s gone.”

“Stephen was here for almost ten years,” I reminded him.

“Then,” Mitchell said grimly, “it looks like I won’t go to the library for ten years.”

“We’ll miss you,” I said, as seriously as I could, because there was no way Mitchell could stay away from all our books and all our magazines. I gave him two weeks at the outside.

• • •

The next day was a bookmobile day, a fact that Eddie figured out the moment I pulled his carrier from the boardinghouse’s front closet. Aunt Frances watched him stand at the ready while I opened the wire door and arranged his fluffy pink blanket.

“Most cats,” she observed, “run and hide when the cat carrier comes out.”

“Eddie is not most cats.” I held the door open. “Sir, your carriage awaits.”

“Mrr,” he said, strolling into the carrier and flopping down into an Eddie-sized heap.

Aunt Frances laughed. “That was definitely a ‘thank you.’”

“He is just a cat, you know.”

“Eddie,” my aunt said. “Did you hear what she said about you?”

“Mrr!”

Later that morning, when I passed on the exchange to Julia as we started the preparations at the first stop, she looked at Eddie, who was sitting on his new favorite perch, the corner of the front computer desk.

“Have you forgiven her yet?” she asked him.

He stared her in the eye and inched forward. “Mrr!”

Julia shook her head, sighing. “Sorry, Minnie. He might not get over this one for quite a while.”

I rolled my eyes. “You and Aunt Frances are two of a kind.”

“What kind is that?”

Julia and I turned at the familiar voice. “Leese, I didn’t hear you come in,” I said. “And of course I’m different from those two. I’m shorter, for one thing.”

“Like that’s a real difference.” Leese plopped her pile of return books on the back desk. “At the core, you’re the same.”

She was so wrong. “I hate to cook, I can’t do sudoku for beans, and the only time I watch the evening news is when someone I know might be on it.”

Leese stood in front of the selection of new books and pulled out Louise Erdrich’s most recent release. “Superficial. I only know your aunt a little, but I’d bet that all three of you would do anything for a friend or family member, that you have the kindest hearts I’ve ever come across, and that you find every possible opportunity to laugh.”

It was an interesting point of view, but my brain danced back to the first part of her sentence. “Speaking of family, how’s Brad doing?”

She slumped. “He’s been better. The brewery is still trying to figure out what went wrong. They’re running some sort of lab tests on that beer and those won’t be done for a week or so.”

Julia and I exchanged a glance at her tone. It was one of worry, anxiety, and concern. Which brought to mind something I’d been wondering about for a while. It probably wasn’t the best time to ask, but if I waited for the perfect time, I could be waiting until doomsday.

“How is it that you and Brad and Mia are so close?” I asked. “You have the same father, but not the same mother, and you weren’t raised together, but the three of you are as close as full siblings. Maybe closer.”

Leese stared at the opening page of LaRose and didn’t say anything.

Uh-oh. Clearly I’d stumbled smack into an uncomfortable subject. “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to pry. Forget I asked, okay?”

“No.” Leese shut the book gently and turned to face us. “It’s all right.” Her eyes tracked Eddie, who jumped down from the desk and walked a circuitous route around Julia and me to bump the top of his head against Leese’s shins.

She hunched down and scratched the top of his head. “It was a long time ago,” she said in a quiet murmur that Eddie must have liked, because he started up a loud purr. “I was at Dad and Carmen’s for the weekend. I hadn’t wanted to go, but Mom didn’t give me much choice. This was when I was in middle school, a new teenager, sullen and unhappy with the world.”

Smoothly, she shifted sideways out of her crouch to sit on the carpeted step. Eddie, still purring, jumped up onto her lap and all but burrowed inside her jacket. She smiled, gave him long pets that wafted stray bits of Eddie hair into space, and kept talking.

“I was thirteen, Brad was nine, and Mia . . .” Her voice faltered. “Mia was only seven.”

Julia and I didn’t move; I was barely breathing from not wanting to interrupt what was so obviously hard for Leese to talk about.

“I don’t even remember where we were going,” Leese said. “You’d think I would; it was unusual for the four of us to be together without Carmen, but I really have no idea what we were supposed to be doing.”

There was so much tension in the air, I could almost see it floating around with the Eddie hair.

“It’s been years since I’ve talked about this.” Leese flicked us a glance. “Everything is clear in my memory, but I haven’t had much practice putting it into words.”

“Take your time,” Julia said, using all her stage powers to sound encouraging and comforting.

Leese snuggled Eddie into a hug, something he didn’t particularly care for. He eyed me over the top of her arm, but made no move to escape.

“Brad was in the front seat,” she said, “because it was his turn. Mia sat behind Dad, which put me behind Brad, and there couldn’t have been a worse arrangement.”

Her faint smile was brief. “We started fighting. I’m sure I started it. I was that kind of kid. It didn’t take long before all three of us were arguing. He this, she that, it wasn’t me, you know the kind of thing. Dad told us to be quiet, but we escalated. I started kicking the back of Brad’s seat; he started thumping backward, trying to do I don’t know what, and Mia was pinching me. All three of us were yelling, Dad was yelling, and then . . .”

She closed her eyes and the words fell out of her, one after another.

“And then Dad turned he was yelling at me at Brad at Mia at all of us and he wasn’t watching the road and the car started to swerve and I saw what was going to happen I could see it and I screamed but he didn’t know why I was screaming and he swerved and he crossed the centerline and we hit that car head-on it was just a little car and—”

The torrent of words came to a sharp halt. It should have been quiet in the bookmobile, but I could hear the horrendous echo of that long-ago crash, the rubber screeching, the metal crunching, the glass breaking.

After a long, terrible moment, Leese drew in a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. The noise of the accident faded away and was replaced by the sound of Eddie’s purrs.

When Leese started talking again, her voice was long and thin. “Dad was driving a big SUV. We hit a little red convertible. A man was driving, and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He was thrown out of his car, and—” She stopped and buried her face in Eddie’s fur. “I can still see him hitting the ground,” she said shakily. “I dreamed it again last night, I . . .”

She sighed and rubbed at her face with the heels of her hands. “Anyway, that’s why Brad and Mia and I have a different kind of relationship than most half siblings. We haven’t had a single argument since the day of the accident.”

The car crash hadn’t been their fault, and on some level I was sure she knew that, but I also knew nothing I could say would convince her that she didn’t deserve part of the blame. So instead of wasting my breath and her time, I moved to sit on the step beside her and put my arm around her waist.

After a while, she stopped crying, but my mind kept on whirring and went in a whole new direction. Could this accident be the reason for Dale’s murder? Could there be a connection?

Then the rational part of my brain started working again. No, that didn’t make any sort of sense. The poor guy had died, and it had been more than twenty years ago. What connection could there possibly be at this late date?

Most of me was convinced, but there was a small part of me that went on wondering.