Gone with the Whisker

by Laurie Cass

Kate rolled her eyes. “It’s my first day. How would I know?”

  She had a point, but the eye thing seemed unnecessary. I shut away memories of my own teenage eye movements and tried to think of a question that couldn’t possibly be answered by a gesture I was starting to despise.

  We ate in silence for a few moments. How could conversation with a teenager be so hard? Weren’t teen girls supposed to talk all the time? Not that I had, but I’d always known I was different.

  “Did you stop at the sheriff’s office?” Rafe asked.

  Katrina flinched, dropping a messy slice of tomato onto the plywood.

  I handed her a fork, but she ignored it and used her fingers to tuck the red squashiness back between the layers of lettuce and turkey. “Yes,” I said. “Hal wasn’t there, but I talked to Ash.” Even as I said the words, I realized I hadn’t done what Rafe asked me to, namely let the sheriff’s office know that I wanted to help find the killer. Huh. Well, I’d have to fix that later.

  “He didn’t have much time to talk,” I said. “But he did tell me Rex and his wife, Fawn, were out on a boat almost all day on the Fourth, and most of the night.” I explained about the food truck order. “Fawn was on the boat the entire time,” I said, “so she’s out as a murder suspect.”

  “What if she hired someone?” Katrina asked. When Rafe and I looked at her, she added impatiently, “To kill her husband. What if she paid someone to have it done?”

  I dared not look at Rafe for fear the laughter that was bubbling up inside of me would escape, thereby damaging the tentative relationship with my niece. “Um,” I said, but couldn’t figure out what next to say.

  Rafe reached down, grabbed yesterday’s edition of the Chilson Gazette, opened it to the back pages, and shook his head. “Nope. Don’t see anything under ‘ASSASSIN.’ But it’s summer, maybe they’re booked up like everybody else and aren’t wasting money on advertising during the busy season.”

  Smothering a snort, I said, “Kate, no matter what they show in movies, I don’t think it’s easy to hire a killer. Especially in rural areas.”

  “I’m not saying it would be easy,” she said loudly. “I’m just saying it’s a theory and the police should take it into account.” She stood. “You’re not taking me seriously and that’s crap. My opinion should matter just as much as anyone else’s. More, because I’m the one who—”

  Her voice broke. With a shuddering intake of breath, she rushed out of the room and into the foyer, where we could track her location by a slammed front door and the sound of her sandals flip-flopping down the steps.

  I started to stand, but Rafe waved me to sit. “She needs a few minutes. Finish eating and then go after her.”

  Half up, I thought his advice through, decided he was right, and sat back down. “I’m really glad you’re our middle school principal. You understand kids better than any adult I’ve ever known.” I watched as he used the end of a breadstick to make a smiley face in the cream cheese. “Of course,” I said, “it’s likely you find kids so easy to understand because you never grew up yourself.”

  Rafe put a hand on his chest. “You hurt me, Minnie, you truly do.”

  As if. “I haven’t looked for Rex’s obituary yet. Did you?”

  “Not up yet. So did you tell Ash you want to help with the investigation?”

  “Speaking of the investigation,” I said, “I found something interesting about Rex and Fawn’s neighbor, Barry Vannett.” It didn’t take long for me to explain the proposed trail, Rex’s involvement, the odd comment about a roof, and the threat Vannett had made.

  Rafe looked at me over the top of his sandwich. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t answer my question about telling Ash you want to help with the investigation.” I was still working through all the negatives he’d used when he added, “So I’m going to guess you didn’t tell Ash what you learned about Barry Vannett, either.”

  “Not yet,” I said. “I will, though. Tomorrow morning on the way in to the library.”

  Rafe waved a bread stick at me. “If you don’t, I’ll have to, and you know how that will end up.”

  I did. With Rafe hanging out at the sheriff’s office for half a day, not getting anything done at the house, which would make him cranky as all get-out.

  “Promise,” I said, and leaned over to give him a light kiss.

  Then I went after my niece.

  * * *

  * * *

  It had been easy to find Kate, as she’d gone back to the houseboat, let Eddie out, and flopped on one of the two lounges on the deck. Eddie had jumped onto the other lounge and I’d silently picked him up and sat down with him on my lap.

  At first he didn’t want to stay there, but I kept petting him and he eventually started purring and his muscles relaxed to the point where his body started to conform to the shape of my legs.

  I was thinking various tumbling thoughts, about Kate and Rafe and the house and Eddie and the bookmobile and Mitchell and the library the next day and Rex and Fawn and Barry Vannett, when Kate sat up. “There’s a movie theater downtown, right? Can we go?”

  So of course we went, making the seven o’clock movie by the skin of our teeth, then since the other movie at the two-screen theater also looked good, we went to the nine o’clock showing, too. Kate and I strolled home the long way, talking about the movies, about other movies we’d seen, about movies we’d like to see, and we’d continued talking once we got back to the houseboat.

  Which was why, when I woke up the following morning, I stared blearily at my alarm clock, then was instantly awake and throwing back the covers.

  “Mrr!”

  “Sorry, pal.” I gave Eddie an apologetic pat on the head. “Kate!” I called. “Wake up, it’s late!” I hurried into the bathroom, took the shortest shower in the history of Minnie showers, and was dressed and toweling my hair by the time Kate extracted herself from her sleeping bag.

  “Why did you let me sleep so late?” she wailed, stomping into the bathroom, where her complaints came through the thin door. “It’s my first day at Older Than Dirt. Pam will fire me if I’m late, I know it. She looks mean, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to take the job, and now I’m going to be late!”

  If she stopped yelling at me and focused on getting ready, she wouldn’t be late at all, but I kept my mouth shut and opened the bag of leftover bagels.

  Kate stormed out of the bathroom, tossed her pajamas onto her sleeping bag, snatched up her purse, and stomped out, completely ignoring my apologies and the cream cheese bagel I was holding out for her.

  Eddie bumped his head against the back of my knee. “Mrr.”

  “Yeah, I love you, too. And I’d give you a nice long snuggle, but you’re covered in Eddie hair and I’m dressed for work.” My near-uniform for summer was khakis, a dressy T-shirt, and an unstructured three-quarter-length-sleeve jacket. All slightly boring, but professional and practical. “See you tonight, buddy,” I said, picking up my backpack and opening the door. “Have a good kitty day!”

  “Mrr!”

  I stopped, because Eddie’s reply had sounded as if it had come from the top of the kitchen counter. He stayed off the forbidden space when I was home, but was walking out the door considered as being home?

  Erring on the side of Eddie’s wishes, which was the most sensible side because he eventually won any contest that mattered to him, I headed out into the day, an hour later than I’d planned.

  This meant I didn’t have time to keep my promise to Rafe to stop at the sheriff’s office, but there were other ways of communicating. The sidewalks were still mostly empty at that hour, so I did some walking and texting and hit the Send button to Ash’s phone with a satisfied nod.

  I fast-walked the last few blocks to the library and dropped into my chair right on time. Then I sighed, because Kelsey was scheduled to work that day and I knew what that meant.
r />   With my trusty ABOS coffee mug in hand—the Association of Bookmobile and Outreach Services—I hurried to the kitchen, because it was possible Kelsey was also running late.

  But no. I stood in the doorway and watched glumly as Kelsey Lyons, one of our part-time clerks, pushed the coffeepot’s Go button. Kelsey was a wonderful clerk, but she had the unfortunate belief that the only good coffee was coffee with enough strength to climb out of the pot by itself.

  “Early bird gets the first brew,” she said, smiling. “It’s not often I get here before you do, Minnie, so thanks.”

  “Oh, man.” Josh Hadden, our IT guy, stopped in the doorway I’d just vacated. Josh was stocky, with short black curly hair so similar to mine that some people took us for siblings. “Kelsey made the first pot? You sick, Minnie?”

  “Running a little late. My niece and I were at the movies last night.”

  “In town here?” Josh eyed the dripping coffee. “I hear they finally got that digital projector.”

  I shrugged. “We sat, we watched, we left. It didn’t seem any different to me.”

  Josh shook his head. “How is it you grew up with two engineers and learned nothing? But speaking of big purchases, has the library board decided what they’re going to do with Stan Larabee’s money?”

  “They’re still looking at options.” And I was pleased I was out of the loop on those meetings. Sometimes not knowing anything was the absolute best.

  “You’ve told them about the servers?” The coffee drip slowed and he held out his mug for Kelsey to fill. “Thanks. Because,” he said to me, “I’ve been asking for new computer servers since I got here, and I still don’t have any. Someday one of them is going to break down and we’ll be in a world of hurt.”

  I nodded in what I hoped was a soothing manner. “You’re absolutely right.” And since I could tell he was about to launch into an explanation of exactly why we needed new servers, what kind of server we should buy, and from whom, I said, “And I’ll go talk to Graydon about it right now.”

  Josh grinned. “You’re the best assistant director this library has ever had.”

  Since I was the library’s first assistant director, I knew exactly how much that meant. “Wish me luck,” I said, and climbed the stairs to Graydon’s second-floor office.

  “Knock, knock,” I said, leaning inside the open door to look at the thin-faced man at the desk. “Do you have a minute?”

  Graydon looked up from his computer screen and smiled. “For you, I have two. Three, if you brought me coffee, but since I can see you didn’t, you only get two minutes.”

  I made a face. “Kelsey coffee.”

  “And since you saved me from that horrible fate, you zoom up to five minutes.” He nodded at the empty chairs across from his desk. “What’s up?”

  Sighing, I sat heavily. “I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.”

  He laughed. “Who’s spending Stan Larabee’s money this time?”

  “Josh.” I sipped the coffee. It was as vile as I’d anticipated, but it was caffeine, and that was the important thing.

  “New servers?” Graydon leaned back.

  “You’re pretty smart,” I said. “It’s no wonder the board picked you as director.”

  “Only because you didn’t apply.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. If I’d become director I would have had to give up driving the bookmobile, and I wasn’t ready for that. “Anyway, I told Josh I’d talk to you about new servers, so I have to stay up here for a while.”

  “Stay as long as you’d like. I’m writing the June summary for the board, if you’d like to add anything.”

  “Even from here I can see that it’s wonderful. Don’t change a thing.” When I was interim director, those reports had been the bane of my existence.

  Graydon laughed. “You sound like my daughters when I ask for Christmas letter contributions.”

  It suddenly occurred to me that he could be an excellent source for parenting advice. I sat up straight. “You have multiple daughters, all at or over voting age. Can you tell me what it means when a seventeen-year-old girl talks to you a mile a minute at midnight, but slams the door on you in the morning?”

  “Uh-oh.” Graydon smiled. “You and your niece aren’t getting along?”

  “Only intermittently. With an emphasis on the ‘inter’ part.”

  I told him about the fireworks, about Rex, about her nightmares, and about the previous night. I talked and talked and he made many sympathetic noises. When I left, I felt better, but it wasn’t until I’d gone back to my office that I realized he’d never answered my question about the door slam.

  * * *

  * * *

  My text to Ash went unanswered for hours. It wasn’t until I was thinking about what to pick up for dinner—and that at some point I’d have to actually cook something, but today wasn’t the day to start that kind of habit—that he sent a reply.

  Ash: Looking at Vannett. Thx.

  Me: No problem. Glad to help.

  Ash: Glad you are. Just stay away from snowstorms.

  He’d added a winking emoji at the end. “Funny,” I said to my phone, and turned it off. Eddie and I had endured a few bad hours last January at the hands of a killer, and it had taken me months to feel truly warm. Though Eddie had seemed to recover faster, he did seem to be shedding more than usual this summer. Maybe he’d grown extra fur, post-incident.

  I picked an unusually long black-and-white hair off my sleeve and put it in my office wastebasket. One down, forty-two zillion to go. And then there were the hairs still on him. Life with Eddie was full of surprises, and one was where I’d find Eddie hairs. I also got the fun of leaving them in interesting places. My current favorite was the state capitol. A few months ago, I’d gone down to Lansing for a library conference, and when I’d had time to drive over to the historic building, I’d surreptitiously set free half a dozen tiny pieces of Eddie.

  Smiling, I remembered the hair I’d dropped from an upper balcony and let waft down, down, down to the rotunda’s glass floor. I’d also let one loose on the capitol’s front lawn, right next to a group of protestors. What they’d been protesting, I couldn’t remember, but it had something to do with agriculture.

  Agriculture? My brain twitched. Hadn’t Jeremy’s wife quoted Barry Vannett as saying that Rex’s trail would never cross his farm? Hmm.

  I reached for my keyboard—librarians, start your search engines!—and went to the county’s website. After a few clicks, I found that Vannett’s property was indeed zoned as agricultural.

  But so was a lot of other land. What could be different about Vannett’s farm? What could incite conflict? What could . . . “You are so stupid,” I said out loud, meaning me. Going back to the website, I found the phone number I wanted and dialed.

  “Tonedagana County Planning Office, this is Trish,” said a cheerful voice. “How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Trish.” I sat and studied the computer. “If I give you an address, can you tell me if anyone has applied for zoning permits on that property?”

  “Sure,” she said. “That’s public information. I’ll need a foya application, though.”

  “A what?”

  She laughed. “It’s an acronym for the Freedom of Information Act. FOIA, see?”

  I did. And with a little direction from her, I also saw where to fill out the appropriate form, how to sign it, how much it might cost to get my request fulfilled, and where to send it. “This can all be done electronically?”

  “Just started this year,” she said. “Easy, right?”

  It was. I thanked her and she said if I sent the FOIA application right away, she might be able to get to it before five o’clock. This meant I spent the rest of the day checking my e-mail repeatedly, but at two minutes to five, there it was.

  I clicked it open and
blinked. “Huh,” I said out loud.

  Barry Vannett was applying for a recreational marijuana growing license.

  Chapter 5

  Rafe aimed the yellow mustard bottle at his opened hamburger and gave a healthy squirt. “Okay, but what could a marijuana grow license have to do with murder? Medical marijuana has been decriminalized in Michigan for more than ten years, and the recreational stuff went the same way in 2018. So . . .” He shrugged.

  A downside of having my boyfriend help me with a murder investigation was that he was helping me investigate a murder.

  The three of us were sitting at one of the marina’s picnic tables, getting ready to eat the burgers Rafe had grilled and the potato salad, chips, and dip that I’d picked up at the grocery store. It was a beautiful evening; the sun was still high in the sky, the wind was light, seagulls were squawking, and if I turned around and looked hard, I would have been able to see Eddie’s face pressed up against a houseboat window.

  “It’s an anomaly,” I said. “Something different. Things that are different cause disagreement. Conflict. Anger. All that. And even if marijuana isn’t a criminal offense in Michigan, it’s still a cash business. And there’s bound to be a black market for it.”

  Rafe added pickles, onions, tomatoes, ketchup, and mayonnaise, guaranteeing that he’d end up with burger goo on the picnic table. “Okay. Money’s always a murder motive, so that’s a given. But how about a motive that isn’t money-based?” He frowned. “There must be some.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s say Barry Vannett wanted to grow marijuana and . . .” And what? From what I knew about the licensing process, if the township where Vannett lived allowed growing operations, all Vannett had to do was apply, assuming he wasn’t a felon. Even if Rex had been appalled at the idea of marijuana next door, there wasn’t much he could do about it.

  Was it possible I’d zoomed off into assumption land? That I’d been wrong to say there could be nonmoney motives?

  He was looking at me over the top of his burger, waiting for my response. So I changed the subject.