by Laurie Cass
“What’s so funny?” Rafe asked, rubbing the back of my knuckles with his thumb.
“Nothing. I’m just happy.”
“There’s an easy way to fix that.” He stood. “Let’s go down to the basement. Now that we’re getting a good rain, I want to make sure nothing is seeping in.”
“So romantic,” I murmured. But in a way, it was. Rafe was making sure the house was safe and sound, which meant we could be safe and sound, and what was more romantic than that?
It might have been the ranch dressing, the rain, or pure serendipity, but the next morning, I woke with an idea of how to come at a motive for murder from a different direction. Rex’s obituary, finally available online, had said he was survived by his parents and that they lived in Chilson, so there was a possibility that either his mom or dad had spent time at the Lakeview Medical Care Facility. Many people did, either as a resident or in temporarily for a stint in long-term rehabilitation. Maybe they were even still there, and maybe I could talk to them and learn more about Rex and Fawn from a parental point of view.
Cade had spent time there after a stroke, and when visiting him, I’d come to know a number of residents and staff fairly well. I also regularly dropped off and picked up books, and there was no reason I couldn’t stop by that very morning to see if there were other ways the library could help out.
I bounded out of bed—or more precisely, I slid carefully out from between the sheets in a way that didn’t disturb a sleeping Eddie—and was ready to go in half an hour. At the houseboat’s door, with a laden cat carrier in hand, I glanced at the sky. Still gray. “Kate,” I asked, “do you want a ride to work?”
“Huh?” She was standing at the kitchen counter, a spoon in one hand as she ate a bowl of cold cereal, her cell phone in the other. “Oh. No. I’m good.”
“If you’re sure. See you for dinner.”
The spoon and phone were lowered. “Who’s cooking?”
I was tempted to say me, just to see the expression on her face, but I resisted temptation. “Aunt Frances. I think she’s making fajitas.”
She nodded. “Okay. I should be there just after six.”
“Great. Have a good day.”
My niece shrugged and the phone and spoon went back up.
“You are dismissed,” I muttered as Eddie and I headed to my car. Had I treated my mom like that when I was Kate’s age? Someday I’d have to ask. Although not now, because it was possible I wasn’t ready for the answer.
At Lakeview, I parked in the shade, cracked the windows, and told Eddie I’d be back in ten minutes. “Mrr,” he said, yawning, and rolled over. I eyed him. “It’s great that you’ll be okay, but sometimes it would be nice if you expressed a little concern for me in my absences.”
His mouth opened and closed in a silent “Mrr,” which made me laugh, and I was still smiling when I walked into the facility.
“It’s Miss Minnie!” A white-haired man in a wheelchair, who had been pulled up to a table with a jigsaw puzzle spread across it, zipped over to me. “But what ho? You are bereft of books!” Max Compton made a display of peering at my empty hands. He looked up at me, his face contorted into an expression of horror. “You’ve come with bad news, haven’t you? You’re making a special stop to let me down gently. Just tell me now,” he said, hanging his head. “Rip off the bandage.”
Max was one of my best friends at Lakeview, and he was a huge fan of books by thriller writers, especially thrillers set in the Great Lakes region. Any day a large print John Sandford book was released was a day of celebration for Max, but it was also a day of fear, because Max was never certain he’d live long enough to finish reading the book.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
His thin chest rose and fell as he sighed. “Do it.”
“Okay, then.” I paused dramatically. “It’s about Sandford’s latest book. It’s . . .” And because I have a teensy bit of a mean streak, I paused again. “It’s almost eight hundred pages.”
Max’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Are you kidding?”
“Well, actually, yes. I am.”
He slumped in his wheelchair and put his hand on his bony chest. “My heart . . . my heart . . . I think you’ve pushed me to the brink. The abyss is looming beneath my feet. The chasm is opening . . .”
Though I’d hurried toward him, as he kept talking, I eased back and said, “Max, no one having a heart attack could possibly talk as much as you do.”
He looked at me, still slumped, still with his hand on his chest. “Maybe this is one of those asymptomatic heart attacks.”
“You could be right,” I said. “Just to be sure, let me call nine-one-one. We’ll get an ambulance here in no time and—”
“And I’m suddenly feeling much better,” he said, straightening, and looking for a second like the picture of a younger Max I’d seen in his room, in army uniform, standing with a group of fellow Korean Era soldiers. “The sight of you alone, Miss Minnie, is enough to give an old man palpitations. No wonder I got confused.”
I laughed. “Nice try, Max. But I am sorry I didn’t bring any books.” Then, because he was clearly about to ask me why I was there, I added, “I’m looking for some information and was hoping to talk to Heather.” She was an extremely competent certified nursing assistant and had a wealth of knowledge about Lakeview tucked up inside her head.
“Looking for dirt?” Max grinned and rubbed his hands together. “She’s not going to tell you anything good, you know. All those rules.”
I realized he was right. Privacy rules would no doubt prevent Heather from giving me any of the information I wanted. “Okay. I’ll ask you. If you can keep a secret, that is.”
Max, from his wheelchair, managed to look down his nose at me. “My dear young librarian. I am the soul of discretion. How could you doubt?”
I did doubt, because Max, as my grandfather had said, could talk the hind leg off a donkey, and who knew what he’d let slip? Still, it couldn’t possibly matter that much; anything he knew was almost certainly common knowledge. “Did you know Rex Stuhler?”
“He who was murdered?” Max nodded. “His mother was here for a few weeks after she fell and broke her leg.” He patted his thigh. “Pins and screws and rods all over the place. Rex was the only offspring still in Michigan, and he stopped by every day.”
“Was he . . .” I hesitated, trying to find the right words. “My niece is the one who found Rex’s body. She’s having trouble dealing with it, and I’m hoping that if I can learn more about Rex . . .” I trailed off, since I wasn’t about to tell Max that I was trying to find a killer.
“Looking for closure?” Max snorted. “Not sure what I can tell you. Courtney took Mary home and—”
“Hang on.” I interrupted because sometimes that was the only way to get a word in edgewise with Max. “Mary is Rex’s mom, but who is Courtney?”
“Home health aide,” he said. “Courtney Drew. Skinny kid, long hair in a ponytail so tight she must have an eternal headache. Makes me wince to look at her. She comes in to help move people back home.”
Max kept talking, and I tried to listen, but I was completely distracted by the knowledge that there was a connection between Courtney—she of the spilled pills—and Rex, that Courtney had taken care of Rex’s mom. New information was good, but then there was the big question: Did it mean anything?
Chapter 9
Dinner ended up with girls on one side of the table and boys on the other. Kate, Aunt Frances, and Minnie facing Otto and Rafe. We were in the bucolic backyard of Otto and Aunt Frances’s house. Birds twittering, water bubbling out of a fountain Otto had built, leaves sighing softly overhead, all that. It was a gorgeous summer evening. Peace and contentment reigned. Life was happy and good. All was well with the world.
Except it wasn’t.
Things were a little bit off all the way
around the table. Rafe was picking at his food, something so unusual I was afraid he was coming down with something. Kate was, as usual, trying to avoid me as much as possible, and even Aunt Frances seemed to be keeping her distance. Otto was the only one behaving normally, but it was hard for two people to carry a conversation for five.
I ground black pepper on my salad and thought about what to say. It was time to leap into the topic that my aunt had been avoiding the entire meal. I didn’t want to upset her, but I also didn’t want to ignore what was going on. One more bite of salad, I figured, might help, so I forked in a small pile of greens, carrot, cucumber, feta cheese, and unfortunately, an inordinate amount of pepper.
The moment the bite went in my mouth, I started coughing. Which is bad when you have a mouthful of food. I grabbed my napkin and held it to my lips as I hacked away.
Rafe looked up from his plate. “Are you okay?”
Coughing, I shook my head. Definitely not okay.
Aunt Frances turned. “Do you need the Heimlich?”
Tears streaming down my cheeks as I kept coughing, I shook my head again. Definitely did not need the Heimlich maneuver. I’d be fine in a minute; I just had to get that pepper out of my throat . . .
“Here.” Kate reached in front of Aunt Frances and picked up my water glass. “Drink.”
At that point I might have taken a drink from the River Styx if it had been put in front of me. I grabbed the glass and drank deep. And like magic, my cough disappeared.
“What was that all about?” Aunt Frances asked.
“Pepper,” Kate and I said simultaneously. This struck me as hilarious, so I laughed, but since my throat was exhausted from the coughing jag, it was a soft and spasm-y sort of laugh.
My aunt looked from Kate to me. “Must be from your mother’s side of the family.”
And there was an excellent sequel opportunity! I thanked Kate for the water, and said, “Speaking of Mom, I talked to her the other day and she asked how Cousin Celeste was doing. You knew that Kate and I were over at the boardinghouse for breakfast the other day, right?”
“That’s what you said you were going to do,” Aunt Frances said, “so I assumed you did it. And I’ve been waiting patiently ever since to hear how it went.” She sounded almost snarky, a completely un-Aunt-Frances-like tone.
I glanced at Otto. He caught my eye and shook his head the tiniest bit. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I added Pull Otto aside to my mental list of things to do before we left.
“Sorry,” I told my aunt. “You’re right, I should have called.”
“Apology accepted. And I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s just . . .” She looked off into the dark green of the trees. “It’s just different.”
“Not as much as you might think,” I said. “At least across the street. A pair of guests made Sunday breakfast and were going to try kiteboarding in the afternoon. Another pair was asking about scenic back roads, and the final pair was looking forward to having the house to themselves. So it looks like the old Saturday breakfast routine has shifted to Sunday.”
I finished with a great big smile, but Aunt Frances just stared at me. “That’s nice,” she finally said. Then she must have heard how she sounded, because she added, “Really nice.”
Rafe glanced from her to me, opened his mouth, shut it without saying anything, then opened it again. “This chicken is great, Frances. What was in the marinade?”
Since he’d barely eaten two bites of chicken, I knew full well he was doing his best to change the subject. It was good timing, though, and I flashed him a grateful smile.
Afterward, I told my aunt that Otto and I would do the dishes. “You three play a game of croquet or something,” I said to Rafe. “If you’re feeling up to it. You looked a little funny earlier.”
“Just thinking about some work stuff.” He patted my head, something I didn’t tolerate from anyone else. “I’m fine.”
I frowned. “It’s July. What work do you have?”
“Work on the house,” he said. “It’s July, silly. Why would I be thinking about school?”
I gave him a gentle push in the direction of the croquet set and carried a pile of dishes inside. Otto loaded the dishwasher and I put the food away in what I hoped were the right places.
“So earlier,” I said, “I thought Aunt Frances would be glad. About Celeste running the boardinghouse the same as she did.”
“Ah.” Otto nodded. “She is. Or she will be. What she’s dealing with now is, if my experience with retirement is any judge, a dislocation of sorts. The old way of living is gone, but the new way hasn’t settled in yet.”
That made sense. Sort of. I filed it away in my head, hoping to remember it when the time came for me to retire, which was at least thirty years off, so remembering was unlikely. “How long will it take her to get used to the new way?”
“Everybody’s different.” Otto looked out the window, where Aunt Frances was relocating the croquet wickets Rafe had haphazardly stuck in the ground. “Could be weeks, could be months. Some people never truly adjust to retirement.”
I must have made a noise, because he turned to me. “Don’t worry, Minnie. She’ll come around.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
“She will.” He smiled. “I have a plan.”
* * *
* * *
Otto’s plan, it turned out, was to take Aunt Frances on a tour of northwest lower Michigan. That she’d lived there more than forty years didn’t seem to bother him. And he was probably right, because when you live somewhere, you tend to get occupied by the work of living and don’t get around to doing the fun stuff.
He rattled off Up North summer things she hadn’t done in years. Ride the Ironton Ferry. Pick cherries. Sit on the patio at Legs and watch the sun go down over Lake Michigan. Kayak the Chain of Lakes. “And I don’t want to limit us to the northern lower part of Michigan,” Otto said. “We should tour the Soo Locks. Go up into Canada and take the Agawa Canyon train. Take the circle tour around Lake Superior.”
Ideas gushed forth, and by the time the dishes were washed and put away, he’d described activities to last five summers and I was half convinced his plan would work.
The next morning, standing and watching coffee drip down into the carafe, I wasn’t so sure.
“You look sad. What’s the matter?” Holly had just come into the library’s break room, carrying a small plate of her legendary brownies.
I hesitated, thinking about choices and consequences. Then, shushing the calorie-oriented part of my conscience, I reached for the closest brownie—which was also the biggest, but sometimes serendipity is a real thing—and said, “I’m suddenly feeling much better. What’s the occasion?”
She put the plate on the table and smiled at it. “Brian wanted a care package to take with him. These are what’s left after I boxed up his and the kids ate theirs.”
“Well, thanks for bringing any at all.” I ate a bite and closed my eyes, the better to enjoy the sensory rush. “These are so good.”
“Yep.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “Sit down with me for a minute.”
“Sure, what’s up? Oh, hey, Mr. Goodwin. How are you this fine morning?”
The white-haired Mr. Goodwin, everyone’s favorite library patron (not that we had favorites, of course), came into the room, sniffing the air. “Does my nose deceive me? Ah, it does not!” He pointed at the brownies with his cane. “Fifty dollars to your favorite charity if I get the last one.”
Holly laughed. “No charge for you, Mr. Goodwin.”
“You sell yourself short, Holly Terpening.” He shuffled to the table and took the smallest square. “Now, tell me that Kelsey brewed the coffee, and then life will be perfect.”
“Sorry.” I smiled. It had been because of Mr. Goodwin’s self-diagnosis of caffeine deprivation that we’d opened the
staff break room to the general public. It mostly worked out, except for the one time Mr. Goodwin set up the coffee. He made Kelsey’s version look like tea.
The three of us chatted for a bit, then Mr. Goodwin returned to the reading room and Holly turned back to me. “First off, what’s wrong? For a second you were looking like you did last winter when Fat Boys Pizza closed for a week.”
“Just some family stuff. I’m sure it’ll work out.”
Holly looked at me. “You don’t want to talk about it? No? Well, if you’re sure . . . what I really want to ask about is”—she glanced at the door, which was still empty—“is about Stan’s money for the library. Everyone has been saying what they want left and right, but you haven’t said a word. So I’m wondering. Do you know something we don’t?”
My response was immediate and one hundred percent truthful. “Nope.”
“Really?” Holly’s expression was disappointment mixed with a dash of disbelief and the tiniest sprinkle of hope.
“Really.” I watched the hope vanish, the disbelief fade, and the disappointment swell. “Sorry, but I just don’t. It’s a board decision. Graydon seems as clueless as we are.”
“Well, what do you think should be done with the money?” she asked. “You’re assistant director. You were interim director and could have been director if you’d wanted. So you can’t tell me you haven’t thought about how the money should be spent.”
Of course I had. And there was only one thing that made sense to me. “It’s a board decision,” I said weakly.
“Duh.” Holly rolled her eyes. “But tell me what you think.”
I smiled at the ceiling. “It would be great if they would put part of the money to buying a new bookmobile every five years.”
The current vehicle had celebrated its second birthday in late May, but we were driving over twenty thousand miles a year and new ones cost the earth and the money I’d been putting aside wouldn’t buy even a used one for roughly a hundred and ten years. I’d been told that Stan had wanted to create a foundation with enough capital to buy a new bookmobile every ten years, but I wasn’t sure Stan had written his will so tightly that it couldn’t be interpreted differently by an attorney whose clients had a different agenda.