by Laurie Cass
“Oh, sure, not a problem.”
Hope sang in my heart. “You mean it won’t take very long?”
His habitual humming wafted up into the clear morning air. “I bet it’ll take almost exactly as long as it’ll take you to develop a new after-school reading program.”
“A what?”
“Of course, it might take me longer to fix this mess, but we’ll call it even up.”
“Call what even?” I asked.
He lifted his head and peered at me over his shoulder through black hair that he wouldn’t get cut until the day before classes started. “After. School. Reading. Program. You got a problem with English?”
Rafe often spoke in badly constructed sentences just to annoy me. From my perch on the end of the chaise longue, I laughed and kicked him lightly in his backside. “Stop that.” As my foot touched the seat of Rafe’s jeans, I heard footsteps on the dock. I turned to see Tucker staring at me with an odd expression.
“Tucker!” I stood up and brushed my hands for no good reason. “What are you doing here?”
Rafe looked around. “Hey, Doc. What’s happening? Don’t tell me you’re making boat calls. Besides, I’m healing great.” Rafe held out a very dirty arm. He glanced at it. “Well, maybe you can’t see it through the grease and all, but it’s fine.” He sat up, frowning at the small gadget he held. “Say, Minnie, my voltmeter is running out of juice. You got any spare triple A’s?”
“Sure,” I said absently. “In the same place. Remember where?”
“Bedroom, top shelf in the back corner. Gotcha.” Rafe clambered to his feet. “Be right back.”
Tucker’s odd expression went a little odder.
I frowned. “Are you okay?”
“Well,” he said, “I’m just wondering why—” The phone in his pants pocket rang loud and long. “Hang on, it’s the hospital.” He answered it and I watched his face go still. “I’ll be right there.” As he slipped the phone back into his pocket, he said, “Sorry, but I have to go.”
“Sure. I understand.” What I didn’t understand was why he was looking at me like that. “Is everything okay?”
“Just another hospital emergency. I’ll call you later.” He waved and headed off.
I watched him go, thinking that I hadn’t been asking if the hospital was okay; I’d been asking if we were okay.
“The doc gone already?” Rafe asked, letting the houseboat’s screen door slam behind him. “He just got here.”
“Hospital called,” I said shortly. Tucker hadn’t kissed me good-bye. Or even hugged me. Maybe I wasn’t looking my best this morning, but I wasn’t so ugly that the neighbor’s dog would bark at me. Was I?
“Yeah, suppose that happens.” Rafe got down on his hands and knees. “That’s the beauty of being a school principal. No emergency calls in the summer.”
I sat down on the chaise longue again. I’d talk to Tucker later and find out what was going on. No need to worry about that right now. Now, in fact, was the time to continue the conversation Rafe had started. “Let’s get back to that reading program you were talking about. What, who, when, and where?”
He put his head deeper into the engine compartment. “We have too many kids who don’t have anything to do between the end of school and when their mom or dad gets home from work. I have a line on a volunteer and there’s a small grant available from the local foundation that’s the perfect target for buying some books. All I need is some direction.”
“Don’t you have English teachers who could do this?” I asked.
“It would have to go to a committee,” he said darkly. “And why mess with that if I can get you to do it?”
Why indeed? We instantly started a conversation about reading levels, the amount of fiction versus nonfiction, whether it made more sense to buy paperbacks or e-books, and what the plot of the next Diary of a Wimpy Kid book might be.
At some point I realized that Rafe hadn’t picked up a tool in fifteen minutes and that I hadn’t touched any of the windows I’d planned to wash. The windows could wait, but the repairs couldn’t. Maybe I’d take a walk up to Lakeview and see how Cade was doing.
I stood. “Okay, I’ll do it. And wipe that smirk off your face.” His grin was there because we both knew that I’d spend twice the time on the reading program that he would on my boat. “Let me know how much you spend on parts, but I’m not feeding you.”
“Not even pizza?”
“Well…” He was doing the boat just for me, and I’d be trying to encourage kids into a love of reading. “Maybe once.”
“Sweet! Any day I don’t have to cook is a good one.”
I eyed him. Every summer, away from easy access to the school’s cafeteria, he ended up skinnier than the skinniest rail. Even I wasn’t that bad about cooking. “What you really need is a wife,” I said.
He gave me a horrified look. “Bite your tongue, woman.” He grabbed a pair of pliers and dove back into the engine compartment. “A wife would try to take care of me,” his voice echoed up.
“Talk about thankless tasks.”
“What? Sorry—can’t hear you.”
He’d heard me; he just didn’t have a quick response. “I’ll see you later,” I said, and left him to his labors.
• • •
I stood in the open doorway of Cade’s room.
He sat in a chair facing the television, but he wasn’t watching the black-and-white movie on the screen. He also wasn’t reading the book flopped open on his lap. Instead he was staring out the window. What he was seeing, I had no idea, because I would have thought the pleasant view of an interior courtyard landscaped with flowers, bench, and a fountain would have been reason to smile, not to look as if the world was about to end.
I knocked on the doorframe. “Hey there.”
The bleak expression on his face disappeared instantly. “Minnie! What a treat. Sit down, young lady, sit down.”
As I dragged a chair over to him, the librarian in me sneaked a look at the book he wasn’t reading.
He caught my glance. “Can you believe I’ve never read the Harry Potter books? The day after I was moved here, my agent sent me the entire series. Told me it might be the perfect time to think about moving my work in a different direction.”
That made sense. Sort of. “How will reading fantasy books set in England do that?”
“No idea,” he said. “I think she just wants me to read them so I’ll stop saying I never have.”
I nodded at the book, whose bookmark was maybe fifty pages in. “Is that the first one?”
He sighed. “Did you know they get longer the further in the series you go?”
“Did you know you can get them in audio version?”
He blinked at me. “Genius. Sheer genius.” He used his weak hand to flip the book shut and used both hands to toss it onto the bed. “I’ve never been much of a reader,” he said in a stage whisper. “No offense to the librarians in the room.”
“And I’ve never had a broad appreciation for art,” I said in the same level of whisper. “No offense to any nearby artists. Though I do love your pictures.”
He smiled. But then a big fat silence filled the room, broken only by the muted footsteps of people walking down the hallway and canned laughter from a television in the adjacent room.
This was, I realized, the first time I’d ever been alone with Cade. It was also the first time we’d been in the same room without an ongoing major life experience.
“How,” he asked, “did you manage to find me the most successful defense attorney in the state?”
“It was kind of an accident,” I said, passing on the opportunity to note that defense was an excellent D word.
He laughed. “Accidents happen.” He used his good hand to put his weak one in his lap. “There are accidents everywhere, every day. It was an acci
dent that I started painting. A huge mysterious accident that I ever became successful. It was an accident that we bought a house up here. It was an accident that we ever met Carissa. And—” He stopped, then shook his head and went back to looking out the window.
I didn’t like it. Though I didn’t know Cade very well, when he’d been at the hospital, he seemed different. Cheerful, in spite of the stroke. Now he seemed to be sliding downward. No, I didn’t like it one bit. But I supposed that finding a dead body and then falling under suspicion for murder could do that to a person.
“How did you meet Carissa?” I asked.
“At the art gallery here in town. Barb and I were talking to the manager about displaying some of my paintings and Carissa walked in the door. We got to talking, and since it was close to lunchtime, we moved on to a nearby restaurant.”
“But you didn’t know her all that well.”
He shook his head. “I truly don’t understand why anyone would want to frame me for her murder.”
“Well, the police will figure it out, I’m sure.”
Cade’s left hand—the weak hand—started to twitch. He laced his fingers together and looked at me. “Has anyone ever told you that reputation is everything?”
“Yes.” My mother had, on and off for years when I was growing up, and a dear friend, not that long ago.
“It’s true. And it’s even more true when you’re talking about the creative world.” He edged forward in his chair. “My art, such as it is, isn’t just about the art. People buy it because of reputation. My artistic reputation is squeaky clean. Long-term marriage, three successful grown children, quiet life, no parties, no drugs, not much alcohol, just me and the canvas and the paint.”
I had no idea where he was going with this. “So…”
“So if I become a serious suspect in a murder investigation, the reputation I’ve enjoyed for thirty years will disappear instantly and never return. I’ll be given a new one, but it won’t be the same.”
Nope. I still didn’t get it. “Um…”
“Don’t you see?” He perched on the edge of the chair. “If my reputation as the cleanest-cut popular artist in a generation is destroyed, the value of my paintings will drop substantially.”
Now I got it.
“All the people who have scraped and saved to buy a painting, not just because they love it, but also and probably primarily for investment purposes, all those people will be out of luck. Their hard-earned dollars will vanish.”
I squinted at him. “Any chance you’re exaggerating?”
He rattled off three names I’d never heard before. “Look them up, Minnie. All were rising stars in the art world. None of them are painting now, and why? They lost their reputations. Plus, there’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
He half smiled. “I really, really don’t like the idea of ending up in prison. There’s not a chance of getting decent light in there.”
I thought a moment. “Then what we need is to find the real killer.”
Cade nodded. “The sooner the better. I’d call the sheriff’s office and ask how the investigation is going, but I doubt they’d tell me anything.”
“No,” I said, “I meant we need to find the real killer.”
He sat up, half straight. “Minnie, that’s a job for the police, not a job for… for…”
“A girl?” I sat up, too, only I was all the way straight.
“For an amateur,” he said gently. “The last thing I want is for you to get tangled up with a killer. This person murdered once. What makes you think he won’t do it again?”
“I have no intention of getting killed,” I said. “All I’m saying is that I poke around a little. Ask a few questions of a few people. We can make up a plausible story that I can go with. And I’m a librarian. I do great research. I might be able to dig up stuff the police would never be able to find.”
He rubbed his chin and studied me. “Just questions. No sneaking around in the dark of night, no tiptoeing into dank and dark basements?”
I crossed my heart. “And no climbing rickety stairs with only a single candle to light my way.”
“If you can do this, Minnie Hamilton, I will offer you anything you’d like.”
“If I actually do it, I’ll be happy with a thank-you letter.”
He held out his hand for me to shake, and I took it.
“Deal,” he said.
Chapter 7
I went straight from Lakeview to the library.
“Hey, Minnie.” Donna, one of our part-time clerks, smiled, then frowned. “What are you doing here? I thought it was your day off.”
I smiled but kept walking, barely even slowing as I passed the front desk. “Silly me, I left something in my office. Don’t tell anyone I’m here, okay?”
She laughed. “Mum’s the word.”
I shut my office door behind me and fired up the computer. Leaving the overhead lights off would mask my presence to most passersby, but if any curious eyes happened to look in through the door’s window, I was toast. Someone would see me, stop to talk, and then I’d get sucked into library tasks that needed doing.
So I got up to do something I’d never done before—pull down the window shade. I reached up as high as I could, but the shade’s edge was just out of my reach. I jumped. Missed. For the second jump I crouched a bit, tried a little harder, and was rewarded for my efforts with the sound of the roller shade descending.
“Gotcha,” I murmured. Snug in my office cave with a much faster Internet connection than I could get at the marina, I started researching the life of Carissa Radle.
First off, of course, was to take a look at the most accurate information at hand, that of the Chilson District Library. I typed in her name, typed in every possible spelling of her last name that I could come up with, and still came up with nothing.
“No library card,” I said, sighing and shaking my head. It never failed to amaze me how many people didn’t have a library card. They were free and they gave you access to thousands of books. Maybe someday I’d understand people who weren’t interested in reading, but probably not.
Next, I used the library’s access code to log in to the archives of the Chilson Gazette, the local newspaper. Carissa’s name came up fast, but there was only one entry. Her obituary.
I closed my eyes for a moment, wanting to reject the sight. She shouldn’t have died so young. She shouldn’t have died that way. I opened my eyes and found that my hands were balled up into fists.
I stretched out my fingers, releasing the tension, and looked at Carissa’s obituary picture. She had been blond and pretty with a happy, wide smile, one of those smiles that made you want to smile in return.
Sighing, I started reading. Carissa Marie Radle, age thirty-nine, had died unexpectedly at her home in Chilson. She’d graduated from Wayne State University and Dearborn High School and had been employed by Talcott Motors. She was survived by her parents and two sisters. A memorial service was being planned for Labor Day weekend.
Hang on. Had that really said… ? I looked back. Why, yes, indeedy, it had said Dearborn High School. The very same high school that had given me a diploma. Me and my brother, Matt, who was only two years older than Carissa. What were the odds that out of the eighteen hundred or so students who attended Dearborn High, my brother had known her?
Probably low, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
I unzipped my backpack, dug around for my cell, and scrolled down to my brother’s number. Matt, his wife, Jennifer, and their three children lived in Florida and I didn’t see nearly enough of them. Hardly a week passed all winter that I didn’t get a call or an e-mail or a text from one of the five telling me how nice the weather was down in the greater Orlando area, so why didn’t I abandon the snow and cold and come down for a visit?
Then again, hardly a week p
assed all summer that I didn’t call or send an e-mail or a text down to Florida telling them how nice the weather was up here and why didn’t they abandon the heat and humidity and come up for a visit?
Matt’s phone rang once, twice. “Can’t come this month,” he said. “Ben has soccer camp.”
“It’s too hot,” I said.
“They practice inside.”
“Oh.” I’m sure it made sense for the Florida heat, but playing an outdoor sport inside in the summer seemed weird to me. “That wasn’t why I called.”
“Yeah?”
From the way he spoke, I knew he wasn’t paying attention to me, which served me right for calling in the middle of the day. My brother was a work-hard, play-hard kind of guy and on weekends he was always busy doing something. If not soccer, then softball, and if not softball, then swimming.
During the week, Matt worked as an Imagineer at Disney World, designing all sorts of things he could never talk about until they became reality. It was an extremely cool job, and if I hadn’t been a bookmobile librarian, I might have been the teensiest bit jealous. “Can you talk for a second?”
“Mom and Dad okay?”
“They’re fine. So is Aunt Frances and every other relative, as far as I know.”
“So what’s up? No, let me guess. You’re finally getting married. Who’s the poor sucker? Let me call and warn him about what you’re really like.”
I made a rude gesture in the direction of Florida. “I have a question about your dim, dark past. Did you know a Carissa Radle in high school? She was two years younger than you.”
“Carissa Radle, Carissa Radle…” He made some humming noises that almost, but not quite, turned into an instrumental version of “Stairway to Heaven.” “Carissa. You mean Chrissy?”
“I guess.”