Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries)

by Cass, Laurie

  We were working so well and so efficiently that I’d lost track of the underlying reason behind the whole thing. It wasn’t until Caroline said, “I hear you’re the librarian on the bookmobile” that I jerked back to my somewhat sneaky plan.

  I suddenly wondered why I’d gone through all this subterfuge. Caroline was a gracious woman; if I’d simply told her I’d like to talk about Stan, surely she would have agreed.

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s great how it’s attracting so much attention. The patrons are already calling me the bookmobile lady.” And Eddie was the bookmobile cat, but I wasn’t going to spread that fun fact around.

  “The newspaper.”

  She didn’t say anything else, and I looked at her questioningly. “I’m sorry?”

  “Yes.” She laid her fingertips across her upper lip and coughed delicately. “Excuse me. A little tickle. I’m told the newspaper reported that the bookmobile librarian found Stan Larabee.”

  I had no idea what to say, so I went with the simplest possible response. “Yes. That was me.” She didn’t say anything, so I expanded. “It was a huge shock. See, I knew Stan. He’s the one who donated the money for the bookmobile.” Still no response. “He was an amazing man,” I added quietly. “I’ll miss him very much.”

  “Did he . . . was he . . . ?” She blinked rapidly. “He didn’t . . . ?” A great shining tear spilled down her cheek. “Oh, goodness, I’m so sorry. Excuse me.” She stood abruptly and hurried to the office.

  The door shut softly and I was left alone.

  No sound of weeping came through the walls or snuck out from under the door. Maybe all she needed was a minute to compose herself.

  A minute went by. No Caroline emerged.

  Two minutes.

  Three.

  When five minutes had ticked past, I got up and went to the door. I knocked softly. No reply. I tried again. I hesitated, then turned the knob and walked in.

  The elegant and patrician Caroline Grice was sitting on an office chair, shoes kicked off, heels on the edge of the chair seat, arms wrapped around her knees, shoulders shuddering with silent sobs.

  I swallowed the sodden lump in my throat and went to her. Knelt on the floor, wrapped my arms around her shaking body, and put my head against her bowed one. She clutched at my arms. Held me tight.

  We were like that for some time.

  After the tears slowed, I gave her shoulders a few rubbing pats, then sat back on my heels and waited. It didn’t take long.

  “I didn’t even know Stan Larabee socially until this last New Year’s Eve,” she said. “He attended my party with a mutual acquaintance and I’m afraid I neglected a number of my guests for the sheer pleasure of talking to him. I’d known who he was, of course, but we’d rarely spoken until that evening. I had so many preconceived notions about him.”

  She picked up her head, allowing me to see the ravaged makeup and mussed hair. “Old as I am, I should know better than to trust the impressions of others. My father always told me to make sure I had my own information.” She sighed. “I passed on that same piece of advice to my children. I hope it stays with them better than it stayed with me.”

  I made a comforting, murmuring sort of noise.

  “You’re a dear,” Caroline said. “And you deserve an explanation for letting an old woman cry onto your shoulder.”

  “Grief strikes in unexpected places.”

  “Yes, it does.” She looked around and managed a small smile. “It certainly does.” Her sigh stirred the bangs that now lay flat on her forehead. “You wouldn’t think I could get so upset over a man I knew only six months, but he caught me . . . off guard. I wasn’t thinking of seeing a man ever again, not in that way.” Her smile was sweet and sad. “Did you know Stan sponsored two college scholarships? Every four years, a boy and a girl from a Tonedagana County high school is awarded a full ride.”

  “The Sunrise Scholarship?” I hadn’t been living in Chilson the last time it was awarded. “That was Stan?”

  She nodded. “And the new intensive care wing at the Charlevoix Hospital was financed in large part by Stan’s money. So was Chilson’s community pool. And the waterfront park.”

  I’d had no idea. All of those projects had been completed, or mostly completed, by the time I’d moved north. Yet if he’d given away all that money, how could his reputation be that of a miser who clutched his cash to his chest? “Were those donations anonymous?”

  “No, but he didn’t make a spectacle out of giving away money.”

  I sighed, unhappy that Stan had been so right, unhappy that he hadn’t lived long enough to outlive his reputation.

  But Caroline was still talking. “In some ways he was very modest. In other ways”—her smile this time was wider—“he was so immodest as to be a caricature of the self-made man.”

  “Maybe that was part of his charm?”

  “Oh, yes. Decidedly. And the man knew how to treat a lady. Oh, not the door opening and the chair pulling, that’s mere etiquette. Anyone can do that. Stan had a rare capacity in a man. He knew how to listen to a woman. He had the ability to focus, to make me think I was important. That’s why . . .” Her voice caught on itself.

  And here was the moment I’d wanted so badly. I needed to press her, to push for answers, and to make my own conclusion on her ability to kill Stan. Only . . . how could I? The woman was grieving.

  Of course, she might be sad because she’d committed murder. I had to think about Holly, worrying herself to a frazzle. And I should be thinking about what I’d told Stephen, that I’d ask Caroline for a donation to the library. But that would have to wait. Some things were more important than money.

  “Why what?” I asked softly.

  A deep breath whistled out from between her teeth. “To my own dying day, I’ll regret what I said to him, the last time I saw him.”

  “The last time . . . ?”

  “We had an argument.” She looked around the small office. “In this very room.” She closed her eyes briefly. “He asked if I wanted to fly to Toronto with him to see Evita. He knew how I enjoy that show, but I told him, ‘Not if you were the last man on earth. I daresay the next time I see you will be at your funeral.’”

  So Lina had heard exactly right.

  “Why did I say that?” Caroline bit her lips, smearing the last of her lipstick onto her teeth. “It was a ridiculous thing to say. I should never have said something like that, no matter how angry I was.”

  I had to do it. I had to press. For Holly. For Stan. “So why did you?” I asked. “Say it, I mean?”

  The air went out of her. “Jealousy. Silly, childish jealousy.”

  A perfect motive for murder.

  But as I watched her fish a handkerchief from her purse and dab at her face, I didn’t think she had anything to do with Stan’s death. Call it a hunch, call it instinct, call it whatever you want, I simply couldn’t picture any reality in which it could happen. Besides, the car parked outside the art gallery would have been hard for someone to miss seeing at the farmhouse. Even I could recognize a Rolls-Royce when I saw a double R on the front.

  So if Caroline was out as a killer, who was in?

  “Jealous?” I asked. “Of whom?”

  “Whom. It’s so nice to hear that word used properly.” Caroline touched the handkerchief to her nose. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion. It’s embarrassing to admit to the feeling, especially when you consider the woman who caused it.”

  “Stan was two-timing you?”

  Caroline dipped into her purse for a compact and started patting away the tearstains. “She’s the one who killed Stan; I’m quite sure of it. She has hardly a dime to her name. She must have thought Stan would leave her money, worming her way into his affections like that. Wonderful man though he was, he was still a man, and Lord knows men let their heads get turned around by young women.”

  “Who was it, do you know?”

  “I saw them at the diner,” Caroline said. “I was downtown on errands
and saw them sitting together. Stan said it wasn’t what it looked like, but I saw them. I saw her—I saw the way she looked at him. She wanted something from him, there’s no misinterpreting that. A woman knows.”

  “Do you know her name?”

  “Stan said I could trust him, but how could I trust a man who’d lie to me? I had enough of that with my first—”

  “Her name?”

  “The woman who runs that boardinghouse. Frances,” Caroline spat. “Frances Pixley.”

  Chapter 11

  “Aunt Frances?” I asked. “How could Aunt Frances have been involved with Stan?”

  Eddie’s eyes were closed. He was listening, though, I was sure of it. So while I tugged socks over my feet and tied my shoes, I kept talking.

  “Caroline must be wrong, that’s all. The whole last winter I did nothing but go on and on about the bookmobile and Stan donating money, and Aunt Frances said she didn’t know him at all.”

  I flexed my foot and realized I’d tied the laces on my right shoe too tight. Start the day like that and you never get them the way you want them. Growling to myself, I undid the laces, pushed the shoe off with the toes of the other foot, and started over again.

  “And even if she did know him, it’s outside of the realm of any reality that she . . . that she . . .” I couldn’t make myself say the words. Then a thought started to ping around inside my head. If Caroline suspected Aunt Frances of killing Stan, would she tell the police? Had she already? Should I warn Aunt Frances?

  “What do you think, Mr. Ed?”

  My feline flopped over on his side and batted at my elbow.

  I pulled my arm away. “Quit that. I’m not a cat toy, you know.”

  He gave me the humans-are-soooo-stupid look and closed his eyes again.

  “Thanks so much for your help.” I lightly thumped the top of his head, making it bounce up and down like a bobblehead. “See you later, Eddie-gator.”

  His mouth opened and closed without making a sound, but I knew what he meant.

  Mrr.

  • • •

  The boardinghouse was full of the beginnings of love. Unfortunately, it resembled the second mixed-up act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream more than My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

  “It turned out okay in the end, though,” I whispered to Aunt Frances. The starry-eyed, middle-aged Quincy was handing twentysomething Dena a bowl of strawberries. Paulette, who’d been picked for Quincy, was giggling with sixty-five-year-old Leo, and Zofia was chatting with Harris, who was a perfect age to be her grandson. “Hermia ended up with Lysander,” I said quietly, “and Helena with Demetrius, just like they were supposed to.”

  “That was a play,” Aunt Frances whispered back fiercely. “More than four hundred years old.”

  My lips twitched as I watched Quincy pass Dena the powdered sugar. Shakespeare might have written it in the late fifteen hundreds, but it was still relevant.

  The eight of us ate waffles and strawberries and whipped cream and sausages until we couldn’t eat any more. “More coffee, anyone?” Zofia, the cook for the day, held up the carafe. “Minnie? Or do you need to get to the library?”

  I held out my mug. “Working tomorrow afternoon, off today.”

  Zofia tsked at me. “They work you too hard down there. One of these days you’re going to work yourself into illness.”

  “She does it to herself,” Aunt Frances said. “She makes up the schedule.”

  I glanced at her as I poured cream into my coffee. Aunt Frances knew perfectly well that the library had a tight budget. Payroll was the library’s largest expense and since I was salaried, working more hours myself was money in my budget’s pocket.

  “Say,” Leo said. “Did they ever figure out who killed that guy you found? What was his name? Stan something.”

  Since my gaze was on Aunt Frances when Leo asked his questions, I saw her flinch as clear as the horizon on a cloudless day. “Larabee,” I said quietly, still watching her.

  Leo snapped his fingers. “That’s it. So, did they? Find who killed him?”

  “Not as far as I know,” I said. My aunt put her silverware and napkin on her plate and stood to take the dishes to the kitchen. “Aunt Frances,” I asked, “have you heard anything?”

  She stopped. “No, I haven’t. But then, why would I?”

  Zofia chuckled. “You know everyone in this town. How could you not know the richest man in Chilson?”

  “Well, I didn’t,” Aunt Frances said, a little too quickly. “There are lots of people I don’t know. And there are some I know far too well.” Abandoning her plate, she took quick steps to the back door and left the house, letting the screen door slam behind her.

  After a short silence, Harris was the first to speak. “Wow, I’ve never seen her like that. She sure seems mad about something.”

  “Oh, dear.” Zofia fiddled with her spoon. “I hope I didn’t offend her.”

  Paulette poured Leo another cup of coffee. “What do you think, Leo?”

  He smiled at her. “I think this is a beautiful day. How do you feel about a drive up to Cross Village and lunch at Legs?”

  Dena glanced around the table, ending with me. “Shouldn’t somebody go after her? She sounded pretty upset.”

  “Not to worry.” Quincy patted her shoulder, his touch lingering a beat too long. “Give her some time to work it out herself. If she’s still upset this afternoon, I’ll talk to her.”

  Through it all, I said nothing.

  But the worries in my brain were starting to run in tiny little circles, around and around and around.

  • • •

  Chris Ballou sat cross-legged on my boat’s front deck, a bilge pump in each hand. “You want the good news or the bad news?”

  I was sitting on the deck, too, looking at him across the open engine hatch. “I hate questions like that.”

  He grinned. “The good news is that your problem isn’t the bilge pump. I can put the old one back in and sell this to some other poor slob.”

  Since I wasn’t completely ignorant of boat maintenance issues, I could see where this was going. “It’s electrical, isn’t it?”

  “Got to be,” Chris said cheerfully.

  “How much is it going to cost?”

  “Well, that’s the bad news.”

  I squinched my eyes shut and slapped my hands over my ears. “Don’t want to hear it, don’t want to hear it—”

  Chris spoke loudly. “I got another set of good and bad newses.” I uncovered my ears and waited. “Bad first. Job like this on a boat like this, we’re looking at five hours if it’s easy, double that, or more, if it’s not.”

  My chest went tight. Five hours of a boat mechanic’s time was equivalent to slightly less than a week of the Chilson District Library assistant director’s take-home pay. Ten hours was an amount that would require payments on my credit card for longer than I wanted to think about. My student loans were far from being paid off, my car wouldn’t be paid off for almost two years, and the houseboat loan was—

  “Hey, don’t look like that,” Chris said. “You haven’t heard my good news.” He lowered his top half deeper into the engine compartment and his voice came out echoey, in a disembodied sort of way. “Rafe Niswander could do the work for you a lot cheaper.” His right hand extended up into the air. “Hand me those wire cutters, will you, Min Pin? Thanks. Yeah, Rafe used to work here, summers. He’s got those long skinny fingers that fit into tight corners no one else could reach without pulling the freaking engine.”

  I’d never noticed that Rafe had long skinny fingers. I would now, though.

  “But you know Rafe,” Chris said. “You’d have to work with his schedule. And he’s got that thing going with his arm right now. He says it’s good, but if it’s that good, why is he still wearing that ratty old bandage?”

  Rafe. I grumped a grumpy noise to myself. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would have changed the bandage daily. Not Rafe. Oh, no, not oh-it’ll-be-fine-quit-worrying
Rafe. The man needed a wife something fierce, but I couldn’t think of any woman I disliked enough.

  Another couple minutes, and Chris pushed himself out into the sunlight. “There you go. All shipshape and seaworthy.”

  Seaworthy I didn’t care about. “Is it lakeworthy?”

  “Well.” Chris scratched his bristly chin with the end of a Phillips screwdriver. “I wouldn’t take her out on the big lake, but she’s probably okay for a one-cocktail cruise out there.” He pointed the screwdriver out at Janay Lake.

  “How about tied up to the dock?”

  He started putting his tools back into the red toolbox he’d brought with him. “If nothing changes, you might be fine for the season. But you know boats.”

  Wind gusted my hair into my face and I reached into my shorts pockets for a hair elastic. My too-curly hair never wanted to stay in a ponytail, but better that than have my hair blowing into my mouth every time I tried to talk.

  As he tidied his tools, he said, “Hey, did I tell you we’re full up?” He went on to list, slip number by slip number, the people who were up north already, the people who would be up for the Fourth of July, and the people who paid to have their boats put in the water but who rarely made it up at all.

  I sat there, half listening, half not, enjoying the wind and sun on my face. Then something he said caught at me. I asked, “Did you say the Olsons wouldn’t be up until the Fourth?”

  “Well, yeah. They never are.”

  “But I saw some lights on board a couple of weeks ago.”

  Chris was shaking his head. “Couldn’t be. There hasn’t been a car in their parking space all summer. Besides, he always calls and has me run a shakedown the week before they get here.”

  He had to be right. Chris knew the marina and its inhabitants better than I knew the contents of my own closet. But still . . . “I saw lights.”

  “Okay, you saw lights.” He clipped the toolbox shut and stood. “And Skeeter still says he saw a cougar up in the hills above town last year. See you later, Minster.” He reached out to pat me on the head with his greasy hand.