by Laurie Cass
Rafe glanced outside. “A light blue might be okay.”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “It would clash with the color of the snowplows.”
“Huh. Guess it’ll have to stay white. I already ordered food, by the way. Hope you’re okay with what we’ve had every week for the last three months, except for the week of Christmas.”
“It’s not just men whose hearts can be won through their stomachs.”
“You mean it wasn’t my charm, winning personality, and immense intellect?”
“All on the list.” I pulled a pile of napkins out of the holder and split them between us. The sub sandwiches here were exceptionally good, but notoriously messy. “I know you’re busy with end-of-the-semester stuff, but there’s news about Rowan Bennethum’s death. Have you heard?”
Rafe reached out to hold my hands. “I heard it was murder. I should have called you.”
“No, it’s all right.” My response was a reflex, but accurate. Immediate sympathy could have made my reaction worse. Sometimes not talking about things was okay. “Truly.”
I lifted his hands, gave them a light kiss, and extracted myself. “Anya and Collier are all torn up. They stopped by the library last night—they’re home for a week or so.”
Rafe pushed one of the two glasses of water on the table over to me. “Didn’t Collie get engaged over Thanksgiving to some hot blonde from college?”
“Don’t call him that,” I said automatically. “He says it makes him feel like he should be wearing a leash.”
“Considering the circumstances, I won’t call him Collie until summer.” Rafe touched the rim of his glass to mine. “Scout’s honor.”
I wasn’t sure Rafe had ever been any kind of a scout, but I let it go. A vow for a temporary ban on the nickname was win enough. “Ash says hey, by the way.”
“When did you see him?”
“Stopped by the sheriff’s office this morning to—”
“Heads up, kids, dinner’s here.” Brendan, the evening manager, deposited our food. “Eating along gender lines, I see. Meatball sub for him, veggie for the lady. A bit boring, don’t you think?” he asked me.
“My mom likes it when I eat vegetables,” I said. “There are lots in here.”
Brendan looked at my sandwich, which I loved mostly because it had as much dairy product as vegetables, thanks to my habitual request for triple cheese. “More than in the fish and chips,” he said, after considering.
I beamed. “There you go. Mom will sleep happy tonight.”
“You two are the perfect couple,” Brendan muttered. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Did you hear that?” Rafe picked up his sandwich. “We’re the perfect couple. If anyone knows, Brendan does. He’s been married four times.”
Though I wasn’t sure that was proof of romantic expertise, and in many ways thought it proved the opposite, my mouth was too full of food to discuss the point. When I was swallowing and getting ready to start a good-humored argument, Rafe asked, “Why were you at the sheriff’s office? Did they have more questions now they know it was murder?”
Um. “Sort of, but not really.”
Rafe gazed at me over his sandwich, clearly waiting for me to expand.
“I remembered a couple of things I figured they should know,” I said, “but also Anya and Collier asked me to help figure out who killed their mom.”
Dark brown eyes blinked at me. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No.” I got ready to take another bite of cheesy goodness.
“Don’t we have a professionally trained sheriff’s office to take care of that kind of thing?”
“Well, sure, but—”
“And wouldn’t professionals get annoyed by amateurs trying to do things they aren’t equipped for?”
Rafe often annoyed and frustrated me but I couldn’t think of a time when he’d elicited the emotion that was creeping up inside me: sheer and unadulterated irritation. “It’s not like I’m going to walk around tapping potential killers on the shoulder and asking, ‘Gee, did you kill Rowan? If so, let me know so I can tell the police. Thanks, have a nice day.’”
“No? Because that sounds exactly like something you’d do.”
I glared at him. “You really think I’m that stupid?”
“I think trying to find a killer could be the definition of stupid.” He glared right back. “He killed once, he can kill again, and you’re . . . you’re little.”
My anger blew hot and red, but I kept my voice quiet. “Just because I’m short doesn’t mean I’m weak. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself. I’m not stupid enough to think I’d win a physical contest with a man, but all I have to do is be smarter, which most of the time is pretty easy to do!”
By the end, I’d lost my low and controlled volume, but I didn’t care. A while back, I had taken self-defense courses, and I was also the new owner of a concealed pistol license and, under Ash’s watchful eye and with a handgun I borrowed from him, practiced regularly at a local firing range. Only my aunt and Rafe knew about this, but that was part of the point. The fewer people who knew my capabilities, the safer I’d be because of the surprise factor.
Rafe sat back and crossed his arms. We stared at each other. Then stared at each other some more.
“We’re fighting,” he finally said. “I don’t like it.”
My anger seeped away. “I don’t, either.”
“How about we stop?”
I fiddled with my napkin. “I promised Anya and Collier I’d do what I could and I intend to keep that promise.”
“Does it matter that I don’t like it?”
“Of course it does. It’s just . . .” I looked up at him. The expression on his face was one I couldn’t ever remember seeing before. “What’s the matter?”
For a second he didn’t say anything. Then, “I’m not sure. This must be what I look like when I’m worried about someone.”
“Huh.” I examined him closely. “You could be right. Let me take a picture so we can immortalize the moment.” It was a weak joke, but he smiled anyway.
Our attention went back to the food, and we both allowed the talk to turn to other things, but when I snuggled up with Eddie that night in bed, I thought about what Brendan had said, that Rafe and I were the perfect couple.
“Pretty sure we’re not,” I murmured into Eddie’s fur.
Eddie, in reply, started to snore.
* * *
• • •
The bookmobile’s windshield wipers flicked back and forth on high speed, but they couldn’t keep up with the precipitation. “The weather guy didn’t mention anything about this,” I said.
There was no return comment, which wasn’t a huge surprise, since I’d already dropped Julia off at the restaurant where she was meeting her husband for dinner. Dropping Julia off at various locations throughout the county had become a regular practice, but that particular meeting spot seemed questionable.
“Are you sure?” I’d asked, glancing around at the dark storefronts in the teeny tiny town of Chancellor. In summer, the sidewalks teemed with pedestrians and the adjacent lake offered serene vistas with convenient benches for anyone’s viewing pleasure. In January, however, ninety percent of the businesses were closed, and it would take some serious snow shoveling to clear off a bench, even if you wanted to sit outside, which seemed unlikely. “It’s only four thirty,” I said, “and you said he was meeting you around six.”
“My dear,” Julia said in a very upper-crust English accent. “I have a book. If he’s an hour late, it will not matter a whit.” She waved a copy of Joanna Cannon’s The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, put up the hood of her coat, and skipped down the bookmobile’s steps.
I’d waited until she was inside the restaurant, then dropped the bookmobile into gear and eased a
way. Now it was ten minutes later and what had been gently falling snow was turning into . . . something else.
For approximately the millionth time, I wished the bookmobile had an exterior temperature sensor. Newer models came equipped with them, which I liked to think was a direct result of my numerous e-mails to the manufacturer, but that was no help to me now.
“It’s not snow,” I said. “But it’s not rain, either.” The technical difference between sleet and freezing rain was not something I kept in my head. “I’m pretty sure this is what Josh calls ‘snain.’” The word was a fun one to say, so I said it out loud a few times.
“Mrr!”
“Not quite,” I said. “More of the S sound. And try making the M sound more like an N.”
“Mrr.”
“Nice try, buddy, but without human vocal cords, I’m not sure you’ll ever be able to—”
My attention, which had been ninety-five percent on the road and five percent elsewhere, was suddenly one hundred percent on driving.
The bookmobile had slid. The bookmobile never slid, not like that.
“Hang on, Eddie,” I whispered. Not that he had anything to hang on to except the soft pink blanket a summer boarder of my aunt’s had made to replace the ratty towel that had previously been in his carrier, but the warning was all I could do.
Snow was easy enough for the bookmobile to deal with. The vehicle’s weight and its tires made the typical northwest lower Michigan winter a metaphorical walk in the park. Freezing rain, however, was a different matter. “Hate this stuff,” I muttered. To me, freezing rain was like mosquitoes—absolutely no redeeming qualities.
One swipe of the windshield wipers and my vision was clear; another swipe and the road ahead was a translucent fuzz. I instantly took my foot off the gas and turned the defroster on high. A few swipes later, the windshield cleared enough for me to see what I least wanted to see. Ice was already coating the world, covering mailboxes, trees, houses, and power lines with a skim coat of freezing rain, a layer that was getting thicker and thicker every second.
“We have to get off the road,” I said. The day had never been very bright, and dark was coming down fast. Leaving the bookmobile on the side of the road for someone to slide into was not an option. I had to find a safe place to park until the salt trucks could get out. The only question was where?
My grip on the steering wheel went tight as I considered the possibilities. At this point on the route there were no churches, township halls, gas stations—or any type of commercial establishment—for another ten miles. And none of the public parks in this part of the county were plowed in the winter.
There was no choice left but to slip into the widest driveway I could find and hope I wasn’t inconveniencing the property owner whose driveway I’d just blocked. I scanned the roadside left and right. The few driveways in sight were either unplowed or narrow or both; I wouldn’t risk driving the bookmobile into a driveway that might require a tow truck to get us out.
The freezing rain pelted the windshield in a furiously fast tempo, and the windshield started to glaze over. I reached out to the defroster, but it was already as high as it would go.
“This is seriously not good,” I murmured. We were driving so slowly the speedometer barely registered. I turned on the four-way flashers in spite of the fact that I hadn’t seen a car in miles and wasn’t actually sure there was anyone else on the planet. Dark ahead of us, dark behind us, dark all around—
Eddie howled, a low rumbling whine of the sort that made me want to make sure he was on a hard surface, the easier for cleaning up afterward.
“Are you okay, pal?” I wanted to glance over, but didn’t dare take my attention off the road. “You haven’t sounded like that since . . .”
Since the day we’d found Rowan.
On the same route we were driving that very minute.
I breathed out a soft “Hallelujah,” because Rowan’s driveway was not only bound to be empty, but was nice and wide and only half a mile away, and one of the twins had mentioned that their dad was hiring the driveway plowed the rest of the winter.
Oh-so-slowly, I steered us in that direction, and in relatively short order, the bookmobile slid to a slippery halt. “How do you feel about breaking into a house?” I undid my seat belt and leaned over to release the strap that kept Eddie’s carrier in place.
“Mrr.”
“I’m glad you’ve recovered from whatever was making you make those horrible noises.”
“Mrr.”
“Really? Well, how about I keep an eye on you. Any more of that and I make an appointment with Dr. Joe.” I pulled out my phone, scrolled through the contacts, and sent a group text to Neil, Anya, and Collier: Caught out by your house in freezing rain with the bookmobile. OK if I use the code to go inside and wait it out?
Ten seconds later, I got texts from the twins. Anya: All yours. Heat’s down, though. Collier: Stay overnight if u need 2—don’t use Anya’s room it’s a mess. Anya’s next text was an image of a sticking-out tongue, which I assumed was to her brother. I decided not to wait for Neil’s permission, texted a thank-you, and picked up the cat carrier.
Eddie retreated to silence as I tried to open the bookmobile’s door. It didn’t open and didn’t open and I finally put the carrier on the floor and put all my weight into the effort. With a tinkling crash of ice breaking, the door flew open wide and a blast of wind whooshed in. I climbed down the stairs carefully and reached back in for Eddie’s carrier.
“Hold on tight.” I closed the bookmobile door and, head down against the wind, shuffled toward the house, knees bent and my free hand out for balance. Every step was a risk, but at least the freezing rain was falling on an inch of fresh snow. Once each footstep broke through the crust of ice, there was something for my boot to grab on to. Even still, twenty feet had never seemed so far.
What felt like an eternity later, I touched the corner of the house and then we were in front of the door that entered into the garage. I tucked my right hand under my left elbow, pulled off my mitten, and entered the five-digit code. Blessedly, the battery was still working. The deadbolt slid open and we were inside, out of the wind and rain.
“Safe,” I said, gasping a bit because for a while there I hadn’t been completely sure things would work out.
“Mrr.”
“It’s good to know you weren’t worried at all. Nice to know that you have that kind of confidence in me.” I opened the door into the house and set Eddie’s carrier on the floor. “Promise to be good?”
My cat blinked up at me, but didn’t say a thing. Which was just as well because, even if he’d promised, I wouldn’t have believed him.
“Here you go.” I opened the wire door. Eddie, who had been lying on his pink blanket, leapt to his feet and pranced into Rowan’s kitchen.
Oak cabinets with brushed nickel drawer pulls and cabinet knobs. Off-white tile countertops with a comfortable clutter of coffeepot, dry goods canisters, and cookbooks. Rowan had been close to fanatic about keeping things clean, but she hadn’t minded a little clutter, especially if the clutter was family heirlooms. She’d told me she had a number of them because she was the oldest grandchild. “None of it is worth a penny,” she’d said, “so the term ‘heirloom’ is a bit of a misnomer, but calling the kids to dinner with the cowbell from the last cow my grandparents owned makes me smile every time.”
In a sudden rush, the full impact of her death wrapped around me. She was gone forever. No more of her dry humor, a type of humor that many people interpreted not as humor at all, but as being cold and distant. My father had a similar tendency, so I’d found it easy to laugh at her comments. The absence of her wry observations was a hole in my life, and it would never be filled, not completely.
I sat on a handy bench and, after I’d finished crying and wiping my eyes, pulled off my boots and put them on the mat next to boot
s left behind by other Bennethums. I unzipped my coat, but didn’t take it off. When Neil and the twins had left the house, they’d turned the heat down to a level that would have been chilly without an outer layer, even over my bookmobile sweaters, which were long and warm and pocketed, the better for carrying cat treats.
“Eddie?” I called. “Where are you?”
“Mrr!”
Though I didn’t see him, I heard the pitter-patter of Eddie paws as they thumped up the stairs.
“Nothing up there for you to see,” I called. There was nothing upstairs but bathrooms and bedrooms, including the very empty master bedroom. At some point, Neil would open the closet and have to make decisions about Rowan’s shirts, pants, dresses, and shoes. Or would he ask Anya to do the sad task?
I tried to remember Rowan’s sibling situation, but couldn’t quite. Though she’d talked about brothers and sisters and cousins, she’d also had a tendency to drop the term “in-law” and talk about Neil’s blood relatives as if they were hers.
Eddie thundered down the stairs and cantered into the kitchen.
“Why would anyone kill her?” I asked, standing to look at the collection of magnets on the refrigerator. Hal and Ash’s theory about a revenge murder because of a denied loan seemed like a stretch, but I didn’t have any better ideas.
My fuzzy friend galloped around the kitchen table and back into the living room.
Of course, why anyone would kill was a mystery to me, unless your life or the life of someone you loved was in danger. And the idea of Rowan being a dangerous threat to anyone seemed beyond unlikely.
“Then again,” I said, “what defines a threat might be a relative concept.”
“Mrr!” Eddie said as he ran back into the kitchen. He started to take another lap around the table, but he miscalculated his speed. Centrifugal force tipped him over and he slid into the row of boots, knocking footwear everywhere.
Before I could get to my feet, he was up on his, trotting around as if he was proud of his stunt.