by Laurie Cass
“The week before Rowan died,” Neil said, his face flushing, “she and Land had a huge fight. A big blowup. She fired him and he threatened her. Said she’d regret firing him, and soon.”
“Land Aprelle?” I asked. But it had to be. There weren’t many men named Land wandering around the world. For decades he’d been a contractor, putting up houses and pole barns and anything else people hired him to build. Now that he was in his sixties and had had a knee and a shoulder replacement, he’d shifted to handyman and caretaking services. He was a longtime library patron and had happily taken advantage of the bookmobile the first week it was on the road. People who used the library and bookmobile weren’t guaranteed to be upright and honest citizens, but in my mind the odds were better.
“Rowan hired him to do chores after I started working downstate,” Neil said. “She wanted me to have real weekends, not weekends working on the house. She said we could afford it, that it would give us more time together, that—”
He stopped. Swallowed. “If I hadn’t taken that job, I would have been home. She never would have hired him. She wouldn’t be . . .” His voice trailed off and a vast silence filled the booth.
My heart ached for him. I wanted to give him a hug, or at least hold his hand, but we were barely more than acquaintances and I didn’t want to weird him out. “I’m so sorry,” I said softly, because there wasn’t much else I could do.
“Thanks,” he said. “Rowan really liked you. Both of you,” he said, finally looking up at us. “She didn’t like everyone, but she liked you two.”
“And I liked her. Her sense of humor was just like my dad’s.” I swung around to face Pam. “And yours, too, come to think of it.”
Pam laughed. “So that’s why the three of us got along so well. A warped worldview.”
“Lots of folks didn’t get when she was making a joke,” Neil said. “She got on the wrong side of people for that.”
The back of my neck tingled. “Anyone in particular?”
“Besides half of her own family?” Neil almost smiled, then stared off into space. “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “Hugh Novak couldn’t stand her. Hated everything she stood for and believed in, politically speaking.” His face hardened. “I wonder where he was that day.”
Mike showed up with our food, and as we ate, we talked of other things. As soon as the sandwiches were gone, Neil left and I moved around to the other side of the booth. “I don’t see Land Aprelle as a killer,” I said.
“Me, either.” Pam picked at her potato chips. “Who’s Hugh Novak?”
I knew the name, but couldn’t summon a memory of what he looked like. “If I remember right, he’s from Chilson. An insurance adjuster, but I hear he’s getting into developing real estate.”
Pam looked in the direction Neil had gone. “It’s weird knowing someone who was murdered.”
It certainly was. “I don’t think Neil has any idea who killed Rowan,” I said. “Do you?”
Pam shook her head, but in agreement. “He just wants her killer found.”
It was what we all wanted. And I was going to do everything I could to make it happen.
* * *
• • •
When I got back to the library, I went straight to my office. I sat down, fired up my computer, strong-mindedly avoided looking at my e-mail in-box, and focused completely on updating the bookmobile policy.
After ten years in the workforce, I’d come to the conclusion that there were two types of tasks. The kind that took longer than you expected and the kind that didn’t take nearly as long as you expected. Tasks that took exactly as long as you anticipated were as rare as a pair of my pants that didn’t have any Eddie hair.
As it turned out, revising the bookmobile policy took only a couple of hours as opposed to the full day I’d anticipated. “Maybe I’m getting better at this,” I said happily as I e-mailed it off to Graydon. For half a second, I toyed with the idea of diving straight into checklists and core competencies, but decided after two solid hours of sitting that what I needed was to stand up for a few minutes.
I sent a group text to all the staff who were working that I was about to brew a fresh pot of coffee—half caffeine in light of the fact that it was three in the afternoon—and headed to the break room. Three minutes later, Holly came in, followed by Josh, Kelsey, and two library patrons, Stewart Funston and the elderly Mr. Goodwin, who’d repeatedly told me to call him Lloyd.
Today I cheated and said a blanket hello to everyone. First to the coffeepot was Stewart. “Just so you know,” I said, “it’s half caffeine and half decaf.”
He smiled. “Exactly what I wanted. How did you guess?”
Stewart was one of our library regulars. Just shy of six feet tall and on the edge between sturdy and stocky, and with graying brown hair in dire need of a haircut, he was in his late forties and worked for a local manufacturer designing electronic doohickeys of some sort. He telecommuted from home and from the library on a regular basis. I’d once asked him for details on what, exactly, it was that he designed, but then he’d told me and at the end I was no wiser than I’d been before the explanation started.
“Working today?” Josh asked Stewart.
Feeling like a mother robin putting worms into upturned baby bird beaks, I poured coffee into the mugs held out in front of me.
“The plant isn’t open,” he said. “But here’s the problem when you can telecommute; there’s never a time when you can’t work.”
We all laughed. Stewart was a personable guy, and he’d also been an early supporter of the bookmobile, so I was automatically inclined to like him. I would always remember the people who’d spoken up back when I was trying to convince the library board that a bookmobile was needed in an age of digital everything.
“Thanks for brewing an afternoon pot, Minnie.” He set his mug on the table and reached for his wallet. “For the fund,” he said, pulling out a five-dollar bill.
I stuffed it into the mug Holly’s kids had decorated with stickers and glitter that tended to get on everything within a five-foot radius. “Thanks, Stewart. We really appreciate it.”
“Can’t have my library staff going without coffee,” he said. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Kelsey made a face at her mug. “You call this stuff coffee?”
“Better than the sludge you make,” Josh said. “Do you even care that no one else drinks the pots you make?”
“You can always add water,” Kelsey said.
It was an old argument and winning was impossible due to the subjective nature of the topic. In spite of the no-win reality, it felt like both Kelsey and Josh were gearing up for another round. I tried to think fast for a less divisive topic—politics? religion?—but Holly spoke first.
“Stewart, how is your family doing?” she asked. “It was all so sad. I hear there’s going to be a memorial service in summer.”
“Late May,” he said. “Neil wants to wait until the kids are done with school, but not wait so long that hotel rooms will be expensive for the people who have to travel.”
“You’re related to the Bennethums?” I asked. Just when I thought I was used to running across connections in a small town, up popped a family tie that surprised me.
Stewart sighed. “Rowan and I were first cousins. Her dad and my mom are siblings. She was the first grandchild, but I was the first grandson, the first one born to carry on the name,” he said, sounding proud.
For some reason, I’d never once considered that Rowan’s parents would still be alive, but I should have. Rowan was in her late forties, so her parents were likely around seventy, an age that used to sound ancient to me, but I now knew numerous people in their eighties who put my energy and activity level to shame, so I’d revised seventy in my head as nothing to fear.
Stewart picked up his coffee mug, then set it back down. He put hi
s hand into his pants pocket and pulled out a sugar packet. “Has anyone tried this? It’s maple-flavored sugar. A company north of town started making it a few months ago. I’m not a huge fan of sugar in coffee, but this stuff is—” He glanced at me. “Minnie, are you okay? You look a little funny.”
“Fine,” I said vaguely. “I was just . . . thinking.” But I’d looked funny because the sugar packet Stewart was holding in his hand was a twin to the one I’d found the night before in Rowan’s house. I gestured. “Where did you get that? It sounds like something Kristen should be using at the restaurant.”
“Christmas present,” he said. “Don’t remember who, though. My best present was from my son. He gave me this amazing new kind of hat that no one around here has. It’s a wool felt fedora with earflaps I can fold down. What’s revolutionary is the design. Four-and-a-half-inch crown height is typical, you see, and it’s brilliant to make it lower for winter, when the winds are stiffer.”
“Sounds cool,” Josh said. “My brother and his wife gave me a set of kitchen storage containers.” He rolled his eyes.
Mr. Goodwin asked Josh about purchasing a new tablet, a conversation that Stewart joined in, and Holly and Kelsey started talking about their respective children. I let the voices wash past me and thought about three things.
Cousins.
Sugar packets.
And poison.
Chapter 6
The walk home that night was, physically, far easier than the morning trip. It hadn’t snowed all afternoon and the plows had been busy. Mentally, however, I was having a hard time.
Land Aprelle as a killer? Not a chance.
Stewart Funston as a killer? Not a chance.
Hugh Novak? I’d never heard anything against him other than Neil’s diatribe, so I inched his name toward the “not a chance” side of my mental spreadsheet.
I wanted to shy away from imagining scenarios in which any of the three might have wanted to kill Rowan, but I took a deep breath of cold air and went at it.
Land. A builder turned handyman/caretaker; had thick gray hair with a streak of white straight down the middle. Years ago, he’d fallen off a ladder, been knocked out, and hadn’t woken up for three days. Afterward, he was fine except for that white streak of hair. He also was clean shaven in summer and grew a bushy white beard in winter because, with the addition of pillow stuffing and a costume, he transformed from a guy who hardly talked to the area’s best Santa Claus.
Maybe that was why I was having a hard time imagining him as a killer. But I also had a hard time seeing him in a shouting match with Rowan, and that had apparently happened. Could Land have killed Rowan because of an argument? Or should the question be, what kind of argument could have led to murder?
Hal Inwood’s favorite motives were money or love gone wrong, with the most powerful motive being a combination of the two. Could Land and Rowan have been having an affair? Could Land have been stealing from the Bennethums?
I had no idea and had no idea how to find out. Hal and Ash knew about Neil’s suspicions, though, so they were most likely looking at Land, no matter what Neil thought.
On to Stewart Funston. Who, unbeknownst to me, was a cousin of Rowan’s. I made a mental note to ask my aunt about the Funston family tree. No, wait. Stewart had said his mom and Rowan’s dad had been siblings and I’d never known Rowan’s maiden name. Another note went onto my mental list—librarian, start your research!—and I carried on with my cogitating.
What reason could Stewart have to kill his cousin? Using the second of Hal’s classic motives, love, was too impossibly icky, but some other kind of love could be at play. Could there be some weird competition for parental love? Was it possible that either Rowan or Stewart had been raised in the other’s family and was harboring resentment for not being treated as full family? Possible, but why would that kind of anger come into flower now, so many years later?
The other reason was money. Rowan and Neil seemed comfortable enough, but there was no ostentatious display of wealth. No big boat, no fancy vacations, a house they’d owned for years, and two kids in college.
I blew out a breath, creating a soft ball of steam that disappeared as quickly as it had formed.
Hugh Novak. Since I didn’t know the man, I felt myself wanting him to be the best candidate on my very short list. It was intellectually lazy and morally reprehensible, and I was ashamed of myself the moment I realized it. Yet there it was.
I let myself in the front door and called out my normal greeting. “I’m back!” From upstairs came a sleepy “Mrr.” Eddie was in serious winter mode, and unless I shook his treat can, it was unlikely he’d venture off my bed anytime soon.
As I began to divest myself of outerwear, I almost hoped that Aunt Frances was out. Though she was the best aunt ever and I loved her dearly, I could feel a mood descending, a mood with a capital M. It would pass, but a night on the couch with Eddie and Netflix might make it pass even quicker.
“Hello, Minnie. How are you this evening?”
“Oh, hey, Otto.” I glanced behind my aunt’s fiancé. “Where’s the beloved relative?”
“Someone called about selling some bird’s-eye extremely cheap and she was out of here before I could figure out why she could possibly want bird eyeballs.”
I laughed and my mood started to evaporate. Maybe human companionship was what I needed, not a burrowing in. “It’s a relatively rare kind of hard maple that looks swirly.” I glanced around and found some. “Like this.” I pointed at an end table’s drawer front. “See? Swirly. And please don’t ask me what causes it because I have no idea.”
Otto nodded and tapped the end table. “Did you know that your aunt doesn’t want to take any of this furniture across the street when we get married?”
“No, but I’m not surprised.” I spread my arms wide, gesturing at the room. At the entire house. “This furniture has been here for years. Decades. Taking away even one piece could change the magic recipe.”
“You sound like Frances,” he said.
I flopped down on a couch. “Well, there are reasons for that. And I’d name some, but you just sounded the teensiest bit grumpy, so I won’t.”
“Thank you.” He sat on the couch across from me. Even in jeans and a zip sweatshirt, he still looked as if he’d stepped out of a magazine advertisement for what the elegant senior gentleman should look like. “I recognize that Celeste will need the bulk of the boardinghouse furniture, but I think not taking anything is a mistake.”
“Why’s that?”
“I want the house across the street to be our home. Ours together. I don’t want her to think of it as my house, a place she just happened to move into.”
Smiling at him fondly, I said, “If she changes her mind about marrying you, I wouldn’t mind being second choice.”
“Dear Minnie. Rafe Niswander would have my guts for garters.”
I laughed at the English expression. “Then we’ll have to leave things as they are.”
“Except for the furniture,” he said. “I fully expected to donate half my furniture to the church’s resale shop. She needs to bring something from the place she’s lived in for so many years.”
“Does Eddie hair count?” I picked a few examples off my sleeve.
Otto, sensibly, ignored me. “Could you talk to her? Tell her I’m thinking of our future, that I don’t want her to resent living in a house that doesn’t feel like hers. Please?”
It sounded as if he’d already made his arguments and that she’d already rejected them. Still, he had a point. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll talk to her. But I can’t promise it’ll change her mind.”
He smiled, looking satisfied. “I know you’ll do your best, and that’s all anyone can ask. Thank you, Minnie.”
But I knew he was wrong. Doing your best wasn’t always enough. Sometimes it wasn’t anywhere near enough.
* * *
• • •
After Otto went home, I ate a dinner of leftovers—hardly any dishes to wash, how handy!—and carried Eddie downstairs to help me watch a couple episodes of Detectorists. It was a BBC show that amused me immensely, and now I had a mission, to see if anyone on the show ever said ‘guts for garters.’
Though I didn’t hear anything about garters, the show made me laugh and distracted me nicely, so it was a surprise when I spent the night tossing and turning so much that Eddie abandoned me. Come morning, I found him on the dining room buffet. “Really?” I asked. “That’s where you spent the night? Perched on a hard piece of wood? Sleeping there was better than snuggling with me?”
My cat looked at me and didn’t say a thing.
“Love you, too, pal,” I said, planting a kiss on the top of his head as I went past.
In the kitchen, Aunt Frances was a whirlwind of activity. Coffee was brewing, her lunch was on the counter only half made, and the microwave was counting down to zero.
“Morning.” I went to the silverware drawer for spoons. “How was the bird’s-eye?” I’d already been in bed when I’d heard the front door. “You were out late. What did you do, start a project with it already?”
“Good morning,” she said. “Could you get the oatmeal? Thanks. The wood is wonderful, but I need to move it right away. Death in the family, house is sold, and if I don’t get it out before the closing date, it’s the property of the new owners.”
“Would they even want it? Maybe they’d be fine giving you an extra week or two.” I was no woodworker, but even I knew that moving wood was a laborious process.
“Don’t know, and I don’t want to ask. It’s bird’s-eye.” She spoke almost reverently.
“Do you have any place to store it?”
She nodded. “There’s room in my storage unit. I just have to move a few things.”
My aunt’s storage unit was on the north side of town and contained nothing but wood. Rough-sawn wood, planed and milled wood, stumps, bits of specialty woods from faraway places, and even some pedestrian two-by-fours. I’d been there only a handful of times, and though the contents changed, the volume always seemed the same. Packed to the gills. I tried not to think about it because there was an inevitability about the fact that someday I would have to deal with the contents.