by Laurie Cass
“Yeah?” Mitchell perked up. “What should I do now?” He could have been a human version of a puppy, albeit a very large one.
“If it was me,” I said, “I’d just talk to her.”
“Sometimes I think about doing that.” Mitchell stared at his mug, a chipped version of the one he’d given me. “But then I wonder what if I got this all wrong? I don’t want to be like my buddy at that Tigers game.”
I suddenly got a hint of what it might be like to be a guy—or at least a guy like Mitchell—and I got an inkling of how the possibility of humiliation could shape life decisions.
“Well,” I said, “hang in there. I’ll try to think of something.”
I finished my coffee and headed back into the weather, not at all sure I’d be able to help Mitchell solve his problem.
* * *
• • •
That noon, bowing to the needs of my coworkers—plus their vow that if I went out in the snow to get the food, they wouldn’t ever again complain about having to listen to me review the library safety policies, something we did every other month (not that I believed the vow, but it was nice of them to recognize how much whining they did)—I ventured downtown to the Round Table.
Sabrina was at the register when I came in. “How is it you stay so skinny?” she asked, thumping her hip with an elbow. “Me, I’m squishy and soft and I’m doing my darnedest to lose weight.”
“Sorry,” I said apologetically. “I figure it’ll catch up with me in a few years.”
“Huh.” Sabrina pointed with the top of her head. “How about that one? Is it going to get him, too?”
I turned. Ash had just come inside and was still stomping the snow off his boots. “Depends,” I said. “If he convinces someone to marry him, I bet he puts on thirty pounds the first year. If he stays single?” I shrugged.
Ash came up beside me. “Sabrina, you’re looking as lovely as ever.” She glowered at him and whirled away. “What? What did I say?”
“It’s not you,” I said. “Trust me.”
“Okay.” He glanced around. It being January, ten minutes before noon, there was no one else in the restaurant other than the elderly men at the round table in the back of the room. Today there were only three of them, but at times there could be eight, grousing about the state of the world and what should be done to fix it.
As a general rule, I smiled at them politely and stayed as far away as possible. Rafe, on the other hand, said it was his goal in life to be invited to sit at the round table. Sometimes I believed him and sometimes I didn’t. I squinted, trying to envision Rafe next to Bob Dawkins, who I could hear, from thirty feet away, complaining about the crappy way the road commission plowed the county roads, and how much better they did it in Charlevoix County.
“Speaking of trusting you,” Ash said, “we’re moving on those names and . . .”
His voice trailed off.
“And what?” I asked, then realized he was looking out the front window, studying a hatless young man dressed in the dark red coat worn by city workers. The guy had been clearing a fire hydrant, but had stuffed his shovel in a snowbank to help a woman maneuver her double stroller—laden with an infant and a toddler—across the snowy mess that was currently the street. “Who’s that?”
“Bax Tousely,” Ash said.
My attention focused. He had hair as curly as mine and almost as dark. He also had a wide smile and was grinning down at the kids. He didn’t seem likely as a killer, but who did?
Ash and I watched for a moment, then when the stroller was safely across the street and Bax had gone back to shoveling, I asked, “You’re moving on those names? Which ones?”
He got a faraway look. “Well, since I can’t give out information about an ongoing investigation, all I can give you is—”
“Ash Wolverson,” I said severely, putting my chin up, “you give me everything or I’ll tell your mother on you.”
Grinning, he continued, “What I can give you is some general information that you could find out easily enough if you wanted to. Like this. Hugh Novak is an insurance adjuster. He looks at cars all over the region. On the day of the murder, what would you guess about his whereabouts?”
Interesting. I thought a minute and said, “I’d guess he had appointments lined up, but there’s no one who can confirm where he was at the key time.”
Ash grinned. “No need to tattle on me to Mom, right?”
“Not this time,” I said, trying—and probably failing—to sound ominous. “Let me know if anything else turns up, okay?”
Sabrina appeared with the bag that held the library’s lunch order, and I went to pay. It was only when I was outside and halfway up the sidewalk that I realized Ash hadn’t actually answered my question.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, I got up early. If I was going to make it to the restaurant owned by Sunny Scoles and back to the library to get the bookmobile out on time, I was going to have to scamper.
“What about breakfast?” Aunt Frances asked. “You have to eat something.”
“I’ll get something at the restaurant,” I assured her.
“Who is it you’re meeting?”
Sort of meeting, anyway. I zipped up my coat and picked up Eddie’s carrier. “Sunny Scoles. Do you know her?”
“Don’t know the name at all.” She frowned. “You sure she’s a good candidate for the catering at Kristen’s wedding?”
“Her name came up,” I said, which was the absolute truth. “I can’t imagine Kristen allowing anyone except her own staff to cook for her wedding, but it doesn’t hurt to talk to a few people, right?”
All true, though intentionally misleading. The entire drive to the restaurant, I kept trying not to think that intentionally misleading was perhaps worse than a lie, and not succeeding. Yet another character flaw to improve. “Add it to the list,” I muttered to Eddie, who didn’t comment.
I parked the car near the front door of the Red House Café. “Be back in a flash,” I told my furry friend. “All I’m going to get is oatmeal, so the car will barely even cool down before I’m back.”
“Mrr,” Eddie said, then yawned and flopped on his side.
The restaurant’s exterior matched its name and was solid red with white trim. It was a jumble of multiple additions, and when I went inside, I was clued in to what the original building had been, and why it was red.
“Oh,” I said softly, smiling at nothing in particular and everything in general. “It was a one-room schoolhouse.” All around me was the evidence. Wooden school chairs served as dining chairs, and penmanship instructions were wall art. An entire gallery of lunch buckets rested on a shallow shelf that circled the room, and a school bell hung from the ceiling, right above the front counter.
“Hasn’t been a school for sixty years.” A woman about my age approached from the back, drying her hands on a towel as she went. “It was a house longer than it was a school, but all it took was a little demolition and there were the bones of the original room.”
Her dark blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore a chef’s outfit of black cotton pants and the nifty white jacket that chefs wear, with the name “Sunny” embroidered on the upper left side.
“This place is great,” I said. “I’ve been driving past it for years, but I didn’t know the history.”
She smiled. “I’m hearing that a lot. You can sit anywhere you’d like. Let me get you a menu.”
“Sorry.” I shook my head. “This morning I don’t have time to sit down. But if I could get a carry-out container of oatmeal, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Walnuts?” she asked. “Pecans? Blueberries? Dried cherries?”
Life was full of decisions, some harder than others, and this was one of them. “I like them all. Pick whatever you like best.”
&nb
sp; “A little bit of each it is,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll be back in a jiffy. Do you want some coffee, too?” She bustled away, laughing at my heartfelt answer of “Yes” to the coffee question.
When I heard food-related rattling in the back, I put my elbows on the front counter and sighed. What had I been hoping to learn this morning? That Sunny was a nasty person of the type who looked like a killer, meaning she must be one? When I’d decided to drive down here, it had seemed so sensible. Then again, how many one-thirty-in-the-morning decisions were good ones?
Well, at least I now had a new restaurant to try. Oatmeal was great for a workday breakfast, but it didn’t really count as food.
I wandered to the nearest table, looked for a menu, and stopped short. Right there, in a wire rack right next to the salt and pepper shakers, was a stack of sugar packets. The same kind of sugar packet that Maple Staples had sold out of and that I’d recently added my name to a list to buy when available. The same kind that had been at Rowan’s house.
All my theories about limited access to this very special type of sugar vaporized in a second. Everyone had access to them. Everyone.
I was back to the beginning, and I had no idea what to do next.
Chapter 8
What do you think I should do next?” I asked.
Eddie, comfortable on my lap, which was covered with a fleece blanket, closed his eyes and purred.
“Give me a hint, please? Even a little one would help.”
“Help what?” My aunt plopped herself down at the end of the couch. The movement disturbed Eddie enough that he opened his eyes and picked his head up half an inch. “Now look what you did,” I said. “You disturbed his sleep for almost a second.”
Aunt Frances rubbed the fur on Eddie’s back leg. “Sorry, Mr. Ed. Next time you get up, I’ll treat you to a treat.” She turned her head, listening. “He’s purring. I think he forgives me.”
“Cats aren’t big on forgiveness,” I said, “but they can be bought. At least this one can.” I scratched Eddie alongside his chin and the purrs grew even louder.
My aunt smiled. “Tell you what. I’ll bring cat treats and make popcorn if you tell me why you’re asking the fuzzy one for advice instead of your wise old aunt.”
“That’s easy.” I kept scratching Eddie’s chin. “It’s because I don’t want to tell anyone what I’ve been doing.”
“And that is what exactly?”
I gave her a mock-exasperated look. “If I tell you, I’ll have told someone what I’m doing, and that’s what I’m trying to avoid, see?”
“Why?”
Another easy question. “Because I’ll get scolded for doing things I shouldn’t be doing.”
She laughed. “Dearest niece, I know full well that you’re trying to figure out who killed poor Rowan Bennethum.”
“You . . . do?”
“Please.” She snorted. “How long have we lived together? And how long have I known you? Wait, I remember. All your life.”
“Okay, so maybe I’m more transparent than I thought.” I rested my hand on Eddie’s back. “Do you think Rafe knows?”
“You haven’t told him, either?” Aunt Frances’s gaze zeroed in on my face. “Minnie, are you sure that’s wise?”
Right now I wasn’t sure about anything, and I said so.
“Part of being an adult,” my aunt said, nodding. “Which I recognize isn’t reassuring, but at least it’s honest.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “But I don’t see why not telling Rafe about this is a big deal. All I’m doing is a little extracurricular research, that’s all. Just an extension of being a librarian, is how I see it. Why does he need to know?”
“Mrr!”
“Sorry.” I released Eddie’s fur, which apparently I’d started to clutch a little too hard. “You get double treats for that.”
“He wasn’t objecting to your petting methods,” Aunt Frances said. “He was objecting to what could be pending doom for your relationship with Rafe.”
Stung, I said, “Just because I don’t tell him everything I do every second of the day? I don’t need to know that much about him, and he doesn’t need to know that much about me.”
“Not every daily detail, no. But don’t you think the man who is renovating that house with your every need, want, and desire in mind deserves to know, at least in general, what you’re doing, and why?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “How would you feel if he was keeping something like this from you?”
I tried the idea on for size and didn’t like how I was feeling. At all. For a long minute, I sat there and didn’t say anything. “You’re right. I need to talk to him about this.”
“Excellent.” My aunt smiled, and that alone made me feel a teensy bit better. “Time for popcorn and treats, not necessarily in that order.” She stood, and before I could get any further in my thoughts than a repeated, But how do I tell him I’m trying to figure out who killed Rowan? He’s not going to like it, she was back.
“Three treats for you, since you’re such a good cat.” Aunt Frances dropped the bits on the blanket just underneath Eddie’s chin. “And here’s yours.” She handed over a comfortable-size bowl of buttered and salted popcorn, keeping a twin bowl for herself.
“Now,” she said, settling back down. “Ask me what you should do next. I’ll tell you exactly what to do without even knowing what the topic is.” She stuffed a handful of popcorn into her mouth.
“One size fits all advice?” I laughed. “How about some insider information instead?”
She grinned. “Oh, goody. You have suspects and you need me to dish the dirt again, don’t you?”
“Exactly. First is Sunny Scoles. About my age, runs that new Red House Café I went to this morning.”
Aunt Frances shook her head. “Don’t know her.”
“How about Baxter Tousely? Bax, he goes by. He graduated from Chilson High School four years ago and works for the city.”
“Don’t know him, either.”
I scowled. “You’re not being much help. How about Stewart Funston?”
“Him I know.” She tossed a piece of popcorn into the air and caught it in her mouth. “How far back do you want? As far as I know, for the last thirty years he’s been a model citizen.”
“All information has the possibility to be useful.”
“That has the possibility of being true.” Another popcorn piece went in with a perfect arc. Sometimes it was hard to believe we were blood relations. “Back when Stewart was in high school—he was a string bean of a lad, if you can believe it—the principal suspended him from the football team because he got a ticket for Driving Under the Influence. The weekend after he was kicked off the team, someone broke into the principal’s office and destroyed everything in it. And by destroyed, I mean books ripped to shreds and furniture reduced to kindling.”
“That’s . . . awful. And Stewart did it?”
She shrugged. “They couldn’t prove it, but everyone in town assumed so.”
I shifted, suddenly uncomfortable. “Anger management issues, sounds like. But he grew out of that, right? I’ve never heard of him blowing up at anyone.”
Aunt Frances picked up another handful of popcorn. “It was a long time ago. But it was also a lot of damage.”
“Maybe it wasn’t him at all,” I said. “Besides, like you said, it was a long time ago.” And even though I’d seen Stewart with the Maple Staples sugar packet, that didn’t mean anything since they were apparently all over the place. “How about Hugh Novak?” I asked.
My aunt squished up her face. “He’s one of Those People.”
She’d clearly put capitals on Those People. “Which ones are those?”
“Every once in a while you run into someone you just can’t stand, can’t work with, don’t even want to be in the same room with because their personality
is like fingernails on the chalkboard of your life. That’s what Hugh Novak is to me. He’s an arrogant jerk who thinks he’s the smartest person in the room, but half the time he’s dumber than a rock.”
I was laughing. “Don’t beat around the bush. Tell me what you really think.”
She held up a piece of popcorn and squeezed it flat. “Years ago, during a talk I was giving at a Rotary meeting about the benefits of vocational training, he said the only people who went into the trades were ones who couldn’t get into college.”
“Oh, geez.” Them were fighting words. “What did you—”
There was a knock on the front door, followed by the squeak of it opening. “Hello!” Otto called. “Does anyone want to share a bottle of wine?”
“Is there anything better,” Aunt Frances asked me, “than a man who brings wine without being asked?”
I nodded. “A man who brings advance reading copies of Tana French’s latest books.” My response was lost on her, though, because Otto had already shed his boots and was giving her a kiss.
So the evening ended happily, with laughter and a glass of what I was told was very good wine. It was only as I was drifting off to sleep that I realized I hadn’t asked her about my other suspect, the handyman Land Aprelle.
* * *
• • •
The next morning, Kelsey knocked firmly on the doorjamb of my office. “I hear you’re holding out on us,” she said.
I held up my index finger, finished typing an e-mail to the chair of the local arts committee about rotating out the current artwork displayed in the hallway, clicked the Send button, and looked up.
By this time, the number of staff in my doorway had gone from one to four, as Holly, Josh, and Donna all crowded into the space.