by Laurie Cass
I pasted a smile on my face and turned to my accoster. “Hey, Denise. What’s up?”
Denise Slade was president of the Friends of the Library. It was a wonderful organization and running the library would be far more difficult without their efforts, but Denise could be a trial. She’d been widowed not that long ago, and I kept reminding myself of that sad fact, over and over, to help me be more understanding.
“What are you going to do about that new boss of yours?” she asked, standing with her hands on her wide hips. Energetic and confident, Denise had a take-charge kind of personality. Which was fine, of course, but since she also had the sense of humor of a rusty metal bucket, she had a tendency to irritate people.
“Help him in every way possible,” I said.
“Oh, pfft.” Denise flicked away my comment. “Don’t give me that politically correct crap. What I want to know is why he and that new guy, Trent What’s-His-Name, are running around asking such weird questions.”
“Weird in what way?”
“Oh, you know. Just weird.”
A deep urge to be scathingly sarcastic bubbled up, but I shoved it down. “Do you remember any of their questions?”
“It was a couple of days ago, so I don’t remember word for word, but one of the things Graydon was asking about was the importance of the Friends of the Library. I mean, what kind of question is that!” She flung her hands out. “We’re critical! Without us, you couldn’t do half what you do.”
Although I didn’t agree with her math, I smiled and nodded encouragingly. “What else?”
“That Trent character—and aren’t those names just the last straw? Graydon and Trent. They sound like the name of an attorney’s office—anyway, Trent asked if we’d ever done a survey of library patrons on what they think of the Friends, if we should be doing more, if we should be doing less.”
It was an interesting question. “Have you?”
“Of course not.” Denise sounded disgusted. “We don’t have time to do that kind of crap. Besides, surveys are for organizations that aren’t in touch with the people they serve. We don’t need to do that.”
Again, I didn’t agree with her, but disagreeing with Denise was something you did only if you had a spare hour, because she’d do her best to sway you to her side, even if you were disagreeing with her on the merits of the variety of cheese that best accompanied a hamburger.
“I’ll talk to Graydon,” I said. True enough. “But they’re both new. I’d say they’re both just asking questions to learn about the library and how we integrate with the community.”
She didn’t look convinced, but I said I had to make a phone call before six and headed off, not sure I’d convinced myself, either.
After closing my office door behind me, I pulled out my cell phone and did a search for the specialty wood store I’d visited with Rafe. “Darden Hardwoods,” a male voice answered.
I blew out a sigh of relief. It was a few minutes shy of six and their posted hours said they were open until then, but it was also the dead of winter and I wouldn’t have been surprised if no human had answered. After introducing myself, I brought out the question I’d formulated on the drive back to Chilson. I needed to do more to help find Rowan’s killer, needed to help Collier and Anya and Neil, and this was one thing I could do.
“When Rafe and I were at your store the other day,” I said, “I could have sworn I saw Land Aprelle pull into your parking lot. A friend of mine knows him, but she hasn’t seen him in ages and was wondering if he was okay.” Though the story was plausible, it was weak, and I expected an abrupt answer and a dial tone.
“Land?” The guy laughed. “Sure, I’ve known Land for years. Quite a character, isn’t he?”
“I didn’t know he was into woodworking.”
“Well, I wouldn’t call what he’s doing woodworking. Furniture, yeah, but his stuff is more like sculpture. You know the Eames chair? Fancy like that, only hardwood instead of plywood. And not steamed. He’s doing a lot of carving.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“Yeah, I’m not explaining it very well. And I’ve never seen any of his pieces. Land’s quiet about it. He wants to get accepted into the juried show up there in Chilson, but the first time he said that, his buddies laughed at him. Now he keeps his lip zipped and he’s just doing it.”
“Good to know he’s okay,” I said, and thanked him for his time.
So Land was a closet fine woodworker. Was that enough to explain why he’d acted so oddly at the store? Was Rowan one of the people who’d laughed at him? Could he have possibly killed her to punish her for that?
Though it seemed outside the realm of possibility, killing anyone at all was hard to believe, but it happened on a regular basis.
After dropping Eddie at home, I headed straight to Rafe’s house, where his wide smile and huge hug lifted my spirits and made me forget about the sad possibilities that were all around.
* * *
• • •
Only one other table in the Red House Café was occupied the next morning when Aunt Frances and I came in, stomping our boots free of snow. We’d started the day with a simultaneous realization that neither one of us had remembered to buy milk.
“Hmm.” My aunt had eyed the contents of the refrigerator. “There are eggs. All the bacon is frozen, though.”
“Is it possible to have eggs without bacon?”
Aunt Frances frowned mightily. “Possible, I suppose. But it sounds sad and dreary.”
It did indeed. “If I were a good niece,” I’d said, “I’d volunteer to run out for milk. But since you don’t have to be to school until ten today, and I don’t have to be at the library until nine, how about going out for breakfast?”
And so, twenty minutes later, we arrived at the restaurant owned by Sunny Scoles. The other occupant of the dining area was an elderly man, who was sipping coffee and reading a newspaper. He looked as if he’d been there for a while and as if he intended to stay for quite some time. It also didn’t look as if he’d ordered anything except coffee. I hoped, for Sunny’s sake, that the restaurant was busier on weekends.
Unless she’d killed Rowan. Then the number of people who came to her restaurant wouldn’t matter a bit.
“What’s the matter?” Aunt Frances asked. “You look a little sad.”
I shook off the feeling. “Hungry,” I said. “Where would you like to sit?”
As my aunt aimed us toward a table for two directly underneath a light fixture crafted out of an old hand lantern, Sunny hurried in from the back.
“Sorry I took so long,” she said. “Let me get you some menus. Here you go. Would you like some . . .” She peered at me. “Weren’t you in here a week or two ago? Oatmeal with all the fixings.”
“That’s me. My aunt and I are looking for real food today, though.”
Sunny laughed. “Eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast?”
“That sounds heavenly,” Aunt Frances said. “I can’t think of the last time I had a full breakfast in a real restaurant.”
“Coffee first, though, please,” I said. At this point my morning had been caffeine-free and it wasn’t a condition I wished to continue.
“You got it.”
Sunny headed back to the kitchen and my aunt looked around, admiring the room. “This is fun,” she said. “How was the oatmeal you had?”
“Good. But, you know.”
“Still oatmeal.”
Aunt Frances made some comments about the location and how she hoped the food was good enough to make it a destination for folks. I nodded, but a large part of my brain was engaged in wondering why I didn’t want Sunny Scoles to be the one who’d killed Rowan.
Was it because I enjoyed the way she’d decorated her restaurant? Because my instinctive response to her was one of friendship? Because I didn’t want anyone who rejoiced in t
he name of Sunny to be a killer?
None of those were good reasons, but I had no others.
“And here you go, ladies!” Sunny poured coffee into our upturned mugs. “Do you need more time or are you ready to order?”
“Full breakfast for me,” Aunt Frances said. “Bacon, scrambled, sourdough, and hash browns a little crispy on the edges.”
“The only way to cook them.” Sunny turned to me. “What can I get you?”
But I was staring at the table’s small wire rack. “The last time I was here, you had another kind of sugar. It was maple flavored, wasn’t it?”
“It was,” Sunny said. “And really, really good.” She started to smile, but the happy expression hadn’t fully crossed her face before it faded. “It was expensive, though, so I only ordered a small batch. I put it out once a week on different days to track sugar use. Geeky, right?”
Yes, and it also sounded like something Kristen would do. I had high hopes for Sunny and her restaurant, and I didn’t in the least want her to be the killer. On the plus side, I had information on the sugar packets that Hal and Ash might find interesting. The availability of the sugar wasn’t as wide open as I’d thought, which had to narrow down something.
But there was still a big question: Why had Sunny inflated the numbers on her loan application? And with it came the even bigger question: Had Rowan’s denial of the loan incited Sunny to murder?
* * *
• • •
Aunt Frances and I went our separate ways after eating, both of our stomachs contentedly stuffed full of breakfasty yumminess. On our way out, my aunt took a stack of the business cards at the cash register and waggled them at Sunny.
“Old-school advertising,” she said, “in an old school. I love it. And I love your restaurant, so I will be spreading the news far and wide. Expect great things, young lady, because I’m sure they’re about to happen.”
Sunny’s smile looked a bit forced. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate that. Very, very much.”
Outside, my aunt looked back at the old red schoolhouse. “I meant what I said. Sunny has a great place there and I will spread the news and—oooff! What was that for?”
I released her from the hug I’d enveloped her in. “Because you’re a nice lady and I love you.”
She patted me on the head, which made me feel a little like Eddie. “Keep it up, favorite niece, and I might remember you in my will.”
“I’m your only niece, and you’ll probably outlive me.” At least I hoped she would. I didn’t want to think about a world that didn’t include Aunt Frances.
“We can only hope!” She waved, climbed into her ancient Jeep Cherokee, and headed off to the college.
I got into my sedate sedan and drove back to Chilson, strong-mindedly parking at the boardinghouse instead of the library. Walking was good for me, if I didn’t get frostbite. I popped inside to grab my backpack, which I’d already loaded with a lunch of potato chips and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and hunted around for Eddie.
“There you are.” I found him on the floor in my bedroom, between the bed and the outside wall. He was rolled mostly, but not all the way, onto his back and looked up at me with eyes barely open.
“Mrr,” he said, then yawned, showing me the unattractive roof of his mouth.
“Nice.” I reached down to rub his tummy. “See you later, pal, okay?”
“Mrr,” he said sleepily, and before I was out of the room, his purrs had turned into a snore.
I tried to shake away the nappy contagion of his yawns as I slid into my boots, then stepped outside. “Well, that did the trick,” I gasped as the cold hit me once again. Five minutes inside had let me forget how freaking cold it was. I cast one look at my still-warm car. So tempting. I girded myself to be brave and strong and marched myself in the direction of down-town.
Wind and winter and white swirled about me. I thought about Arctic expeditions and the White Witch and Jon Snow and was startled, just before I reached the main shopping blocks, when a voice called out. “Minnie! Do you have a minute?”
I blinked out of my book-induced reverie and found myself directly in front of the sheriff’s office staring at Detective Hal Inwood, who was standing half in and half out of the door. “Good morning!” I said. “You’re the exact person I wanted to talk to.”
“Not out here,” he said, looking down at his coat-less arms and boot-free feet. “Please not out here.”
Laughing, I followed him inside and into the interview room. “This morning,” I said, unzipping my coat, “Aunt Frances and I had breakfast at the Red House Café, the place Sunny Scoles owns—it’s outstanding, by the way, you should try it—and she had those maple sugar packets. But she only has them out on certain days, to help track sugar usage, so maybe that’s a . . .” I stopped talking, because though Hal seemed to be listening to me, he hadn’t pulled out his memo pad and he wasn’t taking any notes.
“You don’t think this is important?” I asked, trying to keep my expression neutral. “Maybe it won’t turn out to be, but shouldn’t you at least check it out?” I glanced into the hallway. Where was Ash? He was usually more sympathetic to my point of view than his staid and rule-bound superior.
“This is why I pulled you in out of the cold,” Hal said. “The test results on the sugar packet you found in Rowan Bennethum’s house have come back.”
“And what?” I asked. “Don’t keep me hanging. The suspense is . . . is making my blood pressure go up.”
“He doesn’t want to tell you,” Ash said, sitting in the chair next to his supervisor. “Morning, Minnie.”
“Tell me what?” I looked from one to the other. In the past, I’d been able to gauge what Ash was thinking, or at least what he was feeling, but not today.
Hal sighed. “There was nothing in that packet other than what should have been there. Not a single trace.”
I stared at him. Listened to my heart thud a few times. Heard my breaths go in and out. “They’re sure?” I whispered.
Ash nodded. “Double runs are standard,” he said. “They’re very sure.”
“Like sure sure?”
He flashed a short grin. “Lots of sure. There’s no room for doubt.”
I slumped down in the chair. How could that be? I’d been so sure. It was the only thing that made sense. What other reason was there for the packet to be in the kitchen at all? Hang on . . .
“Okay,” I said, sitting up straight. “Maybe it didn’t have poison, but someone brought that sugar packet into the house.” My words tumbled over each other as I tried to explain. “It couldn’t have been Rowan, because she didn’t touch the stuff. And it couldn’t have been a family member, because Rowan was the only one in the house, and she would have picked up an empty sugar packet left by the kids or Neil. Where else could it have come from if not the killer?”
Ash glanced at Hal, then said, “It could have come from lots of people. The mail carrier, if he’d dropped off a package and she’d invited him in. Or a neighbor.”
I opened my mouth, about to point out that those things could be checked, when Hal put in his two cents.
“It could have been dropped by a friend. Or caught on the bottom of a boot and brought into the house by Ms. Bennethum herself.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said flatly. “All those scenarios are. You didn’t know Rowan. She wouldn’t have missed seeing something like that sugar packet. She just wouldn’t have.”
But no matter how much I argued, they wouldn’t budge from their opinion, and five minutes later I was out on the street, face to the wind and fuming.
How could they not understand the importance of that stupid packet, poison or no?
And more important, how was I going to make them see?
Chapter 12
The only noise at our table was the light tink of two knives and two for
ks against plates. Rafe and I were at City Park Grill in Petoskey, enjoying a quiet dinner. A very quiet dinner. We’d been mostly silent on the drive, silent while ordering and waiting for our food, and now we were being quiet while eating. This needed to stop, so I said the first thing that popped into my head.
“Remember Giuseppe’s?” I asked, naming an Italian restaurant in Charlevoix that had been closed for years. “I still miss their pasta.”
“What?” Rafe looked up. “Oh. Yeah. Me, too. But I hear the new place there is good.”
I nodded, but since there didn’t seem to be anything else to add, I turned my attention back to my food. Sort of. Part of me was wondering why Rafe was being so quiet—I hadn’t honestly known he could be—but most of my focus was on something else altogether, as it had been since that morning.
How could Hal and Ash not understand? How could it be that something so obviously important was scoffed at as unworthy by those two? Was it because they were men and not accustomed to proper cleaning procedures?
I didn’t want to think so. After all, Ash had lived on his own for years and his apartment had always seemed, if not cozy and welcoming, at least tidy. And Hal was a detective with thirty-odd years of experience. Surely he’d come across cases that were solved on evidence weirder than a sugar packet.
And it’s important! I thought, sawing at my meat fiercely. What would I have to do to make them understand?
“Keep that up and you’ll need a spoon to eat,” Rafe said.
“What?” I looked down at my plate and recognized that the pork was already in pieces small enough to feed a toddler. “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking about something else.” Then, since I didn’t want him to ask what the something was, I said, “You’ve been quiet tonight. Did you do something stupid that you’re now regretting?”
Since Rafe and I had known each other for years, our new and wonderfully more intimate relationship was starting with the behavioral patterns we’d established when we’d first met as kids, which was to say whatever we felt like without thinking too much about consequences.