Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery

by Laurie Cass

  The library was quiet and dark when I arrived early on Monday morning, and first thing, even before starting up my computer, I called the garage for the bad news.

  “Ah, it’s not so bad,” Darren said. “Nothing structural—just a little body work. And it won’t take much to patch up those bullet holes.” He paused. “You’re all right, right?”

  His concern made my eyes sting a bit. “I’m fine,” I said. And I would be. Denise was safe, Eddie was safe, and the bookmobile would live to ride again. Somewhere, anyway.

  I thanked Darren and looked at the number on my e-mail’s in-box with disfavor. How, exactly, could I have received seventy-three e-mails since leaving the library on Friday? Once again, I patted myself on the back for making a firm vow to never check library e-mail when I wasn’t working. I could have, sure, but why? There wasn’t much that happened at a library than needed instant attention.

  Then again, seventy-three e-mails . . .

  I pushed back my chair and stood. This required coffee. Maybe even Kelsey coffee. With a mug or two under my belt, I’d be ready to tackle anything.

  But before the coffee was done brewing, the entire library staff was in the break room, all wanting to know what happened on Saturday, all with twisted stories of what they’d heard had happened.

  “Denise got shot, is what the guys at the Round Table were saying,” Josh said.

  “The poor bookmobile!” Kelsey was almost crying. “I heard it was totaled!”

  “What about Eddie?” Donna asked, her face creased with concern. “No one’s said anything about him. Is he okay?”

  Holly looked me up and down. “Someone told me you were in the hospital, in the ICU, but that was probably wrong.”

  I grinned at her. “Probably,” I said and, for no reason other than the fact that I was surrounded by friends who cared about me, my dark mood lifted and the metaphorical sun came out.

  Then came the voice of doom: “Minerva.”

  My compatriots froze solid. “Good morning, Stephen,” I said cheerfully. In the past two days I’d almost destroyed the bookmobile, faced down a stone-cold killer, and edged away from an uncomfortable situation with Ash Wolverson into what might be friendship. There was nothing Stephen could do that would topple me.

  “Upstairs,” he said tersely. “Now.”

  As soon as the door shut behind him, my good friends started chattering about the pending possibilities.

  “Is he going to fire you?” Kelsey asked.

  “If he does,” Josh said, “can I have your office?”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Holly scolded him. “Stephen would never fire Minnie. She’s too important.”

  Unfortunately, I was old enough to know that everyone was expendable. “Only the library board can fire me,” I said. But I hoped now that everything was out in the open, they wouldn’t. After all, with Allison in jail, Tammy’s lawsuit couldn’t be valid. Then again, what did I know about the law? Reading Scott Turow’s books wasn’t exactly the equivalent of a law degree.

  “Oh . . .” Donna said. We all turned to look at her. The sound she’d made had been almost one of pain.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  She wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Yesterday morning,” she said, picking invisible lint off her sweater, “I drove past the library on the way to church. There were a bunch of cars in the parking lot, and I couldn’t figure it out until I saw Otis Rahn come into church a little late.”

  The room spun in a fast, whirling circle, and I put my hand on the wall to steady myself.

  “The board met on a Sunday morning?” Kelsey whispered.

  As one unit, they all turned to look at me, but I didn’t look at them. Didn’t want to see their pity, or hear their worry or anything at all except normal library complaints about recalcitrant software and mistakenly shelved books. “I’d better get going,” I murmured, and headed upstairs in Stephen’s wake.

  When I entered his office, Stephen was standing at one of the windows, looking out across the snow-whitened rooftops of downtown Chilson.

  “Ah, Minerva,” he said without turning around. “Please sit down.”

  No way was I going to sit while he was still on his feet. If I was going to get fired, I’d take it standing tall. All sixty inches of me, which always sounded taller than five feet.

  “I have a number of things to discuss.” Stephen tilted his head. “Four, to be exact. Number one.” He held out the index finger of one hand. “Due to our phone conversation on Saturday, I called an emergency meeting of the library board. We met yesterday morning, and, as you might be able to imagine, we had a number of issues on the agenda.”

  “Yes,” I said quietly. “I can imagine.”

  “With such a decided resolution to the dangers threatening the bookmobile, the board reached a quick consensus regarding the vehicle’s future.” He paused and turned slightly. Not enough to make eye contact with me, but that was nothing new. “The bookmobile itself has a future, correct?” he asked. “With regard to its physical condition?”

  I told him what Darren had said, and he went back to staring out the window.

  “The board has no issues,” he said, “with the continuance of the bookmobile program. Ms. Shelburt has dropped her lawsuit against the library.”

  “That’s great.” Happiness and relief rushed through me. “But I still need to find funding for it.”

  Stephen shook his head, and my propped-up spirits started falling again. He sighed. “Minerva, don’t you read your e-mail?”

  My chin went up. “Of course I do. It’s the first thing I do every workday, and the last thing I do before I leave at night.”

  “But you don’t check your e-mail on your days off.”

  He made it a statement, and my chin went up even farther. “No,” I said firmly. “I do not. I’m salaried. I work at least sixty hours a week, and when I leave this building, I’m done working until I come back to the building. I resent the implication that I’m not working hard enough, and if that’s what you—”

  Stephen turned to face me and I stopped midstream, because he was . . . well, he was smiling. “Minnie, you amuse me.”

  “I . . . do?”

  “If you’d read your e-mail, you would have learned that the auction of Russell McCade’s artwork, the proceeds of which are coming to the library, fetched an astronomical price. One of the highest prices ever for one of his works.”

  “Highest?”

  Stephen nodded and was still smiling when he told me the number. Which was when I did sit down. Cade’s broken phone call and his excitement suddenly made sense. When he’d talked about a “thousand dollars” that was just the tail end of the six-figure amount that was going to the library.

  Only . . . what else had he said? I looked at my boss, not wanting to know but having to ask. “Is there a problem with the donation? Cade called Friday, but the connection was bad, and I could have sworn he said something about ‘not the library.’”

  Stephen went back to the window. “Apparently Mr. McCade has used his powers of persuasion to convince the family to donate the proceeds not to the library, but to”—he paused—“the bookmobile. That’s the second item I wanted to discuss.”

  Though I was already sitting down, I wanted to sit down again.

  “The library world,” Stephen went on, “is buzzing with the news. I’m surprised you haven’t received phone calls about this.”

  Not yet, but I had received seventy-three e-mails.

  “The Chilson District Library,” he said to the window, “is becoming a library of note, and I have to say that you, Minnie, are primarily responsible.” He gestured toward his desk. “I’ve received a letter of support for the bookmobile from an Andrew Burrows, a kindergarten teacher at Moulson Elementary, I believe. It is signed by sixty-two people.”

  I op
ened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  “The library board and I have received numerous such comments. Each of the letters, phone calls, and e-mails we’ve received speak of you and the bookmobile in great and glowing terms.”

  Stephen was passing on compliments? Who was this man, and what had he done with my boss?

  “This leads me to the third item.” He folded his arms and rubbed his chin. “You may not be aware, and as a matter of fact, I quite hope you’re not, but I’ve been grooming you to be the next library director.”

  I squeaked, but Stephen kept rolling.

  “Not for five years and ten months, of course, which is when I anticipate that my retirement savings will reach my target amount, but it’s never too early to start training your successor, not if you want your institution to be properly run after you’re gone.”

  Properly? I almost snorted.

  “The reason,” he said, “that I’ve been so hard on you the past year was to test you, to see if you have the right stuff. The library board will, of course, make the final decision, but at this point I can say with certainty that the job is yours.”

  He’d been testing me? The nights I’d worked late, the hair I’d pulled out, the off-hours research I’d done, all in the name of meeting one of Stephen’s challenges—all that had been a test?

  My chin went up again, but slowly it came down. Maybe testing me had been a good way to determine my suitability. There were worse ways. Probably.

  “I can see that you’re surprised,” Stephen said, which was when I realized he’d been watching my facial expressions in the window’s reflection. “There’s no need for you to make a decision at this juncture, but after all you’ve done for this library, I thought it reasonable to inform you of my plans.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured. “This is a lot to think about.”

  “I understand.” Stephen pulled out his chair. “If you have any questions, feel free to ask.”

  As if. I thanked him again and started to stand.

  “Oh, and Minnie. The fourth thing?”

  “Yes?”

  He smiled faintly. “Your cat. I know all about him.”

  “My cat?” I froze, half-up and half-down.

  “Eddie, I believe his name is.” Stephen straightened his computer monitor. “I’ve known he was on the bookmobile from the first week.” He chuckled. “Did you really think I didn’t know what was going on?”

  “Oh. I . . . uh . . .”

  “Minerva.” Stephen sighed. “If you’re ever going to sit behind this desk, you really need to learn to speak more coherently. Please work on that.”

  “Yes, sir.” I stood and, on extremely wobbly legs, I made my way back downstairs, where my friends were waiting for me.

  Chapter 20

  “So, the bookmobile is financially safe and sound?” Aunt Frances asked.

  I beamed at her. “Thanks to Cade’s painting. It’s not enough to create an endowment, but it’ll keep us on the road for a long time.” My heart sang with happiness at the idea.

  “And Stephen has known about Eddie all along?” Aunt Frances asked.

  Or that’s what I assumed she asked, because she was talking while her mouth was full of popcorn. Bad aunt.

  For the twenty-first time in the last three minutes, I pushed Eddie’s head away from the popcorn bowl. “That’s what he said.”

  I still found it hard to believe. If he’d known the whole time, why hadn’t he just said so? I’d spent a lot of energy trying to keep Eddie’s bookmobile presence a secret. If I’d known that Stephen had known, I’d have put that time to better use. Maybe I would have finally finished reading James Joyce’s Ulysses. Probably not, but maybe.

  “So Eddie and the bookmobile will ride again.” Aunt Frances reached out, pushed Eddie’s head away, and took another handful of popcorn. “I couldn’t have managed it better myself.” She gave me a wink.

  I smiled, but it faded as I studied the fire, its orange peaks dancing. Most of what had happened had been luck, both good and bad. Good that funding for the bookmobile had dropped from the sky, but horribly bad for poor Roger.

  “Mrr.” Eddie bumped my elbow on his way across my lap.

  “Hey!” I pulled his head out of the popcorn bowl. Time twenty-two. “That’s not for Eddies.”

  He gave me a disgusted look and slithered up onto the back of the couch.

  “Allison Korthase.” Aunt Frances shook her head. “She had so much potential.”

  She’d had it all, as far as I could tell. Intelligence, beauty, money—yet that hadn’t been enough for her. She’d wanted more, much more, and had murdered to get it.

  Eddie bumped me on the back of the head. Absently, I reach up to pet him, wishing that I’d been smart enough to figure out before Roger had been killed that Allison had had the capacity for murder. How, I didn’t know, but if, for instance, I’d known that—

  “Hey!” I saw Eddie’s white-tipped paw snaking down to the popcorn bowl. I batted it away. “This is not cat food. Your bowl is in the kitchen.”

  He turned around and sat on the back of the couch with his hind end against my head.

  Aunt Frances laughed. “You should see his face.”

  “Oh, I have a good idea of what it looks like.” If Eddie had the power to disintegrate me on sight, I would have been a small heap of powder months ago. “You know what else Stephen said?”

  My aunt did the one-eyebrow thing. “About the bookmobile or about Eddie?”

  “Neither,” I said, then reconsidered. “Or maybe both.”

  Aunt Frances looked at my cat. “It’s a pity she can’t be more clear.”

  “Mrr,” he said.

  “Do you want to hear or not?” I asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  “Mrr.”

  So I told them about Stephen’s not-so-imminent retirement and about his plans for my future.

  “You don’t sound overly excited,” Aunt Frances said.

  I plunged my hand into the popcorn. Becoming a library director had been my career goal for years. In college, I’d often fallen asleep while dreaming about the library I’d one day direct. Even since moving to Chilson, I’d thought about the changes I might make as director. But in the past year, I hadn’t thought about it much. Hardly at all, as a matter of fact.

  “I’m not sure,” I said slowly, “that I want to be library director, if it means giving up the bookmobile.”

  Eddie’s tail thumped against the back of my head.

  “You are so weird,” I told him.

  “Well.” My aunt used the napkin on her lap to wipe her fingers clean of butter. “You don’t have to make the decision today.”

  “Not even this month.”

  “So no need to worry, right?”

  “None.”

  “Then I say it’s a perfect time to pop another bowl of popcorn. Just because it’s Monday night doesn’t mean we shouldn’t celebrate.” She stood. “Eddie, you staying or coming with?”

  A furry tail whacked my ear.

  She squinted. “Was there an answer in there somewhere?”

  “Only if you want one.”

  She snorted. “You two are a match made in heaven. No, don’t get up. This way, I get to use as much salt as I want.”

  Eddie slid down to my lap. “How nice to see you,” I said. “It’s been so long.”

  He rotated one and a half times and settled on my left leg. “Why can’t you spread yourself more evenly?” I asked. “You know your weight is going to cut off all circulation to my leg in ten minutes. Do you want me to have to lop off my toes?”

  Eddie looked partway up to me and opened his mouth in a soundless “Mrr.”

  “Okay, you’re right. I might have been exaggerating a teensy bit.”

  He settled onto my lap a lit
tle deeper and started purring. Yet another argument won by the cat.

  Aunt Frances laughed and picked up the empty bowl. “Back in a minute.”

  I gave Eddie long strokes along his back and thought about what Detective Inwood had told me that afternoon when he’d called.

  “She’s made a full confession,” he’d said, satisfaction oozing out of every word. “A couple of nights in jail, and she was ready to tell everything.”

  Allison had told him that she’d used snowshoes to get to the spot where she’d shot Roger, and she’d admitted to tampering with Denise’s car. “Her intention,” the detective said dryly, “was to cut the brake lines, but she knows nothing about cars. She just popped the hood and stabbed at the biggest hose, figuring it was so big because it was important, and what could be more important than brakes?”

  I’d frowned. “Why didn’t she get on the ground and cut the lines from down there?”

  “Because,” he said, “Ms. Korthase had just left a meeting. She said she was dressed in dry-clean-only pants and didn’t want to get them dirty.”

  The detective then told me that Allison had been following Denise’s tweets and Facebook posts all Saturday. She’d cross-referenced those with the bookmobile schedule I’d posted on the library’s Web site and had calculated when we’d be at the road washout.

  “The road commission had put up a Road Closed barrier,” Detective Inwood said, “but she dragged it out of the way just before you came along.”

  “I’m glad no one else drove down that road while the barrier was gone.” I winced at the idea. “Someone could really have been hurt.”

  “Yes,” the detective said, his dry tone back in full force. “Someone could have.” There was a slight pause. “It was becoming clear that the evidence we’d been gathering against the hunter wasn’t going to be sufficient for prosecution. In all honesty, we were at a loss for new suspects.”