Pouncing on Murder

by Laurie Cass

  Praise for the National Bestselling Bookmobile Cat Mysteries

  “Charming. . . . Librarian Minnie Hamilton is kindhearted, loyal, and resourceful. And her furry sidekick, Eddie, is equal parts charm and cat-titude. Fans of cozy mysteries—and cats—will want to add this series to their must-read lists.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Sofie Kelly

  “With humor and panache, Cass delivers an intriguing mystery and interesting characters.”

  —Bristol Herald Courier (VA)

  “A pleasurable, funny read. Minnie is a delight as a heroine, and Eddie could make even a staunch dog lover more of a cat fan.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Charms with a likable heroine, [a] feisty and opinionated cat, and multidimensional small-town characters.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Almost impossible to put down . . . the story is filled with humor and warmth.”

  —MyShelf.com

  “At times laugh-out-loud funny, at other times touching, while many other times are fraught with hair-raising events.”

  —Open Book Society

  “A quick, fun, delightful read. You won’t want to put it down until the very last page!”

  —Reader to Reader . . .

  “This delightfully charming whodunit is a welcome addition to the cozy genre . . . a terrific read.”

  —Dru’s Book Musings

  “A pleasant read. . . . [Minnie is] a spunky investigator.”

  —Gumshoe

  Also by Laurie Cass

  Lending a Paw

  Tailing a Tabby

  Borrowed Crime

  OBSIDIAN

  Published by New American Library,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is an original publication of New American Library.

  Copyright © Janet Koch, 2015

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Obsidian and the Obsidian colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about Penguin Random House, visit penguin.com.

  ISBN 978-0-698-40549-3

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise

  Also by Laurie Cass

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Excerpt from Cat with a Clue

  To Jon. Always. FYI, this is your fifth dedication. Not that it’s a contest or anything.

  Chapter 1

  Throughout the long winter, I’d often dreamed about the month of April. It would be warm, I’d thought. Sunny. There would be baby lambs and fluffy white clouds and daffodils and we’d be able to walk outside without boots and hats and thick coats and mittens.

  In the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, however, the reality of April was a little different.

  I switched on the bookmobile’s windshield wipers. They groaned as they tried to move against the slush spattering the glass, but inch by inch they gained speed and finally arced across, shoving the white stuff away.

  “Remember the April eight years ago?” Julia Beaton asked. There was an element of wistfulness in her expressive voice.

  “Nope,” I said cheerfully. “This is only my fourth spring in Chilson.” I’d spent many a youthful summer with my aunt Frances, but I hadn’t lived in Chilson until I’d had the great good fortune to be offered the job of assistant director at the Chilson District Library. The decision had taken less than a second to make.

  A job in my favorite place in the world? In a region teeming with lakes of all sizes, in a land of forested hills, in a small town filled with outstanding restaurants and eccentrically original retail stores, and in a library building lovingly converted from an old school? Sure, there was winter to deal with, a season that could last a solid five months, but I loved to ski, so where was the downside?

  “It was the best April in the history of Aprils.” Julia sighed. “The April to beat all Aprils.”

  “No snow?” I nodded at falling flakes.

  “None whatsoever,” she said dreamily, rearranging her long strawberry blond hair into a loose bun. “Blue skies, warm air. It was a page from Anne of Green Gables.”

  Right then and there I decided there was nothing better than a coworker who knew the same children’s books that you did. Julia was the perfect bookmobile clerk and I would be forever grateful to my aunt for finding her for me.

  Back in December, the library had received a large donation to fund the bookmobile operations. The gift had almost made me weep with gratitude. Chilson’s bookmobile was my pet project, which meant it was my responsibility to find the money to run the program. Once the check cleared, I’d immediately started the hunt for a part-time bookmobile clerk, and the sixtyish Julia had been my happy hire.

  Born and raised in Chilson, she’d moved to New York City right out of high school to find fame and fortune as a fashion model. That particular career path hadn’t worked out, but her fallback career as an actor had worked out just fine. She’d found a satisfying amount of Broadway fame, saved her money, and waved good-bye to the bright lights as soon as the offers of leading roles slowed to a trickle. These days she taught an acting class at the local college, turned down every community theater role offered to her, and was always looking for ways to expend her considerable energy.

  My aunt Frances, who taught woodworking classes at the same college, had made a paper airplane of the clerk’s job description and sailed it into her classroom. Julia, one eyebrow raised, had unfolded the paper and scanned the text. When she started to nod, Aunt Frances had smiled and walked away, dusting off her hands at a job well done.

  Now I grinned, not taking my attention off the road. “If you don’t like winter, maybe you should consider moving to Hawaii.”

  “Winter I like just fine,” she said. “It’s April that’s the trouble. No matter what temperature it is, you always want a little bit more.” She sighed, then looked at the large plastic carrier snugged up next to her feet. “What does Eddie think about April?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Julia leaned forward, looking into the cat carrier through the wire door. “Good morning, young sir. How do you feel about the current weather conditions of cold, slushy, and wind tossed?”

  “Mrr,” said my black-and-white tabby cat.

  Eddie and I had been together for almost a year. It had been an unseasonably
warm day last April that lured me from inside chores to a long walk outside that ended at the local cemetery. Which sounds odd, but this particular cemetery had an outstanding view of Janay Lake and beyond to the bulk of the massive Lake Michigan.

  While relaxing in the sun on a bench next to the gravestone of one Alonzo Tillotson (born 1847, died 1926), I was startled by the appearance of a large black-and-gray cat. He’d followed me home, where I’d cleaned him up as best I could, turning him black-and-white. I had responsibly run an ad in the newspaper and had been relieved when no one claimed him. Because of my father’s allergies, I’d grown up without pets. Eddie, who my vet estimated was now roughly three years old, was my first pet, and I wasn’t sure how I’d ever lived without my opinionated pal.

  There’d been a little issue when my new boyfriend turned out to be allergic to cats, but after trying a series of various medications, he’d found one that worked just fine. Then again, since we were now in the midst of a long-distance relationship, he had probably let the prescription lapse. I made a mental note to send a text to remind him.

  “Eddie,” Julia told my furry friend, “you must learn how to enunciate more clearly. Theatergoers in the top rows will never grasp your nuances unless you work on the consonants.”

  “Mrr!”

  Julia sighed and settled back. “He does not take advice well, does he?”

  The interviewing process for the bookmobile job had included a tour of the bookmobile and an introduction to Eddie, because Eddie had been part of the bookmobile from the beginning. He’d stowed away on the maiden voyage and quickly become an integral part of the services we offered. Books, magazines, DVDs, video games, and Eddie hair, not necessarily in that order.

  For months I’d felt the need to hide the feline presence on the bookmobile from my follow-the-policy-or-else boss, Stephen Rangel, but it turned out that Stephen had known about Eddie’s adventures from the beginning.

  I really should have known better.

  And I really should have known to stop interviewing after I’d talked to Julia. She was the best candidate for many reasons—and had the bonus of being eight inches taller than five-foot-nothing me, making the job of reshelving the top rows of books easy to delegate—but the buttercream frosting was how she’d immediately started talking to Eddie in the same way I did, which was as if he understood what we were saying.

  We agreed that this was ridiculous, of course, but there were times when his comprehension of human speech seemed to go far beyond his name and the word “no.” Not that he paid any attention to either, but the twitching of his ears proved that he heard us.

  “Cats aren’t big on taking advice,” I said. “They’d much rather give it.”

  I flicked on the turn signal and started braking. It was time for our first stop of the morning, in the parking lot of what had originally been a gas station and was now a . . . well, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. A store, sure, but a store that defied description. The owner stocked everything from apples to taxidermy supplies. On the surface, it fit the definition of an old-fashioned general store, but there was also a corner with tables, copies of the Wall Street Journal, and free Wi-Fi.

  “General stores don’t stock the Wall Street Journal,” I muttered, bringing the bookmobile to a stop.

  Julia laughed. “Wake up and smell the twenty-first century, Minnie Hamilton.”

  I pretended to sniff the air, then frowned, shaking my head. “I like my stereotypes and I’m going to keep them.”

  “Mrr,” Eddie said.

  “You two are quite the pair.” Julia unbuckled her seat belt and reached forward to open the wire door. “There you go, Mr. Edward. You are free to move about the bookmobile.”

  “Mrr.”

  “You’re very welcome,” she replied.

  Julia and I fired up the two computers, emptied the milk crates we used to haul books from the library to the bookmobile, un-bungeed the chair at the rear desk, and unlocked the doors. Eddie watched our activity from his current favorite perch, the driver’s seat headrest, and made the occasional critical comment.

  “What do you think he’s saying?” Julia, who was straightening the large-print books, cast a glance Eddie-ward.

  I didn’t need to look to know. “That he wants a cat treat.”

  “Maybe,” she said in the tone indicating she was about to get creative, “he’s saying that every day is a gift. That today, especially, is a gift and we should—”

  The back door opened, and a few sturdy-sounding footsteps later a man came into view. Henry Gill could have been a young-looking eighty or an old-looking sixty, but with his bald head, fit frame, and almost complete crankiness, he was one of those people you just didn’t think of in terms of age.

  “Good morning, Henry,” I said.

  The look he gave as his return greeting made me wonder if my hair, which was black, shoulder-length, and far too curly, had gone up in flames without my noticing.

  Eddie gave Henry a long visual examination, then jumped off the headrest and trotted down the aisle. He bonked Henry’s shin with the top of his hard, furry head, then started twining around his ankles in the feline-standard figure eight.

  Henry reached down and gave Eddie a few pets. Then, when he realized I was watching, he stood up. “Doesn’t do to make cats too happy,” he muttered. “Next thing you know you’ll be feeding them bits of prime rib by hand.”

  I grinned. Henry was undoubtedly a curmudgeon, but he liked cats, and Eddie appeared to like him back, so it was easy for me to overlook his cranky attitude and see down to the man underneath, a man I liked quite a bit.

  “You have an excellent point,” I said. “If you’re in the market for biographies again today, there’s a new Theodore Roosevelt you might like.”

  Henry grunted, but didn’t nod, so I wasn’t sure whether he’d said, “Why, yes, Minnie, that sounds wonderful. Thank you for being such an outstanding librarian” or “Whatever.” I gave a mental shrug and left Henry alone, or as alone as you can leave someone in a bookmobile.

  Other people came on board, and the time passed quickly. Julia and I were kept busy with helping people find books and checking them out, and at the end of the forty-five-minute stop, Henry was the last patron to leave.

  I checked his books into the computer and slid them back across the counter to him. “Would you like a plastic bag?”

  He picked up the books without answering, then put them back down again. “Here,” he said shortly and, reaching into his coat pockets with both hands, he drew out two brown paper bags and handed them to me. “For you and her,” he said, tipping his head toward Julia, then picked up his books and tromped down the steps and outside.

  “What are those?” Julia asked.

  “No idea.”

  “Everyone says Henry Gill has turned a little strange since his wife died,” Julia said, not opening her bag. “Rock, paper, scissors to who opens theirs first?”

  Patrons bearing questionable gifts were something no one had warned me about in college. Before I could scare myself into imagining what could lurk inside, I opened the bag, reached in, and drew out a Mason jar filled with a golden liquid.

  “Oh, my.” Julia’s voice carried reverence and awe. “It’s maple syrup. I take back every unkind thought I ever had about that man.”

  I held the jar up to the light, admiring the liquid gold, and, once again, came up against the reality that we never really know what goes on inside people’s heads. Henry as a maple syrup Santa? “Who would have guessed?” I murmured.

  “What’s that?” Julia asked.

  “Henry,” I said. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like him.”

  She nodded. “He could have made a fortune as a character actor. Never would have gone a day without work.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said, laughing, although I couldn’t imagine Henry living anywhere but northern Michigan.

  “Oh, I am. He has that sparkle.” She used her fingers to make
imaginary fireworks. “It’s hidden, but he has a hard kernel of personality that is bedrock and unchanging. A good director would draw that out of him in two rehearsals.”

  “So you’ve thought about this.”

  “I cast everyone I meet,” she said. “Occupational hazard.”

  “Even him?” I nodded in Eddie’s direction. At that particular moment he was curling himself up onto the computer keyboard, and I made a mental note to vacuum it at the earliest opportunity.

  “Eddie is the levity that every drama needs,” she said. “The humor that allows the tragedy to be felt deeper. The dose of reality in every fantasy.”

  I walked away before she could cover every type of play in existence. Eddie as everyman? Please.

  My cat lifted his head an inch, met my gaze, and winked.

  • • •

  The next morning, I settled into my office chair, a steaming mug of coffee in hand. I absolutely had to talk to Stephen, and to do that, I needed to be fortified by copious amounts of caffeine.

  Stephen, in many ways, was an excellent boss. He laid out concrete goals, he made his expectations known, and he didn’t micromanage. However, his goals were usually impossible to meet, the expectations nearly so, and his support skills were of the “Don’t bother me unless the sky is falling” variety.

  The current situation was typical. Back in December, one week after Stephen had told me that he was grooming me to take over his job when he retired, he’d summoned me to the second floor. Stephen’s was the only office up there; the rest of the floor held conference rooms, a computer training lab, storage, and the Friends of the Library book sale room. Stephen’s corner office had a stupendous view of Janay Lake, and it stayed warm even in the buffeting winds of winter, thanks to thick curtains and a radiant heater, but I found it a lonely place.

  “Ah, Minnie,” he’d said as I’d walked in that December. “It’s time to start thinking about a book fair.”

  I’d blinked at him. “A book fair?”

  “Yes.” He’d frowned. “Surely you know what a book fair is.”

  Of course I did. I’d just never heard of one being held in Chilson.