Pouncing on Murder

by Laurie Cass

  “Book fairs,” Stephen had gone on, “are events held to promote the sale of books. Publishers, booksellers, and authors all come together. There can be author readings, contests, prizes, giveaways, story hours, any number of things to promote books and reading.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. Every time I turned around, it seemed, I heard about another new small regional publisher. If the pace kept up, soon there’d be as many small publishers in the area as brewpubs. Plus, the region was blessed with a large number of outstanding bookstores, and there were authors everywhere, especially in summer, when the seasonal folks returned.

  “Early May,” Stephen had said, nodding. “That’s when we’ll hold it.”

  Two of those words had jumped out at me like an alien in a 3-D movie: “May,” and “we.” Both held dire implications.

  “Early May?” I’d asked. “There’s no one around that time of year. A summer book fair would have ten times the number of people attending.”

  “Don’t exaggerate, Minerva,” Stephen had said. “And you illustrate the point of a spring fair perfectly. Yes, more people would, perhaps, attend a fair in the summer months. But I want, and the library board wants, to hold an event that will bring locals to the library, people who wouldn’t otherwise walk in.”

  It had sounded reasonable, but I didn’t quite buy it. “Why would anyone walk in to buy a book on one particular day when they can walk in any old day to borrow a book for free?”

  Stephen had checked the knot in his tie. “Because Ross Weaver will be here.” He’d glanced at my face and chuckled. “Ross is a high school friend of mine. We’ve kept in touch over the years and when I told him I was considering a book fair, he said he’d be happy to make a public appearance.”

  At that point I’d realized my mouth had been hanging open. I shut it and wondered at the world. Ross Weaver was the author of twenty bestselling thrillers. He was good-looking enough to be cast as his own main character and by all reports was a genuinely nice guy. The notion that Ross Weaver was friends with my boss, who would always be cast as the nerdy guy who never gets the girl, was going to take some mental adjustment on my part.

  “That’s . . . great,” I’d finally said.

  “Yes.” Stephen had handed me a piece of paper. “Here’s an outline of what needs to be done.”

  The full import of the conversation had finally hit the inside of my brain. “You want to hold the book fair here at the library,” I’d said slowly. “Five months from now. And you want me to plan the entire thing.”

  Stephen had sighed. “You must break that habit of exaggeration, Minerva. I’ve given you the date, the location, and an author who will draw hundreds, if not thousands, of people to the event. The rest should almost take care of itself.”

  Spoken like a man. I looked at the list he’d given me. He’d included the names of a handful of publishers and booksellers.

  “That will give you a start,” he’d said, reaching for his computer keyboard. “If you ever want to sit in this chair, Minnie, you must delegate. You can’t do everything yourself. It’s past time for you to learn how to manage a project properly.”

  I’d put on a smile and walked downstairs. When I reached my cozy office, the paper was a crumpled ball in my fist. I’d taken a deep breath, then another one, and pushed my thoughts back where they belonged. Back to books and libraries and bookmobiles and away from the idea of using Stephen’s tie to . . .

  “Never mind,” I’d said out loud, tossing the small paper ball into the wastebasket. I’d thumped myself into my chair, pulled out a yellow legal pad of paper, and started my own list.

  Now it was April. The book fair was edging ever closer, and it was time to update my boss on the progress. I looked over my notes, picked up the three-inch ring binder that contained said notes, slugged down the last of my coffee, and headed up to Stephen’s aerie.

  “Ah, Minnie.” Stephen was taking off his coat. It was three minutes past nine and I’d caught him dead to rights at being late. It was an excellent way to start our meeting. “How are you this morning?” he asked as he sat behind his large desk.

  I smiled politely. “Fine, thanks. Do you have a few minutes? I’d like to update you on the book fair plans.”

  “Yes, that’s coming up soon, isn’t it?”

  “Five weeks, two days, and one hour,” I said promptly.

  Stephen laughed, but it was laughter that had a crinkly edge. “Are you sure you want to spend your time calculating that figure?”

  I’d made it up, but there wasn’t much point in telling him so. Stephen and my sense of humor weren’t compatible. I placed a pile of stapled papers on the corner of his desk. “These are for the next board meeting. It’s an update on the book fair.”

  Stephen eyed the stack. “Does it include financials?”

  Of course it did. And none of the contents would be a surprise to Stephen. Early on in the event’s planning, I’d handed him an estimate of the cost. His eyes had gone wide, and for a short happy moment, I’d thought he might cancel the whole kit and caboodle. But even as he’d been frowning at the bottom line, his face took on a glazed look and I knew he was running calculations in his head. He’d rearranged a few line items in the budget, told me to cut the event costs by ten percent, and waved me away.

  After a few minutes of fuming, I’d come to the obvious conclusion that it was my job to make the fair a successful event that didn’t drain the library’s resources. So I’d obtained multiple estimates for every large purchase. I’d driven down to Traverse City to pick up items and combined the trip with personal chores so I didn’t charge the library mileage. I’d asked for business donations. I’d asked for sponsors. I’d begged for free advertising.

  And somewhere along the line, I’d become a passionate believer in the whole thing. Why not hold a book fair in May? Why not bring new folks to the library? It was an outstanding idea and I was grateful to have the chance to show off our beautiful building to new people.

  Now, standing in front of my boss, I was practically bouncing on my toes with energy and enthusiasm. “Here’s what’s left to do,” I said to Stephen, and launched into a lengthy narrative that started with confirming the number of vendor tables we needed to rent.

  Stephen’s eyes glazed over halfway through my recital, but my zeal carried me to the end. He blinked when I finished, then stirred and asked, “Have you considered a location for overflow parking?”

  Of course I had. I’d figured that out weeks ago. “If the back parking area fills up”—which it never did, but whatever—“I have permission from the Methodist church to use their lot.”

  My boss nodded, his attention drifting to the magazine on his desk. “And you have a plan if the weather is rainy? Or cold?”

  “The tents have side panels,” I said. “With them pulled shut, everything inside will stay dry and with people inside, it’ll stay relatively warm.”

  “Sounds as if you have everything in hand.” Stephen put on his reading glasses and picked up his magazine. “Thank you for the update.”

  Clearly I was dismissed. Since I hadn’t been invited to sit down, I didn’t have to stand up; all I had to do was walk out of the room. So I did. When I got downstairs, I dropped the binder on my desk and picked up my favorite mug, which was emblazoned with the perky logo of the Association of Bookmobiles and Outreach Services, and went in search of more coffee.

  The break room was occupied by my best library friends, Holly Terpening and Josh Hadden. Holly was a couple of years older than my thirty-three and Josh was a couple of years younger, and we’d all been hired by Stephen about the same time, Holly as a clerk, Josh as the library’s IT guy.

  Holly was married to a man who had a wonderful job over a thousand miles away. He came home to his wife and two small children whenever he could, but I dreaded the day that Holly would get tired of living without her husband and move the family out West.

  “Want some?” Holly proffered a full pot of coffee. “
Just so you know, I made it myself.”

  “True fact,” Josh said, feeding a dollar bill into the vending machine. His caffeine intake was almost always of the carbonated variety. “Saw her take the scoop right out of Kelsey’s hands.” A can thudded out of the machine and he shoved it into one of the side pockets of his cargo pants as he pulled out another dollar.

  For the thousandth time, I wondered why he didn’t bring his own soda and put it in the fridge instead of spending so much money on the vending machine, and, for the thousandth time, I didn’t ask.

  “Thanks,” I said to Holly, and held up my mug. Her brown hair was held back in a ponytail and, as she poured, I saw the method of ponytailing was via a sparkly pink hair fastener.

  “Anna help you get ready this morning?” I asked.

  Holly’s daughter, Anna, was five. Her father sent the kids weekly trinkets, which for six-year-old Wilson tended to be baseball cards. Anna’s presents were often hair related, which was getting a little awkward because she was more interested in building houses out of her brother’s baseball cards than she was in accessorizing her hair.

  “It was handy,” Holly said. “Josh, when are you going to stop wasting your money on that crap and start drinking coffee like an adult?”

  Josh looked up. His dark hair was almost as curly as mine, since he hadn’t bothered getting it cut in months. He pushed it out of his eyes. “Next month, probably.”

  “What?” Holly froze.

  I lowered my mug and peered at my stocky coworker. “You hate coffee. You’ve always hated coffee. You’ve never even liked the smell.”

  He shrugged. “If I dump in enough sugar I should be able to get some down. Enough to do the job, anyway.”

  “But . . . why?” Holly asked.

  Josh rubbed his thumb over his fingertips. “The coffee here is free. This stuff is a buck.” He popped the top of a can and took a long swallow.

  Holly and I exchanged glances. “It’s been a dollar a can for years,” I said. “Did you get a pay cut that I don’t know about?”

  “Nah.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I put in an offer on a house. If I get it, I’ll move out of my apartment next month.”

  “Josh!” Holly shrieked, and ran to him, her arms outstretched. “That’s great!”

  I watched Josh submit to her hug with good grace and hoped the house-purchasing mentality wasn’t contagious. “I didn’t know you were looking to buy.”

  “My landlord’s been raising my rent every year and not fixing half the stuff he should be. A house will cost me more, but at least I’ll be building equity.”

  I blinked. The idea of Josh as a grown-up was a little frightening. “Well, congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” he said, “but I don’t have it yet. The deal could fall through.”

  “Oh, fish sticks.” Holly went back to her coffee. “It’ll be fine. And I’ll tell you what. If you want, I’ll help you decorate. If I lived in a city, I’d be an interior designer. I love decorating houses.”

  Josh frowned. “Decorate what? It’s not Christmas.”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Holly rolled her eyes. “Minnie, tell him how much difference a little decorating can make.”

  “Um . . .” My home interior skills were limited to what colors were available in the cheapest brand of paint. Maybe someday I’d own a house, but now wasn’t the time. Librarians had wonderful jobs, but the rewards were more intrinsic than monetary.

  “Tell you what,” Holly said. “I’ll pick out some of my favorite decorating books and let you borrow them. Then we’ll pick some paint colors. This will be so much fun!”

  Josh’s gaze darted toward me, a little bit of the deer-in-the-headlights look in his eyes.

  I smiled and topped off my mug. “See you two later,” I said, heading out. “Unless”—I paused in the doorway— “you’d like to help with the final arrangements for the book fair. What do you say?”

  “So, Holly,” Josh said, swinging away from me. “What do you think about the rag rolling technique for painting walls?”

  Holly put her back to me. “I’d recommend sponging. It’s a lot easier to do consistently.”

  “Funny,” I muttered loudly, and left the room.

  But actually they were funny, because they’d both been a tremendous amount of help for the fair. So had the rest of the library staff. And almost everyone had agreed to help out on The Day. The only thing left was to carry out the plans already put in place. Plus, we’d spent hours dreaming up every worst-case scenario possible and figured out what to do for each one. I was confident that everything would be fine.

  So why was a classic line from that poem by Robert Burns now sliding into my thoughts?

  “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley . . .”

  I slugged down half of my coffee to wash away the worry and headed back to my office.

  Chapter 2

  That evening, I started hauling empty boxes down from the vastness of my aunt’s attic. Eddie sat at the bottom of the lowered steps and stared upward, offering the occasional suggestion.

  On the third trip down, my arms laden with dusty cubes of cardboard, I looked at him and said, “I’d take your comments more seriously if you were actually offering to help, but since all you’re doing is criticizing, I don’t see why I should listen to you.”

  “How, exactly,” my aunt Frances asked, “do you think he could help? He doesn’t have any thumbs and only weighs thirteen pounds.”

  My aunt was six inches taller than me, twenty-nine years older, and had lived in Chilson longer than I’d been alive. Her late husband, Everett Pixley, had been a Chilson native, but he’d died so long ago that I wasn’t sure if my few memories of him were my own or were generated by photographs. Since then, Aunt Frances had made a living taking in summer boarders and teaching woodworking classes. In all the years she’d been a widow, she’d never once taken a serious interest in another man until December, when she started spending time with Otto Bingham, her new across-the-street neighbor, and I was crossing my fingers that the romance would blossom permanently.

  Aunt Frances and I looked at Eddie, who was now inspecting the wall and voicing the occasional “Mrr.” Finally I said, “If he’s not going to help, he should at least keep quiet.”

  She laughed. “Are we talking about the same Eddie? Here, I’ll take those to your room.”

  I handed over the boxes gratefully and went back up the creaking wooden steps for the last load because, in spite of the chilly weather, it was time for me to get packing.

  My winter home was a large room in Aunt Frances’s rambling boardinghouse, a place of pine-paneled walls, claw-foot tubs, ancient board games, and a massive fieldstone fireplace. My summer home was much different: a cozy houseboat that I moored in one of Chilson’s marinas. Not one of the fancy marinas that came with spa and tennis court privileges, but one that normal people might be able to afford if they didn’t eat out much all winter.

  Yes, Uncle Chip’s Marina was my summer neighborhood, and it was about what you’d expect from a name like Uncle Chip’s. The marina office and shop had been built in the fifties and not updated since, and the amenities amounted to a small strip of grass next to the docks that held a couple of picnic tables and a metal grill box for anyone who wanted to haul out some charcoal.

  In spite of all that—or perhaps because of it—the marina was a friendly place where someone always hosted a Friday night party, and even though the close quarters of living in a marina could get a little much by August, I’d forget about it by Thanksgiving, and come April I’d be longing for a warm evening on my small houseboat’s front deck, reading and sipping the occasional adult beverage.

  I gathered up the last of the boxes and descended from the murky attic. When I got off the last step, Aunt Frances collapsed the stairs and pushed them back up into the ceiling. If I’d tried to do the same thing, I would have needed a step stool, but I had become accustomed to my compact
and efficient size years ago and it no longer bothered me to let the taller folks take care of things that those folks could do more easily.

  Most of the time, anyway.

  “Is Tucker coming up to help haul your things to the marina?” Aunt Frances asked.

  I shook my head. “I talked to him last night. He’s working on a big project and can’t get away.”

  “So, when are you moving?” my aunt asked, dusting off her hands.

  “Not that you want to get rid of me,” I said, laughing.

  “You can stay as long as you like—” she began.

  “As long as I start paying boarder rate,” I finished. “Don’t worry. All my stuff will be out by the end of the month.” Since I moved twice a year, I’d pared my possessions down to the minimum, but it still took a while to get settled. The houseboat cleaning itself was a chore of large magnitude. Chris Ballou, the marina manager, gave me access to the warehouse where my boat was stored out of season, and for the next couple of weeks I’d be spending my spare hours in that cavernous space, dusting and washing and scouring.

  “Speaking of boarders,” Aunt Frances said, taking the top boxes off my pile, “this might be the last year I take in any.”

  I stopped. “What? Why?”

  “Because I’m sixty-two years old,” she said dryly.

  “Sure, but you’re a young sixty-two,” I protested. “And you’ve never said anything about it being too much work before.”

  Although, since I was living on the houseboat, how would I know if it was too much for her? I never saw her clean and the only meal I ever stopped by to eat was the occasional Saturday breakfast. This was a meal cooked by one of the six boarders, which, in addition to often being entertaining, was also a critical part of the boarding agreement.

  “There’s no better way to discover a person’s true character,” Aunt Frances always said, “than to see how he behaves in a kitchen emergency.” And, since my aunt had secretly match-made her boarders into happy couples for decades, I had to agree with her methods.