Cat With a Clue

by Laurie Cass

  “Nope. It’s good just the way it is,” I said, exactly as if I knew what I was talking about.

  “All righty, then.” Rafe came down the ladder, moved it over a few feet, and went back up with another piece of trim in his hand.

  I watched his efficient movements. Out of school, he had a tendency to play up his chosen role as an Up North redneck wannabe, but with only me for an audience, he was mostly himself. With his longish black hair, slim build, white teeth, and cheerful disposition, I wasn’t sure why he didn’t have a girlfriend or a wife, but, then again, maybe all the women in town knew him as well as I did.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Do you know a Dana Coburn?”

  He laughed. “Kristen give you the name?”

  “Yes.” Lying was pointless, since if I denied it he’d call and ask.

  “Did she tell you anything about Dana?”

  “No. Why?”

  He laughed again. “Then I’m not going to tell you anything, either.”

  “Not even an address? A phone number? How about where she—or he—works?”

  “Works?” He snorted.

  “Stop that,” I said. “You sound like a pig rooting around for truffles.”

  “Yeah? How many pigs have you seen up close and personal, city girl?”

  “You’d be surprised what I see out on the bookmobile, Mr. Niswander,” I said loftily. Which was true, although it hadn’t yet included many pigs. But with the bookmobile you never knew.

  “And what do pigs eat, Ms. Smarty Pants?”

  “Anything they want,” I said promptly.

  There was a short silence. “Okay, you got me,” he said. “Let me make a phone call, and we’ll see if I can give you Dana’s address. Hang on a second—my cell’s in the kitchen.”

  He clambered down the ladder and scuffed into what I called a kitchenlike area, since it lacked cabinets, dishes, and any silverware other than the ones that came with takeout. What it had was a utility sink, a battered refrigerator, and a hot plate, and I hadn’t yet figured out how Rafe had wangled an occupancy permit out of the building inspector.

  I heard a few sentences of muffled conversation, and then the refrigerator door opened and closed. Rafe returned, cracking open a water bottle, another one under his arm.

  He handed me the open bottle and I took it, asking, “So? Am I in or out?”

  “In, with qualifications.” He tipped his head backward and took a long drink, then went back up the ladder, noisily crimping the empty plastic bottle and tossing it halfway across the room to land in a pile of sawdust and scrap wood. “Hand me that hammer, will you?” he asked.

  I slid off the stool and reached for the tool he’d dropped on top of a box as he’d gone into the kitchenlike area. “What are,” I asked, handing up the hammer, “the qualifications of which you speak?”

  He turned and blinked down at me. “Oh, right. Dana. You know that house on Fourth Street, the big white one with the columns that’s set back a little ways from the other houses? That’s where Dana lives.”

  “Okay.” I’d walked past that house dozens of times on my way back and forth to my aunt’s and had often wondered who lived there. All I had to do was ask someone, but I’d never remembered to actually do so. “You still haven’t told me the qualifications.”

  He pulled a handful of small nails from a pouch on his tool belt and put most of them into his mouth. “Stop there anytime tomorrow morning,” he said around the nails. “All you have to do is be interesting.”

  I frowned. “It’s hard to hear you when there’s a pound of nails in your mouth. Because I could have sworn you said I had to be interesting, and that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “No?” Rafe chuckled. “That’s because you haven’t met Dana.”

  And, try as I might to get more details, he wouldn’t say anything else about the mysterious Dana Coburn.

  * * *

  The next day was Friday. I’d scheduled myself the morning off for an eye doctor’s appointment. I knew she’d want to dilate my pupils for retina-examination purposes, and since my vision was nearly worthless for three hours afterward, there was no way I’d be able to work. I’d planned to go grocery shopping—I was down to condiments and wilted lettuce in my refrigerator—but I eschewed that in favor of tracking down Dana Coburn.

  Soon after the appointment, I knocked on the front door of the house on Fourth Street. It was what I’m sure my father, an engineer who should have been an architect, had taught me was a Greek Revival. Columns ran from the porch floor to the bottom of the pedimented gable. There was a heavy cornice over a wide and plain frieze, and, above all, it was perfectly symmetrical. Two windows left of the front door, two windows right. Six columns across the front, with the front door centered between numbers three and four. Even the entry mat was perfectly centered.

  The perfection was the teensiest bit disconcerting, and I’d had to make a conscious decision between tiptoeing my way across the front porch so I didn’t ruin the symmetry with a single speck of dirt, and kicking the entry mat to an odd angle. And there was a puddle out on the sidewalk that I’d walked around. What would the house do if I tracked mud onto the porch?

  The door suddenly swung open. “Why are you smiling?” a high-pitched voice asked.

  I looked ahead and up and then finally down. Standing in front of me, instead of the elderly and wizened person my imagination had assumed a Dana Coburn would be, was someone little more than a child. She—or he—was shorter than my five feet and thin, with lank hair swinging past the jawline, wearing jeans and a plain T-shirt. There were zero indications of gender.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name is Minnie Hamilton. Rafe Niswander called yesterday. I’d like to talk to Dana Coburn.” The kid’s gaze didn’t falter. “Is, ah, Dana here?”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” the kid said. “Why were you smiling?”

  I blinked. Social niceties were clearly not going to be part of this conversation. Which meant I could tell the complete truth.

  “It’s the porch,” I said, nodding at the pristine floor. “I was picturing so much mud all over it that the house would want to shake it off like a dog shaking off water.”

  The kid stared at me. “Interesting. Ridiculous, but interesting.” She—he?—walked away, leaving the door open. After a short hesitation, I followed.

  “You’re Dana?” I asked, hurrying after. There was no reply as we trekked through a large entryway, skimmed around the edge of a massive living room, and marched across a formal dining room. I gained an impression of old money and good taste. At long last, we reached a kitchen that was so clean and white, it almost hurt my eyes.

  The kid sat on a stool at the corner of a white granite-topped island and pointed. I sat primly on the stool indicated and waited.

  Dana, because I could only assume that’s who it was, peered into my eyes. “Why are your pupils dilated? Are you taking recreational pharmaceuticals?”

  “Eye doctor,” I said. “She likes to check for—”

  “Retinal detachment.” Dana waved away the rest of my explanation. Not interesting enough, no doubt. “Mr. Niswander told my mother you’d like information about the DeKeyser family.”

  I wondered where the mother figure might be, but decided to keep on topic. “Yes.” I looked at her. Him. “Do you want to know why?”

  “I have two theories,” the kid said. “One would be merely a spurious interest.”

  It took me a second to make sure I knew what the word “spurious” meant. Fake. Not valid. I frowned. “Why on earth would I fake interest in the DeKeysers?”

  Dana shrugged. “Not enough information. But the possibility exists.”

  This kid had read too many Sherlock Holmes stories. “Okay, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “Then you’re looking to connect
the murder of Andrea Vennard with Talia DeKeyser’s death.”

  “How did—” I held up my hand, not wanting to hear the kid say “Elementary, my dear Minnie.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “You’re right. I want to learn more about the DeKeysers, and I was pointed in your direction.”

  Dana gave me a straight, unblinking look. “Don’t you want to know if I’ve made the connection between the murder and Talia?”

  “If you had, you would already have told me,” I said confidently. Someone like Dana wouldn’t be able to keep from saying how she—he—had found the answer faster than everyone else. My brother had been like that. Spouting out the answer was practically an involuntary reaction for young folks with that much brain power.

  The kid nodded slowly. “You’re right. I would have. How did—” Dana’s head went back and forth. “Never mind. I’ll think about it later and learn from the exercise.”

  Why had I never met this kid before? Surely someone like this should be in the library on a regular basis. “I would, however, like to know why you’re the local expert on the DeKeysers.”

  “Yes, I can see why you would be curious,” Dana said. “It was a research exercise. I am homeschooled, and my parents wanted me to get familiar with the methods involved in genealogical research. Death certificates, birth certificates, property records, newspaper articles, and similar items.” The kid eyed me. “This was before you were hired as the library’s assistant director. I’ve been told that the new building has much more to offer than the old.”

  Old building? This meant the research had occurred at least four years ago. I desperately wanted to ask how old Dana had been at the time of the research, but let it go. “Why did you choose the DeKeysers?”

  “I wanted a challenge,” came the prompt reply. “By head count, they’re the largest family in town. Having so many family branches to investigate made the project more interesting.”

  Interesting. That word again.

  “And you’re interested in Talia DeKeyser,” Dana said. “Would you also like information regarding her husband, Calvin?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, and settled myself down to listen.

  Dana leaned back on the stool, lifting one knee and cupping it with his—her—hands. “Calvin DeKeyser. Born 1928, died 2013. Would you like the months and days?”

  “Not necessary, but thank you.”

  The kid nodded. “Talia DeKeyser, born Talia Wiley in 1933. Both Calvin and Talia were born in Chilson, went through the Chilson schools, and graduated from Chilson High School. Talia attended the Michigan Normal School in Ypsilanti, which is now Eastern Michigan University, and subsequently taught school for three years before she married Calvin in 1958.”

  At that point in Dana’s precise factual recitation, my tiny little brain adjusted to the concept of a child with the vocabulary and sentence construction of a doctoral candidate. I stopped being amazed at the person in front of me and simply tried to absorb what was being said.

  “Benton’s, the general store in the downtown core of Chilson, was one of the first commercial establishments in Tonedagana County. Newspaper accounts indicate that the county seat was settled in Chilson primarily because of Benton’s.”

  I started to ask a question, but stopped, not wanting to interrupt the narrative flow.

  “Benton was the maiden name of Calvin DeKeyser’s mother,” Dana said. “Elijah DeKeyser married Dorothy Benton in 1920 and they had six children: five daughters and one son. The daughters married into other original Chilson families, and, as there were no Benton males, Calvin eventually came into ownership of the store.”

  Yes, folks, primogeniture had been alive and well in northern lower Michigan in the 1900s. I stirred but didn’t say anything. After all, maybe none of the daughters had wanted to run the store.

  “Calvin and Talia,” Dana was saying, “also had a large family.” Dark eyes peered at me through long bangs. “Are you interested in Talia’s ancestry?”

  “As a matter of general interest, yes,” I said, “but I doubt it’s pertinent in this case.”

  “I agree,” Dana said, and I felt an embarrassingly happy rush that a thought out of my small brain matched a thought out of the big one. “Talia had seven children who lived: four daughters and three sons. Would you like their names?”

  I quickly pulled out my cell and opened the notes app. “Yes, please.” I typed away as Dana dictated the names and birth dates.

  Leslie, born 1953. Kimberly, born 1956. Thomas, born 1958. Kelly, born 1961. David, born 1962. Melissa, born 1965, and Robert, born 1968.

  After that, Dana rattled off the names of the spouses, names and birth dates of the next generation of DeKeysers, and the cities in which they were born.

  “Do the sons still run Benton’s? Or one of them?” I asked, typing in the last few letters.

  “There was a change of ownership after I completed my project,” Dana said. “I don’t have that information.”

  Well, stone the crows, as Rafe might have said. There was something the kid didn’t know.

  “The DeKeyser family,” Dana went on, “is well respected in the community. There wasn’t a hint of scandal in any of the newspaper articles I read, and none of them has ever died of anything other than natural causes or the typical diseases of their times.”

  “Any theories about a connection between Andrea Vennard and Talia?” I asked. “And I’m not talking about the genetic relationship. I’m talking about something that would be a motivation for Andrea’s death. Even a guess might be helpful.”

  The kid frowned. “I don’t guess.”

  “Dana!”

  Both Dana and I turned to see a woman standing at the back door to the kitchen. She was probably a little older than I was, with hair the color of Dana’s pulled back into a ponytail. Her forehead was streaked with dirt and there was a scratch across one cheek.

  “Dana, I told you to call me when Ms. Hamilton showed up.” She looked at me apologetically. “Sorry about that. I’m Jenny, Dana’s mother. I was clearing out the backyard. Now that we’re only here in the summers, the spring-cleanup chores don’t get done until June.”

  Which explained why I hadn’t met Dana during the school year, but not why I hadn’t come across this amazing human intelligence during the summers.

  “Would you like something to drink?” Jenny asked, toeing off her garden clogs and walking stocking footed into the kitchen. “Water, soda, iced tea?”

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I need to get going. Dana was very helpful and I’m grateful for”—his? Her?—“the time.”

  “Did you get everything you need?” Jenny took a glass out of a cupboard and went to the sink. “The DeKeysers were a pet project of Dana’s a few years ago. I’m sure you were inundated with information.”

  I glanced at the kid. “I think I have everything.” Dana nodded. “Thanks again for the help. I really appreciate it.”

  “Stop by if you need anything else,” Jennifer said as she walked me to the front door. “Dana could use more human interaction.” She smiled wryly. “Even if it’s just spouting off facts.”

  After thanking her again, I walked down the pristine steps thoughtfully.

  I now knew all sorts of things about Talia, her husband, and their children. I had numbers and dates, facts and figures, straight data that might or might not be useful. But I didn’t know what kind of people they were. Didn’t know what made any of them tick. Didn’t know what any of them thought important, didn’t know what might move any of them to an act of crime.

  * * *

  Thanks to Dana’s rapid-fire delivery, I had plenty of time for lunch at Shomin’s Deli. Somehow I’d managed to leave the house without a book in hand, but there was a quick cure for that.

  A wide block from downtown, some hopeful soul had recently opened up a used-book store. I went ins
ide, walked around a sixtyish woman haggling with the clerk over a bag of books she wanted to sell, spied a Colin Cotterill book I’d never read, handed over my dollar plus tax, and was out the door in less than three minutes, which had to be a new record for me.

  My steps were nearly jaunty. Yes, my library was in turmoil, what with a murder and the unknown leadership issue, and, yes, I had no idea how I was going to keep juggling my interim-director duties and the bookmobile without sliding into permanent sleep deprivation. Yes, the bookmobile, its garage, and the Friends’ book-sale room had all been vandalized, and, yes, my boyfriend’s mother hated me, but I had an unread book in my backpack and almost a full hour in which to read. What was there, really, to complain about?

  I hummed a happy little tune as I walked through the first block of Chilson’s downtown. Past the real estate office in an old house, past the shoe store, past the pharmacy with its wood front painted this spring with a fresh coat of a disturbingly bright blue, past the toy store with its display windows filled with rocking horses and pedal cars and—

  And Mitchell.

  My pace went from Happy Traveler to Grandpa Shuffle. Yes, that was indeed Mitchell Koyne standing in the toy store’s window. If I’d been asked to state a reason why Mitchell would have been in a toy store, I would have laid down money that he’d have been buying something for himself. Beanbags for juggling, maybe, or one of those three-dimensional brainteaser puzzles that would take me hours to figure out, but that my brother could take apart in three minutes flat.

  Mitchell, however, wasn’t buying anything. He was wearing the toy store’s signature polo shirt. He had a feather duster in hand, and he was using it to dust. Mitchell was working.

  I waved, but his concentration was so focused that either he didn’t see me or he was ignoring me.

  Either way, he wasn’t being Mitchell-like.

  “Who are you?” I asked softly, “and what have you done with the real Mitchell?”

  He didn’t answer, of course, and I moved on, troubled and more than a little sad.