Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby

“A charming start to the new Bookmobile Cat series. Librarian Minnie Hamilton is kindhearted, loyal, and resourceful. And her furry sidekick, Eddie, is equal parts charm and cat-titude.”

—
New York Times
bestselling author Sofie Kelly

“Lending a Paw
is 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

“This first in the series charms with a likable heroine, feisty and opinionated cat, and multidimensional small-town characters.”

—Kings River Life Magazine

“[A] nice introduction for a new mystery series titled the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries.”

—Gumshoe

Lending a Paw

A
B
OOKMOBILE
C
AT
M
YSTERY

Laurie Cass

AN OBSIDIAN BOOK

Published by the Penguin Group

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A Penguin Random House Company

First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC

Copyright © Janet Koch, 2014

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ISBN 978-1-101-63843-9

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.

O
nce upon a time, I’d imagined my adulthood would include a bright purple bicycle, a daily dish of ice cream, hair that would do whatever I wanted it to, and lots of books.

Fast-forward to my present age of thirty-three. These days, my bicycle was a silvery green, my ice cream had turned into fruits and vegetables, and my black curly hair still refused to obey any command I gave it.

I glanced into the small round mirror above the windshield and grinned at what I saw behind me. At least I’d gotten the books part right.

“Hey, Minnie, did I tell you that if I ever get a tattoo, it’ll be a cherry blossom?”

Of course, my childhood vision of a bookish future hadn’t taken into account that the books would be on a bookmobile, that I’d be driving said bookmobile, that I’d be accompanied by a teenage volunteer, or that my—

“Mrr.”

—that my recently acquired cat, Eddie, would have become a fixture on the bookmobile. “There is no way,”
I told him, “that you’re getting a tattoo. Thessie can do whatever she wants, assuming her parents approve.”

Eddie didn’t respond, but Thessie did. “I still don’t get why you haven’t told your boss about the Edster. He’s the sweetest, most adorable cat ever.” She leaned forward and stretched her long fingers into the cat carrier resting under her feet.

Though he’d originally been a bookmobile stowaway, Eddie had been an instant hit with the patrons. It had quickly become obvious that he was going to be a permanent addition to the bookmobile, so I’d bought a proper carrier and retired the picnic basket I’d first used for cat transportation. Eddie had acclimated to the change with an ill grace that had been eliminated with an offering of his favorite cat treats.

“Yes, you are,” Thessie cooed, scratching the side of his face, “you’re sweet and purry and so very furry.”

“Exactly,” I muttered. My boss, Stephen Rangel, the director of the Chilson District Library, was a stickler for rules, cleanliness, and propriety. And not necessarily in that order. “If Stephen finds out about Eddie, he’ll use cat dander as an excuse to end the program.”

From the moment I’d dreamed up the idea of a bookmobile, Stephen had done his best to shoot it down. Homebound patrons could download e-books from the library’s Web site, he’d said. There was no reason to spend the money on something so outrageously expensive. It just wasn’t needed, he’d said.

Thanks to a donation from a wealthy—and now sadly deceased—library patron, the bookmobile’s cost, outfitting, and first year of operational expenses weren’t a matter of concern for the library’s board of directors.
Unfortunately, a source for the second year of expenses hadn’t yet materialized.

In the financial fantasy world that I visited occasionally, I’d find a solid revenue stream that would support operations perpetually. When I took even wilder flights of fancy, I’d find enough money to hire a part-time bookmobile assistant. Thessie was going back to her senior year of high school in a few more weeks, and it would be far easier to hire a replacement than to find another reliable volunteer.

“What are you thinking about?” Thessie asked. “Your face is going all squinchy.”

I thought about telling her my monetary concerns. After all, she was considering library science as a college major. Maybe I should tell her about the harsh realities of library life. About fiscal woes and endless meetings and the occasional twenty-three boxes of
National Geographic
magazine left on the doorstep like twenty-three foundlings. Then again, this intelligent and attractive young woman was thinking about going into library science. Who was I to discourage her?

“Dinner,” I said. “There’s nothing but some sad-looking lettuce in the fridge.”

Thessie gave Eddie’s chin one more scratch and sat up, her long, dark hair sliding back over her shoulders. “You were not thinking about dinner. You were still thinking about your boss and the bookmobile.”

And someday her intelligence was going to get her into trouble.

“What I don’t get,” she went on, “is why Mr. Rangel hasn’t changed his mind. I mean, we’re doing great out here!” She flung out her arms at the rolling countryside.
“Every week we’re getting more people to come to the bookmobile and they’re checking out more and more books. Plus, people are signing up for library cards, like, every day, and soon we’re going to start the contest.”

Her cheeks flushed pink. The contest had been her idea from top to bottom, including the ultimate prize of the bookmobile stopping at the winner’s house. The idea was brilliant, and I was glad to give her full credit. “Why doesn’t he see how cool this is?” she asked.

“Because he’s a…” Just in time I stopped myself from saying an unkind word. “Because he’s the library director. Because he’s thinking about repairs and maintenance and breakdowns and the cost of replacing the vehicle.”

Thessie laughed. “Replacing? It’s brand-new!”

Indeed it was, but it had also cost an amazing amount of money and, if a future library board ever wanted to replace the bookmobile, we had to start saving now. Where that money was going to come from, I had no idea, but it was too nice a day to worry about it.

“Well, I think he’s dumb not to see how sweet this bookmobile is.” Thessie turned around and looked at the shelves. “Three thousand books, right?”

A few more than that, since I’d shoved more books onto the shelves than I should have, but she was close.

“And we have what no other bookmobile has.” She tapped the cat carrier with the toes of her flip-flops. “We have an Eddie.”

“How lucky can we get?” I asked dryly.

“Mrr.”

Thessie peered through the slots of the plastic carrier. “He’s looking at you. I think you hurt his little kitty feelings.”

I doubted it. The three months I’d spent with Eddie had taught me many things, and the top two items were (1) A Cat’s Purr Makes Everything Okay and (2) The Cat Always Wins. Eddie was my little buddy and I loved him dearly, but he could make Machiavelli’s advice to the Medicis look like kindergarten lessons.

Take the day of the bookmobile’s maiden voyage, for instance. Unwilling to be left behind, he’d snuck out and followed me on my walk through town, then bounded aboard when my back was turned. I hadn’t known he was there until it was too late to take him home. The patrons loved him, but with Stephen’s certain disapproval looming, I hadn’t taken Eddie out for any additional trips until Brynn, a five-year-old girl in remission from leukemia, asked to pet the bookmobile cat.

I’d been strong in my resistance to her request for perhaps three seconds, which was how long it took for her lower lip to start trembling. As a result, Eddie was now as much a part of the bookmobile as I was. More, perhaps. Everyone knew Eddie’s name. I was “the Bookmobile Lady.” But as long as the patrons were happy and as long as Stephen didn’t find out about Eddie, all was well with my world.

Thessie looked at me sideways. “Aren’t you afraid that someone’s going to tell Mr. Rangel about Eddie?”

Of course I was. “Not really,” I said. “Stephen says that since the bookmobile was my idea, I should take care of everything about it. If people as much as even say the word ‘bookmobile’ to him, he sends them in my direction.”

“I don’t know,” Thessie said doubtfully. “Seems like you should just tell him. I mean, he’s going to find out
one of these days, right? Wouldn’t it be better if you told him yourself instead of someone else telling him?”

Life advice from a seventeen-year-old. Advice that was correct, no less. I gave her a crooked smile. “Yep.”

She giggled. “Minnie, are you scared of your boss?”

As if. While the rest of the library staff was, in fact, intimidated by the curt and abrupt Stephen, I had an inherent advantage—I was short. Really short. As in five feet tall if I stood with perfect posture. I’d spent my entire life smaller than the majority of the world, and as a self-defense mechanism, I’d learned not to be intimidated by people.

“No, I’m not scared,” I told Thessie. “I’m waiting for the right time to tell him, that’s all.” The afternoon before the world ended would be perfect. Lawsuit-minded, allergy-sensitive Stephen would never allow a cat on the bookmobile, and I couldn’t disappoint Brynn and all the other Eddie fans. I’d backed myself into a conundrum of a corner and there was no way out.

“Uh-huh.” Thessie settled back into her seat. “Well, let me know when you figure out the right time. I’d really like to be there.”

“What, so you can get it on your smartphone and upload it to the Internet?”

She gave me a hurt look that was completely fake. “Would I do something like that?”

“In a heartbeat.” I studied the road ahead. “Hang on, kiddo. We’re about to hit the roughest stretch of road in Tonedagana County.”

My adopted county was in the hilly, lake-laden, and summer-tourist-packed countryside of northwestern lower Michigan. (In mitten-speak, the ring finger’s first knuckle.) Though I’d grown up in the Detroit area, I’d
spent many youthful summers with my aunt Frances, my dad’s sister, up in Chilson, a small town that overlooked both the sparkling blue Janay Lake and the majestic Lake Michigan. The happy fact that I’d landed a wonderful job in my favorite place in the world was a piece of good fortune for which I was grateful every single day.

The condition of some of the back roads, however, wasn’t anything the area chambers of commerce were likely to talk up.

I slowed, steered around the largest of the potholes, gritted my teeth, and hoped that I wasn’t doing any permanent damage to the bookmobile. We bounced and rattled and, after approximately an eternity, made it through the worst of the holes without unshelving a single book.

Thessie leaned forward to check on the only creature in the vehicle who wasn’t wearing a seat belt. “Hey, Eddie, are you okay?”

“MrrRRRrr!”

“Sorry about the bumpy ride, pal,” I said. “We’ll go home a different way.”

Thessie gave me a look. “You talk to him like he really knows what you’re saying.”

Most hours of most days I knew it was impossible that my furry little friend could understand human speech. Every once in a while, though, he’d react to something I said in such a way that made me wonder.

“I live by myself,” I told Thessie. “Since there’s no one else around, I guess I’ve gotten into the habit of talking to him like he’s a person.”

She looked at the cat carrier, looked at me, then looked back at the carrier. “Does he ever talk back?”

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

I laughed at the startled expression on Thessie’s face and flicked the left turn signal. The bookmobile’s first stop of the afternoon was the parking lot of a long-shuttered restaurant. At first, the owner hadn’t been thrilled with the idea of becoming a bookmobile stop, but when I’d casually mentioned the increase in traffic the property would inevitably get, he’d agreed and a bright new F
OR
S
ALE
sign had appeared in the restaurant’s front window the next day.

We bumped into the parking lot and I headed for the shade of a large maple tree. When we came to a complete stop, I said, “The Eddie has landed.”

Thessie unbuckled her seat belt and popped open the cat carrier. “That sounds familiar. Is it a movie quote?”

I thought about having a teaching moment regarding the Apollo moon landing, but we didn’t have time. “Not exactly. Can you please pop the vents?” Thessie, at five foot eight, could easily reach up to the ceiling to open the vents. Being undertall has its advantages, but ceiling-reach ability isn’t one of them.

“Is there anything wrong with the air-conditioning?” Thessie asked.

“Nothing.” But I’d heard enough stories about generator problems from fellow bookmobile librarians to want to avoid running ours as much as possible. “We’ll be fine here in the shade.”

There was a knock on the back door. “Hey! Are you in there?” a loud male voice called. “Hey!”

As I hurried down the aisle to open the door, making sure my shirt was completely tucked into my cropped pants, a wave of unease washed over me. The man’s
fist pounded on the door and I was suddenly very aware that Thessie and I were two females alone out in the middle of nowhere.

I shook my head at myself. We’d be fine. For the last few weeks I’d been taking an intense series of self-defense classes, Thessie had a smartphone practically embedded into her skin, and we had Eddie who, if he was awake, could potentially function as a deterrent to crime via howling and hissing and the use of his claws. Plus, I’d always had the vague feeling that bookmobile librarians generated a protective shield. Heck, maybe the books themselves created the shield.

My fanciful thoughts must have been making me smile, because when I opened the door, the gray-haired gentleman standing outside barked out, “What’s so funny?”

His face was sour with a grimacing frown, as if he was trying to put a bad face on a bad face. My smile stayed determinedly on. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it? Welcome to the bookmobile.” I lowered the outside steps. “Come on in. We’re glad to have you.”

“I’m here for my wife,” he growled as he thumped up the stairs. “She ordered some books, but she’s got a doctor’s appointment, so she asked me to pick up her holds. What did she order this time, more bodice rippers?”

The sneer in his voice made me want to defend the romance genre, but I swallowed down my reaction and stayed the helpful professional I’d trained to be. Four years of undergraduate work followed by almost three years of graduate study had given me a wide range of knowledge. The subsequent years during which I’d been a librarian had supplied me with the know-how
to apply that knowledge. And then there were the lessons my mother had tried to instill in me, starting with “Be nice to people, Minnie.”

I continued to smile, asked for his wife’s name, and handed him the small pile of books she’d requested.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

He didn’t look up and didn’t look around. “No,” he said shortly. “There’s nothing here for me.”

I almost recommended
Beyond Anger: a Guide for Men,
but I held back and he stomped out as loudly as he’d stomped in.