Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby (14 page)

He pounded the machine’s plastic button with his fist. “The White Sox,” he muttered. “I can’t believe it.”

I couldn’t believe he was so upset over what was essentially just a game, but I also knew better than to say so. Of course, I’d once broken up with a boyfriend after a heated debate about the usefulness of a public library system in the age of the Internet, but that was much different.

Since Josh was obviously determined to wallow in his bad mood, and I wasn’t quite ready to go back to work, I wandered out of the break room with the intention of chatting with Donna, this morning’s front desk clerk.

I was barely halfway there when Stephen barked out my name. “Minnie!”

Through a combination of sheer luck and exquisite hand-eye coordination that no one except me would ever appreciate, I did not spill the contents of my coffee mug. I pasted on a polite smile and turned to face my boss. “Good morning, Stephen. How’s the report progressing?”

One of Stephen’s pet projects was a multipage saga presented to the library board on a quarterly basis. He would have loved to present one at every monthly board meeting, but they’d kindly told him that his time was valuable and could be better spent directing the library, and that a quarterly report was fine. Annual might be even better.

“The report is exactly why I’m down here.” Stephen adjusted his tie, today a knit version. “I’ve come to the section regarding any difficulties in the library and I need to know that you have the situation in hand.”

I looked at the mug I was holding. No, that couldn’t be what he was talking about. Or was it? Though he hadn’t laid down a forbidding law, Stephen did frown on liquids anywhere except in the break room. The transportation of a spillable item from coffeepot to an individual office was tolerated, but only because no tragedy had yet occurred. If anyone, especially anyone whose name started with the letters Minnie, ever had an accidental spill on library-owned material, a new policy would be instituted at eighty words per minute and posted on walls everywhere. “Um…”

“Minnie,” he said sharply. “Please tell me that you remember our conversation regarding a particular library patron.”

“Of course I do.” I just wasn’t sure what to do about it.

My thoughts must have leaked onto my face,
because Stephen held up his index finger. “Two weeks, Minnie.” The words came out almost as a growl. “I want to see progress within two weeks. If there is none, the library board will be apprised of the situation.”

I watched him stride down the hallway, his pant legs swooshing lightly against each other. Only when he started up the stairs and left my field of vision did I let out the sigh that had been building inside me.

Bleah. Where on earth was I going to find the time to solve the Mitchell Koyne Conundrum? “Almost sounds like a Nancy Drew title,” I murmured, which amused me immensely. All I needed was a roadster, a housekeeper, an attorney father, and a couple of good friends and I’d be all set.

What color was that roadster? I frowned, trying to remember. Blue? No, it was red. Or was it—

There was a thump on my shoulder. “Ah!” My shriek filled the echoing hallway and my backward leap flung coffee all over the tile floor.

“Good jump,” Mitchell said, nodding approvingly. “Your vertical must have been six inches.”

I made an ineffectual attempt to brush coffee drips off my jacket sleeve. “You could have said something instead of scaring me like that.” How such a big man could have moved so silently was another mystery for Ms. Drew.

“I did,” he said in a hurt voice. “Honest, I did, Minnie.”

Which was undoubtedly the truth as he knew it, because Mitchell had a complete inability to see the world from anyone else’s point of view. Of course, in many ways this made his life far simpler than mine, which didn’t sound bad right now. “Sorry,” I said. “What can I do for you, Mitchell?”

He twisted around to look over one of his shoulders, then the other. “I heard what your boss said. You got two weeks to fix something or he’s going to fire you.”

Only the library board could terminate me, but Stephen could definitely make my life uncomfortable. And if he truly wanted me gone, he could turn the situation into a case of insubordination, tell the board I was impossible to work with, and convince them to give me the boot.

The muscles at the back of my neck tightened into taut cords. No matter how much I disagreed with Stephen’s point of view regarding Mitchell, Stephen wanted it dealt with and I was his assistant. I should be doing what he asked me to do. Only… how?

Mitchell shuffled close enough that I could see how badly his beard needed trimming. “I can help,” he whispered loudly enough for anyone within fifty feet to hear.

“You can?”

“Sure,” he said. “I know Stephen can be a pain to work with. Just tell me what the problem is and I’ll be glad to help. What are friends for, right? And hey, I’m pretty good at figuring things out. Like that Carissa Radle? I’m real sure she was killed by her boss. You ever met him? Anyway, he’s a real jerk and it’s got to be him. I’ve told the sheriff’s office, so I’m sure an arrest is coming soon.”

Though it was almost out-loud laughable that Mitchell was volunteering to help me get rid of Mitchell, I was touched that he wanted to help me. However, the last thing I wanted was Mitchell’s help for almost anything. “Um… ,” I said.

“Hey, sports fans,” Josh said, walking up to us. He
turned his head and gave me a wink. “Well, not you, Minnie. I’m talking to Mitchell here.”

“What’s up?” Mitchell asked. “Did you see the game last night?”

Two Tigers fans and me standing in a group. There was no way I was going to get in a word edgewise. I started to slip away, but Josh winked at me again.

“Great game,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you about this really great Web site. They have tickets to minor league ball games for next to nothing. If you can get a little bit of cash together, you could spend the rest of the summer driving around the country, going from ballpark to ballpark. Sounds pretty cool, don’t you think?”

Mitchell rubbed his chin. “Sounds okay. But it might be good to have someone to share the driving, you know? What are you doing the rest of the summer?”

Josh’s mouth flopped open, but nothing came out.

I walked away, quietly snorting with laughter.

•   •   •

After work, I walked to the marina office to pay Chris Ballou my monthly slip rental. Typical for this time of day, Chris was comfortably seated. “Just leave your check on the counter,” he said. The other three men in the office, Skeeter and Rafe and Greg Plassey, looked just as comfortable and just as unwilling to move.

I looked at Rafe. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing that last work on my boat?”

“The day’s young,” he said lazily, tipping back in an ancient director’s chair, wood and canvas creaking underneath him. “Say, how you coming along with the next draft of the after-school reading program?”

“I’d be coming along a lot faster if I knew my boat was going to get fixed before school started.”

“And that, gentlemen,” Skeeter said, “is why any permanent relationship between a woman and a man is doomed.”

The four men clinked their beer cans. I rolled my eyes.

“So, what’s the story with your doctor boyfriend?” Chris asked.

“Yeah,” Skeeter said. “Hardly ever see him around. You sure you two are dating?”

“Now, boys.” Rafe smirked up a smile. “I saw him just the other day. Course, he didn’t stay long, and come to think of it, he left in kind of a hurry.”

While that hadn’t been Rafe’s fault, I didn’t see any harm in saying so. “It was you he was trying to get away from,” I said.

The other three hooted and tinked beer cans. The tightness that had snaked up my back when they mentioned the Tuckerlessness of my life eased a little. It was our schedules that was the problem: both of us working some evenings and some weekends and the twain was hardly ever meeting. Except for the day after tomorrow. We had plans and they were etched in stone this time.

And these men weren’t trying to hurt my feelings; they were just being guys, and in spite of their extreme guyness, I liked them very much.

“Speaking of not around,” I asked Greg, “where’s your friend Brett? I thought he was a part of this motley crew.”

“Downstate,” Greg said.

“Sucker.” Chris grinned. “What could be better than this?”

I squinted at him. “You could be outside in the fresh
air and sunshine instead of sitting in this dingy, poorly lit office that hasn’t been cleaned properly in decades.”

“Hey, now,” Rafe said. “I saw Chris here wiping down the countertop just last month.”

Skeeter smirked. “Only because he spilled his coffee all over it.”

“Chris drinks coffee?” I asked. “When does he do that?”

“After the Fourth of July,” Chris said, wincing. “Man, I’m getting too old to stay up all night.”

I left the Four Stooges to their stories of all-night parties and headed to my houseboat for a quick dinner of nacho chips and cheese. With salsa, which would count as a vegetable with anyone except my mother.

While I ate, I pondered the looming cloud on the horizon that was Thessie’s upcoming college trip. All the people I’d already called had pleaded houseguests or other commitments and I had no idea what I was going to do.

After dishes and a see-you-later hug for Eddie, I set out to visit Cade at Lakeview to let the volunteer problem bounce around in my head. There were a couple of people interested in taking over from Thessie once school started, but in summer it was difficult to get people to donate their time.

I yearned for the day that Stephen was going to recognize how much the bookmobile was doing for the library. Outreach, image, and presence were all improving in an anecdotal evidence sort of way, and circulation was up compared to this time last year.

“October board meeting,” I said out loud as I walked into Cade’s room.

“Why wait?” he asked. “Do it in September.”

“But you don’t want to rush things, either,” Barb said. “Maybe November would be better.”

I looked from one McCade to the other and laughed. There was no possible way they could have known what I’d been mumbling about, yet they’d joined into my narrative without a pause. “Can’t do September,” I said, “because I won’t have time to get the August circulation numbers into report form before the meeting. And by November everyone is concentrating on the holidays.”

“Sounds as if you have whatever it is well in hand.”

“Don’t I wish.” I sat down. “But my most immediate problem is that I’m losing my bookmobile volunteer for a week and the library board insists on having two on board.”

Sadly, it had to be two humans. There had been one time that I’d danced closely with prevarication and led Stephen to believe that there were two people on board when it had actually been just Eddie and me, but I didn’t want to push my luck.

“Does this volunteer actually drive the bookmobile?” Barb asked.

I grinned. Thessie kept trying to convince me that letting her drive made sense—“for backup, just in case you break both feet, or something”—but it wasn’t going to happen. “Library policy is employees only,” I said, “and any driver has to take a commercial driver’s license class.” Truck-driving school would have been better, but it was a long and expensive course. “The bookmobile volunteer checks materials in and out, helps patrons find books. Normal library stuff, only it’s on a bookmobile.”

Barb grabbed her purse and excused herself.

“Hey, watch this.” Cade lifted his weak arm, made a fist, then released it. “Not bad, eh?”

I clapped loudly. “That’s fantastic! You’ll be painting again in no time.”

He started to make another fist, but this one fell apart halfway through. “Time being a relative term,” he said, but there was humor at the back of his voice. “So, tell me.” He glanced up at the open door. “Have you made any progress with… with…”

“With you-know-what?” I supplied.

His face, still uneven from the stroke, twisted into a smile. “Exactly.”

“Sort of,” I said.

“As I recall,” Cade said, “our deal was that you ask a few questions of a few people. You’re sticking to that agreement, yes?”

I filled him in on what I’d found out so far, ending with the fact that Hugo Edel had mentioned Carissa hanging out on Trock’s set. He did some nodding and some frowning, then said, “Trock Farrand. I’ve met the man. A little flighty, I’d say. Be careful, Minnie. Someone killed Carissa, and I don’t want anything happening to you.”

“Careful as I’d be in a crystal shop.”

“One more thing,” Cade said. “Please don’t say anything about your efforts to Barb.”

I blinked. And here I’d thought they shared everything. “If that’s what you want, sure. But why?”

“For her own peace of mind. Please. The police have been silent for days and if she hears you’re looking into this, she’ll be worried and get upset all over again and I don’t want that for her.”

I swallowed. True love. That’s what these two had. I couldn’t speak, so I gave a weak nod instead.

It must not have been very convincing, because Cade leaned forward. “I’m sure you think it’s silly, but—”

“That man thinks everything is silly,” Barb said as she breezed in. “Don’t take it personally, Minnie. The only thing he’s ever taken seriously in his life is his painting, and I’m not always sure about that.”

She smiled at her husband fondly. “Now, what was it you two were arguing about?”

“Whether or not ‘de rigueur’ is a real
D
word,” I said. “What do you think?”

She considered the question, then made her pronouncement. “Doubtful.”

“Darn,” I said, sighing dramatically, and left them to their
evening.

T
wo things accompanied me to bed that night, a brand-spanking-new copy of Bernard Cornwell’s latest historical novel and an Eddie. Both were heavy, but both gave me comfort, and after a relaxing hour of reading about the early days of England, I turned off the light and slept the night through.

The next morning, I was halfway through my prework preparations when I realized I wasn’t scheduled to work that day. And since I was the one who made up the schedule, there was no excuse for my early rising.

“Here I am,” I said. “All dressed up and almost ready to go. Now what?”

I asked the question of Eddie, who had squeezed himself onto the houseboat’s small dashboard. Since I docked the boat nose-out, the dash not only allowed a view of Janay Lake and the passing boats, but also showcased seagulls, mourning doves, swallows, the occasional evening bat, and every so often a bald eagle.

He hunched down and made a cackling noise at the feathered creatures that were wheeling about.

“You do realize those birds are on the other side of the
window, don’t you?” I spooned up the last bite of cereal. The bottom of the bowl held a cat-sized pool of milk. “Ready, Eddie?”

The second he heard the light
thump
of the bowl hitting the floor, Eddie leapt down and trotted over for his morning treat.

I listened to the noise of his laps. “You know, my mother always said to eat with my mouth closed.” Eddie ignored me. When he finished with the milk, he sat down and began cleaning his back leg, which had mysteriously gotten dirty when he was drinking.

That wasn’t something I had much interest in watching, so I started sliding out of the booth.

My movement startled Eddie. He jumped, squirreled sideways, and fell over, all four legs scrambling for purchase on the smooth flooring. After an eternity of effort, he managed to right himself. One long jump later, he was back on the dashboard, staring at the birds as if nothing had happened.

But one thing had. Eddie’s bumbling antics had given me an idea for the day’s activities.

•   •   •

A little bit of Internet searching and one phone call later, I tracked down the location of the day’s filming of
Trock’s Troubles
, the cooking show that had made Trock Farrand a national celebrity.

Or at least a national celebrity in certain circles. For someone like me, who wasn’t overly interested in food except as fuel, the man’s name had scarcely been heard except from my aunt and my down-to-earth best friend who started talking in giggles when asked if there was any chance her restaurant was ever going to be featured on the show.

However, since said best friend was also the person who had confirmed that Farrand’s show was being taped at his house today, I forgave her future giggles and even made an internal vow not to make fun of her for turning into a bedazzled thirteen-year-old at the mention of the man’s name. After all, if I ever met Nancy Pearl, the famous librarian, I might get a little giggly, too.

I parked my car on the side of the road and walked up Farrand’s driveway. At this point, however, it looked more like a parking lot than anything else. Vans, SUVs, pickup trucks, and even a few sedans crowded the asphalt from garage door to right-of-way.

People milled about, some looking bored, some looking worried, some looking tense. But since none of them were paying any attention to me, I waltzed on past as if I belonged, nodding vaguely to everyone I passed.

“Morning,” I said calmly, and every one of them nodded back. Though I’d thought there’d be some sort of security in place, I didn’t see even a single guard keeping an eagle eye out.

It seemed weird, because
Trock’s Troubles
was a long-running television show and they were bound to get gawkers who could make a nuisance of themselves. But what did I know about taping a television show? I didn’t even know for sure if they called it taping or filming, and I certainly didn’t know who got to eat the food that was made during the show. Kristen said I was a Philistine to even think about something like that, but I thought it required careful consideration.

“Oh, man,” a male voice at my right shoulder muttered. “Not again. I can’t freaking believe it.”

I glanced at the guy. A few years older than me, with sharply defined arm muscles and white-blond hair, he was shaking his head and tucking a cell phone into his pocket. “What’s the matter?” I asked.

He looked at me. “You must be new,” he said, smiling in a sour way that still managed to be friendly. “Our friend Trock has a habit of changing the meal plan just as we’re starting to shoot. Throws everything off schedule something fierce. Trock says that’s part of the show’s charm, but I say he’s nuts.” He stared in the direction of the most activity. “The troubles that get on the air aren’t half of the troubles we have to suffer.”

I smiled and stuck out my hand. “Minnie Hamilton.” Whoever this guy was, and in spite of his harsh-sounding words, it was clear that he had a deep respect for Trock Farrand.

“Scruffy Gronkowski.”

I eyed the sharp crease in his khaki pants and the perfectly rolled collar of his polo shirt and raised my eyebrows.

He laughed. “Nickname from when I was a kid. It’s better than the name on my birth certificate, so what do I care? And since I’m the producer on this wretched show, I should probably know what you’re doing here.”

So there was security. It just came in a different form than expected. “I was hoping to talk to Mr. Farrand. I’m a friend of Kristen Jurek’s. She owns a local restaurant, the Three Seasons—it’s on your short list for being featured on the show—and I was hoping to put in a good word for her. I’m sure you hear this all the time, but her restaurant is something special. The only thing is, she thinks the Three Seasons is good enough to speak for
itself. She’s too proud to come out there and promote herself.”

“And you’re not?” Scruffy asked, raising his own eyebrows.

“Not when it comes to asking for help for my friends,” I said seriously. “And it’s an outstanding restaurant—it really is.”

Scruffy picked a piece of invisible lint off his shirt. “Outstanding restaurants are a dime a dozen.”

“Sure, but how many of them are only open three seasons a year so they can offer only fresh and local ingredients?”

“That cuts it down quite a bit.” He squinted down at me. “You got anything else?”

“She grew up in Chilson, went away to multiple colleges, got a Ph.D. in biochemistry, hated every second she worked for a large pharmaceutical company, and came back home to open a restaurant.”

A slow grin spread across his face. “Now, that’s a good story.”

I beamed at him. “Isn’t it? But she doesn’t like talking about it. She’s annoyed that she wasted all that time and money.”

“Education is never wasted,” he said. “After all, you never know when you’ll need to know Avogadro’s number.”

“Six-point-zero-two-two times ten to the twenty-third, the number of atoms in a mole, but I have no idea why anyone would need to know that, or even what it means, exactly.”

He laughed. “If you want to talk to Trock a minute, he’s over there.” Scruffy nodded at a large, very round man who was mopping his forehead with a towel.
“And you’ll have my undying gratitude if you can point him back to grilling pork tenderloin. Tell him we can do the whitefish some other episode. Just not today.”

I squared my shoulders and saluted. “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best, sir.”

He gave me a sharp return salute. “Good luck to you.”

Smiling, I made my way through the snaky maze of cables and wires, staying behind cameras and trying very hard to stay out of everyone’s way. At long last I reached the table where Trock Farrand had seated himself. He’d crossed his oversized arms and slid down in his chair far enough that a strong breeze would have pushed him onto the bricked floor of the massive patio.

“Mr. Farrand?” I asked. “Scruffy sent me over here. He—”

“Whitefish,” he growled. “I will not listen to another lackey sent by Sir Scruffy. I suppose you have yet another point to make in favor of the porcine product?”

“Nope,” I said. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Eh?” He lifted his head. “You don’t have an opinion on pork tenderloin versus whitefish?”

“Not really, sir.”

He sat up and lost his sulky expression. “Ye gods, a woman of pluck, discernment, and wisdom. Give me your hand, young lady. I would press your flesh but lightly.”

I blinked and held out my hand for shaking purposes.

“Milady.” He took my hand gently in his and kissed the back of it. “I am your devoted servant, yet I don’t even know your name. Sit, please.”

Suddenly I understood the attraction to his show. It wasn’t the food; it was him. Sitting and laughing, I said, “Minnie Hamilton. I’m a librarian. I drive the bookmobile and—”

“Ah, a bookmobile!” His pudgy face lit up. “What a glorious conveyance. I have seen your bookmobile whilst out and about, and now I’ve met its beautiful young driver. What luck!”

“I’m glad you think so, sir.”

“Trock,” he said, patting my hand. “No sirs on this set. Makes me feel as if I’m about to get paddled by my sixth-grade teacher. Now tell me why the bookmobile librarian is on my set.”

I told him about the Three Seasons and about Kristen and about how good she’d look on his show.

“Attractive, is she?” He smoothed his eyebrows.

“If you think a slender, blond, and almost six-foot-tall woman could be attractive, then yes.”

“Hmm.” He kept smoothing his eyebrows. “I will send young Scruffy to investigate. Meanwhile, since you are not making any movements regarding leaving, methinks you have more to say.”

Bumbling he might be, but Trock Farrand was also perceptive. I used the looking-for-bookmobile-donations spiel again and got about as far as I had with Hugo Edel. And that was my link to divert the conversation.

“I asked Hugo Edel for a donation,” I said, sighing, “and got about the same level of excitement.”

Trock smiled. “Dear Minnie, you need to find an
emotional connection. Intellectual appeals are all well and good, but you need to tug on the heartstrings.”

An excellent tip. “I think Mr. Edel’s heartstrings were a little damaged,” I said, mostly, but not completely, lying. “He knew that woman who was killed a couple of weeks ago.”

“Carissa,” Trock said, and the name came out almost as a curse. “I wish I knew nothing of her. She was nothing but a pain in the behind. It’s situations like hers that might drive me to have a closed set.” His voice grew loud. “This show has enough troubles with timing and schedules and I’m the one who has to—” He stopped. Breathed in and out. Sighed. “But I’m sorry she’s dead, of course I am. Especially since she seemed to have found a new love interest. A new man who, I hoped, would make her very happy indeed.”

I’d been sitting up fairly straight, but my spine suddenly went even straighter. “Do you know his name?”

“Dear heart.” Trock gave me a pitying smile. “I barely remember my own.”

“Trock!” A wild-haired woman in shorts, canvas sneakers, and a tie-dyed shirt appeared in front of us. “We need a decision and we need it now.”

He sighed heavily and turned to me. “Which do you think, Lady Minnie? The exquisite whitefish creation I so long to bring to platter, or the staid pork tenderloin that will do nothing for the history of culinary arts.”

Out of Trock’s view, the woman clasped her hands and got down on her knees, mouthing a single word over and over:
Pork!

I gave her a tiny nod. “What do you think about doing your whitefish some other day?” I asked Trock.
“With a little time to plan, you could make a show around it, maybe go out on the boat and help catch the fish.”

Trock’s eyes opened wide. “Minnie, that’s an outstanding idea, simply outstanding.”

I wasn’t sure it was a good idea at all, but maybe I was wrong.

“But…” He hesitated. “The pork. So bland. So basic. So blasé.”

“Not after you get done with it, I’m sure.”

His sudden smile was wide and deep and he looked sincere as Santa Claus three days before Christmas. The man had charm out the wazoo. Maybe I’d ask Kristen to record some of his shows. It was possible I’d even learn something about cooking.

On my way out, Scruffy pulled me aside. “I heard you talking to Trock,” he said. “That Carissa? She was a big fan. We all liked her.”

I eyed him. Was he trying to establish that no one from the TV show had anything to do with the murder? “Okay,” I said, “but Trock seemed to have some issues with her.”

Scruffy shrugged. “Trock has issues with everyone. And that new guy she was seeing?” He glanced away as Trock started shouting orders to fetch the pork. “Hallelujah,” he muttered. “Anyway, I don’t know his name, either, but I know he used to play some sport. A professional sport.”

“Football?” I asked as casually as I could. “Basketball? Baseball? Hockey? Tennis?”

But he was shaking his head. “No idea. I’m not into that kind of thing. Sorry.”

•   •   •

Eddie and I had a late lunch out in the sunshine of the houseboat’s front deck. Or rather, I ate a nice lunch of grilled cheese and a salad while Eddie batted around the three cat treats I gave him.

“You know,” I said, “those are to eat, not to play with.”

Since Eddie was intent on his new game, the rules of which seemed to change at any given moment, he ignored me completely.

“So, you know what I’ve done today?” I asked him. “I talked to Trock Farrand. And you know what I found out? That Carissa was seeing a professional athlete.”

Eddie licked at one of the treats, got it wet with cat spit, rolled it around a little to spread the spit around, walked away from it with the obvious intention of never returning, then came straight over and whacked my shin with the top of his head.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “It’s probably Greg, isn’t it?” Maybe not, but probably. There were other sports guys around; I’d heard of a few retired NFL players who had places nearby, and a number of hockey players, but given Greg’s reaction when I’d talked about Carissa, he definitely had some connection to her.