Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby (23 page)

“Everything happened on a weekend,” I said softly. “Do you think it matters?”

Eddie opened his mouth in a silent “Mrr” and
jumped back onto the back of the bench, where he sat and started cleaning his left front paw. To get the newsprint off, no doubt.

“Well,” I told him, “since you think it matters, maybe I should call a detective.” Eddie had no response to that. I took that as confirmation, found the number for the sheriff’s department, and dialed. Since it was getting close to ten at night, of course there was no detective around. I left a message to call.

“Think one of them will?” I asked Eddie. He stared at me, unblinking. “Yeah, I don’t think so, either.”

Which meant it might be time for another
trap.

A
few minutes later, my cell phone rang. “Ms. Hamilton? Detective Devereaux returning your call.”

Within the hour? A new record, folks! “Thanks,” I said, and launched straight into everything I’d found out, from the visits of Carissa’s ex-boyfriend to Crown Yachts and Trock’s set. I told him about my suspicions regarding the accidents, and about what had happened yesterday to Greg Plassey.

I told him all that and about the weekends and everything else I could think of and when I was done, the detective said, “Thank you for the information, Ms. Hamilton. And we appreciate that you stopped by to drop off that note you received.”

Somewhere in there I heard the warning signs of an upcoming qualifying sentence. “But… ?”

“There’s been a development in the case against Mr. McCade.”

All the muscles in my body tightened. “It’s that nurse’s aide, isn’t it?” I blurted out.

For a moment I heard nothing from the other end of the phone. Then I heard the distant sounds of a file
drawer slamming. Devereaux was still there; he just wasn’t talking. Which could only mean he didn’t know what to say, and to me that could only mean that I was right. They’d discovered that Heather, Cade’s aide the night Carissa was murdered, had lied.

“It’s not what you think,” I said fast. “Really, it’s not. See, there was a moon and Cade wanted to sit out in the courtyard and besides, there’s no way he could have left that note in the bookmobile and—”

“Thank you, Ms. Hamilton. Please be assured that we’re investigating the incident to the fullest extent possible, and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any new information.” And he was gone.

Slowly, I put down the phone, my fear for Cade reaching a new level.

It was definitely time for another trap.

Trap number two.

•   •   •

I asked Eddie about the wisdom of setting another trap. “I don’t see what else I can do. What I need is proof, but all I have is suppositions and guesses and theories.” And redundancy, apparently, but I was so worried about Cade that I cut myself a little slack in the vocabulary department.

Eddie, who was lying on my lap, kneaded it gently with his claws. I wasn’t sure what that meant, other than my lap wasn’t quite what he wanted it to be, so I kept going.

“The fact that everything happened on a weekend doesn’t necessarily mean that it was the Weasel, whoever he is.” Or anyone else from downstate, for that matter. “Maybe the killer was using that as a red
herring, or maybe the killer lives up here but has a long commute and only has weekends free.”

Eddie rolled partway over, purring and exposing his tummy.

I rubbed his soft belly fur and did some more thinking out loud. “Either way, I think setting up a second trap is the way to go.”

“And were you going to do this all alone?”

I twitched, Eddie jumped, and I turned to see Cade standing on the dock, leaning on his cane.

“You might as well check yourself out of Lakeview,” I said, “for all the time you spend outside the facility.”

He smiled. “I was cleared for all activities of daily living this morning. You are speaking to a man who will sleep in his own bed tonight.”

“That’s great!” I said. “But where’s Barb? Shouldn’t you two be out celebrating?”

He nodded in the direction of the parking lot. “She’s waiting for me. But we’d like to invite you to dinner next week, since it’s mostly due to you and your Eddie that I was able to recover so quickly.”

A happy warmth glowed inside me. “You don’t need to do that. I was glad I was in the right place at the right time, that’s all.”

“Ivy will be there, too,” he said. “And I would love a chance to see three of my favorite women in the same place at the same time.”

I laughed. “Then I accept. Thank you.”

“One condition.” He shifted his grip on the cane. “This proposal of a second trap. The entire escapade is far too dangerous. This is something best left to the police. They are trained for this sort of work and you are not.
Perhaps they think I killed Carissa, but I didn’t, and they will at some point determine who did. Let them do their job.”

A sensible person would have agreed, but as many people had told me, I was not always sensible. I held my thumb and index finger an inch apart. “The police are this close to arresting you. Detective Devereaux as good as told me so. If they still think you did it, how hard are they going to look at anyone else?”

He shifted again. Didn’t say anything.

“Aren’t you the least little bit worried about being convicted for a murder you didn’t commit? Sure, we’d all like to believe in the infallibility of our justice system, but we also all know that mistakes are sometimes made.”

Cade looked out to the lake. He didn’t say anything.

I pressed on. “And how about the value of your paintings? About all the money so many people have spent, purchasing your work for a retirement nest egg? Or aren’t you concerned about them anymore?”

A half smile creased his face. “I totally withdraw my objection to Trap Number Two.”

We were clearly onto
T
words, but I didn’t have one ready. “Good.” Though I was going to set the trap no matter how many objections he put up, it was nice to have his tacit approval.

“Tomorrow night, then,” he said. “I’ll make the Facebook posts.”

I nodded, then remembered the long hours we’d spent in the first trap. “And I’ll bring snacks.”

•   •   •

At sunset the next night, I hauled the picnic basket down from the top of the kitchen cabinets and shoved every kind of quiet snack I could think of into it.

This turned into an interesting exercise, because I quickly realized that most of my favorite snacks were noisy. Or if not the food itself, then the wrapper. It wouldn’t do at all to scare away the killer because I was taking the wrapper off a bar of Hershey’s Special Dark.

In the end I included water bottles and a number of items in separate, nicely soft zippered plastic bags. Cheese cubes, fudge from the downtown shop, bananas, and grapes. I even remembered to tuck in something upon which to serve the food. Sometimes I was so smart I amazed myself.

Cade and I had figured that if this trap was going to work at all, the killer would surely show up after everyone else in the marina had gone to bed, which on Friday night meant after the weekly party tailed off around two in the morning. I could hear the action in full swing a couple of docks away, so there was oodles of time.

I’d also had time to think about my previous position in the shrubbery. While my phone’s camera function was good, I wasn’t absolutely certain it was good enough to capture the face of someone on my boat from that distance. This time I was going to be up close and personal.

“Minnie?”

I abandoned the picnic basket and poked my head out the door. “Hey, Cade. Come on in. I was just finishing with the provisions.”

He opened the houseboat’s gate and, using his cane for assistance, stepped up onto the deck. “The closer this moment comes, the less sure I am you should be doing it.”

“Me? What about you?”

“It’s my problem and I should never have pulled you in.”

I snorted. “As I recall, I pulled myself in. The next big question is, do I take the basket of snacks, or do you?” He started to protest, but I crossed my arms and stuck out my chin, becoming the immovable object. Cade sighed, clearly choosing not to try to be the irresistible force, and lifted the picnic basket off the counter.

The weight almost toppled him. “Goodness, Minnie, we’re only going to be out here for a few hours. How much did you pack?”

Since he’d lifted the basket with his weak arm, I didn’t want to make fun of him. “Enough to feed a small army. After all, it’s better to have and not need than need and not have.”

He nodded sagely. “Words of wisdom. Now, where is that Eddie of yours? I’d like to say hello.”

“Last I checked, he was napping on my pillow.” I made a move toward the back of the boat. “I’ll go get him.”

“No, don’t.” Cade held up his hand. “I wouldn’t want to wake him.”

I blinked. The man, clearly, had never kept company with a cat. “He’ll go right back to sleep,” I said. “Cats aren’t like babies.”

But Cade was already shuffling toward the door. “Let’s get you settled.”

Outside, I propped the ladder I’d borrowed from the marina office up against the side of the cabin and scrambled up. Cade stood a few rungs up, lifted the picnic basket to the roof, and slid it across. I patted the front pocket of my black sweatpants. Phone. I patted
the other pocket. My aunt’s small digital camera for backup. Set and ready.

“Did you look at the weather?” I asked.

“If you believe weather forecasters”—the chaise squeaked under Cade’s weight—“we’re in for a mild evening of temperatures in the low sixties, calm wind, and clear skies.”

I hunted around in the darkness for the cushion I’d tossed up earlier. “That’s a nice forecast. I hope it’s true.”

Cade chuckled. “You, me, and all the merrymakers over there.”

Tonight’s marina party was roaring at full throttle. The two docks and multiple boats between us weren’t doing much to muffle the music and laughter. I sat cross-legged on the cushion, tempted to reach for the picnic basket, but knowing I shouldn’t start down that snack-filled road so early.

Cade and I talked quietly. He told me that he’d always wanted to spend a night in Sweden’s ice hotel; I told him that I’d always wanted to watch a horse race at every track Dick Francis had mentioned in his mysteries. Cade said he’d never been able to cook bacon properly and I confessed that I’d never once made a biscuit worth eating.

It might have been an hour later when Cade stood and stretched. “I’m getting downright old,” he grumbled. “Can’t even—“

Crash!

I knew exactly what had happened. I stuck my head out over the edge of the roof. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the dim light, I could see well enough, or
almost. “That’s my bucket of rocks,” I said. “You must have kicked it over. Leave them for morning. They’re just, you know, rocks.”

But he was already stooping down to pick them up. “Can’t have a mess,” he said, glancing sideways, “now, can we?”

He stopped abruptly. With a rock in each hand, he looked straight up at me.

I
stopped breathing. Looked at Cade’s taut face. Looked at the stones in his hands. Looked at Cade. Had I been wrong? Had all this been a complicated maneuver to get me in a place where he could kill me and blame it on the ex-boyfriend?

“No!” Cade shouted, and pulled back with his arm, cocking it to throw.

I yanked myself back, shouting who knew what, stunned that I’d been so wrong, angry that Cade was trying to murder me, and pumped full of determination that I’d get out of this situation. Somehow.

“Leave us alone!” Cade shouted, and the rock flew across the boat’s deck and crashed against something that went “Oww!”

I lifted my head. Someone was standing on the dock. A male figure, nondescript, not short and not tall, not wide and not thin. He was standing with one foot on the dock and one on my boat, grasping his shoulder where Cade’s rock must have hit him nice and square, but it was an awkward look, because the hand doing the grasping was holding a deadly looking handgun
with an attachment that every moviegoer knew was a silencer.

“It’s him,” I gasped, part of me very relieved that it wasn’t Trock, or Greg, or Hugo, or even Randall Moffit.

“Stay still,” Cade ordered. He reached for another rock, cocked his arm again, and let it fly.

Brett Karringer ducked. Cade’s stone hit a piling and splashed harmlessly into the water.

Cade was grabbing stone after stone, throwing, fighting as best he could, but there were only so many rocks in the bucket. All Karringer had to do was wait it out, and then he could come after us with the gun and do… well, whatever he’d been planning on doing.

I was yelling, shrieking for help, but the music from the party was drowning me out.

There had to be a way out of this. There
had
to be, but calling 911 wouldn’t get the police here anything close to fast enough.

Frantically I looked around for a weapon. I didn’t have an accurate aim—I’d always been one of those kids picked dead last for softball teams in gym class—so even if there were more rocks, it wouldn’t have done us any good. What we needed was to get that gun away from Karringer. What I needed was something… ah.

I lunged for the picnic basket. Sticking out high was the cutting board I’d stuffed in to work as a serving tray. I yanked it free.

“Minnie, call the police!” Cade shouted, still throwing rocks at Karringer.

Rocks weren’t going to work much longer and there was no time to hold a committee meeting about this. Karringer’s head was down and he was fumbling with
the gun, trying to bring it up and around into shooting position.

Though the last thing I wanted to do was approach a guy with a loaded weapon, there wasn’t much choice. Well, I could have screamed like a little kid and crumpled into a ball of fear, but that wouldn’t be very productive. It wouldn’t have helped my self-esteem much, either.

I sucked in a quick breath and, as quickly and as quietly as I could, climbed down the ladder. How close did I have to get? I had absolutely no idea.

With all my heart and might I wished that I’d spent more time in the backyard playing catch with my brother. If only Greg Plassey were here to give me some pointers. Then again, if Greg were here, he would have beaned Karringer in the head with that first rock and I wouldn’t have to be doing any of this. An empowerment exercise, that’s what this was.

I was aware of the stupidity of the thoughts running through my brain, but I didn’t try to stop them. If I stopped them, I might start thinking about how scared I was, and there was no way that could be a good thing.

Closer. I had to get closer…

A loud metallic
crash
hit the dock, followed by an odd wooden thumping sound. Cade had run out of rocks. He’d heaved the bucket at Brett and now he had nothing left to throw.

It was up to me.

Karringer lifted the gun in Cade’s direction. Time slowed. I saw nothing except the end of that gun, felt nothing, heard nothing except—

“MRRR!” Eddie’s yowl came from the roof.

Karringer jumped when Eddie shrieked, and let his gun arm drop.

Perfect, because I knew what had happened. That wooden sound I’d heard. The picnic basket. Eddie had oozed himself into his old cat carrier, hoping he was going to get a ride on the bookmobile. No wonder Cade had said it was heavy. Now Eddie was out and wanting off the roof.

I planted my feet, pulled my arm back across my body, cocked my wrist, and whipped the cutting board at Karringer, Frisbee-style.

“Uhh…” Karringer staggered back, his arms flailing.

I’d hit him! From the way he was clutching at his side, I’d skimmed his ribs instead of knocking away the gun, but I’d actually hit him!

Karringer staggered forward, falling against the boat’s railing, trying to recover his balance, his arms whirling.

Something long and skinny whizzed past my head. Cade’s cane thumped Karringer in the wrist. The gun clattered to the boat’s deck and skittered away.

I dashed forward and scooped it up, pulling the lethal thing out of Karringer’s reach.

He glared at me, a look full of such malevolence and hate that I took a step back. Librarians are used to many things, but pure unadulterated hatred is not one of them.

“Minnie,” Cade said. “Do you… ?”

I pointed the business end of the gun straight at Karringer’s center mass. “Yes,” I said confidently, sliding back the pistol’s chamber. “I do.” My self-defense classes hadn’t just included lessons in close combat. I didn’t know if I could actually fire a gun at a human being, but Karringer didn’t know that.

He glared at me, glared at Cade, uttered an
extremely rude curse, then turned and ran down the dock. For the briefest fraction of a second, I paused. Chase him? Let him go? If I let him go, what were the odds that he’d disappear?

“I’m going after him,” I yelled to Cade as I scrambled over the railing. “Call nine-one-one!”

“Minnie, I dropped my phone. I think it’s in the water.” He stumbled over to his cane and picked it up.

I reached into my pocket and tossed my cell over to him. “That button on the bottom turns it on and—”

“Tell me in the car,” he said. “I’m coming with you.”

I opened my mouth. Shut it. There wasn’t time to argue. “Come on.” I glanced up to the roof, but I couldn’t even see Eddie. No doubt he’d settled down onto the cushion where I’d been and was already asleep. “Be back soon,” I whispered.

Fast as I could, I dodged inside the houseboat. I put the gun’s safety on, grabbed my backpack from the dining table, and tossed in the gun, urgency tugging at me hard.

We clattered down to the dock, me first, Cade coming behind me, his stroke-induced limp slowing him down. In what felt like hours, but was probably barely a minute, we were in my car and away.

I braked hard when we reached the road. Which way had he gone? If I was a killer trying to run away from people who could put me in jail, would I turn left, heading toward a road that would take me north and away from towns and houses and anyone who might be able to identify me? Or would I go straight into Chilson, then through and past town, to head downstate and lose myself in the downstate crowds?

“That way.” Cade pointed straight.

I squinted and took my foot off the brake, but I didn’t see any taillights. “I don’t—”

“There was movement. No lights, just movement.”

I still didn’t see anything, but I trusted Cade’s judgment. My right foot smacked the gas pedal down hard, and my little car did its best to roar forward.

“It’s white,” Cade said. “And… there!”

Finally I did see something. The vehicle was small and white and had a single occupant. Karringer was behind the wheel of an electric golf cart.

“No wonder we didn’t hear him drive up,” I said. Golf carts were a common means of transportation for many people in resort communities, but I’d never once thought that Karringer would have one. How had he… ?

I shook my head. Didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was keeping track of him until the police showed up. Which shouldn’t be too hard, since even the top speed of even the fastest golf cart was… well, whatever it was, it had to be less than what my car could do.

We sped down the street, closing in fast on Karringer. “Call nine-one-one,” I told Cade again. “Tell them we’ll follow him until someone catches up to us.”

Cade pushed at the phone’s buttons and soon he was chatting with a helpful young man from dispatch.

“Where are we at this moment?” Cade asked the dispatcher’s question out loud and glanced out the window. “Traveling east on Main Street, just passed the Hill Avenue intersection and—Minnie, he’s turning left!”

I pounded the steering wheel in frustration. Karringer knew the streets and sidewalks of Chilson better
than I’d expected. He’d turned into the narrow park where I’d sat with Detective Inwood and Deputy Wolverson. This end, the downtown end, was relatively flat, but it descended quickly toward a short street that ran along the lake’s edge. And though the golf cart’s width would easily zip down the sidewalk, there was no way my car would fit between the stonework planters.

The car’s brakes screeched as I pushed hard on the pedal. The second we came to a complete stop, I opened my door and was outside.

I was halfway around the car and picking up speed when I heard the passenger door open. “Key’s in the ignition,” I called. “Drive around to the bottom of the hill. Make sure he doesn’t get out.”

Cade’s voice came through the night. “Take your phone, Minnie. No arguments.”

I wanted to argue, of course, but there wasn’t time. The dim illumination from the few streetlights wasn’t enough to guarantee catching a beach ball if it had been thrown straight at me, so I skidded to a halt, reversed direction, ran back, grabbed the phone from Cade’s outstretched hand, and took off running again.

“Be careful,” Cade shouted. I lifted one hand in a wave of agreement and kept on going.

What little light there had been up on the road filtered away quickly in the ornamental trees that dotted the sidewalk. Until tonight, I’d always enjoyed this hidden pathway, smiling every time I walked its brick-lined walk that curled around trees and shrubs and landscaped flower beds.

Now, as I pounded a straight path, running over grass, sidewalk, wood chips, and whatever else lay in my way, I hoped a small part of my brain would
remember where the big rocks were and implement that memory in such a way that would allow me to avoid running straight into something and hurting myself so badly that, this time, Cade would be the one to take me to the emergency room.

Down the sidewalk, down the hill, down toward Janay Lake. If Karringer made it to the street that lay at the end of the park, he could zoom off in two different directions. And if he made it to the street before we caught up to him, we wouldn’t know in which direction he’d gone. We’d lose him, maybe forever.

An insistent squawking noise came from the phone. Right. Cade had been chatting with the 911 dispatcher. But I was running flat out and had no breath to spare for talking. From what Cade had told him, maybe they’d anticipate what was happening. Maybe a police vehicle was already speeding on its way to intercept Karringer.

Nice thought, but I couldn’t count on it.

I hurdled a flat rock that, if I remembered correctly, held a bronze marker that dedicated the park to a former mayor of Chilson. The perfectly executed leap boosted my confidence and I found that I hadn’t been running as fast as I could. Not quite.

Run, Minnie, run,
I told myself.
For Carissa. For Cade.

I don’t know if it was because I’d sped up or if Karringer had slowed, thinking that he’d lost us in his clever turn into the park, but I finally saw the back end of the golf cart. So far ahead, though, that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to catch up. I had to stop him… but how?

Come on, Cade,
I thought.

“Stop!” I yelled, loud as I could. “Stop right now!”

Karringer’s head swiveled around and the golf cart
started drifting to the right. I saw his mouth move when he caught sight of me, and it didn’t look like a very nice word that he said. He turned back around, but by the time he’d done so, the cart was headed directly toward a large and very solid-looking trash container.

He wrenched the steering wheel around. The cart turned hard. Too hard. In one quick movement, it fell on its side.

Car headlights swept across the scene, pinning Karringer down with its bright beams. My car, since I heard Cade’s voice calling, “Minnie! Minnie, are you all right?”

“Fine,” I said, waving, and ran to Karringer. His legs were trapped underneath the golf cart.

“I think my ankle’s broken,” he croaked. “I think it’s bleeding. You have to help me.”

With great caution, I approached. “You’re hurt?” If he was injured, I did need to help him. And if his ankle was broken, he wouldn’t be running away. I edged closer, trying to see.

“Minnie!” Cade was limping fast, cane in one hand and the gun in the other. “Stay back! I’m sure he’s trying to get you close enough to grab and use as a hostage.”

I backpedaled, my eyes wide.

Karringer cursed.

“Thanks,” I breathed to Cade as he came up to me. “Sometimes I forget how naïve I am.”

“Part of your charm, dear Minnie,” he said. “You are all right, aren’t you?”

“Pretty as a picture,” I said. “You?”

“Fit as a fiddle.”

Karringer was still whining about his ankle, and off in the distance, we heard the welcome sound of sirens rushing toward us.

“Well, my dear,” Cade said, “I’d say Trap Two is turning out terrifically.”

I laughed, and was pleased that only the teensiest bit of it sounded out of control. “Totally.”

Karringer made one more try to wriggle out from under the golf cart, but Cade stepped forward, raising the gun. I grabbed a rock from the nearest flower bed and Karringer fell back, giving up.

Trap Two was Tremendous.