Cat With a Clue (20 page)

Max and I watched her go. “Is Paul really that awful?” I asked.

“He's not what I'd call a force for good,” Max said,
“but I wouldn't say he was evil personified, either. In spite of what Heather says, he does help some of the folks here. And not always with legal issues.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his two-day whiskers making a scratchy noise against his hand.

This happened to be a noise that, to me, was the equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard, so I quickly said, “What kind of help would he be giving if it wasn't legal? Do you have a ‘for instance'?”

Max took his hand off his face and pointed down the hall. “Paul's the one who noticed that Mary what's-her-name in that room over there can't breathe right if the closet door isn't shut tight. He's the one who realized that Talia DeKeyser was giving away everything she owned to kids she didn't even know. And without Paul, I'm not sure anyone would ever have known that the reason old Robert Smith was so upset—the poor man hasn't had his wits about him in years—was because the picture on his wall was hanging crooked.”

Heather bustled in, pushing a woman in a wheelchair, and half a dozen other folks trailed in after her, and I settled down to read about the doings of the day in Mitford.

But even as I read, my mind kept circling around what I'd learned.

So Paul noticed things.

Interesting.

*   *   *

After I finished reading, leaving the group—and myself—a little on edge on how Father Tim was going to fix things in Mitford, I got back onto my bicycle and headed over to see what Aunt Frances was doing. The traffic was heavy, which, outside of downtown, meant I had to wait for cars
at stop signs and had cars passing me on a regular basis. It seemed that one particular sedan passed me more than once, but since I hadn't been paying that much attention, I couldn't have sworn to it. But the third time it passed me, I was sure it was the same one. Unfortunately, the windows were tinted and the license plate was covered with mud.

Though there was undoubtedly a reasonable explanation for that, I cut down a side street, then went through an alley and rolled up to my aunt's place a little out of breath. I leaned my bike up against a handy tree. “Hey, there. Do you want some help?”

My aunt was half buried in the boardinghouse's foundation shrubs, her front end working hard at pulling out leaves and sticks and who knew what else. I called again, and again she didn't hear me, so I walked up next to her and tapped the small of her back.

“Yahh!”

She erupted from the bush, eyes wild and arms flailing. It was then that I noticed the earbuds inserted into her ears and the iPod tucked into the pocket of her oversized gardening shirt.

“Minnie!” She pulled the buds from her ears. “You scared me!”

“Sorry,” I said. And I was. It was also a little funny, but I knew how it felt to be startled like that and it wasn't much fun. “I didn't realize you were wired up.” I touched my ears.

“Oh. Yes.” Aunt Frances poked at the iPod, turning it off. “It's Otto's. Did you know you can download audio books from the library on these things? It's wonderful! Like having someone read you a story. I don't know that I'll ever wash windows again without this little gadget. Talk about taking away the tedium.”

I laughed. “Audio books as an aid to housework. I'll have to spread the word.”

My aunt smiled. “Of course you know about borrowing audio books. What was I thinking? You have a silly old woman for an aunt.”

“Don't you talk that way about her,” I said, giving her a quick hug. “She's the best.”

“And you're a silly girl.” She returned my hug briefly, then eased away. “Getting this close to someone who's been doing yard work all afternoon isn't the best way to keep your clothes clean.”

I looked down at myself. Small clods of dirt and specks of leaves covered my front. “Not only is my aunt the best aunt in the world, but she might also be the dirtiest aunt ever.”

“Not anymore.” She grinned. “I transferred half of it. Now you can't say I never gave you anything.”

As I did my best to brush off my clothes, I gave Aunt Frances a thorough but secret visual examination. Fatigue was making her shoulders sag and adding some vertical lines around her mouth.

“Say, what do you think about hiring some help?” I asked. “I bet you could get a high school kid. I could ask Thessie to recommend someone.” Thessie, just graduated from high school, had volunteered on the bookmobile last summer. “You don't need to work so hard.”

“Minerva Joy Hamilton, you are the best niece in the world, but please do not presume to tell me what to do. I am almost double your age, and I know what's best for me.”

Knocking off the last of the dirt from my shirt, I said, “I was just trying to help.” It came out sounding sulky, so I added, “And you're not double my age. Just almost.”

“I rounded up.”

For some reason, I found her firm statement funny enough that, despite my best efforts to stay serious, laughter burbled up and out of me. “You're horrible. Does Otto know what he's getting into?”

“Probably not.” The expression on my aunt's face, which had been a smile, faded into a wistful glance across the street. “I just wish . . .”

“What do you wish?” I asked, oh, so gently.

She shook her head. “Nothing. You know what they say about wishes.”

“Beggars and horses?”

“Bingo. And if everyone had a horse, how would all the manure ever get cleaned up?”

I thought about Mackinac Island, where, outside of winter, the only motorized vehicles allowed were emergency types. There were lots of horses and the island cleanup crews took their jobs very seriously, but even still, pedestrians spent a fair amount of time watching where their feet went.

Then again, if everyone had a horse, would there even be pedestrians?

I started to puzzle out the problem to my aunt, but she was headed back into the shrubbery. “You sure I can't help?” I asked.

“Go play,” she said. “Have fun. Ride your bike along a road you haven't been down all summer.”

That sounded like an excellent idea, but still I hesitated. “I can stay.”

“Go!”

And so, grinning, I went.

*   *   *

It was a beautiful evening, and if I went home I would feel compelled to clean the bathroom, so I decided to
take my aunt's advice and ride aimlessly around town. Off in the distance, I heard the tower clock of the Catholic church chime once. Eight thirty, then. At this time of year there was another hour of daylight left, if not an hour and a half, so I had plenty of time to both bike and clean, if I wanted.

Which I didn't, but if the bathroom went uncleaned for much longer, the ghost of my maternal grandmother would haunt my dreams until I took care of what needed to be done.

But it was hard to care about the cleanliness of bathrooms when the evening sun was golden, when backyards were full of children shrieking with laughter as they played the games children had always played, and when the warmth of summer felt as if it would last forever.

A deep sense of contentment filled me as I cruised the streets of my adopted town. Life was good, would continue to be good, would always be—

“Watch out!”

I braked hard, skidding sideways with a shuddering screech of my tires, trying to avoid hitting the soccer ball that had rolled in front of me.

“Sorry!” A young boy scurried out, snatched up the ball, and ran back to his house. “That wouldn't have happened,” he called, “if you'd been paying attention!”

Though this was undoubtedly true, his ire seemed a little harsh. After all, I'd never met him.

“I told you I didn't want to play.”

Ah. The kid was yelling at a girl, who looked about seven years old. I hadn't noticed her until now because she was standing in the middle of a lovely country flower garden. The garden almost filled the space between two Victorian-era homes and was bursting with blooms, none
of which I could identify except for the daisies the girl was clutching in her hand.

“Better not let Mom catch you picking stuff from there,” her brother said.

The girl ignored him and plucked off another white-petaled flower. “It's Mrs. Talia's garden, and she told me I could pick any flower I wanted any time I wanted.”

I blinked. Blinked again as I looked at the house next door. Yes, there was the L-shaped front porch. There were the ornamental cornices, fish-scale gable siding, stained-glass windows, and complicated brickwork foundation that Barb and Cade had mentioned. And, if I remembered correctly, Rianne and her family lived in the house now, keeping it in the family for at least another generation.

It was a nice concept and one with a satisfying continuity, but I was glad my family didn't own a house like that. After all, it was hard enough for me to find the time to clean a single bathroom; how on earth would I have managed a house that, when it had been built, had undoubtedly been maintained with the assistance of daily help?

As I stood there, musing about the social changes in the past hundred years, a rattling pickup truck pulled into Rianne's narrow driveway. A man with graying hair got out and gave me a hard look. “You got a problem?” he asked sharply.

“What? No, I was just—”

“Yo, Steve!” The front door opened and another man, one I assumed to be Rianne's husband, came out. “It's about time you showed up, Guilder. The beer's going to get warm if you don't get a move on.” He was carrying a cooler and tossed it into the back of the
pickup. “There's a bunch of guys who said they're playing tonight. Hope you're up for seven-card stud.”

So. Not only was Steve Guilder back in Chilson, but he was a friend of Rianne's husband. Did that mean . . .

No. The police were taking care of this end of things. There was no need for me to get involved. None whatsoever.

I hopped on my bike and pedaled away from the DeKeysers and back toward the marina, where my houseboat and my cat waited for me.

*   *   *

“Mrr!” my cat said.

I looked at him. “You know, when I was riding back through town just now, I was thinking how nice it was going to be to walk in and be greeted by my loving, furry friend, who was longing to be snuggled and petted and perhaps even kissed by his favorite human. Instead, I walk in and find you there.”

Eddie, who was sitting on the kitchen counter, sat up even straighter as I finished walking through the door.

“Get down,” I said firmly. “There aren't many rules in this house, but No Cats on the Kitchen Counter is one of them and it's at the top of the list.”

“Mrr.”

“Down,” I said, raising my voice.

Eddie blinked at me.

“Down!” I dropped my backpack and clapped my hands. It was a noise Eddie hated. He glared at me and jumped down with a loud
thump!

“How do you do that?” I asked. “That was a louder noise than I would have made and I weigh . . .” I tried to do some quick math in my head, failed, felt a little
embarrassed about the failure, then remembered that I was a librarian and mental math wasn't a required duty. “And I weigh a lot more than you do.”

“Mrr.”

“Talkative tonight, are you?”

Eddie, who had been walking toward me in a straight line, suddenly swerved and went around my feet in a wide arc, and returned to his straight path, the end of which was to jump on the pilot's seat and sit on top of my backpack. “Mrr,” he said, settling in.

“Thanks. A little more Eddie hair on my stuff is exactly what I needed. Because, really, can you ever have enough of—”

From deep inside the backpack, my cell phone rang.

Eddie jumped and scrambled onto the dashboard. When he arrived safely, he turned and gave my pack the evil eye. If the world had been a just place, the backpack would have spontaneously combusted. But since the world was unfair, even for Eddies, I patted him on the head and reached for the phone.

The number wasn't one I recognized, but it was local, so I thumbed it on. “Hello?”

“Is this Minnie Hamilton?”

“Yes,” I said. The voice was female and elderly, but it wasn't one I recognized. “This is. How are you this evening?”

“Well, isn't it nice of you to ask,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her words. “I'm so glad I decided to call. I knew it was a cellular phone, and in general I don't like to talk to the things—that time lag is wretched if you want to have a meaningful talk.”

“I know what you mean.” I'd made a strategic error in starting a conversation before I knew who was on
the other end of the phone, and it was too late to ask her name.
Nicely done, Minnie. Very nicely done.

“Anyway,” she said. “My Thomas said you'd rung the other day when I was downstate visiting our daughter. He said it sounded important and that I should call you as soon as I got home.”

And then I knew who was on the other end of the phone. I stood by the dashboard and gave Eddie a few absent pets, watching stray hairs fly up into the air. “Thank you for calling, Mrs. Panik. It is important.”

“Well, then. What can I do for you?”

Lillian Panik was the longest-serving Friend of the Library. She'd volunteered under more presidents than . . . well, not more presidents than Eddie had hairs, but probably more than he had whiskers. I made a mental note to count them later and said, “It's about the break-in in the book-sale room.”

Mrs. Panik sighed. “That was so sad. I've never seen anything like it. Such a mess, and for what?”

I had a pretty good idea for what, but said, “I was just wondering if you'd noticed anything unusual in the days just before it happened. Odd phone calls, strange questions, someone in there you'd never noticed before—anything, really, that was different.”