Gone with the Whisker

by Laurie Cass

  He gave his chin one last rub. “There’s one thing I could tell you, because it happened in public. The afternoon and night of the Fourth, Rex Stuhler and his wife, Fawn, were on Janay Lake with friends. On a big pontoon boat. You know that parking lot where the city is letting food trucks park? Well, someone from the boat placed a food order and they dropped Rex off so he could pick it up. Only he never got there.”

  “This was during the fireworks?”

  “The order was sent in about an hour before. But Rex sent a text to his wife that the food truck was backed up, and that he was going to walk around for a bit. That he’d let them know when he picked up the food, so no one thought too much about how late he was.”

  The implication was clear. “So Rex’s wife—what was her name, Fawn?—was on the boat and didn’t murder him.”

  “That’s the way it looks.”

  I grinned. “Spoken like a true law enforcement officer. Reassuring, yet leaving your options open. You sure you don’t want to go into politics?” An odd expression came and went on his face so quickly it took me a second to interpret.

  My smile went even wider. “You’re thinking about sheriff, aren’t you?”

  “Shh!” He made frantic quiet-down motions with his hands. “Don’t say that out loud! Sheriff Richardson is a long way from retiring.”

  I stood. “Your secret is safe with me. And for the record, I think you’d make a great elected law enforcement official.”

  He gave me a pained look, which made me laugh, and smiling, I headed back outside.

  * * *

  * * *

  The sheriff’s office was just up the street from Chilson’s main downtown blocks. I stood there for a moment, considering my options. I could drop into the toy store to see how Katrina—Kate—was doing, but there were two drawbacks to that. One, it would annoy her, and two, now that it was late morning, the sidewalks were packed with tourists.

  Tourism was a critical part of the Up North economy, and I appreciated every dollar they spent in our town, but there were days that I just plain didn’t feel like elbowing through the crowds, and today was one of them. So I headed up the hill to the boardinghouse, tracing a path I’d walked many times before, a path I would probably walk less and less in the future.

  This made me sad, and I decided not to think about how life changes were never one hundred percent positive, that even changes you desperately wanted came along with things you’d miss. Instead I focused on how I was going to get into the boardinghouse without being seen by Aunt Frances, who now lived right across the street.

  Not that it really mattered if she saw me, of course. She was a reasonable adult, and if I wanted to stop by the boardinghouse she’d run by herself for decades, there was no reason to assume that if she caught me going in she’d buttonhole me afterward, quiz me on what I’d seen and heard, ask what was different, and roll her eyes at the answers.

  Then again, that was pretty much what she’d done the last time I’d popped in to say hello to Cousin Celeste. If I’d been thinking ahead, I would have contacted Otto and asked him to get my aunt into the kitchen, where she couldn’t see the street, or even better, out of the house altogether.

  But I hadn’t, and it was too late now, so I squared my shoulders and prepared myself for the doom that could soon await me.

  I climbed the boardinghouse steps and onto the wide wooden porch. A swing at the far end swayed lightly. It was a bit ghostly, but then I saw the newspaper open on the swing’s seat.

  “Well, hello there, Minnie honey.” Cousin Celeste popped out the front door. “How are you?” She nodded at the tray of drinks and cookies she was carrying. “It’s like I knew you were coming. Have a sit.”

  “Um.” I glanced over my shoulder at Otto and my aunt’s house. “Have you seen Aunt Frances this morning?”

  “She and Otto left about an hour ago on a tandem bicycle after loading what looked like a dandy picnic.” Celeste set the metal Coca-Cola tray on a small table and sat in the swing, patting the seat next to her. “Now sit.”

  Feeling slightly disloyal, I lowered myself as Celeste handed me a glass filled with water, ice, blueberries, and strawberries. I took it, feeling a pang of loss for the lemonade my aunt had always served on the porch, but as soon as the berried water went down my throat, I forgot all about it. “This is wonderful!”

  Celeste beamed, crinkling her weathered face into tiny wrinkles. Her long gray hair was tidied up in a braid that she’d rolled into a bun and secured with magic. Sitting or standing, we looked each other straight in the eye. It was immensely refreshing to know I wasn’t the only person in our extended family who didn’t have an excessive amount of height.

  “Thought you’d like it.” Celeste nodded decisively. “The guests can’t get enough. After all, they’ve never been here and they don’t know Frances used to serve lemonade.”

  Some might, if they read the scrapbooks from previous years, and sometimes the children of previous boarders came up to stay, but I kept drinking to avoid a response.

  “I hear you were mixed up with that sad business at the waterfront the night of the fireworks,” Celeste said.

  “Only peripherally.” I told her what had happened.

  “That poor girl!” Celeste put a hand to her throat. “Is she going back home?”

  “She started working at the toy store this morning, so not today anyway.”

  Celeste smiled. “Ah, the resiliency of youth. Do the police know who killed that poor man?”

  “They’re working on it.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll figure it out soon,” she said comfortably.

  For a moment we swung gently to and fro, then Celeste sighed. “Minnie, your aunt is a wonderful woman, but I need to talk to someone about her and I don’t know where else to turn.”

  I’d known this was coming. It was, in fact, why I’d walked up here, when I would rather have returned to the houseboat and spent the rest of the morning reading. I half smiled. “Aunt Frances is driving you nuts, isn’t she?”

  “And how,” Celeste said fervently. “I thought we had an agreement. She said she’d be hands off, that this place was mine to run and that whatever I wanted to do was fine by her, and that she wouldn’t say a word about how I was running the boardinghouse.” She stopped. “Well, I suppose that’s true in fact. She hasn’t said anything, but she stops and gives me that look. You know the one.”

  I did indeed. My aunt was an imposing figure, and not just because of her height. Years of teaching community college woodworking to classes of young men who thought they knew more than she had given her the ability to quell an unruly mob with a single glance.

  “And she’s sending me text messages.” Celeste offered me a plate of butterscotch cookies. “Reminding me about things I’ve already done. I’m being polite as I can, but I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.”

  I made sympathetic noises around bits of cookie, and braced myself for what was sure to come next.

  “Minnie, I hate to ask, but can you talk to her?” Celeste turned, beseeching me with her light blue eyes. “Please?”

  And there it was.

  On the outside I smiled. On the inside I heaved a huge sigh. “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  “Thank you!” Celeste lunged at me and gave me a hug. “Thank you so much! I’m no good at confrontation. I know you’ll straighten this out in no time.”

  “No problem,” I murmured, as I wondered how in little green apples I was going to make both Celeste and my aunt happy.

  * * *

  * * *

  Donna, one of the library’s part-time clerks, frowned from behind the front desk. “What are you doing here?”

  I looked around. “Are you talking to me?”

  “Do you see anyone else?” she asked dryly.

  The lobby, entry, and main room of the l
ibrary were quiet and, except for the two of us, completely empty. A low patron count was normal on nice summer days, but this was a little ridiculous. And a bit eerie. Then I heard the distant voice of a child and an adult murmuring in reply, and relaxed. The zombie apocalypse had not overtaken the Chilson District Library and swooped away all our library-goers.

  “So again I ask,” Donna said, putting her elbows on the counter and her chin in her hands. “What are you doing here? You took the day off. So take yourself outside and go play.”

  I grinned. Donna was in her early seventies and had already retired from a full-time job. She had children and grandchildren and a husband who was within a year of retiring from his much-loved job as the local barber.

  Donna was also an active long-distance runner, and the primary reason she worked at the library was to help fund trips to run marathons in faraway places. And for Donna, far away meant Norway, Ethiopia, and Argentina. And the trips weren’t just to run. Last winter she’d traveled to Antarctica, and she and her equally adventurous daughter had enjoyed themselves immensely.

  “Couldn’t stay away,” I said, spreading my arms. “I mean, look at this place.”

  The building around us had once upon a time been Chilson’s elementary school. The town’s young demographic had eventually expanded to the point where a new, larger building had been necessary and this handsome L-shaped brick building, filled with Craftsman details, had been shuttered.

  For years it sat empty, deteriorating slowly but surely, and then, just before the roof collapsed, the library board put a bond proposal on the ballot to renovate the building. The people of Chilson had overwhelmingly voted in favor, and the school was transformed into a stupendously gorgeous library that was the envy of all.

  Well, maybe not all. I’d heard the Library of Congress had a decent space. But what other small town library had a reading room with a fireplace and window seats? What other library had a vaulted ceiling over the main stacks? Who else had gorgeous metallic tile in the restrooms and lobby?

  “It is nice,” Donna said. “But it’s nice outside, too.” She tipped her head toward the massive oak front doors. “And while this building will stay nice, out there could change in the next five minutes.”

  “The Wi-Fi at the marina is painfully slow,” I said. “I’m just here to look something up.”

  “Research? Ooo, let me play, please?”

  I looked at her and decided I might as well get it over with. So I told her about the night of the fireworks, and Rex Stuhler, how Katrina—Kate—was having a rough time of it, and how I was going to do my best to help track down whoever killed Rex.

  “The poor girl,” Donna said sympathetically. “But at least she has you. How many other aunts have also found murder victims? You two could create your own support group.”

  My penchant for finding dead bodies was not something I wanted to discuss at length with Kate, but I half nodded. “I was going to look on the county’s website to see where Rex and his wife live.”

  “Foundation research. Good idea.” Donna rotated her large monitor so I could see, pulled out her keyboard, and started typing. “Tonedagana County, parcel search . . .” She clicked away. “Do you know what township? Never mind, there can’t be many Stuhlers . . . okay, here we go. ‘Owners Rex and Fawn Stuhler,’” Donna read out loud. “So that’s their property.” She pointed at a yellow rectangle on Ayers Road. “Let’s see what we can find out about the neighbors. If they’re people I know, I can ask about Rex.”

  A few clicks later, we learned that the parcels to the west and south of the Stuhlers were owned by the county. “Forestry parcels, is my guess,” Donna said. “The county forester sets up parcels to get logged off every thirty years or so. Makes the county a little money, and wow, would you look at that?” She’d turned on the aerial photography layer, and the Stuhlers’ roof practically popped us in the eyeballs. “That’s a bright red roof.”

  It certainly was. “Who owns that?” I nodded at a smaller parcel to the north.

  “Hang on . . . here we go. Somebody named Vannett. First name ‘Barry.’”

  “Do you know him?” I asked. Except for a short stint at college, Donna had never lived anywhere but Chilson. If she didn’t know someone, or at least know of them, odds were approximately a hundred percent they weren’t from here.

  “Nope.” She drummed her fingers on the countertop. “But the name sounds familiar. Let me think.”

  Meanwhile, something was twitching inside my own brain. “Hang on,” I said slowly. “Isn’t Ayers Road part of the route for that new bike trail?”

  Donna shrugged. “I haven’t been paying close attention. If it ever gets built, I’ll be long gone. Those things take forever.”

  I asked Donna to let me know if she remembered anything about Barry Vannett, then wandered out into the sunshine, wondering who might know about the trail. All I knew was from the newspaper, which had reported that a group of local folks had banded together to plan a route connecting Chilson to Petoskey via back roads and county-owned property. I could talk to my friend Camille at the paper, but what I wanted was insider information.

  “Got it,” I said, making a 180-degree turn and marching the other way. I was on nodding-acquaintance terms with Jeremy Hull, director of the nonprofit Northern Lakes Protection Association. If Jeremy didn’t have information on the trail, he was bound to know someone who did.

  I entered the blue lobby of the Protection Association’s office and saw Jeremy and his wife sitting together at his desk, picking apart the delectable treat that was an elephant ear, that classic deep-fried, cinnamon-sprinkled doughy goodness.

  “Hey, Minnie.” Jeremy waved a piece of ear at me. “You’ve met my wife, haven’t you? Honey, Minnie Hamilton, the bookmobile librarian. Minnie, this is my wife, Honey Hull.”

  Honey and I murmured nice-to-meet-you’s and Jeremy asked, “Don’t suppose you’re here to make a sizable donation to our new project. We’re raising money to rework that undersized culvert on the Mitchell River.”

  “Sorry,” I said, pulling the pockets of my shorts inside out. “Nothing here. I just stopped by to ask if you knew anything about that new trail they’re proposing, the one that would connect Chilson to Petoskey . . .”

  Jeremy was shaking his head. “I don’t, but—”

  “But I do.” Honey smiled. “I’m on the planning committee. If you’d like to help, we’re holding a meeting next week.”

  “Um.” I shifted from one foot to the other. I’d hit the jackpot! Too bad I didn’t have a good explanation of what I wanted! “It’s about Rex Stuhler. My niece is the one who found him the other night, and . . .” And what? But I needn’t have worried.

  Honey’s face flushed a fast red. “That poor girl. But I knew something like this would happen, I just knew it. Rex didn’t take him seriously, though. Fawn laughed it off, too. The whole thing makes me want to—” She broke off and covered her face with her hands.

  Jeremy reached out to comfort his wife. “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  “No, it won’t,” she choked out through sobs. “Rex is dead. It’ll never be okay for him or for Fawn. And if they don’t arrest Barry Vannett, then something is seriously wrong with the universe.”

  I inched closer. “Why would Barry Vannett be involved?”

  Honey looked up. Tears streamed down her face, but she made no move to wipe them away. “Because,” she spat out, “when Rex talked to Barry about an easement for the trail, Barry threatened him. Told Rex to get off his property, that the red roof had been the first sign of bad judgment, and that if he ever tried to get a trail across his farm again, he’d get a face full of shotgun.”

  Chapter 4

  Rafe, Katrina, and I were eating together in the dining room. Which sounds grander than it was, because we were at a table of plywood plopped on top of sawhorses and eating sandwiches from Fat
Boys Pizza accompanied by a side order of bread sticks with garlic cream cheese for dipping. The bread sticks were a request of my niece’s, and I was pretty sure I was going to gain five pounds this summer due to a complete inability to stay away from the delicious little buggers.

  “So, Kate, how was it working with Mitchell today?” Rafe asked.

  Though Rafe had already switched from Katrina to Kate, I was having a harder time. I hadn’t used the name on her birth certificate out loud all day, which I was considering a victory, but I was still translating in my head. I was also still having a hard time with Mitchell Koyne as anyone’s boss, let alone my niece’s.

  Until last year, Mitchell had been one of those laid-back Up North guys who switched jobs with the seasons. Construction in the summer, snow plowing and ski resort work in the winter, and making do in the shoulder seasons by hauling firewood and setting and removing docks.

  Though he was smart enough (in a goofy Mitchell sort of way), his brains hadn’t been accompanied by a single ounce of ambition. But then he’d started dating Bianca Sims. No one, including me, had thought the relationship would turn into anything serious. How could the energetic and ambitious Bianca, one of the area’s most successful real estate agents, see anything in slacker Mitchell, even if he was suddenly waking up to the fact that he could have a career?

  Kate reached for a napkin and wiped cream cheese off her mouth. “He seems nice. And his wife came in and introduced herself.”

  Yes, Bianca Sims was now Bianca Koyne, and had been for almost six months. They’d been married by the local magistrate, and the ceremony had been followed by a noisy, crowded party at the bowling alley.

  “Were things busy?” I’d heard from the owner that the toy store had substantially increased its profits since Mitchell had taken over as manager. Truly, wonders never ceased.