by Laurie Cass
“We all want something,” I said, wiping the corners of my mouth with a napkin.
Holly nodded, and we sat there for a moment, just thinking.
Because we all did want something and there was no way all of us were going to get what we wanted. Some of us were going to end up disappointed.
Or even all of us.
* * *
* * *
After my library day ended, I walked back to the marina through downtown. I’d felt my feet moving to go around and had corrected myself. “No way,” I told my feet, and reoriented them in the direction of the main drag. “You enjoy downtown. You like the people and the energy. You will not be afraid of getting pushed into the street again.”
More than a week after I’d fallen, I’d come to the conclusion that whatever had happened had been sheer accident. No one had tried to kill me; that was silly. No one had tried to kill me since, right? If they’d been serious about the effort, there had been plenty of times when I’d been by myself and could have been picked off by various methods without too much trouble. Ergo, it had been an accident.
“It couldn’t have been anything else,” I murmured, and promptly walked straight into a large human being.
“Sorry!” I gasped, backing up and almost running into an elderly couple and their little dog. “Sorry,” I said to them, then turned to face whoever it was I’d collided with.
He was big and tall and sturdy, and luckily, he was smiling. “Hey, Minnie,” Mitchell Koyne said. “Funny running into you here.” He laughed.
I sort of laughed back, because he clearly thought he’d made a joke. “Sorry,” I said again. “My mind was elsewhere, I guess.” We edged out of the way of foot traffic and stood next to the toy store, under the perky striped awning.
“Me too.” Mitchell hefted a broom. “The beach is a quarter mile away but somehow sand gets tracked in all day long.” He made a face. “Hate the feel of sand under my shoes.”
I wasn’t sure what was more surprising, that Mitchell knew exactly how far away the city beach was, that he was skilled in broom handling, or that he had an opinion on cleanliness. For the millionth time, I told myself not to underestimate Mitchell. All these years, he’d been hiding an upright and contributing member of society underneath an aw-shucks exterior. It had taken the love of a good woman to bring forth the butterfly from the caterpillar, and if, every so often, I missed the old Mitchell, then shame on me.
Mitchell leaned on his broom and looked down at me. That downward look was something I was used to, because most adults and many children on the planet looked down on me that way, but especially Mitchell, because he was more than a foot taller than I was. It made conversations with him a bit awkward, because if I stood a normal distance away, I risked a stiff neck, and if I inched far enough away to ease my neck pain, it looked like I was trying to escape.
“I keep meaning to talk to you about your niece.”
“Oh?” I kept my tone light, but on the inside everything from my shoulders to my toes clenched tight. Kate was insubordinate. She didn’t deal well with the customers. She was late, left early, took long breaks, and used her cell phone all day long. He needed to fire her and wanted to let me know first. “What’s up?” I asked.
“Just wanted to say that she’s a great kid.”
I blinked. “She’s . . . what?”
“Well, I figured she’d be a decent worker, being your niece and all, but she’s really good.”
“She . . . is?”
“You bet,” he said, nodding. “If all of my employees worked as hard as she does, I’d be able to hire fewer people.”
Kate was a hard worker? Pam had said much the same thing, but it was difficult to reconcile Kate the Industrious Employee with the Kate who didn’t bother to fold her clean laundry. “So things are working out?”
“Absolutely.” He beamed. “So I wanted to thank you for sending her my way, that’s all. I’ve already told her that if she wants to come back next year, she’ll probably get bumped up to—”
My phone rang loudly. “Sorry,” I said, fumbling to turn it off. But since it’s almost impossible to turn off a ringing cell phone without looking to see who’s calling, I looked and saw it was Ash.
“Um, Mitchell,” I said, “it’s great that you like Kate, and I’d love to talk more, but I need to take this call.”
“Sure. See you later,” he said, and went back to his sweeping task.
I poked at my still-ringing phone. “Hey,” I said. “Any news on the investigation front? Or is this a social call?”
“Both,” he said.
I sucked in a quick breath. His voice had been terse and grim. “What’s the matter?”
“It’s your niece. She’s been hauled in by a deputy. You’d better get over here.”
Chapter 10
I rushed down to the sheriff’s office, and on the way called Aunt Frances, then Rafe. I started to call my brother, but stopped just before I pushed the button. No. I’d call after I knew more. Maybe this wasn’t as bad as it sounded. Maybe there was just a misunderstanding.
I burst in the front door as Aunt Frances and Otto pulled into the parking lot. A deputy ushered us back to the interview room, where three people were already sitting; Kate, Ash, and Sheriff Kit Richardson.
The two law enforcement officers sat across the table from Kate, who was slouched in her chair, arms crossed and chin on her chest.
“Kate, are you okay?” I asked. She muttered something that could have been “I’m fine,” and Aunt Frances and Otto and I pulled chairs up to the table. It was a tight fit for six, but we made it work.
“Sheriff,” I said, nodding at Kit Richardson. Straight-backed and serious, she was an imposing figure, but I’d once seen her in an ancient bathrobe while cuddling Eddie, so I knew she had a human side.
“Ms. Hamilton,” the sheriff said. “Good to see you, Ms. Pixley, or I suppose it’s Ms. Bingham now?”
Aunt Frances smiled. “And it’s always Frances. Have you met my husband?”
The sheriff shook hands with Otto. “Haven’t had the pleasure. Good to have you in Chilson, sir.”
Kate sighed, but not heavily. Which was good, because if she had she would’ve gotten a jab in the ribs from my elbow. The sheriff’s interview room was not the place to display an attitude. I knew this from personal experience.
“What’s going on, Kit?” my aunt asked. “Why is my great-niece here?”
The sheriff turned to Ash. “Do you want to explain, or shall we pull in Deputy Gardner?”
Ash looked at the sheriff, at the rest of us, then back at the sheriff. “If it’s all right with you, ma’am, I can describe the incident.”
She nodded. “Go ahead, Deputy.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He took a breath, and stared at the wall as he spoke. “We have learned that Ms. Katrina Hamilton, known as Kate, had taken cell phone photos of the Fourth of July crowd on her cell phone before her discovery of the body of Mr. Rex Stuhler.”
Kate’s relatives swiveled to gaze at her. Kate herself started sliding down in her chair.
Ash went on. “Since that day, Ms. Kate Hamilton has been taking the pictures into downtown businesses and asking staff and customers if they could name the people in the photos. An hour ago, she walked into the Wood Shed bar. Deputy Gardner was inside the establishment, off-duty, and recognized Ms. Hamilton. Knowing that she was under age, the deputy approached and overheard her conversation with the bartender. He called Detective Inwood regarding the matter. Detective Inwood requested that Deputy Gardner bring Ms. Hamilton into the sheriff’s office.”
There was so much wrong here that I didn’t know where to start being angry. But . . . the Wood Shed? Really? The dive-iest bar in Chilson? How did she have the courage to walk into a place like that at her age?
Sheriff Richardson stirred. “Ms. Hami
lton,” she said flatly. “Please explain two things. One. What on God’s great earth did you think you were doing? Number two.” The sheriff leaned forward, focusing her laser-like stare on my niece. “Get us those photos or I’ll charge you with obstruction.”
Kate looked up. “But—”
“Now!” the sheriff roared.
My niece flinched, then hurriedly pulled out her phone.
Sheriff Richardson glanced at Ash. “Give her your e-mail,” she said, then pulled Aunt Frances and Otto and myself into her office, where she assured us Kate wasn’t in any real trouble. “The girl has guts, I’ll give her that,” the sheriff said. “But she has to be safe and smart.”
I liked that phrase: “safe and smart.” So I used it when, half an hour later, Aunt Frances, Otto, Kate, and I sat in their kitchen with my cell phone on speaker, talking to my brother and sister-in-law.
“You did what?” Jennifer asked, her normally calm voice going shrill.
“It was no big deal, Mom,” Kate said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Really? Then why were you hauled down to the sheriff’s office?”
“I’m more concerned,” Matt said, “that you didn’t show those pictures to anyone. How could you not know that the police would want to see them?”
Jennifer sighed. “Katrina, I thought we could trust you, but this isn’t working. You need to come home.”
A pang of disappointment made me swallow, but I understood. “Sorry,” I murmured. “This is my fault. I should have kept a better eye on her.”
“She’s old enough to know better,” Jennifer said firmly. “Thanks for taking the blame, Minnie, but it’s on her. When we talked about her going north this summer, she promised she was old enough to be trusted. It’s not your fault.”
Though it was nice my sister-in-law was letting me off the hook, I knew I shared in the responsibility for Kate’s actions. I sighed. “I’ll look up flights first thing tomorrow and let you know what time to pick her up.”
My niece sat up straight, glared at me, then glared at the phone. “What about my jobs? I have three. You want me to leave without telling them? Or give them what, an hour notice?” She snorted. “Isn’t that what you’re always complaining about, that kids today aren’t being held accountable, that we don’t have common courtesy, that we don’t understand how our actions impact others?”
Matt sighed. “Honey, you can’t pull out the responsibility card when it suits you.”
“No, but she has a point,” Aunt Frances said. “Summer help is hard for retailers to find, let alone good summer help.”
I nodded at the phone. “And two of her employers have, without prompting, told me how happy they are to have her.”
“Yes, but . . .” Jennifer’s voice trailed off. She was clearly wavering.
“Mom, Dad, they need me.” Kate’s hands turned into fists. “No one has ever . . .” She stopped, then started again. “They really need me,” she said quietly. “Please let me stay?”
And eventually, they did.
* * *
* * *
The next morning, my boss was in the break room ahead of me. “The sunset was gorgeous last night,” Graydon said, as he poured coffee into his mug, and then into the travel mug I was clutching. “So many colors. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I stared at him through bleary eyes. The bookmobile was ready to roll, parked temporarily just outside the door, with Julia and Eddie aboard, but I’d popped in to pull a book that had just been requested online and was making double use of the time by maximizing my caffeine possibilities.
“Didn’t see it.” I screwed down the mug’s top. “I was . . . busy.”
Which was almost certainly the understatement of the year. Graydon was stirring creamer into his coffee and eyeing me.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You look a little tired.”
Again with the understatement. I put on a smile. “Some family problems. Nothing I can’t handle.” I hoped.
Graydon smiled as he edged toward the doorway. “More niece issues?” Then, before I could say anything, he added, “Just remember that everything gets better eventually.” He nodded, and was gone.
“Yeah,” I muttered to myself, “but what kind of time frame are we talking about?” What did “eventually” mean? A week? A month? A year? Lots of years?
Sighing, I headed out to start the day, and immediately felt my spirits rise, because no matter what else was going on, everything was better on the bookmobile.
* * *
* * *
Julia squirmed around in her seat, rearranging herself and her seat belt so she could reach into the pocket of her shorts. “Hah!” she crowed. “Got one!”
I was about to ask “Got what?” when I saw that she was pulling back her long, loose strawberry blond hair and tying it up with a hair elastic. It was times like this—when Julia was so completely human—that I had a hard time reconciling the woman seated next to me with the pictures Aunt Frances had shown me of a younger Julia in the days of her Broadway success, cavorting with the rich and famous, and dazzling everyone with her smile.
“Do you miss it?” I asked. “Being an actor?”
She snorted. “Hardly. The backstage arguments, the hotels, the crappy food, the sheer hard work, the wondering if I’d ever get another role after the way I yelled at that bean counter for how he was messing with director’s vision . . .” She paused. “Which was a lot of fun. Did I ever tell you about it?”
I grinned as I braked, because the pending story sounded excellent. And I’d ask for it specifically after the bookmobile stop. I turned into the parking lot of a convenience store and came to a halt in the shade of an even more convenient maple tree, because it was now afternoon and the temperature was very July-like.
We ran through the pre-stop routine of turning the driver’s seat around to face a small desk, unlatching Eddie’s carrier, releasing the rolling chair in the back, firing up the computers, and popping the roof vents. Julia did the vent thing, because she could do it through the simple act of reaching, while I would have had to use some kind of step, which we would have had to find, purchase, and then store somewhere, so it was handy to have a ride-along clerk who was tall.
“Come one, come all,” Julia sang out as she opened the door.
A flurry of feet scurried up the stairs. When everyone was inside, I counted three children in the three-to-seven-year-old range, one female adult about my age, and one elderly male. I’d never seen any of them before, and neither had Julia, so introductions came first.
“And that’s Eddie,” I said, nodding at my cat, who had squished himself into the angle between the windshield and the dashboard. From the outside, it must have been an interesting sight.
“Mommy,” one whispered, “can I pet the kitty cat?”
Mom smoothed her child’s hair, smiling. “You’d have to ask Miss Minnie.”
Big blue eyes looked up at me. “Miss Minnie, can I pretty please pet the kitty?”
“Of course you can. Wait right there.” By this time, I’d managed to sort out the relationships of our new patrons: The two older children belonged to the woman and the youngest child was with her grandfather. Not one group as I’d assumed, but two. Silly Minnie, getting things wrong again.
I went forward, rotated a purring Eddie around to picking-up position, and took him back to the children’s section, where his newest fan was sitting on the carpeted step. “Grace, this is Eddie. Eddie, this is Grace.”
“Mrr,” Eddie said.
Grace sucked in a deep breath, her eyes wide open. “He said hello!”
Sure he did. Just like he actually replied to the open-ended questions I routinely asked him. But before I could come up with a comment that was both true and free of sarcasm, there was a sudden tumbling noise from the back of the bus. It was a nois
e that was sadly familiar, that of books cascading to the floor, and was followed immediately by a child’s frightened wail.
Julia was closest, and she hurried over. “Oh, honey, that scared you, didn’t it?” She crouched down and started soothing the youngster with a smile and a calm voice, and the incident was over within seconds.
My life seemed to be filled with things falling to the floor. Books, those pills that Courtney dropped, my backpack, and . . .
Hmm, I thought. Courtney. I’d tucked away what I’d learned about Rex’s mom into a back corner of my brain and hadn’t taken the time to think about it. But now thoughts were ticking away. Could there be a tie between Courtney and Rex? If so, how could I find out what it was? And could it possibly have led to murder?
The rest of the bookmobile stop passed quietly, and when we were tidying up, I said to Julia, “I need to make a phone call. Is this the parking lot where you can get three bars?”
She pointed at the store. “Stand between the ice machine and the Dumpster.”
As soon as my feet touched gravel, I was scrolling through my contacts, looking for Ann Marie and Rupert Wiley. By the time I found the sweet spot Julia had described, I was pushing the Call button. “Hey, Ann Marie. This is Minnie Hamilton, from the bookmobile.”
“It’s so nice to hear a voice that isn’t Rupert’s!” She laughed. “What can I do for you this morning?”
“First I wanted to make sure Rupert had enough reading material to last until our next scheduled stop. If he’s running low, I could drop by with some reserves.”
“Oh, aren’t you the sweetest,” Ann Marie said. “But the old bugger is fine. He’s getting out and about a little more and isn’t even half through that pile.”
