Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby

by Laurie Cass

  Bonk!

  “Eddie! Will you cut that out?” I reached for him and snuggled him to my chest, because the loud bonking noise had been his head thumping against the edge of the table. “That had to hurt, you silly thing.” I kissed the back of his furry neck and sat down on the upholstered bench. “You’ll give yourself a concussion if you keep that up.”

  His deep purrs indicated that there was nothing wrong, but what did I know about cat head injuries?

  I snuggled him again. “You be careful or you’ll end up like Greg Plassey, thinking that getting whacked in the noggin with a golf ball is a perfectly normal occurrence.”

  “Mrr.”

  “Well, exactly.” Carefully, I gave his head a slow pet. “There’s got to be something seriously wrong with him to shrug something like that off. Just because it’s an accident doesn’t mean he shouldn’t take it seriously.”

  Eddie jumped off my lap and back up onto the newspaper. I started to swipe him off the table and back onto my lap, but he reached out with a paw for the newspaper and snagged it with his slightly extended claws.

  Rip!

  “Oh, good job.” I detached him from the newsprint, slouched, and settled him on my chest. “Don’t tell me that was an accident, buddy boy. I’ve known you long enough to know when something was intentional.”

  Eddie stared at me through unblinking yellow eyes.

  “Huh,” I said. “I wonder…” But no. The idea was far too far-fetched.

  Or was it?

  I looked at Eddie. “Am I nuts?” He didn’t say anything, which was probably the safest possible answer. “If I sound nuts, just tell me, okay?”

  He dug his front claws into my shirtfront just the slightest bit, then retracted them. I took the action as a reply of “Have I ever held back from telling you that you were being stupid?” To which the answer was, of course “No.”

  Since both of my hands were busy with Eddie, I used my elbow to tap the newspaper. “Greg Plassey had that accident with the golf ball. That didn’t make the paper because he didn’t tell anyone, but there were other accidents that we’ve read about in the last couple of weeks.”

  Eddie’s eyes opened ever so slightly.

  “There was Trock’s bicycle accident, remember?” I ran my hand over Eddie’s back, and his eyes closed again. “He was run off the road by an SUV. And then there was that boat accident, the one where Hugo Edel was almost blown up.” It hadn’t made sense then and it didn’t make sense now, because how could a guy who made and sold high-end boats for a living blow up his boat? Okay, it could have been an operator error of some kind, but from what I knew about Edel, he was as safety-conscious as a first-time mother.

  “So that’s three accidents this summer,” I told Eddie, who might—or might not—have been interested in what I was saying. From the sound of his snores, I was guessing he wasn’t, but maybe it was a trick. “Three typical summer accidents, but they all happened within a couple weeks of each other and they all happened to guys about the same age.”

  “Mrr,” Eddie said sleepily.

  “Yeah,” I murmured, “I know. The odds seem against it, don’t they? And…” Another piece jiggled into place. “And I’m sure that Greg Plassey was holding something back about Carissa. What if he had been involved with her in some way? What if his accident had something to do with her death? What if all of them did?”

  Maybe I was wrong, but maybe I was right, and that meant someone would have to find out more about the relationships between these men and Carissa.

  “That someone being me,” I said, and for some reason that got Eddie purring and settling into my lap as if he had no intention of ever moving.

  My thoughts went darker.

  Suppose that Greg’s, Trock’s, and Hugo’s accidents weren’t truly accidents. Maybe, somehow, they had something to do with Carissa’s death. Maybe someone was out to get all the men Carissa was linked to.

  Not only did I have to make sure Cade didn’t go to jail; I might have to save them all from being killed.

  Eddie deepened his purr and curled up into a tight furry ball.

  “Then again,” I said, “I might be wrong about all this. Maybe one of these guys is actually the killer.”

  Eddie stopped purring and reached out with one paw to bat me on the back of my hand.

  “Sorry.” I started petting him. “How many strokes would you like, Sir Eddie? Two? Three?” I paused. “An infinite number?”

  That’s when he started purring again.

  Chapter 14

  The next morning I looked up the phone number for Faye, the cookbook lady, and called as soon as the first flurry of library activities was over.

  “Good morning,” I said. “This is Minnie from the bookmobile and—”

  “Those books can’t be overdue already, can they?” she asked. “I’ve only had them just over a week. Were they a short-term loan? I am so sorry!”

  I laughed. “Faye, don’t worry. It’s more than a week until we come back to your stop. At the speed you go through books, you’ll have plenty of time.”

  She sighed her relief into the phone. “You had me worried for a second.”

  “No need. Matter of fact,” I said, “I was a little worried about you and that’s why I called. You seemed a little upset about your cousin on the last bookmobile run, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “That’s so sweet,” she said.

  I winced at myself a little, because I was calling under mostly false pretenses. Sure, I had been a little concerned about her, but I was mostly interested in her cousin, the one who’d known Carissa. If I could get her name, maybe I knew her, or maybe I could call her and find out a little more about Carissa.

  “Thanks so much,” Faye said, “but I’m fine now, pretty much.”

  “It was your cousin that you were concerned about, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “What a good memory you have! Yes, I’d been a little worried about Randall. It must have been so frightening, to have the police come talk to him like that.”

  I stared out my office window but didn’t see anything. “Your cousin’s name is Randall?”

  “Randall Moffit,” Faye said. “First cousin on my mother’s side.”

  Why had I assumed her cousin was female? I tried to remember exactly what she’d said that day, but it was long gone out of my head.

  “Anyway,” Faye was saying, “somehow the police knew that Randall had dated Carissa for a little while.”

  I sat up straight. “He had?” How had I not known this?

  “It was a long time ago,” Faye assured me. “Even still, I’m so glad he had a nice, solid alibi for the night she was killed. He was downstate to a Tigers game with some friends. They’d dressed up silly with blue paint and whatnot. They were shown on television and it’s hard to get a better alibi than that.”

  “How nice,” I said faintly.

  “You are a sweetie, aren’t you?” Faye laughed. “So Randall’s safe, and I don’t have to worry about him a bit.”

  I hung up and continued to stare at nothing. So the detectives were indeed looking for other suspects. As they’d said that day at the Round Table, they were doing their job.

  But if Faye wasn’t worrying any longer, I still was. Because what suspect was ever going to look better than the man who’d been at the crime scene with the murder weapon in his hand?

  • • •

  That evening, I watched with concern as Tucker rubbed his nose. It was a beautiful Wednesday evening, and we were about to take our first official bike ride as a couple. The plan was for a shortish ride, then a return to his car for a picnic supper, then another ride. On the way home from work, I’d stopped by a downtown deli for sandwiches, pasta salad, and chips. It all fit nicely into the wooden-lidded picnic basket I’d originally used for an Eddie carrier—recy
cling at its finest—and I’d been adding bottled water when Tucker had arrived.

  “Hey there.” He’d knocked on the screen door and let himself in. “Is that dinner? Looks good.”

  I’d laughed and given him a hug. “The lid is closed. You can’t possibly know what’s inside, so how can you say it looks good?”

  He’d picked it up. “A full picnic basket is a good picnic basket, so—” He’d gotten a funny expression on his face, dropped the basket back onto the counter, buried his face in his shoulder, and started sneezing.

  Now, as we fiddled with unloading the bikes from the top of his car’s rack, I eyed him. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “That was a pretty nasty sneezing fit you had back there. You’re not coming down with something, are you?”

  “Nope.” He flipped my bike off the rack and thumped its tires on the ground, bouncing it a little.

  I moved over to take it from him. “Don’t they say that doctors make the worst patients?”

  “They do, but that doesn’t mean I can’t diagnose myself.” He reached up and started unlatching his bike. “The good news is that Dr. Kleinow says I’m fine.”

  “And the bad news?”

  “Is that we have only two and a half hours before the sun sets.” He turned and grinned over his shoulder.

  When he did that, he was downright gorgeous. My skin tingled a little. This smart, gorgeous man was all mine for the evening and—

  An electronic noise sounded from Tucker’s belt. Eee-ooo, eee-ooo.

  “Is that… ?” I nodded at his cell phone. The ring tone had sounded a lot like an ambulance siren.

  “Yeah. It’s the hospital. But I’m not on call, so…” He put the phone to his ear. “Dr. Kleinow.” As he listened, he gave me a long glance. Then he reached up to refasten his bicycle. “Yes,” he told whoever was on the other end. “I can be there in half an hour.”

  He thumbed off the phone, turned to me, and took my hand. “Minnie, I am so, so sorry, but I have to go.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You’re a doctor. I understand.”

  He kissed the back of my hand, and my skin tingled again. “This shouldn’t have happened,” he said, “but there’s been a multicar accident and they need all hands.” He blew out a breath and looked at my bike. “I’ll take you home, but then I have to—”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “What?” He blinked at me. “Of course I’ll take you home.”

  But I was already rolling my bike out of the way of his car. “You get to the hospital. They need you and I can take care of myself. Been doing it for, oh, three or four days now without any problems.”

  He smiled briefly. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right to leave you.”

  “Don’t be a mother hen.” I threw one leg over my bike. “I ride by myself all the time. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Get going,” I said. “And don’t forget to eat your sandwich.”

  “Minnie…”

  “Go!” I ordered, using my Librarian Voice. “Go forth and heal!”

  He gave me a kiss, and left.

  • • •

  I took the road that ran along Lake Michigan. Well, along and above Lake Michigan, since the road ran along a steep bluff that dropped precipitously to the water. Hundreds of feet, if what I’d been told was true, and from the distant look of the whitecaps, I believed the stories.

  On the horizon I could see the shapes of North and South Manitou Islands. The Native American legend surrounding the creation of the islands was one of the saddest stories I’d ever heard, so when I saw a small county park, of course I wheeled into it.

  The park wasn’t exactly abandoned, but it had an air of loneliness that only compounded the effect of the island’s story. A weedy gravel parking lot, a single worn picnic table, no restrooms, and no fence to keep kids from falling into the brink. I propped my bike against a tree and walked to the edge of the bluff, trying to see back in time.

  To a great forest fire in Wisconsin. To a mother bear and her two cubs trying to escape the heat and crackle of the fire. To the bear family swimming across the miles and miles of Lake Michigan, trying to reach safety. To the smallest baby bear dropping behind, then the other. To mama bear, making it to land, lying down, and waiting for her cubs to reach the shore. To the sand drifting over the drowned cubs, creating the Manitou Islands. To the sand drifting over mama bear, creating the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore.

  It was a story that always made me a little sniffly, and I felt tears tug at the corners of my eyes.

  “Great view, isn’t it?” said a voice at my elbow.

  I jumped high, spun in the air, and landed facing the direction of my speaker. A man in his mid-fifties, shorts and a T-shirt, baseball hat, camera around his neck. I panted, my hand to my chest, and realized that he looked familiar. Not only did he look familiar, but I knew him. “Hey, Greg.”

  He smiled. “Sorry for scaring you. I thought you must have heard me.” He tipped his head, indicating his black SUV in the parking lot. “I’ve been trying to get some pictures of the islands. And tonight the light’s just right.”

  A black SUV. Hadn’t Trock’s bicycle accident been caused by a black SUV?

  Possibilities tumbled through my brain at a speed that made me realize my thoughts usually operated at maybe thirty percent capacity. I edged away from Greg, ever so slowly.

  What if one of the three men—Greg, Trock, or Hugo—had killed Carissa? What if whoever it was had only faked his accident so he could point suspicion in some other direction? What if the killer was Greg? What if he was coming after me now for poking around where I wasn’t wanted and asking too many questions?

  The conclusion was obvious: I’d been colossally stupid.

  “You know,” Greg said, moving closer to me, “the spot I’ve picked out is right where you’re standing. I’ll be able to get those trees in the frame. That’ll give some foreground interest.” He had his gaze on the horizon and took another step in my direction.

  This, on top of what my brain had just concluded, freaked me out completely. “Gotta go,” I said, stumbling backward. “I’m probably late for… an appointment. Yep, pretty sure I am. See you later.” I turned and fled as fast as my legs could carry me.

  “Hey!” Greg called. “Wait, okay? I want to talk to you!”

  I sincerely doubted it. What he wanted was to toss me over the edge of the bluff, to send me tumbling head over heels those hundreds of steep feet, my bones breaking on the rock-studded slope, my head cracking open, my breaths ending by the time I rolled into the water like a rag doll.

  “Not a chance,” I muttered, and ran on.

  Unfortunately there wasn’t anywhere to run. The park was small and tall fences coursed down the length of both sides. And even if I reached my bike, he’d chase me down with that SUV in seconds. I couldn’t take the chance that he’d left his keys in the ignition, so where was there for me to go? Nowhere but down.

  His running footsteps were practically on my heels. I might have been twenty years younger, but he’d been a professional athlete for longer than that.

  “Just wait, will you?” he called.

  He was approaching fast. Maybe I could slide a little way down the edge of the bluff, crab sideways to a friendly neighbor, and call the police from a nice safe cottage with a loud security alarm. I glanced down.

  Nothing but air. This part of the bluff was close to vertical.

  I spun around in a half crouch. I was small and quick. When he made his move I’d dodge to the side, give him a push, and send him over the brink, just as he intended on doing to me.

  “Look,” Greg said. “I don’t know why you’re running, but I want to talk to you, okay? This has been bugging me. I hate lying to anyone, let
alone someone like you.”

  Which meant what? That he hated lying to the people he was about to kill? How commendable. I stayed in my crouch, tense and ready.

  “It’s about that Carissa.” He adjusted his hat. “I kind of lied about knowing her,” he said, taking hold of his camera and fiddling with one of its many buttons. “But that doesn’t mean I had anything to do with her death.”

  Not necessarily, but the evidence wasn’t looking so good, buddy boy.

  “And I didn’t kill her,” he was saying. “Why would I? So, I mean, yeah, I knew her, kind of, but lots of people did. You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” He wasn’t moving, but the emotion in his voice was sharp and deep. “All I want is to be left alone,” he said. “Is that so much to ask?”

  Not in my book, because what I wanted most at that very moment was for him to leave me alone.

  “Say something, will you?” He held his hand out.

  I jerked back, afraid of his touch, afraid to die, afraid that what had happened to Carissa was going to happen to me.

  “Minnie, will you just—”

  I was still moving back when I heard a noisy trickle of sand. I looked down. In my retreat, I’d reached the edge of the bluff. The crumbling edge. The ground beneath my feet was vanishing fast, dropping down, down, down, tumbling at a speed that made me dizzy.

  The only thing I felt was fear. I was caught between a killer and a crumbling cliff. Not good odds, either way, but maybe I could…

  Suddenly there was no time for decision-making. Square yards of ground were heaving and sliding and falling. I had to move, had to do something, couldn’t just stand there and die.

  Faster than I’d ever done anything, I summoned all my strength and all my power and all my will to jump to solidity and safety.

  But even as my feet left the ground, I knew there was no way I’d make it.

  Chapter 15

  All of my senses were on full alert. I heard the sound of sand cascading out from underneath my feet. Felt the sickening emptiness where ground should be. Smelled my own terrified sweat. Tasted the tartness of adrenaline. And I saw the wonderful sight of a hand reaching out to me.