Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby

by Laurie Cass

  “Grab my hand, Minnie!” Greg shouted. “Now!”

  I reached, flailed, felt the whispering brush of his fingertips rushing past mine. Felt myself falling falling, falling. Saw my future end in a very short time. And then I saw him lunge forward and his strong pitcher’s grip was circling my wrist.

  “Hang on,” he said from above me. “I’ve got you.”

  I looked up. Greg was laid flat out on the bluff’s edge, hanging on to me with one arm. Under my feet was… nothing. My mouth opened, but no words came out. I felt nothing. I heard nothing except the sound of my heartbeats. And there was nothing I could do to save myself.

  “Just stay still,” Greg ordered. “I’m going to pull us back. Stay still.”

  I closed my eyes. If I looked down, I’d see my feet dangling in thin air, freak out, and do something stupid, like move. If I looked up, I’d see the man who, mere moments ago, I’d thought was going to kill me. Then I’d freak out and do something stupid, like move. So I did what Greg said. I stayed still.

  From above I heard grunts and groans and scrapings of feet and then I felt myself pulled higher. A few grunts more and I could feel my face being shoved against the glorious dirty sand. More grunts and my shoulders were scraping against the edge of the bluff. A couple more and my hips were pivoting past the danger point. Then my knees came up and over and cleared, then my ankles, and finally, happily, thankfully, my toes.

  He dragged me a few more feet for good measure, then released me and rolled onto his back. “Man,” he breathed. “Good thing you’re little, Minnie. If you’d been much heavier I never would have been able to haul you over that edge.”

  I flopped onto my side, then sat up. From head to toe I was covered in sand, dirt, and bits of leaves and grass. I brushed off my face and looked at Greg. He was just as dirty as I was, if not more so.

  “Thanks,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for you, I would have fallen for sure.” Then again, if it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have been skating the edge of the bluff in the first place, but I couldn’t see how it would be a bad thing to offer up some gratitude.

  “Hey, no problem,” he said, his breaths already slowing to normal speed. “Glad to help.” Then he gave me a look that seemed to be half question, half wondering if I was bat crazy.

  If he was Carissa’s killer, surely he would have let me drop. But he’d risked his own safety to secure mine, so he probably deserved an explanation.

  “Well,” I said, “for a second there, I thought you might have killed Carissa. And that maybe I was going to be your next victim. Sorry about that.”

  “Huh.” Smoothly, he sat up into a cross-legged position. “I guess my feelings should be hurt, that you’d think I could be a murderer, but you know what?” He grinned. “It’s kind of cool that you’d think I could be a dangerous bad guy.”

  I blinked. Men were mysterious creatures. Not as mysterious as cats, but close.

  “Thing is,” he said, “I have a great alibi for the murder. I had to call the veterinarian and he was out here all night. Dr. Joe, do you know him?”

  The vet? What on earth was he talking about? “Sure, but what does that have to do with anything?”

  Greg rubbed his chin, considering me. “Tell you what. Pop your bike into my rig and I’ll take you over to the house. You can get cleaned up and I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Oh. Uh…” Was this the proverbial offer from a stranger? What was he going to do next, offer me candy?

  “Come on.” He jumped up easily and held out a hand to me. I took it and he lifted me to my feet as if I weighed nothing. “It’s just down the road.”

  I dusted off my shirt. My shorts. My arms. Legs. Face. Dusted some more while thinking about how to turn down his offer without seeming ungrateful for saving my life.

  “I haven’t told hardly anyone any of this,” he said, “but Chris Ballou says you’re okay. He said that if any woman can keep a secret, you can.”

  “Chris said that?” I looked at the sky and all around. “Where’s the lightning? It must be about to strike.”

  Greg laughed and bumped his fist lightly on my shoulder. It was a brotherly sort of gesture and it comforted me in an oddly deep way. If he was willing to trust me with his secret, whatever it might be, maybe I should be willing to trust him.

  At least a little.

  “Hang on.” I trotted over to my bike, upzipped the handlebar pack, took out my cell phone, and pushed at the buttons. “Hey,” I said loudly into Kristen’s voice mail. “I’m headed to Greg Plassey’s house. I’m on my bike, so if I’m not home by dark, come looking for me, okay?”

  I thumbed off the phone and looked up at him. “Ready when you are.”

  • • •

  The wide gates at the entrance to Greg’s driveway swung open slowly. My jaw dropped at approximately the same speed. How on earth had he done that? There were no humans, or even elves, around to do the opening, and his hands had never left the steering wheel.

  He glanced over at me and grinned. “Pretty cool, huh? I had a guy install a transmitter on the front bumper. Don’t have to push a button or anything.”

  We drove through the gate of closely spaced metal bars, a pattern that repeated itself in the tall fence that appeared to march all around the property. So, in addition to Greg’s being a gadget guy, he was also a man who took his privacy seriously.

  Trepidation started to ooze into me. Why did he need security like this? Maybe he was famous to sports fans, but he hadn’t played baseball in years. And no matter how much money he’d made as a pitcher, there were lots of summer people up here who had more and I couldn’t think of anyone who had this kind of protection.

  “Do you have a security guard?” I asked.

  “Nah.” Greg braked and we came to a stop in front of a new and large brick house. It looked strange to me. Houses around here were sided with wood, not brick. Which only made sense because a good share of the Midwest’s early buildings had been built with lumber from Michigan’s forests. Brick? I blinked away the oddity and listened to what Greg was saying.

  “Well, I had a guard at first, but he got bored pretty fast, so I didn’t replace him when he quit. All I really want is privacy, and people pretty much leave you alone up here.”

  We got out of the SUV and started up the front steps. They, too, were made of brick, and my legs, almost half as short as Greg’s, found the spacing uncomfortable. I felt as if I were a little kid again, clambering up the stairs at my grandma’s house.

  “So, anyway,” Greg was saying, “I knew I didn’t want a place on the water. Too many people around, you know? This property was exactly what I wanted. Nothing and nobody as far as the eye can see.”

  He unlocked the front door, a massive wooden slab, and it swung open. “Come on in.” Once we were inside the soaring entryway, he pointed to a door to the right. “Lots of towels, if you want to clean up.”

  I thanked him, but once in the plush bathroom of marble floors, gilt mirrors, and shiny fixtures without a single water spot, I made a quick decision. Tempting though the shower was with its multiple jets, it would have felt too weird to take off all my clothes in the house of a guy I barely knew. A washcloth and a little soap would have to do until I got home.

  Marginally refreshed, I emerged from the bathroom into the vacant foyer. “Greg?” My voice echoed off the hard surfaces and I didn’t want to think of the noise level if Greg ever hosted a party.

  I moved into the main part of the house, calling Greg’s name. If he’d thought I’d take a shower, maybe he was doing so himself. Maybe I should just wait in the living room.

  “There, there, little one.”

  His voice was distant, yet clear enough thanks to the room’s acoustics. I wound my way through the living room, dining room, and kitchen and found a partially open door. I pushed it wide… and stood stock-sti
ll in amazement.

  “You’re a handsome little guy, aren’t you?” Greg was sitting in the middle of a long upholstered sofa. “Yes, you are,” he crooned. “You’re the handsomest one of all. Except for you, of course.” He looked to his left and scooped a gorgeous long-haired rabbit onto his lap, crowding the rabbit that was already there.

  “So,” I said slowly, “I take it you like rabbits.”

  It was the understatement of the decade. Filling the room were short-haired rabbits and long-haired rabbits. Big rabbits and little ones. Floppy-eared rabbits and rabbits with their ears sticking straight up. White rabbits and black rabbits and multicolored rabbits. Rabbits in cages, rabbits on furniture, rabbits on the floor. I tried to count, but they moved around so much that I stopped when I reached twenty for fear of getting a headache.

  A black-and-white guy hopped over and sniffed at my shoes. “Aw…” I sat in the middle of the floor. “Can I pet him?” I asked, my hand hovering over fur that looked deliciously soft and pettable.

  “Sure,” Greg said, “but he’s a her. That’s Rosie. She’s an English spot.”

  I sank my fingers in and was delighted to learn that I’d been correct regarding the pettableness. “She’s gorgeous.” I gazed around. “They all are.”

  Greg grinned. “I thought you might like them.”

  “They’re adorable.” A small, floppy-eared fellow with thick fur hopped close. “And who are you, my little friend?” His fur didn’t look as soft, but it looked thick.

  “That’s Baldy. He’s a fuzzy lop.”

  Of course he was. How could he not be?

  Greg went on to name each of his furry pals. Then came the breeds, their parentage and their weights. I quickly passed through the stage of full interest and moved happily to pet-the-cute-bunny status, hoping that Eddie wouldn’t get all uptight about me petting other people’s pets. Of a different species, no less.

  I’d decided my favorite was a big-eared golden girl with a twitchy nose when Greg said, “So, you see, don’t you?”

  What I saw was a roomful of happiness, if you didn’t count the litter boxes. “See what?”

  “Well, this.” He spread his hands. “Last thing I want is people calling me the rabbit guy. Or worse, the bunny guy. I’d never live it down. I have an image to keep up, and if people found out I have more than thirty rabbits, well, you can just hear the jokes, can’t you?”

  Thirty? I glanced around and almost started counting again. “Wouldn’t taking a few jokes be a lot cheaper than all this secrecy?”

  He looked up from the Angora-looking bunny he was petting, and the expression on his face wasn’t one easy to read. Exasperation, a little condescension, a touch of humor, and a lot of… it couldn’t be sadness, could it?

  Whatever it was, he didn’t reply to my question. “When Carissa was killed, my favorite female was giving birth, and she was having a hard time. Dr. Joe and I were by her side the entire night. No way would I have left her.”

  But I hadn’t seen any baby bunnies.

  “They’re in another room,” Greg said, correctly interpreting my not-very-covert glance. “I keep the mamas and babies out of the general population for a couple of months.”

  “They’d be what, almost three weeks old? Can I see them?”

  “Sure, if you want.” He carefully moved the rabbit from his lap to the floor and stood. “They’re over here.” He opened a door. “The gray ones, in the closest cage.”

  And they were adorable little balls of cuteness. I longed to take one, no, two, home with me, but they were far too young to be taken away from their mother. Plus, I wasn’t sure how Eddie would feel about roommates.

  “Yeah, Shadow there wasn’t doing well,” Greg said, draping his long arm across the length of the cage and looking in with a concerned eye. “This was her first litter, and those can be tough.”

  “Oh, sure.” Like I’d know. The closest I’d ever come to the birthing process was seeing an extremely pregnant library patron turn an unusual shade of white and clutch at her belly. “Call my husband,” she’d gasped, and I’d been more than happy to do so.

  Greg smiled down at the little family. “I always worry about first litters. That’s why I paid Dr. Joe a fortune to be here the whole time. Just in case, you know?”

  “He’s a nice guy.” Dr. Joe was also Eddie’s vet.

  “Yeah, but did you ever wonder about his sense of humor? Seems a little off, if you know what I mean.”

  I’d never thought about Dr. Joe that way, but I didn’t have thirty rabbits, either.

  “My wife says I need to lighten up about him,” Greg said. “She says most vets wouldn’t make house calls for small animals and I should cut him some slack.”

  I could almost feel my ears twitching, rabbitlike. “Your wife? Is she here?”

  Sighing, he worked his fingers through the wires of the cage to pet one of the babies. “Nah. She went back downstate right after Christmas. I got her a giant chinchilla buck, thought maybe that would get her interested in the rabbits… .” His voice trailed off.

  I watched him for a while, then asked, “I take it the chinchilla didn’t work?”

  He shook his head. “She said it was them or her. I thought she’d be back. I thought she’d get to miss them, but it hasn’t happened.” He sighed. “So I have to get rid of them, I guess.” His fingers sank deep into the gray fur, almost disappearing. “I keep hoping she’ll change her mind. Do you think she will?”

  Not only was I not a matchmaking assistant to Aunt Frances, I was also not a marriage counselor. “I’d ask her that question.”

  “‘Them or me,’” he quoted mournfully. “It was after I got an e-mail from her saying ‘Them or me’ that I went out with Carissa after meeting her at that car dealership. It was just that once; she didn’t know I was married. She was a lot of fun. But it wasn’t right.”

  “Because you’re still married?” I asked.

  “I love my wife,” he said. “I’m going to figure out a way to get her back. And anyway, I don’t want anyone else to know about the rabbits, so I stay away from women in general.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Ah, you know what woman are like. They want to get to know you.” He rolled his eyes. “They want to talk about feelings. Guys are easier. They just talk about sports. You can know a guy for years and not know anything about him.”

  Which didn’t make any sense, but I knew what he meant. And though I also knew his blanket statement was by no means true for all women and all men, I did know a lot of them who fit nicely into his pigeonholes.

  “You’re the only person I’ve told about the rabbits outside of my family. Well, you and Dr. Joe.”

  I used my index finger to make a cross over my heart. “Hope to die and stick a needle in my eye, I won’t tell a soul.”

  “Thought so.” He thumped me on the shoulder. “Like I said, Chris said you were okay and I trust Chris.”

  “Really?” My eyebrows went up. “I mean, that’s nice. It’s good to trust people.” I winced at my inanity, but Greg didn’t seem to think my statement was stupid.

  “You got that right,” he said. “That’s why I felt okay telling the county cops about Carissa and why I couldn’t have killed her.”

  “The detectives talked to you?”

  “Yeah, short, fat guy and a tall, skinny one? They were out here a couple days after Carissa died. Guess she’d been on Facebook about the time we had dinner,” he said. “Just what I need, my name all over social media. But, hey, at least she didn’t know about the rabbits.” He grinned.

  “So, why did you lie to me earlier, about knowing her?”

  He lifted his shoulders. Let them drop. “The whole thing is so hard to explain. If I’d told you I was separated from my wife and only went out with Carissa that once, would you have believed me?”

 
Maybe. Then again, maybe not.

  The indecision must have shown in my face. “See?” he asked. “You’re not sure. To have it all make sense I would have had to tell you everything, and I didn’t want to. Sometimes it’s easier to lie than to tell the truth, right?”

  Sure. But that didn’t make it right.

  “All I want is to be left alone,” he said. “That’s why I’m looking for the right boat. Out on the water no one will bug me.”

  “Or the bunnies?”

  He flashed me a wide smile. “Or the bunnies.”

  • • •

  First thing the next morning I called Dr. Joe, the vet.

  “Greg Plassey?” he repeated. “Sure, he’s one of my clients. Him and his… uh…”

  “His rabbits,” I said.

  Dr. Joe made a noise that didn’t sound quite like a laugh. If I hadn’t known Joe to be a large African-American man in his mid-forties with a wife, three children, and a thriving veterinarian practice, I would have said he giggled. But the idea of a six–foot-three, two-hundred-and-fifty-pound man giggling was so unlikely that I pushed it to the outside edge of probability.

  “Oh, you know about the bunnies?” Dr. Joe asked. Then he giggled.

  “I was introduced last night,” I said. “Greg showed me his new litter and I was wondering how old they were. He couldn’t quite remember,” I lied, “but he said you were out there that night.”

  “Yeah, held his hand more than anything else. Weird way to spend a Friday night.” There were a few keyboard clicks and he gave me the date of Carissa’s murder.

  For a brief second, I considered the possibility that Greg had bribed Dr. Joe to lie for him. Then I discarded the idea. I’d once overheard Dr. Joe berate his youngest son, who worked at the vet clinic after school, for not telling the complete truth about cleaning a dog cage. This was not a man who would lie for a client.