Booking the Crook

by Laurie Cass

  “Thanks.” Anya sniffed down a sob. “It’s been hard.”

  Collier put his arm around his sister. “We wanted to thank you for all you did that day.”

  I murmured something about doing what anyone would have done.

  “I don’t think so,” Collier said. “Most people would have maybe called nine-one-one, but you tried CPR and kept trying, and . . .” He swallowed. “Anyway, we wanted to say thank you. In person.”

  Anya nodded. “Dad says thanks from him, too.”

  Responding with, “You’re welcome,” didn’t seem appropriate, so I simply nodded. Then I took a closer look at the twins. Both were, of course, far taller than me, with dark-haired Collier close to the six-foot mark and Anya a few inches less. They were both college seniors, Anya at Central Michigan University and Collier at Northern Michigan. The first year I’d worked in Chilson, I’d had the fun of helping them complete high school term papers, and I’d enjoyed hearing Rowan tell me about their college acceptances and exploits.

  I’d seen Collier over Christmas, and he’d still been bursting with happiness over the fact that his girlfriend had said yes to his Thanksgiving marriage proposal. Now his face was pale, his expression bleak, and Anya didn’t look much better.

  I longed for words that would make things easier, but I knew no such words existed. Time was the only thing that could soften their pain, and that would likely be a long time coming. Still, I wanted to say something. I opened my mouth to do what people do, which was to offer any kind of help they needed, but Anya started first.

  “You’ve helped others,” she said softly.

  Collier edged closer. “Leese Lacombe. Over Christmas we heard you helped her find out who killed her dad.”

  “And Dana Coburn,” Anya added. “Dana’s parents are summer customers, you know how we run errands for people? Dana told us about your research into the DeKeyser family and how that helped you figure out who killed that lady.”

  Dana was a twelve-year-old who possessed more brains than three Minnies put together. Leese Lacombe was a good friend and an attorney specializing in elder law. I made a mental note to respectfully ask both of them to keep their mouths shut about my past involvements in murder as it wasn’t a reputation I aspired to. And since I could see where this conversation was going, I jumped in ahead of their request.

  “The sheriff’s office,” I said, “is working very hard on your mom’s investigation. What I did those other times was more a matter of circumstance.” I echoed what I’d been told before by numerous people. “Let the police do their job. They’re professionals and they know what they’re doing.”

  “But—”

  I shook my head. “Your hearts are in the right place, but there’s nothing I can do that the sheriff’s office isn’t doing already.” Plus they actually knew what they were doing, but I didn’t say that out loud.

  “At least think about it?” Anya begged.

  I glanced at Collier, who was staring at the floor, his face vacant of . . . anything. It was an expression I recognized, that of too much pain. Too much sorrow.

  “Sure,” I said, “maybe I could think about it.” Collier lifted his head and a small spark of life flitted across his eyes. I gave them both another hug. “I’ll let you know, okay?” And then, coward that I was, I hurried out before either twin could say another word.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Mrr.”

  I looked at my cat. “Are you aware that you bear a striking resemblance to a vulture?”

  Eddie blinked, but didn’t say a word. He was sitting up straight in a new spot—the top of the low bookcase that was jammed full of jigsaw puzzles and board games—and peering down at me in a manner that was a bit unnerving.

  “Cat got your tongue?” I asked. This was an old joke between us, and just like all the other times I’d said it, I laughed and he didn’t. “Oh, come on,” I said, “it’s funny.”

  A double yellow-eyed gaze drilled a hole in my head.

  “Really? Not even a giggle?”

  His shoulders heaved as he sighed a little kitty sigh. Back in my pre-Eddie days, I’d had no idea that cats could sigh, sneeze, yawn, or snore. “Thanks to you, my horizons have expanded immensely,” I said, getting up off the couch. “And to show my appreciation, I’m going to give you a big snuggle.”

  I swept him off the bookcase and gave him a gentle squeeze. Most times, Eddie enjoyed a good hug. This was not one of those times. He squirmed out of my grasp and made a Herculean lunge back to the shelf. I watched his wake of cat hair tumble in the air and make its way to the floor.

  “Nice,” I said. “Do you realize I need to clean up all of that unwanted fur?” Preferably before Aunt Frances got home from her night class. “How does it feel to have someone tidying up after you at every turn?”

  “Mrr!”

  “I’m right here, pal. No need to yell.”

  “MRR!”

  I winced, hoping my eardrums healed quickly. “Now what did I do wrong? Not enough treats? No, wait, it’s too cold outside? Or is there too much snow? Maybe there’s not enough snow? I know—you’ve suddenly decided you like Otto’s adorable little gray cat and want me to take you over there to play with her?”

  Eddie glared and jumped to the floor. Before reaching the floor, however, he landed on a board game that was a bit too big to fit all the way into the bookcase. This created a spectacular crash of board games and jigsaw puzzles and decks of cards. Dice, cards, puzzle pieces, and poker chips scattered and rolled across the living room floor.

  “Someday,” I said, “this will be funny.”

  “Mrr.”

  It didn’t sound like an apology, and the set of his tail as he trotted up the stairs didn’t look embarrassed.

  Cats.

  Sighing, I crouched down and swept together a deck of cards older than I was and started counting to make sure I had all of them. I sorted the cards into suits, counting the hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades, and suddenly there it was.

  The ace of spades. What some called the death card.

  Fingering the card’s corner, I thought about death. About Rowan. About the right thing to do. About the kind of person I wanted to be. About how easy it would be not to do anything.

  I slid the deck of cards into its box and stood. My cell phone was on the coffee table, and I reached for it before I changed my mind.

  Tomorrow, I texted Anya and Collier. I’ll start doing what I can to find your mom’s killer.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning, instead of dawdling over breakfast with my aunt, I sucked down a bowl of cold cereal, hurried into boots, coat, hat, and mittens, and scuffed through three inches of new snow to the sheriff’s office.

  The deputy on front desk duty slid open the glass window. “Hey, Minnie. How you doing?”

  “Morning, Carl,” I said, stomping my feet on the mat and brushing snow off my sleeves. “Never been this good. And yourself?”

  “Wouldn’t a better question be how is the sheriff doing?”

  I grinned, but only on the inside. “You make an excellent point.” A few months of dating a deputy had given me a partial glimpse into the inner workings of the office and how much the staff felt intimidated by the boss. Personally, I’d always found Sheriff Kit Richardson to be smart, funny, and approachable, but then I’d seen her in a ratty bathrobe while cuddling a purring Eddie.

  As I shoved my mittens in my coat pockets, I asked, “What did you do to get stuck up front?”

  He grimaced. “Wrenched my shoulder a couple of weeks ago. I’m on light duty until the doctor says I’m fit for active. What can I do for you?”

  “Would Ash have a few minutes?”

  “Dumping Rafe already?” Carl leaned toward me, batting his eyes. “You know I’m single, right?”

  I nodded thoughtful
ly. “So this is how rumors get started. I always wondered.” Carl laughed and I said, “Ash or Hal. To me they’re interchangeable.”

  Carl picked up the phone. “Can’t wait to spread that one around.” After a short conversation, Carl buzzed open the interior door and I was ushered into a small room, one that I’d visited so many times that, during the long periods when I’d sat alone at the battered table, I’d considered carving my initials into the tabletop. Not a very strong consideration, because vandalism was wrong and the table was metal, but still.

  I pulled out a paint-chipped chair and thought about purchasing a plaque instead. Next to the door would be a good spot as it would cover that big gouge in the drywall. Or maybe directly across from where I usually sat; looking at a plaque would entertain me far more than flat beige paint.

  As I considered the possibilities, two men came in. Detective Hal Inwood first, followed closely by the man I’d for a short period of time thought might be the guy who would accompany me into old age. Deputy Ash Wolverson was an amazingly good-looking guy and one of the nicest people I’d ever met. But no matter how hard we’d tried, we couldn’t get a single romantic spark to flare up. It had been like hanging out with my brother. We’d started as friends, parted as friends, and happily were still friends.

  “She hasn’t noticed,” Hal said.

  Ash pulled a bill out of his pants pocket and handed it to his superior officer. “I am deeply disappointed in you, Minnie.”

  “What are you talking about?” I glanced from one to the other. Hal looked exactly the same as he had the day before. Ash looked the same as he had last time I’d seen him, which was the previous week when Rafe and I had gone bowling with Ash and his mom. “No haircuts, no new clothes.” I glanced under the table. “No new shoes.” Or even new shoe polishing, but I didn’t say that part out loud.

  Hal Inwood sat down and spread out what had formerly been Ash’s one-dollar bill.

  “Do I get a hint?” I asked.

  Ash sat across from me and glanced at the ceiling. “Just one.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  Detective Inwood smiled and fingered his dollar. Ash sighed. Neither said a word.

  Time ticked away, but eventually I clued in to Ash’s clue and looked up. I stared, wide-eyed. “You fixed the ceiling!” When I’d been in the room before, I’d often entertained myself by seeing shapes in the water stains on the ceiling tiles. Hal and I disagreed, of course, on the identities of the shapes, but there would be no more debates because there were new tiles, all an even flat white.

  “A by-product,” Hal said, “of a leak in the fire suppression system. Never would have happened otherwise.”

  “You didn’t replace them for my sake?” I put a hand over my heart. “I’m truly hurt.”

  Hal did what I figured he’d do, which was ignore my comment. He took a memo pad from his shirt pocket. “To what do we owe the pleasure of your presence this morning?”

  The night before, I’d actually thought through how this meeting would go and had continued texting Anya and Collier for some time. “It’s about Rowan Bennethum. I have some information that might be helpful.”

  My former boyfriend looked at me. “I just lost a dollar of my hard-earned cash because I thought your powers of observation were keen. Since that’s clearly not the case, do you really think you have some information that will help us?”

  “Apples and oranges,” I said.

  He grinned and took out his own memo pad. “Give us something good and Hal might not remind you of the ceiling thing the rest of your life.”

  That was incentive, so I led with the second best point I had. “Did you know that Rowan had recently started a strict diet? One that didn’t allow her to drink anything except clear liquids?”

  Hal looked up from his notebook. “You didn’t mention this earlier.”

  Since I’d learned it from Anya the previous night, I couldn’t have. But I wasn’t about to blab that Anya—and apparently Neil, Rowan’s husband—hadn’t thought to mention it, so I shrugged and said, “Well, I’m mentioning it now.” I wasn’t sure how much difference it made, but as the detective had told me many times in the past, you never knew what was going to be important until you knew what was important. As a circular argument, it was one of the best ever.

  “Anything else?” Hal asked.

  I shifted. Last night, lying in bed, I’d remembered something about Rowan. At the time it had seemed significant, but suddenly I wasn’t sure. “You know the twins are away at college and Neil started working in Lansing last year and is home only on the weekends?” Both Hal and Ash nodded; I nodded back like a delayed bobblehead. “Right. Well, in mid-September, Rowan started a walking routine. She kept to it religiously, never missing a day no matter what the weather conditions.”

  Ash’s pen stopped scribbling. “Is that it?”

  Hal glanced over. “Look at her. Does she look like she’s done?”

  “Well . . .” Ash studied me. “No. She’s leaning forward. Her eyes are open wider than normal and her chin’s up a little.”

  Nice to know I gave away so many hints. I made a mental note to work on a poker face. Then again, I’d made that mental note in the past and done nothing to change my behavior, so why burden myself?

  “Exactly,” Hal said. “So what would have been a better approach to an interviewee than asking, ‘Is that it?’”

  Ash flushed, which was slightly adorable. “It depends on the situation. I could have said nothing and waited for the interviewee to start talking again. Or I could have asked for clarification. Or I could have asked something like, ‘What else can you can remember?’ Or restated what I’d just been told, because that often jogs things loose.”

  “Fit the interview style to the interviewee. Always,” Hal said, giving a tiny nod. “Minnie, do you have anything else?”

  Hal was writing something on his memo pad, which might mean that his full attention wasn’t on me, making this the perfect time to slide in the question I most wanted to have answered. “Who are you considering as possible suspects?”

  “Ms. Hamilton,” Hal said. “How many times have I said we won’t discuss an active investigation?”

  I grinned. “Doesn’t hurt to try, does it? Besides, I gave you some good information. Can’t you give me something? I’m not asking for specifics, just some broad generalities.”

  Hal put down his memo pad. “Let me guess. So you don’t duplicate our efforts while you conduct your own amateur, unofficial, and completely unsanctioned investigation?”

  Put like that, it sounded bad. “On the contrary,” I said primly. “It’s more like making sure law enforcement has all the help it can get. Aren’t you always saying the sheriff’s office is overworked and understaffed?”

  Ash winked at me with the eye farther away from his boss. “She’s going to find out anyway,” he said. “We might as well tell her.”

  Hal grunted. “I hate small towns.”

  Taking that as permission to speak, Ash said, “We’re looking into the bank where Ms. Bennethum worked. Coworkers, of course, because you never know, but also loan applicants she might have recently turned down.”

  I frowned. “How would killing Rowan help anyone get a loan?” It didn’t make sense to me. If one loan officer turned down a loan, wasn’t the next one likely to do the same thing?

  “Money is a critical factor in many murders,” Hal said. “Add an element of anger and the result can be lethal.”

  “So you’re talking about revenge as motive?” I asked.

  “All avenues of investigation, Ms. Hamilton.” Hal tucked away his notepad. “Now, unless you have something else, Deputy Wolverson and I have work to do.”

  Seconds later, I was out on the sidewalk, walking to the library with my head down against the gusting snow. Hal was right, all avenues did need to be investiga
ted, but revenge? For a denied loan? When there were other banks in town, and dozens more not far away?

  It didn’t make sense to me. Not a single bit.

  * * *

  • • •

  That night, Rafe and I met up at Fat Boys Pizza to grab a quick dinner. We hadn’t seen each other in a few days due to some night meetings he’d needed to attend, and I was surprised at the rush of happiness I felt when I walked into the restaurant.

  He was sitting sideways in a booth, back against the wall, long legs up on the bench, talking to the couple at a nearby table. A cold whoosh of air came inside with me and he turned around. When he saw me, he smiled, and my insides turned to happy mush. I’d felt mushy on the inside before and thought it was love, but now I knew better. This mush glowed. It warmed me from dawn to dusk and made me want to give the whole world a hug. This kind of mush was making me a better person and maybe that’s what true love was all about.

  Rafe slid himself off the bench and stood. He gave me a quick hug, whispered, “Hey,” in my ear, and helped me divest myself of hat, mittens, and coat. “What’s it like out there?” he asked.

  “Like January.” I sat and pulled my coat over my lap to keep any drafts out of my bones. “Good thing snow is white. Just think what it would be like if it was brown. Or pea soup green.”

  I’d made the comment before, but I liked to say it out loud every so often, especially in public where I could be overheard, so other people could get the benefit of a pro-snow point of view. Come April I could get tired of the stuff, too, but no matter what the circumstances, snow had fairy-tale qualities. It hid raw ugliness and added beauty to the most mundane landscape. Toss in the basic gorgeousness of Tonedagana County’s lakes and forested hills, and you had sheer magic with every snowfall.