Pouncing on Murder

by Laurie Cass

“So you’re saying you don’t want to go outside for a walk with me?”

  As I spoke a gust of wind buffeted the window. Though I didn’t exactly see the glass flex under the wind’s pressure, it probably should have.

  Eddie jumped to the floor and made a beeline for my closet. I followed him and found him wedged into the closet’s back corner, wrapped around my rain boots. “You are the weirdest cat ever,” I told him.

  He burrowed his head deeper toward the bottom of the closet and didn’t say a thing.

  “Have a good nap, my fuzzy friend.” I packed my backpack with cell phone, wallet, and a couple of books because you just never know, pulled on my raincoat, and headed out into the wild weather.

  Outside, another buffet of wind almost made me change my mind, but I knew it would do me good to get out and do something, even if it was just driving around. And I could even do something marginally useful, such as check out possible bookmobile routes. I never took the bookmobile down a road without vetting it first with my car—what looked fine on a map had the potential of being problematic for a large, tall, thirty-one-foot-long vehicle with the turning radius of a semi-truck.

  I pointed the front bumper of my car south and east of Chilson, and a dozen miles later, once I got around the east end of Janay Lake, I headed straight south to farm country. There were roads down here I’d never driven, and who knew what fun things I might see?

  There were all sorts of possibilities, really. Barns with murals painted on their sides. Fences made from stacks of fieldstones. Garages made of hundreds of short pieces of wood stuck together with concrete. Wide vistas of hills and woods and lakes and sky. Deer. Turkeys. Grouse. Woodpeckers. Bald eagles. Black bears, even, and I’d heard rumors of mountain lions, which seemed unlikely but you never knew.

  Though it was still windy, the rain had stopped. I pushed in a CD of a Canadian group, the Bare Naked Ladies, and was happily humming along about having a million dollars, enjoying the countryside that was starting to fuzz with green, when the rattletrap pickup that had been a couple of hundred yards ahead of me for the last few miles took a left turn.

  “That’s Mitchell’s truck,” I said out loud. Mostly trucks all looked alike to me, but Mitchell’s had the unusual attribute of having one color for the bed, another for the body, another for the hood, and yet one more for the passenger’s door.

  For no other reason than sheer curiosity, I decided to follow him. Maybe I’d figure out why he was acting so oddly. A weird Mitchell was acceptable and even desired, but Mitchell’s current weirdness was so out of the ordinary that it needed explanation.

  At least that was what I told myself as I followed him onto a narrow gravel road. Far ahead, I watched the back end of his truck run over the ruts and potholes at a much faster speed than I dared push my little sedan. The only thing I knew about oil pans was that they lived on the bottom of vehicles and were a bad thing to thump upon.

  My teeth chattered together as my car bounced down the road. Every so often I’d wince in preparation of a pothole too big to go around and sigh in relief when the hole didn’t suck me in forever.

  It wasn’t long before I lost sight of Mitchell altogether. While the number of road crossings in the last bumpy mile were zero, there had been a number of long driveways that he could have turned down and been lost to my sight.

  When I reached the top of a long hill and saw no car on the road, either in front of me or behind, I knew I’d lost him. “Rats,” I said, and came to a stop. I reached into my glove box for the Tonedagana County map and opened it up.

  “Huh.” If I turned around, I’d drive the same two and a half miles of rotten roads before reaching asphalt. If I kept going, I’d drive two miles of gravel road before I reached asphalt. The odds of the gravel ahead being in better condition were minimal, but at least it would be different gravel, and half a mile less was half a mile less.

  I folded the map and tucked it away. “Onward,” I said, and forged ahead.

  The next mile and a half of road was, if anything, worse than the road behind. It was wetter, for one thing, and mud spray soon covered the hood and spattered the windows. “Stupid weather,” I muttered.

  The weather up North was, I’d found, not what you’d call predictable. It could be raining buckets down at the marina, but not raining at all a mile away at the boardinghouse. On the east side of the county, snow could be coming down at a rate that would guarantee a school closing, and the west side would get a dusting. The temperature near Lake Michigan could be ten degrees different from what it was a quarter mile inland. It was odd, but also wonderful in a weird sort of way.

  I bounced down into, and up out of, a hole that wanted to swallow me whole, and when my head stopped bobbing, I saw something that made me brake to a complete stop.

  Not too far from the road, parked under a tree and covered with a tarp, was a wooden boat. Back farther in the trees was a farmhouse so dilapidated that I doubted it was still being occupied.

  I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. Had this been one of the boats Adam and Henry had come across? If Adam had already rejected this one as too much work, there wasn’t much point in me getting out into the mud to take a look, but if he hadn’t, maybe this could be the boat of his dreams.

  “Buck up,” I muttered. “What’s a little mud?”

  I pulled the car as far off the road as I could and got out, immediately stepping into a puddle. I sighed; I’d left my rain boots in the closet because I hadn’t wanted to disturb the sleeping Eddie, and was wearing old running shoes.

  But it was just a little mud and would clean off—eventually—so I kept going.

  Closer to the boat, I could read the label. Hacker-Craft. The company had been building boats in New York for more than a hundred years, and every one was a beauty. Expensive, too, so it was unusual to see one in a place like this. Adam had mentioned seeing a Hacker, hadn’t he? Was that the one with the hull rot? I crouched down.

  “Hey! You!”

  I looked up to see a thin, white-haired woman hobbling toward me. “Oh, hello. I was just looking at your boat. I have this friend who—”

  “Get away!” She lifted her hands and I belatedly realized that she was holding a long-barreled gun. “You get away right now! You’re trespassing!”

  Fear jumped into my throat and I backed away. “S-sorry,” I said, holding up my hands. “I didn’t . . . I wasn’t . . .” My rear end thumped against my car and I fumbled for the door handle with one hand as I continued to hold up the other.

  She pointed the gun at my feet. “Get away!” she shouted.

  I fell into the car, started the engine, and got.

  Chapter 10

  The deputy at the front counter took lots of notes. Or he did until I got to the point where I told him exactly where I was when I’d been threatened with certain death.

  “You were out on Chatham Road?” he asked. “Just north of County Road 610?”

  I nodded. “Half a mile north, probably. Her house was on the east side of Chatham.”

  “Uh-huh.” He put down his pen. “Hang on a second, okay?”

  It wasn’t okay, but that didn’t seem to matter. The deputy left me alone in the stark lobby. I leaned against the high counter. Decided it was too high to do that comfortably. Wandered around, studying the scarred plastic chairs and decided that I didn’t want to sit in any of them. Stood looking out the tall, narrow window and decided that I didn’t like looking at the world through glass with wire mesh through it. Sighed, and stood near the counter, listening to the hum of the fluorescent light.

  I’d just decided that the rhythm of its humming was close to the beat of “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” when I heard footsteps coming my way.

  “Ms. Hamilton,” Detective Inwood said. “I had a feeling it was you.”

  Since I was sure the desk deputy had described who was up front and since there probably weren’t many other five-foot-tall women in the county with curly black hair named Hamilton, I didn’
t applaud his extrasensory powers. “Don’t you ever get a day off?” I asked. “You do know it’s Sunday, right?”

  He plucked at his golf shirt. It was a faded maroon and had paint spatters of numerous colors across the front. “This,” he said, pointing to a light yellow, “is the color in the paint can that’s still open in my downstairs bathroom. I hope to return before it dries.”

  I squinched my eyes at him. “You didn’t leave the brush out, did you?”

  “Wrapped in plastic and in the refrigerator. Now. I hear you ran into Neva Chatham.”

  “Hang on,” I said. “Please tell me you didn’t come in just to talk to me.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Hamilton.” The detective smiled faintly. “You are not the sun around which my world revolves. Another situation demanded my attention. This is just a little bonus for me.”

  I almost laughed out loud. In another five years or so, the detective and I might come around to having a decent working relationship.

  “Neva Chatham,” he said. “What were the circumstances?”

  So I told the story again, starting with driving down the road, minding my own business, and ending with me sending my car far faster down a rutted road than was good for it. Or me.

  “Uh-huh.” Inwood leaned against the counter and put his hands in his pockets. Which meant he wasn’t writing anything down. “So you were trespassing.”

  “You’d have to get a surveyor out there to be sure,” I said a little sharply. “There’s a strong possibility the boat was inside the road right-of-way.”

  Inwood’s grin came and went so quickly that I wasn’t sure I’d even seen it. “Ms. Hamilton, what exactly are you here for? To press charges? And what would those be? Mrs. Chatham didn’t touch you, so there’s no bodily harm involved. And she didn’t damage your vehicle, so there’s no property damage.”

  My mouth opened and shut. What was going on? “A woman threatened me with a firearm,” I said carefully.

  Detective Inwood smiled. It was a good look on him; he should do it more often. “And if you hadn’t been poking around her boat, this never would have happened, now, would it? All you have to do to avoid a situation like this in the future is to stay away from that Hacker-Craft.”

  I frowned, wondering how he knew what kind of boat it was, but strong-mindedly stayed on topic. “Aren’t you concerned that she’ll hurt someone? What if she goes after a child with that gun?”

  Inwood’s smile went even wider. “I don’t think we have to worry about that, Ms. Hamilton. Now, please don’t tell me you want me to spend my Sunday afternoon trudging out to see a little old lady and then writing up a long report.”

  “She threatened me with a firearm,” I said again.

  “Did she really?” Inwood asked. “What were her exact words?”

  “That . . .” I thought back an hour. “She said to get away.” And there it was. Not a threat, not really. Although you’d think having a gun in her hand would make it one.

  “So that’s it.” The detective nodded. “Not sure something like that will come to anything. You’re welcome to talk to the prosecutor, of course, if you’d like to pursue the case.”

  Oh, right. As if that would get me anywhere. First thing the county prosecuting attorney would want was the police report, and since the pertinent police didn’t look as though they were about to move a muscle, getting a report was going to be a bit of a problem.

  “That sounds like a fine idea. Hope your paint hasn’t dried up,” I said politely, and was rewarded by watching his face go from patronizing kindness to one of anxiety. Ha! Score one petty point for Ms. Minnie Hamilton.

  Outside, the wind and wet was still going on, but I stood there and let it whuff against me. For whatever reason, the detective and the deputy were protecting Neva Chatham. And while I could appreciate their concern for an elderly woman who might be a touch unhinged, I was more than a little concerned about what she might do to anyone who stopped to look at her boat. Or what she might do to herself, for that matter.

  Again, I saw that small black hole at the end of her gun. A shiver ran over me, top to bottom, and I was fairly sure it didn’t have anything to do with the weather.

  Because I’d just realized what I should have realized earlier. If Neva Chatham could charge after me with a gun, she might not have been far from firing it. And if she could shoot at me, could she have dropped a tree on Henry? Could she have tried to run over Adam?

  I stood there, staring out at the wind-whipped Janay Lake, and wondered.

  • • •

  The next morning I bounced out of bed five minutes before the alarm went off. “Good morning, sunshine,” I said to Eddie.

  My furry friend opened his eyes, then closed them again. Firmly.

  “Come on, get up.” I tapped one of his white paws. “It’s a brand-new day out there. The wind has dropped, the clouds are gone, and it looks like it’s going to be a stunning spring day.”

  Eddie squirmed around and put one paw over his eyes.

  “Fine.” I gave him a head pat and stood. “I’ll leave you alone. But don’t blame me if you get bedsores, okay?”

  Less than an hour later, I’d showered, breakfasted, and walked up to the library, while sending a morning text of Beautiful morning, wish you were here to Tucker. After a moment, I got a Stuck in traffic, wish I was there, too text back, so my perky mood continued all the way into my office.

  The first thing I did when I sat at my computer was start up Google. I typed in Why don’t cats get bedsores? and frowned at the lack of results. Really? I was the only one who’d wondered? Surely the question had occurred to every cat owner at least once. Clearly someone needed to get going on their cat research.

  Grinning at myself, I started checking my office e-mail.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. Because there was an e-mail from Pam with an attachment, dated late last night, subject line Book fair flyer. Happily I’d managed to tuck the Flyer Fiasco into the back of my mind over the weekend. My index finger hovered over the mouse button for a long moment.

  “Be brave,” I said out loud, and clicked open the attachment.

  When it appeared in front of me, I stared at it for a long time before I did anything. Since that lack of anything included breathing, it wasn’t long before my lungs burned and I was sucking in air while reaching for the phone.

  “Pam,” I said, when she answered groggily. “It’s Minnie. Call me when you’ve finished your coffee, okay?”

  The minutes ticked past slowly, but the phone eventually rang. “Hey, Minnie,” Pam said. “What’s up?”

  “What, exactly,” I asked, eying the flyer she’d sent, “did you do in Ohio?”

  Pam had moved to Chilson a year ago, and though we got along wonderfully, I didn’t know much about her. I knew that she possessed more fashion sense than I ever would and that she loved coffee with a passion that bordered on scary, but I knew very little about her background.

  “Worked for a large corporation that shall remain nameless,” she said.

  “Doing . . . ?”

  “Graphic design,” she said, and I could hear the grin in her voice.

  “You are a scammer,” I said.

  “Every chance I get.”

  The design she’d sent was eye-catching, readable, and fun without being overly cute. It was perfect. “This is the best graphic that’s ever come out of this library,” I said, “and I’m sorry, but I absolutely can’t pay you. There’s nothing in the budget.”

  She made a gagging noise. “It’s April. I was glad to have something to do. There’s just one thing,” she said sternly. “Don’t tell a soul I did this. Lie if you have to, but if word gets out that I’ve done something for free, my days are numbered. I mean, it was fun now, when there’s nothing else going on, but in summer I won’t have time for it.”

  After vowing to keep her involvement a complete secret, I thanked her, thanked her again, and hung up.

  I printed the flyer and tacked it to my bullet
in board, which was right next to the portrait of Eddie that Cade had forced upon me as a thank-you gift. For the ten thousandth time, I admired the painting, and then I moved on to admiring Pam’s flyer; not only the design, but also the name of thriller writer Ross Weaver. Yes, indeedy, Ross Weaver was coming to the Chilson Library and yours truly would get to meet him in less than two weeks.

  Less than two weeks?

  A small alarm of panic went off in my head. There were a million things I had to do between now and the fair date of Friday after next. Flyers to distribute. Authors to confirm. Tent rentals and catering issues to finalize. Make that two million things. What was I doing, just standing there?

  I flung myself into my chair and got busy.

  • • •

  Late in the day, so late you could call it evening, I’d finished as much book fair business as I could get done that day, but I wasn’t ready to walk back to the houseboat. Not by a long shot. The library’s Internet connection was much faster than the marina’s, and there was research to be done.

  I pushed up my metaphorical sleeves, typed the name “Seth Wartella” into Google, and hit the Search button. With the faster connection, I wouldn’t stop looking after the top twenty searches. No, indeedy, this time I would keep looking at Seth Wartellas to the end of all the listings. Plus, there was Facebook to try, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and all sorts of other social media sites where I might catch a glimpse of the man.

  Maybe he was completely innocent of all wrongdoing, except for that tax fraud thing along with a side order of embezzlement, so maybe I was wasting my time. But if there was any chance of finding evidence that Seth had been in, say, Hawaii, when Adam was almost run over, then I had to try. I’d promised Adam and I’d promised Irene and I’d promised myself.

  And on the bright side, at least he wasn’t named Bill Smith. Things could always be worse, right?

  I nodded to myself and started clicking.

  • • •

  The long rays of the sinking sun flared onto my computer screen. Hunger pangs gnawed at me, but those were easier to ignore than the emotion that was creeping into the back of my throat. I swallowed down the feeling and it went into my stomach, where it didn’t mix at all well with the emptiness.