Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby (4 page)

Every so often, I untied from the dock and puttered around the lake, but I had no desire to venture out through the channel and into Lake Michigan. That lake was far too big for my top-heavy little houseboat, and if I sank the poor thing, I’d be homeless next summer.

October through April, I lived with Aunt Frances, my dad’s widowed sister, the aunt with whom I’d stayed during my childhood summers. Come warmer weather, however, I shooed myself out the front door to make way for her summer boarders. Every spring,
she said I could stay, but I loved my houseboat, the camaraderie of Uncle Chip’s Marina, most of my neighbors, and all of the many moods of Janay Lake.

During a dinner of chicken stir-fry (for me) and dry cat food (Eddie), I told Eddie that Stephen had asked me to de-Mitchell-ize the library. My uninterested cat offered no advice, but he did jump up on the bench next to me and purr, so he was helpful in a different way.

After dinner the two of us wandered out to the boat’s deck, skirting my one flowerpot and the metal bucket I’d been filling with skipping stones. Eddie trotted out in front and claimed the chaise longue to the left, so I took the remaining one, the one that needed sanding and painting. I’d covered both with flowery cushions, and you could hardly see the maintenance that needed doing, but still.

“How do you do that?” I asked my feline friend. “Okay, sure, cats deserve the best, but shouldn’t that apply only to cat-oriented things, not people things?”

Eddie sat in the middle of the chaise’s cushion and licked his hind leg.

“Cats,” I muttered, and flopped down.

For a moment, I just lay there, listening to the sounds of water and wind and summer, smelling lake and from somewhere, fresh-cut grass, feeling the sun on my face, enjoying the warmth on my skin, enjoying the freedom that comes from outside temperatures that allowed you to wear shorts and T-shirt and not be a single bit cold.

“Mrr.”

I jerked out of a light doze, fluttering the newspaper I held in my hand. “Right,” I said. “What do you want first? Front section or sports?” Eddie gave me the
are-you-an-idiot-or-what? glance. “Silly me. I forget how you need to have things read to you in order.”

The last couple of weeks, I’d fallen into the habit of reading the newspaper to Eddie. Reading out loud to a cat may be an extremely strange thing to do, but I found Eddie’s reactions entertaining. “Here’s one,” I said, and Eddie flopped down into his listening position. To non–cat owners, it might look as if he was sleeping, but I could tell from the way his ears twitched that he was paying attention.

In synopsis form, I read him an account of a local township board meeting. “Looks like they’re fighting over lake access again in Williams Township. Same old same old.” I scanned the article. “Yep. Adjacent property owners want it closed. Everyone else wants it open.”

Eddie slapped his tail against the cushion.

“Yeah, I know, all lake access points should be used only by cats.” I looked at him over the top of the paper. “But would you ever use one?”

He fixed his gaze on the horizon.
Slap, slap, slap.

I almost started to argue with him but realized just in time that I would lose. “Fine. Next up is…” The rest of the front page was taken up with nothing Eddie would care about. The opening of a new movie theater, a local student winning a scholarship. I turned the page.

“Hey, how about this one?” I asked. “You know that TV cooking show,
Trock’s Troubles
? The one that’s filmed up here a few times each summer?”Actually Eddie didn’t know since the houseboat didn’t have a television. Come October it would be different, because Aunt Frances was a devoted fan.

Trock Farrand, the bumbling host of the long-running show, owned a summer home not far from Chilson and he’d persuaded the show’s producers to film the show at various area locations from Trock’s home kitchen to his patio to farm markets to the occasional restaurant. My best friend, Kristen, owner of the Three Seasons Restaurant, was on a short list and she was torn between excitement and anxiety.

Eddie’s ears had pricked at the name of the show, so I went on. “This says Trock was out on his bicycle yesterday and was almost run over by a car. He was out on that road that runs right next to Lake Michigan, and he fell halfway down the bluff.”

I paused, thinking. Farrand had been lucky to escape with the scrapes and bruises the article described. Tumbling down that steep hillside covered with scrub trees, briars, and who knew what else, he could easily have had a serious injury.

Eddie jumped down from his seat and up onto mine. He bumped the back of the paper with his head.

“Right. Sorry.” I read through the rest of the article. “He says it was a black SUV with tinted windows that ran him off the road.”

“Mrr.” Eddie turned around twice and, finally facing the water, settled himself onto my legs.

“Yeah, doesn’t narrow things down much, does it? That’s what probably half the summer people drive.”

“Mrr.”

I started to pet him. “No, I’m not going to get a black SUV with tinted windows just because you want one. Think of how your cat hair would look on black upholstery.”

He turned his head around to look at me.

“Fine. When I get a black SUV, which is unlikely unless I win the lottery, which is unlikely unless I start playing it, we’ll get leather seats.” Although that would be problematic in a different way since Eddie still had all his claws.

But my nonsensical capitulation must have satisfied Mr. Ed, because he started purring. Clearly, he was done with the newspaper.

Smiling, I closed it. “If you’re done, I’m done, pal.”

“Mrr.”

E
arly the next morning, I woke to the unmistakable noise of a cat doing something that he shouldn’t.

“Eddie, whatever you’re up to, stop it.”

He, of course, ignored me and went on making odd noises out in the kitchen area.

Growling to myself about cats and mornings and alarm clocks, I rolled out of bed, and padded down the short hallway and up the three steps in my bare feet and jammies. At the top of the stairs, I stood over him, hands on my hips. “Although it’s more what you’re
down
to, isn’t it?”

He looked up at me with an expression that could only be saying, “Who, me?”

“Yes, you.” I kicked at the newspaper he’d pulled off the top of the recyclables pile and dragged to the middle of the floor. “What is it with you and paper products? Paper towels, newspapers. And last month it was stuff out of the printer. What are you going to attack next week?” I almost said toilet paper but kept my suggestion to myself and crouched down to gather up his minor mess.

“I suppose I should be grateful you hadn’t started shredding this stuff. Having to pick up tiny pieces of newsprint first thing in the morning would be truly annoying.” I tried to arrange the papers in a neat pile by shoving them around. Didn’t get very far.

Eddie appeared to be finding my efforts interesting to the point that he was stretching out with his front paw to tap the paper. “Oh, quit. This isn’t a cat toy, okay?” I looked at the date. “This is yesterday’s paper and…” My voice faded away as I caught sight of an article I hadn’t noticed the night before.

“Check this out, Eddie. A boat exploded out on Lake Michigan.”

My furry friend edged closer, his paw still extended. I moved the paper up out of his reach. His easy reach, anyway. “The boat’s owner was blown clear and picked up by a nearby boat. Marine experts are investigating the cause.”

The short paragraph hadn’t told me—the owner of a boat—nearly enough. Had the guy been hurt? Had the boat sunk? What had caused the explosion? Every good boat owner knew that you had to air an inboard engine before you started it in case noxious gases had collected in the engine well, but that boat had been out on the lake. Of course, maybe he’d—

Eddie’s white paw darted under the bottom of the newspaper and pulled. The print ripped cleanly from south to north. I jumped to my feet.

“Cut that out! This is not, I repeat not, a cat toy.”

Eddie gave me a sour look, obviously thinking that if I balled up a sheet and tossed it down to the bedroom, it would be.

“No,” I said. “This is headed for the outside recycle
bin. We live on a houseboat, a small one, and organized tidiness is key.” I gathered up the paper, an empty glass jar, and the flattened can that last night had held chicken broth. “Tidiness, from here on out,” I said, slipping into the sandals I’d kicked off near the door.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

I opened the door and pointed at him with a librarian’s index finger. “Tidiness,” I told him, and shut the door before he could get in the last word.

•   •   •

That was a bookmobile day, which was happily free of any unpleasant incidents or medical emergencies, and the next day was a library day that was crowded from open to close with a multitude of patrons needing assistance, a children’s author reading, a Friends of the Library meeting, and a delivery of brand-new books.

I slept like a rock that night. The next morning, my morning off from the library, I pulled on dress pants and a dressy T-shirt and drove up to the Charlevoix Hospital.

When I explained to the receptionist that I’d been the one to bring Mr. McCade in, she said he’d been asking about me and let me straight through.

“Hello?” I knocked on the doorframe of Russell McCade’s hospital room. In my hand were flowers from Oleson’s, a local grocery store. “Mr. McCade? Mrs. McCade?”

The man sitting up in the hospital bed and the woman in the chair next to him looked up at me. I remembered the woman’s just-shy-of-heavyset build and shoulder-length graying brown hair, but it was the first time I’d had a chance to really look at Russell McCade.

Despite the stroke-induced sagging of his left side, I
could see that he had those craggy features that many women found attractive: bushy eyebrows, wide forehead and mouth, and a cleft chin. Sitting, he had a small belly, but that might disappear if he stood and sucked in. His hair was similar to his wife’s, half brown and half gray, and though their features didn’t look that similar, they gave off a sense of fitting together like a right hand in a left.

“Yes?” Mrs. McCade looked at me with a polite, yet distant smile. “May I help you?”

Rats. They didn’t recognize me. Not a huge surprise, but how exactly do you introduce yourself in a case like this without embarrassing everyone involved? “Um…” I proffered the flowers. “I brought these for—”

She let out a half squeal, half shout. “It’s Minnie!” She leapt to her feet and ran to me. The momentum of her hug sent me staggering a step backward. “Oh, my dear, I’m so glad you stopped by, so very glad.” She squeezed me hard enough that my eyes popped a little. “Cade, this is your bookmobile angel.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me to the bedside.

“There is nothing that I can possibly do,” Mr. McCade said, the words slow and slurred but clear enough, “to repay you for what you did. Barb and I are in your debt forever.”

I wanted to squirm. Did, just a little. “Anybody would have done the same thing.”

“What most people would have done,” he said, “is call nine-one-one and keep driving. You went far and above the call of kindness. Thank you, my dear. Thank you very much.”

He reached out for my hand and patted it. I could
feel a slight heat on my cheeks and knew I was blushing. “You’re welcome,” I said. “Glad I was there at the right time.”

His wife relieved me of my small burden (“Let me take care of those flowers”) and put it on the windowsill while she extracted a promise from me to call them Barb and Cade. “Minnie, can you stay for a few minutes?” she asked. “Please do.”

“For a little while,” I said. “But I can’t stay too long. I have to work this afternoon.”

“Is that why you don’t have your furry friend with you?” She smiled. “What fun to have a bookmobile cat.”

“Is this afternoon another bookmobile trip?” Cade asked.

I pulled up a chair and perched on its edge, explaining my split roles of assistant library director and bookmobile driver. Halfway through the explanation I stumbled a little, because I suddenly realized why I was taking such a fast liking to this man I barely knew. He looked like and had a personality similar to my first-ever boss, the library director in Dearborn, the town where I’d grown up. Mr. Herrington had given me a summer job and he’d even kept me on part-time my senior year of high school.

Then I stumbled over my words a little more, because Mr. Herrington had passed away when my parents and I were in Florida over Christmas break, visiting my older brother. Mr. Herrington had died of a sudden heart attack in the library, during the hours I would have been there working, and I’d never quite forgiven myself for not being there to help him.

I blinked a time or two and stumbled back to my
current narrative. If either McCade had noticed my falterings, they were both too polite to say so.

“Well,” Barb said, “I’m glad the Chilson Library has a bookmobile. If it didn’t, Cade here might not be making such a fast recovery.”

“Long way to go.” Cade looked down at his left side. “Pity I’m left-handed.”

“You’re… left-handed?” My mouth went dry. “But…”

“Don’t worry about his painting,” Barb said. “He’s such a nut to paint that he’ll learn how to do it right-handed if he has to.”

Cade lifted his right hand and flexed it. “Learning new techniques is what keeps me young. Well, that and learning how to use Facebook.”

Barb snorted. “Waste of time,” she said. “I know, I know, your agent thinks it’s giving you a better connection to your legions of fans, but it’s so artificial. How can typing two sentences to a stranger mean anything?”

“Better to use social media than have to tour,” her husband said. “Pick your poison, my dear.”

“Scotch,” she said promptly. “On the rocks.”

“Gin and tonic for me.” He chuckled. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we, Mrs. McCade?”

She held his hand, the hand closest to her, his left hand, his weak hand, and kissed it. “Indeed we are, Mr. McCade.”

Cade’s eyes faded shut. “Indeed.”

The moment was rich with love and comfort and security. With all my heart, I hoped that my marriage would be as strong as this one. When I got married, that is. Not that I was thinking about weddings or anything.

“Minnie,” Barb said, watching her husband. “Is that your full name?”

“Nope.” I didn’t say anything else, and she chuckled.

“When I get out of here,” Cade said, opening his eyes, “when I’m better, Barb and I are going to treat you to a night on the town. Dinner, drinks, dessert.” A smile curved up one side of his face. “All the best
D’
s possible. Dancing, if you want it.”

I grinned. “Disco?”

“Done.”

“Do-si-do?”

“Indubitably.”

Barb looked at him askance. “That’s not a
D
word.”

“No, but it feels like one. Say it out loud and you’ll see.”

So there we were, saying the word “indubitably” over and over again and getting a serious case of the giggles. Since it was a hospital, we tried to keep the noise down, but that made my stomach start to cramp. “Don’t,” I panted, “it hurts. Don’t.”

“
D
word,” Barb managed to get out, and we were off again.

A male voice intruded. “As I thought. It’s Minnie Hamilton, out and about and making trouble.”

“Tucker!” I jumped to my feet and went to him for a quick hug. Not a big one, because he was in doctor mode, but even a little one felt good.

Barb looked from me to Tucker and back. “Our bookmobile angel and our emergency room doctor hero are an item?” She clapped her hands. “Oh, how perfect this is. How absolutely perfect!”

“Stop her,” Cade said, “or she’ll be making calls for your wedding caterer.”

“We’ve only been dating a few weeks,” I said, my face once again going warm.

“Good weeks, though, right?” Tucker kissed the top of my head. “Good to see you’re doing well, Mr. McCade.”

“Thank you again, Dr. Kleinow,” Barb said. “Thank you so very much.”

He smiled. “Just doing my job, ma’am.” He nodded a good-bye, gave me a quick hug, and left.

“I should get going, too.” I stood. “I’m glad you’re doing so well, Cade.”

Barb stood, too. “I’ll walk you out, Minnie.” She leaned forward. “Go to sleep, my sweet. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Mmm.” Cade’s eyes were already closed. By the time Barb and I reached the door, he was snoring.

Out in the carpeted hallway, Barb stopped. “Minnie…” But whatever words she wanted to say got lost somewhere and she just stood there, looking at me with eyes full of emotion.

My throat clogged up a little. “You don’t need to say anything, okay? I’m glad I was there to help. Truly.”

“You’re a lovely girl.” Barb laid her hand on my cheek for a brief moment. “Your parents must be very proud.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but hey, maybe she was right.

“I’ll call you,” she said. “We’ll set a date for a nice lunch. I should have called before, but I’ve been a little…” She looked back down the hall.

“Busy,” I supplied. “Don’t worry about it. My cell number’s on my card. Call whenever you want.”

“Thank you, Minnie.” She gave me a hard hug. “So very much.”

I watched her walk back down the hall to her husband’s room, sniffled a little, and felt a sudden urge to talk to my aunt Frances.

•   •   •

“Minnie, my sweet. How are you?”

Even though I wasn’t feeling bad, not really, hearing my aunt’s voice made me feel better. She had a knack for making people feel not just better, but happier. And beyond that, more comfortable with themselves and who they could be.

It was a mild push from Aunt Frances that had gotten my friend Kristen thinking about opening a restaurant, and it was an Aunt Frances suggestion that motivated a neighbor of hers to make the move from composing music for friends and family to selling it over the Internet and eventually to making a mint writing movie sound tracks.

I glanced through my office doorway. No one in sight. “Just wondering about breakfast on Saturday. And how things are, you know, going.” Because Aunt Frances ran more than a summer boardinghouse and she did more than amateur career coaching; she was a secret matchmaker.

My aunt sighed. It was an uncharacteristic sound from my permanently cheerful relative. “There are what you might call issues.”

Every spring Aunt Frances took careful stock of the boardinghouse applicants for the upcoming summer. Though she didn’t have a Web site or even a Facebook page, she did have years upon years of happy boarders
who referred friends and family and near strangers. The stack of letters and e-mails from people asking to stay was thicker than the phone book for the entire county.

Aunt Frances studied each letter carefully, and if a candidate looked at all probable, an intense series of letters and phone calls followed. To explain the unusual setup at the boardinghouse, Aunt Frances would say, and go on to explain that the summer’s fee included a daily breakfast, with one catch. On Saturday, a boarder cooked for everyone else. The daunting task of cooking for the six boarders, Aunt Frances, and often her librarian niece had made more than one applicant back away.

The cooking of breakfast, however, was a requirement Aunt Frances would never change. Because the real reason she took so much time studying the applicants was that the entire summer was a secret matchmaking setup, pairing boarder with boarder.

“There’s no better way to get a person’s measure than to see him or her working in the kitchen,” she’d said to me privately. And she had a gift for pairing up her boarders. In all the years she’d been running the boardinghouse, which had been ever since her husband died so young that I barely remembered him, she’d never once missed. Until now.