Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby (7 page)

“Of course not.” Barb slid her chair closer to her husband and reached out to him. She was sitting to his left, next to the side affected by the stroke, next to the side of his face that sagged, next to the arm that didn’t have the strength to lift itself, and she cupped her hand to his drooping face. “I know you wouldn’t. Not ever.”

Dr. Carpenter went to Cade’s other side and began taking his pulse. He asked a few questions, about light-headedness, headache, etc., then stepped back, frowning. “You’ll do for now, but this had better not take long.”

“Right.” Markakis clicked his pen. “Let’s get going. Russell McCade, I’m Daniel Markakis. What I need first and fast is a quick summary of tonight’s events. Are we ready?”

Cade, listing slightly to the left, looked at his new lawyer. “Daniel Markakis. You’re the guy who—”

“That’s right. Now, unless you’d like to be billed hundreds of dollars an hour to discuss something you can read in old newspapers, let’s get on with it.”

Barb bristled, but Cade gave a lopsided grin. “We’ll find out in a minute if you’re worth that kind of money.”

The pen Markakis held stopped making notes. “How’s that?”

Cade sat back a little. “Just before midnight, I received a phone call. It was a man, and he spoke in a low, whispering voice.”

A tingle crawled up the back of my neck. Whispery male voices? Phone calls don’t get much creepier than that.

“He told me,” Cade was saying, “that he was holding my wife hostage, and that I needed to come right away to discuss a ransom, that if I called the police, he’d”—his words caught—“he’d kill her.”

Barb made a faint and pain-filled cry.

“Keep going.” Markakis scribbled furiously.

Cade coughed and continued. “The man gave me an address and said to get there as soon as I could. I found my aide and told her there was a family emergency. She talked to the nurse on duty and they found someone to give me a ride.”

Markakis looked up. “Not a taxi?” Then he must have realized what he’d said. “Never mind. We’re Up
North. The closest twenty-four-hour taxi service is probably a hundred miles away. Go on.”

We waited. Cade sat quietly, staring at the wall; then finally he looked at Barb, smiled, and started talking again. “The driver they’d found for me was a custodian. He dropped me off at the address, telling me to call if I needed a ride back, and left. It was a duplex. I could see a light on inside, so I walked to the front door.”

He swallowed. “The door was open a few inches and I went inside. A woman was lying facedown on the floor. Her hair… there was blood all over it, and her… her head was the wrong shape. I assumed it was Barb. I shouted her name, ran to her. I turned her over and saw that it wasn’t Barb at all, but Carissa. Carissa Radle.” He closed his eyes and dipped his chin to his chest. “I checked her pulse, but she was dead,” he whispered.

“And who is Carissa Radle?” Markakis asked.

Cade looked at him. “You know what I do for a living?” The attorney nodded briefly. “Carissa was a big fan of my work,” Cade said. “We’d had lunch two or three times.”

“Alone?”

Barb started to say something but stopped when Cade shook his head. “No, in a restaurant, with my wife at my side.”

Markakis made another note. “I suppose you’ve told all this to the police?”

Cade nodded. “I just wanted to clear up what is obviously a misunderstanding. Before tonight I had no idea where Carissa lived. I only got truly concerned when I told them about the phone call and they seemed
not to believe me at all. That’s when I told them I wanted an attorney.”

The door opened and a man walked in. He was tall and thin, basically shaped like the letter
I
, which was how, not that long ago, I’d learned to remember his last name. Detective Inwood glanced around the table, slowed when he saw Markakis, slowed again when he saw me, then finished up with Cade. “We’ve made some accommodations for your ill health,” he said, “but it’s time to finish up the interview.”

“Has my client been Mirandized?” Markakis demanded.

“Yes, sir, he has. We’re just trying to get some—”

“Has he been charged?”

“Not at this time,” Detective Inwood said. “However, we’re waiting for—”

“If my client hasn’t been charged, then he’s free to go.”

The detective leaned against the doorjamb, his hands in his pockets. “Now, Mr. Markakis, you know that we can hold him for twenty-four hours with reasonable cause, and in this situation, it’s pretty reasonable. Yes, Mr. McCade had a stroke on his left side, but it appears that the victim was killed with a large Petoskey stone by someone using his or her right hand.”

Killed by a Petoskey? That was just so wrong. The gray stones of fossilized coral were found only in northern Michigan. Sometimes you could find little ones on the beach, but big ones were typically expensive and sold by dealers. To have one of those prized stones be a murder weapon was just… wrong.

“Situation? What situation is that?” Markakis stabbed his legal pad with his pen. “That you’re holding this man
for no good reason? What’s going to happen when the public finds out that—”

“That a sick man is being held by the police when he should be in a hospital?” Dr. Carpenter was on his feet. “Look at him. He can barely keep his head up. Not even two weeks from a stroke and you’re saying he killed someone? He lacks the strength, man. He doesn’t have it in him.”

Detective Inwood studied Cade. “Yet this sick man managed to make his way from Lakeview to the victim’s home.”

“Because he thought his wife’s life was in danger,” Markakis said. “Let’s discuss some realities. The true killer used an object to bludgeon the poor woman to death. What are the chances that this man, who can’t even hold up his left arm without support, who is dragging his left leg, what are the chances that this weakened man could have committed a brutal murder?”

I squinted at him. That had the ring of a courtroom argument. Did that kind of stuff come naturally after a couple of decades of defending clients, or did he have to work hard at it?

“I’m not that weak,” Cade protested, but his wife, his doctor, and his attorney all glared at him. His chin started to jut forward when there was a knock on the door.

“Detective Inwood?” A young uniformed woman handed him a sheet of paper.

Inwood scanned the sheet. Frowned. Scanned it again. He grunted and left the room with the woman trailing in his wake.

The five of us looked at one another for a beat, and then we all started talking at once.

“That was weird,” I said.

“Cade, what’s going on?” Barb held on tight to her husband’s arm.

“This is ridiculous,” Dr. Carpenter said. “Cade should have been back in Lakeview long ago. This stress is going to set back his recovery dramatically.”

“Barb, don’t worry.” Cade made a move to hold his wife’s hand, but since he was still in handcuffs, the effort fell short in a metallic sort of way. “It’ll be fine.”

Markakis smiled, checked to make sure his pen was closed, and clipped it to the placket of his polo shirt. “I predict you’ll be released in less than an hour.”

I’m not sure if everyone else’s jaw dropped, but mine certainly did.

Barb leaned across the table, stretching her hands out to him, so obviously wanting to believe his words that it almost hurt to watch her. “How do you know?” she asked.

His smile widened to include an element of condescension. “I don’t charge five hundred dollars an hour just because I can.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, then went on. “What that lovely young officer handed the detective was most likely the medical examiner’s preliminary findings. Judging from his expression, it wasn’t what he wanted to see, and that means it’s good news for us.”

“You mean whatever’s in that report will prove his innocence?” Barb asked.

“Proving innocence is the job of the court system.” Markakis leaned back in his chair. “The police want enough evidence to prove guilt. If they can’t get enough, the county prosecutor won’t take the case.”

Barb sent Cade a quick look. “So even if they let him go, some people might think he still did it?”

“Probably.” Markakis shrugged. “Unless they find and convict someone else for the murder.”

Barb frowned and Cade looked troubled. Which didn’t make sense to me, because if Markakis was right, the police had no case against Cade and he wouldn’t be prosecuted. What else could matter?

We sat in a silence broken by nothing except the occasional rattle of Cade’s handcuffs. After a short eternity, the door opened again and Detective Inwood returned.

He stood over Cade, studying him carefully. It wasn’t a look that Cade, the successful artist, could possibly be accustomed to, because this was full of suspicion and speculation. The detective took a small key from his pants pocket and unlocked the handcuffs. “You’re free to go,” he said.

“What?” Markakis, still leaning back, raised his eyebrows. “No explanation?”

Detective Inwood gave the eminent attorney almost the same look he’d given Cade. “I am not required—”

“Oh, come on, Detective.” Markakis crossed one ankle over the opposite knee. “You know I’ll find out, one way or another. Let’s save us both some time, and these good people some money.”

Inwood shrugged. “The medical examiner’s preliminary findings indicate that the victim was killed between nine p.m. and midnight, a time when Mr. McCade was reported to be in bed by the staff at Lakeview.”

“But—”

Markakis rode over Cade’s protest. “Thank you very much, Detective. I appreciate your courtesy. Perhaps I can return the favor someday.”

“Perhaps.” Inwood’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. It
barely reached his lips. “Mr. McCade, Mr. Markakis, please keep in mind that preliminary findings aren’t final findings. I’m sure we will be talking to you again soon.” He gave our small group one more look-over, nodded briefly at me, then left.

“Minnie?” Barb asked. “Do you know him?”

I stood. “Not really. Let’s get Cade back to Lakeview, okay?”

•   •   •

The doctor left us as soon as Cade was safely in his room, in his pajamas, and sitting on the edge of his bed. “I’ll be in tomorrow,” Dr. Carpenter said. “Can’t have my favorite artist backsliding in his recovery. You have a lot more paintings in you, and I want at least one.”

As soon as he was gone, Cade closed his eyes and shrank at least a full size. Maybe two.

“I knew it,” Barb muttered. With the familiarity and ease of long-marrieds, Barb turned Cade and lifted his legs onto the bed. “I knew it,” she said again. “That strong act was just an act. I could see how exhausted you were, I knew you were about to keel over, but did you say anything? No, of course not, you had to be strong.”

“And stupid,” he said in a whispery voice. “Don’t forget stupid.”

“I won’t.” She pulled the covers up over him. “Go to sleep and I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

“Barb?” he asked faintly.

“What?” She continued to tuck him in.

“I’m glad it wasn’t you who was dead.”

She froze in place. Pulled in a deep, shuddering breath and took hold of his hand. “Thank you, my sweet, for coming to my rescue, even though it wasn’t me.”

He smiled his uneven smile. “Beautiful Barb,” he said sleepily. “You’re my beautiful…” But he fell asleep before he could finish the sentence.

Barb kissed his forehead. “And you’re my handsome husband,” she whispered. “Sleep tight, my prince.”

•   •   •

I walked Barb to the entrance. “What a night,” she said, her words weighed down with fatigue. “And I doubt we’ve seen the end of it.”

Since I’d been getting the same feeling, all I did was nod.

“Once again you’ve come to our rescue,” Barb said.

I wasn’t so sure about that. The police would have released Cade if Markakis had been there or not. All I’d really done was saddle the McCades with what would undoubtedly be a massive attorney’s bill.

“What was Carissa like?” I asked as we pushed open the door and exited into the still-dark morning.

Barb sighed. “That poor young woman. She was one of Cade’s followers. A superfan. He has a number of them, if you can believe it. We’d had lunch together a few times. I even took a picture of the two of them and posted it on Cade’s Facebook page. His agent loves that kind of stuff,” she said, shrugging.

After a pause, she went on. “Carissa was one of those happy people, all light and laughter. Nice enough, but I’m not sure there was much depth to her, if you know what I mean. Still, she was pleasant to be around. I enjoyed the time we spent with her. Such a shame that she’s dead.”

I looked at her in the dim light. Something hadn’t sounded quite right. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised if Barb was saying things that didn’t sound right
on a night that her sick husband had almost been arrested for murder.

“At least the police released him,” she said. “I don’t even want to think about the media attention if Cade was arrested. And I don’t think the police even know who he is, which is a blessing.”

I wasn’t so sure she was right on that account, so I didn’t say anything. Not that long ago, I’d made a serious error in judgment about Detective Inwood and his partner, Detective Devereaux.

This time, I wasn’t going to assume
anything.

B
y the time I got home it was practically time to get up, but I crawled into bed anyway. Eddie, who’d been sleeping in the exact center of the bed, murmured an objection, then rearranged himself at the small of my back. I was sound asleep in seconds.

Too soon, the alarm clock went off. I smacked the snooze button and went back to sleep. The fourth time the alarm rang, I realized it was going to keep waking me up every six minutes until I either got up or turned the thing off altogether.

Yawning, I slid out of bed and headed for the shower. Halfway there, my brain woke up and panic set in. It was Saturday. A bookmobile day.

“Eddie!” I shrieked. “We’re going to be late!”

My startled cat scrambled off the bed and leapt to the floor. Side by side, we raced up the short hallway, me on the way to the shower, Eddie on the way to the door, where he sat, voicing criticisms, until we were ready to go.

•   •   •

In an amazingly short period of time, we were in the bookmobile and driving down the road. “I know I forgot something,” I said.

Thessie reached through the wires of the cat carrier door to scratch Eddie’s face. “You? Forget something? Doubt it.”

“
D
word,” I murmured.

“Sorry?”

“Did you ever think how many fun words there are that start with the letter
D
?” I asked.

“You mean like death, destruction, and dystopia?” She said the last word with relish, rolling it around in her mouth and enunciating the consonants cleanly and clearly.

There couldn’t be many seventeen-year-old girls who knew what that meant. “Dystopia?”

“You know what it means, right?” Thessie asked. “It’s, like, a world where everything is horrible, so bad that it can’t get any worse.”

“A world without books,” I said.

Thessie grinned. “Or a world with only e-books that your reader won’t open.”

I laughed. What was I going to do when Thessie went back to school in September? She was the perfect bookmobile companion. Smart, funny, and, as a volunteer, not on the library’s payroll. The odds of finding anyone close to her caliber were nil to none. But since I didn’t have to worry about that for a few weeks, I decided not to. Why ruin the present with worry about the future?

“This contest is going to be so much fun,” Thessie said. “That was so nice of your friend Kristen to donate the candies.”

In reflex, I almost looked back at our latest
acquisition, which was safely bungee-corded on a bookshelf. The road, however, was winding and narrow and I kept my gaze forward.

“It’s really too bad I can’t enter the contest,” Thessie was saying.

“Sure is,” I said cheerfully. “Anyone connected to the library is out of luck. Besides, you know how many candies are in there. You helped me count.”

I didn’t remember the number, but then I didn’t have to because I had that information in the spreadsheet I was using to track the names of the entrants and their guesses. We had blank slips to write down guesses for the number of candies in the jar, and the guess that was closest would win the candies, the jar, and the ultimate prize of the bookmobile coming to her or his house. Everyone would get one slip per visit and may the best guess win. The local paper had agreed to write up the contest-winning personal bookmobile stop and I was already planning to have the bookmobile’s carpet steam-cleaned of all Eddie hair before any reporter set foot inside.

“Maybe I forgot?”

Unlikely. Thessie’s sharp brain wouldn’t forget anything it didn’t want to, let alone the number of Kristen-made maple-flavored hard candies, individually wrapped and placed in a large, clear, thick plastic jar I’d found in my aunt’s attic.

“You know,” I said, “even if nobody’s close to guessing right, you still won’t get it.”

“Not even if everyone’s
really
far off?” she asked hopefully.

“If everyone is that far off, I’ll suspect someone was priming them with wrong numbers.”

“Hey!” she protested. “I wouldn’t do that!” But she turned back to look at the jar with a contemplative look on her face.

Shaking my head, I flicked on the blinker and made a wide-sweeping right turn into the parking lot of a former gas station, now a gardening supply store. By the time we were set up, half a dozen people were milling about, waiting for someone to open the door.

“Good morning,” I said, smiling wide. “Welcome to the Chilson District Library Bookmobile. Come on—”

But they were already up the stairs and in, no further invitation necessary. And there, kicking up dust as she walked across the gravel parking lot, was the exact person I’d hoped to see at this stop.

“Good morning, Faye,” I said as she came up the steps. “Did you remember to bring those cookbooks?”

Her face, which had been smiling, instantly transformed into a horrified—and very guilty—look. She tucked her short graying hair behind her ears with hands that held no books, not even the overdue cookbooks that I’d found for her through the interlibrary loan system. “Oh, wow, Minnie. I forgot all about them. They’re at home, but…” She glanced over her shoulder. “But you’d be gone by the time I got back. Um…”

I crossed my arms, put on my firm librarian face, and looked her in the eye. Which was only possible because she was standing one step down. “You know the library’s policy is to refuse lending privileges until any and all overdue books are returned.”

She hung her head and sighed. “I know. It’s my own fault.” With drooping shoulders, she retreated down the stairs.

Uh-oh. I must have carried the Firm Librarian Face a little too far. “Faye!” I called. “Come on back. I know how much you were looking forward to reading the new Nicholas Sparks. It’d be unusual punishment to make you wait.”

“You mean… ?”

“We’ll bend the rules just this once.” I put my finger to my lips and looked left and right. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

She nodded toward the front of the bookmobile where a black-and-white feline was perched on the headrest of the passenger’s seat. “Not even Eddie?”

“Especially Eddie.” I rolled my eyes. “Cats are horrible gossips, didn’t you know?”

Laughing, she headed straight for the Special Orders shelf.

“Um, Minnie?” Thessie stood at my elbow. “We have a little problem. You know how the guessing game was supposed to be for kids? Well…” She held out six slips of folded paper.

At this particular moment, the youngest human on the bookmobile was Thessie. I glanced at our patrons, all of whom had their noses deep in books, just as it should be. “Didn’t you tell them it was for kids only?”

“By the time I noticed, it was too late. They’d made their guesses.”

Yet another thing no one had taught me while I was getting my library science degree. Clearly, there should have been at least one lecture on how to run contests.

A white-haired gentleman approached. “Here you go, Minnie. May the best guess win, eh?” Smiling, he held out a slip of paper. “Winning a jar of candy from the Three Seasons would be a nice treat, but I can’t pass
up a chance to have the bookmobile come to my very own house. Brilliant marketing, by the way.”

What choice did I have? I took his guess. “Thanks,” I said faintly. Thessie, a smirk on her face, started to say something. “Not a word, Thess,” I told her. “Not one word.”

“Dystopia,” she said, grinning.

I crossed my eyes at her and went to help a patron find the perfect beach read.

•   •   •

My early-morning activities eventually took their toll. At lunchtime, I made an unplanned stop at a convenience store and bought a large bottle of caffeinated soda. Near the end of the day, I wished I’d bought two.

“See you on Tuesday,” I said when I dropped Thessie off at her car.

“What’s that?” she asked. “I couldn’t hear you through that yawn.”

I snapped my jaw shut and gave her a mock glare. “When did the youth of today get so smart-alecky?”

She put on an air of deep thought. “I’d guess it was when the first teenagers were born.” She looked at me. “Um, are you okay? To drive, I mean? You look really tired.”

I smiled. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.”

“Mrr!”

Thessie laughed. “I guess Eddie will keep you awake.”

She left and I looked at my feline companion. “Please don’t listen to her,” I told him. “The last thing I need is you howling all the way home.”

“Mrr,” he said quietly.

“Thank you.” I pointed the bookmobile in the
direction of Chilson. “She’s right, though. I am tired. But I’m not going to think about it. If I do, I’ll just get more tired and that’s no good, not on such a beautiful day.”

And a beautiful day it was, one of those perfect summer days that northern Michigan seemed to specialize in. Temperatures in the high seventies, a light breeze, low humidity, and a few fluffy clouds dotting the sky. No wonder this area was such a tourist draw.

“Speaking of drawing,” I said, “I wonder how Cade’s doing. Last night couldn’t have been good for him.”

Actually there were a lot of things I was wondering. Having a murder in my happy little town was hard enough to wrap my head around, and I was bothered by the fact that I knew nothing about the victim.

I didn’t know if Carissa Radle had been blond or brunette or redheaded. Didn’t know if she’d been short or tall or pretty or athletic or funny. Didn’t know who was left behind to mourn her. Didn’t know anything about this woman whose life had so unexpectedly intersected Cade’s and now, in a diagonal sideways sort of way, mine.

Those thoughts kept me awake all the way to Chilson. They kept me mostly awake while I tucked the bookmobile in for the night, and they sort of kept me awake as I kept an eye out for Stephen while I moved Eddie into my car and then drove home.

“Yo, Miniver!”

I was halfway between the marina’s parking lot and my houseboat. I had Eddie in his carrier in one hand and my backpack in the other. My longed-for nap was less than a hundred feet away. I slowed but didn’t come to a complete stop. “Hey, Chris. Nice day.”

Chris Ballou, the marina’s manager, squinted at the sky, his weathered skin crinkling. “Yeah. Should stay this way for a while.”

Back before I knew better, I would have thought he was using his years of experience of living next to the water to make such a prediction. “Is that the Weather Channel’s forecast or NOAA’s?”

He took a toothpick out of his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Got something I want to talk about. Come on down to the office a second, will ya?”

I hefted Eddie’s carrier. “I’m kind of busy.” And sleep-deprived. Really, really sleep-deprived.

“Ah, it’ll just take a minute.”

Two sentences ago, it had been a second. Then again, Chris rarely asked me for anything, and he was giving me a discount for renting the slip next to Gunnar Olson. “Let me put Eddie in the houseboat and I’ll be right down.”

Chris grinned around the toothpick. “Nah. Let’s bring him with. Bet he fits right in with the guys.” He took the carrier out of my hand and sauntered off, his long and skinny legs covering ground fast. I had to half trot to keep up and I was very glad when the short walk was over.

“Look what we got here, boys.” Chris carefully placed Eddie’s carrier on the shop counter. The four men lounging on ancient canvas director’s chairs and drinking beer turned to look.

Skeeter, a summer boater about my age, went to the effort of lifting two fingers off his beer can in a sort of salute. “Minnie.”

Rafe Niswander grinned. “Hey, it’s an Eddie.” Rafe was my nearest on-land neighbor and a good friend.
September through mid-June, Rafe was the principal of the local middle school. Mid-June through August, however, he did as little as possible and played the bumbling Up North hick role to the hilt. “What do you say, Eddie, my man?”

Thanks to Rafe’s tendency of being accident-prone, he was the reason I’d met Tucker, so I could forgive him much, but it was thanks to his propensity for procrastination that the electrical repairs on my boat were behind schedule.

“Mrr.”

The third and fourth guys laughed. Number three had a shaved head and looked to be in his mid-fifties; number four had light brown hair and was in his mid-forties. I’d never seen either one of them before.

“I think he said quit asking such stupid questions,” the older one said. “How you doing?” He stood, and turned into a very tall man. He held out his hand, and I realized he was a very tall man with very large hands.

We shook and, since no one else was doing the honors, I introduced myself. “Minnie Hamilton. Are you renting a boat slip?”

“Greg Plassey,” he said. “Need to buy a boat first. And this is my bud Brett Karringer. He does something with computers that I don’t understand and plays some really bad golf.”

I nodded at Brett. There was a beat of silence. Rafe held his hand out, palm up, to Chris. “Hand it over.”

“Come on, Min,” Chris pleaded. “Tell me you know who Greg Plassey is. I got five bucks on this.”

“Sorry.” I smiled at Plassey. “No offense, but I’ve never heard of you. Should I have?”

Chris groaned and dug out his wallet.

Rafe laughed. “Told you. This girl don’t know jack about baseball.”

Or pretty much any other professional sport; I was more the toss-around-a-Frisbee-on-the-beach type of person. In short order, I learned that I’d just dissed a Major League Baseball pitching star. Sure, he’d been retired for more than fifteen years, but the human males in the room were still astounded that I didn’t recognize the name of the guy who’d helped pitch the Detroit Tigers to two American League championships.

I shrugged. “How can you gentlemen not know who won the Newbery Award last year?”

Skeeter lowered his beer. “That a new hockey trophy? No, wait. Golf.”

“Golf?” Chris slapped Greg on the shoulder. “Too bad you’re not as good a golfer as a pitcher.”

Greg grinned. “Doesn’t hurt any worse than a line drive.”

I stared at him. “You were hit by a golf ball?”

“By a ball his buddy there smacked,” Rafe said.

Brett Karringer nodded sheepishly. “Hit it off a tree and it caromed into the back of his head.”