“What did you hear?” he asked. “The other night, when you were eavesdropping. How much did you hear?”
I wanted to say, “Pretty much all of it,” but there was a reasonable chance that the man sitting across from me was a killer. What I needed was to be smart, and to be smart in such a clever way that he didn’t realize I was outsmarting him.
“I told you the truth. I fell in the water because I was trying to keep my cat from falling in.”
“Cats don’t fall,” he said flatly.
“And cats don’t like bread, either, but Eddie loves the stuff.”
“You named your cat Eddie?”
I shrugged.
For some reason, the idea of a cat called Eddie amused him. He snorted out a laugh. “Eddie. What a stupid name for a cat.” He snorted again, then leaned low across the table. “I didn’t kill Stan Larabee,” he said quietly.
I cut my cold sausage into bite-sized pieces. Speared one piece. “Okay.” I popped the bite into my mouth.
“Nothing wrong with a nice grudge between former business partners, is there? But I didn’t kill him.”
Since I was chewing, I held out a hand, palm up, and made a tell-me-more gesture with my fingers.
His nostrils flared as he breathed in and out, in and out. “Twenty years ago, when I was down in Florida for a business conference, a mutual friend introduced me to Larabee. He thought it was funny that I summered where Larabee had grown up. Real funny,” he said, making fists with his hands. “I’m laughing hard enough to hurt myself.”
I swallowed. “So, twenty years ago . . .”
“Yeah. Back then life was good for buying property in Florida, putting in some roads, slapping up modulars, and making a killing. Larabee said he’d come across this sweet property—the owner needed cash and was selling it for a song. Larabee said he was thinking about getting out of the development business, but if I wanted in, we could make a limited liability corporation, each put in half, each get half the profits.” His face was turning a deep shade of red.
“I take it things didn’t go like that?”
“Stan Larabee was a thief,” Gunnar said stonily. “We bought the property, laid out thousands for the engineering, laid out tens of thousands for the infrastructure—then when time came to sell lots, we got nothing but rumors of hidden limestone sinkholes about to cave in, toxic waste dumps, and contaminated water. Didn’t matter what we said, the word was out. Couldn’t sell a single lot.”
“Were there any sinkholes?”
“No!” he shouted, his face now almost purple. “We had geological reports up the wazoo. We had hazardous-materials guys declare the site clean. We had the health department sign off that the water was well within tolerances. It was fine!”
I hoped he wasn’t prone to heart attacks. “Then why the rumors?”
“Stan Larabee was behind it all.” Gunnar spoke through gritted teeth. “He said he was sorry it was turning out this way, said he’d buy back my share.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Buy back my share for pennies on the dollar. Pennies!” His fist hit the table so hard even Bill D’Arcy looked up. “And you know what happened? The minute Larabee bought the property off me, the rumors disappeared. Vanished.” He flicked his fingers out in a magician-style move. “In the end he makes a bundle with barely more than half the investment he should have put into it. And what do I get? Nothing. Nothing!”
“Did you talk to an attorney?”
“What, you think I’m stupid? Of course I did. He said he’d be glad to take my money, but it’d be a waste. If Larabee did start all those rumors, it’d be a job and a half to prove it and even if I won, I’d probably end up spending more in lawyer fees than I’d recover.” He grabbed his coffee mug and took a hefty slug. “Still, I thought about it. Thought about it hard.”
I eyed him. “All that sounds like an excellent motive for murder.”
He stared back. “I have more money than I know what to do with. I hate to lose, is all. Sure, I was madder than a wet snake over the deal, but not mad enough to kill him. And two things. One, this was over and done with years ago. Two, I didn’t have a car that weekend. What was I going to do, hire Koyne to drive me on a murder gig?”
I blinked. “Mitchell Koyne?”
“Yeah, that’s him.”
Mitchell kept turning up in the oddest of places. Mr. Koyne and I were going to have to have a chat. Soon.
I laid my knife and fork on the side of my plate. Added my wadded-up napkin to the pile and pushed it toward the edge of the table. Gunnar Olson had a nasty temper and he was a misogynist and a bully, but I wasn’t sure he was a murderer. Of course, I wasn’t sure I’d recognize a killer if I met one. They didn’t tend to wear labels.
“Say,” he said, “you didn’t hear what I said about my little spin at the casino, did you? No reason to tell the wife.” He tried a chuckle. “I mean, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Besides, she’s the worrying kind, and I don’t want her worried about nothing.”
If his grip on the handle of the coffee mug hadn’t been white-knuckled and if his other hand hadn’t been trembling, I might have believed him. But that, on top of his rapidly blinking eyes and his fast, short breaths . . . no. I didn’t believe a word of it.
“You know,” I said, “your wife looks like a cat person. How much are you two going to be up this summer? Do you think she’d like to take care of Eddie when I go on vacation? He’d probably like to stay on that big boat of yours.”
The red on Gunnar’s face paled to gray. “Is that a threat?” he asked hoarsely.
“Just thinking out loud.” I slid out of the booth. “Just thinking out loud.”
“Hey, when’s your vacation?”
The completely correct answer would be that I didn’t have one planned. “Later,” I said, giving him a wide smile. “I’ll let you know.” I handed a ten-dollar bill to Sabrina, and left.
• • •
I spent Sunday afternoon with Aunt Frances, sorting through emotions and working through fears, trying to do a clean sweep of it all and not doing a very good job. I told her about the Larabee feud. We cried a little, hugged a little, and talked a lot, but when I left, I wasn’t sure either one of us felt much better than when I’d arrived. Stan was still dead, and Aunt Frances still felt guilty about it.
• • •
Monday wasn’t much better. It was one of those days that everyone on the entire library staff was in a bad mood.
Holly was frazzled, stressed about household chores that weren’t getting done, and concerned about her son’s scratchy throat. I asked if she’d told her husband about Stan and the police. Her teary expression answered my question, and I patted her shoulder while she gulped down sobs, choking out that he was too far away, it would just make him worry.
It didn’t go much better with Josh. When I asked him how the date with Megan went, he shrugged and said it went okay. “But she said she was busy this weekend, so I guess that’s it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
He popped the top of his soda can. “She said she was busy, don’t you get it? That’s the same as saying she doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Or maybe she’s busy. People are.”
He made a rude noise and stomped off.
And Stephen had holed himself up in his office and did nothing but make grunts of displeasure every time I talked to him. I’d tried to get him to open up about whatever weight was pressing him down, but he’d repeatedly rebuffed my attempts. Even when I told him both Caroline Grice and Gunnar Olson were considering donations, the response wasn’t any different. “Consideration,” he’d said, “isn’t a check in hand.”
In spite of my vows to stay upbeat, perky, and positive, by lunchtime my own mood had been pulled down. At the end of the day, for the very first time, I was glad to escape the library.
• • •
Happily, Tuesday was Bookmobile Day. Thessie was spending the week with her grandparents in the southeast corner of the county and since the day’s route covered that area, I’d told her I’d pick her up and drop her off.
We met in the parking lot of a nearby township hall and the three of us, Thessie, Eddie, and me, headed off into the wild blue yonder to spread knowledge all across the land.
The day was a good one. Maybe it only felt like a good day compared to the horrible yesterday, but everything in bookmobile-land seemed to go smoothly. Eddie stayed on his self-appointed perch on the passenger seat headrest, we found books to suit all the children, and the adults who’d ordered books remembered ordering them. We even paired up a slightly sullen adolescent with a copy of
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
I’d accidentally put on a shelf next to the DVDs.
“Maybe there are no accidents,” Thessie said. “My mom says there’s a meaning to everything.”
Thessie’s mom also believed that the earth was under the control of aliens who had to consume people’s blood to maintain their human appearance, but in this case she might actually be right.
I dropped Thessie off at her sagging sedan and headed home. Sort of.
Though I’d logged hundreds of miles in my car while planning bookmobile routes, driving the same route in the vehicle itself was a far different experience. I’d taken into account hills and curves and narrow roads, but what I hadn’t considered enough were the potholes. Thanks to the freeze-and-thaw cycle of late winter and early spring, the roads are full of the little buggers, and some of them aren’t so little. And it quickly became clear that hitting a pothole in a small sedan was a far different experience from hitting the same pothole in a thirty-one-foot bookmobile.
The poor bookmobile didn’t like it. Thessie didn’t like it. The books didn’t like it. And Eddie really didn’t like it.
“Mrrrooowwww!” he’d yell, then give me a dirty look.
After dropping Thessie off, I taped the county map to the dashboard and looked at Eddie. “This isn’t about you, you know. You’re not supposed to be here in the first place. As far as this rerouting is concerned, you don’t exist. This is about the bookmobile and minimizing its maintenance.”
Eddie settled into the passenger seat and closed his eyes. He didn’t believe a word of it.
I patted his head and dropped the gearshift into drive.
• • •
The sunlight was starting to slant low when it happened. I’d wanted to find a new east–west bookmobile route in the middle part of the east side of the county and wasn’t completely happy with any of the three possibilities. I drove over each of the roads three or four times, trying to imagine their surfaces in ice-slick winter, eyeing the cracking asphalt, anticipating future potholes.
“Which do you like best, Eddie?”
Mr. Edward opened his eyes just wide enough for me to see the yellow in his irises, then went back to sleep.
In spite of his lack of interest, I continued to articulate my thoughts. “The county road is probably in the best shape, but that stretch near the potato farm is going to drift over like crazy in winter. If I take the most direct way, that hill—”
BAM!
The bookmobile gave a bucking lurch and started pulling hard to the right. “Hang on!” I yelled to Eddie. The steering wheel tried to spin itself out of my hands.
“MMrrrrrRRR!!!”
But I didn’t have time to calm Eddie—it was taking everything I had to calm the bookmobile. My foot was off the gas, I was pumping the brake lightly, staying out of a skid, I could do this, I could do this, I was doing this, I would—
BAM!
The bookmobile lurched again.
Eddie hissed and howled and spat. “MMrrrrrRRRRRR!!!”
The little control I had over the bookmobile vanished. My mouth tasted of metal as the adrenaline flowed through my body, into my heart, into my tingling skin.
To the right, the road’s shoulder dropped away fast into a hill that rolled down steep to a narrow creek. If I couldn’t keep out of that, if we pulled that way . . . into my head came an image of the bookmobile falling and rolling and tumbling, all the books, Eddie, and me, jumbling together in a broken heap.
“No!” I shouted, and gripped the steering wheel with all my strength and all my might. I kept on pumping the brakes. Was it doing anything? I didn’t know, but I had to think it was helping. I had to try.
My arms quivered with the strain of keeping the vehicle headed straight. We were slowing, but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. My jaw muscles bunched. My lips went dry. “Steady, Eddie,” I whispered. “It’ll be okay.”
The steering wheel was doing nothing. I was doing nothing. My pumps on the brakes were doing nothing. There was nothing I could do except try to steer and try to brake and hope hope hope that something I was doing would do something.
It had to work.
We had to stop.
We
had
to.
Bare inches from a steep slope that would have carried us off without a second thought, the bookmobile came to a slow screeching stop.
We’d made it.
I sat there, panting, my hands still gripping the steering wheel.
“Mrr,” Eddie said.
I blew out a breath and reached out for a cat snuggle. “You and me both, pal, you and me both.” My laugh was a little too loud.
Then my brain started working again. “What on earth happened?” I asked Eddie.
