Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries) (4 page)

“I couldn’t save him, Eddie. I tried and tried but nothing I did mattered.” I hugged Eddie tight and he didn’t make even a squeak of protest. “I did everything they told me to in that class, but it wasn’t enough.”
Sniff.

The EMT crew had arrived seventeen minutes after I made the 911 call. Amazing, really, considering the distances in this part of the county, but it hadn’t been soon enough to bring Stan Larabee back.

“He’s gone, Eddie, he’s really gone.”
Sniff.
“It seems so wrong. He was so full of life. There were so many things he wanted to do.” During the planning phase of the bookmobile purchase, Stan and I had met on an almost daily basis. I’d learned enough about him to know that he deeply regretted some of the things he’d done while a wheeling and dealing real estate developer. I also knew that he’d divested himself of his third wife a decade earlier, had never had any children, and was working almost as hard at giving away his money as he had at making it.

“But no handouts,” he’d told me. “I’m attaching strings to the checks I write. And no money for poor planning. If you can’t use the money you have in a sensible way, why should I give, or even loan, you some of mine?”

Eddie bumped my chin with the top of his head.

Absently, I started petting him. “I don’t even know who to call. I mean, sure, the police will notify the next of kin, but I feel that I should say something to one of his relatives.” As far as I knew, though, there wasn’t anyone. He lived alone in a great big house on a great big hill that had been designed to take advantage of the views of both Lake Michigan and Janay Lake.

A big fat raindrop splattered on the bookmobile’s wide windshield. Then another, and another. The blue skies that had accompanied us through the morning and halfway through the afternoon were gone. A thick layer of low clouds, heavy with rain, had moved across the sun and now the bookmobile was getting its first shower.

“Hope it doesn’t shrink,” I murmured.

Eddie settled back down into my lap and turned on his purr.

“You’re not so bad for an Eddie.” I laid my hand on his back. His body heat seeped into my skin, warming me in more ways than one.

It had been my Florida-based brother who had made me aware of Stan’s existence. Matt, a Disney Imagineer, had run into “this older guy who said he’d just built a place in Chilson. He was down here to tidy up some business, sounded like. Anyway, I told him my sister was a librarian up there and he said for you to give him a call.”

I’d demurred, but Matt had pressed me with all the pressure a big brother can bear. “Do it, Min. This guy is a big deal down here.”

So I’d called. Stan invited me to lunch at the local diner and before we’d finished our burgers, it was clear that we were going to be friends. Despite the disparity in our ages, backgrounds, and life experiences, there was an instant rapport between us that defied all understanding.

But the more I’d gotten to know Stan, the more I didn’t understand the difference between the man I knew and the Stan Larabee that everyone else seemed to have encountered. The comments I heard ranged from “He should have stayed in Florida” to “Stan Larabee never lifted a finger to help anyone in his whole life” to “Larabee wouldn’t part with a dime unless he was guaranteed a quarter back.”

Yet he’d written a check to the Chilson District Library with so many zeros I wasn’t sure how he got them all to fit on the line.

“Here you are, Minnie,” he’d said, ripping it out of his checkbook. “The only way this county is going to get a bookmobile is if someone pays for the whole dang thing. Give that shortsighted library board this check and my compliments.”

I’d thanked him profusely and said something about the discrepancy in how I saw him and how the rest of Chilson saw him. He’d roared out a laugh that somehow held an edge of black. “You’re not from a small town, are you? Stay here long enough and you’ll see.”

“See what?” I’d asked.

“That you can’t live long enough to outlive a reputation.”

Soon afterward, I’d stopped by to see my best friend, Kristen, owner and operator of the Three Seasons restaurant, and begun to see what he’d meant. Kristen had been horrified when I’d told her I’d gone to Stan and asked for money.

“You did what?” She’d looked down at me, every inch of her five-foot-eleven self vibrating with disapproval. “Stan Larabee doesn’t hand out money. Everybody knows that.”

“Everybody is wrong.” I handed her the copy I’d made of the check.

Kristen pushed at a wisp of her blond hair that had escaped its tight ponytail and read the numbers out loud. “Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” Her voice squeaked. “Are you serious?”

“As your double chocolate cheesecake.” I’d plucked the paper out of her hands. The way her mouth was staying open made me anxious about drool. I planned to frame the copy and hang it in my bedroom so I could see it first thing when I woke up in the morning and last thing before I went to sleep at night. A raised spot from Kristen-drool would ruin the effect completely.

She squinted as I tucked the copy away in a folder. “Did it cash?”

“Of course it cashed. Do you think Stan Larabee would write a bad check?”

“I’d believe anything about that man,” she said darkly.

“Oh, pooh. I bet most of those stories are rumors made up at the bar at closing time. He was perfectly nice to me.”

Kristen gave me one of those you’ve-only-lived-here-three-years looks, but said, “Maybe. I’ve never talked to him more than a couple of times, myself.”

“Well, there you go. Makes you wonder what people say about you, doesn’t it?” Grinning, I’d waved and toddled home, elation filling me so full I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d started floating. I’d bearded the lion in his den. Not only had I survived to tell the tale, but I’d been rewarded beyond anything I’d expected.

“Mrr.”

Eddie brought me back from my year-old memory by bumping me on the chin. I’d stopped petting him. “Sorry about that.” I scratched the top of his head and the purr machine restarted. Outside, the high hills, now half-hidden by the driving rain, looked cold and empty and lonely. Tears threatened again and I bent down to put my face against Eddie’s fur.

“Miss?”

I shrieked, Eddie yowled. I shrieked again as Eddie’s claws sank into my thighs. He yowled again as I scrambled to my feet. He detached his claws from my skin and launched himself across the console, onto the passenger seat, and into the back corner of his cupboard.

The sheriff’s deputy who had started the chain of unfortunate events stood there, dripping rainwater onto the carpet. “Minnie Hamilton?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said as politely as I could while enduring level seven pain. The agony created by cat claws would drop soon, but there was going to be some teeth-gritting in the interim.

“I’m Deputy Wolverson. Sorry if you didn’t hear me come in. I have a few questions for you.”

What I minded was the water he was leaving on the new carpet. I reached for the roll of paper towels. “Would you like to dry off a little?”

“Thank you, ma’am, but I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.” I tossed the roll to him and he had little choice but to catch it. “You’re dripping all over the inside of a very expensive bookmobile and the humidity’s going up and it’ll take forever for the carpet to dry and every wet spot will collect dirt like crazy and I’ll have to hire someone to clean the carpet and I don’t know where that money is going to come from, because we don’t have anything like that in the budget for months and . . . and . . .” My mouth kept opening and shutting for a little while, but I’d run out of words.

“Ms. Hamilton, why don’t you sit down?” he asked. “Is your cat okay?” He gestured at the cabinet.

“He likes it in there.” I sat down with a thump. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scold you, it’s just . . .” But I didn’t know where to go from there. Fortunately, Deputy Wolverson did.

“Shock takes people different ways,” he said, ripping a handful of paper towels off the roll. “Some cry, some get mad, some go quiet, others talk. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

I studied him as he toweled off his hands and face. About my age, maybe a little older. Not movie star handsome, but appealing. No beer gut, seemed intelligent. And no wedding band.

Hmm.

He used a second handful of paper towels to dry off his hat and shoes. “Thanks,” he said, and tossed the wads into the wastebasket. “I have a few questions to ask. Do you feel up to it?”

I nodded. “There’s a chair in the back, if you want.”

The chair had a bungee cord that held it in place en route. Wolverson deftly unhooked the cord and rolled the chair forward. He sat down with an athletic grace and took a small notepad out of his front shirt pocket.

“Minnie Hamilton, employee of the Chilson District Library, right? Can I have your address and phone number? . . . Okay, thanks. So you found the gentleman in the house at what time?”

“About an hour and a half ago.”

“You were parked here? Why did you go to the house?”

I glanced at Eddie’s cabinet. “My cat. He ran out of the bookmobile. I followed him to that farmhouse and that’s when I found Stan.”

“Stan?” Wolverson glanced up. “You know the victim? What’s his last name?”

Maybe he wasn’t as intelligent as I’d thought. “You mean you don’t know?”

The deputy’s polite face suddenly didn’t look quite so friendly. “We found no form of identification on the victim’s body. If you have information, please share it.”

The victim. A wave of spotted black filled my vision. I grabbed the edge of the seat and held on tight. No fainting. There weren’t any smelling salts on board, and anyway, I’d read they were nasty. “It’s Stan Larabee.”

Deputy Wolverson’s sudden intake of breath wasn’t exactly a gasp, but it was close. “The Larabee Development Stan Larabee?”

And Larabee Enterprises and Larabee Realty and Larabee Limited. Before I’d gone to Stan with my proverbial hat in hand, I’d done my research to make sure he was as rich as everybody said. It turned out he had more money than anyone had guessed.

I nodded, and the deputy thumbed his shoulder microphone. “Dispatch, this is two eight seven. Victim was male and approximately seventy years old. Identification is . . .” He looked at me. “You’re sure it’s Stan Larabee?”

“Definitely.”

He went back to his microphone. “Identification is confirmed. Cause of death is homicide, repeat, homicide.”

The microphone popped and crackled. “Roger that, two eight seven.”

Deputy Wolverson flipped his notebook shut and gave me a straight look. “Is there anything else we should know?”

Homicide. Stan was murdered. I’d known that as soon as I’d seen that small, horrible hole, but hearing the word spoken out loud was doing disturbing things to all sorts of emotions. “I can’t think of anything,” I said. “Do you know . . .” No, stupid question. The deputy had only been there a few minutes. Of course he didn’t know who’d killed Stan.

The deputy waited for me to finish my sentence. When I didn’t, he said, “The department’s detectives will be investigating the incident.” He tucked the notebook into one shirt pocket and pulled a business card from another. “But if you remember anything important before they contact you, here’s my name and phone number.”

I reached for the card and saw that my fingers were trembling. I made a quick open-and-shut-and-open fist, then took the card.
DEPUTY ASH WOLVERSON
, it read. “Um, I really don’t have any idea what might or might not be important.”

“Use your best judgment.”

My fingers started quivering again. I sat on them. “Um, I’m sure you noticed that the back door on the house was broken open.” He nodded. For some reason I nodded back. “And that car across the parking lot is probably his.” Stan was a car collector. Every time I saw him driving, it seemed he was driving something different.

He turned, noted the location of the car, then took some notes. “Anything else? No? Well, thanks for your help, and you have my card if you remember more.” He stood, opened the door, letting in the sound of pounding rain and the scent of wet earth, and left.

“Stan,” I whispered. “Oh, Stan.”

Eddie’s head popped out of the cabinet. He sniffed left, sniffed right, then jumped down and made his way over to me. He stood directly in front of my toes and looked up at me, yellow cat eyes intent on mine.

I patted my thighs.

He continued to stare at me.

“Oh, fine.” I leaned forward, scooped him up, and deposited him on my lap. He clunked the point of my chin with the top of his head and started purring.

“Murder,” I said quietly. “Stan was murdered. That’s so . . . wrong.”

Eddie stomped around. Either he was working on a new dance step or he was trying to make my lap more comfortable for himself.

“How could it be murder? And why?” But even as I asked the second question, I knew the answer. Stan was rich. Incredibly rich. You didn’t have to look very far to figure a motive for this one.

“But why here?” Sure, Tonedagana County had more remote places than this; there was a state forest not far away. And the next township south of here didn’t have even a village inside its borders.