Pouncing on Murder (17 page)

“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 bulletin 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.

“Not a good plan,” I muttered to myself, and took a long drink of water from my coffee mug. Which helped a little, but not very much.

Sighing, I pulled out my cell phone and made the call. Better to get the task over with now than to stew over it.

“Hi, Minnie,” Irene Deering said.

There was a lot of noise in the background, so I figured she must be at her waitressing job. “Can you talk a minute?”

“Sure. I’m on break. What’s up?”

“I’ve been trying to track Seth Wartella online,” I said. “I’ve been looking at Facebook, Pinterest, all those.”

“What did you find?” Irene asked, her voice tight.

“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“Exactly that.” Suddenly I couldn’t sit still any longer. Phone in hand, I stood and paced around my office. “He
wasn’t anywhere. I couldn’t find any sign of him on the Internet at all.”

“You know,” Irene said slowly, “that sort of makes sense. Before he went to jail, he was all over the Internet. That’s part of the evidence they used against him, the timing and content of some of his Facebook posts.”

That did make sense. I stood in front of my office window. It was dark enough now that what I mostly saw was myself looking back at me. “There’s been no trace of Seth Wartella since he walked out of prison.” I pulled in a deep breath and let it out. “He’s vanished.”

Chapter 11

M
y uneasiness about Seth didn’t dissipate overnight. It didn’t go anywhere as I showered and dressed the next morning and it didn’t go away as I crunched through my cornflakes.

It was only after I’d hauled Eddie’s carrier up the steps of the bookmobile and finished the pretrip checklist that my mood started to shift, because I’d finally looked around and seen that it was going to be a beautiful spring day. Janay Lake was flat calm, the sky was blue, and though the morning was a little chilly, it was supposed to get close to sixty degrees later on, and who could ask for more than that?

“Mrr.”

“It’s April,” I told Eddie as I strapped his carrier into place. “It’s pointless to ask for summerlike weather in April. You’ll doom yourself to disappointment. Can’t you be happy with the blue sky?”

He didn’t say anything, as he was busy rearranging himself on his pink blanket. It had been crocheted for him last summer by one of my aunt’s boarders and he’d taken to the soft fuzzy thing as if it had been a long-lost brother.

“Cats always want more.” Julia laughed as she came
up the steps. “Life with a cat is one long negotiating session.”

“No wonder I’m tired all the time,” I said, glancing back at the books. All shipshape and seaworthy. Ready to go, Captain!

Julia slid into the passenger’s seat. “You’re tired because you’re working too hard.”

“Not true. I didn’t go into the library the entire weekend.”

“When was the last time you did that? And when’s the next time you’re going to take off two entire days in a row? Even better, when are you going to take a full week of vacation and get a true rest?”

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

“See?” Julia asked. “I’m not the only one who wonders these things.”

I snorted and turned the key in the ignition. The bookmobile’s engine started with a happy rumbling sound. “Eddie only wants me to take time off so he can get me to let him in and out and in and out all day long.”

“Eddie?” Julia looked down at the carrier by her feet. “Is this true? Are you really that self-centered?”

There was a long pause; then came a quiet “Mrr.”

“Told you,” I said, grinning, and I dropped the transmission into drive, starting another day on the bookmobile.

•   •   •

At the end of the day, we pulled into the farm drive next to Adam and Irene’s house. “I’ll just be a minute,” I said to Julia. “I talked to Irene last night and she said Adam was on a John Sandford kick.” I picked up a plastic bag
that held half a dozen of the thrillers set in Minnesota. “Are you okay here with Eddie?”

Julia unbuckled her seat belt and stretched, which made her look a little bit like a cat herself. “Me, Eddie, and three thousand books.” She smiled. “I think I’ll manage to find something to do.”

The Deerings’ driveway seemed shorter that day, but maybe that was because I was carrying a smaller bag of books. I knocked on the front door and poked my head in. “Adam? It’s Minnie.”

“In the kitchen,” he called. “Come on in.”

Adam was sitting at a square wooden table. Nothing was in front of him; he was just sitting there. He had the look of a man who’d tried to walk a little too far and had dropped into the closest chair available.

I gave his face a quick study. He was pale, but not sweating and not shaking. “Doing okay?” I asked, emptying the bag onto the table.

“Better now,” he said, reaching for
Buried Prey
. “Thanks for stopping by. Irene said you might.”