Checking Out Crime (A Bookmobile Cat Mystery, Band 9) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Laurie Cass is the national bestselling author of the Bookmobile Cat Mystery series.

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Chapter 1

When we're children, we have all sorts of expectations. We expect to go to school. To learn things. Make friends. Memorize locker combinations. We also expect that someday we'll do things. Maybe great things. That we'll go forth and conquer. Be successful. Marry. Have children. Travel.

For me, the husband and child predictions had been a bit fuzzy, but my career expectations had been specific. At the ripe old age of seven, I decided I wanted to work in a library because then I'd be able to read all day and no one would order me to put my book down and go outside and play because otherwise my eyes were going to get stuck and I'd have to wear progressively stronger glasses the rest of my life.

In due course, I followed through with my decision and was now, at age thirty-five, the happy assistant director of a library in Chilson, Michigan, a lakeshore town in northwest lower Michigan. What I hadn't expected was that I'd be living on a houseboat and driving a bookmobile with a cat as my copilot. But it was an adorable houseboat, running the bookmobile program was tremendously rewarding, and the cat . . . well, he somehow made everything shinier.

Most of the time, anyway.

It was a fresh September morning. Birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I was humming to myself as I tidied up after breakfast, when my feline companion started making troubling noises. "Eddie," I asked, "what are you doing?"

Catlike, he didn't say a thing. Which could have been because he was busy trying to get his nose into the tiny gap at the back of the houseboat's dinette seats. More likely, he didn't feel like responding. And, since he was a cat, whatever he didn't feel like doing, he didn't do.

"There are days," I said, "that I wish I were more like you."

Eddie's yellow eyes flicked in my direction, then away.

For once, reading between the kitty lines was easy. "Yes, I know that anyone with any sense wishes to be a cat in general, and you in particular, but not everyone has sense, now, do they?"

My black-and-white tabby abruptly abandoned his efforts, jumped to the floor, and bumped the top of his head against the back of my leg. Since Eddie is a good-sized cat, this popped my leg forward against the kitchen cabinet.

"Ow!" I tossed the dish towel onto the tiny counter and rubbed my knee. "That's proof. Washing breakfast dishes is hazardous to my health."

"Mrr."

"A bowl of cereal and a glass of orange juice is the definition of breakfast, my furry friend. At least for all five feet of Minnie Hamilton." I eyeballed myself from toe to shoulder. Other youthful expectations of mine had been that I'd grow taller than my mother and that my freakishly curly black hair would magically straighten. I'd given up on the height thing, but there was always a chance my hair would fix itself someday.

"Ready, Freddie?" I opened the door of the cat carrier. Eddie trotted inside, flopped onto his soft pink blanket, and glared at me.

"Giving me The Look won't get us there any faster," I told him.

"Mrr," he said, and kept on saying that as I carried him into my car, as we pulled out of the marina parking lot and drove past the house where I'd soon be living, and the entire time we drove through downtown Chilson and to the library.

Downtown, with its mix of old and new buildings, some made with wood, some with brick, and a few made with stones hauled years ago from nearby fields, was a complex delight every time I remembered to look around. Today, however, my noticing capacity was limited because Eddie kept distracting me with a running commentary I had no chance of understanding. After we reached the library, he mrr'd as I ran through the preflight bookmobile checks. He mrr'd as I carried him inside and strapped the carrier to the floor of the passenger's side, and he mrr'd at Julia Beaton, my outstanding part-time bookmobile clerk, as she bounded up the stairs.

"And a good 'mrr' to you, too, Mr. Eduardo," she sang out.

I squinted at her. "Do I detect a new accent?"

"My dear assistant library director, there is no such thing as a new accent."

What she'd said sounded familiar, but only sort of. "Did that start as a Mark Twain quote? About ideas?"

"Ideas, accents." She waved a suddenly languid hand. "What's the difference?"

I grinned. It was going to be one of those days, in which the only thing to expect was the unexpected. Julia was in her mid-sixties and had spent years onstage in New York swooping up suitcases full of awards. When the roles started to dry up, she convinced her husband to move back to her hometown of Chilson, where she grew increasingly bored until my aunt Frances mentioned that I was looking for part-time help. Five minutes after we'd met, I made up my mind to hire her. This decision was confirmed her first day on the job when she started to talk to Eddie just like I did, pretending that he understood every word.

This was important because Eddie was a fixture not only in my life, but also on the bookmobile. He'd stowed away on the vehicle's maiden voyage, and though I'd tried to keep his presence a secret, Eddie wasn't big on secrecy, and even less big on staying in the cabinet I'd tried to hide him in.

Keeping my then boss, Stephen the Stickler-for-Rules, from knowing about Eddie's presence had kept me in anxiety for some time, but it had worked out in the long run and these days I couldn't go anywhere without someone asking how Eddie was doing.

I settled into the driver's seat and glanced over at my furry friend. Two and a half years ago, Eddie had attached himself to me when I'd gone for a walk on an unseasonably warm April day. The fact that this attachment had happened in a cemetery, next to the final resting place of Alonzo Tillotson, born 1847 and died 1926, should have meant that the cat's name would be Alonzo. But Alonzo is a very long name to call a cat, especially since they never come when called, and the name Eddie just fit. He was a very Eddie-like cat.

"Nothing yet?" Julia asked as she buckled herself into the passenger's seat.

"More specifics, please." I started the engine, dropped the transmission into gear, and eased the thirty-one-foot-long vehicle out of the library's back parking lot. "Nothing as in nothing ventured, nothing gained?" I started warming to my theme. "Wasn't it Maya Angelou who said 'Ain't nothin' to it, but to do it'? And don't forget Emily Dickinson's poem that 'Saying nothing sometimes says the most'? Or-"

Julia flung out her long arm and pointed in the direction of my hands. "As in no engagement ring."

I looked at my naked finger. "Oh, that."

"Yes, that."

Fun fact: When a Broadway actress wants her tone to be sarcastic, the sarcasm is so thick it's almost visible.

"How long ago did he propose?" She tsked at me. "Without a ring, can you trust the man?"

I thought for a moment, then gave a heavy sigh. "That's a good question."

Julia's head whipped around fast enough to send her long strawberry blond braid flying. "It is?" Her mouth dropped open.

"Well, no," I said. "Rafe is the most trustworthy man on the planet. But it was fun to see that shocked look on your face."

"Huh." Julia's feet tapped the top of Eddie's carrier. "Did you hear that, my fine feline friend? Minnie caught me by surprise. Who would have thunk it?"

"Mrr."

The two of them carried on a conversation that didn't include me, so I started thinking about Rafe Niswander, my fianc. He'd proposed just over a month ago, but we hadn't taken any steps toward the actual...