“We’re talking about Hal,” I said, “not me. Besides, older people are more fragile than people our age. He should be taking care of himself.”
“Do you want to tell him that?”
The answer, of course, was, “Not a chance.” But since I didn’t want to say so to Ash, I went back to the main topic of conversation. “About these two.” Sunny, the restauranteur. Bax, the wannabe filmmaker. “Do you really think one of them killed Rowan?”
Ash glanced in the direction Hal had gone. Hesitated. “We’re exploring all—”
“Never mind,” I said, sighing. Clearly, Ash now belonged heart and soul to the sheriff’s office. It made sense, it was appropriate, and I understood, but it was going to make life a little harder for me.
Chapter 7
The next day was Saturday, a half bookmobile day, and the morning was filled with mostly happy people and an exceptionally sleepy Eddie.
“Where is the bookmobile kitty?” one small book-holding homeschooled urchin asked. “I wanted to pet him.”
I smiled at the youngster and, after getting the nod from her dad, brought her up front. “Eddie is asleep,” I said, gesturing to the cat carrier. “But next time we’re here, I think he’ll be wide awake and ready for you.”
“But I want to pet him now.” The urchin’s lower lip started to tremble. “Why is he sleepy?”
The correct answer was that he’d been up half the night in the downstairs bathroom, shredding facial tissues and toilet paper and batting around the miniature rubber duckies that lived on the edge of the claw foot tub. Happily, Aunt Frances and I had both slept through the episode, and this morning it had been easy enough to avert my eyes to the mess and mutter that I’d clean it up when I got home.
But I didn’t want to spread the word that Eddie could be a Bad Cat, so I said, “He was up late, watching the sky. He likes to see the stars, so when the clouds cleared off last night, he got up to see the Big Dipper.” I tried to remember the names of any other constellations I was absolutely sure we saw this time of year. “He really likes the Big Dipper,” I said, then pointed outside. “And isn’t it nice to have some blue sky?”
The youngster ignored my distracting gesture. Instead, she leaned over and petted the cat carrier. “Sleep tight, Bookmobile Kitty. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.” She gave the carrier one last pat, and marched back to her father with a satisfied look on her face.
It was adorable, and for the millionth time I thought how lucky I was to have this job.
The happy feeling stayed with me the rest of the day, despite the thick clouds that hid the sky by noon and despite Eddie’s snoring, which Julia found immensely amusing. “I had no idea cats could snore. It’s the cutest thing.”
“You wouldn’t think so if it kept you awake at three in the morning.” I was pretty sure that Eddie’s day-long sleep was going to result in another active night, but how did you keep a cat awake during the day when he wanted to sleep? There was no victory for me here. As per usual, the cat won.
It wasn’t until I was stowing Eddie in my car and we were about to head home that I remembered my promise to Rafe.
“Rats,” I said out loud. “Big fat rats.”
“Mrr?” Eddie was lying on his side. He rotated his head so his face was upside down and blinked at me. “Mrr?” he asked again.
I buckled his carrier in. “There’s this one short errand. Do you want me to take you home first, or are you okay in the carrier for a little longer?”
Hearing nothing, I leaned down to look. My cat was, once again, sleeping.
“Carrier it is.” I shut the passenger door and got in on my side. “But I’m sure it won’t take long. I mean, how long can choosing cabinet hardware possibly take?”
Ten minutes later, I was finding out. “No wonder Rafe wanted me to do this,” I said, stunned by the thickness of the catalog.
Jared laughed. “Niswander said you’d say that.”
I knew his name was Jared, because his crisp name tag said so, and that he was the store owner because that’s who Rafe had told me to talk to. The owner of the used bookstore in town was also named Jared, but they were not, in fact, the same person, although they were roughly the same age, which was also mine.
I’d assumed the owner of a hardware store would be approaching geezer age, or would at least have lots of gray hair. Instead, he had nary a gray hair in sight, and the moment I set foot in the door, he’d come up to me and said, “You must be Minnie. I’ve been expecting you.”
After blinking at the oddness of his greeting, I’d grasped what was going on—Rafe had stopped by earlier and prepped the poor guy. I laughed. “Did Rafe also mention what I’m supposed to be doing?”
He had, which was why I was sitting in Jared’s office, paging through a catalog thick and heavy enough to require weighing in for a commercial flight. It was a nice office, bright with fluorescent lights and cheery with framed posters of abstract art. Through the open office door, I could see out into the store, a pleasant enough space of utilitarian metal shelving filled with items whose uses were a complete mystery to me.
“You see how the different designs are arranged, right?” Jared asked. “By finish and style?”
“Um.” I returned my attention to the catalog. “Sure. It’s just . . . there are so many.” It was overwhelming and reminded me of the sensory overload I felt in a shopping mall. It made me tired and tended me toward crankiness.
“What kind of cabinets is Rafe building? Knowing that will help you choose a style.”
Jared’s patience seemed extensive, but my own was far more limited. “I don’t know,” I said, sitting back. “Maple, is all I remember.”
“Three panel? Single panel? Beadboard?”
I looked at the man. “Do you seriously think I have any idea what you’re talking about?”
He grinned. “Don’t want to assume you don’t.”
“Excellent attitude,” I said approvingly, “but in spite of my exposure to woodworkers and woodworking for most of my life, very little has stuck in my brain.” This wasn’t strictly true, but it was close enough. “What I do know is that Rafe is using a light stain and—” I’d been using my hands to talk and knocked a pile of folders to the floor.
“Sorry about that.” I jumped out of the chair and kneeled down.
“No worries,” Jared said, rolling his chair around and leaning forward to help. “Just a stack of customer account files I was going through, studying buying habits.”
I hadn’t thought about purchasing habits for hardware, but I supposed every business had trends. “You have a lot of customer accounts?”
“Wish I had more.” Jared piled the folders into a tidy heap. “A few people have them, and a few businesses. The city is our best customer by far, but . . .” His voice drifted off.
“But what?” I asked, because his face looked troubled. “Are they starting to buy stuff from Amazon?”
Jared shook his head. “No. At least I don’t think so. It’s just that Bax Tousely—you know him? No? Friendly guy, always comes in with some horrible joke he can’t wait to tell. He was in first thing a couple of weeks ago and didn’t say a word. No joke, no nothing. And he left all of a sudden, without buying a thing. It was weird and I haven’t seen him since. I hope nothing’s wrong.”
I felt a prickle at the back of my neck. “Do you remember what day that was?”
“Sure. It was a Monday. Almost two weeks ago. I remember because it was the first anniversary of when I bought this place. I gave the day’s first customer a gift certificate and Bax was the second guy in the door.”
And it was also the day Rowan had died.
Had Bax gone to the hardware store, ostensibly looking for a piece of hardware, but instead driven to Rowan’s house and killed her? It was possible; surely it was possible. But why?