I walked through and past downtown to the area where buildings that had been residences in the days of yore were now renovated into professional buildings. Doctors, dentists, engineers, and there, in a white clapboard house with a widow’s walk up top, was the attorney’s office I was aiming for.
A small brass plate on the red front door told me I was about to enter the law offices of Powell, Hirsh, and Carter. Inside, the hardwood floor was covered with patterned carpets that I hoped could tolerate the sidewalk salt that people would soon start to track inside.
“May I help you?”
A woman with short dark hair, a sheaf of papers in her hand, and a pair of reading glasses on her head was giving me a polite, questioning look.
“I wasn’t sure you’d be open today,” I said.
“Technically, we aren’t.” She laughed, hefting the papers. “But there’s work to do and it’s always quiet on this day, so I figured I might as get a head start on next week.”
A number of tiny clues were piling up, from her age to her air of ownership, so I went ahead and asked, “Are you Shannon Hirsh?” Although Denise had claimed Shannon to be manipulative and full of hate, the woman seemed nice enough.
“Every day,” she said cheerfully. “And you are?”
I introduced myself, and started in with the spiel I’d manufactured on my walk over. “I’ve been thinking about setting up a will. I don’t have any dependents and hardly any assets”—while Eddie was priceless to me, I was pretty sure the appraisal professionals out there wouldn’t put a proper value on him—“but I figure it’s worth doing, no matter what.”
Shannon nodded, her dark hair bobbing with her. “Always a good idea to have your estate in order.”
“I hadn’t thought about it much before,” I said, “but Roger Slade’s death really got me thinking. Such a shame, and such a shock, too.”
“He was an extremely nice man.” Shannon put the papers down and studied me closely. “Minnie Hamilton. From the library. You’re the one who—”
“Yes,” I said quickly. “Like I said, it was a shock.”
“I imagine.” She gave a sad smile. “Or, rather, I don’t want to imagine.”
“It’s not as if I knew him very well,” I said, watching her closely, “but I feel . . . somewhat responsible.”
“For what?” She raised her eyebrows. “For some moron’s stupidity? How can that possibly be your fault?”
“It was because of me that he was there at all,” I said. “If it hadn’t been for me, if hadn’t been for the bookmobile, he would never have been there in the first place.” And no matter what, I couldn’t get away from that awful truth. Deep down, no matter what I said to people and no matter what people said to me, I knew I was partially responsible.
Shannon snorted. “Come on back. Let me show you something.”
She led me through a rabbit’s warren of hallways, conference rooms, and offices to the back of the building, where the windows of her corner office looked out over a backyard that was well tended, even in late November. The office was a typical attorney’s office: a few restrained prints of flowers, lots of files, three-ring binders, books, and . . . trophies?
“Take a close look,” she said, waving toward the crowded shelf.
Curious, I squinted at the tiny lettering engraved into the brass plate of a trophy so tall, it was scratching the underside of the shelf above. When I saw what the award was for, I stood bolt upright and stared at her. “Are these all . . . ?” I gestured at the rest of the shelf.
She shrugged. “I don’t really care about them anymore, but they make you take them. I started winning when I was just out of high school. The bug caught me and I’m still shooting.”
And, apparently, still winning. I glanced at the date on the plaque in front of me. Just this summer, Shannon had won first place for a shooting award in Fort Gratiot, Michigan. The trophy to its right proclaimed that last year she’d won third place in a national competition in Colorado.
She tapped a tall trophy. “So, you can see, when I say it’s not your fault, I know what I’m talking about. No hunter worthy of the name would ever shoot someone accidentally, not like poor Roger was shot.”
I disagreed about the fault thing, but she was entitled to her opinion, even if it was wrong.
“Roger was far too nice a guy for Denise,” Shannon said, sitting on the edge of her desk, next to the framed pictures of people I assumed were her husband and children. “No idea what he ever saw in her—she’s been a pain in the you-know-what since she was born—but it’s a shame what happened.” She sighed. “No one deserves that, not even Denise. And certainly not Roger.”
“Someone told me,” I said, “that you and Denise were big rivals in high school.”
She smiled. “A more accurate assessment would be that Denise hated me. If I said it was because I beat her out for first-chair flute in sixth grade, would you believe me?”
“Yes,” I said promptly.
Shannon laughed. “So you know Denise. You’d have thought she’d have been satisfied after she made the basketball’s cheerleading squad and I didn’t, but no, she’s kept up this silly rivalry for years. The only reason she went after Roger in the first place was because he took me to prom.”
I blinked. No one had told me that.
“All these years later,” Shannon was saying, “and Denise still wants to one-up me any chance she gets. You’d think she’d have let that high-school attitude go by now, but she hasn’t grown out of it.”
It seemed odd to me, but then, I found lots of things odd. The duck-billed platypus, for one. Blue cheese for another. And then there was the oddity of a black-and-white tabby cat who liked to tell me exactly what he thought.
“Of course,” Shannon said, laughing, “the feeling is mutual. I never miss an opportunity to one-up her, either. Not that I get many chances these days, but if I see them, I take them.” Her grin faded. “Well, maybe I’d pass if I saw one right now. Poor Roger,” she said, sighing, and I wasn’t sure whether she was talking about his death or his life of being married to Denise.
I took a stab in the dark. “Do you know of any history between Denise and Allison Korthase?”
Shannon’s eyebrows drew together. “My guess would be something about downtown. Allison’s on the Chamber of Commerce board and Denise always has suggestions,” she said, smiling tightly. “Now.” She slipped down into her office chair. “Let’s talk about your will.”
I sat in one of her upholstered chairs, because it would be a good idea to get my affairs in order. Adults did that kind of thing, and I was trying to be adultlike, at least most of the time.
But it was hard to concentrate on my short list of assets when I was thinking about so many other things. About rivalries, about marksmanship, and about what my attorney uncle had once told me—that good trial attorneys were also good actors.
* * *
The next morning, Eddie, the bookmobile, and I ventured forth under a sky streaked with clouds of red and gray and a slightly creepy shade of dark blue, and pulled up to a tidy ranch house just outside of Chilson. Eddie looked up at me.
“Sorry,” I said, “this isn’t a stop. We’re waiting for today’s volunteer.”
At least I hoped we were. If she didn’t show up, Eddie and I would be forced to turn around, and I’d have to make the dreaded phone calls canceling the day’s stops.
I watched the house, wondering if I should go to the door and knock, was tempted to honk the ultraloud horn but knew I shouldn’t, when the side door opened and Kelsey came rushing out, her hands and arms filled with packages. I opened the bookmobile’s door, and she came up the stairs, breathing hard.
“Thanks. Sorry I’m late, but my mom didn’t show up until a couple of minutes ago, and I had to get her settled with the kids.”