Eddie gave me a look.
“Fine,” I muttered. “You win. But you can bet I’ll double-check that latch tonight.” It was probably my fatigue that had caused me to not secure the latch properly, but there was the odd chance it was broken.
“Mrr!” Eddie inched closer to the window. “Mrr!”
“Yes, my hearing is fine, thank you. Matter of fact, have I ever told you that my family has a long history of keen hearing? There’s a story about my great-great-”—I considered the dates and added one more—“great-uncle Archibald. Back in the day, he—”
“Mrr!” Eddie’s front feet thumped onto the passenger’s door. “MRR!”
I ignored him. “So, back in the day, Uncle Archibald was a cook in a lumber camp. One morning there was—”
“MRRROO!”
Eddie’s normal conversational tones were something I was used to; Eddie howls were quite another. “Are you okay?” I glanced over but didn’t see any signs of impending stomach upset. Thankfully.
My cat ignored me. Still on his hind legs, he scratched at the window, howling and whining.
“What is with you?” I looked past him. “Did you see a chipmunk? A bird?” If he had, it was gone. “Oh, wait. It’s the building, isn’t it?” I nodded at a structure of steel and glass and stone. “Well, you’re not the only one who isn’t fond of the new city hall, but personally, I quite like the design. Form follows function, you know.”
Eddie sat down with a plop and gave me a disgusted look.
“You’re not familiar with Louis Sullivan?” I tsked at him. “Your education has a huge hole. My fault, no doubt.” Thanks to an engineer father who had a lifelong interest in architecture, I’d ended up with more knowledge on the subject than the average bear, and I was more than willing to share with my cat. “Let’s go back to the beginning. Have you ever heard of Stonehenge?”
The cat carrier made a noise. Eddie had slipped back inside.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll skip Stonehenge. Let’s talk about pyramids.”
“Mrr.”
“Excellent,” I said, and started Eddie’s first architecture lesson. That would teach him for escaping the carrier.
Maybe.
* * *
After I got home, I put on some going-out-to-a-nice-restaurant clothes, stuck Kristen’s latest postcard to the refrigerator (Key West: fifty percent convertibles. Chilson: fifty percent pickups with snowplow blades.) and was at the front door when Tucker pulled into the driveway. I hurried out so he didn’t have to come into the Eddie-hair-infested house, and in less than half an hour we were sliding our knees underneath a white tablecloth at Charlevoix’s Grey Gables. When he’d texted me the day before with a round of apologies for not being in touch and a sheepish dinner invitation for that evening, I’d known exactly where I wanted to go.
The waiter took our drink orders, cited the evening’s special offerings, and gave us menus. When he left, I glanced around. The restaurant was mostly empty, as was typical for a weeknight this time of year.
“Something wrong?” Tucker asked.
I faced him, smiling brightly. “Not a thing. How was your day?”
He gave me a look, then started telling a story about a recalcitrant caster on one of the exam-room chairs. Just as he was leading up to the point where I was sure someone was going to get dumped on the floor in a very public manner, the hostess ushered a hand-holding couple to a nearby table.
The man quirked a smile at me. “Hey, Minnie. Seems as if I’m seeing you everywhere these days.”
I nodded at Jeremy Hull, wondering whether my guilt over telling the police about his car was manifesting itself in any visible way. It was because I remembered his phone conversation that I’d wanted to come here; maybe I’d hear something, see something, learn something that would tell me one way or another if he’d killed Roger and wanted to do the same to Denise. Coincidental location at the time of Roger’s death was bad, but it could be just a coincidence.
Jeremy introduced his wife, I introduced Tucker, and we were on the verge of becoming a jolly foursome when their waiter arrived, took their drink orders, and started reciting the specials.
“. . . And tonight’s creation by the chef,” he said, “is a tenderloin of venison glazed with maple syrup and accompanied by a delectably light cherry sauce. Any questions? Then I’ll be back with your wine.”
I’d been looking in Jeremy’s direction when the venison had been described and had seen him flinch. I caught his eye. “Not a fan of venison?”
He shook his head as he busied himself with unrolling his cloth napkin. “I can’t stand the idea of eating the stuff. Haven’t been able to since I was a kid and my dad took me hunting.”
I could tell where this was going, and I wasn’t sure it was a suitable topic for the dinner table. Quickly, I said, “I’ve heard a lot of stories like that and—”
But Jeremy wasn’t paying attention to me. “My dad got a deer a couple of hours into the morning. I was maybe twelve or thirteen. I’d never seen anything dead before, not like that.”
His wife reached across the table and took his hand. “Honey, let’s not talk about it, okay?” She sent me a smile.
He pulled away. “You know what my dad made me do? He made me dress that deer. Stood over me and told me, step by step, how to—”
“Jeremy,” his wife said sharply.
He finally looked at her. Looked at Tucker and me. Realized what he’d been about to say and where he’d been about to say it.
“Sorry,” he said. “It’s just that ever since that day I haven’t been able to stand guns or venison or the sight of blood.”
As we made murmuring noises of understanding, our waiter stopped by. “Are you two ready to order?” he asked. “Still thinking about the prime rib?”
“Well, actually,” I said, “I think I’ll have the salmon.” Not that beef was venison, but Jeremy’s half-told story was a little too close for eating comfort.
“You know,” Tucker said, “I think I’d like the salmon, too.”
Our long-suffering waiter nodded again. “Instead of the filet mignon you asked about earlier?”
Tucker smiled at me. “Absolutely.”
I smiled back at him, thinking for the first time in weeks that maybe this would all work out.
Chapter 15
During my lunch the next day, I hurried out through the start of what was predicted to be three straight days of rain, and drove a box of donation books I’d been collecting up the hill to the middle school.
Rafe and I had regular bargaining sessions regarding exchanges of labor, and last summer I’d agreed to set up recommendations for an after-school reading program if he did the electrical repair of my houseboat. As often seemed to happen, I was still working on his project when he was long done with mine. Whenever I mentioned this fact, he’d give me a white-toothed grin, say he was just more efficient than I was, and that maybe I should take some lessons from him.
“As if,” I muttered, trying to free a hand to open the school’s door. Efficiency lessons from Rafe would be about like etiquette lessons from Eddie.
The secretary’s desk was empty, so I wandered unannounced through the maze of small offices. “Eddie etiquette lessons would all be about what to do with my tail,” I muttered, plopping the box on Rafe’s desk.
“When did you get a tail?” Rafe, looking almost professional in a buttoned shirt and dress pants, craned his neck, trying to look around to my backside. “Bet wearing pants is a problem. You going to start wearing skirts? Poodle skirts, maybe?” He smirked.
I pointed at the box. “These are donation books that are on the after-school reading list.”
“Hey, cool.” He stood and sifted through the contents. Rafe had applied for a small grant to fund the project and it had been awarded, but he’d received only half the money requested. “This will help a lot.” He picked up a copy of Arnie, the Doughnut and started reading.