“The last time I saw Andrea,” Mr. Goodwin said, “must have been when the library was in the old building.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“Now, don’t go trying to confuse an old man,” he said, smiling. “I may not be able to remember what I had for breakfast this morning, but I can remember some things.”
I laughed. “You have a better memory than ninety-nine percent of the population, and that includes me. Better eyesight, too. And probably better hearing. Don’t you go running down one of my favorite library patrons.”
Mr. Goodwin arched his eyebrows. “Should librarians have favorites? Shouldn’t they be like parents and claim to love all their children equally?”
Probably, but there was no way I was going to like Mrs. Suggs, who checked out nothing except books on how to improve other people, as much as I liked Reva Shomin, who had small children whose favorite thing in the world was to curl up in the big chair in the children’s section and have their mommy read aloud to them.
“Then you saw Andrea about four years ago?” I asked. “I’d heard that she’d never come back to Chilson after she lit out of town right after high school.”
Mr. Goodwin scratched Eddie’s chin. Whenever I tried to do that, he turned his head away, but here he was, allowing Mr. Goodwin to scratch away and, even worse, purring as if that’s what he wanted all along.
“Metaphorically speaking,” Mr. Goodwin said, “I suppose that’s true. After that trouble with her high school boyfriend, she didn’t come north for years. But eventually she came back for Thanksgiving, Christmas, that kind of thing. Her parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. And”—he ran his hand over the length of Eddie’s long body—“her great-aunt Talia’s funeral.”
All of which kind of put paid to my half-formed notion that Andrea had been killed because it was the first time she’d returned to Chilson in more than twenty years. That was too bad, because I’d already come up with half a dozen scenarios that would have worked, ranging from an unrequited high school love that turned deadly to a long-dormant posttraumatic stress disorder triggered by Andrea’s return. Why her return might have reawakened a trauma, I hadn’t yet determined, but I figured all I needed to do was watch a little more television and something would occur to me.
“Were they close?” I asked.
“Talia and Andrea?” Mr. Goodwin picked up the end of Eddie’s tail and waved it around. Eddie purred. “Not to my knowledge, but that’s not to say they weren’t. My Mary would have known.” He held on to Eddie’s tail a little too long, and Eddie turned around to look at him.
“Mrr,” he said quietly.
Mr. Goodwin smiled. “Apologies, Mr. Edward. I wasn’t taking proper care of you, was I?” He chuckled and patted the top of the furry head. “From what I recall, Andrea was a squarish peg in a round hole. Ambitious in a family of folks who were accustomed to taking what was given them. Full of curiosity when those around her didn’t question a thing. It must have been difficult for her, and moving away was probably the best thing.”
Except that coming back had ended in her death. “Do you have any idea,” I asked, “why she might have been in the library after hours?”
Mr. Goodwin was silent for a moment. “No, I don’t,” he finally said. “I have nothing to offer, and I’ve considered that question thoroughly.” He frowned. “Beyond the appalling tragedy of Andrea’s death, the entire event is extremely puzzling. I’m sure your Deputy Wolverson agrees, yes?” Mr. Goodwin’s white and bushy eyebrows quirked up at me.
I smiled. “He doesn’t talk to me about active investigations, but he has to find it weird.”
And that’s what I kept coming back to. The whole thing was beyond weird. Why had Andrea been in the library? It probably wouldn’t have been that difficult to hide from Gareth for a few hours, but why on earth would she? Had she unlocked a door to let her killer inside? If so, why? She wouldn’t have unlocked the door for someone who was about to kill her, but who would she have unlocked it for? Or could it have been the other way around, that the killer had been hiding in the library and let Andrea inside? Since we didn’t have security-camera video, I wasn’t sure we’d ever know.
“Mrr,” Eddie said.
I looked down to find both Eddie and Mr. Goodwin looking at me with concern. “Did you go somewhere?” Mr. Goodwin asked. “You had an odd look on your face.”
“Just thinking,” I said. “Makes my face twist up sometimes.”
Mr. Goodwin laughed. “And I suppose you want to take your feline friend back to your office, yes?” He tried to arrange Eddie into a pickup position, but Eddie knew what was coming and wasn’t having any of it. He went flat, dangling his legs and drooping his head.
“Nice try, pal,” I said, scooping him up from Mr. Goodwin’s bony lap. “Better luck next time.”
“Good-bye, Eddie,” Mr. Goodwin said, waving. “Come back again.”
I held up one of Eddie’s front paws and waved back, then walked out of the room, muttering to my cat. “Come back again? Not in this lifetime. You may be a bookmobile cat, but you’re not a library cat. I’d be a wreck worrying about you.”
“Mrr.”
“Yeah, well, just so you know, some people worry a lot more than I do. I’m a very low-grade worrier, in the general scheme of things.”
“Mrr.”
We were nearing the front desk, and since there was no way to sneak around it, I’d have to barrel through with Eddie in my arms and hope no one took much notice of what I was carrying. “Compare me to some others,” I murmured, trying to keep Eddie’s attention on my voice so he wouldn’t be frightened by all the new things around him. “Do you really think Aunt Frances would let you climb onto the houseboat’s roof? No, she would not. And do you think Julia would be okay with you wandering all over the marina most of the summer? I don’t think so. And—”
“Mrrrrr.”
I slowed my brisk walk. That hadn’t been Eddie’s normal sound. It sounded like a howl, but not really that, either. What it had sounded like was the noise he made just before—
“And the front desk,” boomed a stentorian voice, “is another highlight of our library. We paid a high price for the design and installation, but we think it was worth every penny.”
I stopped stock-still in the middle of the hallway. In front of me was Otis Rahn, president of the library board, along with two other board members, and a sleek woman I didn’t recognize. The small group hadn’t noticed me and, if I was very lucky, they wouldn’t.
Silently, I walked backward and was about to turn and beat a fast retreat to the reading room when Eddie let out a hideous and mournful howl.
“Mrroooooorrrrooo!”
He squirreled out of my arms, started to run, reached the ankles of the group of four, then stopped and arched his back.
I ran forward, reaching out, and just as my fingers touched my cat’s fur, he hurled up all the beef jerky he’d eaten and half his breakfast. Then he took three backward steps, bumped into the ankles of the woman I didn’t know, turned her way, and hurled up the other half of his breakfast onto the toes of her very expensive-looking shoes.
Still crouching, I looked up.
“And this,” Otis said grimly, “is Minnie Hamilton, our interim library director. Minnie, I’d like you to meet Jennifer Walker, our first interviewee for the library director position.”
* * *
Kristen’s laughter echoed off the walls of her tiny office and bounced back into my ears over and over.
“It was not funny,” I said, slumping in my chair.
“Seriously?” she managed to ask. “Eddie puking on the shoes of the person who might be your next boss?” She went off into more gales of laughter. “How could it get more funny?”