“You are horrible.” I put the flowers into the fridge. “I’ll have to take those to the library to get any pleasure out of them.”
Eddie pawed at the refrigerator door. “Mrr!”
“Really? How many times do I have to tell you? Not a cat toy.”
He gave me a look of fierce disgust and stalked off.
“You’re not going away mad, are you?” I called.
“Mrr.”
“I love you, you know!”
He paused at the top of the short stairway and looked back. “Mrr,” he said, and hopped down the stairs, pushed open the door of my tiny closet, and flopped onto my shoes, where he stayed the rest of the night.
Chapter 9
The next morning I woke up sore in all sorts of odd places. I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Mrr?” Eddie asked.
“Hang on a second. I’m still trying to figure it out.” I stood, not bothering to stifle a whimpering groan, and hobbled around in a small circle. “Worst is probably the backs of my shoulders,” I said. The trapezius? I tried to remember the diagrams from a high school physiology class. No, that wasn’t right. I reached around with my fingers and tenderly poked at the sore parts. “Latissimus dorsi.” I eyed my cat, wondering if he had a corresponding muscle. If he did, would he be able to water-ski? There’d been that video of a water-skiing squirrel; maybe I could make Eddie famous.
“Mrr,” he said, stretching out a long paw.
“Sorry.” I nodded. “Back to the inventory. Shoulders hurt the most; thighs aren’t far behind. And my neck is stiff, although I’m not sure why.”
Eddie flopped over on his side with a soft thump.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “It probably is from that last time I crashed. I hit the water pretty hard.” I rotated my head around, trying to loosen up the muscles. “And all that crawling around on the floor of Pam’s store, sorting out books, probably didn’t help, either.” Or the sleep I’d lost. But, hey, I was young and relatively fit, and I’d be able to catch up on sleep soon enough. All I needed was a hot shower and breakfast.
Eddie yawned and drew himself into a ball that was half his size, a miracle achieved on a daily basis by cats around the world.
“I wouldn’t get too comfortable,” I told him as I headed toward the bathroom. “It’s a bookmobile day, you know.”
His eyes opened wide.
“Would I mess with you about a thing like that?” I asked. “Yes, I might give you a hard time about your snoring, your tendency to sleep draped across my neck, and your complete disregard of the only ultimate demand I’ve ever had of you—you know, that one about staying off the kitchen counter—but I would never joke with you about the bookmobile.”
“Mrr!”
He jumped off the bed, galloped through the bedroom and up the stairs, and only screeched to a stop when he reached my backpack, upon which he sat upright until it was time to leave.
* * *
The bookmobile day was crowded with patrons who wanted information even more than they wanted books. We were making stops in this part of the county for the first time since Andrea’s murder, and by this time, even the people who eschewed newspapers had heard the news.
But even though the concern about a murder was real, what seemed to be upsetting people the most was the attack on the bookmobile.
“It’s all right, isn’t it?” asked seven-year-old Ethan Engstrom. He looked up at me anxiously, his face full of concern.
I’d met Ethan on the first stop of the bookmobile’s maiden voyage, the one upon which Eddie had been a stowaway. Not wanting word of a cat hair–laden beast to get back to my boss, I’d emptied a storage cabinet and encouraged Eddie to stay inside during the stops.
Young Ethan was curious and helpful, and he’d opened the Eddie cabinet in hopes of finding a place to store the things I’d taken out of Eddie’s cabinet and had to put on the floor. Eddie came out of the closet, and life hadn’t been the same since.
“The bookmobile is fine,” I assured him.
“They didn’t hurt Eddie, did they?” asked Cara, the middle of the three Engstrom girls.
“Eddie was sound asleep in bed,” I told her, smiling. “He wasn’t anywhere near the bookmobile when it happened.”
This, apparently, puzzled Emma, the youngest Engstrom girl. Emma was twin to Ethan. Cara was twins with Patrick, and the oldest of the statistically impossible Engstrom twins were Trevor and Rose, now thirteen. Last year Rose had been going through a princess phase, but she seemed to have grown past that and was now into horses.
Their father, Chad, worked from home designing educational video games, and homeschooled the kids with the help of a retired neighbor who’d once taught high school biology. His wife worked for Tonedagana County as human resources director, and one of these days I hoped to actually meet the woman who’d given birth to such a great collection of intelligent young people.
“Eddie doesn’t sleep here?” Emma asked, frowning.
“Not at night,” I said, because denying that he slept in the bookmobile would be ridiculous. Right that very second, for instance, he was sprawled on the dashboard, overdosing on sunshine. “At night he comes home with me.”
“Oh,” she said, her face drooping.
I felt like a heel. I’d obviously just destroyed one of her illusions. Accidentally, but that didn’t matter. No one should have to suffer the destruction of an illusion without some compensatory relief, so I moved closer to her and whispered, “Do you want to know a secret?”
Her lips curled up in a slow smile. She nodded.
“Eddie knocked over a vase of flowers last night,” I said. “Twice.”
She giggled and slapped her hands over her mouth. “He was a bad kitty?” she asked through her fingers.
“The worst,” I said solemnly. “He didn’t even help clean up the mess afterward.”
“Bad Eddie!” She giggled again.
“Hey, now. No laughing,” her father said, mock sternly. “Not unless you share why you’re laughing.”
I shook my head. “It’s a secret,” I told him.
Still giggling, Emma ran off, singing, “Bad, bad, Eddie. Bad, bad, bad.”
Her father watched her go. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked. “A murder, two break-ins at the library, and now another burglary downtown?” His face was serious now, and it wasn’t a look that sat well on him. “Not that I really think crime in Chilson is going to spread over here, but you have to wonder, especially with six kids in the house.”
“The police are . . .” I sighed. “Are exploring all avenues of investigation.”
Chad squinted at me. “You did not just say that.”
“Sorry.” I half smiled. “Would it help if I told you it was a direct quote from the detective working on the case?”
“A little.” He studied me. “But it would help even more if I knew they were close to figuring out what’s happening.”
“You’re not alone,” I said, and went to help Julia help Trevor find a book that would answer his questions about capacitors and inductors.
* * *
As soon as we got back to Chilson, I hurried through the post-bookmobile routine as quickly as I could, even to the extent of leaving some tasks for the next day. Julia said she’d be willing to work late, but I shooed her off, saying it was too nice a night, and locked all the doors behind us, checking them twice. And then three times.
I dropped Eddie off at the houseboat, sent him an air kiss, then hauled my bicycle out of my storage locker and hurried across town.
The parking lot of the Three Seasons was packed with vehicles of all shapes and sizes. Vans, cars, trucks, and SUVs littered the lot with no regard for where the lines had been painted. Black cables thicker than my wrist snaked across the asphalt, a tripping hazard to the unwary, which explained why the lot’s entrance had been blocked off by bright yellow sawhorses.