More than once I’d walked down the marina’s dock and, through the houseboat’s windows, spotted Eddie sitting on the kitchen counter, napping or idly grooming himself. I’d pound up the dock and burst through the door, reprimands at the ready, only to find my cat sitting innocently on the floor. I had yet to decide whether that whole routine was a coincidence, or whether it was something he planned with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker.
Now I clapped my hands three times—the “Stop that right now!” signal—and watched Eddie slither off the table and onto the bench seat. “You are a horrible cat,” I told him. “And stop looking at me like I’m the stupid one. If you didn’t do the things I tell you not to, I wouldn’t have to yell at you, see?”
Bonk!
“Eddie! Will you cut that out?” I reached for him and snuggled him to my chest, because the loud bonking noise had been his head thumping against the edge of the table. “That had to hurt, you silly thing.” I kissed the back of his furry neck and sat down on the upholstered bench. “You’ll give yourself a concussion if you keep that up.”
His deep purrs indicated that there was nothing wrong, but what did I know about cat head injuries?
I snuggled him again. “You be careful or you’ll end up like Greg Plassey, thinking that getting whacked in the noggin with a golf ball is a perfectly normal occurrence.”
“Mrr.”
“Well, exactly.” Carefully, I gave his head a slow pet. “There’s got to be something seriously wrong with him to shrug something like that off. Just because it’s an accident doesn’t mean he shouldn’t take it seriously.”
Eddie jumped off my lap and back up onto the newspaper. I started to swipe him off the table and back onto my lap, but he reached out with a paw for the newspaper and snagged it with his slightly extended claws.
Rip!
“Oh, good job.” I detached him from the newsprint, slouched, and settled him on my chest. “Don’t tell me that was an accident, buddy boy. I’ve known you long enough to know when something was intentional.”
Eddie stared at me through unblinking yellow eyes.
“Huh,” I said. “I wonder…” But no. The idea was far too far-fetched.
Or was it?
I looked at Eddie. “Am I nuts?” He didn’t say anything, which was probably the safest possible answer. “If I sound nuts, just tell me, okay?”
He dug his front claws into my shirtfront just the slightest bit, then retracted them. I took the action as a reply of “Have I ever held back from telling you that you were being stupid?” To which the answer was, of course “No.”
Since both of my hands were busy with Eddie, I used my elbow to tap the newspaper. “Greg Plassey had that accident with the golf ball. That didn’t make the paper because he didn’t tell anyone, but there were other accidents that we’ve read about in the last couple of weeks.”
Eddie’s eyes opened ever so slightly.
“There was Trock’s bicycle accident, remember?” I ran my hand over Eddie’s back, and his eyes closed again. “He was run off the road by an SUV. And then there was that boat accident, the one where Hugo Edel was almost blown up.” It hadn’t made sense then and it didn’t make sense now, because how could a guy who made and sold high-end boats for a living blow up his boat? Okay, it could have been an operator error of some kind, but from what I knew about Edel, he was as safety-conscious as a first-time mother.
“So that’s three accidents this summer,” I told Eddie, who might—or might not—have been interested in what I was saying. From the sound of his snores, I was guessing he wasn’t, but maybe it was a trick. “Three typical summer accidents, but they all happened within a couple weeks of each other and they all happened to guys about the same age.”
“Mrr,” Eddie said sleepily.
“Yeah,” I murmured, “I know. The odds seem against it, don’t they? And…” Another piece jiggled into place. “And I’m sure that Greg Plassey was holding something back about Carissa. What if he had been involved with her in some way? What if his accident had something to do with her death? What if all of them did?”
Maybe I was wrong, but maybe I was right, and that meant someone would have to find out more about the relationships between these men and Carissa.
“That someone being me,” I said, and for some reason that got Eddie purring and settling into my lap as if he had no intention of ever moving.
My thoughts went darker.
Suppose that Greg’s, Trock’s, and Hugo’s accidents weren’t truly accidents. Maybe, somehow, they had something to do with Carissa’s death. Maybe someone was out to get all the men Carissa was linked to.
Not only did I have to make sure Cade didn’t go to jail; I might have to save them all from being killed.
Eddie deepened his purr and curled up into a tight furry ball.
“Then again,” I said, “I might be wrong about all this. Maybe one of these guys is actually the killer.”
Eddie stopped purring and reached out with one paw to bat me on the back of my hand.
“Sorry.” I started petting him. “How many strokes would you like, Sir Eddie? Two? Three?” I paused. “An infinite number?”
That’s when he started purring again.
Chapter 14
The next morning I looked up the phone number for Faye, the cookbook lady, and called as soon as the first flurry of library activities was over.
“Good morning,” I said. “This is Minnie from the bookmobile and—”
“Those books can’t be overdue already, can they?” she asked. “I’ve only had them just over a week. Were they a short-term loan? I am so sorry!”
I laughed. “Faye, don’t worry. It’s more than a week until we come back to your stop. At the speed you go through books, you’ll have plenty of time.”
She sighed her relief into the phone. “You had me worried for a second.”
“No need. Matter of fact,” I said, “I was a little worried about you and that’s why I called. You seemed a little upset about your cousin on the last bookmobile run, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said.
I winced at myself a little, because I was calling under mostly false pretenses. Sure, I had been a little concerned about her, but I was mostly interested in her cousin, the one who’d known Carissa. If I could get her name, maybe I knew her, or maybe I could call her and find out a little more about Carissa.
“Thanks so much,” Faye said, “but I’m fine now, pretty much.”
“It was your cousin that you were concerned about, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“What a good memory you have! Yes, I’d been a little worried about Randall. It must have been so frightening, to have the police come talk to him like that.”
I stared out my office window but didn’t see anything. “Your cousin’s name is Randall?”
“Randall Moffit,” Faye said. “First cousin on my mother’s side.”
Why had I assumed her cousin was female? I tried to remember exactly what she’d said that day, but it was long gone out of my head.
“Anyway,” Faye was saying, “somehow the police knew that Randall had dated Carissa for a little while.”
I sat up straight. “He had?” How had I not known this?
“It was a long time ago,” Faye assured me. “Even still, I’m so glad he had a nice, solid alibi for the night she was killed. He was downstate to a Tigers game with some friends. They’d dressed up silly with blue paint and whatnot. They were shown on television and it’s hard to get a better alibi than that.”
“How nice,” I said faintly.
“You are a sweetie, aren’t you?” Faye laughed. “So Randall’s safe, and I don’t have to worry about him a bit.”