Laurie Cass - Bookmobile Cat 02 - Tailing a Tabby Read online

  “Hey,” Thessie said. “That guy didn’t check out those books!”

  “Discretion is the better part of valor.”

  “What?”

  “I can do it another way.” I started up the computer at the rear desk. When the system came online, I matched the name from the slip of paper I’d removed from the pile of books and pulled up the woman’s library card number. In practically no time, I’d changed her hold books to being checked out.

  Thessie watched me from the front, where she was setting up the other computer. Eddie watched me from his favorite bookmobile perch—the top of the passenger’s seat headrest. Thessie looked unhappy. Eddie looked almost asleep.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t make him check out those books,” Thessie said. “That’s against the library rules.”

  One of the things I’d learned in the six weeks the bookmobile had been on the road was that a bookmobile is not quite like a library. It’s a different creature altogether and, subsequently, the types of behaviors for both patrons and staff are different.

  I wasn’t sure how to explain this to Thessie. She was young enough to still be seeing the world in black and white.

  “Did you hear him?” she continued. “‘There’s nothing here for me,’ he said, in front of all these books!” She pointed at the shelves. “And even worse”—she whipped around to face Eddie—“he ignored you completely. You’re sitting right there, looking all regal, and he doesn’t say a thing. What kind of person can ignore a cat?”

  I knew how she felt, but professionalism dictated that I keep my opinions about patrons to myself. It would be best if I didn’t have any opinions at all, but since I was still living and breathing, I didn’t see that happening.

  The sound of multiple pairs of footsteps came across the parking lot. Even before the feet reached the stairs, a woman’s voice called up, “Is Eddie here?”

  “He sure is,” Thessie said.

  The middle-aged woman, followed by another middle-aged woman, a grandmotherly type, and two preadolescent girls, bounded aboard the bookmobile. “Hello, Bookmobile Lady,” the first woman said, grinning. “And good morning, Bookmobile Girl. We’re going to need a bunch of books, but first we need our Eddie fix.”

  All five brushed past us on their way to Eddie’s perch. He graciously allowed their petting, and even lifted his chin while the youngest girl scratched him.

  Thessie elbowed me. “Look at that. A month ago, that first lady brought her sister to see Eddie, remember? Then they brought their daughters, and now they brought their mother. Eddie is increasing circulation. Tell that to Mr. Rangel.”

  I reached out, picked an Eddie hair off a bookshelf, and handed it to her.

  “Well, sure,” she said, putting it in her pocket, “there’s a little bit of a downside.”

  I stooped, picked another Eddie hair off the floor, and handed that to her, too.

  “Um, Bookmobile Lady?” The grandmotherly woman was poised at my elbow. “Can you help me find a good book?”

  “Anything in particular?” Historical novels, I guessed. Maybe a romance.

  “Something scary,” she said with relish. “Silence of the Lambs, The Shining, you know the kind. What do you have that’ll scare the pants off me?”

  I smiled. I loved being a librarian. Absolutely loved it.

  After I showed her the bookmobile’s small horror section, I helped her elder daughter find the biographies and the granddaughters find the Amish fiction. While I showed the other daughter where the mysteries lived, I overheard Thessie greet a new arrival. I listened to a male request for anything on the Civil War with half an ear, Thessie’s directional response, and his subsequent request a few minutes later, which was to borrow two books even though he didn’t have a library card.

  “What do you mean?” he asked Thessie. “The guy I saw in the parking lot said he didn’t have to use a card to check out his wife’s stuff. Why do I need one?”

  The granddaughters came up to me, their arms piled high with books to be checked out. I didn’t hear Thessie’s response, but whatever she said resulted in the guy heaving a loud sigh and walking out with heavy, dragging feet.

  At the end of the forty-five minutes, when they’d all left, I shut the door and Thessie flopped herself onto the carpeted step that served as both seating and as a step stool to access the higher books.

  “Wow, what was with these first two guys?” she asked. “It must be crabby day for men, or something. And that younger one, the guy about your age who wanted to check out books without a library card, did you see? He was wearing socks with sandals.” She gave a fake shudder. “That’s, like, the worst.”

  I’d been busy with the Friends of Eddie and hadn’t seen anything but the back of the man’s head. “Oh, I don’t know. He could have been barefoot and tracked in cow manure.”

  Thessie snorted a laugh. “Gross. You’re right, that would have been worse.”

  “Close the vents, will you?” I asked. “We need to get moving if I’m going to get you back on time.”

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later, I dropped Thessie off at her car. She was spending a large chunk of the summer with her grandparents at their home on Five Mile Lake, which was cleverly named for its length. Owing to the narrow and twisting nature of her grandparents’ driveway, she’d made arrangements to leave her car in the township hall’s parking lot, a lovely space with two entrances, the best possible kind of parking lot for bookmobile maneuvering.

  When we’d come to a halt, I said, “Don’t worry about those two men today. One bad bookmobile day does not a summer make. It’ll be better on Tuesday.”

  She scrunched up her face into something only a mother could love. “I sure hope so. If Tuesday isn’t better, I might have to quit.”

  Quit? I knew she was joking, but I didn’t see much humor in it. “I’ll make some arrangements. How about a barbershop quartet at lunchtime?”

  She laughed, air-kissed Eddie, told me to say hello to my hot new boyfriend for her, and went out into the afternoon sunshine, her long hair bouncing off her back.

  “Which way do you want to go home?” I asked Eddie. “We can take the highway, which is the most direct route, or we can take the lake road, which is longer but a lot prettier.”

  Whatever Eddie had intended to say got caught in the middle of his yawn, so his response came out something like “Rrrooorr.”

  “That’s right,” I said, nodding. “They repaved the lake road earlier this summer, didn’t they?” The extra miles were worth it to avoid the potholes of the two-lane county highway. “Thanks for reminding me.”

  The lake road, officially named Tonedagana County Road 350, curled through glacier-carved hills, first offering up stupendous views of the hilly countryside, then descending to the shores of Five Mile Lake. Water, water everywhere, and not a drop of it fronted real estate that was affordable for mere mortals.

  But knowing that I’d never be able to own a lakeside home didn’t take away the pleasure I got from seeing the deep blue waters of the many lakes that graced Tonedagana County. Besides Five Mile Lake, the great Lake Michigan, and the large Janay Lake, we had Lake Mitchell, Dooley Lake, Spear Lake, Rock Lake, Peck Lake, and half a dozen other lakes of various shapes and sizes that provided our county with stunning scenic beauty and a healthy tax base.

  “Too bad the library doesn’t get a bigger share,” I told Eddie, but if his closed eyes were any indication, he wasn’t paying attention to my ramblings.

  And he was right. On this gorgeous July day, I shouldn’t be thinking about millages and taxable values and operational expenses or anything at all. I should be enjoying the sunshine and the view.

  “There are lots of reasons,” I said to my uncaring cat, “that this part of the state is the playground for the downstate folks.” Of which I’d been one, not too long ago,
but I didn’t like to be reminded of that fact. “Lots of Chicago people come up here and I bet half the Detroit area has either a family cottage or a hunting cabin in the area.” I paused. Did some quick mental math. “And two-thirds of Dearborn.”

  To be fair, the majority of the properties hadn’t been purchased by the nouveau riche. Many cottages had been handed down from generation to generation with hardly an improvement made. Sure, some had been winterized and suburbanized, but many looked just as they had eighty years earlier, one bathroom, three small bedrooms, and a kitchen with no cabinets, only shelves.

  Through the flickering sunlight that filtered down through the maple, cedar, and white birch trees, I could see glimpses of water sparkling with bright diamonds. “Too bad you’re a cat,” I told Eddie. “If you weren’t stuck in that cat carrier, you could be up here with me, enjoying the view.”

  I heard a sound that might have been, and probably was, a snore.

  I glanced over. Eddie was sleeping with one side of his face smushed against the front of the carrier. Tufts of black and white hair stuck out between the squares of wire, as did the tip of one ear.

  “You are such a dork,” I said, but I said it quietly and with affection. Eddie was a doofus, but he was my doofus, and I loved him. “You’re lucky I didn’t name you Alonzo.” I had first encountered Eddie in a cemetery, next to the grave site of one Alonzo Tillotson, born 1847, died 1926.

  I’d assumed the tabby cat had a home and tried to shoo him away, but he’d followed me all the way down the hill and into Chilson, where he’d done that figure eight thing, purring and turning and twisting around my ankles. If he’d been trying to charm me, it had worked just fine.

  Dr. Joe, the vet, had checked him out and told me he was around two years old. I’d tempted fate by running a notice in the newspaper for a lost cat, but even though I’d virtuously run a normal-sized advertisement instead of the tiny one I’d considered, no one had called. Eddie and I had been together ever since.

  “Not inseparable, though,” I said. “That would be weird. I mean, I like you a lot, but there’s no need for you to come into the bathroom with me.”

  Eddie opened his eyes to narrow slits, then closed them again.

  “Or the shower.” I tried to think of other zones that should be Eddie-free. The kitchen counter, certainly. Though I’d never seen him up there, there was paw-print evidence that he’d made the jump. And my closet. Maybe I needed to get a different latch for the door. What he found attractive about curling up on my shoes, I had no idea, but it wasn’t unusual for me to come home and find him sleeping on the floor of my tiny closet. For two weeks he’d preferred my blue flip-flops, but he’d switched to my running shoes. “Hope the flip-flops don’t get lonely,” I told him.

  “Mrr.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “Depressed flip-flops are the worst. No flip, no flop, nothing but Eddie hair on them. It’s a—”

  “Mrrr!”

  I took my gaze off the road for a scant second. “You okay, pal?” He’d sounded a little frantic and I hoped his stomach had settled completely from his lunch of dry cat food and water.

  “MRR!” He sprang to his feet. “MRRRR!”

  “Okay, bud, okay.” I checked the road for a place to pull over. Nothing but curving asphalt, narrow shoulders, even narrower driveways, and trees. “Hang on a minute, there’s bound to be a spot past this curve. Then we’ll pull over and see what’s up, okay?”

  The road was curving sharply and the fact that I’d already started bringing the bookmobile to a stop was the only thing that kept me from hitting the woman who was running into the middle of the road, waving her arms over her head, and shouting.

  Chapter 2

  Vehicles that are thirty-one feet long and weigh twenty-three thousand pounds loaded do not stop on a dime, but even so, I was surprised at how quickly the air brakes brought us to a halt.

  Faster than thought, I unbuckled myself and reached to unlatch the door of the cat carrier. “Eddie? You all right? Sorry about that hard screeching stop.”

  He glared at me from the farthest and darkest possible corner of the carrier and didn’t reply. I’d rigged up a way to strap the carrier down, but even so the hard braking would have caused him to slide around inside the carrier.

  Since he didn’t look as if he was in dire shape, I left him to his sulk and opened the bookmobile door. I hurried down the steps and ran back to the woman. “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

  As we drew closer to each other, I could see that the woman was wheezing with exertion. Her brown graying hair was falling out of its ponytail, and while her cheeks were red with the effort from running, the rest of her face was pale.

  “It’s my husband,” she panted.

  A black-and-white blur made of one hundred percent Eddie streaked past us, galloped down the road, then made a hard right down a driveway.

  The woman paid no attention. “It’s my husband, down at our house. He’s having a stroke, I’m sure of it, and I need to get him to the hospital.” Tears coated her cheeks. “We don’t have a landline. I tried to call nine-one-one on my cell, but I dropped it. The back fell off and the battery popped out, it takes forever to cycle on again, and I couldn’t find my husband’s phone, so I just ran up here. I need help to get him into my car and please, oh, please…”

  She grabbed my hands and suddenly no more words needed to be said. I wanted to chase after Eddie, but this came first. I didn’t know much about medicine, but I knew that getting stroke victims to the hospital as soon as possible was critical. It would take an ambulance half an hour to get to this part of the county. Add another half hour to get to the hospital, and that was… way too much time.

  I cast aside all of Stephen’s warnings about waivers and insurance papers for anyone who rode along on the bookmobile. “Let’s go,” I said, her sense of urgency infecting me. “No.” I grabbed her sleeve when she turned around. “I’ll drive. It’ll be faster.”

  Both of us running, we returned to the bookmobile. I had the door shut and the vehicle in drive faster than I should have, but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. “How far?”

  The woman was banging her thighs with clenched fists. “A little farther,” she whispered, looking out the front window. “One more driveway… there!”

  “Got it.” I made a hard right and stomped on the gas pedal.

  The narrow gravel driveway was tree-lined and not made for a vehicle the size of the bookmobile. Tree branches scraped our sides and the roof. I spared a single thought for the damage the mysterious equipment that lived up there could be sustaining, another for what the chances of insurance coverage might be, then stopped thinking about it.

  “It’s such a long driveway,” the woman murmured. “We’re so far away from everyone… How could we be so stupid?” She pounded her thighs again. “Can’t you go any faster?”

  I didn’t reply. Couldn’t, really, because it was taking all my concentration to fly us through the winding curves that were taking us inexorably downhill to the shores of a small lake, visible now through the trees.

  “Faster,” she breathed. “Please…”

  I pressed the gas pedal down a little farther. We rounded a sharp corner where the drive turned from gravel to asphalt, hurtled down a last small hill, and burst into a clearing with a large Mission-style house on the far side and a blessedly large turnaround area.

  Eddie sat on the porch, licking one paw and looking as if he’d been there for half an hour.

  The woman was up out of her seat while we were still moving. She thumped the door with her fist, but its safety feature wouldn’t let the lock release until we came to a stop. When I could finally unlock it, she shoved it open and ran. “This way,” she shouted over her shoulder. “He’s in his office.”

  I hurried after her, fixing Eddie with a steely glare. “Don’t you go anywhere,” I told
him as I ran past.

  The woman had left the front door, a heavy wooden thing held together with wrought iron, wide open. Not a simple rectangle, the door had a curved top, something that had to be expensive. This fact had barely registered when I was through the entrance, into the house, and into a low-ceilinged, oak-floored foyer that led to hallways and doorways and a switchback stairway. I stopped, trying to figure out which way to go.

  Eddie streaked past. “Mrr,” he called, and I followed him.

  I don’t know if it was a cat-born instinct or some keen sense of hearing that he’d never bothered to demonstrate before, but Eddie arrowed straight through the rough-plastered entrance to a hallway lined with framed paintings of moonlit water. Real paintings, painted with real paint, and they looked vaguely familiar. I put the assumption in my head that they were from a local artist and hurried past.

  “In here!” the woman called.

  At the end of the hall were three doorways that led in three different directions. Through one I saw a black-and-white tile floor and white porcelain bathroom fixtures. Through another I saw shelves and shelves of books. Eddie trotted through the third, and if cats had heels, I was right on his.

  The woman was kneeling on the thick carpet, her back to a stone fireplace. A man lay sprawled on the floor, his entire left side limp and lifeless. The woman held her husband’s good hand to her cheek. “Honey, I brought help. We’ll get you to a hospital in no time.” She looked up to me, her eyes asking the question.

  I nodded. “We can take him in the bookmobile. It’ll be easiest.” Although how we were going to get him into it, I wasn’t quite sure. The man, who looked to be in his mid-fifties, also looked to be heavy. And big. Or at least a lot bigger than five-foot-nothing Minnie. His wife had a few inches on me, but the two of us dragging this ill man through the hallway, down the front steps, and into the bookmobile was going to be imposs—

  No. There had to be a way. All I had to do was find it. “Think, Minnie, think,” I muttered. What was the good of taking all those first aid classes last winter in preparation for bookmobile emergencies if I couldn’t remember what to do when an emergency happened? There must have been something I’d learned about transporting an injured person.