Lending a Paw(38)

Cats.





Chapter 8


At noon the next day I shut myself in my office and tried to make a plan. Most of what I knew about Caroline Grice had come from Stephen. A few months after I’d been hired, he’d handed me a list of names and her name was halfway down the page.

“We need new blood,” he’d said. “Our most loyal donors are in their seventies and we need to freshen up the pool.”

At the time I’d been appalled at his heartlessness, but now I was beginning to understand the need. I didn’t like it, but I understood. If you’re not growing, thanks to natural attrition you’re shrinking, and having a community’s financial support is a critical part of a library’s success.

Back then, thanks to letters, phone calls, and face-to-face visits, I’d drawn a few new regular donors into the fold. Caroline Grice had not been one of them.

Now I leaned back in my chair and tried to go at the situation in a manner of which Stephen would approve. Action items. You must distill a project into action items. I pictured the agenda.

Goal: Talk to Caroline about Stan, face-to-face if possible.

Proposed Methodology: none.

And the meeting is adjourned. Thanks for coming, folks.

“Research,” I said to myself. “It’s time for research.”

I opened up my computer’s browser and typed Caroline’s name into the search engine: 178,000 results. Huh. I put quotes around her name: 4,658 results. Better, but more than I could drill through during my lunch break. I added “Michigan” to the string and found her husband’s obituary, a press release announcing her husband’s retirement, and her daughter’s wedding announcement.

All the people in the world to research and I managed to pick the only one who wasn’t on Facebook.

I flexed my hands and cracked my knuckles. There had to be some way to find a connection that would give me an excuse, some way to find common ground, some . . . “Got it.” I searched for genealogy Web sites, found one that looked serious, dithered a little about the ethics of what I was about to do, then signed up for a free two-week membership.

Twenty minutes later I found what I needed. And here I’d thought the only benefit to having an extremely common last name was never needing to spell it for other people.

I printed out my brand-new data and opened my phone book to the Gs. There it was: GRICE, BRANSON. Ten years after her husband died and she still had the phone in his name.

I punched in the numbers and waited. “Grice residence,” a polite voice said.

“I’d like to speak to Caroline Grice, please.”

“This is she.”

“Really?” I blurted, then winced at myself. Even the Grice staff must get a day off once in a while.

“I’m quite certain, yes. How may I help you?”

“This is Minnie Hamilton. We spoke a couple of years ago when the Friends of the Library were working on a fund-raiser.”

“Yes, I remember.” Still the polite voice. “Stephen Rangel’s work, if I recall correctly. The man is tireless.”

“Yes, ma’am. But I’m calling you regarding a different matter. I’ve been doing some genealogy research and I’ve come across an ancestor we might have in common. Would it be possible to meet with you?”

“How interesting.” So polite. “But I’m afraid I must disappoint you. The only relations about which I know anything are my parents and my children. My cousin Richard, however, has been doing extensive research into the family. Shall I give you his number?”

• • •

I dumped my backpack on the kitchen counter. “Hi, honey, I’m home!”

No Eddie came running to greet me. I wandered around, looking.

A faint snore came rattling out of the closet. I slid open the door and found a black-and-white cat nestled in among my shoes. His body lay across my hiking boots and his front paws were wrapped around a blue flip-flop. The right one.

“You are the weirdest cat ever,” I told him.

He opened his eyes to thin slits and opened his mouth in a soundless “Mrr.”

I picked him up. “Come hang out with me, okay?”

We went to the kitchen and I deposited him on the back of the bench seat. I pulled the stack of mail I’d picked up from my post office box out of my backpack. “Junk mail, more junk mail, and a reminder from my mother that Thanksgiving isn’t far away.” Mom was nothing if not aggressive when it came to holiday plans. “Cool note card, though.” I propped the reprint of what the card said was a Diego Rivera mural up on the kitchen counter. “Maybe if you wrote letters, you’d get some mail.”

Eddie’s nose twitched.