Lending a Paw(46)

“Humor is in the ear of the beholder.” I ran a dollar bill into the machine.

“Minnie, there you are!” One of the clerks rushed in. “Can you work the front desk for half an hour? My son’s car won’t start and he needs a ride to work. I’m really sorry, but—”

“Go.” I waved her away. “Don’t worry about it.”

I headed for the doorway, but Josh called me back. “Hey, Min. You forgot your pop.” He pointed at the machine.

No food or drinks were allowed at the front counter, so I said, “Consider it a gift.”

He grinned. “You’re all right. I don’t care what the rest of them say—you’re not so bad.”

I rolled my eyes and headed out.

• • •

Time spent at the front desk was always interesting. There were returns to sort, phone calls to take, and patrons to direct. But my favorite thing to do was checking out books. Seeing what people wanted to take home to read, watch, and listen to never got old. There were times, of course, when I wanted to recommend other books.

Because Mrs. Garver didn’t really need another book about the value of collectibles. What she needed was a book on organizing. And Jim Kittle didn’t really need to read another let’s-do-in-all-the-bad-guys thriller. He’d be better off if he’d read through a stack of romances and learned how women see the world.

A tall fiftyish man placed a stack of books on the counter. The stack was so high I couldn’t see over the top of it. “Wow,” I said, smiling, “I wish I had that much time to read. You know we only have a two-week checkout, right?”

“Yes.” His tone was almost curt as he handed me his library card.

The scanner beeped when I aimed it at the card. I glanced at the computer screen. “Looks like you have a number of books out already. Not due until next week, though, so you have some time.”

“I put them in the slot,” he said.

“Oh.” I scanned the titles. The Name of the Rose. Gone with the Wind. “. . . And Ladies of the Club.” All books that were hundreds of pages long. “Well, I hope you enjoyed them. Those are—” I stopped short as I noticed the man’s name. Bill D’Arcy. This was the guy Rafe had mentioned as a possible suspect. The one who went to the diner but kept to himself.

Mr. D’Arcy started tapping the granite counter with his fingernails.

Oookay. I took the top book—Moby-Dick—and opened the front cover to scan the tag. “You know,” I said, “this is the only book I ever used Cliff’s Notes for. Just couldn’t get through it. I keep thinking about trying it again, but somehow I haven’t made time.” I laughed.

Bill D’Arcy didn’t.

Next book down was Anna Karenina. “I always cry when I read this book. Matter of fact, I think I cry when I read anything by Tolstoy. I wonder what he was like in person. Do you ever wonder if he had a sense of humor?”

No comment.

I checked out 11/22/63 and The Historian, said a little something about each, and scored exactly zero responses from Bill D’Arcy. Not that I was a brilliant conversationalist, but the guy could have at least grunted a response or two. As an interrogator, I had a lot to learn. “You’re all set,” I said, pushing the stack over to him. “Good for two weeks.”

His mouth was starting to open—he was actually going to say something!—when Mitchell Koyne barged up to the desk, his baseball cap on straight for once.

“Min. Hey, Min! You won’t believe what happened the other day. I was out with my buddy in his boat and we almost got this huge fish, a sturgeon. It would have been a record catch, I just know it.”

“Just a second, Mitchell, okay? I was talking to—”

But Bill D’Arcy was already gone.





Chapter 10


I looked at Eddie.

He looked back.

Well, sort of. Even when everything indicated that he was looking at me directly, it still felt as if part of his cat brain was elsewhere.

“You go here.” I pointed to the picnic basket I’d bought. The store owner had looked at me oddly when I’d carried in a tape measure, but she’d accepted my story of needing a basket of a particular size so I could carry the oval bowl my great-grandmother had given me to a family reunion  . “She always brought potato salad,” I’d said, spinning out the tale longer than it needed to go. “And it wouldn’t be a real family reunion   without it.” Such a coincidence that Eddie and the imaginary bowl were the same size.

“Here,” I repeated. “It’ll only be for a little while. I’ll carry you to the car, we’ll drive up to the library, I’ll carry you into the bookmobile, and then you get to sleep in the cabinet until we get on the road.” I showed him the fleece-lined cat bed already nestled into the bottom of the basket. “See? What could be better?”