Lending a Paw: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery (Bookmobile Cat Mysteries) by Laurie Cass Read Free Book Online Page A

onto the passenger seat, and into the back corner of his cupboard.
    The sheriff’s deputy who had started the chain of unfortunate events stood there, dripping rainwater onto the carpet. “Minnie Hamilton?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said as politely as I could while enduring level seven pain. The agony created by cat claws would drop soon, but there was going to be some teeth-gritting in the interim.
    “I’m Deputy Wolverson. Sorry if you didn’t hear me come in. I have a few questions for you.”
    What I minded was the water he was leaving on the new carpet. I reached for the roll of paper towels. “Would you like to dry off a little?”
    “Thank you, ma’am, but I’m fine.”
    “No, you’re not.” I tossed the roll to him and he had little choice but to catch it. “You’re dripping all over the inside of a very expensive bookmobile and the humidity’s going up and it’ll take forever for the carpet to dry and every wet spot will collect dirt like crazy and I’ll have to hire someone to clean the carpet and I don’t know where that money is going to come from, because we don’t have anything like that in the budget for months and . . . and . . .” My mouth kept opening and shutting for a little while, but I’d run out of words.
    “Ms. Hamilton, why don’t you sit down?” he asked. “Is your cat okay?” He gestured at the cabinet.
    “He likes it in there.” I sat down with a thump. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scold you, it’s just . . .” But I didn’t know where to go from there. Fortunately, Deputy Wolverson did.
    “Shock takes people different ways,” he said, ripping a handful of paper towels off the roll. “Some cry, some get mad, some go quiet, others talk. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
    I studied him as he toweled off his hands and face. About my age, maybe a little older. Not movie star handsome, but appealing. No beer gut, seemed intelligent. And no wedding band.
    Hmm.
    He used a second handful of paper towels to dry off his hat and shoes. “Thanks,” he said, and tossed the wads into the wastebasket. “I have a few questions to ask. Do you feel up to it?”
    I nodded. “There’s a chair in the back, if you want.”
    The chair had a bungee cord that held it in place en route. Wolverson deftly unhooked the cord and rolled the chair forward. He sat down with an athletic grace and took a small notepad out of his front shirt pocket.
    “Minnie Hamilton, employee of the Chilson District Library, right? Can I have your address and phone number? . . . Okay, thanks. So you found the gentleman in the house at what time?”
    “About an hour and a half ago.”
    “You were parked here? Why did you go to the house?”
    I glanced at Eddie’s cabinet. “My cat. He ran out of the bookmobile. I followed him to that farmhouse and that’s when I found Stan.”
    “Stan?” Wolverson glanced up. “You know the victim? What’s his last name?”
    Maybe he wasn’t as intelligent as I’d thought. “You mean you don’t know?”
    The deputy’s polite face suddenly didn’t look quite so friendly. “We found no form of identification on the victim’s body. If you have information, please share it.”
    The victim. A wave of spotted black filled my vision. I grabbed the edge of the seat and held on tight. No fainting. There weren’t any smelling salts on board, and anyway, I’d read they were nasty. “It’s Stan Larabee.”
    Deputy Wolverson’s sudden intake of breath wasn’t exactly a gasp, but it was close. “The Larabee Development Stan Larabee?”
    And Larabee Enterprises and Larabee Realty and Larabee Limited. Before I’d gone to Stan with my proverbial hat in hand, I’d done my research to make sure he was as rich as everybody said. It turned out he had more money than anyone had guessed.
    I nodded, and the deputy thumbed his shoulder microphone. “Dispatch, this is two eight seven. Victim was male and approximately seventy years old. Identification is . . .” He looked at me.