Then again, maybe Josh’s version was correct. What I needed to do was talk to some other Friends and find out. Of course, what I’d probably hear was yet another version. Who could accurately remember a conversation from that long ago? I could barely remember what I had for breakfast that morning.
“Say, Minnie, I wanted to tell you.” Josh went to the doorway, looked left and right down the hallway, then came back. “I have another software update to do on Stephen’s computer. I’ll tell him it’ll only take a couple of minutes. He’s sure to stay this time, so I have it all figured out what I’ll ask him to find out if he knows about Eddie. I’m almost positive he doesn’t know, but what do you think about this?”
Josh sketched out his impending conversation, using an improbable squeaky voice for our boss, but I had a hard time paying attention to Josh’s theoretical questions to Stephen because I couldn’t steer my thoughts away from the darkest part of the just-told tale of Pam’s farewell speech.
The only way I’ll come back is over your dead body.
* * *
Come noon, I held down the main desk while Kelsey and Holly took their lunch breaks. In summertime, I would have scheduled two people, but now that it was December, the tourists were long gone and the snowbirds had flown south. Foot traffic in the library was much slower, and there was occasionally time to breathe.
I had just tidied up the last of the morning’s book returns when I saw Mitchell slouch his way in. “Hey, Mitchell. What’s up?”
He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Nothing.”
It sounded more like a pronouncement than a social response. “Is something wrong?” I asked, then winced inwardly.
Why, why had I asked him something like that when there was no Holly around to summon me with a manufactured emergency? A perky Mitchell, which was the normal version, was something I could deal with. A despondent, down-in-the-dumps Mitchell was a different entity altogether, and while I did want to help him, I was also working and couldn’t dedicate the rest of the afternoon to jollying him.
He heaved out a massive sigh. “Remember you told me to go to the cops with that list I made? After I gave it to them, I expected that they’d, you know, give me something else to do for the case. Some legwork they don’t have time for or something.”
Why he would have thought that, I had no idea, but the workings of Mitchell’s brain were a deep mystery that I didn’t in the least want to solve. “But they’re not giving you anything?”
“Nothing.” He put his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. “Not a freaking thing. I’ve called that detective lots of times, asking if there’s anything I can do, but he says the investigation is progressing, and that’s it.” He kicked at the counter’s baseboard. “And now when I call, I don’t even get the detective—I have to talk to some deputy.”
I turned a laugh into a cough.
“So, now what should I do?” Mitchell asked, kicking at the baseboard again.
He could stop the kicking, for one thing. Then a flash of brilliance struck. “I have an idea.”
“Yeah?”
“Well,” I said, “on TV and in movies, when the police are stuck on a case, they always go back to the beginning. Start looking at things all over again, trying to see everything from a fresh point of view.” It was the vaguest of vague ideas, but if Mitchell picked it up, it might keep him busy for a while.
He was nodding vigorously. “That’s a great idea. Go back to the beginning. Awesome. Thanks, Minnie!” He walked off, his hands still in his pockets, but with his posture straight and tall. He turned and bumped open the front door with his hip, and I was suddenly reminded of Eddie.
A new thought pinged into my head: If my cat were human, would he be like Mitchell?
I pondered the notion and finally decided that even if Eddie took on human form, he couldn’t possibly be anything but an Eddie. No way, no how.
A woman approached the desk and put a stack of books on the counter for checkout. “Something funny?” she asked, smiling.
I laughed and said, “Almost everything, really,” and got back to work.
* * *
The rest of the noon hour zipped past, not so much because I was busy, but because snippets from recent conversations kept echoing around inside my head.
Anyone can commit murder.
Wrong place, but I was looking at the right time.
The only way I’ll come back is over your dead body.
Go back to the beginning.
The bits were banging into each other so much that they were starting to create new sentences all on their own. Unfortunately, none of them made sense. It was when I caught myself thinking Anyone can look at the beginning that I knew I had to clear my head if the afternoon was going to be at all productive. As soon as Kelsey returned, I abandoned the front desk, wolfed down my lunch of turkey sandwich and warmed-up mashed potatoes, and went out for a walk.
The snow from the other night was still on the ground, and talk was that it was going to stick this time and not be gone until April. I counted the months in my head, three times, and got to five every single time. It seemed like a lot. “But you’ll be gone before the end of April,” I said to the snow. “Won’t you?”
Happily, the snow didn’t answer, which I took as an affirmative. Snow through the first week of April was tolerable; snow after that might be reason to move to a warmer climate.
I walked downtown, enjoying the chill air in my lungs, enjoying the sight of high clouds chasing low ones, enjoying the cheery holiday displays in the storefronts, and enjoying the nearly empty sidewalks. I was having such a nice time soaking in the world and thinking about as little as possible that I almost didn’t notice when a tall, thinnish man on the other side of the street waved at me. “Afternoon, Minnie,” he said.
A blink or two later, I recognized the voice and returned Jeremy Hull’s wave. Then I stopped in my tracks as I saw him open the door of a dark blue vehicle that wasn’t quite a sedan and wasn’t exactly an SUV. A dark blue vehicle that had half a dozen bumper stickers on its back end, one of which read THIRTY-SEVEN MILLION ACRES IS ALL THE MICHIGAN WE WILL EVER HAVE.
I stared as Jeremy started the vehicle and drove away. Stood there staring until my feet got cold, stood there a little longer, then slowly made my way to the sheriff’s office.
* * *
When I was ushered to the conference room, I sat in my regular seat. For a moment I debated about walking on the wild side and taking a different chair, but I decided a sheriff’s office wasn’t the best place to start being wild.
I sat and suddenly realized that, once again, I had no book to read. Worse, there was no reading material anywhere in the room. There wasn’t anything, actually, except the table and chairs. A more boring room couldn’t possibly exist. I considered going to the front window and begging for a copy of Law Enforcement Monthly, or whatever their professional magazine was, but sighed and stayed in my seat.
I’d tipped my head back and was staring at the water stains on the ceiling tiles when the door opened. “I’m pretty sure that’s an armadillo,” I said, pointing up. “What do you think?”
“Sorry, but I never thought about it.” Ash Wolverson walked to the opposite side of the table and pulled out a chair.
I scrambled to sit up straight. “I thought Detective Inwood was going to talk to me.”
“He had a phone call.”
“Oh.” I put my hands on my lap. Put them on the table. Didn’t like how that felt and put them back on my lap. Wasn’t comfortable with that, either, and wished they could disappear for a while.