Pouncing on Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

You git before you get any more ideas. Out of here!” He shooed me away.
    “Are you going to pull my boat out for me this weekend?”
    “If you promise to stick to cleaning to that little tub, yeah, absolutely. Just keep your bleach and mops away from here.”
    “Promise,” I said, laughing, and we did a mutual halfway-across-the-room high five to seal the deal.
    •   •   •
    The next few days, I spent all my free time down at the marina, getting the houseboat ready for moving into. Eddie had been giving me the cold shoulder for not giving him enough attention, so on Thursday, out on the bookmobile, I wasn’t surprised to hear Julia ask in a puzzled tone, “What is your cat doing?”
    I was kneeling on the floor, trying to stuff more returned books into a milk crate than the milk crate wanted to allow, so I happily gave up on the task and looked up. Eddie was lying on the bookmobile’s dashboard and managing to take up the entire length of it. His front legs were stretched out Superman-style, hisface was pressed against the dash, his back legs were behind him, and his tail appeared twice as long as it did most days.
    “Dusting?” I suggested.
    Julia lifted one eyebrow. “Wouldn’t he be actually moving if he was dusting?”
    She had a good point. I stood and studied my cat. If the day had been sunny, I might have understood Eddie’s wish to soak up the sunshine with all possible body parts, but it was—once again—cloudy, windy, and wet.
    “You know,” I said, “I’ve never seen him up there like that.” Which was odd, because we’d found Eddie in every other possible location on the bookmobile, and that included the top shelves. “Maybe he just wanted to see if he fit.”
    We stood side by side, watching Eddie not move. I had the sudden and scary thought that he might have had a kitty heart attack while I wasn’t paying attention, but as soon as I had the thought he opened his eyes and picked up his head a quarter of an inch.
    “Mrr,” he said.
    Julia sighed. “If only we understood cat.”
    “Eddie-speak is likely a whole different dialect,” I said, watching Eddie’s head drop back to the dashboard. “I’m pretty sure he’s his own species.” I was about to tell her that I’d considering applying to the science folks to get the name Felis eddicus established before someone else stole it away, when the back door was flung open and someone pounded up the steps.
    “Oh, Minnie,” Phyllis Chambers said, panting. “Have you heard?”
    She reached out to grip my hands, her skin so cold to the touch that I almost flinched. Phyllis was another downstate transplant. She’d moved north from a state government job in Lansing last summer and, in spite of the long winter, she was loving the northern life.
    “Heard what?” I asked.
    “Oh, dear.” Phyllis squeezed my hands, released them, and rubbed her face. Her short hair, a thick and glorious white, was in its normal disarray. She ran her fingers through it, but everything sprang back to where it had been before she made the effort. “Oh, dear. I hate to be the one to bring you bad tidings, but it’s Henry Gill.”
    Julia and I exchanged a quick glance. “What’s wrong with Henry?” I asked. “He was fine last week.”
    “I’m so sorry, Minnie,” Phyllis said. “But Henry’s dead.”
    •   •   •
    That night, Aunt Frances was out with Otto at a wine tasting, so it was just Eddie and me on the couch in front of the fieldstone fireplace. I could have started a fire, and I could have popped a big bowl of popcorn, but instead I stared into space.
    “Did you hear what Phyllis said about Henry?” I asked softly. Eddie had been mostly asleep the entire stop, so I wasn’t sure what he’d heard. “A tree fell on him.”
    I shivered, hoping he hadn’t suffered. Henry hadn’t been the easiest person in the world to like, but part of my job was to learn about my patrons and bring them . . . well, if not happiness