Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery by Laurie Cass Page A

visit them at Christmas. It works out.”
    We headed to the next stop, chatting idly about topics from Thanksgiving (he and Denise were eating with her extended family, while my parents were headed to my brother’s in Florida, and I was staying with Aunt Frances and an assortment of guests) to the chances of the Detroit Lions making it to the Superbowl (slim to none, we agreed) and the annoyance of political signscluttering up the roadsides a week and a half after the November election.
    “Just look at that.” He pointed through the windshield.
    I glanced at the busy cluster of signs that included people running for a variety of offices, from seats in the US Congress to the state legislature, local townships, and even one for the Chilson City Council. VOTE FOR ALLISON KORTHASE , it proclaimed with a professional design in red, white, and blue. Why there was a Chilson sign all the way down here, I wasn’t sure, but it must have worked, because I remembered that she’d won the seat.
    “It’s as bad as seeing Christmas advertisements after Christmas,” I said.
    “Take another foot of snow to cover up those buggers,” he said morosely. “Bet most of them are still there come spring.”
    I laughed, but he was probably right. “Lunch stop coming up. I usually pull in at that township park, but I’m sure it’s not plowed. There’s that gas station over on the county highway. I was thinking about stopping there. We can use the facilities, and you could grab something to eat.”
    “You don’t have to stop for me,” Roger said. “I’m fine.”
    For the zillionth time that day, I wondered how this laid-back, easygoing, no-cares-whatsoever man had stayed married to the high-frequency, pay-attention-to-my-problems-because-they’re-more-important-than-yours Denise for so many years. But, as my mother had once told me, every marriage is a mystery.
    “Well,” I said, “I could use a break, and we have a little time.”
    I’d cut each stop short by a few minutes, just in case of slippery conditions on the way to the next one, but the roads were fine. One car, a dark blue multi-bumper-stickered SUV kind of thing, had even passed us a few miles back.
    Roger shrugged. “Works for me. I can grab a sandwich, if they don’t look too scary.”
    “Eddie?” I peered into the cat carrier. “Is there anything you want?”
    He opened his mouth to say “Mrr,” but no noise came out.
    “Nothing, you say?” I asked. “I had no idea you could be so accommodating. You’re okay, pal, no matter what Aunt Frances says about you.”
    “Mrr.”
    Roger laughed. “It really does seem like he knows what you’re saying.”
    It was frightening, actually, how Eddie and I could carry on conversations. Almost all of my brain knew there was no way a cat could understand human speech, but I had a few brain cells, tucked somewhere in a back corner, that were convinced Eddie understood everything I said, and even some of the things I didn’t say.
    We pulled into the gas station—with two wide entrances, it was my favorite kind of place—and came to a stop in a vast parking lot behind the building. I went in first, while Roger stayed on the bookmobile.
    In short order, I returned, laden with a bottle of water and a PowerBar, because I would have felt guilty about using the restroom without purchasing something. I clambered up the steps and said, “It’s colder over here. Wind’s up, too.”
    “Told you,” Roger said. “Chilson’s the banana belt. Warmer near the lake and all that, just like they say.”
    The weather folks said it was cooler near Lake Michigan in the summer, when that great mass of water acted as a big refrigerator, but in the winter the big lake kept the lakeshore warmer than the rest of the state. Not always by very much, but every degree counts, especially in January.
    Roger gave the side of Eddie’s face a scratch, stood, and zipped up his coat. “I’ll just be a minute.” He took two steps, then stopped,