Sitting back, sandwich in hand, I felt an odd sense of comfort. The world changed around us, sometimes at a breakneck speed and sometimes so slow that only rocks understood the long-term impacts. Language, though, moved with us.

“What are you smiling about?” My boss was in the hallway, poking his head in my office. “Got a good joke to share?”

“I’ve already told you the canoe joke, so no. I was thinking about how language shifts over time, how we adapt it to fit our needs.”

“And that made you smile?” Graydon laughed. “You were destined to be a librarian. Or a teacher.”

Since librarians often served as ad hoc teachers, I figured I had the best of all professional worlds. Not everyone would agree, of course, but that was okay. Somebody had to do all the other jobs that needed doing.

Graydon sketched a wave and headed up the stairs to his office, and I continued using my pinky fingers on my phone to work on a more targeted Internet hunt for Charlie Seller, now known as Charles. With the right name and an approximate location, maybe I could—

“Well, there you go,” I murmured.

Charles Seller lived and worked in Kentwood, a town directly south of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He was an orthodontist and, if Yelp reviews were any indication, had a popular and thriving practice.

I sat back and finished my sandwich while I thought about it all. It didn’t take long, and I came up with one big question and a number of possible answers.

The Big Question: Why on earth would an orthodontist with a successful business murder anyone?

Minnie’s possibility number one: He wouldn’t.

Minnie’s possibility number two: He’d coveted the cottage since he was a child and couldn’t stand the idea of Pug and his wife living there year-round and doing who knew what to it.

Minnie’s possibility number three: To get the cottage, as he needed the money, because (a) he’d overextended when buying his fancy office, (b) he was not actually as financially successful as he seemed, (c) he was greedy, (d) he was being blackmailed for cash, or (e) something else I hadn’t thought about.

“Anything else?” I asked. Since I was at the library, and not at home or on the bookmobile, Eddie didn’t answer. At least not that I could hear. Without feline assistance, I had to rely on my own brain, so I went back to Facebook, first to Charles Seller’s business page, then to his personal page, and started looking deeper. At what people had posted. At who had posted. Maybe from all of that I’d glean some bit of information that—