Cat Nap by Claire Donally Page B

of pants in the office.
    At last the denim got reasonably dry, and Sunny resumed her usual office routine. She went online to find a couple of e-mails at the MAX website, but no messages on the answering machine. Drafting replies to the e-mails went quickly—she had templates to deal with all but the most off-the-wall requests. In some cases, she pulled together a few information packets. After that, well, it was pretty much downtime until the mail arrived in about an hour and a half.
    “Well, if you’re going to do it, do it,” Sunny muttered to herself. She hadn’t mentioned her discovery in front of Martin Rigsdale’s office to anyone. Jane was still trying to get her head around how much trouble she was in, and Will was trying to keep himself out of Trumbull’s investigation. And of course, there was the thing that Sunny’s editors always complained about—once she got on a story, she wanted to make it hers.
    Taking a deep breath, Sunny cranked up her local sources database. Dealing with tourists meant providing a surprising array of services for a wide variety of people, including folks from foreign countries . . . and smokers. A lot of those foreign visitors smoked foreign cigarettes, and Sunny had compiled a list of stores specializing in exotic brands.
    Whoever had been keeping an eye on Martin Rigsdale’s place smoked some sort of Russian cigarettes. Where would he or she find the nearest supply?
    She quickly narrowed in with her search. Portsmouth Tobacconists, on the edge of the downtown shopping district, and not all that far from Martin Rigsdale’s office.
    Sunny sat, looking at the address, until the mail carrier finally arrived. She almost snatched the thin sheaf of letters from the surprised woman’s hand, and then said, “Sorry. I was, um, expecting something.”
    At least it wasn’t Andy, the regular guy. He’d have wanted to shoot the breeze for a few minutes. This fill-in carrier merely shrugged her shoulders and continued on her daily round.
    Probably happy to get away from the crazy lady,
Sunny thought.
    Sorting quickly through the few envelopes, Sunny made sure that there was nothing urgent, nothing that couldn’t be handled after lunch.
    Especially the long lunch she was planning. She locked up the office and got into her Wrangler, heading for the bridge to Portsmouth.
    It wasn’t hard to find Portsmouth Tobacconists. They had a large black sign with gold letters, and a window display that even included a couple of hookahs.
    It wouldn’t surprise me to see those down in the East Village back in New York,
Sunny thought.
But do people in this neck of the woods really go in for that kind of stuff?
    An old-fashioned bell jingled as she opened the door and stepped into a long, narrow room furnished with all sorts of smoking paraphernalia and memorabilia. Old cigarette ads, a poster of Humphrey Bogart with his trademark cigarette hanging off his lips, cigarette cases, pipes . . .
    “How may I help you?” a voice came from the rear of the store.
    Sunny tore her eyes from the wild display to look at the young man behind the counter. He was tall and skinny, wearing a black turtleneck that only accentuated his pale skin. Watery blue eyes peered at her through a pair of wire-framed glasses, and the forelock of his long, dark hair dangled down past his eyebrows. He brushed it back with a practiced gesture, smiling at Sunny. “It’s a little much, I know. My dad started this place, and it’s as much his collection as our sales stock.”
    “You sell foreign cigarettes?” Sunny asked.
    The skinny young man nodded, dropping his forelock into his eyes again. “We have a wide selection, and if need be, we can order almost any brand for you.”
    Sunny dug out the crumpled cigarette butt she’d kept in a small plastic bag. “Do you have any of these?”
    The young man’s face lit up with an enthusiast’s excitement. “A
papirosa
!” he exclaimed.
    “A whoosy-whatsa?” Sunny