Murderous Roots

by Virginia Winters

"That lady has something to hide," Pete said.

  "Yeah, or else a very bad temper and a lot of self-importance. She's always been as miserable as sin. Is Brad ready to do the computer work?" he asked as he wheeled out of the parking spot.

  "Yeah, but first he says he needs to know what to look for."

  "He should find out if anything was deleted recently and if he can recover the files."

  After the computers were set up at the station, Adam left, needing food, home and bed. Station house coffee wasn't enough. As he came around the corner of the square, he saw that the diner was still open.

  He had been coming to Lil's since early high school when he was allowed to stay in town Friday evening. The red vinyl booths and chrome stools hadn't changed. The woman behind the counter was no longer Lil but Peg Watson, middle-aged, overworked, and curious. She listened, filed and connected all the gossip in town.

  "Hey, Adam, how's it going?"

  Peg smiled at Adam as she wiped the counter and set a napkin and cutlery in front of him.

  "Not too bad, Peg. Could I have two of your famous chicken salad sandwiches on brown, toasted, fries, glass of milk?"

  "Sure. How's the investigation coming along?"

  Might as well ask was Peg's approach. Raised eyebrows lent a quizzical look on her thin, intelligent face with its dark brown eyes and long straight nose.

  "Coming. What do you hear?"

  He hoped the local network had come up with something about the dead woman that he hadn't heard. Genealogy was one thing but murder usually related to the life, loves, hates, or personality of the dead if it wasn't money.

  "Most people don't understand it. She didn't seem to be the kind of person that would get herself murdered."

  "Were you a friend of hers?"

  "No, I only knew her from here and the library."

  She passed him his food and went to serve some new arrivals. She still made the best chicken salad he had had anywhere, and he had tried it everywhere. He thought about what had she told him. Maybe it wasn't Jennifer Smith who was killed, but the assistant librarian, killed because of the job, not because of her personal life. That made less sense. Who kills an assistant librarian? What was she doing there hours before the library opened?

  "When did you last see her?"

  "Last night. She came in here about ten, had a coffee and some apple pie. She said she was on her way home, but she kept watching the clock. I figured she was meeting someone, but no one came. She left about 10:30pm, as I was closing."

  So that's why Peg was upset—maybe the last person to see Jennifer alive, save for her killer.

  "Was she annoyed?"

  "No, a little...smug maybe, with a funny little half smile on her face. I have work to do, Adam."

  "Yeah, let me have the bill."

  His small house was only three blocks away. When he walked up to the side door, Sam, his cat called from the hall. She wound her soft black body around his legs. Give cats an A in seduction, he thought as he stroked her back. Her food bowl was empty. He fed the cat, called the station—no news—and signed out.

  Chapter Five

  The phone rang at 6:00am. Adam answered, covering his eyes against the early light.

  "Yeah?"

  "Pete. Another break-in at the library."

  "What?"

  Adam sat up in bed, wide-awake.

  "About an hour ago, I think. Nothing gone. Maybe they were looking for the computers."

  "Why? They took the files the first time."

  "Who knows? Maybe they remembered we could recover the files."

  "I'll be in."

  Pete waited for him in front of the courthouse.

  "What time did the alarm come in?"

  Pete swung into the passenger seat and handed him a coffee.

  "The alarm didn't sound. Sometimes those ladies forget to set it," he said, referring not only to the librarians but also to the legion of volunteers who helped in the library and the attached art gallery.

  "Could be. Their alarm lets go if anyone tampers with it?"

  "Supposed to, yeah."

  "Who notified us?"

  "Mrs. Majors, the dentist's wife was walking her dog in the park behind the library and saw the broken window. She called us as soon as she got home."

  The street in front of the library was empty as they pulled into the parking lot. Adam still held keys, so they started at the back at the broken window and searched through the building. It was empty.

  Glass had scattered over the cellar floor from the shattered window, but Adam didn't find any other damage. Perhaps the computers did hold the answer if that was what they were after.

  By the time they finished, an agitated Nancy Webb arrived.

  "What's happened here? I thought you were guarding the library?"

  Enter talking, thought Adam. Might as well interview her now.

  "I need to ask you a few questions."

  A familiar panic come into her eyes. Meant nothing, even the innocent got that look.

  "What sort of questions?"

  She strode into her office and sat down behind her desk. Adam noticed a bunch of those objects that relieved stress: hanging balls to set in motion, worry beads, squeezable beanbags or something. He wondered why she felt the need for so many.

  "When did you last see Jennifer alive?"

  "Wednesday at lunchtime. She took the afternoon off as usual."

  "Why did she take a half-day Wednesdays?"

  A high note of resentment rose in her voice.

  "I have no idea. She worked some Saturdays and took the time off instead of pay. Of course, I always worked Wednesday afternoon, no matter what I needed to do."

  That's odd, he thought. Why make the arrangement if it didn't suit her? She was the boss.

  "Why did you let her take the time off if you didn't want her to?"

  "She was stubborn but useful. It would have taken a full confrontation and perhaps Board involvement to make her change. The Board wanted her to stay on—”

  She turned and stared out the window.

  "They valued her more than you?"

  "I have a five-year contract," she said, swiveling to face him again.

  "When was it up for renewal?"

  "November."

  "Will they renew?"

  "Of course."

  He remembered the gossip and wondered how likely renewal would be if Jennifer were alive.

  "Where were you Thursday night?"

  "You can't think I killed her?"

  She gripped the edge of the desk so hard her knuckles blanched.

  "I have to know, Nancy."

  "I was at a Board meeting of the Historical Society until eleven, and then I went to a cafe with Brian Smith and Elizabeth Whalen. I went home about midnight. Brian dropped me at my door. You can ask him."

  "Thanks, we will."

  He glanced back as he left her. She sat, her eyes blank, her nervous fingers playing over a string of worry beads.

  When Adam returned to the office, Brad was already working on the library computers.

  Brad Compton was a junior officer, just out of Police College, after receiving a diploma from a technical college. He was, by all accounts, a computer whiz but you'd think he was a jock---no glasses, no stash of pens in his pocket. Tall and muscular, his crooked nose, broken in a high school football game, was the most prominent feature on his cheerful face.

  Brad said he would take few hours to recover the files.

  Adam thought it was time to learn a little more about the victim: how she lived, whom she knew, and how much money she had. He began at her house, taking Pete with him.

  Mill Street was in the oldest part of town, running off the square. Fifteen was a cottage—story and a half, clapboard, some peeling paint but not too bad, new roof. Jennifer worked on the gardens last fall, ready for spring. She took care of her space.

  A lane beside the house ran back to a garage behind. Where was her car? There were no car keys on the spa
re set he found in the desk.

  "Did she have a car?" he asked Pete.

  "Yes, a new Buick."

  "See if it's in the garage."

  Inside the front door, he paused again. The scene looked more desolate than yesterday, a little more abandoned. Funny how that always happened, as though the house got sadder the longer it stayed in a terrible mess.

  The front door opened straight into the living room. The over-stuffed easy chairs were overturned and slashed. A sofa was the same. The antique chests and side tables weren't damaged although all the drawers were dumped on the floor. A Federal-style mirror hung above a white mantle over the fireplace. Good stuff, and expensive--what did librarians make?

  Pete said the car was in the garage. Adam told him to search through Jennifer's papers for bank statements or financial records.

  A narrow, steep staircase, closed on both sides, led upstairs. The first bedroom at the top had been hers. A slashed mattress hung off the four-poster bed. Adam examined an overturned nightstand and used a pen to open the lid of a jewelry case. The jewelry was still there, he saw with surprise. Not much but good stuff. The only other room was her office. Aside from the desk, it wore the stage set air of all spare rooms, decorated but not lived in, not as expensive.

  Downstairs, he checked Pete's haul--a passbook from the Vermont Savings and Loan. The balance was $3,520 as of last Monday. No unusual withdrawals. A checkbook, same bank, different account—another damn warrant, he thought. He found a safety deposit box key in the drawer but no record of contents.

  "I'll have to get the bank to unseal the box," Adam said.

  Who had her lawyer been? A stack of business cards in a drawer suggested David Lepine. She seemed to have kept the cards of all the professionals she had used, from lawyer to computer salesperson. When they finished searching, he called Lepine, but he was out.

  He needed more information about Jennifer's private life. Back to Lil's, he thought.

  Over his usual, he asked Peg what more she knew about Jennifer. Not much, she said. Jennifer didn't gossip, at least not in the diner. She thought that the little theatre crowd would know more about her. Try David Mason, was her suggestion.

  Mason's office was an easy walk across the square. It occupied a one-story brick house set back behind a picket fence and a small garden. The entrance to his office was the front door. Mason didn't live here. In the old days, Adam thought, patients used the second door off the porch. The waiting room was full. Could he come back, the secretary asked.

  "We have a very busy office today," she said, her eyes focused on her computer screen.

  Adam insisted, and she ushered him into the presence.

  Mason was the only chiropractor in town, tall and thin, a pencil line of a moustache above equally-thin lips. Not an easy smiler, at least not today.

  "What can I tell you about Jennifer, Detective?" he asked as he stood safely behind his desk.

  "Can we sit down?" said Adam, sitting. The guy needed to understand that this might take some time, busy office or not. "How well did you know her?"

  Mason tapped a pencil on the computer keyboard on his desk.

  "Not too well. She wasn't a patient. She directed in the little theater; I acted."

  Adam noted that Mason was impatient, annoyed and perhaps nervous. Was there something behind the spare statements?

  "How long have you been involved?"

  "What can you mean?"

  "I mean in the little theatre."

  "Oh, about ten years."

  "Was Jennifer always in the theatre?"

  "Yes, she was one of the founders and told you so at every available opportunity. That was why she directed, even though others would have enjoyed it and done a better job."

  Everybody didn't like Jennifer, Adam thought.

  "How did the others feel about her? Did she have any friends or was one group for her, one against?"

  Mason drew himself up sharply.

  "How can this possibly help you? None of these people are vicious enough to crack her skull. Many of them are my patients and I can't talk to you about them."

  The thin lips pursed as he withdrew inside his professional shell.

  "Tell me who they are, Dave."

  "I can give you the membership list."

  "Do you have it here?"

  "Yes, I keep most of my theatre business papers here because I'm the president this year. The cast is small. We are doing Six Characters in Search of an Author, so there were only about fifteen involved altogether."

  Adam read Erin Maxell's name on the roster.

  "Fine. I may have to talk to you again," Adam said as he left the office.

  Chapter Six

  A row of police cars lined up behind the library. Still investigating the scene, Anne thought. She didn't feel quite as weak at the knees as she had after the finding the body when she climbed the stairs to the reference library. While she researched her own family, she hoped to find a little information about the young French woman of the diary.

  The next step would be to look at the census data. She knew the library held copies of local records on microfilm as well as some important early historical documents. Her own membership in Ancestry.com, an Internet genealogy company, would be helpful as well.

  The reference library opened off the same hallway as the art gallery. She waved to Ada Warren and called good morning to her.

  The librarian gave her the diary and showed her the library's collection of microfilmed data. Two hours later, Anne looked up in surprise as the students, and older researchers left en mass. Lunchtime. A good time to work, she thought, as she took one of the vacated microfilm readers.

  She slotted the tape under the wheels and the glass plate of the viewer. Nice, she thought. Brand new, with the automatic printer feature that helped record keeping. She scrolled through the census, one local district at a time.

  Sometimes luck was with her and her family showed up early. Not this time but at the end of the census reel, she found them--Margaret and her children. No man. Either she was widowed or abandoned, or he was travelling. The children came at odd intervals, not the one to two years natural spacing would have produced if the man were around all the time. Two girls and three boys. The early census didn't identify people by name, just sex, age group and race. Only the head of the household was named. The local churches would have some information, she hoped.

  Anne walked in the bright sunshine across the square to Lil's for lunch. The old stone building occupied one corner of the square and David St. Up three stairs, through a heavy door and into a wave of sound: high-pitched voices of teenage girls; a low growl from a table of businessmen; excited chatter from another of elderly ladies. Anne found a stool at the counter.

  "What would you like today?" asked the pleasant-faced server as she poured her a coffee.

  "Bacon, lettuce and tomato, salad, and a Diet Coke, please," said Anne, reading from the menu chalked on a board above the pass-through to the kitchen.

  "Sure. Brown toast?"

  "Please."

  She sipped her coffee, excellent as usual in the States, while she listened to the conversations that drifted her way.

  "Did you hear about the library?"

  "The murder, you mean?"

  "No, this morning. Someone broke in again."

  "Huh. What would anybody steal from the library?”

  "Who knows?"

  So that's why all the police this morning. What sort of evidence could the murderer have left behind? She hadn't seen much.

  A pair of uniformed policemen sat down on the stools next to her.

  "What did Davidson find this morning?"

  "Nothing missing as far as they could tell."

  Anne paid her bill and walked back through the park and down the street to the library. This afternoon she had decided to search the newspaper archive for the ten years between the censuses of 1800 and 1810.

  The Bon Chance Crier, later the Culver's Mills Enterprise had
been founded in 1798 and continuously published to this day, the librarian told her proudly.

  She was happy microfilm existed for the early years. Old newspapers caused her allergies to flare. The librarian took reels for the early years from a file drawer.

  By four o'clock she had about given up for the day when a small announcement caught her eye: a wedding between Marie-Angelique de la Ronde and Michel Beauchamp.

  She wondered if the Beauchamp family had the information and if they would be happy to know it. Maybe Catherine would have some idea.

  She printed a copy of the page and left for the day, looking forward to a bath and a pleasant dinner. She and Catherine seemed to have connected. She hoped they would become good friends.

  Chapter Seven

  Adam left the courthouse that bounded the north side of the square. The white-painted Methodist church dominated the south end with rows of houses, stores and offices in between. The whole thing was picture post-card Vermont.

  Two antique stores, one promising decorating hints, a doctor's office, two lawyers and the chiropractor filled the east side of the square. Erin Maxwell's antique store took up the corner.

  Its window held a cradle, two barley-twist candlesticks, an occasional table and a framed old-Yankee portrait, no decorating hints. The interior was definitely antique store, not junk shop. No tables piled with color-coordinated glassware here, but tidy collections of furniture accompanied by all the appropriate accessories. A row of hanging lamps lit the shop. Erin sat with a customer at the back, at the oval dining table that doubled as a desk.

  Erin was in her early thirties, not tall, and slender. Her sweater, skirt, and pendant combination was just right for the store. He knew that appearances were a little off. He met her when she reported the abuse of a child who attended a swimming class she taught. During the investigation, she shared some of her own past.

  She was born in Burlington to a mother who had married her trucker boyfriend right out of high school. She was the youngest of their five children, born long after any pretense of love and or happiness had gone from the relationship. Bob Maxwell was absent, most of the time and hard drinking, belligerent and abusive when he came home. Although his favorite, from a young age his treatment of her mother angered her. She left to go to school paid for with scholarships and after-school jobs, as soon as she was seventeen. She took a degree in fine arts. She loved antiques, so a legacy from an aunt went straight into setting up in Culver's Mills.