Chapter 32
I woke to the sound of the alarm. There was no smell of coffee. No country music. I stretched, sighed, and sat up, realizing that not only was I alone, but I’d forgotten to prepare Mr. Coffee for the morning pot. Never mind. It was good to know that just downstairs there’d be coffee, a variety of flavored creamers, and undoubtedly something nutritious and yummy to eat. I’m so darned lucky—and almost as spoiled as the cat.
O’Ryan was missing from the foot of the bed. I hadn’t heard either of his cat doors swing open—but then, maybe hearing doors wasn’t one of my strong points. I felt under the bed for my slippers and after a quick look around the apartment for the cat, stopped at the bathroom to brush my teeth and headed down the back stairs. I knocked at my aunt’s kitchen door. “It’s me, Aunt Ibby,” I called. I know. Who else would it be? But she raised me to be polite.
“Come on in, dear,” came her reply. “It’s not locked. O’Ryan is already here.”
“Pete says we need to be more careful about locking doors,” I scolded while at the same time wondering if I’d locked mine.
“I know. I unlocked it when I went out to get the newspaper off the back steps.” She held up the Boston Globe. “I figured you’d be along shortly since O’Ryan had already arrived, begging for his breakfast. Coffee’s on. Cinnamon buns in the warming oven. Help yourself.”
“I’m so spoiled,” I said, helping myself. O’Ryan looked up from his red bowl, which I could tell contained those crunchy things with salmon-flavored middles that he loves but I hardly ever buy because you have to go to one of those boutique pet stores to get them. “O’Ryan is too.”
“I know. You’re both worth it. What’s on your agenda for this fine day?”
“First of all,” I said, “Pete wants me to ask you if there’s any problem that you know of with the security cameras in the library.”
“Not an actual problem.” She opened her paper to the arts and entertainment section. “There’s a little thirty-second lag on the side door camera, so the time stamp is perpetually out of sync with the others, but we’re used to it. It doesn’t really matter.” She looked up. “Does it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I guess they’ll have their tech people take a look at it. There’s some confusion about who went up into the stacks and who came down.”
“Really? How strange.”
“I know. It is.” I gave a synopsized version of the old woman and the bearded man, and their various journeys in and out, to and from. “Pete says it’s got to be something with the cameras. Nothing else makes sense.”
“I expect he’s right. It’s a very old system. Have a cinnamon bun, dear.” She waved a hand toward the warming oven. “What do you have planned for the day?”
“I’m finally going to interview Agnes Hooper—Katie the Clown. I’m really looking forward to meeting her.”
“I can imagine.” She gave me her “wise old owl” look. “Of course you’ll be concentrating on the anniversary show while working on the Wee Willie connection at the same time.”
“You know me too well,” I said. “I can’t help wanting to know exactly what her relationship with him was.”
“Of course they worked together.”
“Yes, but did she stay in contact with him after the TV careers ended? I’ll be surprised if there isn’t a connection there somehow to Larry Laraby and his collectibles shows. By the way, I just found out that young Howard Templeton’s daddy is a major collector of sports memorabilia.”
“For goodness sake! That might explain why Wallace Williams’ name is on the Templeton’s party list.”
“Exactly. It’s entirely possible, even likely that Wee Willie was still in the collectibles business.”
“Are you thinking that whatever he was looking for up in the stacks was something particularly collectible?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.” I transferred a warm, fragrant bun to an ivy-patterned Franciscan Ware plate, filled my ironstone mug, and joined her at the table. “Rhonda says Templeton Senior paid two thousand dollars recently for a Pete Rose rookie card.”
She did the “tsk-tsk” thing. “Who knew that little pieces of cardboard that kids collected would bring thousands of dollars one day?”
“I know. Like that card Larry Laraby used to keep in the locked case. If it’s really a Honus Wagner it’s worth a couple of million now, according to Marty.”
“I suppose his widow inherited that when Larry died.” My aunt looked thoughtful. “I imagine she must have sold it. I’m sure I would have. I understand she lived very nicely in Palm Beach, Florida.”
“I’m glad she did. It must have been terrible for her, finding her husband’s body the way she did.” Finding a perfect stranger’s body is bad enough. Finding a loved one must be beyond horrible.
“Strange, isn’t it? About those books. The ones around Larry Laraby’s body and then the ones you saw around Wee Willie.”
“Everything about this is strange. And everything seems to be connected to him. To Wee Willie Wallace or Wally Williams.” I shook my head. “I’ve almost given up on my flowchart idea. It’s becoming overwhelming as more and more people get added to the list.”
“Including Howard Templeton now,” she said. “Is there any further research I can do for you? I’m leaving for the library in a little while.”
“I’d like to know a lot more about the high-end sports collectible market,” I told her. “Maybe you could dig around a little and see what comes up.”
“I’ll do that,” she promised. “And you need to get along and see what Agnes-Katie has to offer. It’ll be fun for you to meet one of your childhood favorites in person.”
“I’m looking forward to it—on several levels. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”
“Is Francine going with you?”
“No. This’ll just be an informal meeting between Agnes and me. I need to see how she feels about doing the anniversary show of course—and not so incidentally, I want to hear what she has to say about her co-workers at WICH-TV from the old days. All of her co-workers.” I stood up to leave. “Thanks for the coffee and cinnamon bun.”
“You’re welcome. I’m going to carry the rest of them to the library to share in the break room.” Sly smile. “Dave especially likes my cinnamon buns.” So Marty McCarthy isn’t the only one who finds the security guard attractive!
“Thank you,” I said, not commenting on Dave’s taste in buns. “See you this evening. Have a good day.”
“You too.” She returned to her paper and O’Ryan continued to concentrate on the contents of his red bowl. She’d given me several things to think about. Does a thirty-second delay on the library’s side-door camera mean anything? And how involved in sports collectibles was Willie/ Wally and how does Howard Templeton Senior fit into this puzzle?
Before long I was dressed and ready for my meeting with Agnes/Katie. The weather was October-crisp, cool, and bright. Siri had figured out the best way for me to avoid the Halloween Happenings traffic. There was no humidity to speak of, so my hair looked pretty good and I’d taken special pains with my makeup. I wore new jeans with a matching denim jacket, white silk blouse, and cordovan booties. As the Corvette approached Highland Avenue I felt as though I was a peculiar cross between a skilled and competent field reporter and an excited little girl.
Agnes’s house was what realtors call “mid-century modern,” the kind of home that was popular with families in the 1950s. This was a nice one—white with green trim, carefully landscaped, with a handsome big maple tree in the front yard, red-gold leaves shimmering in the morning sunshine. I parked in the driveway in front of a carport where a bright red VW Bug looked like the perfect car for Katie the Clown. There was a narrow porch with a row of smiling pumpkins lined up on the railing. A straw-stuffed scarecrow-man wearing striped pants, black frockcoat, and top hat sat in a wooden rocking chair. I approached the porch and spotted a real black cat peering at me from the large
picture window often featured in these houses.
Agnes Hooper opened her front door well before I’d had a chance to knock or ring the bell. “Lee Barrett!” she shouted. “I’d recognize that beautiful red hair anywhere! I watch you on TV all the time. I even remember when you were Crystal Moon! Come in. Come in.”
I wouldn’t have recognized her, of course, since she wasn’t wearing a Katie the Clown costume, or Princess Waterfall Raindrop’s face painting, but I would have known that joyous, happy voice anywhere. She enveloped me in a big hug, which I retuned. It felt right. The black cat was named Percival and as soon as I was seated in a vintage Danish lounge chair with its distinctive sculptured oak frame and gray upholstery, he curled up at my feet.
“Percival likes you,” she said approvingly. “Do you have a cat?”
I told her about O’Ryan and how he’d once belonged to Ariel Constellation, the one-time WICH-TV call-in psychic, my immediate predecessor on Nightshades.
She clapped her hands together in a decidedly Katie-like move. “Orion! I’ve often wondered what had happened to him after Ariel’s sad passing. I’m so glad he found a good home.”
I explained how we’d changed the cat’s name from “Orion” to “O’Ryan,” which seemed to us to suit his personality better. She agreed that it did. Agnes was easy to talk to. I told her about Mr. Doan’s plans for a November celebration of the station’s seventieth anniversary, and how we planned to assemble as many as we could find of those folks who, like her, had helped to build WICH-TV into one of New England’s leading independent stations.
“I suppose you’ve located Rob Oberlin,” she said. “I understand he’s still over in Rockport with his beloved horses.”
“He is,” I told her. “He seems to be doing well. He’s planning to join us for the anniversary celebration. We hope you will too.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she said with a broad smile. “Shall I dig out the old clown suit? Big red nose and all?”
“I know the audience would love that. Would you do it?”
“Sure. I can still fit into it too. Fortunately it’s pretty baggy.”
“I remember it perfectly,” I said. “The clown shoes too. Remember when you and Officer Tom went outside and taught us how to cross a street safely? Between the white lines? Only when the light said ‘walk’? You looked so cute in those big shoes trying to follow him with his long legs all the way across Derby Street.”
“Rob looked good in that cop suit, didn’t he?” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “We used to sneak it out of the studio sometimes so he could wear it at a collectibles show, playing a security guard.” She laughed a silvery Katie the Clown laugh. “Eventually he outgrew the suit though. That was the end of the Officer Tom character. I heard they hired another guy to wear it at those shows.”
A young Dave Benson?
“Jerry Mercury hasn’t changed a lot since those old shows,” I told her. “I would have recognized him. His hair is a little bit gray, but his face hasn’t changed very much.”
“Humph. He always worked out. Proud of his body, you know? I bet he had plastic surgery on the face though. He’s older than me.” Oops. Where has happy voice gone?
“Could be,” I agreed, and promptly changed the subject. “Did you know Wee Willie well? I’ve learned that he played a lot of different characters.”
“He did. A good little actor. He would have been a good mime.” She made robot-like motions with her arms. “Athletic, you know? Good muscle control. Too bad he turned out to be such a weasel.”
“You’re right. My aunt says some people are just self-destructive.”
“She’s right. Wise woman, your aunt. Back when the little man was playing Cactus, he and Rob were great pals. That’s how Rob got the security guard gig at those collectibles shows.” She tilted her head to one side—another Katie-like move. “Rob and I dated for a while, even after the shows ended. I remember when he learned about the horses. The beautiful horses that little snake had harmed. Poisoned. Killed one, you know?” She made a “tsk-tsk” sound almost like Aunt Ibby’s. “Rob was so angry. Angry enough to . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence. “But where are my manners? Would you like some tea?”
Chapter 33
It was still fairly early in the day when Agnes Hooper and I finished our visit. I’d enjoyed the time we spent together and I knew that Bruce Doan would be pleased to know that she was truly enthusiastically looking forward to the anniversary celebration. She’d even offered—without being asked—to shoot some promotional teasers in full Katie the Clown costume. “Maybe you can get Rob and Mercury to do the same,” she’d said, “though I guess Rob might have to get a new outfit. Those skinny little jeans of his won’t fit anymore!” She laughed, but not in a mean way. “You say Mercury looks the same, huh?”
“Pretty much,” I agreed, bending to pat the black cat, who was busily rubbing the corners of his mouth along the edge of my booties, marking me as a friend, I presumed—or maybe sending a coded message to O’Ryan. Who understands the language of cats? “Goodbye, Percival,” I said. “I hope we’ll meet again soon.”
“We surely will,” Agnes said, giving me a hug. “It’ll be fun working with you, Lee, and all the people at WICH-TV. Thanks for inviting me.”
As I pulled away from the driveway I waved to the woman and the cat who stood on the porch behind the row of smiling pumpkins. I decided to go to the library and fit in a few volunteer hours before heading for the station. I didn’t want to look as though I was trying to interfere with young Howie’s on-air face time. Anyway, I was anxious to see if my aunt had learned anything yet about the high-stakes sports collectibles market.
Siri managed to lead me to the library with a minimum of stop-and-go through Salem’s near-Halloween streets. (If you’ve never visited my fair city during October—think a combination of Mardi Gras and Dia de los Muertos.) Rolling the Vette into a white-lined space next to Aunt Ibby’s Buick, I looked up at the familiar façade of the brick and brownstone building—once the home of a prosperous ship’s captain, now a place of learning and growing for an entire community. I smiled, spotting the jack-o’-lantern I’d seen in Buck’s report, grinning from a tall window in the kids’ media section. That warm and friendly space had been my home-away-from-home throughout childhood. The row of windows above that gave a glimpse of study alcoves on the mezzanine, my favorite place during high school and college years for uninterrupted concentration on homework, or a quiet getaway for pleasure reading.
The much smaller windows at the top of the building admitted limited light into the stacks—a place that had inspired fear for virtually all of my life, now more than ever. I locked the car and took a deep breath. My volunteer status here would, without question, require that I climb those stairs, move between those narrow, claustrophobic aisles, past those dark spaces beneath the shelves where imagined horrors might lurk.
I squared my shoulders and walked to the library’s side entrance, taking a quick glance toward the camera. The door to the old kitchen bore a new “no admittance” sign—in contrast to the “welcome” mat on the floor just ahead. I went directly to the research desk, where I was pretty sure I’d find my aunt. I was right. She looked up from a bank of computer screens, her face brightening when she saw me. “Maralee, what a nice surprise.”
“I have a little time before I need to be at the station.” I gave a mock salute. “Volunteer Barrett, reporting for duty.”
“Good,” she said. “We can use the help, and look, Maralee. Your official volunteer badge arrived.” She handed me the plastic-coated pin-backed card with my name—Maralee Barrett—in bold letters. “Wear it proudly.” She pointed to two wire carts overflowing with books. “Our return carts runneth over. The library corps kids emptied both of the book drops yesterday afternoon and there hasn’t been time to put all of these away.” She dropped her voice below regular acceptable library level. “We’ve seen a lot more patrons than usual since the rec
ent—um—unpleasantness. I think a lot of it was due to curiosity, but there’s been a nice increase in requests for library cards.”
“Hopefully, some of them will stay with us,” I said. “I’ll just put my jacket in the break room and get busy with those returns.”
The library break room is similar in purpose to the one at WICH-TV, but is much different in décor. The station room is stark, windowless, and utilitarian, with Formica countertops—replete with cigarette burns—odds and ends of chairs, mostly of the cast-off office variety, along with an avocado green refrigerator. The one in the library has brightly patterned draperies and two comfortable love seats and a recliner. A butcherblock table is surrounded by pine ladderback chairs and the refrigerator is of the ice maker, water dispenser, clean white variety.
I wasn’t surprised to see Aunt Ibby’s cinnamon buns displayed in the center of the table in a clear-plastic-covered cake dish beside the Keurig coffee maker. I wasn’t surprised either to see Dave Benson sitting at the table enjoying both.
“Good morning, Dave,” I said. “You’re here early too.”
He stood up. “Morning, Ms. Barrett,” he said. “Yep. The library board gave me some extra hours.” Modest shrug. “They think a ‘uniformed presence’ during the day is a good idea for a while—at least until they catch the guy who killed old Willie.”
I waved an indication that he should sit down, and hung my jacket in the open closet and tucked my purse into one of the cubbies marked “Volunteer.” I faced Dave. “Wow. You can’t work all day and work all night too, can you?”
He smiled his nice smile. “Nope. I’m drawing the day duty for a change. They got another guy for the night shift.” He looked down at a shiny security badge. “I guess the board thinks the uniform makes people feel safer.”
“I believe it does,” I said truthfully. “Speaking of uniforms, I saw a picture of you wearing one at a Larry Laraby collectibles show. How’d that come about?”
“Boy! That must have been an old picture. Yeah. I was just a kid. Laraby had a gimmick at his shows where he put a real expensive baseball card in a locked glass case and he had an armed guard stand next to it.”
Late Checkout Page 19