Checked Out

by Elizabeth Spann Craig

  I was deep in my thoughts while I was walking across the parking lot to the library and didn’t hear a voice call my name the first time.

  The second time, I turned around. It was Lisa, the mom who’d taken the tabby cat home with her. My heart sank when I noticed she was toting a carrier that appeared to have a cat in it.

  “Thank heaven,” Lisa laughed. “I was starting to worry I’d gotten your name wrong and have been calling you by the wrong name for half-a-million storytimes.”

  I gave her a weak smile and looked anxiously at the carrier. “Hi, Lisa. Good to see you. How are things going with our little tabby?”

  Lisa looked at my face and then put a hand up to her mouth. “Oh goodness! You thought I didn’t want her! I’m so sorry . . . I didn’t think about how this looked. No, we love her! My daughter thinks the sun rises and sets on her and this little tabby is just so patient and sweet with her. We named her Harper . . . like Harper Lee. I thought she might want to see how Fitz is getting on, you know? Just let her sort of check in with him.”

  I blew out a sigh of relief. “That’s great news. She looked like she was super laid-back, just like Fitz is. Let’s let them spend some time in the breakroom together, since we never acclimated Harper to the rest of the library.”

  I brought Lisa in there with me and she set down the crate while I went out into the library to find Fitz. He was curled up with an older lady in the quiet area and I apologetically picked him up. When I got back in the lounge, Lisa opened the door on the carrier. Harper came tentatively out . . . until she saw Fitz. Then she trotted over and started licking Fitz on his head and nuzzling him. He closed his eyes happily.

  “Aww!” said Lisa, putting her hand to her chest. “That just warms my heart! Look at those two!”

  We chatted about how Harper was doing in her new home while the two cats bumped their heads into each other affectionately. Then, after about ten minutes, Harper gave a trilling meow to Lisa and walked casually into her carrier. Fitz curled up nonchalantly in a sunbeam and promptly fell asleep.

  We laughed. I said, “It looks like Harper had a good visit and now she’s ready to head back home.”

  Lisa said, “We might just spoil her a little bit.”

  I said, “She deserves it! Thanks again for checking back in with us. It was a nice little playdate for both of them.”

  LUNA WAS WALKING BY on her way to break. “So, how’d things go at film club? I’ve been dying to ask.”

  “Didn’t you ask your mom?”

  Luna made a face. “Yeah, but in the mood my mom has been in, she’d probably tell me it was awful just to be contrary.”

  I said, “She seemed to really love it. She even engaged in a discussion about Cary Grant’s different types of roles. And she said she’d try to come back next time.”

  Luna said, “Yes!” and gave a fist pump. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear that. I’ve been at my wit’s end. Seriously. Well, but you know that because you saw how low I was yesterday. Anyway, thanks.”

  “All I did was play the movie,” I said, raising my hands.

  “Oh, I think you did a whole lot more than that, Ann. You selected it, you’ve encouraged a good group to attend. And you made sure to facilitate a great discussion, I’ve no doubt. Believe me, I’m very grateful.”

  I gave her what was apparently an absent grin. Luna squinted and said, “Okay, something’s on your mind. What’s up? Did you find out something?”

  I wanted to talk to her, at least to tell somebody all the things I’d found out today. That Elsie’s death hadn’t been a terrible accident. That Mary had indeed been a blackmailer and had even tried to blackmail Heather. That the person responsible for leaving threatening letters for me might be the person in the town people respected the most. But now the library seemed especially quiet and I knew my voice would carry with the acoustics of the old building. Plus, Luna was about to have her school-age kid storytime since it was the middle of the afternoon. I decided I’d just fill her in on part of it. I leaned in and whispered, “I think I know who my anonymous letter writer is.”

  Chapter Twenty

  LUNA’S EYES WIDENED. “Who?”

  “Apparently, it’s the good doctor,” I said in a wry voice. Unfortunately, my wry voice trembled just a hair, destroying the effect I was shooting for.

  Luna wasn’t fooled by my attempt at sangfroid. “How’d you figure that out?” she asked, hands on her hips.

  At this point, a group of young teens came in the door, allegedly to study. Their joking voices created a nice background noise for our conversation to continue. I said, “Sadie Stewart just told me she saw him skulking around the library around the time I received a letter.”

  Luna made a face. “Well, you know something’s wrong with him right there. Who skulks around libraries? That would have made him look suspicious right off the bat.”

  “He’s probably not accustomed to acting that way,” I said with a shrug. Then I gave a shaky sigh. “It just really bothers me, that’s all. He’s in this position of public trust and everyone looks up to him. And then here he is leaving threatening letters. It doesn’t exactly fit in with his Hippocratic Oath.”

  Luna snorted. “You can say that again. That would be more of a Hypocrite Oath. So, what are you going to do? Confront him over it?”

  At this, I snorted. “You clearly have me confused with somebody else. I’m not the kind of person who confronts people who write threatening letters. I don’t think Nancy Drew would have done it, either. There’s a difference between keenly gathering clues and disseminating information and being foolhardy. But I know what I will do.”

  “What’s that?” asked Luna.

  “I’ll let the police chief know,” I said. And I felt as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. “There isn’t any real evidence, and it’s all just hearsay, but at least he’ll know.” And, I decided, I could fill him in on everything else, too, even if some of it was simply speculation.

  “Right. And then, if anything happens to you, Burton will know who to go after,” said Luna. Her eyes narrowed as if enjoying the prospect of vengeance being wreaked.

  “The only problem with that scenario is it involves something happening to me,” I said. This time, my wry voice had no tremors in it whatsoever.

  “And I know about it, too,” said Luna cheerfully. “Plus, I know I’m going to transfer my mom to another physician ASAP.”

  “I can’t blame you, although it doesn’t change the fact that he’s an excellent doctor,” I said.

  “Sounds like I’ll just be getting in the car and taking Mama on a little drive to the next town over for appointments,” said Luna with a shrug. “Problem solved.”

  Wilson joined us. “Who’s closing up tonight?” he asked.

  “I’m doing it,” I said. “And thanks for reminding me. I probably need to have another shot of caffeine.”

  Wilson arched his brows. “Sleepy? That doesn’t sound like you, Ann.”

  “It sure doesn’t. But I haven’t been sleeping well lately,” I said. “And I had a big lunch today.”

  “Well, get that cup of coffee. And, if you don’t mind, do an especially good sweep tonight of the patrons. Last week I almost missed one who was sleeping in the quiet study area.” Wilson made a face. “That would have been awful if I hadn’t found him.”

  “Waking up in the middle of the night in a silent library?” I asked. “Sounds like my dream come true.” I grinned at them as they laughed.

  Later, I was glad I’d had the cup of coffee, and that it had been a large one. It was only 8:30, and the library was deserted. Usually that wasn’t the case at all—there’d be some high-achieving high school kids trying to finish up an assignment or someone looking for a job on the library computers after working at the job they were eager to leave. Or there’d be a night owl still reading magazines who’d be surprised it was 9:00.

  Tonight, though, there was no one except for me and Fitz. Fitz
was already in nighttime mode after a long day of snuggling with various patrons and being adorable. I was shelving a few books in the stacks and Fitz was on a nearby shelf, keeping a lazy eye on me.

  Suddenly, I felt an icy tingling run up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck rose. This time I didn’t dismiss my worries. I turned around. I was sure I wasn’t alone in the library anymore.

  My second thought was: why was this a problem for me? It was still, technically, library hours. A patron might have been running by to pick up a book on hold before we closed. Or returning a book that was about to be overdue. But I couldn’t convince myself I was overreacting. I remembered Burton had stressed the fact during the self-defense class that it was important to listen to our bodies—to realize when we had a bad feeling about something and trust ourselves. He’d recommended a book to me and I’d put it on my list: The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker.

  Plus, there was the fact that the fur raised on Fitz’s back.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I REACHED FOR MY CELL phone to call the police. Had Kenneth Driscoll decided to come over to the library and confront me in person?

  I fired off a quick text to Burton before I heard a woman’s voice calling. “Ann?”

  I breathed a little easier. It was Louise Stewart. Knowing her, she’d accidentally left something in the library earlier when she’d been in with Sadie and Lynn. She and Sadie certainly had a tough time juggling everything when Lynn had been so upset.

  “Louise?” I called, phone still in my hand.

  When she rounded the tall bookcase behind me, I saw she was holding a gun.

  I froze. Then I said, “Louise, what are you doing?”

  Louise’s face was streaked with tears, but her eyes had a fiercely determined, almost fanatic expression in them that I’d never seen before. As always, she wore her cheerful bright-colored top and pants and chunky necklace, which looked remarkably out of place with the gun.

  “I’m keeping my family safe, Ann.” Louise’s voice was steely.

  “No, you’re not,” I said in as steady and reasonable a voice as I could muster as all the bits and pieces of all the things I knew suddenly fell into place. “What you’re doing is endangering your family. You’re going to have one more death on your conscience and on your record. Instead of being responsible for two homicides, you’ll be responsible for three.” I paused. “And I would have added a manslaughter to boot, but I think Sadie was responsible for Elsie Brennon’s death, wasn’t she?”

  Louise narrowed her eyes impatiently. “This is all your fault, Ann. You’re the one who was snooping around. And the police won’t know a thing about it. They haven’t so far; why would they catch on now?”

  “And you think Burton Edison is a stupid man?” I demanded. “Because let me assure you that he’s not. Maybe he has his hands full right now trying to adjust to a new town and get to know everyone. But sooner or later, he’s going to figure out that you’re the one behind these deaths.”

  “Like you did?” asked Louise. She said it in almost a reasonable voice.

  “That’s right,” I said calmly. Although my head was spinning. I wished I’d put two and two together just a little faster than I did. “Sadie was the road rage driver. We had a complaint from another patron recently about her reckless driving in the parking lot. You mentioned yourself that Sadie made you nervous when you rode with her. Elsie Brennon was not known for speedy driving. And obviously, Sadie takes things a little too personally when someone slows her down.”

  Louise said coldly, “Sadie has a lot going on. She works all day and then picks up Lynn, drives me around, and runs all the errands that she can’t do during work hours. If you think that’s easy, I can assure you it’s not. Sometimes she gets frustrated when people get in her way and slow her down.”

  Right now, I’d agree with her about anything. I just needed to keep her talking. “I’m sure you saw plenty of instances of road rage when you rode with her. And when Elsie Brennon held Sadie up that night, she couldn’t let it go, could she? She followed her out on the rural highway in the dark to make sure she got the message. Did she tailgate her? Honk at her? Whatever Sadie did, it ran her off the road. Because she was trying to get away from her.”

  Louise’s eyes narrowed. “That old woman shouldn’t have even been driving anymore—she was a danger to everybody. She should have been more like me and simply stopped driving altogether. If she’d been a better driver, she wouldn’t have gone off the road.”

  I felt a shiver go up my spine at Louise’s total callousness. To her, Sadie wasn’t the danger. The danger was the person who’d gotten in Sadie’s way and was, in Louise’s eyes, culpable.

  Realizing this same callousness was going to be applied to me if I didn’t keep her talking, I continued. “And then the problem with Roger. What made you decide to kill him? I could tell you were frustrated with his refusal to help support Lynn. That must have really upset you. There Sadie was, doing all this work, all this driving. And Roger wasn’t helping out at all. It wasn’t fair, was it, to make Sadie handle everything? She had her hands full already with Lynn and you and work and the bills. And he was throwing it in her face, wasn’t he? He knew he could get away with not helping because she didn’t have the funds to take him to court to get child support,” I said as I edged closer to Louise, hoping I could get in range to kick the gun out of her hand. I kept speaking to her in a soothing voice. “You went over there Friday night just to talk to him again, didn’t you?”

  “Too bad he wasn’t in the mood for talking, since he had a date.” Now that frisson of anger was back. I was unhappy to note that it was directed at me.

  Louise’s expression was icy. “He didn’t just refuse support. He demanded money from me.” She gave a short laugh. “I’ll give you a moment to figure that out.”

  My eyes opened wider. “He knew about the car accident. He’d witnessed it? Sadie wouldn’t have told him about it. What did he do—try to blackmail her . . . and you?”

  Louise said thickly, “When he threatened me, it was all over. I’d had enough. I’d had enough of his disrespect of Sadie, Lynn, and me. I was tired of his lack of support. And then he had the gall to threaten me? My family?”

  “How did he threaten you?” I asked. I noticed Fitz’s eyes were narrowed and glowing as he stared at Louise from the shelf.

  “He saw what happened with Elsie and Sadie,” Louise said, eyes glittering dangerously. “Sadie had finally gotten Roger to agree to meet her to talk about Lynn and the help she needed. They were apparently going to meet after work at this Mexican place that was on the way out of town. He was a couple of car lengths behind her. Or so he said.”

  I said in an even voice, “Roger told you about this. Sadie didn’t tell you about the accident?”

  “No. I’m sure she’d be devastated to think I knew about it. She hasn’t said a word to me, although I can see with my own eyes how exhausted she looks and how anxious this incident has made her. Roger called me on the phone Friday and said he’d just seen Sadie. He told me in great detail about Sadie’s incident, taking a lot of pleasure in informing me. He had taken pictures and a short video of what happened after the accident. He said he’d tried to force Sadie to pay him not to tell the police about it, but she didn’t have any money. That’s why he called me. He knew that, even though I wasn’t loaded, I had a lot more than Sadie did. He was an opportunist in every way,” spat Louise.

  Where was the cavalry? What was taking Burton so long? I had to keep Sadie talking as long as I could.

  I said slowly, “So you went over to Roger’s house. Despite the fact you don’t drive.”

  Louise shrugged. “Except in the case of emergencies. This was an emergency. I could not let Sadie end up in jail.”

  “You told him you’d bring money. But instead, you murdered him and deleted any incriminating photos or videos from his phone. Because, as Sadie told me, you’d do anything for your family. You said yourself that t
he Stewart women would do anything for their babies. You dote on Lynn and are determined to protect your daughter.” I paused and said with more calmness than I felt as I tried to stall for time, “You’re a lot stronger than you look. I saw you easily swing Lynn up off Sadie’s hip at the circulation desk. You were really adept with that skewer.”

  “I had to get rid of Roger. The blackmail would never have stopped, Ann. He’d have gone on and on until he milked me dry. Until there was no more money for activities for Lynn or any other extras.” She smiled. “I bet you didn’t know that I was on my way to becoming an Olympic javelin thrower until I became pregnant. It was the same motion with the skewer—it was almost like muscle memory.”

  “Unfortunately, however, someone else knew you’d been there and figured out that you must be the one who killed Roger. Mary Hughes had had a busy day. She’d gone over to confront Roger about her own financial issues and saw you and Heather coming and going while she was waiting for Roger to have a free moment to talk to her. And because of those financial issues, she saw a money-making opportunity. She thought she’d attempt a little blackmail. You were an especially good candidate because she must have caught you right after you’d murdered Roger. Heather, on the other hand, had just driven up, tried the doorbell unsuccessfully, and left again. But she really had some dirt on you. What did she say when she entered the backyard?”

  “Not much. She pulled her phone out like she was going to call the police. I just froze. All I could think about were Sadie and Lynn and what would happen to them if I couldn’t help take care of them anymore. Then Mary gave me this mean smile and put her phone back and walked away to the front of the house. I left a moment later,” said Louise.

  I said, “Then, at some point, Mary got in touch with you. Between Roger and Mary, you must have felt surrounded by blackmailers. You must have told her the same thing you told Roger: that you didn’t have any money to spare. But she kept threatening to expose you to the police,” I guessed.