Read on Arrival

by Nora Page

  To Cleo’s surprise, a blush rose on the stern principal’s cheeks. Mrs. K. stammered that of course Cleo was still their moderator.

  “But we’re not reading exactly,” Mrs. K. said, the flush spreading. “We’re, uh, doing things a little differently this month. We’re watching the TV adaptation of Big Little Lies. We’ll be discussing it afterward. Reading the original book is … uh, optional.”

  “Oh,” Cleo said, unable to fully hide her shock. Reading optional for a book club? Working out that logic could hurt one’s head. Cleo didn’t want to try. She needed to get going. The wooden coffins felt as heavy as lead in her pocket. Mrs. K. looked like she wanted out of the conversation too. Simultaneously, they announced that they shouldn’t keep the other.

  Yet Mrs. K. hesitated at the schoolyard gate. “I don’t suppose …” the principal said.

  Cleo could guess what was coming. She raised her eyebrows encouragingly.

  “Would the library have a copy of that book, the actual book?”

  A lesser librarian—and less polite book-group moderator—might have lengthened Mrs. K.’s squirm. Cleo saw an opportunity to promote more than reading. Mrs. K.’s sister sat on the library board.

  “I believe we have a copy,” Cleo said, acting thoughtful but recalling the patron interest in the bestseller, which had sparked again with the TV adaptation. “I know I had it in the bookmobile until recently, when I swapped it out for newer releases. It’ll be in the main library. As you know, we don’t officially reopen for a few more weeks. I’d be happy to track it down, but I am having a bit of difficulty right now.” A few minutes later, Cleo had talked up the library’s renovation plans, pouring on the sweetness before admitting her concerns about hiring Belle Beauchamp as a last-minute consultant. “I’m afraid her ideas could be detrimental to both our main library and mobile library,” Cleo said. “Under her consultations, we’d likely have far fewer books for patrons like you to enjoy.”

  Cleo was relaying Mercer’s rude library insults when Mrs. K. interrupted. “That pompous little man! I’m sure you know what’s best for the library, Cleo. I’ll speak with my sister. I can’t guarantee she’ll do anything. Meg didn’t inherit the family backbone.” Mrs. K. straightened her own spine. Her nose wiggled, which turned into a sniffle and a sneeze that nearly knocked the sturdy principal over.

  “Bless you!” Cleo said as sneezing continued for five more eruptions.

  “Hay fever” Mrs. K. said after an apology. “Ragweed, mold … this is the worst time of year for me.” She rummaged through pockets, muttering about needing a tissue. She came up empty.

  “Here,” Cleo said, reaching in her own pockets. As she was extracting a tissue, a coffin flipped out and landed on the grass. Cleo quickly thrust the tissue at Mrs. K. and bent to pick up the coffin, but when her hand reached the ground, it was already gone.

  Mrs. K. held the distressing object at arm’s length, as if it might reach back and bite. “You got one too?” She dropped it into Cleo’s extended open palm and wiped her hand on her slacks. “Whoever’s doing all this has a sick, twisted sense of humor. It’s a bully, for sure. I do not tolerate bullies—in my school or my town.”

  The coffin felt even heavier in Cleo’s hand. “I got this and another one like it from the kids,” Cleo said. “They found it in the park. Did you find one? When? Where?” Cleo returned the coffin to her pocket, pressing hard on the Velcro flap to seal it in.

  Mrs. K. rubbed the tissue at her nose. “Not me. Iris Hays. She’s subbing for us today in social studies. Probably talking about painting instead, like always. She never sticks to the lesson. She found some awful paper coffin on her windshield. She thought it was a ticket or an advertisement. Then she saw it had her name on it and some cruel message about ‘moldering in her new home.’ Another member of our book club got one too.” A bell rang in the school. Mrs. K. glanced at her watch.

  “Who?” Cleo persisted.

  Mrs. K. exhaled loudly. “You didn’t hear already? Pat Holmes. As if that blessed woman needs more worries. I saw her on the way to work this morning and she’d already gotten herself into a state. She said she was going to call you, Cleo. She thinks you’re some sort of super-sleuth who can solve our problems. I told her to pull herself together. There’s no use getting all worked up by silly superstitions and childish threats. That’s the worst thing to do, in fact. Bullies feed off fear.” She blew her nose loudly and turned back toward her school.

  “I’ll be by to pick up that book,” Mrs. K. called back. “Make sure no one else takes it out first. I want an upper hand on the TV show.”

  Cleo, busy rummaging in her purse, murmured a vague “Okay.” Mrs. K. had reached the school doors by the time Cleo found her phone. It was turned on, Cleo was pleased to see. She often forgot to do that. The trouble was the volume. Mute with vibration notification. Cleo recalled feeling odd sensations earlier that she’d attributed to unease.

  She stood beside the hopscotch grave and saw she’d missed four calls: Three from Pat. One from Henry.

  Cleo listened to the messages, her concern growing with each one.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Cleo! I thought you were hurt, dead even!” Pat rushed at Cleo and embraced her in a hug scented with lemon cleaning fluid.

  “No, thank goodness,” Cleo said, taken aback at Pat’s concern and the rib-crunching embrace.

  Cleo had walked straight to Pat’s cleaning company, a dour cinder-block building on the southwest edge of downtown. Pat had been at her desk, sipping tea, which she’d spilled in jumpiness when Cleo rang the buzzer.

  Cleo couldn’t recall ever visiting the cleaning office. She rarely came to this corner of town, although it was only a handful of blocks from the library. It seemed far away somehow, an odd triangle set apart by an abandoned railroad spur, now taken over by weeds, palms, and thorny vines. Cleo looked around, thinking of her mother’s rule for visiting: Always say something nice. The office appeared to be a former garage, the floor, walls, and ceiling done in solid gray cement. Cleaning rags formed a little mountain in a wheeled cart. Industrial-sized tubs of Lemon Brite Bleach ringed Pat’s desk.

  “What a lovely, open office,” Cleo said, grasping for a compliment. “You have lots of light.”

  Pat tugged her hair back, tying it with a rubber band that made Cleo cringe, feeling the tug to her own hair roots. “Too much light,” Pat said direly. “Too open. Anyone could be hiding out in that weedy mess of a railroad track, looking in at us.” She motioned Cleo in and locked the door behind her. “When I couldn’t get you on the phone, I was worried sick. I got a death threat! I thought maybe you did too, or worse.” Her hands and voice quavered.

  “I’m sorry,” Cleo said. “I had my phone ringer off. I was at the library working and then went for a walk to clear my head.”

  “I wish I could clear mine.” Pat returned to her desk, where message slips soaked in lemon tea. She scooped them up and jabbed the soggy pile over a message spike. “Did you hear? The police let Jefferson go—let him go! Now everyone’s worried. Some of my cleaning ladies checked in, and you won’t believe the things they’re hearing around town: dead frogs, evil omens, death threats, coffins with names on them like I got … It’s not safe out there. You shouldn’t have walked over, Cleo.”

  Pat turned wide eyes to the gravel lot, empty except for a dented white van bearing the company logo: “Holmes Homes: We Clean Your Grime When You Don’t Have Time.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Pat said, turning the “OPEN” sign to “CLOSED.” “We can go over to the house. All of my ladies are out on jobs, and I can forward calls to my home phone. I need to tell you about what I found. You’ll know what to do. The police weren’t any help. They implied that the death threats made Jefferson Huddleston look less guilty. Of all the crazy things.”

  Pat clicked off lights and led the way out the back, across a weedy lawn to a tidy pale-brick rancher. Cleo followed behind, eyes scanning. Everyone getting dea
th threats? The wooden coffins in her coat bumped at her side. She vowed to get them to Gabby right after she left Pat’s.

  Pat jangled a metal ring thick with keys. The backdoor led into a little mudroom, with no mud to be seen, and on to a lemon-scented kitchen. “It’s not glamorous like Dixie’s place,” Pat said.

  “I’m sure I’d much rather be here,” Cleo said.

  Pat offered Cleo a seat at an enamel-topped table and turned on an electric burner ring under a kettle. “Tea? I only have herbal. I know—I’m weird. Caffeine makes my heart race and my hands shake, and you know, I don’t want to tempt fate with my family history of dying young.”

  “Herbal would be lovely,” Cleo said firmly. “Good for your heart too, I’m sure.”

  Pat rummaged through a cupboard, apologizing for the mess, pulling out tea boxes and listing their faults: “too old, too zingy, not so good …” Cleo gazed around the kitchen. Here was a case of a mess apology when none was needed. Pat’s kitchen was spotless and uncluttered to an extreme. The parquet floors gleamed, as did the Formica countertops, maroon with glitter speckles that reminded Cleo of her mother’s kitchen. Unlike Cleo’s counters, busy with favorite cooking tools, books, magazines, and to-do notes, Pat kept only a cookie jar, a vintage seventies Betty Crocker cookbook, and a mason jar stuffed with tightly folded squares of paper. A chalkboard-style label on the jar read “Happy Thoughts.”

  How nice, Cleo thought, watching Pat disparage the tea selection. Pat did have positive things in her life, and possibly even cookies. Cleo set her mind to listing good things in her own life. She was alive, as Pat had pointed out. That was very good indeed. There was Rhett, of course. She loved her cat. Words on Wheels most definitely brought joy. Getting in the captain’s seat was such a thrill. The library—it had been coming along so well … Worries about Belle and Mercer wormed into her happy thoughts. Cleo turned her mind to her family, picturing each loved one, from her sons to her grandkids, her sisters, and cousins.

  And then there was Henry. Her gentleman friend had brought unexpected romance to her senior years. His voicemail explained why he’d gone off with Belle earlier. Belle wanted to toss out some books at the Claymore Library. She wanted his opinion on whether they were “dumpster old,” “thrift store old,” or “worth something.” He’d signed off in dire tones and promised to call Cleo when he got back to town. Soon, he hoped.

  Cleo checked her watch. She took out her phone and made sure the volume was up. She didn’t want to miss him again.

  “Here. Sorry it took so long. My stove is acting up.” Pat put a mug in front of Cleo with a shaky hand. “Sorry again for clogging up your voicemail.”

  “No worries about the messages,” Cleo said, knowing Pat would worry anyway. “I’m sorry about that note. Tell me about what you found.”

  The tea was watery lemon. Cleo swirled the teabag around. The water remained pale. There was no sugar in sight.

  Pat took a deep breath. She’d gone over to the office at six thirty sharp, she said. She’d been searching through her keys—she had too many—when she looked down and there it was, lurking up against the door. “My heart, Cleo! It almost stopped! It’s like you found at Dixie’s. It said, ‘Welcome home, Pat.’ My name was on it! It was addressed to me! It was about this long and looked like … oh, I should have taken a photo.”

  “That’s okay,” Cleo said, although it clearly wasn’t. A chill crept up her neck. The notes Pat and Iris had received sounded like the paper coffins they’d found at Dixie’s.

  “I’m going to stop by the police station after this,” Cleo said, keeping her tone brisk and businesslike. “I’ll ask Gabby if she’ll show me the note. I have some coffins to show her too, I’m sorry to say.”

  Pat gasped. “Oh no! We’ve been targeted, Cleo! Jefferson must have realized we didn’t just drop by to visit yesterday. He’s trying to scare us off. I told the police I was worried about him, but they brushed me off.” Pat hadn’t touched her tea. Her fingernails tapped at the white enamel tabletop.

  “I didn’t get one personally,” Cleo specified, hoping this didn’t seem like bragging. “At least, none that I’ve discovered yet.” She told Pat about the kids finding the wooden coffins in the park and by the florist’s and their report of other kids having them too. “That would explain what your ladies are hearing. People are finding threats around town.”

  The phone rang down the hall. Pat ignored it. “The police wanted to know when I found the note,” Pat said. “The chief got grumpy when I told him it was definitely right before seven.”

  Cleo thought she knew why. “I saw Jacquelyn this morning. She stopped to fuss at me. She wasn’t happy with our visit or with Jefferson volunteering to speak with the police. She was up in North Carolina at a conference and had to fly back to help and find them a lawyer. It seemed like she’d just returned to town. She also said she found Amy-Ray outside Dixie’s house when she got home. If she’s telling the truth, then Amy-Ray was in town early this morning, Jacquelyn wasn’t, and Jefferson was with the police.”

  Pat frowned, putting it all together. “So Jefferson and Jacquelyn will claim they couldn’t have left the notes around town early this morning. That’s convenient! I’m not sure I believe them. Jefferson had his mother’s prescription, and he could have hired someone to leave the notes to cause confusion. He must know people. Students. Mimes. Theater types. Maybe that’s why he was so eager to spend all night with the police and why she left town.” Pat gave a single, firm head jerk, as if she’d just solved the case. Before Cleo could take another sip of tea, however, Pat was contradicting herself. “No. That would be too complex, wouldn’t it?”

  The killing was complex. Cleo mulled the lengthy planning, the escalation of Dixie’s fear. “I wonder about these new threats,” she said. “I assumed the killer hated Dixie.” Seeing Pat’s face crumple, she said, “It’s awful, but it seemed so personal, so tailored to Dixie. Why then leave out coffins for anyone—kids!—to find? Why threaten you and Iris and—”

  “Iris?” Pat cut in. “But that doesn’t make sense. She’s my second choice. My second pick for most likely murderer after Jefferson.”

  “She’s not shy in her dislike of Dixie,” Cleo agreed.

  Pat rubbed her temples. “Yes, but there’s more. I remembered it last night. You said there was sugar in place of Dixie’s medicine? It’s like that book.” In response to Cleo’s querulous look, she said, “Oh, that book. What was it called? The Who-Done-Its read it a couple years back. Remember? The killer was a nurse who replaced the victims’ medicine with saline. It was an awful book. Sorry! I shouldn’t bad-mouth a book in front of a librarian. I wish I could remember the title. Her Last Shot? Bad Medicine? It was before you started giving us book lists of choices.”

  Cleo recalled the book now. “Her Last Shot,” she confirmed. She remembered who picked it too. “Iris Hays chose it, didn’t she? I remember because the group got in a bit of a tiff about it.”

  Pat got up and paced her tidy kitchen. “We’d have to go back through the club records and check for sure, but I think so. Mrs. K. keeps the list. I got myself pretty worked up last night, worrying. I almost called you, but it was past midnight. I got it in my fool head that Iris would be coming for me next.” She straightened the “Happy Thoughts” and cookie jars and refolded an already folded kitchen towel.

  “No,” Cleo soothed. “Why would she target you?”

  Pat pushed back her bangs, her broad brow wrinkled. “I used to help Dixie clean properties she listed. I didn’t have anything to do with hiding the mold in Iris’s house, but she might blame me anyway.” She attempted a smile. “Dixie would tell me I’m being silly.”

  Cleo could see why Pat might worry. “If Iris did kill Dixie, why would she be so vocal about disliking her? A ploy to throw us off?”

  Pat circled the table. “Exactly! She could be doing the same with that death threat she supposedly received.”

  They had more watery lemon tea and
sugar-free cookies that came from the refrigerator rather than the cookie jar. A half hour later, Cleo said she should be going. She wanted to see Gabby, and now she had even more to tell her.

  “Tell her about the book-club book!” Pat said again, as Cleo left. “Be careful, Cleo! It’s scary out there!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cleo met Gabby at the police station. The young deputy drooped at her desk.

  “Sorry!” Gabby said, unsuccessfully covering a full-face yawn. “This is good evidence, Miss Cleo. I appreciate it, truly. I caught a case of the yawns. We were up half the night talking with Jefferson. Then Jacquelyn barreled in with a fancy lawyer, threatening to sue. After that the phones went mad with half the town and beyond calling in threats.” Gabby rubbed her eyes, sparking another yawn.

  The balmy temperature in the station couldn’t be helping with her sleepiness. Cleo extracted the folding fan she carried in her purse, useful in all seasons, from summer sultry to winter overheating. A radiator clanked busily by Gabby’s desk. A fan whirled on a shelf behind the deputy, ruffling her curls and the stacks of evidence bags littering her desk.

  Other than the competing fan and radiator, the police station was quiet. Cleo remarked on the solitude. The chief was out on so-called important business, Gabby reported, likely a late lunch and a nap. Sergeant Tookey was out running down more threats, real and imagined.

  “I don’t see a connection among those who’ve gotten personalized threats,” Gabby said. “Do you?” She slid a handwritten list across the desk to Cleo. It included the postman, an auto-mechanic, a teenage boy, a hairdresser, the sole male member of the Who-Done-Its, and Pat and Iris.

  Cleo couldn’t either, except for the three Who-Done-Its.

  “There are more of those general threats too, like your kid friends found,” Gabby said. “Plus bad omens.” She waved wearily to what she deemed the “superstition” stack at the edge of her desk. “Like this,” Gabby said, holding up an evidence bag, lip curling in distaste.