by Nora Page
She told Leanna about it. “I saw that drawing, and Iris went up a notch on my suspect list. But then she found a coffin in the bookmobile, and she was hurt. She wouldn’t have done that to herself.”
Leanna flipped the page. “Gabby asked who had access to the bookmobile earlier in the day.” She pressed hard on her pencil and wrote “Belle Beauchamp” across the top of the page. She underlined the name twice and highlighted it in pointy stars.
Cleo drew a breath. It was true. Belle had been in Words on Wheels alone a few times during their long morning together, when Cleo was chatting or running a book in to a patron. Belle had gone to the back when they were returning to town too, presumably upset over Cleo’s questions about Dixie and summer camp.
“Then you went home for lunch?” Leanna prompted.
Cleo smiled at her young colleague. “Yes. I went home, had leftover quiche, and took a tiny nap on the sofa with Rhett.”
“How tiny?” Leanna asked, pencil poised over the page. Cleo thought her protégé was both an excellent librarian and a natural detective.
“More than tiny,” Cleo admitted. “It was probably forty minutes or more. I was nearly late getting over here.” She sighed, thinking she should have kept on napping. She and Words on Wheels could be safely home.
“The bookmobile was locked,” Cleo said before Leanna could ask. “But …” She always felt safe parking Words on Wheels in her driveway. “The front window was open,” she admitted. “It would have been easy enough for someone to break in.” She pictured a faceless, formless prowler slithering in while she and Rhett snoozed, oblivious, not far away.
* * *
“You’re the best statement-givers I’ve had all week,” Gabby said, when she returned to find Leanna and Cleo bearing written lists and time lines. “We’ll get Words on Wheels back to you as soon as possible, Miss Cleo. I called you a ride.”
Cleo took calling a ride as a not-so-subtle hint that they should leave. She hated to abandon her bookmobile.
Gabby escorted them to the gate, grumbling about the crowd of gawkers and “that pesky reporter.”
“I love the press,” Gabby said, “Don’t get me wrong. But that guy can make anything sound extreme and scandalous.”
Cleo dreaded what he’d write about the attack on her bookmobile. Her dread swelled when she noticed he was chatting with Belle. Gabby was saying their ride should be here anytime.
“We can walk,” Cleo said. It was only a few blocks and fresh air might clear her head.
Gabby grinned. “I think you’ll enjoy the chauffeur service I called.” She raised her chin, nodding beyond the crowd to where a station wagon was jolting to a stop. Henry jumped out, spotted them, and waved.
Cleo and Leanna hurried to the waiting car. Cleo had just gotten in and locked her door when the young reporter’s flushed face appeared at the window. He tapped at the glass and yelled his questions when she didn’t roll down the window.
“Cleo Watkins, a statement? Did you find another body? Were there omens you ignored? What do you say to those who call your bookmobile cursed?”
“Words on Wheels, cursed?” Cleo said with a huff. Her finger flew to the automatic window button. “Why, I have half a mind to—”
“Hold that thought!” Henry said, snapping on his seat belt. The station wagon wheezed to life. Henry hit the gas and the horn simultaneously, and they were off with a jolt. After an initial burst, Henry returned to his typical tortoise speed. He apologized for the possible whiplash. “I thought you might like time to consider your statement to the press.”
From the backseat, Leanna chuckled. “I’d have enjoyed hearing it.”
So would the reporter. Too much. Cleo reclined her seat a few inches and thanked Henry. He dropped Leanna off first and idled in her driveway until she was safely inside.
“Where to, madam?” he asked.
Home, Cleo thought. She always loved returning to her comfortable house and Rhett. She could invite Henry in, and they could sit on the porch and talk about topics other than smoke bombs, bullies, and murder. But she couldn’t. “I should go over to the hospital and check on Iris and Pat,” she said. “I feel responsible as head librarian and bookmobile captain. If you could drop me off at my driveway, I’ll get my car and—”
Henry did something she’d never seen him do. Slowly, cautiously, and not at all gracefully, he looped the station wagon in a wide U-turn.
* * *
“They’re kicking me out already,” Pat said. Cleo and Henry found Pat sitting on the edge of an exam table in a cheery yellow room. She wore a hospital gown, wrapped and tied up tight.
“That’s wonderful!” Cleo said. “You didn’t think anything was wrong, and now it’s confirmed.”
Pat sighed and scraped back her bangs, half of which remained swooped up in a cowlick. “Yes,” Pat said, sounding glummer than she had at the scene of the smoke bombing. “There’s nothing new wrong with me today, but who knows about tomorrow?”
“No one knows about tomorrow.” Pat’s doctor swept in, chart in hand. Doc Bliss lived in Catalpa Springs, and Cleo knew him as a fan of thrillers, biographies, and historical fiction. He flipped pages of the thick chart. ‘Check, check, and check again. We have done every test, so you will be more than thoroughly checked out, Mrs. Holmes. One of these days, I’ll prove to you that you’re in fine health, for a woman of your age, of course.”
Pat scowled.
“You’re fine,” Doc Bliss reiterated.
“If you say so” Pat muttered.
“Get dressed.” Doc Bliss had the chiseled-chin handsomeness of a fifties film star. He bestowed a gleaming smile on Pat, which she missed by studying her socks. “Your friends are here to take you home. You’ll feel better there. Call me if anything serious comes up, okay?”
He left with an efficient swish of his white coat. Henry tactfully waited in the hall while Pat got dressed. Cleo stayed on the other side of the curtain and kept up a happy chatter. “It’s good to be checked out, just to be sure,” Cleo said. “Peace of mind.”
A scoff came from behind the curtain. A minute later, the cloth whipped open, jingling on metal rollers. Pat stepped out. A smoky smell stuck to her clothes. “Doc Bliss doesn’t know if I’m actually okay. How could he? He barely listened to my lungs and refused to X-ray my wrist.” She gave a little cough as if to prove he’d missed a dire disease. “He doesn’t take me seriously. I came in for some blood work last week and saw my chart.”
“Oh?” Cleo edged toward the door, hoping to encourage Pat to follow.
“It was in this same room,” Pat said. “Doc stepped out so I looked. You know what he’d written on the very first page of my record? ‘Chronic complainer’! Underlined!” Pat stuffed her socked feet into worn sneakers. “Sorry,” she said. “I am complaining, aren’t I?”
Cleo bristled for her sake. “No, you shouldn’t be sorry. That was a rude note.”
They met Henry and tried to check on Iris, but a “Do not disturb” sign dangled from her door.
“I didn’t know they had those kinds of signs in hospitals,” Henry chuckled.
“Leave it to Iris to get one,” Cleo said.
Afternoon light was sinking away by the time they got Pat checked out. Cleo tried to get Pat to sit up front, but she declined. “I can stretch out back here,” she said. “I’ve already interrupted your afternoon together.”
“Nonsense,” Cleo said gently. “Henry and I were worried about you. Did you happen to remember anything else? Any other folks who came in the bookmobile?”
Pat said she’d given that some thought. “The gym teacher popped in. A bunch of kids. Little kids. I don’t think they’d have a smoke bomb! Some parents. Iris and me, of course.” She leaned forward between the seats. “But there’s something else. Just before the smoke went off, I heard whistling. I looked out and Jefferson and Jacquelyn were going by. I didn’t see them come inside, but anyone could have sneaked in before, when you were busy setting up o
r looking at the other stands.”
Henry pulled up to Pat’s property. The cleaning office and house were dark. The abandoned railroad tracks seemed weedy and wild. “You’ll be okay?” Cleo said. “Is Albert home yet?”
He wasn’t, but Pat said she’d be fine alone. “I’m used to it. You two go and enjoy your evening.”
Cleo tried to follow those instructions. She and Henry stopped by his shop and picked up Mr. Chaucer, and then they all gathered in Cleo’s kitchen for a comforting dinner of leftover chicken casserole. They watched a mystery on TV, the pleasant kind set in a distant time and place. Everyone, from pug to cat, to Cleo and Henry, ended up falling asleep. Around midnight, Cleo awoke with a start. Henry was still fast asleep, his dog at his feet. Cleo drew a soft blanket over Henry and a smaller throw over Mr. Chaucer. She and Rhett went upstairs, Rhett’s tail at tall sail, happily anticipating bed. Cleo’s thoughts sunk low, to her bookmobile and Dixie and a criminal as elusive as smoke.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Ooh … good morning to you two!” Mary-Rose twinkled at Cleo, surprising her. Cleo’s best friend sat on the porch swing, the Catalpa Springs Gazette open on her lap, a pie carrier at her feet.
Cleo was in her fluffy bathrobe and slippers. Henry wore the same outfit he’d come to dinner in the night before. It was just past seven, and he was stepping out to walk Mr. Chaucer. The pug waggled his back end at Mary-Rose. Cleo affectionately chided her friend for again failing to ring the doorbell.
“I must have sensed you had company and knew I should wait for a discreet time to knock,” Mary-Rose said with a chuckle and a wink as man and pug scuttled down the front steps.
Cleo informed her friend that Henry and his dog had been chivalrously guarding her by falling asleep on her sofa.
“You’re in good hands,” Mary-Rose said. “I was mainly waiting to knock because I wanted you fully rested.”
“That’s nice,” Cleo said, distracted. She tilted her head to get a better view of the pie. “Is that what I think it might be?” Toasted marshmallow floated like heavenly clouds. The crust appeared to be either graham cracker or gingersnap.
Mary-Rose confirmed Cleo’s mouthwatering suspicion. “S’mores pie. It goes beautifully with coffee. Perfectly appropriate for breakfast. We’re all adults. We can enjoy pie for breakfast if we want.”
Cleo’s joy quickly soured. She frowned at her friend. Why was Mary-Rose being so generous with sugar and pushing pie for breakfast? Cleo flashed back to Mary-Rose’s gift of pecan jam. She’d brought that the morning after Dixie’s death, treatment for Cleo’s shock.
Cleo inhaled sharply, a hand flying to her mouth. “Did someone die? Iris, is she okay?”
Mary-Rose calmly folded the newspaper. “I assume she’s fine. She survived the toxic mold. She can take a little knock on the head.” She tucked the paper under her arm. “Let’s go inside. Best you read this before Henry and that adorable little dog get back. You might say something unseemly.”
The coffee pot burbled, and Rhett purred happily on Mary-Rose’s lap. Cleo read, growing increasingly unhappy. Before Henry’s return, she had indeed thought many unseemly things and tossed the newspaper in the recycle bin, the polite alternative to crumpling it up, stomping it with her slipper, and shoving it in the trash. By the time Henry and Mr. Chaucer returned, she’d reconsidered and fished it back out.
“Why, this is nice,” Henry said, eyeing the plates of pie. Mr. Chaucer beelined for a dog biscuit that Cleo put out. Rhett hopped down to demand a second breakfast, which Cleo indulged. If she was having a giant slab of chocolate pie, he could have another spoonful of Tuna Delight.
Cleo let Henry settle in, unfold his napkin, and enjoy a sip of coffee before she started sputtering. She slapped the paper on the table and pointed, turning away as Henry read.
“ ‘Bad-Luck Bookmobile Strikes Again?’ ” Henry read. “ ‘Librarian questioned in prior death on scene of bookmobile bombing?’ Oh dear …”
“You can say that again,” Mary-Rose said. She stabbed a hunk of graham-cracker crust. “You could sue that young man for libel, Cleo. Or take the high road and ignore it all, which I’m sure I personally wouldn’t do, but would recommend. In any case, no one will take this seriously. Catalpa Springs is a town of sensible people who know and love you.”
Sensible folks who’d sunk into superstition and fear, Cleo thought. She ate more pie and allowed herself a moment of self-pity wallowing. It was hard to maintain, given the pleasant company and sweet treat.
“I shouldn’t complain,” Cleo said. “There are certainly worse things happening around town.”
“So true,” Mary-Rose said. “Murder, threats, those awful paint colors in the library, although I did peek in the other day, and there’s a peach color I rather like.” Henry had put the paper down. Mary-Rose scooped it up. “No need to worry about the rest of this. In fact, don’t even bother getting yourself a copy. No news is good news …”
“What is it?” Cleo asked, suspicious.
Mary-Rose pushed the pie platter in Cleo’s direction. “You might need another slice.”
* * *
By eight thirty, Cleo had called five library board members, ignoring her mother’s rule of never telephoning before nine a.m. She dispensed with Aunt Audrey’s approach of starting with sweetness too. Cleo went straight to the cold-hitting facts, countering the most shocking statements in Belle Beauchamp’s newspaper interview.
“A public library cannot—should not and will not—have a first-class, paid-membership reading lounge,” Cleo said, this time speaking to Mercer Whitty himself. She’d uttered versions of this sentence to other board members. Repetition hadn’t dulled her outrage.
“A minor misquote, I’m sure,” Mercer said. “In any case, it shows that Belle thinks outside the box. Who’s to say our patrons wouldn’t want a special reading room, an elite book lounge, as she called it?”
Cleo calmed herself by counting the cookbooks lined up along her kitchen counter. Sixteen. Rhett lay on a windowsill, his tail twitching at a bird outside the window. Mary-Rose, Henry, and Mr. Chaucer had returned home to “give Cleo space,” as Mary-Rose put it.
“We already have a special reading room,” Cleo managed to say without grinding her teeth. “We have the lounge area by the magazines and the historical research room containing special collections. Any patron can use those areas. A public library is free for anyone to use.”
“Awfully literal this morning, aren’t you?” Mercer grumbled. He was the only board member who’d sounded sleepy when answering the phone.
“I’m putting my foot down,” Cleo said, stomping her slipper for no one but Rhett to see. Her cat threw his ears back. “Belle shouldn’t have spoken for the library. We will also not be selling off books of a certain age, tripling our late fees, or outsourcing fine retrieval to a collection company. I’ll be contacting the newspaper and clarifying all these points and more.”
A yawn responded from Mercer’s end. “You should speak with the newspaper, Cleo,” he said. “I’m just looking through this week’s edition right now. You’re upset with Belle’s enthusiasm? I’d suggest you start presenting a better image yourself. Why, just listen to this line, ‘Murder-suspect librarian refuses to comment, hides from camera.’ It’s not a very flattering photo either. If you ask nicely, maybe Belle will help you with some image rebranding.”
He hung up. Cleo fished the paper from the recycling, crumpled it page by page, and stuffed it in the trash.
* * *
“Think of it as a barbeque ambience,” Sergeant Earl Tookey said. The first-prize winner of the southern Georgia regional smoke-off leaned back against the dashboard of Words on Wheels. Cleo had just gotten dressed and had been contemplating a third slice of pie when she heard a beloved horn honking outside.
Now she sniffed her way up the aisle of her bookmobile, her nose wrinkling. Rhett sat in the driver’s seat, meticulously cleaning his claws.
Tookey sighed
wistfully. “It would be a far nicer aroma, of course, if it were a hickory, peach, pear-wood combo with whole hog involved.” He dug into a bag of hickory-smoked potato chips, took out a handful, and crunched.
Cleo reminded herself to be grateful. Iris was okay. Tookey had confirmed that the artist was getting out of the hospital this afternoon, if she hadn’t left already. Pat’s wrist was only bruised. Cleo had called her earlier. Plus, her bookmobile was back! Other than the lingering smell and a smudge on the back of her driver’s seat, the vehicle and its contents seemed fine. “Is this where the smoke bomb went off?” she asked, pointing to the smudge.
“Yep,” Tookey said. “It had a timer, a simple digital thing, like you’d use to time a roast.” There was no way of knowing when it was set, he said, and no fingerprints to give away who’d left it.
“Why Words on Wheels?” Cleo said, not expecting the sergeant to know the answer. It was inexplicable. Who would target books?
He munched some more chips, eyes glazing over. Cleo suspected he’d gotten lost in food appreciation, but then he said, “Escalation? To spread more fear? We looked through that shelf over there.” He pointed his chip bag in the direction of the shelf Cleo had stocked with autumn-themed books. “A few books had those coffin threats in ’em. I don’t doubt we’ll be getting reports from folks who checked out books. You might be too. That new newspaper reporter will probably be calling you as well.”
Cleo looked around her beautiful bookmobile, wanting the bad air out. She reached for the nearest window, tugged it down, and moved on to the next. Tookey hurried to help. Cleo couldn’t chide him for getting greasy potato-chip fingerprints on the glass. The entire bus would need a good airing and scrubbing.
The sergeant was heading back to work when he turned and gave Cleo a little grin. “This isn’t official advice, mind you, but you should air this vehicle. Take her on a spin on the open roads. Windows down, a bit of speed …”