Read on Arrival

by Nora Page

  Cleo didn’t feel at all sunny. She didn’t even feel like breakfast. “I want to call Gabby,” she said. Her eyes prickled. Had she put him at risk with her detecting? Had she drawn the killer’s attention?

  “Okay,” Henry said gently. “Let’s call. But I’m sure it’s fine.”

  Cleo dug out her phone. She’d turned it off last night in the police station, after fielding calls from concerned friends, family, strangers, and the newspaper reporter.

  Henry bustled around his workshop as they waited for the phone to go through its succession of lights and sounds. A photo of Cleo’s grandchildren filled the screen. She pressed the phone icon, but before she could call, she noticed her voicemail.

  “Six messages,” she said, easing herself down into a low-riding armchair.

  “Probably congratulations,” Henry said, still in stiff good humor. “Like those ladies walking this morning.”

  “It’s Mary-Rose,” Cleo said. “From this morning.” Mr. Chaucer came over and leaned on her leg. She reached down and patted his forehead wrinkles. He panted up at her with worried eyes.

  “Mary-Rose found a coffin too!” Cleo said when her friend’s voicemail ended and the system droned on, giving the time and date of the next caller. Cleo kept listening. After the next caller, she gestured for Henry to bring a pencil and paper.

  When the calls were done, she tallied up the list. “Mrs. K., the principal, got a threat. So did Iris and the male member of the Who-Done-Its and Pat too.” Cleo tapped the pencil to the notepad anxiously. “The last message is from Gabby. She’s already heard about the coffins. She wants to know if we know anything.” Panic rose in Cleo, thinking of her friends, her book group, and Henry, all targeted. “We don’t know anything,” she said morosely. “We’re no closer than when we started.”

  “Now,” Henry said softly. “That’s not true. We know Belle Beauchamp didn’t leave these notes. She won’t be meddling with your library anymore either.”

  Cleo hardly felt soothed, even when Henry made a sweet offer. “I’ll go pick us up some scones and cinnamon rolls to go. Stay here and call your friends back.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m locking the door and leaving the guard dog.”

  Mr. Chaucer put his wrinkly head on Cleo’s shoe and whimpered.

  * * *

  “There was a line at the bakery counter,” Henry said, backing in the front door with two paper bags and a tippy cardboard holder with two coffees. He smiled when he turned around and noticed Gabby. The deputy had come over to pick up the evidence and check on Cleo. They sat in the front room in velvet armchairs, books all around. The little coffin, tagged and sealed in an evidence bag, lay on the low rectangular coffee table in front of them.

  Gabby slid it to the far side of the table, going a step further to hide it under her coat.

  Cleo could still feel its hateful presence.

  “I called Mary-Rose,” Cleo told Henry. “Her note had her name on it too. ‘You’re a goner, go away,’ it said.”

  “Childish,” Henry declared. He laid out napkins and antique dessert plates he retrieved from the back. “Coffee?” he asked Gabby, after handing Cleo a cup with her name spelled “Cloe” and “cream, no sugar” scrawled in ink across the side.

  Gabby thanked him but declined. “I’m swimming in coffee. We were up half the night again.”

  Henry ripped open the bags to reveal the goodies inside. Cleo counted half a dozen cinnamon rolls and four scones. “Savory and sweet scones,” Henry said. “Pimento cheese and ham, and then there’s white chocolate, sour cherry, and pecan. I thought we needed some good thinking food.”

  “I should be a genius by now,” Gabby said. “I keep crashing your breakfasts.”

  “We’re glad you’re here,” Cleo said. She thanked Henry for his thoughtfulness and gave a savory scone her proper attention. Henry and Gabby went straight for the iced cinnamon rolls. Bakery scents filled the bookstore. Mr. Chaucer ambled up his ramp to enjoy the view from his window-seat pillow.

  Cleo waited until everyone had had a few bites. “Well, did she confess?” she asked. She didn’t feel she needed to specify who.

  “Nope,” Gabby said, licking a dab of icing off her finger. “In fact, Belle snapped out of that glazed look and sharpened up by the time we got her to the station. She called a lawyer down from Atlanta. We all stayed up waiting for him to arrive and instruct her to say nothing.” Gabby sighed. “Before all that, though, Belle insisted up and down that she was innocent and had no reason to hurt Mercer Whitty. As I understand it, he was paying her a pretty penny to consult for you all. Why would she stab the golden goose?”

  “Anger?” Cleo suggested. “Mercer might have nixed some of her ideas for the library.”

  Gabby raised an eyebrow. “Do you think she felt that strongly about the library? I know you and Leanna do, Miss Cleo—and rightfully so,” she added quickly.

  “Belle felt strongly about her career and image,” Cleo said, trying to remember Belle’s exact words. “She was picked on by Dixie and other popular girls. Although she remade herself to be like them, she still must have felt insecure. She might have snapped if Mercer touched a nerve, which, bless his heart, he did tend to do.”

  Mr. Chaucer snored, jolting himself awake. The little pug rose, turned in a circle, and flopped down as tightly rolled as a cinnamon bun. Gabby smiled at him. “The chief’s adamant that we have our woman—for both murders. According to him, the notes are a separate issue. Someone with a cruel sense of humor. Maybe even a kid. He wants me to go question some teenagers today. That should be fun.” She took another cinnamon roll.

  “See?” Henry said. “Kids! Nothing to worry about.”

  “Do you believe that?” Cleo asked her deputy neighbor.

  Gabby chased down bits of icing with a plastic fork, delaying. “Not entirely,” she said quietly, after a long pause. “It feels wrong somehow.”

  “The murders are different,” Cleo said. “One was elaborately planned. The other seemed spur of the moment. What if we have two killers in town, and Dixie’s murderer is still out there?” She reached for a cinnamon roll but didn’t feel comforted. “You should stay at my place again tonight, Henry,” she said. “I haven’t received any notes, and I live next door to an armed deputy.”

  Gabby rose, grinning and adjusting her belt of police gear. “I encourage that in any case,” she said with a wink.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Police tape crisscrossed the library door. Cleo stood on the walkway later that afternoon, staring at the unhappy yellow ribbon. Leanna paced the porch. She peered in windows as she went.

  “When can we get back in?” Leanna asked. She paused outside the reference room, clutching the collar of her vintage coat, a wooly plaid of reds, oranges, and olive green.

  For once, Cleo wasn’t eager to return to the library. “Tomorrow at the latest, Gabby said. They might keep the reference room roped off for a bit longer, but that’s fine by me.”

  “Fine by me too,” Leanna said, resuming her pace. “Poor Mr. Whitty. I feel bad. I thought ugly things about him before he died. The police asked me about that. They wanted to know about the staff retreat at his house and if I was upset with him. I had to admit I was. I didn’t want to lie.”

  “They asked how you felt?” Cleo asked. “The chief didn’t sound suspicious of you, did he? Did he tell you he empathized?” Cleo went up to join Leanna on the porch. She glanced into the nonfiction section, where neon paint samples still dotted the walls.

  Leanna cupped her hands to look inside too. “That paint!” she said, stepping back. “The chief told me he’d seen the color samples on the wall and understood why we all would be feeling ‘unstable,’ as he called it. He asked whether you and I were upset about the stuff in the newspaper too. But that was all Belle, not Mercer. I told him I couldn’t speak for you but that Belle and I had different philosophies of library science.” She raised her chin defiantly. The firmness withered as she admitted, “
This sure isn’t the way I wanted to get our library back …”

  “Me either,” Cleo agreed. “You should go home and rest. There’s nothing we can do here for now.”

  Leanna said she had a research paper she could work on. “But what about Words on Wheels?” she asked, brightening. “The bookmobile isn’t off limits. We could set up shop by the park.”

  The bookmobile was still off-limits in public perception, Cleo feared. It smelled of smoke, and word of the continuing coffin threats had spread around town. She’d heard whispers when she stopped in at Dot’s Drop By earlier. Patrons who were usually friendly had shied away from her and avoided eye contact. One of her libraries was a crime scene. The other was bad luck on wheels.

  Cleo patted Leanna’s arm. “I think it’s best if Words on Wheels doesn’t go out today, out of respect for Mercer. I have a few home deliveries. Those folks will be happy to get their books. I’ll take my car since it’ll just be a few bags of books and audio materials and some returns.”

  Leanna scuffed her shoes, shiny flats with ribbon bows that reminded Cleo of Mercer’s bow ties. “We’re still at the mercy of whoever keeps leaving those coffin notes, aren’t we?” She managed a twist of a smile. “Promise me you’ll be careful when you’re out? That’s the most important thing. You’re my only family, Miss Cleo. Well, you and Rhett too.” She flushed at the sentiment, gave Cleo a hug, and hurried off.

  Cleo lingered, a tear stinging her eye as she thought of all she held dearest and feared losing the most.

  * * *

  “Garlic wards off vampires and the evil eye,” Mary-Rose said, pointing to a full-page illustration of oversized garlic cloves and toothy bats. “We should make some garlic necklaces, Cleo. I’m sure you have some string and a needle we could use. Oh, and look—burying onion peels in my garden will make me prosperous, and burying bourbon will keep rain away from a wedding. I wouldn’t bury good bourbon before a wedding.” She turned another page in Amy-Ray’s copy of Luck and Lore.

  Cleo yearned to tell Mary-Rose that her library copy of Luck and Lore had finally been returned. However, the police had sworn her and Henry to silence. They wanted a clue few others knew about, something to test the veracity of witnesses and suspects. Cleo had reluctantly promised. She couldn’t break her oath, even though she saw no harm in telling her best and oldest friend.

  Mary-Rose flipped more pages. “Ah, here’s something on gris-gris spells and hexes. One of the ladies from the church auxiliary was just saying, she knows the cousin of a bona fide gris-gris practitioner down in New Orleans. She said we should get the gris-gris expert up to do a good-luck spell, but then there was another auxiliary lady who said …” Mary-Rose chatted on. Cleo’s friend liked to know things and pass that knowledge on. Cleo decided maybe it was for the best that police orders forced her to keep a secret from Mary-Rose.

  Cleo kicked off her shoes and rested her socked feet on the edge of the solid wooden coffee table. They were on her porch, enjoying the night songs of a mockingbird. The squeak of her front gate momentarily interrupted the melody. Henry had gone out for an after-dinner walk with Mr. Chaucer. Was he back already? Cleo waited for the little pug to appear in the puddle of porch light. Instead, Gabby came striding up, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket that looked suited for a night out on the town.

  “I heard y’all out here and thought I’d check in,” the young deputy said.

  “And a good thing too,” Mary-Rose declared. “Cleo and I were just saying, we might resort to garlic jewelry to keep ourselves safe. We’ll stink. That’ll scare off the vampires and criminals.”

  Gabby chuckled. “That’s a plan. I want you both safe, my star neighbor and our star witness. Mary-Rose, the chief is building you up as our big chance to convict Belle of murdering Dixie Huddleston.”

  “The slap,” Mary-Rose said, inhaling sharply. “The death threat at the farmers’ market. I’ve been reliving the moment, even the atmosphere of that HoneyBucket porta-potty so I’ll be ready. Ooh … what if you got a HoneyBucket as a prop? I could reenact the moment in court.”

  Gabby eased herself into a seat, politely saying that a porta-potty reenactment probably wouldn’t be necessary.

  “Casserole?” Cleo offered. Mary-Rose had brought by enough baked ziti to feed a small sports team. Mary-Rose held fast to the tradition of feeding the grieving. Unable to track down a direct relative of Mercer, she’d brought food to Cleo, saying Cleo had suffered yet another shock. Henry had done his best to help out and was now walking off his two hefty helpings.

  Gabby patted her flat stomach and said she’d had a salad. “I have to stay alert,” she said, her brown eyes twinkling. “I’m staking out Jefferson and Jacquelyn’s cottage tonight. Unofficially, off the clock, no overtime.” She gave a little one-shoulder shrug. “I want to see if either of them sneaks out to, say, leave threatening notes around town.”

  Over on the porch swing, Rhett opened an eye. His eyes popped open, wide and round, when he realized they had a new visitor. He hopped off the swing and onto Gabby’s lap, where she rewarded him with sweet names and pats.

  “You’re doing this alone?” Cleo asked, worried. “We could come too.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Mary-Rose said. “My hubby’s already worked up that I’m out after dark. His houseguest left this morning, so he’s catching up on everything he missed, like two murders and a town threatening.” She stretched and announced she should be going. “Henry will be back soon? You’ll be okay?”

  Cleo assured them all that she’d be just fine. “I can sit on my own porch without fear.”

  “I’ll wait until Henry returns,” Gabby said after Mary-Rose left. “I want to spend time with my favorite neighbor cat,” she said. “And I won’t be staking out that cottage alone. I’ll have a friend with me.” She ducked her head and emphasized the word friend.

  “Oh …” Cleo said with grandmotherly interest. She’d like Gabby to find a worthy and doting significant other. She’d secretly hoped it would be her beloved grandson, Ollie, but Ollie kept leaving town and blushing something silly when he did see Gabby. Since Gabby didn’t seem inclined to elaborate, Cleo returned to a safer subject: murder and its means. “Jefferson did have his mother’s prescription,” Cleo said. “Did you find anything else in his house? Any results from the lab tests?”

  The police had gotten a search warrant for the cottage, Cleo knew. They’d sent out for testing the syringes Cleo found in Jefferson’s medicine cabinet.

  Gabby shook her head, twining a curl around her finger. Cleo noted that Gabby appeared to have on a fresh coat of mascara. Her hair was loose and curling over her shoulders. A surveillance date? That would certainly prove whether a young suitor was interested and committed.

  “All the syringes contained medicine, just like they should,” Gabby said. “We didn’t find anything suspicious in the house, unless you count a whole lot of costumes.”

  “Any Grim Reapers?” Cleo asked, thinking of Dixie’s omens.

  “Mostly mime and clown stuff,” Gabby said darkly. “Some Shakespearian ghosts, according to Jacquelyn. A bunch of wigs too. Not my thing, but no clear evidence that they’re murderers. We got a handwriting sample from each of them too. Neither matches the writing on the coffin notes, including that oddball note Jefferson reported finding.”

  Pug claws clicked up the steps, human steps right behind. Henry greeted Gabby as she was heading out the door.

  “Good luck,” Cleo called after her. Have fun, she almost said, thinking of Gabby’s “friend.” Then she remembered the death threat on her own gentleman friend.

  “Let’s all go inside. It’s getting chilly,” Cleo said, prepared to hunker down for the night, the doors locked tight. She turned on more lights than necessary and peered out the windows as she tightened each lock. She was just checking the kitchen when her landline rang, the old-fashioned rotary phone in her hall.

  Mary-Rose’s voice came out breathless on the other end. “Now, don
’t worry …” she said, words that sent Cleo’s heart racing.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “She was run off the road?” Cousin Dot tightened her apron ties and eyed her shop, as if every aisle might hide danger. “Is Mary-Rose okay? Was she hurt?”

  “She said she was fine,” Cleo reported, sorry she hadn’t been able to personally verify Mary-Rose’s fineness. She’d wanted to rush right over last night, but her friend had refused, saying all she needed was a hot bath and bed. Cleo had also begged Mary-Rose to call 911, but the stubborn woman refused that too, saying she’d only called to vent nerves and check that Cleo was okay.

  “She said it could have been kids out speeding or a drunk driver,” Cleo said. She stood at her cousin’s deli counter, eyeing cookies the size of her head. Dot reached in with tongs and grabbed one.

  “But you think it wasn’t just kids,” Dot said.

  “It wasn’t. Or if it was, they should be arrested. The driver followed a ways back, Mary-Rose said, right until she got to the curvy part of Fish Camp Road. Then the car got on her bumper, lights on high beam, actually tapping her tail end a few times. She didn’t dare stop, but she eventually lost control and swerved off. The car kept going. Mary-Rose managed to get back on the road and drive home.” Cleo’s stomach tightened just telling the tale. She’d been in a similar incident last spring and knew how terrifying it was to spin out of control.

  “Awful!” Dot exclaimed.

  Cleo unclenched her fists with effort. “She just missed going into that swampy spot on the way to her house. She could have been seriously stuck.” Or seriously injured. “I got her to call Gabby, unofficially. Gabby made Mary-Rose promise to come to the police station this morning and make a report. Mary-Rose didn’t get a good look at the car, and she doesn’t have an eye for vehicles anyway. She thought it was possibly a dark sedan or a Jeep.”