Murder Plans the Menu

by Donna Doyle

  His text continued:

  Does Mrs. S ever leave the library? I saw Lucas walking by, but I don’t think he wants to go in while she’s there.

  Kelly’s reply came in a few minutes.

  I never know when she’ll be here anymore. She’s here at odd hours. I’m going to

  need Lucas’s help to set up for the pajama party the weekend after Easter but he won’t come in if she’s here.”

  Maybe they’ll go visit Scotty for Easter. Bring him a chocolate rabbit with a file inside.

  Kelly sent back a smiley emoji.

  She put her phone away in her pocket just as Mrs. Stark emerged from the restroom.

  “Kelly, I want you to have a word with the cleaning person. There are cobwebs in the stalls in the bathroom.”

  “She’s been pretty busy keeping the floors mopped. With all this rain, a lot of dirt gets tracked in upstairs and downstairs.”

  “She needs to take care of all the library, not just the floors. You’ll tell her.”

  It wasn’t a question, Kelly knew. It was an edict. She could sense Carmela’s reaction to the words; the woman who did the cleaning belonged to Carmela’s church and Carmela bristled at the implication that Denice Burns was a slacker when it came to cleaning.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Taking care of it meant going into the bathroom with a dustmop to rid the stalls of the cobwebs after Mrs. Stark left for the day. Carmela shook her head. “If they bothered her so much, she could have done it.”

  “Don’t tell Denice,” Kelly said. “She does a good job for very little pay, and I don’t want her to think we don’t appreciate her work.”

  Carmela, although she was still inclined to be cranky, was much easier to get along with now. She appreciated the effort that Kelly had made in helping her prove her innocence in the Knesbit murder. In addition, she and Kelly were allies against Mrs. Stark’s intrusion into the library’s daily routine. It was not exactly a friendship, or even a bond between co-workers, but as alliances went, it was deeply rooted in the wish that the president of the library board would spend her days somewhere else.

  5

  Is it a Date?

  Leo was amenable to splitting a shift so that Troy would be able to have the Friday evening off.

  “You and Kelly . . .” Leo didn’t finish the sentence but there was a query in it nonetheless.

  “Me and Kelly.”

  “Are you . . .”

  Troy didn’t know what they were. “We enjoy each other’s company.”

  “She’s a pretty woman.”

  “Very pretty.”

  “She broke up with that guy she was supposed to be engaged with a while ago. You’re not with anyone.”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay,” Leo said with a philosophical tone, realizing that his questioning wasn’t going to uncover anything that Troy wasn’t willing to reveal. “You talked to Mia?’

  Troy took out his notes. “She doesn’t have any idea who could have done it but she’s sure it wasn’t Shaw. She said he’s not that subtle. And he doesn’t have friends in town,” Troy added, seeing Leo about to launch into his next theory.

  “She said addicts don’t have friends. She’s trying to build her life back.”

  “I know that. I just wish Shaw wasn’t involved.”

  “He’s in prison; you can’t get much less involved than that.”

  “He’s the kids’ father,” Leo reminded Troy. “That’ll always be a way to be involved.”

  “She seemed pretty sure.”

  Leo wasn’t convinced. “Something’s going on and I don’t want Mia to be the target of someone’s prank.”

  “I’ll make sure I drive through Warren when I’m on patrol. Whoever put the rat in the mailbox must have done it at night. There’s a fair amount of traffic during the day. Kids walk past the complex on their way home from high school. It’s not a main highway but it’s not an isolated road, either.”

  “I know. I’ll appreciate you driving by. A police presence, it can’t hurt.”

  “I drove all over town earlier, trying to figure out where the next drug dealer is going to set up shop.”

  Leo stared. “I don’t know,” he answered, speaking slowly as he considered the question and its ramifications. “I hadn’t thought about it. I should have.” He sighed deeply. “I thought that with Shaw put away, things would get easier. But that was just me being a father and worrying about my daughter. This town is full of parents who are worried about their kids. You and me, we need to keep our eyes open and notice things that might get missed. I don’t suppose that old lady network of yours might have any thoughts on the matter?” he asked, referring to Mrs. Hammond and her friend Rosa, who had supplied valuable information that had alerted Troy to the drug dealing that had aided the police in solving two murders.

  “Mrs. Hammond isn’t living off Daffodil Alley anymore, she’s in the high-rise, where Rosa lives, and I doubt if anyone is going to use the parking lot again. I think the only reason they used it when they did is because it was winter, and it fell dark early. They figured no one would notice. Old people notice everything,” Troy said, thinking of his Jefferson Avenue neighbors and their vigilance. He was the only one on the street not collecting his social security and yet, despite their age, his neighbors seemed to know everything about his life, his routine and his habits. They noticed when he got his Suburban inspected and when he took Arlo to the vet; they noticed when Kelly came by for dinner—and they noticed that she left the same night. They were helpful and solicitous; Mrs. Sturgis was willing to look after Arlo and let him out when Kelly wasn’t able to, and Mr. Keane was on hand with a chain saw when winds blew down a tree in Troy’s back yard. He knew, because they said so, that they felt safer with a policeman living on the street, but he was convinced that the neighborhood was safe not because of him, but because the residents were so observant.

  Getting back into the police car, Troy waved as the local ambulance returned to its base. Jimmy Patton wanted to start a First Responders bowling league in the fall, and he’d invited the police to join. Troy wasn’t sure he wanted to commit to it, but Leo planned to join. So did Kyle, who said he’d be the scorekeeper for their team. Kelly, when she learned about the league, was instantly in favor of it, but that was Kelly. She was a joiner; her only complaint was that there wasn’t a comparable league for librarians. Knowing Kelly, though, Troy figured that she’d find a way around that.

  When she emerged from her house on Friday night, she didn’t bring bowling to mind. She was wearing a blue raincoat, unbuttoned; beneath it, she wore a blue print dress that accentuated the long, slender lines of her torso before flaring out at the waist, with black boots. The vivacious red curls that curved around her face added to the liveliness of her features. Kelly always brought with her an impression of energy; tonight, as she got into the car, there was even more. He knew she was a beautiful woman, even when wearing her running garb. Tonight, she was stunning.

  “Wow,” he said, pulling out of the parking place and moving into the line of traffic.

  She smiled. “You like my raincoat?”

  Troy smiled back. “I like it all.”

  “I went shopping.”

  “Nice. I feel outclassed.” Had she gone shopping because she wanted to look especially nice for tonight? For him? Maybe this would turn out to be a date and after that . . .

  “You look very nice.” She turned her head to smile at him, a dazzling glance that made him think this really was a date.

  Knowing that Logretti’s catered to a more upscale clientele, he had changed from his uniform to trousers, shirt, and a sport jacket. He had a tie in the jacket pocket, in case one was needed. He hoped it wasn’t required; he hated wearing a tie, but he’d do it if he had to. Kelly was worth it.

  The restaurant was small, with a limited number of tables, but that only increased the impression of privacy for diners. Candlelight flickered on the tables. The hostess led
them to the table that was reserved for them and gave them the menu and the wine list.

  “Reservations and everything,” Troy said in admiration. “You’ve really done this up right.”

  She smiled, her eyes intent on the menu.

  “Not just soup, I hope.”

  “Not tonight. I’m in the mood for something on the lines of pastapalooza.”

  Troy looked around. “I don’t this is the kind of place that offers a ‘palooza’,” he said. “Too rowdy.”

  “I’ll confine my rowdiness to my dinner plate.”

  “Did everything get resolved at your church? That guy, the one who was threatening to leave—did he come back?”

  She shook her head. “A couple of other members, older members, haven’t shown up lately, either.”

  “Just because of him?”

  Kelly sighed. “Some church people don’t like change,” she said. “First Church was the first church established in Settler Springs. We go back all the way to 1820.”

  “I guess when you called yourselves ‘First Church’, you meant it.”

  She smiled. “People are proud of the tradition. I am too, but not at the expense of resisting change when something new might work better. This town . . . you wouldn’t know it now, but it was really bustling during the war years. The mills were running day and night. But even before the industrial era, the town was the western frontier. We like our traditions. We do an annual re-enactment over the 4th of July to celebrate a victory over the French forces during the French and Indian War.”

  “The French and Indian War for the 4th? Isn’t that a little unusual?”

  Kelly’s smile widened. “Sure it is,” she said. “But it’s fun. Re-enactors come from all over the country. It’s a pretty big event. Wait until you see it.”

  “I imagine I’ll see it from the law and order standpoint,” he pointed out.

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Maybe Leo will switch with me, or we can take turns. If this gig is as interesting as you say it is, it might be worth it.”

  “It’s a great celebration. People go on picnics in the park by the Trail, and there are fireworks . . . it’s one of my favorite holidays.”

  “Kelly,” he said, “I think every holiday is your favorite.”

  She didn’t deny the charge. “I like holidays,” she admitted.

  You are a holiday, Kelly Armello, Troy thought. You’re a Christmas package and a New Year’s Eve toast and a Thanksgiving feast, all in one. A parade and fireworks and a trick-or-treating and everything that was worth looking forward to.

  He hadn’t felt this way about Angela, Troy realized. Was that because he and Angela had been intimate before they took the time to become friends, their romance based upon a physical attraction that hadn’t taken the time to discover a foundation beneath the too-quick assumption that confused desire with depth?

  Being here with Kelly, savoring the way she looked in her new blue dress, talking with her about the events in their lives that mattered to each other and were shared because they cared about the routine as well as the drama that they experienced, that was a holiday too. And maybe, just maybe, she’d bought the dress for tonight and maybe this was a date after all.

  “Are you ready to order?” The waitress had returned.

  He didn’t want to order. He wanted this night to last a long time, and ordering food would just advance the minutes until they had finished eating and talking and had to return to the real world, where Kelly worried about an ornery church member and Mrs. Stark setting up her kingdom in the library and Lucas not having a refuge from arguments at home; where he pondered where the next drug dealer would find a base, and what was next on the agenda in Chief Stark’s campaign to wrest his job from Leo, and why someone had put a rat in Mia Shaw’s mailbox.

  “I’ll have the Italian platter,” Kelly was telling the waitress.

  Even Kelly having her appetite restored to normal was, in its own way, something to celebrate. She was a holiday for him.

  6

  Mrs. Stark’s Donation

  The evening had been perfect. But Kelly’s euphoria over the dinner at Logretti’s with Troy was short-lived because by Monday morning, everything was back to normal, and this Lent, normal wasn’t good. Lent, in fact, seemed to have spread into the rest of her life beyond the spiritual, Kelly thought.

  “What is this doing here?”

  Mrs. Stark was standing in front of the filing cabinet in Kelly’s office where the library’s moneybox was kept. She was taking it out in order to make the weekly deposit.

  “What?” Kelly rose from her desk and went to the cabinet. “That’s Narcan. Naloxone is the generic form. It’s to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. It’s—”

  “I know what it’s for!” Mrs. Stark said in a chilling voice. “I don’t see that it has any place in the library. We don’t have addicts coming in here.”

  “We might,” Carmela spoke up from the circulation desk where she was processing the books that had been returned over the weekend. “We might not know. But if someone does OD, we can help.”

  “It’s not our business to encourage drug overdoses,” Mrs. Stark said. “The library is here to provide educational and entertainment material for the community. Not to invite addicts to come in here and overdose. If they choose to use drugs, then it’s up to them to find a cure for an overdose, not us.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m throwing this away. It does not belong here, and frankly, Kelly, I’m surprised and disappointed that you would have so little regard for the library’s reputation in this community that you would encourage such a thing.”

  “She’s not encouraging it,” Carmela said. “The paramedics asked us to have it on hand, just in case.”

  “I’ll ask my brother to have a word with the ambulance crew,” Mrs. Stark said in frigid tones, plainly perturbed by Carmela’s words. “They have no business encouraging drug use in the community.”

  “They aren’t encouraging it,” Kelly said before Carmela had a chance to speak up. She didn’t want the clerk to get in Mrs. Stark’s bad graces. “They just want us to do what we can to keep people alive if someone would come in here and overdose. No one has, and it’s not likely that anyone will, at least we hope they don’t, but if they do, we have a responsibility to be prepared.”

  “If a drug addict dies,” Mrs. Stark said, her voice raised and her countenance knotted in an ugly masklike distortion of her features, “it’s one less addict to trouble the police force.” She threw the container in the garbage can.

  She was waiting for Kelly to respond. But Kelly held her temper and her tongue. She could easily get another supply of Narcan from Jimmy Patton. And when she did, she’d put it someplace where only she, Carmela, and Chloe, the part-time children’s librarian, would know where to find it.

  As if she sensed that her order would inspire a staff mutiny, Mrs. Stark stayed in the library the entire day, not even leaving for lunch, instead having her assistant at her insurance agency bring her an order from the Café. Neither Kelly nor

  Carmela gave any indication that Mrs. Stark had crossed a line. They behaved as if the day were no different from any other. But each one of them knew that this episode was somehow different from all the other ways in which Mrs. Stark had pressed her authority as the library board president beyond the limits of the office.

  When Carmela went for her lunch, she brought Kelly back a salad from Sloppy Joe’s. Kelly thanked her and paid her for it. Mrs. Stark watched the interaction as if, Kelly thought, she expected them to speak in code so that they could communicate in front of the board president, but neither she nor Carmela spoke of anything but library matters.

  At 3:30, when school let out, the library was busy with students coming in to work on assignments. Kelly was at the desk, relieving Carmela who was putting books away, when she saw Lucas come in. She knew he must have seen the Stark
automobile out front, but he came in anyway.

  “Hi, Miz Armello,” he said, looking straight ahead as if his peripheral vision would allow him to ignore Mrs. Stark’s presence, “I just wondered if you needed me for anything.”

  “Yes, Lucas,” Kelly said with a warm smile. “It’s good to see you. Can you load up the bin with the new books that have been processed and bring them upstairs?

  They don’t have to be shelved, they can just go on the new book shelf.”

  “The one by the windows. Sure, I know where they go,” Lucas said.

  “The books are in my office, on the chair.”

  It was a perfectly normal assignment but as she watched Lucas emerge from her office with the stack of books, Kelly felt as if she had won a victory in a guerilla warfare engagement. Mrs. Stark closed her laptop and, with what Kelly thought of as unnecessary ostentation, put the moneybox back in the filing cabinet. Lucas studiously ignored her as he went back into the room for more of the new books to put on display in the children’s room.

  Mrs. Stark returned to her seat at the library table where she, when she was not working, greeted patrons she knew, chatting with them as if they were meeting over coffee at the Café. Kelly knew that Carmela, who had come back downstairs, was doing a slow burn. Kelly felt the same pitch of anger, but she wasn’t going to expose her feelings to Mrs. Stark because, she knew, that would only spur the board president on to more petty triumphs.

  “Oh, Kelly,” Mrs. Stark said when the library was empty, and Kelly and Carmela were straightening up the tables and chairs before closing the doors. “You don’t have to send me an acknowledgment for the donation my husband and I gave.”

  Kelly, a stack of books in her arms, looked blank. “What donation?”