Death In The Stacks: An Elinor & Dot library mystery

by Linda S. Bingham

  Dismissed, Janie stood to leave, clutching the last will and testament of Eula Wyckham, a woman she barely knew, in spite of having spent several months of her youth living under the same roof.

  “By the way, do you have a real estate agent?” Betty Blanton asked.

  “No. Sorry. Should I get one?”

  “If you don’t have a preference, I thought I’d list the property with Elinor Woodward’s niece.”

  “The outhouse float?”

  “That’s the one.”

  *****

  Once again Elinor and Dot, not to mention the reading public, were locked out of the library. This time the librarians reconvened at Elinor’s house to drink tea.

  “I think I figured out where they would’ve taken Eula Wyckham’s car,” Elinor said. “I’d like to get a look at it, Dot.”

  “Guy’s Garage?”

  Elinor nodded. “The salvage yard next door has the only wrecker in town. The police didn’t have her keys.”

  “Why would you want to look at a locked car, Elinor?”

  Elinor reached in her pocket and produced a set of keys.

  “Elinor! Are those Eula Wyckham’s keys? You want to spend the rest of the short time we have left in federal prison for tampering with a crime scene?”

  “Tomorrow Eula Wyckham will have been dead a week. That’s nearly seven days her killer’s had to hide his tracks, perfect his alibi, let the trail go cold. If the police had done their job properly, they could’ve found this evidence for themselves. Now we’re locked out again, but we don’t have to sit idly by. That woman deserves our help.”

  Dot took off her glasses and cleaned them on her shirttail. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Distract Guy Pettibone while I get a look inside Ms. Wyckham’s car.”

  “Ho!”

  *****

  The home health nurse drove a car even older than Dot’s Datsun, bespeaking an owner who was careful with her money, at the least didn’t feel about cars the way Guy Pettibone did. Had the car been a later model, finding it among the dozen or so vehicles parked around his garage waiting for service would have been a matter of pressing the button on the fob and observing which vehicle responded. Elinor’s own car revealed itself with a little burp of joy and a flash of lights.

  But this was just an ordinary key, one that required a lock to complete it. Elinor found that lock on a dark blue sedan parked near the back of the lot. A layer of red dust testified to the length of time the car had sat ungaraged, first at the library, and now at Guy’s Garage. The interior was as tidy as one would expect of a vehicle belonging to a health professional. Nothing on the floorboards, front or rear. Nothing in the cup holder. Only a cedar tree aromatic dangling from the rear-view mirror. Inside the glove box were an assortment of small tools, flashlight, car registration, Carmex, hand sanitizer. And a small Styrofoam box pre-printed, shipment guaranteed by a medical lab in Oklahoma City.

  Elinor slipped the package into her purse and eased out of Eula Wyckham’s car, closing the door behind her as noiselessly as possible. Feeling embarrassed at how closely her own motions mirrored those of Eula Wyckham’s killer, she removed a pair of floral print garden gloves and slipped them into her pocket. No sense being utterly reckless. She slid into her own car just as Dot came out the front of the garage saying loudly: “Guy said I must be wrong about the date of my last oil change.” She got in with Elinor and slammed the door. “Did you find her car?”

  “Let’s get out of here first.”

  Guy’s Garage was located on the edge of town next to a graveyard for dead cars and trucks. It was hard to tell where one business ended and the other began.

  “We can go to my house,” Dot said. “I cleaned off the kitchen table.”

  Elinor did not comment on Dot’s minimal housekeeping efforts.

  “Guy Pettibone is such a hunk!” Dot declared. “You know, I don’t think it’s Rexie he’s dating.”

  “I’m not interested in Guy Pettibone’s love life.”

  “Well, I am, so indulge me. He was on the phone when I got there, talking real sweet to some old gal, but as soon as he saw me, he got off the phone fast.”

  “So what? Mr. Pettibone is single, as far as I know.”

  “Yeah, but maybe she’s not. I swear, Elinor, your bad habits must be rubbing off on me. When he went into that little cubbyhole office to check the date of my last oil change, I picked up his cell phone to see who he had been talking to.”

  “Anyone we know?”

  “Unknown.”

  “He knows a woman well enough to sweet-talk her, but he doesn’t have her number in his phone? Focus, Dot, focus. Get that little package out of my purse from behind the seat.”

  “What’d you find?” Dot reached for Elinor’s purse behind them.

  “Here, put these on first.” Elinor handed over the garden gloves.

  “Elinor! Do you have a death wish?”

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” Elinor admitted. “I think it’s the cavalier way Shelby behaved the other day. It’s clear that he and DeWayne resent having to spend their precious time and energy on Eula Wyckham’s death. Like she’s somehow to blame for being old, unloved, and getting herself murdered.”

  “How do you know she was unloved?”

  “I may have read more into it than I should,” Elinor admitted. “Her shabby old car, the things in her handbag, the woman herself all curled up like that. Maybe I identify with her on some level.”

  Dot took the small Styrofoam package from Elinor’s purse and studied the label. “I think I read that it’s against the law to open something that’s already addressed and stamped.”

  “So you would advise turning that over to DeWayne?”

  “I’m just saying, Elinor.” Dot shook the package next to her ear. “Feels sloshy.”

  “A blood sample, maybe?”

  *****

  Eula Wyckham’s parcel sat on Dot’s cleared off kitchen table between them. Elinor and Dot regarded the package in silence, each of them, perhaps, weighing in their own minds the possible penalties and rewards of opening it. It did not occur to Dot to offer tea, but though she lacked social skills and her housekeeping was atrocious, Dot was loyal and brave, Elinor thought with a rush of affection for her old friend. Finally Dot reached across the table to an empty mayonnaise jar that served as a pencil cup and plucked out a pair of orange-handled kitchen shears.

  “Which of us has more to live for?” she said.

  “I’ll do it.” Elinor took the shears and snipped the cellophane tape that sealed all four sides of the Styrofoam packaging. She lifted off the top and they were looking at a glass vial of dark red blood, corked shut, cushioned in cotton wool.

  “What does it say?” Dot peered at the label through the bottom of her bifocals. “‘Martin Deaver.’” She thought for a moment. “I had Phelps Deaver in trig class. Lived up on Big Bear Mountain.”

  “Maybe it’s his father or grandfather. One of Eula Wyckham’s patients, evidently. I wonder if there’s any point sending this package on its way? It’s been in a hot car for a week.” Did Dot’s mind go where hers went? Back to that crumpled body in the carrel?

  “It’s dated Saturday, 2:43 P.M.” Dot said.

  “So precise. I imagine she wore a very serious wristwatch with a second hand.” Elinor could picture the scene, Nurse Wyckham pressing gauze into the elderly man’s elbow, applying a bit of stretchy pink tape, eyeing her watch, unclicking a ballpoint to record the exact time of the blood draw before packing the vial up in its pre-paid, pre-labeled Styrofoam container to send to the lab.

  “She was probably going to drop this in the mail when she finished at the library,” Dot said.

  “I used to go along sometimes when my father visited the sick and the shut-ins,” Elinor mused. “I think Mr. Deaver might appreciate a visit, don’t you? My mother would always send something from her kitchen. I could take him a jar of peach preserves.”

  “Not
your peach preserves, Elinor. Let’s just stop off at Pratt’s and pick up some grapes.”

  “Dot, you greedy thing.”

  *****

  Highway 143 wound north through the Kiamichi Mountains. Other than a glimpse from time to time of a lone farmhouse, or more often these days, an imposing but remote mansion built to command a view, there was no more development out this way than when Elinor had accompanied her father on those home visits, actually less. Rural communities had lost their social centers, the schools and churches that once held them together. It wasn’t even necessary to live on the land you ranched or farmed, not with modern highways and a Ford pickup. Shelby raised cattle on what had been his boyhood home, but lived in town for the convenience and comfort.

  From the earliest days of the Republic, education had been a priority. The Land Ordinance of 1785 made education compulsory in the western territories by setting aside Section Sixteen of every township for the maintenance of public schools. Six hundred and forty acres is a square mile, thirty-six square miles make up a township. Country schools had once been set close enough together that students could reach them by foot or horseback. Dot’s first job had been in such a school, grades five through eight. Today, Johns Valley Consolidated School District sent big yellow school buses out this highway to collect kids and deliver them to a sprawling campus overlooking town. The school was the area’s largest employer.

  Our agrarian life is slipping away, Elinor thought, people’s need for and connection to the land disappearing. In spite of good dirt, good wells, a temperate climate, few people grew their own food any more. Oh, there were the occasional California sell-outs like the ones who had converted the Cooper farm into their dream home only to abandon it a couple of years later. Every so often some young couple would blow into town, ablaze with retro-hippie zeal for “natural,” astonished at how much house they could buy in Oklahoma, even acreage. But farming was hard work, and you could buy food at the supermarket. The bag of grapes resting on the console between them had come from Central America, miraculously appearing in a remote corner of Oklahoma, pre-weighed, stickered, and sealed up in plastic mesh.

  “I hope your memory serves,” Elinor said.

  “I told you we should’ve called.”

  “No need to give them time to come up with answers. Mr. Deaver may have been the last person who ever spoke to Eula Wyckham.”

  “Wasn’t that Kate’s car that just turned in there?” Dot said craning her neck to see up a steep gravel driveway.

  “She said she was meeting a client. I hope she doesn’t have to try to sell one of these old farms.”

  “If anyone can do it, Kate can. She sold you one.”

  *****

  Old Mr. Deaver was on blood-thinners, his granddaughter told them. The nurse came every week to draw blood, but she, the granddaughter, was just visiting and didn’t know much about that. Granny was getting some errands done while she had someone to sit with him. She would know if it was Nurse Wyckham who came last week.

  Mr. Deaver was no more helpful, his memory apparently going back no further than the last few minutes. “Who’s that? Wyckham? I don’t know anybody by that name. Ask that girl in there.”

  Despite the heat, he was sitting on the back porch in a cane-bottomed rocker, watching a flock of chickens scratch in the red dirt. Elinor offered him the grapes.

  “What is that?” he said. “Are you here to take my blood?”

  *****

  “I think you reminded him of Eula Wyckham,” Dot remarked as they headed back down the mountainside. “You’re kind of built like her, tall and thin. And you tend to wear dark colors too.”

  “Our general resemblance has not escaped my attention. As I said before, on some level I identify with that poor dead woman. But I don’t think we did her any good today, Dot. Maybe if the old man wasn’t gaga he might’ve remembered something she said. Tell you what, to keep this from being a total waste of time, let’s do something extravagant and treat ourselves to a nice meal at the Kiamichi Lodge.”

  “I’m on a fixed income, Elinor.”

  “I’m buying.”

  “I’ve never been inside a casino,” Dot said.

  “Well, I don’t make a habit of it myself, but I hear the restaurant is very good.” Elinor’s late-in-life marriage had left her considerably better off than the average teacher retiree.

  Dot grinned. “I’ve heard the slot machines take pennies.”

  “Even pennies add up to dollars. Set your budget and stick to it. The thrill, I understand, can be very addicting.”

  The Lodge was not a single building, but several, the largest and most imposing visible from the beautifully landscaped parkway leading up the side of the mountain. The brilliance of the lighting emitted from the grand facade vied with the dying sun behind them. Seeing no other vehicles coming or going, they were unprepared for the full parking lot they were directed to at the rear. In the distance, a phalanx of tour buses idled, their passengers inside the casino, working the machines, being entertained by someone with only a single name, or eating a dinner that Dot could not afford.

  A three-story atrium lobby opened to the casino floor. If it occurred to either of them to worry that their attire might not be dressy enough for such a glittering establishment, those fears were soon put to rest. Men were outfitted as if for lolling around their own backyards, boxy cargo shorts, t-shirts with logos and text. Females were dressed for yoga, whether or not the form-fitting outfit flattered. Nearly everyone wore thongs and sandals. And most of them were their age, Dot marveled, wealthy retirees with the resources to travel, gamble, and dine out.

  As they were escorted to a table in the restaurant, Elinor thought how strange it was to be in a crowd of people only a few miles from home and not see anybody she knew. Ah, there was a familiar face. Buck Weathers was seated alone at a table with the best view of the valley below. His attention, however, was not on the scenery, but on the electronic gadget in his hand. He seemed annoyed, tossed it aside and picked up another one. “Dadblame it!” they heard him say.

  “Tuh!” Elinor remarked.

  They ordered their dinner, bisque something for Dot, who was feeling reckless, baked chicken for Elinor, who was not. They had barely got through their salads when Buck Weathers gathered up his electronics and stood to leave. Spotting them, he came over to find out more about that body found in the library.

  “That must’ve been a real kick in the pants,” he said.

  “Very surprising,” Elinor agreed.

  “She was the nurse that came out to change my dressing when my horse stepped on me.”

  “Cared for you in your home?” Elinor asked.

  “Couldn’t put any weight on that foot for six weeks.”

  “One of her last calls was to old Mr. Deaver who lives on the back side of this mountain.” She didn’t say that they had just been to see him and that Mr. Deaver had no memory of Nurse Wyckham.

  Buck thought for a moment, frowned. “Heck! You don’t think it happened while I was in the library, do you?”

  “Hard to say,” Elinor replied. “The library was closed over the Fourth and her body not found for several days. The exact time may never be known.”

  “That little sawed-off mayor was in there,” Buck said, rubbing his chin, as if solving the crime might depend on his awareness of who shared the library with him that afternoon.

  “The police seem to be working on the theory that an assailant came and went through the back door,” Elinor said.

  “Makes you wonder what the world’s coming to.”

  “Indeed.”

  “You ladies have yourselves a nice evening.”

  “You, too, Buck.”

  “You know, it may come to that,” Dot said after Buck Weathers left them. “A list of everybody who was in the library that afternoon.”

  “I’ve gone over it in my own mind,” Elinor said. “Of course Libby could give us a printout of all the borrowers and what time they ch
ecked something in or out, but this crime still wouldn’t make any sense. If it was someone who knew her, why do it there? In a place filled with people? Why not later when she was alone? At her house, for example. She lived by herself.”

  “It’s probably easier to get away with murder in a crowd,” Dot said. “People are preoccupied, paying attention to their own errands. If somebody attacked her in her home, the neighbors might’ve noticed an unknown car on the street, a stranger knocking on her door. I wonder what this green stuff is?” Dot turned over a bit of salad greenery with her fork.

  “Arugula, I think.”

  “Odd taste. But I like it.”

  After their meal, they strolled the aisles of the casino. The air was blue with cigarette smoke and noisy with electronic sound effects and the vocal encouragement of gamers attempting to seduce an indifferent fate. Dot studied every available machine, trying to figure out which one to entrust her money to.

  “Just pick one,” Elinor said. “I’m sure they’re equally unlucky.”

  But Dot was holding out for some kind of sign. Eventually they reached the last row and had to turn back. It was then that they saw someone else they knew, Janie Calender, almost unrecognizable with a rhinestone-studded baseball cap pulled over her eyes.

  “What’s a church secretary doing in this den of iniquity?” Dot said in a loud whisper.

  “We need to get out more,” Elinor said.

  Intent on her machine, Janie jabbed at a button, barely waiting for the icons to stop spinning before hitting it again. They watched from a respectful distance, unwilling to intrude and perhaps influence her luck. Finally, something changed. Janie’s machine had run down. Her shoulders sagged. She heaved a sigh and looked up to see them watching her.

  “You’ll never believe what happened to me today!” she cried.

  “Did you win something?” Elinor asked, looking at the complicated readout on her machine.

  “Oh, this, no! I just needed to get out tonight, celebrate a little.”

  “Celebrate what?” Dot said.

  “I know it’s a terrible time to feel happy, but I just learned today that I was important to someone whom I had no idea I meant anything to at all.” Indeed, the church secretary looked positively effervescent.