Better Off Read

by Nora Page

  “We love the library,” Bitsy said. “Mama Givens does too. Don’t let her fool you. She took a book. It’s in her purse. A romantic suspense, which is why she was being so sneaky. She doesn’t like anyone to know her soft side. I wrote down the title and stuck it on your seat so you have a record.”

  Cleo narrowed her eyes at Maybelle. The older woman sat in the passenger seat of the Givens’s SUV. The door was wide open, and her unnaturally ink-black hair ruffled from a side blast of air-conditioning.

  Bitsy air-kissed Cleo and offered Leanna a ride home, which Leanna gratefully accepted. Cleo watched them both teeter away, feeling a tug of silly jealousy. Would banking dilute Leanna’s love of libraries? Cleo assured herself that wouldn’t happen. How could it? What could be better than a life with books?

  A scratchy bark interrupted Cleo’s thoughts. She turned to see Mr. Chaucer doing his wobbly pug best to pull Henry Lafayette her way. Mr. Chaucer sniffed the skunky air, snorted, and sneezed, knocking himself off balance.

  “Bless you,” Cleo said.

  Henry wore a fine but slightly wrinkled spring linen suit in natural off-white. The silk handkerchief in his jacket pocket was grape purple, coordinated to Mr. Chaucer’s leash. He stroked his beard. “I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Why would Mary-Rose confess so readily, and to something she probably didn’t do? Or, at least, didn’t do alone?”

  Cleo was afraid she knew the answer. She mulled it in her mind before saying it out loud. “Because she’s covering up for someone.”

  “Exactly!” Henry said. “Not just anyone. Someone she loves.”

  Cleo feared she loved that possible someone too. She pictured Ollie hefting the heavy drill-slaying bar.

  Henry tugged at his beard. “So … I was thinking we could go talk to Mary-Rose again. Chaucy and I are free this afternoon or tomorrow or—”

  “How about right now?” Cleo asked. Part of her didn’t want confirmation of Ollie’s involvement. But, then, knowledge was always a powerful asset, and if this Monday was like others, she knew where Mary-Rose would be. Words on Wheels was scheduled to make a stop there. Cleo looked down at the panting pug. “Want to take a ride, Mr. Chaucer?”

  At the word ride, Mr. Chaucer picked himself up and trundled toward the school bus. His owner looked just as pleased.

  * * *

  “Nice place,” said Henry as they drove up to Happy Trails, its entryway flanked by stately palms and beds of brightly clashing flowers. A polished stone slab bore the retirement community’s name, carved in looping script and underlined with the logo of a winding trail.

  Cleo pulled up to the guardhouse, a little wooden structure with bright white paint and a flashing tin roof. Cleo’s favorite gate guard, Tamara, was holding down the fort. She waved to Cleo, and both women opened their windows.

  “Thank goodness you’re here!” Tamara said. “If I’m really quick, can I run in and swap out books?” She named the novel she’d just finished, number two in a saga of time travel and the Scottish Highlands. Cleo had to give bad news—book three was checked out, with holds a mile long.

  “Well, shoot!” Tamara said. “Can I still pop in? I’m all out of reading, and there’s not a lot to guard at this gate.” She scowled and added, “Unfortunately.”

  Cleo wished she were fresh out of crime. She pulled Words on Wheels into the striped triangle of pavement between the entry and exit lanes and urged Tamara to take her time. Picking the right book shouldn’t be rushed. Henry stepped out to let Mr. Chaucer inspect and sprinkle the palm trees. Rhett tagged along, pouncing at and missing a blue butterfly.

  Tamara was in her thirties, a tall woman with generous curves and pretty braids, some of them tinted blue. She had a big imagination, and a penchant for action and adventure stories.

  “You might like this,” Cleo said, pointing to a selection from the sparse New Reads shelf. Most of her new acquisition requests were on hold, awaiting library repairs and fresh shelf space. She and Leanna refreshed and rotated the bookmobile with materials from the main library. Cleo had counted on building repairs starting soon. “Soon” might turn to “never.” Should she cancel her orders? Cleo thought of all the wonderful new items on her list. Books Tamara would love. Books for kids and seniors and everyone in between. She sighed, facing the slim pickings on the New Reads shelf and the awful prospect of her town without a library.

  Tamara read the back cover of the novel Cleo recommended. She flipped it over and examined the cover art. “Looks a little old-fashioned and young,” she said. “I mean, it’s a kid detective, right? Is this even for adults?”

  Cleo assured her it was. “It’s historical, a different time and place, like you enjoy. Why don’t you give it a try? Let me know what you think. Get an extra backup book too in case you don’t connect.”

  Cleo prided herself on matching books and people. She took the task seriously. She’d never recommend a book solely because it was the literary darling of the moment or a classic or the reading equivalent to healthy eating. She wanted patrons to read what they liked, be it for fun, enrichment, or fantasy. Even books about murder and true crime, though in Buford Krandall’s case, she sure wished she knew why.

  Tamara was still making skeptical sounds. Cleo refocused her thoughts back to books at hand. “I think you’d like the young heroine. She’s clever and scientific, and no one sees her coming.”

  “I do like that,” Tamara said. She was studying criminal investigation at the college in Claymore. Tamara chose another novel, a thriller promising action and bioterrorism and a hero named Stone. Stone had a SEAL Team Six pedigree and, if the cover art was anything to go by, fought his battles shirtless. “These’ll keep me for a bit,” Tamara said. “There’s nothing going on otherwise.”

  “Enjoy the peace,” Cleo said. “There’s too much going on in my world.”

  “I heard. The old folks—I mean, our active-adult residents—can’t stop talking about the murder and”—she lowered her voice to a whisper, looking over her shoulder—“Mary-Rose Garland.”

  Cleo cringed, thinking of her best friend as fodder for gossip. However, tongue wagging could provide useful information. In a tiny place like Catalpa Springs, folks saw and heard things, and listening was important, both for recommending good books and solving puzzles and problems. Cleo asked about Mary-Rose and was glad to hear that her friend had entered Happy Trails earlier that morning.

  “At 8:36, precisely,” Tamara said, after consulting a small pocket notepad. Mary-Rose had brought pie: a big slice of butterscotch for Tamara and a whole trunkful of fruit pies for her mother and the coffee room.

  Tamara confirmed what Cleo suspected. “Those were bribing pies. Miss Mary made me promise not to tell her mother about a certain something no one’s supposed to say.”

  Cleo said it. She hadn’t gotten any pie, bribing or otherwise. “Her troubles with the law.”

  “Exactly. Of course, everyone except her mother knows. Even that wobbly dog likely knows.”

  “Yes,” Cleo said dismally. “He knows.” They watched Mr. Chaucer raise a leg in the vague direction of a palm. He teetered and toppled briefly. Henry looked tactfully away. Man, dog, and cat climbed back on the bus at Cleo’s call to Rhett and rustling of his bag of tuna treats. Tamara greeted the pets with pats and beamed when Henry gave her a chivalrous little bow of greeting.

  “Remember, no one’s to say anything to Mary-Rose’s mama,” Tamara said. “No need to get the old dear fretting. That lady already worries about the entire world and then some. When she comes by the gate, she worries about me sitting out here all alone. She always tells me to be careful not to get kidnapped or overheated or food poisoned from my sandwiches and heaven knows what else. She could get you mighty nervous if you thought too much about what she’s saying.”

  Cleo well knew the many worries of Jo-Marie Calhoun, Mary-Rose’s ninety-six-year-old mother. Sometimes she wondered if Mary-Rose’s boldness was an opposite reaction. “What’s the mood of the g
ossip?” she asked, hoping to get a feel of the situation they were driving into. “Are people leaning for or against Mary-Rose?”

  Tamara tore her eyes from her new books. She shrugged. “Hard to tell. People love Mary-Rose. She brings everyone pie and is super nice. But I took a break over at the Social Hall earlier and overheard some people saying they don’t blame her one bit. That Buford Krandall had it coming. That’s their words, not mine. I only met the man once, and he was nice enough to me, even after I had to tackle him.”

  “Tackle him?” Cleo and Henry demanded in unison.

  Tamara shrugged modestly. “He had it coming.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Tackle?” Cleo said again.

  Mr. Chaucer groaned. Rhett, a pouncing pro, yawned.

  “It was nothing,” Tamara said, leaning back against the dashboard, inspecting nails done up in a sparkly red and white candy-cane manicure. “I mean, literally, it was actually nothing. I mistook him for a burglar. It was late. Dark, but a full moon. I was doing an overnight shift. They’re the worst—nothing at all happens most of the time, just me and the frogs and crickets and my books and schoolwork. But there he was, a man, dressed all in black and carrying something that might have been a rifle.”

  Tamara’s eyes twinkled. She waggled a finger and said, “He was sneaking. That’s the truth. He was tiptoeing through that flowerbed over there—the one with the lantana and pink whatever flowers—and he was carrying a big backpack too. I gave him warning. I yelled for him to stop and approach the gate. Well, he took off running. Kind of running. More like skipping with a limp. I was able to catch up and get the jump on him. I felt bad afterward, him being frail and rickety and falling face-first in a palmetto, but I did think he was an armed thief and/or sniper or, heck, a terrorist or spy or who knows what?” She patted her newly chosen SEAL Team thriller, as if confirming the very real possibility of foreign attack on Happy Trails Retirement Village.

  “Understandable,” Cleo said, supportively. “It sounds like you had to think and act quickly.” She rather liked the idea of Buford getting a good tackling. Then she remembered the man was dead. How wicked of her. She turned her mind to important details. “Was he actually carrying a rifle?”

  Tamara’s face fell. “Nah. The long thing I took to be a sniper rifle was just an old cloth umbrella with fringe on it. He said he carried it in case the moonlight got too bright.” Tamara didn’t bother with euphemisms like eccentric. “Crazy,” she said, head shaking. “I mean, the moonlight? You can’t get a moonburn, can you?”

  “When was this?” Henry asked. He’d been listening intently to the conversation.

  Tamara held up a one-moment finger, ran to her guardhouse, and returned with a calendar. “I keep a log of suspicious happenings,” she said, flipping through filled pages that reinforced Cleo’s leeriness of Happy Trails. Tamara pointed to a date several weeks back. Henry produced his small notepad and wrote down the information. They made a good team, Cleo thought. Investigation team, she clarified.

  “The backpack?” Cleo prompted. “What was in it? Was he sneaking in or out?”

  Tamara beamed. “This is just like my Criminal Justice 201 seminar. Us, hashing out the evidence and making case notes. Good question, Miss Cleo. He was sneaking out, not in. He went in earlier, another way. And don’t think I didn’t ask him what he was up to.”

  Cleo hadn’t thought for a minute that Tamara would neglect to ask. She knew from their chats—and Tamara’s voracious reading—that the young lady was inquisitive and sharp, with a good dose of rightful suspicion.

  “Papers,” Tamara said. “That’s what was in the backpack. I made him open it, in case he was hauling off someone’s silver and jewelry. He claimed he’d had a personal meeting with one of our active-adult residents. A famous author, he said. Priscilla Pawpaw. Well, I told him every one of our residents was famous in their own way, but I didn’t know of anyone named Pawpaw. I’d have remembered. I like pawpaws, the fruit. Anyway, he had me call Priscilla Vinogradov—Miss V., we call her—and what do you know? She and Pawpaw are the same person.” Tamara tapped her notes and nodded knowingly. “A name like that, it’s hard to spell, let alone say. I see why she changed it for her books. What is it? German?”

  “Russian,” Henry murmured, still writing in his notebook. “Derived from the word for grape.”

  “Huh. Interesting…” Tamara said, taking notes herself. “She wears a lot of purple. Has purplish hair too … Wonder if that’s a coincidence?”

  Cleo gently veered the conversation back to Buford Krandall. “Did he say why he was visiting?” Cleo asked. Her heartbeat had quickened. Maybe she was right about Buford’s reading list. He seemingly wasn’t interested in just any old true crime, but something particular and known to Priscilla Pawpaw.

  “He said he was a fan,” Tamara said. “He went on and on about her books. Said they were fascinating. Interesting. Educational. Do you have any in stock? Think I’d like them? Think they’d help with my studies?”

  Cleo didn’t need anyone else getting potentially dangerous tips. “They’re all checked out currently,” she said, making a mental note to collect the rest of Buford’s library books. If the police didn’t have them in evidence, she wanted to be next in line to read them.

  “Must be really good, then,” Tamara said, scribbling another note.

  Or bad, Cleo thought, when the bus was moving again, rolling over speed bumps the size of hills. She also wanted to talk to Priscilla Vinogradov/Pawpaw about Buford Krandall’s late-night visit. First, however, she needed to find out why Mary-Rose had confessed.

  * * *

  In the bright Social Hall of Happy Trails, pie plates lay scattered and empty but for a few crumbs and crusts. Henry was disappointed. Cleo, even more so. The Social Hall was mostly empty of people too. A single elderly gentleman snoozed in a recliner, a newspaper collapsed on his chest. In front of him, a widescreen TV displayed a flickering fireplace. The televised wood crackled and glowed while overhead an air conditioner exhaled icy breath. Mr. Chaucer ambled to the TV and settled down with a sigh, eyes aimed dreamily at the dancing flames.

  With a cat-fancier’s pride, Cleo thought Rhett wouldn’t be so easily duped. The Persian had stayed back at the bus, sunning himself on the hood. Cleo knew he wouldn’t go far. Rhett loved a sunny snooze almost as much as the tuna treats he knew she kept in the bus.

  “Where is everyone?” Henry asked.

  Cleo glanced out picture windows facing Florida. She saw only a few golfers teeing up and a heron soaring by. Perhaps everyone packed up and headed south, she thought with a shiver only partially brought on by the overenthusiastic air-conditioning.

  “Bingo,” Henry said. He pointed to a whiteboard calendar. “Actual bingo. There’s a game going on. Maybe that’s where folks are.” He leaned closer to read the handwritten marker text again. “Oh … oh dear … strip bingo? In the Red Room?”

  Cleo didn’t like the sound of that. She and Henry followed the directions from a handy floor map, though they wouldn’t have needed it. Cheers and yelling announced the room long before they arrived at its closed door.

  “Bingo!” A whoop went up, followed by a chant. “Strip, strip, strip.”

  Henry’s mustache twitched over a devious grin. “You do know how to show a man a wild Monday morning,” He cupped his palms to the little window in the door. “I don’t know if you want to see this, Cleo,” Henry continued. Mr. Chaucer whined anxiously, sniff-snorting at the door. “It’s something … something I never imagined, that’s for sure.” He stepped back.

  Men! Cleo punctuated this indignant thought with an audible huff. She pressed her glasses to the little door window. The room resembled a hotel ballroom, and Cleo could easily see how it got its name. The wallpaper was rich red with velvet floral embossing. The carpet matched, adding swirls of maroon and magenta. Cleo thought the décor was a health hazard, the patterns having the potential to induce vertigo or mental confusion.

>   “What is going on?” Cleo asked. Everyone seemed properly clothed. Cardigans were in place, blouses buttoned, and even feet were mostly covered.

  Fabric sailed through the air to the “strip, strip, strip” chant, aimed at a woman raising her hands in victory. When the tossing settled, the bingo caller—none other than lawyer Thurgood Byron, dressed in a red velvet lounge jacket—read more letters until a hand flew up and the whoops and fabric onslaught began again. Cleo cocked her head. What on earth?

  “Any ideas what’s going on?” Henry asked.

  “None,” Cleo admitted, but she spotted someone who’d know the game and possibly much worse. Mary-Rose sat beside her mother, Jo-Marie, at a back table. Little Zoe was slumped to practically prone, a book the only thing holding her up. Jo-Marie seemed to be nimbly managing several bingo cards. Mary-Rose bounced a pen, one of her giveaway nervous tics.

  “I’m going in,” Cleo said.

  Mr. Chaucer whimpered. Henry might have too.

  “You stay here,” she said. “I’ll bring Mary-Rose out with me.”

  She made a ducking dash amidst another blizzard of fabric.

  “Cleo Jane!” Jo-Marie said, happily. “You’ll join us. I’m winning big.” Her eyes darted about the room. “Competition’s steep here.” Jo-Marie, for all her worries, was intensely competitive. Cleo noted the pile of fabric in the basket of Jo-Marie’s walker.

  She complimented the winnings—whatever they might mean—and asked if she could borrow Mary-Rose. “It’s about … business.”

  Jo-Marie’s sharp eyes shot up from her card. “Business? You mean pancakes? The library? What’s this horrible rumor that you’re closing the library? Why would you do that, Cleo?”

  Nearby faces turned. A murmur rose. Soon half the back room was looking Cleo’s way. Zoe had recovered her posture and was staring at Cleo too. Thurgood’s number randomizer chose that moment to stall. A hush fell over the room, accusatory eyes finding their way to Cleo.